37 Weeks, 4 Days (New Date)

Isn't it strangely ironic how two months ago, they were doing everything in their power to prepare us for a preemie, and now we're doing everything in our power to keep him in there longer so he'll be fully developed and ready for delivery??

I'm back, by the way. We were without Internet for about three annoying weeks. The guys from ATT finally came by today and said that a vital cord was cut in the box downstairs that handles our phone line. That would explain it! Anyway, they replaced whatever it was and we're back on.

Quick update:
I'm still pregnant.

The scheduled c-section date, as you all know, was set for February 17th. After the amniocentesis on the 7th, however, they did some detective work and decided that my due date was off by about a week, pushing it to March 13th instead of the 7th. Really this information changes nothing other than my morale, which was slightly damaged by the news. I didn't even want to know if the due date had changed, and really I wish I didn't know, because now it's just a discouraging fact stuck in my head. It doesn't really change anything in Dr. Devine's mind though. She still doesn't want me to carry past the 7th.

Before, when all of this started, and he was having those heart decells, we were afraid we were going to have to deliver early, and we were doing everything in our power to get him as prepared as possible for an early delivery. Now that those heart decells have stopped (thankfully), we're playing a risky time-game again, only on the opposite side of the spectrum. Now we aren't praying for more time, we're seeing how long we could possibly push it before it's too much, and we risk putting him in distress again. This has been so complicated!

See, with SGA and IUGR babies, their risk of cardiac distress or even stillbirth goes up significantly after the 38th week of pregnancy. They (being the doctors) don't really understand this phenomenon, but it happens, and there's enough evidence of it happening to scare Devine away from pushing any further beyond that point. Great! Let's just take him out now!

Nope.

The second amnio was performed on the 17th, with full hopes of the steroid shots taking effect and pushing his lung maturation to the safe delivery zone. However, we got the scores back that day and 3,000 had only grown to 7,000. Dr. Devine wasn't concerned though. She said it isn't something that can be measured laterally. It isn't something that gradually increases until you're at that precious point of 50,000. She said babies just go from immature (which he's at) to mature. Boom. By either due date, I'm full term at this point, which is reassuring. However, as I'm learning, that doesn't necessarily mean that baby is ready to be born. Reassuringly, Devine doesn't think this is anything to be concerned about either. She told me last week that she had a patient who has delivered four babies with her. She said that the first two children were delivered at 38 weeks via c-section, and both had to be in NICU for about a week on oxygen. The second two babies she decided to hold out on, and delivered them at week 40. Neither of them went to NICU. So while the pregnancy books and websites all say "Congratulations, you're now at week 37, which means if baby were born today, you'd have a healthy full term infant," it isn't necessarily so. All babies are different, and some just take their time getting there.

But with Josiah we can't risk holding off until week 40 because he's SGA. It's too big of a risk. And honestly, I'd rather have a baby on oxygen in NICU for a little while than risk a stillbirth. There is no debate about that.

Dr. Devine was appalled at the reaction of the nurses in antepartum, and reassured me that they were just being dramatic and bored. She said that she has seen numbers that low, and it didn't shock or worry her at all. And while Dr.Atkinson expected the chances of his lungs being developed to be about a 50/50 shot, Dr. Devine said in her opinion, it was more of a 10/90 shot. In other words, not only was she not surprised at how underdeveloped his lungs were, she wasn't even expecting them to be ready- on the 7th or the 17th. That made me feel better. She said babies who have fully developed lungs before they are full term are generally the children of sick moms. The mothers suffer from hypertension, gestational diabetes, placenta previa, etc., and somehow baby's body knows he will have to fight to survive, and he will have to do it fast, because his delivery is coming sooner than a normal healthy baby's. She said that since Josiah isn't remotely ready to be delivered yet (or at least he wasn't when we took those little peeks into his world), that just lets her know that he isn't in any kind of distress. His body isn't overcompensating or working double time to get ready for delivery. His body is reacting like a baby that would be born at 40 or even 42 weeks.

So that's all wonderful news. I never thought that his underdeveloped lungs could actually mean that he's doing incredibly well! I was thrilled to hear that, and since then I haven't really worried about it.

I just hope he's ready whenever he's delivered. They tried to schedule me for another c-section at the hospital for any day next week, and all slots were full. The nurse said that she'd let me know on Thursday what Dr.Devine had come up with. She was strictly adamant on not letting me carry past the end of next week, so I have full faith it'll be sometime next week...I hope.

Good news though, she isn't doing anymore amnios...which is good, because that last one REALLY hurt. She's taking a "ready or not" approach, which I fully support. We can't risk giving him another two weeks or so to continue cooking. This means he realistically may have to spend a little time in NICU, something I thought we were past, but again, I'm ok with that. As Dr.Devine said last week, we've come so far in this pregnancy, and overcome so much, I would hate for us to get over-confident in these final weeks and put him at risk of falling off the wagon. We're in the strange zone where taking extra time is actually bad for baby. Go figure.

Anyway, I'm just so beyond ready for this to be over. I was worried that I would be overly discouraged after the 17th didn't pan out, but I wasn't. Travis and I still spent a wonderful day together, and I knew it would only be a week or two more from that point.

Please just pray that whenever he's delivered, he's ready and healthy. That's what I pray constantly for him. Thank you so much for your continued prayer and support. We'll get there eventually!

God bless,
Kathleen