Home!

News Flash: I get to sleep at home tonight! My symptoms are stable, the baby looks wonderful and we felt safe bringing me home to rest. The most likely cause of the bleeding is a small placental abruption, caused by the breaking off of my subchorionic hemorrhage. The bleeding is causing me to contract, so while we can manage the contractions (sort-of) we can't do anything to make the bleeding stop, so we need another miracle. Would you join us in praying that my placenta would clot off in that spot? Also, I'm on a number of new medications, which have side effects and Matt and I need discernment about how to proceed. We would really covet your prayers.

We'll be welcoming Grandma Harms on Sunday, and Granna Peterson later this month. We are, of course, thrilled to know help is coming. Elizabeth has an endoscopy scheduled for Monday, and many therapy and dr. appointments this month...Life just keeps on going!

We continue to ask the Lord to preserve this pregnancy, protect Baby Girl's health and give us stamina for the road ahead. He continues to be so faithful.

For now, I'm exhausted (bedrest is surprisingly un-restful!) and we're so looking forward to the family time this weekend.

Bed rest...in the hospital

Just writing to ask you to pray our little peanut stays put for a while longer. After two days of increased symptoms, I had to be admitted to the hospital tonight for observation and to try to stop my contractions. So far the baby continues to look perfect, but too much activity and things might turn toward premature labor. I'll be 24 weeks tomorrow, so we're praying she'll stay put for at least another 12 weeks.

Matt's home with the girls and our helper, Kelli, was with them all afternoon and will come back tomorrow...praise God for her. I think it's pretty clear what we need prayer for. Matt and I are doing well...we KNOW God is at work, loves us and has a path of grace and provision for us. As for me, I still believe He's healed my clot, and am asking Him to complete the good work He started.

Thank you dear friends.
Love,
Sara

Best. Birthday. Ever.

This morning at 4:06am...God gave me a miracle for my birthday. According to my OB, my clot would probably not fully resolve due to it's size...but this morning it did!! God delivered me from my subchorinic bleed, and to make a long story short (I'll post a fuller account after a good night's sleep) my body is responding normally to the "event", the baby and her "short-term housing" looked healthy and happy on ultrasound is morning, and we believe after a few more weeks of modified bed rest to allow ms to recover, I could be "home free"!!

Thank you for your prayers for me and our little miracle...God is so good.

Ruby's Easter Prayer

"Dear God, Happy Easter. I love you. I'll see you in heaven when we die. Goodnight."

Week 23 Update

Today's OB visit and ultrasound brought mostly good news. The baby looks great...she has lots of room to swim and she's right on track for growth. The clot is stable, despite my symptoms, and may even be shrinking a bit. I don't show any signs that my body's in
pre-term labor, so we'll stick to the schedule of monitoring her via ulteacound every two weeks. Everyone's pleased with how things are going, so the take home message was..."keep doing what you're doing". So more bed rest it is! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers...

Back on Bed-rest

Elizabeth continues to be healthy. She's stayed well since her ear-tube surgery, and will have another upper endoscopy on May 2^nd but other than that, we're hoping she remains "low-key" for the rest of the spring.

 

Unfortunately, after three weeks of a more modified bed-rest, I had some significant symptoms over this weekend, so we had to go get those checked out today. The girls enjoyed the field trip and the great news is, despite my contractions, the baby sounds great and from everything they could tell, I'm safe to stay home and not at eminent risk of pre-term labor. I have an OB visit and ultrasound on Wednesday and we'll get a closer look then. For now though, I need to return to a stricter bed rest, which means Matt has to, once again, don his cape and resume his super-dad activities.

 

The picture was taken after the girls went to an Easter Egg Hunt hosted by our church...unfortunately it was more of a symphony moment for Elizabeth, but despite being terrified of a rather freaky looking bunny, she happily consumed all the candy she could when it was over.

A Family Update

Despite bumps in the road, Elizabeth is doing well and continues to delight us with her sweet and quirky perspective on the world. She was sedated on Tuesday in order to get another set of tubes put in her ears, and after waking...while still quite loopy and lying in bed, she chose a princess crown as her prize for being such a good patient. Without missing a beat, she took it from me, put it on her head, and waved her hands in the air and said, "I'm a princess indeed!"...and went back to sleep. She's the source of much laughter and delight and keeps Ruby on task with many instructions to "say and do this and that" all day long.

Two weekends ago, Matt took the big girls to a children's oriented performance at the Symphony. Both were beyond excited and talked of nothing before the big day and since. Unfortunately the actual performance was only viewed by an enthralled Ruby as she sat under the supervision of an usher so Daddy could comfort Elizabeth who was melting down over who knows what in the lobby. We still don't know what the problem was, but as soon as the whole thing was over and she was home, Elizabeth talked on and on about how much fun the day had been.

Ruby is 3 going on...in charge of the world. She sat down in the kitchen where Matt and I were cleaning up last night and with a huge grin said, "I know, when you are gone and daddy is gone...I'm the boss!" and was completely stumped when we reminded her that no, probably Elizabeth would be the boss if we were both gone. The child was born to rule a kingdom somewhere. She's writing most of her letters now and she and Elizabeth are doing a lot of sounding out words together. She's a shark at the memory game on the ipad and loves taking care of Hannah. This picture was taken when she fell asleep 5 minutes before her quiet time was over...

Hannah is doing great. She’ll have an appointment with an allergist this week and hopefully we can settle things with her rice allergy and start weaning her off her reflux meds. She's popping another tooth, this one on top and is eating all sorts of table food, including green-smoothies! Who knew she'd love kale and spinach and flaxseed oil so much?? She continues to be an angel, and is raising the bar pretty high for Baby Girl #4. She's finally crawling, and may start to walk soon...which would be nice since she's 23lbs now!! She's signing 5 words and saying a bunch including "all done!" which she usually says after I tell her to stop playing with power cords...

The babe is still growing and after a day of some more active contractions following my trip to Children's Hosp. with E on Tuesday, things are more calm and I'm encouraged that I don't seem to be on the cusp of premature labor yet...I've got an ultrasound scheduled for the 20th, so hopefully we'll have some good news then. Until then, I remain on modified bed-rest and though I'm dying to take the girls on a walk or to the park to enjoy the beautiful spring weather we're having...we're doing a lot of backyard play right now.

We did make it out to the park over the weekend....Matt (AKA: Super Dad) let me come and watch. We decided it's a good thing the park has 4 swings...it won't be long until we need all of them!

Finally in HUGE news, Matt has recently discovered 4 more genetic mutations causing diseases in his patients, and received word yesterday that he received the NIH Grant that he wrote last fall. PRAISE THE LORD! We feel like God is pouring out such favor and I can't help but wonder if he's reaping a reward for such faithfulness here at home. He's truly been incredible and at the very time in our lives when he's been most committed to being an excellent dad and husband, he's receiving such blessing at work. (of course it's also no surprise to his wife since he's such a hard-working smarty pants) He's thrilled, of course, and now just has to make it through 2 1/2 more months of 5 clinics a week and the paperwork that goes with them. Starting July 1, he'll have 1 clinic day a week and the other 4 days, will be research days (read: working from home!! ;) totally kidding of course, but he will have a lot more flexibility and THAT is a total blessing.