The Beginning at Baptist.

I arrived at Baptist about 8:30 pm on November 11th. It had been a long day. They got me set up in a room and I vaguely remember some family and friends coming to visit but that could have been another day as well. I can't be sure of when specific things occurred over the next few days. It is all a blur and it was then too. 

My doctor checked me again and I had dilated to a 4. That meant another round of magnesium. Yuck. Matt and I were so unsure of what was going on, but I am pretty sure that I cried for a week straight. After the third round of magnesium, things seem to be somewhat stable.  At some point during the night a NICU nurse came to talk to us about what we could expect if I delivered at 24 week. The survival rate was 51%. She explained how underdeveloped our babies would be and since they didn't even weight one pound yet, things looked pretty grim. She told us we might have to make some difficult decisions based on the health and quality of life our children might have. Even now, thinking about that brings me to tears. I don't know how we could have made those kinds of decisions. To think that we might not get to enjoy our babies and watch them grow up was unbearable. Matt and I talked about it after she left and knew that we would not want our children to suffer. We decided that we wouldn't even try to process that or make any preliminary decisions. It was just too difficult.

I am not sure how much sleep either of us got during those first few days. There were lots of downs and a few  stable moments. One night, four nurses and one anesthesiologist stuck me seven times before they were able to get a good IV port. So on top of all of the other stuff, I was a pin cushion.

At this point I was on complete bed rest and would be for a week and a half.  I had a few more magnesium rounds and was put on a medication four times a day and had what we came to call my rescue shots to keep me from contracting and dilating anymore. I didn't get to shower for a week an a half. You can imagine how I looked after crying for a week, sweating profusely from the magnesium and laying in a bed but not sleeping much. I did not master the use of the bedpan, but was brought to new levels of comfort (or complete and total  humiliation) with my mother, husband and a few nurses.

Things began to settle after those first 9 days and finally I was allowed to get up and shower. What a glorious 5 minute shower it was. It took me 20 minutes just to get ready to walk 6 feet and sit in the shower, but it was totally worth it. My mother took my doctor's orders of a short shower to the max. She was so strict about in and out but I savored every moment, because I was not sure when the next one would be. I do have to say it was nice to have someone else wash my hair! Thanks Mama!

We had been hearing that the new and improved wing would be open any day and I would be one of the first ones moved over there, so on day 10, they moved me to my new home! Room 418.

Blessings

We serve a mighty and faithful God. Looking back over the events of those few days I can clearly see how God was caring for me and our precious babies.

Had God not been in control of this situation, I would probably would have delivered at 24 weeks. He provided the day off and the cancelled ultrasound appointment that allowed me to get in on such short notice. He prepared a way for me to go to the hospital in a room with a contraction monitor and provided a very caring and and concerned doctor. He prevented me from being too active that could have caused even more problems.

All of those things can't be just luck or coincidences.God was blessing our family and providing ways for us to be able to get the medical help we needed to save our babies lives.

 He is faithful.  

A Day I Will Never Forget

Day 2...I was not sure that I would make it this far!

I thought about what I wanted to write and decided  I am going to write about what happened on November 11, 2010 that changed my life drastically and the events and days that followed. So here it goes. This will take a few days of my 31 I'm sure!

I have to back up a little before November 11th to explain how that day even happened. I was sitting in my office weekly staff meeting on Monday morning and my boss reminded us that we had November 11th off. I had  already scheduled my 24 week ultrasound and doctor's appointment for that next Tuesday. These two appointments together would mean I would be off half a day. So after the meeting I called Matt to see if I could change the appointments to Thursday would he be available. He was. That meant I would not have to take off more sick time that I might need closer to the end of my pregnancy. I called the ultrasound place first and they had just had a cancellation and would be able to set up an appointment for me on Thursday. Perfect. I was excited to have the day off but knew I would use that time to polish my hardwood floors, clean the house, shop for costumes for a murder mystery dinner and cook dinner, all in addition to the now scheduled ultrasound.

I woke up that morning as Matt was leaving for work and kissed him goodbye and told him I would see him at 10. I got up ate some breakfast, put clothes in to laundry piles, got ready for the day and snuggled with my puppies and watched a little of the Today Show. Little did I know that walking out my door a little before 10 would be the last time I would see my house for six weeks.

We arrived at the ultrasound and it felt a little different than usual. We had a student doing it and she was very quiet. She had the regular tech come in at the end and use the trans-vaginal ultrasound device to look at my cervix. She said that was normal with twins at this stage. She told me to get dressed but to wait there for her to come back.

She brought back a doctor with her that said my cervix was shortening and that I needed to go over to my doctor's office now and get a shot that would help the babies with their lung development and that I would probably be on bed rest for two weeks. I lost it. I asked questions and I remember that the doctor would not answer them. He said I would need to talk to my doctor. I think Matt was just in shock because we really didn't know what this all meant.

We walked down the hall to my doctor's office, still in tears, and told them why we were there. They had us wait and after what seemed like hours, only a few minutes, they told us they could not administer the shot there because there was not a doctor there to sign off on it. We would have to go over to the hospital across the road and get it there. So still in tears we make our way over to the hospital. We did have to wait a while there. Finally they came and got us and took us to a room. A nurse came in and gave me a shot. She said my doctor was just getting out of surgery and would be in to see us in a few minutes. She came in and explained to us that what was happening was part of the labor process and that if I did go into labor and deliver the shot would help the babies' lungs develop since it was so early. Since I was at the hospital, and there was a contraction monitor in the room, she decided she wanted to put me on and just see if I was contracting. Ten minutes later she came back in and I was having contractions. Of course I was still upset and this made me start crying again. She was admitting me to the hospital for 48 hours and would give me magnesium to stop my contractions.

At this point, Matt and I had no idea how serious this was nor what was about to happen next. Matt called our parents and let them know what  was going on and we both made arrangements with our work. Even in that situation, I was still scheming how I could be on "bed rest" at home and still work. I fully thought I would only be in the hospital for 48 hours and then be allowed to go home and just rest for the of my pregnancy. My doctor even told me that if she was really worried then she would send me to Baptist Hospital since Lakeside did not have a NICU.

She checked me and I was dilated to a one. They started the magnesium drip. What a sensation that was! I felt like I was on fire and everything touching me made it worse. I just tried to lay as still as I could. I just wanted it to stop. And then 3 hours later, they gave me another round. Again with the fire and the burning...not a fun experience at all.

We knew we would be there for at least a day or so, so Matt had our friend Ed meet him at our house so we would just have one vehicle at the hospital. While he was gone, my doctor came in to check me again. I was dilated to a three. She looked at the nurse and told her to call the ambulance because I was going to Baptist.

I called Matt and let him know and he rushed back to the hospital just in time to see them taking me out of the room. I tried to joke with the ambulance people, for my sake, but they were all business. I wanted more than anything to have Matt there with me, but he was following behind in our car. I remember looking out the window of the ambulance and seeing Lake Hefner and thinking how nice it would be to take a drive around it.

It Has Been a While

Eleven months ago I was blogging and then I stopped. My life changed dramatically and quickly and I did not feel like blogging, had no energy to blog, and had no time to blog. Life has continued to change but now I feel like blogging again, have some energy and I am trying to find the time!
A few blogs I am following are doing a 31 day challenge to blog everyday in the month of October. I am a few days behind for all of the above reasons but I am going to still try to do it even if it means running a few days into November!
As I blog these next 31 days I hope to tell the story of how and why I stopped blogging and the blessings that occurred during that time. Hint...I have two babies now!

Photo by: Mandy Stansberry Photograpy mandystansberry.com

Mystery Gift

I arrived at home yesterday to a package on our porch. This is not unusual because my husband love Amazon.com and it is common for us to have at least one package a week if not more. I was texting with him and told him we had a package. He began asking a lot of questions. This is not unusual either. If you know Matt, you know he asks questions all the time even if they are irrelevant. The unusual part was he ask if it was addressed to him. I assumed it was, but thought he might know something i didn't, like he was being sweet and purchased me something :) or that some else had purchased something for us. I went and looked, and it was addressed to me, but not married me, single me. This was very confusing...

I opened up the box to find a wrapped present from Dillards. I knew right away it was wrapped in wedding paper because we had a quite a few gifts given to us for our wedding from Dillards. There was a hand written card attached so I opened it. Edd and Marilyn and Maxine had given us a gift (one that we didn't register for). The card read "Wishing you and yours a very happy marriage." I did not recognize the names and definatley could not place the hand writing. The question is who are Edd, Marilyn and Maxine and why are they sending us a wedding gift a year a and a half later. This would not have been so strange to get the gift because we did end up receiving some gifts about 6 months after we were married because of shipping mix ups, but a year and a half and from people we don't know made me want to solve the mystery.

I called Matt and told him it was a wedding gift and read him the names to see if he could place them. He began asking me if it could be one of my family members. Now, I do have a great Uncle Edd and and great Aunt Marilyn but they are not married to each other and the last names are not even close. Matt kept coming up with crazy scenarios of how they could be trying to trick us or maybe they went behind their spouses backs to get us a gift and other crazy ideas. After a few minutes of this I told him I was going to call my mother and see if she knew who it could be since that was more plausible than anything he was trying to concoct.

There are lots of people that know my parents and these people know about me, and I have no clue who they are! Mama was stumped as well. She thought through all the people we might know with those names, but nothing matched up and the Maxine part was the strangest because she does not know any Maxines, other than Maxine in the cartoon strip, and I only know one, again different last name.

Matt suggested I call his mother. I did and she was stumped as well. She is going to check with her family, but is sure that she would recognize the name if it were family.

The other possibility now had to be that Dillards, or Edd, Marilyn and Maxine, were mixed up and sent the gift to the wrong Tracy. I got on Dillards website to see what I could find. I did several different searches but came up with nothing! So I decided to call the local Dillards, since that is where it was shipped from. I talked to a lady in the gift registry department and after 10 minutes of searching all she could tell me was that there had been at least 4 gifts shipped to us that were not on our registry but could not tell me who purchased them or when they were purchased and did a search on recent gift purchases but nothing matched up. I asked her what we should do. She said we could keep the gift or exchange it for something we did want. Seriously? I'm calling to tell you there is a mix up and this has to be a gift for someone else because there is no way it was meant for us, and all you say is "Keep it or exchange it?" WOW!

Guess I will figure out what to do with this new crock pot! Thanks Edd, Marilyn and Maxine. Sorry who ever it was supposed to go to.

Mexican Restaurants Matt Loves

1. Teds
2. Carlos O'Kelly's
3. Chuy's
4. Baja Fresh
5. San Marco's

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First Night of Being 29 Forever

Tonight is my first night of being 29 years old forever! Happy Birthday to me (tomorrow)! 29 has been so great and I am looking forward to 60 more years being 29!