Psalms 31 starts by saying "In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness. Turn your ear to me, come quickly to me rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me. Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me." It goes on to talk about how my life is consumed by anguish and my strength is failing because of the affliction I am in, and how my bones grow weak. At the end of the Psalm it declares "BE STRONG AND TAKE HEART, all who hope in the Lord."
These days are long. My body is getting weak, and the stability of our emotions are rocky. If you have been following or read any of the previous posts you know that this past Tuesday night by body started shutting down in the form of bleeding. Jake rushed back down to UW as he was in Oak Harbor with Mason. It was a long 40 something hours of getting ready for a delivery of our baby either from my body deciding it could no longer hold our sweet angel in there or by an emergency c-section. Signing all the consent forms for surgery, speaking with neonatologist about our wishes, getting prepped with IV's and moving into labor and deliver room right next to OR all were just small parts of what was happening. By Thursday afternoon my bleeding had lowered and my body was seeming to tolerate the amount of blood lost with out forfeiting the baby being taken out. The baby decided it could get used to a new normal and the baby's heart rate was seeming to tolerate everything that was going on. By Thursday night, they had taken me off IV, continuous monitoring, magnesium-sulfate( helps protect the baby's brain in delivery), and moved me back into my original room.
Friday was spent catching up on sleep and trying to sort our emotions. During our meeting with neonatologist we spoke a long time about the reality of our baby having some sort of disability. We were having a hard time deciding if we were going to share any of that on this blog, but we need to put our selfishness aside and allow God's will to write the story. Trying to grapple with all the numbers and statistics is really hard on emotions. We would, of course, open our arms wide to the child the Lord wants for us, but we weren't ready to have real conversations about what that would actually look like. We want to be prepared, and still have hope of a super healthy child. Just another huge topic to put in the "We will see what the Lord wants to do with that" category. We also were offered to take part of a study called the PENUT( Preterm Epo Neuroprotection) Trial. We are still trying to decide if we want to participate. Anyone know of this? or have good information on it? We feel pretty educated on it, but still praying about what is best for us.
Saturday morning Jake and I had big plans. WEEK 26!!! It was time to celebrate. Mason was coming for the day, we were going to take him on another walk to the water. He could ride in the wheelchair with me and the two of us were going to try and convince Jake to stop at the HUGE, YA HUGE, fish tank. We woke up earlier than normal so we could shower, I could monitor in the morning, and we could be ready to go when Mason got here. Our sweet baby had other ideas. The baby's heart rate was showing signs of great distress due to the cord. The baby's heart rate could dip due to contractions that it couldn't handle, due to the placenta insufficiency, OR the umbilical cord could be getting squished somewhere due to no fluid( the last one is what was happening in this case). We tried moving positions to get baby's rate to stop dipping, we tried almost everything until the doctors said that it was time to start getting ready again. HERE WE GO AGAIN.... I was hooked up to continuous monitoring, IV, magnesium-sulfate, and went through the whole process we had just gone through a couple days earlier, only this time it was from the baby and not my body, talk about adding a different and new worry. By 6 pm last night the heart rate seemed to once again stop showing signs of distress and everything stopped to just watch what the baby would do. By 5:30 am this morning it was time to get off everything and try to let this baby become stable without delivery. I had one monitoring this morning for an hour and heart rate looked good.
So here we sit again. I asked doctors how many times they would allow this to happen before they actually deliver. The conclusion was that, if the baby can become stable in the "new normal" situation, they would do it numerous time because baby is still at such a young gestational age it is worth keeping baby in the womb.
As we continue to wait we plea to our Lord for strength, specifically His strength because we all know he never grows tired or weary, for a hiding place in Him, His mighty fortress, and a safe refuge physically and emotionally we can rest in.
For now, BE STRONG AND TAKE HEART for the Lord has overcome this world!
Amy
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