I know it’s been ages since we’ve updated our blog, but things have been just a little crazy around our house. I’ll try to catch you up as much as I can.

First off, let me say that the baby and Jen are both doing fine. We’re expecting our baby girl to arrive shortly before Christmas. (For reasons that will soon become apparent, we actually have an exact date of the expected delivery, but we will not be posting that publicly until after it has happened.)

That being said, the pregnancy has not been without drama. As you may recall, Jen had previously mentioned that certain prenatal treatments may be required during this pregnancy. Based on the genetic analysis that was done following Evan’s birth, we knew there was a 50/50 chance that Baby #2 would encounter issues similar to those that affected Evan. The catch was that due to the nature of the issue, the second pregnancy would probably be more severely affected than the first, and prenatal treatment would then be required to protect the baby. Well, the amniocentesis done at the end of July did, in fact, reveal that the baby would be affected.

So, since the end of August, Jen has been receiving infusions designed to protect the baby. Twice a week she spends 4-5 hours at the hospital hooked up to an I.V. On the upside, she’s met some wonderful nurses. On the downside, it’s incredibly boring. Nonetheless, we quickly incorporated her treatments into our weekly routine.

One of the other implications of the test results coming back positive is that the doctors plan to deliver the baby by c-section about three weeks before her natural due date. By 37 weeks, most babies’ lungs have matured, and they’re able to breathe without being on a ventilator. In our case, going past 37 weeks only prolongs the risk to the baby.

So, things were going along pretty smoothly when in late October, the doctors suddenly had Jen admitted to the hospital. Her treatments had been going smoothly, and Jen was handling them well and generally feeling pretty good, but the doctors noticed something that concerned them. The symptom they had observed is almost always — like 999 out of 1,000 times — the precursor to a much more serious condition in the mother.

After three days of close monitoring of both Jen and the baby, Jen was still feeling fine save for being a little restless and frustrated. The doctors agreed to let Jen go home, but they gave her orders of strict bed rest. The doctors also wanted to continue monitoring her closely. So, in addition to her twice-weekly infusion appointments, she was set up with once-a-week appointments with her normal OB/GYN that would include 30 minutes of fetal monitoring. Oh, and don’t forget ultrasounds about every 2 weeks. (We’ve had six total so far.)

Now, as if all that wasn’t stressful enough, the day after Jen was admitted to the hospital, Evan fractured his tibia while going down a big slide. His leg got caught and twisted around just so, and it cracked just below the knee. He was in a lot of pain, and it took a while before we were able to get his leg wrapped up in a splint. On the same day Jen came home from the hospital, Evan got a bright pink whole-leg cast (his color choice!). After just 10 days, Evan’s fracture was completely healed, and the orthopedist removed the cast. It took him another week before he started putting weight on it, but he’s cautiously using it more and more each day.

Finally, my job has been demanding a lot of time. We’ve been testing, deploying and “going live” on a new software system that my group built, and this has required me to work virtually every Saturday morning since the beginning of August in addition to 2-3 “early days” each week. Jen on bed rest, Evan without the use of one leg, and me working long days, left large gaps of responsibility to be filled.

Throughout all of this, we’ve been lucky to have a regular stream of family come stay with us and help out. My parents just happened to be down visiting us when all the excitement started in in late October. They extended their stay, and then Jen’s grandparents rushed down from Yakima, WA to take their place. Jen’s family stayed for almost two weeks, and then my sister and nephew came down from Issaquah, WA for a long weekend. My parents returned from Olympia, WA for a week-long stay, and they just headed back home on Monday morning.

The doctors have relaxed Jen’s bed rest orders a little; Evan is moving around better and better each day; and my work schedule should start lightening up a little after Thanksgiving. So, we’re planning to try a couple weeks on our own. Plus, as much as we love and appreciate all the visiting family, we really need to regain a sense of normalcy, if only for a few weeks before the baby is born.

This entry was posted by Steve on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.