Discouragement and Ultrasounds

Discouraged. That's probably the word for the day.

So here's the run down of the day...

I haven't slept well in 2 nights despite the help of ambien. The noise level has been horrible between the nurses break room on one side of me and a very "night oriented" family on the other. They have stayed up laughing and "carrying on" until 2 or 3 in the morning for 2 nights in a row. I guess I should be thankful that they have such good friends and family surrounding them at all hours of the night, but I sure wish they'd sleep at night and party during the day. This morning when I heard snoring coming from their room (yes the walls are that thin!) I so wanted an air horn. Shame on me for wanting pay-backs.

And before anyone gets any *bright ideas* that I should just change my night/day clock so I can prepare for a new baby staying up at night...shut your mouth! I can't. I'm still working during the day despite being in the hospital.

I was scheduled for an ultrasound for around 4:00 p.m. this afternooon. I asked the nurse this morning to please check on the status of that appointment since I had some *issues* with the receptionist at the doctor's office when I called to ask about an appointment. She came back about an hour later and informed me they would be coming to get me in about an hour. I called my mom and told her to come up to the hospital with Ryan so they could see it too. Thankfully they were still home. They were just about to leave to go elsewhere.

I was wheeled over to the doctor's office where they placed us in an exam room to wait for the ultrasound tech to come get us. We waited in that small room for at least an hour! I'm supposed to be laying down as much as possible and here I am sitting in a wheelchair...waiting. Not to mention that my poor little guy was beyond tired...he started the day tired...and staying in that small room was starting to prove itself disastrous. When they came in we were all pretty excited until we found they were only moving us to a different room to wait. At least there was a recliner in that room. Finally we were escorted to an ultrasound room.

And here's where the discouragement really started to set in. For someone stuck in the hospital on bedrest with very little social interaction and excitement sometimes just going for an ultrasound is a very exciting adventure. A very important day!

So far all of our ultrasounds have been in a big room with a big screen on the wall for everyone to watch and see "Baby Elmo". It's comfortable. It's special. It's exciting! Not today. We were taken to an exam-size room with a regular/portable ultrasound machine. No big screen. Cold. Run-of-the-mill. Not special. The tech said, "okay we're going to look at your cervix real quick." I asked if we were going to look at the baby too and she said, "oh, well, yeah, we'll take a real quick look so we can get some measurements." She left. I stripped. She came, took a measurement, gooed up my belly and quickly scanned the baby. The screen, being a small computer screen was in such a position that I could barely see anything. Ryan, although sitting on the table with me, was unimpressed and kept saying, "momma all done?" I think he was disappointed too.

The bad news: My cervix dropped back to 0.8 cm with (what appears to me to be significant) funneling through the stitch. I was very discouraged by what I saw. I'll be honest, it was probably the first time during all of this that I had the thought, "we're not going to make it. We're going to have to live the NICU nightmare again." I've tried to stay so positive and optimistic and here this thought creeps in.

The good news: Evan is measuring great. He weighs approximately 2 pounds 8 ounces and is measuring exactly where he should for 28w3d. He was all over the place! The tech kept making mention of how active he was being. Unfortunately he was also being a little shy. He never would let anyone get a good look at his face. Therefore we have no good pictures from this ultrasound.

After the ultrasound I could think of nothing better than getting back to my room and laying down with my butt in the air again. I just wish I didn't have to get up to go to the bathroom. Ryan and Nana had to leave right away which was okay since Ryan was getting fussy and even more tired. I loved seeing him today though. Okay so back to this whole whiney, discouraged discourse...I didn't see my nurse again until 4 p.m. and she came and took vital signs in a flash and flurry hurrying on to the next task.

Now it's nighttime and I hate nighttime around here. The neighbors are having a good time. I'm really tired. It's 9:15 p.m. and I have yet to meet my nurse for the evening which means that it's going to be at least 10:30 before I'm able to settle in for the night because I still have an hour of monitoring.

So...there you have it! One of few whiny, discouraged posts.

(On a positive note...Dr. G came in and is still feeling optimistic about everything. He is still shooting for the 32-39 week mark and is really hoping we will be able to completely avoid the NICU altogether, leaving here with a healthy baby. He was very encouraging and I'm feeling more hopeful again.)