IV-less at last

I guess being in the hospital physically healthy and well gets more "privileges" than I thought. I got lucky and my IV was taken out last night and not replaced with a fresh new one. Its so nice not to have a little hep-lock dangling from my arm all day, even though the forearm IV was a piece of cake compared to my hand one. IVs in the hospital (Evergreen anyways) "expire" 72 hours after they were placed so I've now had 2 IVs and only did we use the initial one. For my 2nd, it was the "just in case we need it" line and was ultimately comfortable and flushed well and had good positioning. Since I've been at Hotel Evergreen, I was only medicated (with the mag) through the initial IV, inf act, aside from occasional Tylenol, that the only med I've been on since being here. Since I'm sans IV, I'm, per my nurses, "not allowed to seize". Ok, ladies, I'll see what I can do. Hopefully if another IV needs to get established, there's a big reason for it, I'd rather not just spend my time here hep-locked. Besides, it makes picking up my little visitors a lot easier! Some of them have tried tugging on it or have been freaked out by it anyways. Also without the IV, all that indicates I'm a patient is my concealable arm band so I can fly under the radar more and look like a visitor, although I'm sure "potential flight risk" posters are plastered all over the hospital with my name and picture on it.

Nothing major to report on our labs or length of stay. I'm beginning to feel neutral about lab time, it can feel exciting before I get stuck because I know I get results soon, but the results have been consistently inconsistent so we pretty much just bet how high my enzymes will go up. We've had 2 incidents where labs went down, but my subsequent draws are elevated again, so I have yet to achieve the trend that will determine if and when I can leave. My morning labs were great yesterday, both my AST and ALT had gone down, my evening labs though, my ALT went up almost 100 points. I figured my OBGYN was going to stroke out or something but per the nurses he said "wow thats high!" and yet allowed my IV to get DC'd. I'm still a medical mystery. I've prided myself on be unique and individual, but this is just getting ridiculolus.

I still feel great and baby has been great as well. She's been very active and been monitoring very well. Her baseline heart rate is around 140 and per the monitors, I haven't contracted too much. When I have had contractions, I normally was told after the fact as they weren't painful but if I was being monitored or not visiting, every now and then I'd notice tightening but nothing painful.

We've settled into a "routine" for our days. Matt's been sleeping at home the last 2 nights. I miss him and last night I was teary when he left, but I want him to get good sleep and although I sleep better when he's next to me, we just can't get comfortable in the hospital room and I dont want him woken up by lab when they come in between 0500 and 0630 some days. I try to sleep as late as I can, some times I get lucky and sleep longer, it just depends on when I took my Ambien. I get up between 0400 and 0600 for no apparent reason so we try to get morning monitoring out of the way and I'll wait for lab and go back to sleep. I've been getting up around 0900 give or take and either greeting guests and visitors or I'll try to shower before they start rolling in for the day. We seem to have a steady trickle anywhere from 0800-2200. Since I got more permissions, I'm able to walk "slowly" around the unit and I can go on a small patio near the NICU. Matt and I went outside for a few last night and the fresh air was amazing, as I've been stuck here since Tuesday without leaving the unit and or going outside. I might venture out a bit more today, there's only so much you can do in the hospital room, even though people have been more than generous with projects, books, flowers, magazines, and balloons to keep me sane, or somewhere near it.

Randi and Landon got to visit last night and made my year. My friend Suzie brought my a ton of crafts and since Landon is such a Halloween fan, we attempted to build a haunted house out of foam thats like a puzzle. (I sent it home with him as a project, I'm pretty sure I'm not bored enough to construct it on my own). When Landon left he said, "Nanny Rachel, do you feel better? Are you gonna be happy now?" The kid just cracks me up! The kid's rightfully confused though, he asked where the baby was and I told him she's still not born, he looked at my like I was nuts considering he just went to the hospital 3 weeks ago to see his baby brother Chase and here's Nanny Rachel, not hugely pregnant, in street clothes, hair and makeup done, supposedly hospitalized for baby stuff, but nothing else. For a while, he didn't believe us that Nanny Matt and I were going to have a baby too, but maybe in the next few weeks when he sees pictures he'll get it. Kids under 16 wont be allowed to visit the baby in NICU anyways. Depending on baby's stability, I'll likely limit who comes to see her anyways, primarily due to cold and flu season being around the corner. Including Matt and I, she could only have 2 other visitors at a time anyways so our PD pow-wows wouldn't fly in NICU, for a lot of reasons!

Not much else to report thats either thrilling or interesting, maybe I'll make up something next posting. Today should be a "normal day". My favorite attending and midwife are off today after getting their butts handed to them this weekend so I'll see other practitioners when needed but should be pretty standard day ahead with visitors coming and going and the ever present wait for lab draws. I had baby monitored while I blogged so I wont monitor again until afternoon time and then before bed.

Hope everyone is enjoy their days and is enjoying their freedoms. Go be active, if I can't, you might as well, but don't tell me how great your hike or run or trip to the gym was, it'll just piss me off.

~Matt, Rach, and Baby