Feng Shui, Routines, and Restistance Training via children

The days have long since begun to blur together in the 10 days we've been here. Each day has settled into a pretty decent routine. I get up for the day between 0900 and 1030, depending on when the doctor's round or when visitors drop by. Matt normally heads in around noon or 1300. I laze around for a bit before showering, doing hair and makeup, getting dressed and tidying the room. Visitors begin to trickle in normally around 0900. I get visited by my many specialists through out the day but at this point since the insane tests they've run have come back negative, they're really more of social visits. I'm certainly not their typical patient in any sense of the word, but I think its entertaining for them to care for some one as stubborn and challenging as me, but someone who is also a challenge to figure out medically. That being said, I'm likely the healthiest severly preeclamptic patient they've ever seen. Particularly GI and ID, they really do see sick people of all ages but GI said he enjoys me because I'm not demented..... we're waiting on a second oppinion.

Today begun like any other, lab came in bright and early and stuck me. I got my monitoring out of the way, stayed up a bit and went back to sleep. I was pleased to hear that my LFTs went down a bit, but still not within clinically significant ranges. Even if the labs continued to go down, they'll still keep me here and continue with delivery on the 25th because the labs are quadruple what they should be and incrementally, they wont go down enough before delivery, should the trend continue. My platelets were lower than normal today, which is more consistent with normal preeclampsia, so that prompted MFM to draw a second CBC this afternoon to check my platelets again. Per my normal lab anomolies, this afternoon my platelets were once again normal. They didn't run any LFTs on the afternoon labs which I was disappointed at as I wanted to see if they still trended upwards in the evening. They seem to like the consistentcy of morning labs so they can see trends and make sure my labs are back before everyone rounds. As far as some of the send out labs that ID ordered, they all came back normal which continues to point the finger at preeclampsia for my diagnosis. My ID doc, Dr. Reido, continues to think I look too healthy to be here and says he'd send me home but no one will let him.

Dr Shumate came by this morning, and its pretty pathetic when you get happy to see "your" doctor after he had been off for a few days. He continues to be baffled by me and like so many other of my specialists, he can't answer the many questions I have about after delivery, so much is dependent on how the baby does. We did chat about her size and I was hoping she'd hit 5lbs but he is thinking 4.5 since at this stage, babies only gain .5lb a week and with 2 weeks to go, I dont think she'll make the 5lb milestone while in utero. Everyone continues to say that 4 something is just fine and I'm learning to accept that. Funny how I had been freaking out the entire pregnancy that I'd have a baby as large as I was (9.4) and I'm definately not having that same worry now!

Other than routine visits, my activity of the day was rearranging our room, its very feng shui now! Nathan and Makayle ever so graciously lent us a flat screen so we've opened a lot of space in the room by moving the bed and my monitor so there's room for xboxing! Matt may never go home now that I have our laptop AND the xbox.

We had some fun visitors today per normal. An old friend from the ED came by and it was great to catch up. Candice brought the kiddos over and brought us some adorable baby clothes. Matt seemed to enjoy playing with Elijah and Ari. He had Elijah whipping my resitance bands at him and holding him and trying to get him to run. You want an extra challenge with bands? Put a 3 year old on the end of them! We had a few injuries during the visit, nothing overly worrisome, no blood loss, and like Candice said, he cried for one entire minute and moved on. Its amazing what distractions and graham crackers will fix. Matt spent part of the day at home getting laundry done and tidying (I think/hope) at home. He's been awesome about getting the random things I demand and bringing tons of stuff back and forth.

Nothing overly exciting test or visit wise is planned for the next few days and into the weekend. I dont have another BPP until Tuesday. Matt's off for the next week and will return to work for 3 days and then begin his time off. At this point with not knowing how long baby will be in NICU, we're not sure how long he'll take but are very thankful that he could take 12 weeks if he wanted or needed to.

Here's a few pictures from the last few days that might entertain. Hope everyone is well!