36 weeks and counting

We’ve been spending a lot of time staring at printouts from the cardiotocography (CTG) machine, which records the fetal heartbeat and uterine contractions during pregnancy.

One of the big questions we had for the doctors when we first signed up for the FETO study in July was whether we could travel to my brother’s wedding in Wisconsin on Sept. 30.

“That gives me heartburn,” Dr. Miller said.

Now we know why.

The week of Tom and Rachel’s wedding found us in the hospital again for another unplanned procedure to remove extra fluid from Adrienne’s belly to prevent preterm labor.

The CTG is always humming when we are checked in overnight at Johns Hopkins Hospital. This was the setup we had Sept. 28, 2017 when we went in for a procedure to remove extra fluid to prevent preterm labor.

We went in for our scheduled appointment Thursday and Dr. Baschat sent us upstairs to the labor and delivery floor of the hospital for the procedure that afternoon.

Baby Girl grabbed the needle. Again.

Everything went well and contractions stayed at bay overnight Thursday into Friday. We checked out Friday afternoon with refilled prescriptions for the medicines that doctors have been giving Adrienne to keep Baby Girl cooking as long as we can.

Adrienne swings by the Johns Hopkins Hospital pharmacy Sept. 29, 2017 to pick up contraction-battling prescriptions. She is known around the hospital as the woman who brings her own Snoogle and extra pillows.

Now we wait.

We are staying in Baltimore until the delivery, which is looking more and more likely to be scheduled and induced toward the end of the month. Ronald McDonald House is our base of operations for the near term, and we are comfortable. There is a possibility that we will have one more draining procedure before the delivery.

The next couple weeks are about getting ready mentally for everything that is to come. God willing, the delivery will go as planned and Baby Girl will be placed on a breathing machine right away so her lungs stabilize before the repair surgery. We’ll transition from the Fetal Therapy doctors to the NICU doctors and continue on our little journey.

We are excited and scared and positive and everything else in between.