Husband is here!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. 

As you know, J is in Afghanistan and wasn't scheduled to come home until August.  This meant that he would miss the entire pregnancy and the birth as well.  They offered to let him come home on emergency leave (10 days) when I was admitted to the hospital but I thought that was silly.  I was fine here and didn't really NEED him to be here.  Plus, I wanted to be able to save his emergency leave for if the babies were born early.

On 5/17, J's mom went to the hospital because she woke up with a bad headache.  They did an MRI and found a brain tumor.  It was the size of 4 golfballs and was already pushing her brain to the side.  There was also hemorrhaging in the brain so they took her by ambulance to another hospital.  They told her that if nothing was done it would likely kill her within a month.  They planned to do surgery to remove it. 

I called J and let him know what was going on.  He wanted to wait and see how the surgery went.  He didn't want to be traveling while she was in surgery or during the immediate days after because it is difficult to contact him while he is traveling through multiple countries. 

On 5/20, she had surgery to try to remove the tumor.  They said she would likely lose most, if not all of her vision (permanent).  They also anticipated speech and coordination difficulties (would resolve over time).  Unfortunately, the tumor was so deep in the brain that they were not able to get it all.  They did what they could.  Since they weren't aggressive in trying to get the entire tumor out since it was so embedded in the brain, she ended up with tunnel vision rather than losing her sight.  She is also fine as far as speech and coordination goes.  Based on what they saw, they diagnosed it as stage 4 terminal.  They are estimating 9-18 month life expectancy WITH chemo and radiation.

J decided to come home once we knew how serious everything was.  I went through all the proper channels  to get him home.  I had to contact the Red Cross, give them the info, then they call the hospital to confirm everything before sending the message on to the appropriate people in Afghanistan. 

J left on 5/21 and arrived here on 5/23.  He was given a 10 day emergency leave with the option to extend it another 7 days.  Also, the people "in charge" recommended that he try to get released from the rest of his time there so he can just stay home.  Of course, we were both very hopeful that this would happen.  Between his mom's condition, me being in the hospital and the likelihood that our babies would be born early we were really hoping that it would be approved.  We had to get a letter from his mom's doctor and from my doctor.  J also had to write a letter about why he felt he needed to be home.  Then we just waited.  We found out three days ago that everything has been approved!  I'm so happy!  I love having him here and I'm so excited that he is going to be here for the rest of the pregnancy and the birth.  Of course, I hate that he is here under the circumstances of his mom. 

J has been staying at the hospital with me every day.  He goes home for a while every day to do things around the house, get the nursery ready, see friends, etc.  Then he comes back in the afternoon and hangs out til the next day.  It has been so great having him here.  He loves seeing my belly, talking to the babies, feeling them kick and seeing them on ultrasound.  He goes to see his mom once or twice a week. 

As for me, I am on day 29 of hospital bed rest.  I never imagined I would be here this long.  Today I am 27 weeks, 1 day.  My most recent cervical length measurements have been:
5/23 - 1.4 cm (Down from 1.6)
5/31 - 1.6 cm (It got better!!!)

On 5/23 they estimated baby girl to be 1 pound 15 ounces and baby boy to be 2 pounds 4 ounces.   My OB said they were a little big (89th and 90th percentile) so she had me do my glucose test.  I passed!  So, the babies are just overachieving and growing very well!  This makes me happy because if they are born early they are likely to do better if they are a higher weight.  However, I also think that the bigger they get, the more the uterus stretches and the more likely preterm labor is to occur.  Regardless, I prefer them to be growing fast instead of too slowly.

On 5/25 I started having contractions.  I am hooked up to a monitor every 4 hours for an hour at a time.  I wasn't feeling them at first, but we knew they were happening from the monitoring.  By the evening, I was feeling them.  It didn't hurt - it was just a tightening sensation.  So they started me on an oral med (procardia) to control the contractions.  I also received 2 steroid shots (24 hours apart) to help mature the babies' lungs just in case.  The medication has been working pretty well.  I still have a handful of contractions a day but it is not nearly as frequent as it was the day they started.

That's it for now. I really need to just update more frequently as things happen instead of having one ginormous post every once in a while!