No Babies Yet!

To say the last few days have been a whirlwind would be an understatement. In fact, Mavis and I have similar feelings about how the two little babies have been behaving:

This is a picture of her from Friday's scan, with her little hand on her forehead as if to say, "hey! Babies! Pull your stuff together! Enough of your antics. Either we're in or we're out. Got it?!" I could not agree more, kiddo. I was looking back at blog post titles for the last few weeks, and it's a very consistent roller coaster of "Best day! Worst day. Great news! Bad news," and if it weren't so scary, it might almost be comical. Almost. :)

But, as it stands, here we are, two days further along in our pregnancy than we thought we might be, and we are so grateful! I'm so sorry that I didn't get a blog post updated, but hopefully most of you saw on Facebook that we did NOT have to deliver the babies on Friday. Nick and I are totally at peace with delivering them as soon as one (or more) of them would fare better on the outside than they are able to on the inside, so we actually went into Friday's appointment really calm and ready for whatever God had for us. What we were not anticipating is that Oliver was actually doing BETTER than he was on Wednesday!! The doctors were in shock...they were prepared for his blood flow to be worse, would have been pleased with doing the same, but were not expecting better. At all. That's just not a thing that medically should have happened (but then again, look at Lena. She's been proving science wrong for 6.5 weeks now, so clearly Oliver couldn't be outdone by her.). We are elated, of course, but also totally exhausted!! These babies are keeping us on our toes for sure!!

So the plan from here on out (at least as I understand it) is that we will do another scan tomorrow, and then a couple days after that, until it's obvious that it's time to deliver. I think how close together the scans are will depend on how both Oliver and Lena's blood flows are looking. If we see what we saw on Friday, they probably will keep the scans a couple of days apart. But, if either of them are on the bubble, we will do them every day until it's time to deliver. And then there's also the possibility that Amos or Mavis could start to struggle too, so we can't rule that out either. I asked why it is that Oliver might just now be experiencing some trouble and they told me that my uterus is probably just getting tired. What?! Nonsense. Everyone knows that sustaining four tiny lives is exactly what a uterus is designed to do. Or it's not. Whatever. :) Even if it's not exactly what my guts were designed to do (or at least certainly not what I wanted them to do...believe it or not, we didn't actually plan for or try for four babies at once, although that is a really common question we get asked!), we are so in awe of the miracle God is working in my belly and can't believe that we are still pregnant. Nick and I were looking back at this whole crazy ride, and the fact that we are still pregnant, with all four babies, is nothing short of God's incredible power working in our lives. I went on bed rest with contractions at 16 weeks, had to have a cerclage because my cervix was so thin at 19 weeks, found out Lena was struggling at 20 weeks, was admitted to the hospital because it looked as though we were going to lose her at 23 weeks, and yet here we are, at 26.5 weeks, still pregnant. It's completely unbelievable and every single day we can keep them inside is such a gift.

Several of you have asked if I'm bored or going crazy at the hospital, and I'll be honest, I've had my moments. There have definitely been a couple of days were I was grumpy and ready to be home, but honestly, I cannot complain. I just can't. How could I possibly be upset when every day that we are here is one more day that these babies get to grow and have a better chance at survival outside of the womb? Don't get me wrong...I miss my boys terribly and I'll be more than ready to be home when the time comes (I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss Target!), but this is temporary. And the chance at a healthier life each day in this bed is buying my babies for a lifetime outside of the womb is absolutely worth it. For that reason alone, I really have no other choice but to praise the One who both created and is sustaining these tiny little humans.

And as if that's not enough cause for celebration, I'm also never lonely. If friends and family aren't visiting me, someone from my church's hospital visitation team is. And if it's not someone from church, it's a nurse just coming to say hi or the nurse manager checking in on me, or a NICU nurse coming to see how we're doing and update us on what's going on downstairs in the way of quad pod preparation (we get our own pod!! Wild, right?!?). Or, on a very special occasion, your doctor's wife is here for a check up on her own growing baby bump and you get to meet her and hold her hostage in your room for three hours because you like her so much and don't want her to leave. I mean, I've heard that's a thing that can happen. I wouldn't know. Just hospital gossip. :) Basically, the staff here are rock stars and we even occasionally have parties to celebrate things like being 26 weeks pregnant (when the most delicious cookie company in Columbia delivers, you can pretty much party anywhere, hospitals included) or we paint nails, or we trim bangs that are long overdue for it because the people who work here are nothing short of incredible and they see a need and they meet it. Even if it's not actually in their job description. Truly, they are the hands and feet of Jesus and not just in the way they are taking care of us physically, but also emotionally.

And if all of that doesn't help you to not feel sorry for me, check out my awesome weekend visitor:

After church on Sunday mornings, Nick has been taking Jeremiah to the park to play for a bit and then they come spend some time with me, and we eat lunch and play some wild rounds of Go Fish. Obviously Sundays are the best days when this face comes to say hi for an extended period of time (he usually comes up one or two other times a week, but Sundays have turned into our special days).

And last Sunday he happened to be here when the doctors came to do their daily sonogram check up on the babies, and he could not have loved it more. Although he was super bossy with Dr. Whaley (who was incredibly patient with him!) and kept telling her, "um, is that Lena? We need to see Lena. She's our small baby. Can we look at her now. Please?" And then the moment we saw Lena he was like, "great! Back to Oliver. I want to see him again. What's he doing now?" At one point a baby kicked me and I said, "the babies can hear you, buddy. One of them just kicked me, and I think they are saying, 'hi, big brother!!'" And he said, "hey! Don't look at me, babies! I'm not the one who put all that jelly on you!" Oh, funny boy. You make all the things better.

Thank you, thank you, THANK you for the continued outpouring of love and encouragement. We are just blown away by the support we are receiving, and though we will never be able to thank you all properly, please know that these sweet babies are a testimony to the power of prayer and the grace of an amazing Creator who loves them more than we ever could. Thank you for loving them enough to pray for them so faithfully and also for rallying around our family when we most desperately need it. We are blessed.