So as I write this, we are sitting in our third room here at the hospital. It’s nice though… one of the birthing suites.

Yesterday, Dr. Perales decided to keep Angie on the magnesium a little longer to let her get one more night of sleep. Later in the night though, she wasn’t doing too well on it, so at midnight, she turned it off completely. Angie started feeling better, but this morning she had some real trouble with her breathing. Angie was coughing a lot and when she did she was getting mucus with some blood in it. Probably just from the amount of coughing she’s doing. The nurses called Dr. Perales though and she ordered a lot of tests. So we saw a pulmonary doc, a respiratory therapist, someone to draw blood for tests (out of a vein), someone else to draw blood out of an artery in her wrist, someone to take an x-ray of her chest, and finally the anesthesiologist. There was one part where in all the commotion, the nurse pulled a cord out of the wall, which we later found out was an emergency signal… a couple other nurses came storming in ready to do … well I guess do whatever they needed to do.

The respiratory therapist gave Angie some albuterol to help with her breathing. Then they gave her some lasiks (not sure if I’m spelling any of this right), and that seemed to help a lot. With the x-rays they confirmed that she had pulmonary edema brought on by the combination of drugs she was on for the contractions. But the new medicines seemed to help and by 11:00-ish she was feeling better, and breathing much nicer. The anesthesiologist was able to put in her epidural, which has been a HUGE blessing. It wasn’t so much that the pain of contractions was too bad, but really more that she still hasn’t gotten a lot of rest, and today seems like it may be the day. The epidural has allowed her to kind of cruise through these early contractions.

She’s about 4 centimeters now, and her uterus is about 80 – 90% thinned out (I think the technical term may be “effaced” but I’m not positive). Her contractions are coming at about every 3 minutes right now and everything seems to be on track. Dr. Perales came in and checked on her and ordered some calcium to be added to her drip because it’s one of those things where as the magnesium goes up, the calcium goes down.

The nurse seems to think we will be going about 4 or 5PM tonight, which would make today Tater’s birthday. Kylie has been extremely helpful and last night was looking for a list of things to do while she was at home to help prepare the house for Angie coming home. I know it’s tough on her because she has exams this week and she’s so worried that Angie is going to deliver while she’s at school. I sent her a text message today to tell her to call when she gets out today. Depending on where Angie is when she gets out, it may be a good idea to have her come here so she doesn’t miss it. Getting kind of exciting, with the birth coming soon. I haven’t really been able to give everyone a call who has either called or who I’ve been calling. I’ve been telling everyone to just call me if they want an update. That way if I can, I’ll answer, but if I can’t then they will either know we are busy, or I’m on the other phone.

When the baby comes, I think we are going to identify a list of people to call, and then ask them to “spread the word.” I’ll eventually get to update here, and have taken some pictures and video, so I’ll update that once I get back to the house and can offload them.

NOT LONG NOW!!! :)