Happy October 1st

We're having another relatively uneventful day at the hospital today. The babies were hooked up to the monitors for about an hour this morning. Their heart rates are great and it appears that I am not having any significant contractions. After the monitoring appointment, the docs wanted to check the amount of fluid surrounding Sadie. Even though her water sac broke, babies continue to replenish their fluid throughout the pregnancy, and the docs wanted to see where Sadie was at today. Well, even though she replenishes her fluid, because there is no way to repair the tear, the fluid waxes and wanes. So, not surprisingly, when they measured her fluid, it was zero. That means the little bugger is hanging out without any amniotic fluid around her. Rich and I, however, are completely amazed to have learned that that's okay. Babies can function like this for the duration of the pregnancy. Apparently, fluid is very important through the 24th week because it helps lay the foundation for lung development, but after that, it's not actually essential.

If it surprises anyone that we've learned so much, we give all of the credit to our amazing doctors. They could not be any nicer or more helpful to us. In addition to the obligatory morning rounds, they come and visit us throughout the day--sometimes to check in on us and grab one of the many sweets in our room--and sometimes just to shoot the shi$. We know which docs are running marathons, what their goal time is, how many kids they have, where they got their education, etc. Even the docs who aren't caring for us at this very moment (but who will be caring for Sadie and Zoe) come and visit us every day just to check in. Anyway, through all the visits, we've had all of our questions answered and learned so much about the babies' predicament. If the amount of information we've taken in could possibly correlate to the amount of time the babies will stay where they're supposed to, we'd be sitting pretty. Unfortunately, it's not that easy.

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As an aside--if any of you have long stays coming up at this particular hospital--and I hope none of you do, it might be helpful for you to know how they schedule the food around here. When I first got here, they gave me a menu that detailed all of the food for the week--from the entree down to the dessert, it was very detailed and the food was actually pretty good. At the start of the second week, I asked our "nutrition representative" for a new menu, and he was happy to oblige. He left the room for a moment and came back with a crisp piece of paper in his grip. As he handed it to me, he said, "I've got no problem giving you a new menu, but you do realize that it lists exactly the same food as last week's menu." In other words, while I found last Tuesday's spinach fettuccine and chicken almost pretty good, I didn't realize that I would have that very same meal every single Tuesday that I'm here. ;). No worries though, things could be worse. Here's to loads more spinach fettuccine with chicken.

Anyway, happy October 1st to everyone. Rich and I could not be any more thrilled to have made it past September.