The Big Picture

Well, Troy here, giving everyone the big picture. So as you know we came into the hospital late wed night well I guess more like early early early Thursday morning. Melissa was bleeding a lot. They sent us up to labor and delivery and hooked her up to monitor the baby and Melissa’s contractions. The Baby’s heart rate was going crazy it would go up to 180 then drop to like 90 beats per min. Melissa started going into labor and having contractions, which was not a good thing because she was only 25 weeks pregnant (about 40 weeks is normal). The contractions were making her loose a lot of blood. So the doctors gave Melissa some meds. to stop contractions, but this made her start throwing up violently which was bad for the baby in that condition and made Melissa loose even more blood. The doctors were ready to get the baby out right away, so the started to prep her to have a C section by giving her steroid shots to develop the baby’s lungs and called the doctor to come in who was going to do the C-section. All of the sudden things started to mellow out and the baby’s heart was stabilizing. They had us wait a couple of hours until an ultrasound specialist came in and gave Melissa an ultrasound. The doctor was able to see that the baby was attached to the anterior wall of the uterus and when the accident took place the placenta had a partial tear and also the amniotic sack was punctured. Blood entered the amniotic sack and formed a clot in side and she lost a whole lot of amniotic fluid. (only 4cc left out of 10-20cc for normal baby). The specialist told us we are going to do a C-section on you today and your baby will probably only have a 50% chance of survival and if it does survive it may face a whole lot of permanent damage (ie: lung problems, blindness, cerebral palsies, and others) This was the moment of ultimate despair for us. They brought Melissa back into labor and delivery where they continued to prep her for the C-section and gave her more steroid shots. For the next few hours we wept and prayed and wept and prayed. The doctor came back in and was able to see that Melissa’s bleeding had gone down and the baby was a lot more stable so they thought well lets wait a couple of hours and see if it continues like this. And every couple of hours that’s how it went on till that night and everything was miraculously stabilizing. Later in the evening they took Melissa back over for another ultrasound and things had turned from worst case scenario to a waiting game. They said anything could happen. We could have this baby in 1 day 1week or even 10 weeks it depended on 3 factors. 1. If Melissa continued bleeding this much because her body wouldn’t clot. 2. is worry of an infection because the amniotic sack was broken or 3. If there was to little amniotic fluid in the sac which would eventually constrict the umbilical cord. So those are the things that we need to watch for day by day. So now we are playing the waiting game. Melissa is to stay in the hospital till the day she delivers which we hope it will be 10 weeks (so everyone pray for that). They said it will have to be a C-section even if we make it that far. If the baby can make it to first 28 weeks that rules out a lot of possible side affects and dangers then if it can make it to 34 weeks then the baby is perfectly developed and they will go ahead and take the baby no matter what instead of waiting the 40 weeks.
So now the second day Melissa bled half the amount she did that first day so that shows she is clotting which is good. And they have her on antibiotics to stop infection so that makes those 2 first real dangers a less of a danger. Third day she even slowed down even more so things are looking a bit more positive she still is loosing blood and her hematocrit is low. They still said she might need a blood transfusion but her body so far is making enough blood to catch up. They baby has been 100% stable the last couple of days. The doctors are really positive now and think Melissa can make it for a little longer. They set the next ultrasound apt. for 3 weeks from now and moved us in to a long term room.
We are so grateful for our blessings. We know that God is watching over us and everything is going to work according to his will. We are also so grateful for everyone’s prayers, with that many prayers were getting only miracles can happen. So please continue remembering us in your prayers.
Now the big battle to fight is boredom. Melissa is hopefully in here for the long hall and has very limited things to do. If anyone has any ideas on how to pass the time let her know.

I know a lot of you have asked what can you do to help, here are some things I thought of:

·Maybe come by to visit and bring a fun game to play or activity that Melissa can be involved in.
·Hospital food for that long might give Melissa permanent brain damage so some good home cooked meals would be appreciated.
·You girls out there that have skills with makeovers. I tried painting Melissa’s toes once and it got into a mess. So bring some nail polish and some time and make her feel like she hasn’t been in bed for ever.
·Aliyah will have baby sitters for the next couple of weeks but if we plan to stay here for a long time I will need to go back to work and school and could use some babysitters during the day and maybe some nights.
·After a couple of weeks when I cant be by Melissa all the time maybe some of you girls can come by. Bring something so do like school studies or projects just so if Melissa needs some little things you can help her out because she cant get out of bed.
·Prayers prayers prayers prayers.
Ill update this latter when there are other things I can think of.

Thanks again everyone