It’s amazing how quickly things can change. We’ve had a great couple of weeks and a very nice weekend, but got thrown a pretty serious curveball today. Casey and I went this morning for a checkup with her ob/gyn and she ended up in the hospital! Casey had high blood pressure this morning at the doctor’s office so they wanted her to be admitted to the hospital for monitoring. The doctor told us to expect that she might be kept overnight, but we might go home later this evening.

When she got here, all seemed to be going well with the blood pressure, but they found a new complication – she was having contractions. They are relatively mild and pretty sporadic, but they are definitely contractions. Now that she knows how to identify the contractions, she has realized that she has been having them for several weeks, but did not recognize them as contractions. The scary part here is that if she proceeds to early labor, there is nothing that can be done to stop it. If that happens, the babies have very little chance of survival. They have given her a couple of medications that are supposed to calm the uterus, but they won’t do much to prevent pre-term labor if her body decides it’s time for that.

At this point, we have no idea how long Casey will be here or if she’ll be allowed to leave at all (there is a possibility they will decide that she is safer here and that she will have to remain here until the babies are born). I don’t know exactly what the deciding factor is, but for now all we know is that we will be here overnight.

We have several friends taking care of our immediate needs and are very grateful for all of the prayers and encouragement we’ve received. Please continue to pray that Casey’s body will quiet down and those babies keep incubating!!

I’m not sure if I remembered everyone that I should have on this email so please forward this on to other friends and family!

God bless,
Ethan

I’ve got a couple of quick hits to share:

First, the EXCITING: I felt the babies move!! I’m not sure how many of them I’ve felt moving around in there, but there are three different places on Casey’s belly where I can feel the little bump of tiny heads or feet or arms! I’m pretty sure I feel Baby B, C, and D, but who knows??

Next, the AMAZING: We were reading online that a 21 week baby is approximately 10 inches long from head to toe. That means that Casey has more than four feet of baby inside her belly!! Wow!!!! Thank God for the fetal position!

Finally, the SUPERCOOL: My woman has had the most incredible attitude through all of this! She has dealt with aches, pains, nausea, muscle spasms, vomitting, major food aversions, back aches, a trip to the ER and two days in the hospital, sleepless nights, major immobility, shortness of breath, and on and on and on, but through it all she has kept a smile on her face! She would stand on her head for the next nine months if she had to to keep these babies healthy and for that she gets the SUPERCOOL Mom-TO-Be Award!! Keep smiling, Casey Ann!! Oh yeah, the picture? Halloween party at a friend’s house…that’s as close to Hillbilly Casey as she’ll ever get!!!

I have to take a moment here to recognize the extraordinary efforts of my mother-in-law, Stevie Krueger. One of the toughest things to deal with lately is just keeping up with the day-to-day house work…dishes, laundry, etc. When Casey was still going to work every day, it was a major struggle just for her to get through the day and she would come home completely wiped out. Now that she’s home, she’s on bed rest and it’s for a good reason. Casey isn’t able to do much around the house because she can’t stay on her feet for more than a few minutes at a time. I know it’s got to be incredibly frustrating for her to have to just lay there and watch the world swirl around her, but that is her charge right now – get rest, take it easy, and cook up babies!

No complaints on my end because I’ve clearly got the easier job here, but it’s not easy to find time to do the dishes after getting Eliot fed, helping Casey with whatever she needs, getting Eliot ready for bed and reading her books before bedtime, and oh yeah, studying for my grad school classes. So imagine my relief and gratitude when Stevie showed up one weekend in early October and just went to work! Sure, she came to visit her daughter and family, but her visit had a purpose to it. She cleaned, she laundered, she folded, she swept, she cleaned some more, she loaded, she unloaded, and she cleaned some more. It was AWESOME!! And even better than that – she came back to do it again two weeks later! And even better than that – she’s here this weekend to do it again!!

Some people were born to lead, some were born to follow, some were born to sing, and some were born to ride…ok, sorry, had to put that in there, couldn’t pass it up. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Stevie was born to serve. She’s been a nurse for nearly 20 years and before that she was a flight attendant, two jobs not made for the faint server of heart. And before that I’m pretty certain she was born not with a silver spoon in her mouth, but with a silver tray in her hand.

Since I have known her (nearly 15 years), at every holiday event, family get together, the Krueger’s annual Memorial Day party, or any other sort of event, Stevie could almost always be found in the kitchen. When my parents host Thanksgiving, Stevie doesn’t leave until every last dish has been cleaned and put away. When we stay at Casey’s parents’ house, we’re constantly yelling at her to sit down and relax, but she just keeps on serving…and serving…and serving. The world needs more Stevie Kruegers, but I’m afraid it is going to be left wanting. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many “Stevie’s” who get their 15 minutes of fame in our serve me first and serve me now society. Thank God for the few he did give us!