Casey had a rough time last night as her contractions started to come more frequently and increased in severity. At one point they were happening every few minutes. As such, she didn’t get much sleep and was really struggling this morning. One of the doctors on call for Dr. Reich came in and checked her cervix which turned out to be a really painful experience for Casey. The good news from that check, however, is that she is not dilating yet.

Dr. Berry called in around the same time to check on things and between the two doctors, they got Casey on a mix of Morphine and Phenergan (Morphine for the pain and Phenergan to counter act any nausea the Morphine may cause). They also are planning on giving her a dose of Procardia which is a blood pressure medicine, but is intended to slow Casey’s contractions down. The Morphine seems to have taken the edge off of Casey’s nerves which has resulted in the contractions spacing out to about every eight minutes. It hasn’t helped the pain much, however.

The intent now is to maintain Casey’s labor at the point to which it has progressed. By doing that, they are not forced to deliver the babies because her labor is progressing too quickly. They would rather the Pre-eclampsia be the driving force behind the decision to deliver rather than allow her labor to force their hand.

We are supposed to see Dr. Berry this afternoon so I’ll update again once we visit with him. At this point, my feeling is that Casey will not be able to hold out more than a couple of days.

Thank you to all for your well wishes, support, and offers to help! We have been well taken care of by both the hospital staff and our friends and family through this exciting, scary, crazy time!!

God Bless,
Ethan
www.JonesLife.net

The title says it all, no babies today! Casey’s platelet count was exactly the same as last time they checked and all else is stable so we live to fight another day…yeah!!

God Bless,
Ethan
www.JonesLife.net

I thought y’all might enjoy these two quick, little notes…

I was on the radio this morning to talk about our story which was really cool. The River 102.3, a local Christian radio station, had me in studio with their morning show for about 30 minutes. They really gave me a great opportunity to talk about Casey and the quints and also to give props to all of the wonderful people who have been helping us prepare for the Quint Invasion. We’ll have the audio files on the website soon, but you can check it out here: http://www.theriver1023.com/cc-common/podcast.html. Thank you to Roxanne at The River for inviting me on the show!

We may never get to see our daughter, Eliot, again after this weekend. She went with a friend of her’s, Maddy Brown, to Maddy’s grandma’s farm. I can honestly think of no more fitting place for our crazy, little monkey than a farm! She is going to have the time of her life riding horses, chasing chickens, and running through the fields with wild abandon! We wish we could be there to witness the wildness, but her stories will just have to do. Please come back to us, Elle!

God bless,
Ethan
www.JonesLife.net

Quick addition: Dr. Berry stopped by after I posted this blog. He does not expect that Casey will deliver tomorrow, but definitely believes the babies will be born in 5-7 days…here we go!!

More details this evening, but just wanted to let everyone know that we might be having babies tomorrow! They confirmed this morning that Casey has pre-eclampsia and if it is not under control by tomorrow morning, then we’re headed to the operating room! Prayers, please!!

We got a mixed bag of news this morning from the new round of testing they did on Casey. One of the indicators for pre-eclampsia is now back to normal and one is still being tested. Here’s where the mix comes in – a new indicator for pre-eclampsia has popped up. The short story is that we will not be having babies today…YEAH!!

Here’s the slightly longer story. They have decided to keep Casey here until the babies are born, but we are still hoping to hold out another 2 or 3 weeks before that happens. The new indicator of pre-eclampsia is that her blood platelet count is low (this is what causes your blood to clot). If it continues to drop, this will be very problematic – it’s kind of hard to cut someone open if their blood doesn’t clot, right? I don’t know yet what they intend to do if this level continues to drop, but Dr. Reich told us that Casey would be getting a lot of attention if this did not normalize.

Casey had a good night (for her) and is doing pretty well at the moment. We are actually happy that we will be staying here for the remainder as it was getting pretty difficult to manage her care at the house and she was just miserable all the time. Apparently, my bedside manner isn’t as gentle and patient as it could be…who would’ve guessed?? Eliot in the meantime is well taken care of by a small army of good friends!

I’ll update as often as I can. Please continue to pray for Casey’s health and the health of the babies!!

God bless,
Ethan
www.JonesLife.net