Hospitalization - Day 17

Awake at 3:45 am. I had a dream that I had a strawberry daiquiri from Carlos O'Kelly's and I was awake with a craving. There goes my plan to sleep till at least 5. I opened my Day 17 gift from Kelsey it was Laffy Taffy. My favorite is the cherry with sprinkles. The jokes are always awesome and this one was no different. I also had my morning apple juice (far from the daiquiri I really wanted).

Q: What makes the Tower of Pisa lean? (see bottom of post)

Uh, oh. Nurse B has been getting into the awesome debate. 

Goal for this morning.

I had the nurse give me my morning meds and do all of my normal morning stuff at 5 am so I could go back to bed. She put a note on my door to not bother me until 11 am. At 12:45 pm this afternoon Sarah came and woke me up. I believe she said something like, "It is past 11. Are you coming to craft group?" I basically just threw on a sweatshirt and went. Today we made Thanksgiving signs. We also had a choice of two other crafts and I took one of them with me. We also met a new antipartum named Jessie. She is going to be here longer than Sarah or I. We are going to get her to go places with us. While I was finishing up my craft, Dad showed up with a 12 pack of Diet Mt Dew. We hung out for a long time and made a deal regarding the caterpillar seen last week on my blog. In exchange, Maddie will receive a duck. I had to do monitoring this afternoon due to sleeping all morning. Madelyn was doing her kickboxing class during this time, so stayed on the monitor pretty well but pretty much was consistently moving. While being monitored, I interviewed my first celebrity. To see my interview with Dad, please look at Celebrity Interview (Part I). It was very educational.

I'm pretty sure he just really likes to start drama.

When Dad left, I put a note on my door for Eli and headed down to Sarah's room. We were greeted by Dr. Taylor, Dr. Cowman and shortly after Eli. I asked Eli some similar questions to Dad, so you'll have to check that out as well. Eli was late for his 6 o'clock sign-out meeting because he was having too much fun with us. We kept Dr. Taylor hostage and talked about how crazy my situation is. She actually called us her "Crazies" which I find far less complimentary than when Eli called us his "Superstars" yesterday. Dr. Taylor is from Georgia, so we were able to teach her about winter things like snow-shoeing and sledding. She was unaware of where a person would go sledding at or that you could go sledding with things like cafeteria trays, rubber maid totes, garbage bags, and garbage can lids. I encouraged her to stay in the upper midwest when she is done with her fellowship. She probably would have been super weirded out by the time we went mud sliding on the soccer field at Loras (the night that my godson David was born!). Sarah and I offered to take her sledding, but she said by the time we are both delivered and out of here there will not be any snow and we will be busy with our babies. Sarah is due February 1st and we explained that in Iowa, we will likely get snow after that.

I got other important information regarding my surgery from Dr. Taylor. I will likely be the first surgery of the day because as Eli said, "It will be quite the production." That means 7:15 am ladies and gents. I am unsure of how early I will be down there prepping though. Dr. Taylor said there will be a lot of people: the anesthesia team, the OB/GYN team, the pediatric team, the surgical nurses and she probably said more, but I forgot. Also it will be her, Dr. Santillan, another doctor yet-to-be-named for the OB/GYN team. Dr. Santillan is the doctor that told me I'm, "like Jesus, [I] resurrect every week," when I told him that they told me I would die between weeks 11 and 14 and I was still alive. He also offered to let me stay at his house, but he doesn't have a pool (Mom asked). She offered to take pictures of my uterus because I am really bummed that I can't watch my own c-section. Apparently it is a strange request that a person want to watch their abdomen cut open and their organs shifted around. I think it seems pretty normal. I told her that I would have become a doctor if I didn't suck so very much at science. That's partially why I probably married a scientist. Maybe Madelyn will be a doctor some day since she'll hopefully get the bedside manner of me with the brute genius of Dan. Dr. Taylor also said that she presented my case at an ultrasound convention. Apparently, in her research, she discovered that there was one other woman who was like me and refused to terminate and they were able to watch her to 28 weeks. I informed Dr. Taylor that I would be going 28 weeks and 1 day and that makes me superior to this other unnamed patient. Dr. Taylor said that the nurses were nervous the first time that I decided to leave the floor (when I went to church with Dan, Renae, Steve and the kids) and she reassured them that I could not be locked up at all times.

I went back to my room after Dr. Taylor left and checked my phone and I had 6 missed calls. Sorry for missing your calls Dan, Deb and Jordan. Mom also called at this time and told me that I am not allowed to leave without my phone in case I have an emergency. I informed her that I had spent the last hour with my doctor, so I'm pretty sure a cell phone would not have been needed.

I waited for Sarah to be monitored and then we went down to the Marketplace again. Tonight I got cheese balls and a strawberry smoothie (thank you to S, my nurse overnight last night who recommended it in place of a daiquiri). I also bought popcorn because I love it. We sat downstairs for awhile talking, but since we went later than usual, there were less people to people watch. When we returned to the floor, the front desk was empty, so I had to call in for the doors to be opened for us. I told the lady that answered that it was "two of your inmates returning" and she let us in, but did NOT have a sense of humor about me calling the Mother/Baby unit a prison. I felt like it was a really good comparison. On the way down to the Marketplace, we saw this Christmas tree, which looks pretty sweet.

Pretty purple-y. Made me think of Esther!

Also, we went past here. This is where I secretly thought Dr. Taylor was going to send me when she called and told me that they were going to keep me at the hospital after my ultrasound on October 29th.

I believe I will put Renae in charge of the blog for the day of the delivery because she will get all the information down for everyone to read and will be almost as entertaining as me. I have not asked if she will do this, but she will because she has to, because I'm the most important person right now (her words, not mine).

I got two packages today! This one is from the Hadleys.

I can't wait to eat all these!

This one is from Uncle Pat and Aunt Kim.

These socks are going to be awesome to wear around. 

Thank you so much for the presents! I really appreciate the time, money and effort that goes into sending these to me!

Daily Info
Date: November 14th
Gestational Date: 27 weeks! Woo!
Countdown to Baby: 7 1/2 days
Today I am thankful for: my wonderful doctors here and in Waterloo. I like having doctors who can joke around with me but also give me awesome care.



A: It doesn't eat much.