Hospitalization - Day 22

Woke up this morning when Dr. Krohn came to visit. She let me know that the doctors wouldn't be around until later in the morning. I ended up falling back asleep and waking up a couple hours later. Wandered down to Sarah's room for awhile. My dad showed up and brought the rocking duck that Maddie has previously been promised. See duck below. It was pretty awesome to try out all the buttons. The tag says it is approved for up to 80 pounds. I'm pretty sure that she will grow too tall for it before she weighs 80 pounds.

It also plays four songs. 

It even has shoes!

The doctors did their rounds after 12:30 pm. Then Dr. Taylor and Lastascia came back with Dr. Mark Santillan and Dr. Ginny Ryan. Dr. Ryan is a reproductive endocrinologist (a fertility doctor). She will be there for my surgery Friday in case they need to do a cornual wedge resection due to the placenta not detaching. Dr. Santillan estimated that there will be 20ish people in the operating room. It sounds like Lastascia will be able to attend the surgery to take pictures for me. He asked Dr. Taylor if we will be in one of the large new operating rooms with the "Star Trek" doors (they apparently are sliding automatic doors from how he described them). Dr. Taylor is going to look into that. I then asked if we could review how the surgery will go. It turns out that I might not have to be under general anesthesia. They will start with a spinal for the c-section portion and if there are no complications, that will be all that I will need. That means that I will get to see Maddie after she is delivered. Dr. Santillan explained it as, "After we deliver her, she can peek over the screen and say, 'Hi Mama!' and then she'll be off to the NICU." That made me really happy because originally I was told to prepare to not see her until the day after the surgery. If I need a wedge resection or a hysterectomy, then they will put me under general after she is delivered. I also asked about how my family will be contacted and they said one nurse will be in charge of calling out (probably to Mom's cell) and then she will be able to notify everyone who is in the waiting room, and they will be able to call the other people who need to be contacted. Once Maddie is brought up to the NICU, Dan will go in with her while they get her all set up. Renae has agreed to update the blog so everyone will get the information. My surgery is scheduled for early (7:15 am) but with all the prep that is done before she is actually delivered, it might be after 8 before there is an update on the blog. Try not to get too antsy while you wait! I am hoping that without the general, that I will actually go over to the NICU Friday evening before I go to bed.

After the doctors and Dad left, I went to craft group. Dr. Greiner came in and I invited her to our party on Thursday afternoon. She said that she will be covering Labor and Delivery on Friday morning while all those people are at my surgery. We made wreaths with burlap flowers on them. They were pretty awesome and not that hard to make. I think that I will make more of them when I get home. Maybe bigger ones.

Sarah's wreath

My wreath

This afternoon, I talked to Kyle and he is planning to come and visit me! I also updated Mom on all the news from the doctors visiting today. I am really excited for Friday and the surgery now. I can't believe our little girl will be here that quickly!

On Sunday, Sara had told us that we could get the nurses to print vouchers for us to be able to go to the cafeteria and eat $7 worth of food instead of ordering room service. We tried this last night and it was great. Tonight, Sarah, Jessie and I were going to go down to the cafeteria and the nurses informed us that we cannot do this anymore because instead of it counting to be in place of our room service, it actually comes out of the nurses' budget for the floor. This apparently changed recently and not all of the nurses were aware of this. That doesn't really make sense to me because it is an order in our medical files and has to be approved by our doctor. We thought that using a voucher just meant that we couldn't order from the room service for a meal that day instead, and that's what our nurses yesterday thought too.

It ended up being okay because Sarah's husband decided to bring her food and Jessie had already ordered room service, so we just went for a walk downstairs and I got supper that I paid for myself. When we returned to the floor, we decided to try to find patient scrub pants for Jessie and Sara. We looked through all the linen closets on the floor and only came up with three pairs of pants. Here are Jessie and Sarah searching one of the closets. We don't know all the nurses, but most of them make sure the ante-partums know where the linen closet is so we can get more blankets/sheets/towels/washcloths/gowns if we need them. As it turns out, the nursing assistants can order more pants and so we asked that they order more for the girls that needed them.

Where are all the pants?!

Then we went and talked to Sara and her mom about the voucher issues. Sarah's husband, Luke, came to surprise her by bringing her supper and they took more of the candles that Dan left in my room.

Also, today I wore one of my Veronica Mars t-shirts that came in the mail. I was super excited to receive them when Dan brought them up this weekend.

Proud Marshmallow!

Daily Info
Date: November 19th
Gestational Date: 27 weeks, 5 days
Countdown to Baby: 2 1/2 days!!!