Tuesday, September 28 - Beth and Harper Update

***Friendly Disclaimer*** - If your not quite in the loop on the current situation at hand please skip down to the previous post to get the full scoop.

First and foremost, I'd like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to all the outpouring of support we've received the past few days. We are ceratinly blessed with a tremendous group of family and friends and truly value all the calls, visits, notes, gifts, etc... You guys are the best.

Now for an update on my two lovely girls. Since Sunday it has been firmly determined that Beth does in fact have preeclampsia and will be on bed rest at the hospital up until God decides to introduce this little girl into the world. At this point this could be tomorrow or could be several weeks from now. The strange thing about all of it is that she continues to be feeling great and is in awesome spirits but has a blood pressure that is just shy of Al Rocker's on a treadmill.

An expectant mom with preeclampsia is safe to continue to carry the baby up until the blood pressure gets out of control and unmanageable. When it gets to that point then it is safer for the baby to come out. She's somewhat close but not fully to that point yet so at this point we're day by day as to when Harper will come.

The good news though is that Baby Harper will be completely safe if Beth needs to be induced, minus a few typical complications for a baby born at 32 weeks, including a lengthy stay in the NICU. She is at 4lbs now (50 to 75% percentile) and has been given steroids through shots to her mom which will help prepare her little lungs to take those first few breaths when she's out. I had asked the nurse to hook me up with some of those steroids while she was at it so I'd be all swole when the baby came but couldn't convince her.

Beth is in excellent spirits and I continue to grow in amazement of the wonderful woman I've been blessed with in her. At this point, the docs are telling us it's extremely important to continue to avoid stress and anxiety for her and so far that's been no problem at all. So if you have a funny joke or kind word please give her a buzz. If you have a sad story please either throw your phone in the toilet or don't call.

Seriously though, we really do appreciate all the prayers that have been lifted up on our behalf and have certainly felt a calming peace throughout this very difficult process. We are trusting fully in the Lord that this child is His workmanship and will be born according to His almighty plan. I do have a few specific prayer requests for those willing to pray along side us:

• That at a minimum the baby will stay put in the womb until 8:00 CT Wednesday evening. This will allow those steroids to have 48 hours to prepare Harper's lungs for her first breath.
• That Beth will continue to stay relaxed and stress free for however long this journey lasts.
• That the Lord will prepare us both to handle any circumstance that comes our way.

That's it for now. I'm officially a Zombie and smell like a hospital so am signing off. If you're interested (if your still reading at this point I'm assuming you are) check back in a few days and I'll provide an update.

Sunday, 9/26 - Update on Beth and Baby Harper

This was sent out as an email to all the folks that I had email addresses for as an initial note to update friends and family on Beth's status. I'm thinking moving forward the blog is going to be a better way to communicate so check out here for updates. To save me some time (and so I can go to sleep earlier cause I'm crazy tired) I'm not going to update this note much from it's initial content so sorry if it doesn't read "bloggish". :)

Friends,

We've had a chance to speak to many of you but not all so wanted to shoot you guys and gals a quick note to give an update of our last few days and more so as a request for prayers for Beth and Baby Harper.

We've been at the hospital for the past four days and have stayed here for the past two nights, with two more to come at a minimum. It's all still such a surreal feeling as Beth is feeling completely fine and Baby Harper is kicking and squirming as usual. It all started with Beth's doctor appointment on Thursday. She's now 32 weeks into her pregnancy (due date is 11/20) and just recently started going in for weekly checkups with the doc, which is a normal process at this stage. Everything in her pregnancy has been completely normal up until that doc appointment.

Anyway, when she went to the doc on Thursday they noticed extreme weight gain (12 lbs in two weeks) for Beth caused from fluid build up by swelling. Then they checked her blood pressure which was well above normal so sent her straight to the ER. They examined her, ruled her out for preeclampsia (a condition that causes high blood pressure for the mom and is only cured by inducing labor), and sent us home with orders to check her blood pressure twice a day. Well... as ordered we checked first thing Saturday morning and low and behold her blood pressure was again out the roof so they ordered us back to the doc and they admitted us to the hospital. She was diagnosed with gestiantial hypertension (a precursor to preeclampsia) and kept her at the hospital for monitoring due to her continued irregular blood pressure. All this has developed to what they just now diagnosed as an initial stage of preeclampsia. We're not sure what this means yet and are told that there are plenty of examples of mom's that have waited weeks to deliver after getting this diagnosis.

Beth and I both feel strongly in the power of prayer and would ask our friends and family to help lift up these specific points to the Lord as we go through this journey.

- That Beth's blood pressure will stabilize back down to a healthy range for the baby
- That Harper will be able to stay put in her mom's belly as long as possible. They say that if we can keep her in there another two weeks to the 34 week point that her lungs will be much stronger and better prepared for life outside the womb.
- That Harper will start growing like crazy and will be fully prepared for her first breath of air regardless of when the due date comes.
- That Beth and I can be strengthened and prepared for whichever turn this journey takes us on.

Thanks to all for your prayers during this time. They say the most important thing at this point is for Beth to stay calm, cool, and collected b/c stress and anxiety can further escalate her blood pressure. Therefore I am trying to harass the nurses with my lame jokes as much as possible when they come in which I think probably helps me more then it does her. Those nurses actually got onto me yesterday for yelling too much during the game but I figure Harper better get used to my yelling because if the Sooners keep playing like this it's unavoidable.

ps - To all you texting machines, just so you know Beth's cell is a huge piece of you know what and therefore it's very tough for her to respond back to texts. So if you don't get a response back don't take it personally.
pss - I'd ask everyone to please also pray for Mack Brown and the Longhorns cause the Sooners are bringing the pain next week to the Cotton Bowl.