27 weeks 4 days

Baby Hudson is going on 28 weeks this Sunday! That's the first major milestone we hoped to reach. Babies born after 28 weeks have significantly fewer complications than babies born earlier. Sure, we're hoping to hold on longer than 28 weeks but we'll take each day as it comes.

Last week my nurse started to notice some arrhythmia in Baby Hudson's heart. Sometimes his heart rate speeds up and is off-beat and other times he skip beats. So the nurse called the doctors and the doctors did what doctors do best: they freaked out. They brought in an ultrasound machine to watch baby's heart. They started making notes on the fetal heart monitor strip. They told me to not eat or drink anything so I'd be prepared if I needed to deliver the baby. And then they called the "specialist." The pediatric cardiologist came in to talk to me. She said she actually sat in on my surgery to monitor baby's heart and he did the same thing during surgery so when the doctors called her she thought, "Oh, I bet it's the woman whose baby did that during surgery." She said if he were to have abnormal beats 80% of the time then she would be worried, but he only does it about 5% of the time so she's not concerned at all. Arrhythmia could be related to baby's developmental age; it could go away after birth; it could be fixed with extra vitamins. For now I get hooked up to fetal heart monitors for 30 minutes every 4 hours to keep a close watch on his heart and make sure he's not going crazy.

We had an ultrasound on Monday to measure baby's growth.  At 27 weeks 1 day Baby Hudson was measuring about 26 weeks 3-5 days. He is estimated to weigh 2 pounds 3 ounces. His ventricles have remained a stable size. He likes to kick the ultrasounds and heart monitors.

Twice a week I have a mini ultrasound to measure my amniotic fluid levels and to check baby's heart. I understand my fluid levels are constantly changing as baby makes more fluid and as I leak more fluid. One day my fluid might be a 6 and the next day it could be a 3. The important thing is that there is some fluid so baby doesn't get distressed. I actually don't care for these ultrasounds much because I don't really trust the doctors who do them. The first doctor today measured and told me I was at a 5.14. The next doctor (just 10 minutes later) said I was a 2.9. I'm pretty sure it doesn't change that quickly, so I'm pretty sure one of those numbers is not accurate. Oh well--like I said, the important thing is that there is some fluid, which there is.

The nurses tell me I'm the "perfect patient," as if that's a compliment, as if I've practiced my whole life to be good at sitting still on a bed, as if I'm destined to stay in the hospital for a long time. I think I'd rather be told I'm a perfect mother or a perfect friend or even a perfect coworker. A perfect patient? Meh.