Sunday Dinner, May 6, 2007 & Jessica News

***UPDATE, SUNDAY, 4 pm:

I thought I'd better update y'all while I can.

Jessica spent most of Saturday night/Sunday morning
in the hospital again. Same old thing, her preeclampsia.
All her vitals and bloodwork, urine, etc. were bad,
but not severe enough to warrant inducing labor or
doing a C-section right now.

So, once again, we watch and wait.

Thank you all so much for your prayers
and encouraging words. It means more to
us than I can ever express.

More news as it develops and when I can
grab a chance to post it here.

Love y'all,

Diane

Another week's gone by, and time for another Sunday Dinner.

I won't keep you in suspense, 'cause I know you're all hanging on the edge of your computer chairs.

If you're dining here at La Casa de Diane's for Sunday Dinner, you'll have your choice of smoked ham, honey ham, smoked turkey breast, baloney or peanut butter. Sandwiches, that is. I got groceries today and I'm tuckered out, so sandwiches it is for Sunday Dinner. I also got some Doritos so we're gonna be eatin' high on the hog.

So what're you doing for Sunday Dinner? Just share your plans in the comments.
One of the reasons I'm so tired today pertains to Jessica. I think I mentioned in my last post that she was taking me to dinner for Mother's Day Friday night. We thought we might need to get that done sooner rather than later considering the fact that she might be having a baby any minute now. Jessica treated me to a delicious catfish buffet dinner, my choice.

I should probably mention that Jason was gone on a planned overnight trip with his senior class and I had planned to spend Friday night with Jessica anyway.

Well, we did get our meal finished and Jessica had just dropped me at the door of Walmart to do a little shopping when her cell phone rang. She was going to park the car and had planned to come in to do some shopping of her own, but her Granny was on the phone. It seems that Jessica's doctor's office had been trying to reach her ever since we left my apartment. They had tried to call Jessica's cell phone, but she recently changed cell phone carriers and hadn't updated with her new number. They called my home phone, but of course Lamar and I were with Jessica, so that wasn't successful. Jessica's second emergency contact is her Granny, and she passed on a message from Jessica's doctor's office that Jessica needed to call them right away.

Jessica called the doctor's office and the nurse told her that her 24-hour urine test results came back really high, and they wanted Jessica to go to the hospital immediately to be hooked up to a fetal monitor and have bloodwork and another urinalysis.

By this time I had already picked up my Gain laundry detergent (original scent!) and was still shopping when Lamar ran in and told me what was going on. I left my cart sitting at the front with my detergent still in it and got back out to the car as fast as I could.

At the hospital, they immediately got Jessica in a room and on the fetal monitor in about 10 minutes time, a minor miracle these days. Within another 10 minutes time they had taken urine and blood samples and sent them to the lab. As soon as they had taken the blood sample, a doctor came in to speak with us.

The doctor said that the protein level in Jessica's urine was pretty high, and he confirmed that she has preeclampsia, which we already suspected. She is having severe headaches, dizziness, ringing in her ears, swelling and she just generally feels bad. The good news was that her blood pressure was pretty much the same: high but not alarmingly so as of yet, and that the protein in her urine was about the same. The fetal monitor showed that Emmy is doing well, with no obvious stress, her heartbeat is strong and regular, etc.

Praise God for that!

The urinalysis came back positive for a urinary tract infection although Jessica doesn't have any symptoms, so the doctor gave her a prescription for antibiotics for that. Jessica had a UTI a few months back, and I'm wondering if it's the same one, and the antibiotics she took then only beat it back a little instead of completely curing her.

After the tests and staying hooked up to the fetal monitor for almost 4 hours the doctor let Jessica go home. She is supposed to be on complete bedrest now, and if her symptoms worsen at all she's supposed to go back to the hospital immediately. She has a regular appointment Monday with her doctor if she doesn't have to go back to the hospital in the meantime.

After they released us from the hospital, we went back to Walmart to finish our shopping. Jessica said if she was going to be housebound for a week or more she needed to get some things, plus I still needed to actually purchase my Gain and a few more things myself.

After we finished our business at Walmart, Jessica and I took Lamar back to our apartment, where I packed a bag with some clothes, a few books and some other necessities. I went back to Jessica and Jason's apartment with her to spend the night, just in case she worsened during the night. I slept (!) in her recliner, if you call 3 or 4 hours of light dozing, sleeping. I knew every time she turned over in the next room or got up to visit the restroom, which is a lot when you consider she's 36 weeks pregnant. My Mama radar is ultra-sensitive right now!

Keep in mind that Jason was over 100 miles away and had questionable cell service during this time. He and Jessica had discussed the fact that this was his one and only senior trip. Her due date is May 29th, so they thought they were pretty safe as far as her going into labor while he was gone, plus he could be home in less than 3 hours if she needed him. Of course, she would have a small crisis while he was gone, and she had trouble reaching him on his cell phone. Jason finally called her about an hour before we were released to go home, but we already knew that it looked like we would be able to go home.

Everything worked out fine, but isn't that always the way it is? Any other day and Jason would have been right there. He hasn't been more than 15 minutes away from her in several months, and the one time he takes a little time for himself, Jessica has a mini-crisis. We told him that even if he'd been here, there wasn't anything he could have done. Even so, after Jason found out what was going on, he couldn't stand not being here and drove through the wee hours to get back home to Jessica.

I was dozing in the recliner when I heard him drive up, then his key in the lock. I knew it was him, bless his heart.

So now we're all on call. Watching and waiting, just like it was with Mikki and baby Seth. Jessica's doctor would like her to go another couple of weeks if possible, but if her preeclampsia symptoms worsen they may hospitalize her and try get her to go a little longer, or induce labor or do a C-section, according to how Jessica does from now on out.

I've got a bag partially packed and I'll be getting that done shortly, plus doing a few things here that need to be done in case I have to leave on short notice.

If I have to leave on such short notice that I don't have time to post anything here when Jessica worsens or goes into labor, I'll make sure that Cecil and Donna/Zztop know what's going on. Maybe they'll be nice enough to post any news for me until I can get back online. Jessica doesn't have internet service. Yeah, I know...bummer.

If I'm kind of lax on commenting on your blogs or about posting here for the next while, please forgive me, but I may be needed with Jessica according to how things progress with her. If at all possible I'll leave a post before I have to go.

I need to change my bed linens, study my Sunday School lesson and type up the business minutes for my church, among other things.

May God meet all your needs, and bless you with enough to share.