Please?

Sleep has eluded me.

I’ve lain here since before midnight listening to the night time sounds of the house around me and to the frogs serenading the stars.

Then around 4 AM nature changes the music and I listen to the bird symphony to the dawn until the sun comes up and watch as the light in the house changes from blue, to purple, to daylight.

I can’t sleep. The cacophony of thoughts that are going through my mind won’t even quiet down – let alone fall silent. I’m lying here because the least I can do is to rest my body. I’ve given up on trying to sleep. Instead my mind replays the day before.

It started wonderfully. Liam had crawled into bed with me sometime before the sun came up. Something about the warm weight of a sleeping child is so comforting. We cuddled long after the alarm went off and Rick got Katie off to school. Then Rick came up and crawled in with us too. It doesn’t happen often.

You could tell Liam was pleased with the cuddling attention of both parents and that started the day off just right.

I was scheduled for my final internal ultrasound – yippee! I hate them. More than you can imagine. So for this to be the last one – I was stoked.

Sunshine, and warm temperatures, and driving with the windows down – how could things be better?

The waiting room wait was longer than we anticipated but a volunteer brought in some old Readers Digests and Rick and I read the jokes to each other to pass the time. By the time we were called into the room we were teasing each other. And when I had to undress from the waist down for the internal he told me he’d give me five bucks if I kept going and that set us off on another set of giggles.

They were short lived though.

The ultrasound showed that although the baby has grown, she now weighs about 2 lbs and 14 oz, and her length and head circumference have all improved her abdominal measurement is less.

According to the doctor this means that, for whatever reason, she’s not getting what she needs from the placenta and her little body is taking “food” from the fat stores around her organs, like her liver.

There’s nothing they can give me. There’s nothing they can do to improve the transfer of “food” via the placenta to the baby. All they can do is watch and wait and when it’s determined that she’s safer out than in – they’ll take her. I’m only 30 weeks. She’s not yet 3 lbs. I want to be sick.

The doctor accompanies us down to Labour and Delivery. She wants the “non-invasive” stress test done – it’s the external monitoring of the baby’s heart and movements by a machine via leads tied to my belly. While I’m there getting set up she comes in and tells me that she’s ordered steroid shots to be administered to me to mature the baby’s lungs faster.

I feel my heart sink even lower, if possible.

She had told me way back at week 23 that there were things that could be done to improve a preemie’s chance at survival and that one of them were the steroid shots. But they’re best administered only a week or two before the baby’s arrival. This is May – she’s not due until the end of July!

My face has always been easily read and Rick immediately starts the stand up comedy routine. He knows me too well. Knows that I’m freaking out. His attentions distract me for a short time.

I’ve got to return tomorrow for another shot. I’ll be having ultrasounds at least weekly to measure the baby. I can feel myself coming unglued. This can’t be happening.

She’s my prize. She’s my prize for enduring what I have endured this last year and a half. She’s got to be okay. Please, someone tell me she’s going to be okay…