Day #2- The Turquoise Goo

Anyone who has ever had an ultra sound knows about the "turquoise goo" the thick gelatin used to help the electronic connectors read the heart beats of the babies. The turquoise goo is comfortable enough during your one hour or less ultra sound (or so Jeni tells me), however it is quite another story being slathered in it the entire day. The goo is everywhere! It is all over Jeni's belly, sheets, pants, and shirt. The goo dries and looks like crusty toothpaste. While the babies behave themselves and stay on the monitors, the nurse does not have to come in and reposition the monitors, bringing forth a large dollop of the turquoise goo to be reapplied to my lovely wife's belly. However, as was the case at least a dozen times last night while we were trying to sleep, our active babies squirmed, poked and prodded their way away from the monitors, and more goo. Now, imagine trying to sleep, rest, or do just about anything else with all this going on. For this reason, Jeni has been anything but bored.

We are hoping, at least for the time being, to update the blog nightly to give some sort of recap of the day's events. Jeni has not been bored today. She had a luncheon with other in-patient women as was presented with gifts of little hats, a pregnancy calendar and a Winnie the Pooh book. This evening we got our first "in patient gift"- a wonderful book called Ma! There's Nothing To do In Here told from the perspective of a baby in the womb. It made us laugh out loud and imagine what it's like swimming around in a belly.

Overall, the day was pretty uneventful - just what we're looking for. We're hoping for many more uneventful days of Jeni sitting in the room at St. Joe's.

Over a Pound Each!

photo taken by jayjuice from the Flickr Strom Creative Commons.


Weight is such a relative concept... as adults we often want to lose weight and complain about being overweight. I, myself, find my weight fluctuating, gaining a pound or two one week, dropping two or three the next. For us older folks, a couple of pounds seem, for the most part, insignificant, aside from the comments one might hear regarding how, "I shouldn't eat that Cadberry Cream Egg... it will go straight to my thighs," or "I'll pass on that brownie- it will only add to my gut," or other like-minded remarks. When it comes to babies, however, little gains are a big deal in a good way. As we completed "Ultrasound IV" today, we learned that our babies had gained some serious weight. The larger of the two is 1 pound 7 ounces, and the smaller 1 pound 5 ounces. This is good news to us, the doctors and all involved. Yeah!

As with anything in this pregnancy, there is always something to worry about at the same time there is a reason for rejoicing. The cords of the babies have become quite tangled and intertwined. This is the major worry that we all have dealing with monoamiotic pregnancies. When asked what, if anything, can be done to help this, the doctor replied, "talk to the babies and ask them not to tangle each other up." Oddly enough, I make a point of doing this nightly, and have for several months (maybe it's working :) ).

Jeni and I made the collective decision to admit her in-patient at 26 weeks (the exact date will be Sunday March, 30th- 10 days away!). In a certain respect, I view this as nearing the end of round one, and feel a sense of almost excitement that we have made it this far. Our odds increase significantly once we go in patient. If there is a problem with cord entanglement, doctors can catch it right away and act on it by delivering the babies. Once in-patient, we just play the waiting game, hoping to keep the babies in Jeni as long as possible. Each day literally becomes a mile stone. If we can get to 28 weeks- good, 30 weeks- awesome, 32 weeks- amazing, etc.

Now, as one challenge begins to subside, another one looms on the horizon. (To reference my previous post where I draw a metaphor to the monamoniotic pregnancy and playing the Legend of Zelda, we are preparing for "Level Two.") Once Jeni goes in patient, our focus will shift from worrying about the babies to helping Jeni mentally endure a very boring and exhausting stretch of time. It is easy to say, "I'll get you books, bring you dinner, email/skype with you on the computer, and visit you daily in the hospital." It is another thing to be stuck in a situation where you have to be in the hospital, during your favorite time of year without the ability to care for yourself or do what you want to do. It is easy to talk about getting a cute trainer at the gym for you after your pregnancy. It is hard to think about your body undergoing muscle atrophy. I have told Jeni this probably a hundred times, "if I could carry the babies, I would." Unfortunately, as a man, that is just not an option. If you are reading this post and know Jeni at all, you realize that this is going to be a tremendously challenging and grueling process for her. Please be sure to keep her and our babies in your thoughts and prayers. Just 10 more days until in patient to go... and with this comes all the joy, sadness, frustration and unknown emotions that go along with it.

The Countdown to In Patient Time (and Countdown to Opening Day)

I have a very fun, energetic young man who comes into my classroom every day announcing how many days we have until opening day of the baseball season. As a die-hard Brewers fan, you can't help but smile at this guy's gusto to get the season underway. He and I both began our countdown soon after the Packers lost their NFC Championship game to the Giants (gosh, does that ever seem like ages ago).

One of the benefits of being a male teacher to 5th graders is that I am often looked to as the sports guru. While I have never run a sports talk show, I often get asked my opinions on all sorts of local sports related questions... "Who will win the NCAA men's tourney?" "Why are the Bucks not having a good season?" "Why did the Packers lose their championship playoff game?" "Who should be the Brewers top five starters?" "What spot in the batting order should we bat Prince Fielder?" The list goes on and on. Each day, before school, these and other topics are frequently discussed with the same amount of passion as one would get from call-in listeners to local radio shows.

With that in mind, I have started thinking about the "Milwaukee Brewers All-Star Countdown" to Jeni going in-patient (and the season starting). While not as in-depth as other entries on this blog, I hope that these posts provide my readers with the same sort of chuckles that my students give me with our before school sports talk sessions.

Today we are 17 days out, hence, I declare it "Jim Ganter Day." (Ganter, the Brewers second baseman throughout most of the '80's and early '90's was a popular player here in town and wore the #17). Ironically, as a kindergarten and first grade student growing up in Hales Corners, WI, I often would visit the Ganters home and play with their oldest daughter, Jamie who was my age. I remember them having a beautiful black lab named Sassy, and wearing a #17 Ganter shirt to the ball game one time in honor of my friend's dad when I was a little kindergartener. Ganter is a fitting player to start this "All Star Countdown!"

While Jeni and I are both rejoicing in the thought that she will be going into in-patient care soon, this is a bittersweet time for us both. The thought of Jeni being away in the hospital for possibly two months is hard to comprehend (both for her and for I for similar and different reasons). We are hoping an praying that the phrase "all's well that ends well" will take on a whole new meaning in the weeks and months ahead. We are approaching the start of level two of this experience, and we pray that all will continue to go well.

The Gantner autographed card photo is taken from the Midwest League Autographs webpage. Looking at those old cards sure do bring back memories.

Some Good News...

I've got parent-teacher conferences coming up next week, and today I learned how valuable the phrase "keep up the good work" can be. I have said this countless times to parents and students, acknowledging the good job they've been doing. It never really hit me as to how meaningful this phrase could be until today.

This afternoon we had our third ultra-sound appointment as parents of "momo twins." I was at a funeral visitation before hand and arrived a little after the ultra sound had begun. As I entered the room, I was praying for good news, as the funeral visitation was quite sad (a classmate of mine from USM died in a bike accident... he was only 29). The nurses immediately greeted me warmly announcing that both babies gained 5 oz. in the past two weeks. Whoo hoo! Way to go momos! On top of that, we learned that there is no longer as much of a concern about the threat of twin-to-twin-transfusion syndrome. This was a big relief. The perinatologist started talking about when Jeni would be starting her inpatient stay- he recommended between 25-26 weeks. As usual, Jeni and I asked not to be told the sex of the babies, to which the doctor replied, "you'll see that enough when you're changing all those diapers." Did I happen to detect a bit of bedside humor here?

What a refreshing change from our first appointment when we were diagnosed with the momos and the grim statistics that came along with that diagnosis.

As I am writing this, I can't help but focus energy on the obvious... people are becoming increasingly positive about this pregnancy. We are not out of the woods yet, and it will be a long 4 weeks before we get Jeni to in-patient care, but, there just seems to be a hint of more optimism in the air today- from doctors, friends, and most of all, us. Perhaps the sunshine played a factor, or the hibiscus tree in our living room blooming two flowers this morning, or, maybe it was the fact that spring is coming, as evidenced by the arrival of the McDonald's Shamrock Shake, or did the Brewers pre-season victory over the A's have something to do with sending good karma our way? Who knows?

Instead of leaving the ultrasound room pitted out with Kleenex in hand wiping away tears of anxiety, today I left with a grin. It is hard not to laugh when one baby steps on the other's cord, causing the ultrasound technician to recalculate her data. This scene happened a few times, causing the nurse and even the ultrasound technician to laugh as well. Could it be that one or both of these twins is beginning to exhibit their father's goofy sense of humor and love for playing pranks?

To continue my Legend of Zelda analogy from my last post, I think we beat a new boss today and are on to the next part of our quest. This, however, is just one step in an increasingly long journey to go.

We are eternally grateful and blessed to be surrounded by so many people who are keeping us in their thoughts and prayers. It is almost overwhelming at times to think about! Thanks so much for all of you out there who are reading this. Now, on to the next level.

The Legend of the Momos

This week in class, students wrote poems about specific moments in time that were meaningful to them. This assignment is a proven winner with kids, and this year's crop of poems didn't disappoint. One young man wrote a poem about beating a Mario game, and I guess that got me thinking about how this monoamniotic pregnancy is beginning to remind me more and more of playing The Legend of Zelda.

Please allow me to digress for a minute, and take you back to the days of "William," the studious, fun-loving, worrying, baseball-obsessed 10 year old in 1987. I remember this summer too well... the smell of salty peanut shells wafting from beneath my seat at County Stadium, the scorching July heat pounding down on the tar driveway as we lit "snake" fireworks and smoke bombs with my uncles, the dusty Water Tower Park Little League diamond, and, the gold-plated rectangular video game, known as "The Legend of Zelda."

That was the summer that I practically lived with the Zieglers. It seemed like just about every day I would get together with Chad (who was a year older), Ryan (a year younger) and Erin (who was my age... and incidentally my first crush), and play. We'd go swimming, ride bikes, play “home run derby,” cranking tennis balls over the backyard neighbor's fence, and then, when it got dark, play Zelda. The Zieglers’ step-dad, a man who I called "Uncle Jack" worked at Miller 2nd shift and would come home later at night to see the four of us camped around their living room tv with hand drawn maps, half-eaten bags of chips and Pepsi cans, cheering each other on as we looked for special bows and arrows and did battle with ogres, monsters and other fanciful creatures who were part of the game. This became almost a daily ritual that summer, with "Uncle Jack" joining in the action, contributing to our quest after we were fast asleep.

As the summer came to a close, I remember a sweltering, humid day that Chad, who was by far the best at the game, ended up finally beating Ganon, the evil wizard, and rescuing the princess, only for the game to default into “The Second Quest” (where we would have to replay the game with different secrets and harder bosses). Would this game ever end??? Instead of some sort of virtual trophy popping out of the mouth of the 8 bit Nintendo Entertainment System, we instead were faced with having to replay the whole game. Ahhhh! We finally ended up beating that quest too, although it spanned into the start of the school year.

Now, you may ask, how does all this relate to our pregnancy? As we enter our third ultra sound with those oh, so lovely words, “high risk” stamped onto our file, I can’t help but compare our own journey to that of Link, the protagonist in the Legend of Zelda games. Once we overcome one obstacle, another three await. Once we beat those, we have to find another secret weapon, confront another boss, etc., etc., etc.

I can’t deny that this whole process is becoming increasingly taxing as the days turn into weeks, but, on the same token it is becoming increasingly exciting- as we are about a month out from when Jeni would go in-patient. From there, we have the NICU, and finally, when this whole thing is over, the best case scenario is that we bring home two lovely babies who we can worry about some more.

I mentioned to a close friend recently, “If only we can bring these babies home, then everything would be fine.” The friend commented, “No, Will. As soon as you bring the babies home, you will have something new to worry about. Welcome to being a parent.”

Nowadays, “Will,” the hard-working, good-humored, worrying, still baseball-obsessed 30 year old in 2008, can only hope and pray that we continue to beat the little bosses along the way and “beat” this game. I guess the quest never really ends, does it?

A Kick to the Face!

Last night before Jeni and I went to bed, I became increasingly worried about whether or not Jeni was feeling the babies. Let's face it, I am a worrier by nature, and the new phrase de jour in the Piper household is "are you feeling them?" Jeni, sympathetic to my worrying, but also in need of some sleep for her upcoming school day suggested that I listen to her stomach. I placed my head down on her tummy to see if I could get a little audio of what is going on in there, when it hit me... "WHAM!" a kick right to the side of my face. I have never been happier or more blessed to h be kicked in the face in my life! It was by far my "wow" moment of the weekend. What started off as flutters a week or so ago has progressed into tiny pokes and prods. An email from Jeni today, simply stating, "we're squirmy" also made me smile. It is fun to feel them kicking around.

(this photo, like all photos on this blog, is taken from the Flickr creative commons).

The Start of Spring Training

Those of you who know me well, know that there are few things I'm more passionate about than the Milwaukee Brewers. I'll admit it, on a public forum no less, that I got misty eyed last year when the Brewers got eliminated from post season play. I was so pulling for them. In my desk drawer are the unused tickets from the NL division and championship games that I was able to procure. I remember attending the last game of the season with my buddy Bloom and staying until the final out, leaving with a sense of sadness that our run at post-season glory was over. When I arrived home, Jeni greeted me with a hug saying, "It's ok. You'll get 'em next year." She thinks it is pretty silly how into the Brewers I get, but nevertheless is supportive.

So, as spring training opens today I went online and started mydaily ritual of reading up about the team on the Milwaukee Brewers website. As I was looking at the schedule, it hit me... many of the important dates in our pregnancy correspond to important events in the baseball season.

Our next ultra sound appointment: February 28h
(Brewers preseason opener against Oakland)

Jeni going into inpatient care (if all goes well at 26 weeks)
(The Brewers open their season against division rival, and the team that I despise more than any other, The Chicago Cubs)

I wish I could be as hopeful about all aspects of life as I am about baseball. I will say without batting an eyelash that I truly think the Brewers will make it to the post season this year. I have a good feeling. I also have a good feeling that, when they do, two beautiful twins will be by my side in their Brewers onsies taking it all in with their dad. We just have to get through spring training.