June and July

    We mentioned in the May post that we had met with Cincinnati doctors to discuss possible options for the treatment of Owen's PUV. At first we waited, and then we had the first shunt placement surgery. The shunts were placed into Owen's bladder and left kidney. They worked great! He was draining fluid and his bladder and left kidney were not staying dilated. (The right kidney stayed dilated, but did not get any larger during this time.) This went on for about 4 weeks or so.

     Then we lost the bladder shunt. It's possible it fell out, or Owen pulled it out. The fact is, we lost it. And his bladder started filling up, again. So we had to meet with the doctors in Cincinnati to discuss our options, again. When we met with the doctors we still had a small amount of fluid, and Owen was doing good so this was not an emergency decision. We were about 27 weeks along, so we were almost through the "critical lung development" time. This was great because if we had not had fluid through this time, Owen's chance for survival would have been greatly diminished.

   After meeting in Cincinnati, the doctors told us the decision was basically up to us. We could wait and do nothing. (As if my water had broken and just wait to deliver.) Or we could do another shunt surgery. There was a greater chance of early delivery due to the fact that we were much further along than the first time. We went home with a heavy burden, and not much time to decide. All in all, we decided we wanted to be able to say we did everything we could, and we went in for the surgery.

   Again, the surgery went great, we were discharged later that day. Unfortunately this shunt did not work properly as, it did not work to drain his bladder. Once this was discovered we were admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital on June 22. The decision to go to the hospital was based on the likely hood of Owen sitting or compressing his umbilical cord, and cutting of blood supply. This is a risk in pregnancies with little, or no fluid. By the end of 28 weeks we were pretty much without all fluid.

  At the hospital 3 Non-Stress Tests (NST) were performed daily. This is where the baby is hooked up to a heart monitor and a monitor checking for contractions as well. During the test, the baby's heart is monitored for D-Cells. This is where the heartbeat dips down to below 100 and stays for a bit, and comes back up. By the Lord's provision Owen NEVER had a D-Cell. Although doctors were clear the expected to see them. In fact, Owen was given the "Best Heart Rate on the Floor' award almost daily! The nurses and doctors were always so shocked at how wonderful his NST's were! (What else would you expect from a miracle baby?!)

   So June came and went, with daily NST's and 2 ultrasounds per week. July was pretty much the same, with one exception...the MRI. This was our second MRI during the pregnancy. (The first one taking over 2 hours and NOT a pleasant experience.) This next MRI was done to calculate Owen's lung volumes and place him in a percentile for lung development. Doctors made it clear that this was the number one reason PUV babies did not survive and they weren't overly optimistic about Owen's lungs.

   Well, our doctors should have been consulting The Great Physician because our ultrasound showed that Owen was in the normal range! I can't tell you the shock on some of their faces! However, they never wanted to get our hopes up too much, so we were always warned that this didn't mean everything was 100% okay.

June and July were full of ups and downs, and lots, and lots of bed rest. With August on the horizon, our resting would soon come to an end!