Made it to 25 weeks

Well, we've made it to 25 weeks along. From this point on the babies have a fighting chance. We received the steroid shots last week. so that will help the babies lungs. Friday we got called into the Doctors office after he had visited with us that morning. He helped us conclude that it was time to do another amniotic reduction even though it had only been five days. I was Huge and it ended up being a good decision. They took off 2.5 liters of fluid. It is amazing the difference that it makes. You can visibly see the difference before and after. Not to mention the 10 pound weight loss. I do labor for several hours after a procedure. But so far they seem to get it under control.

We're still hangin' in there. I am grateful for books. Reading really helps me pass the time. It has been so nice to have a couple of my friends visit from time to time. That is a real blessing! I also have a friend with three children who is an angel and takes Jakob for a couple of hours two days each week. That is a HUGE Blessing!!! This gives Leif some down time during the week and some time for us to be together.

Life has pretty much settled into a routine that is working out alright. We feel the blessings from all of the prayers and thank those of you who are offering them in our behalf. I guess that pretty much says it all at this point. We hope you are all well! God Bless!

OH! Some of you have asked for our mailing address, it is:
Salt Lake City, Utah

Welcome To Our Journey

I was pondering recently the encouragement that we have been given by our church leaders to keep a journal. I wonder if in the future when our children's children are in primary their lesson title will be "The Importance of Keeping a Blog." :)

We have decided to create this blog not only so those of you who are interested in staying up to date with our family can, but so that we have a way to document our journey and share it with our children.I will add a few emails that I sent out throughout the last three weeks just for record keeping sake and then we will just continue from there. I hope we will all find a way to enjoy our individual journey, whatever it may be.

October 7,2006

I was admitted back into the hospital on October 3rd. I went in with contractions and they admitted me after an amniotic fluid reduction. We all figured that the babies have the longest chance to stay in utero if I stay in the hospital.

Email:
October 7, 2006
Good Morning Everyone,

I wish I could say "Good late morning" But that is not the case. I finally had a pretty good nights sleep and then it was interrupted at around 6:50 AM with a nurse checking my blood pressure and giving me my meds, two resident doctors asking the same silly questions they always do, and a real doctor checking up on me and the babies. All at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I appriciate the care, it was just... an early morning wind of doctors. They left and I realized that I hadn't even had a second to wake up enough to cover myself up...just so they could uncover me and poke my tummy...:) Modesty....

Anyway, as you may have gathered I am in the hospital again. I am here at LDS hospital until I deliver the babies. Tomorrow is a big day for us, I will be 24 weeks along. This may seem no big deal, but what it means is that when the babies are born the staff will do all they can to help them survive and the babies will have what it takes to survive. We are in no way shooting to deliver any time soon. But I do have a count down chain for 28 weeks which we feel is a very reasonable goal (30 days). Although, to get into the 30 week timeframe would be Perfect!!!

You know.. within the last twenty minutes I have been visited by the lab to take some blood and my breakfast came. Can I just say, you hear about people complaining about hospital food... BELIEVE IT! My food intake has dramatically changed. The food here is HORRIBLE! And I really am not that picky. Especially when food is so important right now. Anyway sorry for the complaint...

So, that's our update. I'm in the hospital. Leif and Jakob are living in the apartment 5 minutes away. We're trying to create a semblence of routine for Jakob and life is moving on day by day. It's not the journey of choice, but we're hangin' in there.

I hope this finds all of you well! Love to hear from you!

Love, Lena, Leif and Jakob

September 28, 2006: Going home

September 28
Good Morning Everyone,

Well, today we're finally able to be released from the hospital. We've been here 9 days! That is amazing! We have had a jouney to remember while here. Our nurses and doctors have been Outstanding! But perhaps the most special part of the experience has been the spirit that we have fealt as a blessing from our Father in Heaven. He has directed this journey even before we knew we were going to take it. I think it began with our cars transmission breaking down in U two days before we were supposed to be back to SG for our Dr appointment. Our warrenty covers everything and they gave us a great comfortable mini SUV to drive back until our car was fixed. (We just got the call this morning that we can pick it up tomorrow.:)

Then we ended up getting REFUNDABLE plane tickets. How in the world does that happen? But it did. And it saved us a bundle as we had to make a lot of changes to our flights.

Miracle after miracle happened as we worked on getting the babies and my body stable enough to carry the babies until they can survive. It took a lot of contraction control medicine, strict bedrest, two amniotic fluid reductions, and one cerclauge surgery. FayLynn put it well when she called me a pin cushion. That's about how I feel. :) Now I just need to make it through the flight today and head in to see the Dr. at LDS hospital on Friday.

Leif will fly back to vegas and drive to AZ to pack, pick up Jakob, and zip up to SL as soon as he can. We will then move into my brother's appartment and get settled in. Things seem to be going remarkably well!

The babies and I are stable for the moment. From this point on it will most likely be strict bedrest and weekly amniotic fluid reductions. We pray that we won't have to deliver for at least 10 more weeks. But the babies have a chance if we can wait at least 2 weeks and 3 days.

We have felt the results of all of your prayers and we thank you!!! we'll keep you posted! Thank you for your love and support!!!

Love, Lena and Leif

September 23, 2006: Just an update

September 23
hello everyone,

I just wanted to thank everyone who wrote us and let us know they were thinking and praying for us. We are still in Seattle. As of yesterday morning we had another exam and ultrasound and prayers have been helping because we found that both babies blood flows are more balanced. That helped the baby with no fluid to begin to produce fluid on her own. We also found that were I was dilated, I'm not anymore, and that is a miracle. Because of these good things, though we are not out of the dark completely, they decided not to do the surgery right now in hopes the babies will continue to balance themselves out. So they've kept me in the hospital on bed rest with a little less restriction until Monday morning and we will have another exam and ultasound. Depending on how things look, they will either do the lazer sugery or reduce the fluid again or neither. And either way we will be released by the middle of next week. (Hopefully) When we are out of the hospital we will be promptly moving to SLC to be near the Hospitals and specialists there.

Some of you mentioned that you are actually in the area of Seattle. We of course would be thrilled to see any of you. I'm not going anywhere for the next few days.

We hope all is well, and Love you all.

Lena and Leif Baron

September 21, 2006: In the hospital...in Seattle

September 21, 2006
good morning everyone! i appologize now for the lack on caps in this letter. i'm wrting one handed on my back. this can't be too long cuz the comps giving me a headache. but the news is dramatic but true.
leif and i are at a hospital in seattle washington. its called the evergreen hospital in kirkland for those who care. we spent tha last two weeks in utah and are excited to congratulate leif on becoming a licensed real estate agent! while in utah my stomache grew an enormous amount. and we made a trip to the ER cuz i was contracting. but i suffered thru that until tuesday when we arrived in SG and met with our perinatologist. he immidiately identified the problem through the ultrasound. our baby girls are struggling with a level two case of twin to twin syndrome. that is where since the girls share a placenta unfortunatly they have also ended up shareing blood vessels within that placenta. because of this, one baby receives the majority of the blood and nutrients and produces all of the amniotic fluid in her sac and the other baby doesnt get hardly anything and produces no fluid as a result. Soo, this was and is an emergancy. as of yesterday the babies were still hangin in there. the newest procedure is to destroy the blood vessels that the babies are sharing through a lazor surgery. but only five clinics in th US do the procedure. So we found out at 3:00 tuesday and we were on a flight to seattle by 9:00pm. The flight was a nightmare because my abdomen was so full of fluid. we landed and got to the hotel by midnight. i went potty and found that i had lost my mucus plug. not good at all!! called the dr. he said to rest and come in the morning. by 6:30 in the morning i was leaking fluid. after lots of exams and looking at the babies. we all determined that the surgery was not an option at the moment. the baby had produced up to 16 cm of fluid which is about double it needs and my membranes were going to burst in the next six hours if they hadn't already. we couldn't tell because it could have just been a tiny hole leeking fluid. anyway, they immidiately began an amniotic fluid reduction through a tiny needle. they took out three liters and could have taken more.but naturally due to the utero irritation i was contracting steadily. it took several hours of fabulous doctoring and nursing and meds, but we have now calmed everything down and as far as we can tell i'm not leeking anything as of this morning. this is a very good thing. it means that the uterous may have healed from ant tiny ruptures and we'll see what we can do to help the babies later today. i'm on absolute bed rest. no sitting up and of course no standing. we have been blessed. this is a very hard thing. but the people here are amazing!!!!!! our nurse yesterday went home and called her friend whos a member of the church and her friend called us immidiately to tell us that she had already put our names on the temple prayer roll and wanted to come and help us as soon as we let her. we truly stand all amazed! we have a long journey ahead. but we are blessed. jakob is with grandma and grandpa. we miss him terribly but thank mark and faylynn for their love. i have to go. if you want get in touch email us or email and ask for our number and we'll tell you where we are. love you all!

Lena and Leif