Welcome, winter?

It's another day to appreciate being stuck inside. . . Axel is here with us now - he spent the week with Grandma Mary and she brought him to the hospital yesterday to stay and then he was to go home with Grandpa and Grandma Nelson today.  Looks like he'll be with us another day, because the blizzard has already landed in western Minnesota!  He was pretty wound up yesterday, missing his nap and coming off a week at Grandma's, but he's in much better shape today.  His stories and babblings have been the highlight of the day since he started talking, and he had a pretty good one this morning.  Told us his ear was itchy, and there was a "wack" in it.  I said, Oh, you have some wax in your ear?  No, he said, it's just one wack.

Yesterday we took a wheelchair ride to the cafeteria for lunch - Axel likes to ride, too, so Jesse pushes the five of us.  It's good for him.  I decided after a stroll around the place that I would just have a piece of pizza, and wanted to put some crushed red pepper on it.  Well some wise guy unscrewed the cover, and so as soon as I tipped it over to shake the flakes there was a pepper mountain on my plate.  We dumped it off as best we could, but I didn't really taste that piece of pizza.  I thought that kind of thing only happened in school cafeterias, not hospital cafeterias.

Friday we had another biophysical, and all the babies are doing well.  They don't have much room to move around anymore, so they're getting easier to find and monitor.  I continue to have contractions occasionally - not enough to alarm anyone or do anything about, just enough to be bothersome to me.  Now I am almost 44 weeks pregnant, size-wise, so this is still quite normal. 

My forearms are pretty beat up from all the IV switching.  I'm starting to look like my Grandpa Ray without the natural turquoise watch.  The IV people always like to comment on how much arm hair I have (not after all the bandage-ripping-off), another self-esteem boosting element to my stay here.  And I love having visitors, which I've had a few of this week, but everyone always looks so cute and I can't help but remember I've been wearing stretchy pants and oversized t-shirts sitting in bed for over four weeks.  Bleh.

It gets really busy in the labor and delivery wing here - one evening there were seven babies born.  We would have no idea about this in our quiet little corner, except that occasionally we hear a woman screaming in agony, and the nurses disappear for awhile.  Sometimes I don't see them for hours and have to call and ask if they plan on bringing me my medication.  That's a little irritating at times, because I shouldn't be in charge of my own care.  I could be doing that at home.

Yesterday they sent in the nurse I detest - the one who was here with my last round of bleeding and didn't bother to monitor Baby C.  They promised me I wouldn't have to see her anymore, so that kind of ruined my day.  She came in to my room full of visitors and said, Hi, remember me?  I was here when you had all that bleeding last time.  You're not going to do that again, right?  Well, I don't know, Smarty, I'll try not to make you work during your shift.  I had to remind her that I need my blood pressure taken before I'm given a certain medication, because if it's too low I can't have it.  Then she came later and made me put the cuffs on my legs that inflate and reduce swelling/blood clots.  I said to her that I've worn those like three times since I got here, and she said she was going to put them on anyway.  When I speak to this woman she must hear Wah Wah Wah like the adults on Charlie Brown.

If you've been counting, this week is 32 weeks.  I think I mentioned before that this will not go past 32 weeks, and that is true.  That's all I'm going to say about that - we've got to have some mystery here! - but keep your ears open if you're interested.  The Nelson family will be doubling in size this week.