New Home: Anchorage, AK

I'm sure most of you have heard by now...but, yes, we're in the hospital. My water broke Tuesday afternoon, and five hours later, we were in Anchorage. We're at 34 weeks, 6 weeks early, so the doctors were concerned that the baby may not be fully developed. It only took 2 hours to arrange all the emergency travel arrangements to fly to the "big city" in Anchorage - Kodiak is not equip to handle pre-term labor situations, thus the reason we were swooped off to Anchorage.

Emily was excited to go on an airplane, but it was a little stressful knowing that we were about to go on an hour plane ride with a possible 'labor' situation. We arrived safely in Anchorage where it was snowing. We drove straight from the airport to the hospital, only diverting to get a late dinner at Carl's Jr. (We haven't had Carl's in over a year!)

The people at the hospital were waiting for us; they had been expecting our arrival since we left the doctor's office in Kodiak at about 4pm. At this point it was almost 10pm by the time we arrived to the hospital. Emily and Chris stayed at the hospital until about 1am until they went off to the hotel to get some sleep.

The first night in the hospital was extremely difficult and scary. It was FULL of new and terrifying information about the endless complications of having a preemie. The magnitude of this situation hit me hard, and the news coming in wasn't good.

I'll save you all the back-and-forth of information. To cut to the chase, Ethan's lungs are not fully developed and he needs more time "baking in the oven" before he is ready to come out. So, as it is now (2 days later) I'm chilling in the hospital, bedridden, trying not to go into labor. Yes, my water broke days ago, but they're monitoring me closely and giving me a ton of penicillin to prevent any infections. I've got the best doctor in the entire State of Alaska, and I'm not just saying that...she's seriously "the best."

We're hoping to "stay pregnant" for at least another week, and then Ethan will probably have another week in the hospital before we can take him home...this is Best Case Scenario. Worst case scenario...we'll be here till Christmas. We're all hoping for the best and hoping for positive results from each coming test.

Now that we're settled in our "new home" in the Anchorage hospital, I'll try to update the blog as things change.