Quote from Forum Archives on May 14, 2004, 3:15 am

Posted by: lifeunlimited <lifeunlimited@...>

Dear Friends:

 

+  Here is another special update directly from our daughter, Deanna, concerning Thursday's ultrasound and consultation with the doctor.  Rather than my try to rewrite it, I'll just let her speak for herself.

 

+  I'd also like to ask that you pray for Jo Ann.  She's been having lots of pain at night for the past three out of four nights, getting hardly any sleep.  It's much like she has experienced in the past with her gall bladder.  This pain, however, seems to also be in her upper back and shoulders, so it is creating a little more concern.  The Phazyme has not given her much relief, but, interestingly, her blood pressure medication does.  When she has taken her blood pressure during these times of pain, it has been as high as 183 over 92, but we've presumed this is simply because of the stress that pain puts on a body.  Her reading a few minutes ago was 177 over 113 the second time she took it.  We really feel that may be because she's not getting enough sleep; last night it was past 3:30 before she got to sleep.

 

+  Finally, continue praying about our future.  We feel much closer to an understanding of what the Lord is leading us to do, but still have to work through some factors.  Last night while watching the Gaither's Billy Graham music video with the leaders of our Hispanic ministry, I felt the Lord really assured me that He was going to do a mighty work in Kiev.  So, we know that no matter how long we're here, the work will not have been in vain.  We'll try to meet with the administration at Kiev Christian University next week (last week's meeting never developed) to get a sense of whether or not that may develop.

 

+  We've just received word from our Cuban friends who lead our Hispanic work that the UNHCR has approved them for visas to the U.S.  We are thrilled over this recent development, although it will ultimately involve still further changes in the leadership of the church's ministry.  I must also thank those of you, in their behalf, who have been involved in providing financial sustenance for them.  They have absolutely nothing, but faithfully serve the Lord and minister to the people.  If they aren't taking care of their legal matters or leading one of the two weekly Bible studies, they're out prayer walking neighborhoods and universities.  The situation is not a "done deal" yet, but at least the UNHCR has given approval.  Now it's up to the U.S. Embassy.

 

+  You might want to go to  http://community.webshots.com/user/01lum and take a look at the two latest picture albums of our ladies' trip to the women's conference in Germany.  You will be blessed.  I just got these on line last night.

 

We're so grateful for your prayers.  The longer we minister here in Kiev, the more we comprehend and appreciate the incredible uniqueness of the body of Christ as, in all its variations and forms, it ministers life within itself to all its parts and locations.

 

Thank you for being part of that process.  Here are exerpts from Deanna's letter.

 

In His Bond,

 

Bob

 

---------------------------

 

Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 1:11 AM

Subject: News on Nicole from today's visit

1) she has turned and is now head-down (or upside down as JoyLinn puts it),

2) The amniotic fluid level measured UP at 16! (up from 8.5 1 ½ weeks ago),

3) the fluid in the brain ventricles is DOWN from 9.9 to a more comfortable 8.5 and

4) my abdominal measurements are up from 10 days ago.

 

The “kinda good/still a concern” news is that though, still not quite what they want to see, the Non-Stress Test was “better” today than on Friday at Barnes.  It did show the heart rate increasing whenever there was movement, just not quite as much as they want and not quite as sustained as they want. 

 

The baby is still very small and I am to get “lots of rest on my left side to help the baby grow”. I have to admit, I have not gotten near the regular daily rests/breaks with this pregnancy that I did with the first two. . . .

 

The portion of the brain (part of the corpus collosum) that was not clearly defined in the Barnes ultrasound, is not something either doctor is overly concerned about at this time.  The doctor at Barnes thinks it is very likely a “normal variant” and didn’t see anything grossly unusual that caused concern on his part.  We are going to wait until after the baby is born to have an MRI is it’s necessary then.

 

. . . . there are 10 different areas they check and hope to have 8 positive results out of the 10.  Today we had 6 positive and 2 “borderline”.  The 4 areas they are still wanting to keep monitoring for are

1) The baby’s size,

2) A better NST result,

3) fetal tone (don’t know what that means), and

4) fetal breathing.

 

I’ll try to better explain the 4^th.  10 days ago during the ultrasound, the baby was moving and we saw her breathing, etc.  Last Friday at Barnes on the ultrasound, the same occurred.  Babies in the womb don’t breathe constantly, it’s more sporadic.  It’s actually just “practice” and part of lung development for the real thing.  They still get their oxygen through the umbilical cord. What they look for in the ultrasound is a period of breathing that lasts a min. of 30 seconds.  Today they only saw occasional breathing that lasted a couple seconds.  However, she was asleep and not moving around at all – which is normal for the time of day they did the ultrasound today.  She finally got active towards the end of the NST, but by then the ultrasound was over.  Last night she had the hic-cups for over a half hour on more than one occasion.  Hiccups count for fetal breathes as well, so too bad she didn’t have them today.  Anyway, I’m not concerned at all about it because they said they tend to have those periods of breathing when they are active.  She still continues to be very active through out every day.

 

So………….we are going to have another ultrasound and NST on Monday morning and likely will continue to have 1-2 a week until delivery OR until they get more desirable results consistently on those 4 areas.

 

Oh – the bladder was still full, but still no concern of blockage or kidney problems.  The doctor said they are most concerned when they see this occur in boys – so he’s not concerned about it.  [A grandfather's observation ---- is it possible that this explains why little girls have to stop to go to the bathroom so often when traveling, and why ladies have to make a gazillion trips to the "ladies room" when out for dinner?  Just curious.]

 

Also, when looking back at some earlier “signals”, it is even more likely that the due date should be July 6 (yeah, Dawn and Janie) instead of June 21^st.  That alleviates some of the concern for the babies size and the NST not being quite what they’d like, but still both need to improve.

 

I was confident we would see the improvement in the fluid levels that we did today and I’m just as confident that we will continue to see improvement in these other areas as well.

 

I’m going to do my best to lay around on my left side and gets lots of rest.  Guess that means my house is not going to be as clean as I’d like and Jim might be cooking more meals.  Good thing he can cook and follow a recipe. (actually,  if he couldn’t I would have more excuses to get pizza, but oh, well)

 

Continue to pray for the 4 areas of concern and also that the fluid levels that have returned to normal would stay so.

 

Deanna

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