After finally getting a solid night of sleep I woke up on Sunday morning feeling refreshed and full of hope. We ordered breakfast and I got dressed before my nurse came in to start the day.We hadn’t met before but she was just the kind of nurse I needed. She was smart and experienced but she was also funny and laughed at our dark humor. She updated the whiteboard: 26+3.

The first visitor that morning was my best friend from nursing school. She came to see me before starting her shift at another hospital across the street. I was looking forward to rekindling our friendship over the months I would be in Denver. As she said goodbye and ran off to work I was strapped to the monitor. The baby was moving a lot and looked happy, the day was off to a good start. Travis was in good spirits too. He was his usual, motivated self, jumping into action to get things done. Travis wrote our plans for the day on my whiteboard: pool, Ronald McDonald House, outside.

First thing on his list was the pool. We had met another couple on our floor during the NICU class yesterday so he went to her room to see if she would swim with me. He wanted me to get out and make friends, but also the pool wouldn’t open for one person so he had to recruit someone to join me. Travis also wanted to check out the Ronald McDonald House down the street with her husband. We were all going to need a place to stay nearby while our babies were in the NICU so Travis made a man-date to go with him later that day.

The OB team came in towards the end of my monitoring. There were some new faces among the familiar. They told me baby looked great and I was free to go swimming. Someone brought up activity and I mentioned that I was told I shouldn’t walk further than the nurses station and should use a wheelchair. One of the new faces told me I could walk. She even told me I could walk to the pool that day. I was elated. Things were going well and I could function a little more like a free woman than a prisoner. Then we started talking about what to expect in the next week. Travis was due back at work on Wednesday and he didn’t want to burn through his leave before the baby was born. He wanted to go home for work, but it was over three hours away. I told him he would have to be OK with the idea of possibly missing the birth of our child. The OB team told us that there were no guarantees, but they felt confident that we would have enough warning before the c-section for Travis to make it back. They said it would be unlikely that we would have to immediately rush to surgery. They predicted we would see a downward trend in baby’s condition before making the decision to deliver. They also wanted me to receive some IV medication to protect the baby’s brain immediately before delivery so they felt confident there would be time for him to make it back. The idea of him leaving made me nervous. I wanted him here with me and I didn’t want him to miss the delivery but it was silly for him to stay. We could be here weeks or months. He needed to save his leave for when we had a baby in the NICU. We decided to wait until after the ultrasound tomorrow to make any decisions. Besides, I was sure the ultrasound would show improvement and I would be pregnant for a long time.

Physical therapy showed up right at 11 to bring us to the pool and I happily pushed my wheelchair instead of sitting. I hadn’t gone floating for a few days and had forgotten how far away it was. After the long hallways and weaving through the hospital it ended up being about a half of a mile. I was already tired when we got there.

I still didn’t have a bathing suit so I got to wear the hospital issued one again, and again we had a good laugh about it. The guys decided to hang out with us girls so it ended up kind of being a double date. It was definitely the weirdest setting and circumstance for a date I’ve ever had, but it was actually fun. We got to know each other and talked about our lives and complications with our pregnancies. We found out this was going to be their first baby and we told them how awesome it is to be parents. We started reminiscing about the days when Logan was a newborn and I felt the mood lighten between me and Travis. For an hour we forgot about the statistics on survival, and the NICU, and the hard months ahead of us. For the first time in weeks I saw Travis’ face light-up when he talked about the baby. I have a moment burned into my memory of Travis sitting on the side of the pool with a huge grin and bright eyes as he talked about how much he had forgotten about having a newborn and how excited he was to change diapers in the middle of the night again. The hour went quickly and soon our wheelchairs were lined up for our walk back to the room. This time I sat and let Travis push me. The walk was long and I was feeling tired but our spirits remained high as we returned to the room. I took a leisurely shower, and worked out every dreadful hospital bed tangle from my hair, got dressed, and ordered some lunch. I texted my sister to update her on the day and to tell her how well things seemed to be going. I told her I thought this was all a big mistake, like I was the boy who cried wolf. The baby was stable and kicking like crazy. It felt more and more strange to be stuck in the hospital without being sick.

Our good friends from Aspen arrived in the early afternoon with their daughter who is a little older than Logan. They were on their way to the Denver airport and the timing worked out perfectly for them to stop by. It was great to have more familiar faces there. My parents arrived soon after with Logan, and Tracy was just behind them. She came with more snacks and a real bathing suit. Tomorrow I would have a real suit to wear at the pool. She hung it on the IV pole which was tucked in the corner of the room since we had no need for it. She was so worried about getting me the right size but it didn’t matter, I never got a chance to wear it. We ate, we talked, the kids played, and my hospital room had suddenly become a party. I was happy but exhausted. Travis didn’t make it to the Ronald McDonald House and I never made it outside but I figured we’d do it tomorrow. I was too tired to venture outdoors and I welcomed the excuse to lay down for another round of monitoring.

At this point, because I do this for a living, I was given free reign to hook myself up to the monitor on my own so I leaned back and got started. Every time we put the monitor on we had trouble finding the baby. We would get quick glimpses of a heartbeat and then lots of scratching noise (which was the baby moving away) and then we would have to go chasing her again. It wasn’t enough to say we could hear and feel her moving, we need to record her heartbeat. Tracy was still there and I recruited her to help me but we still couldn’t catch my stubborn baby. I finally gave up and had my nurse work her magic. Even she had a hard time getting a good reading. This baby would not sit still. I was smiling and secretly delighting in my stubborn little fighter but she finally cooperated. The rest of my visitors left and I spent the afternoon relaxing in bed and chatting with my family and or course snuggling with Logan.

After a few hours my nurse came back to release me from the monitor. She casually mentioned that there were a lot of variables. “Really?” I asked her. “Crap.” She nodded knowing that I understood what she was saying and left. I tried to keep a poker face for the rest of the room. When they asked me what it meant I explained that the baby’s heart rate kept dropping abruptly. I told them it didn’t mean anything yet, just something to know. Inside I was scared. This wasn’t a good thing. When the OB team said they would keep me pregnant until the baby wasn’t tolerating pregnancy anymore this is what they were talking about. Variables weren’t necessarily bad, but frequent and prolonged variables could be. I tried to relax and put it out of my mind. She wouldn’t have taken me off the monitor if the OB team wasn’t happy with what they saw. We still need to monitor before bed, I thought. It will be better after I eat dinner, the baby will be happier after I have a milkshake.

My family left to eat dinner and get Logan to bed. Just like the previous nights I said goodbye to my parents and Logan, and Travis would be back shortly after eating. While he was gone I met my night nurse. She was just as awesome as all the ones I’d had before. I told her about my horrible night with the bed and asked if she had any tips for getting it to just be normal. She looked at it and was puzzled as to why it was in my room and even on this floor. My nurse the night before had given me an egg crate cushion to make it better but this nurse went a step further. Just as Travis returned from dinner a new, normal, non self-inflating bed was brought in. Things were looking better and better. The baby needed to be monitored one more time that night so I got hooked up and we decided to watch a movie until we were allowed to sleep. Travis crawled in to bed with me and we started to watch ‘Gone Girl’ not realizing the title we selected was foreshadowing the night’s events. We didn’t even make it half-way through before the trouble started.

My nurse kept coming in because the baby would not stay on the monitor. She would repeatedly adjust the straps and manipulate the little discs on my belly until the baby finally stayed put. Around 11 PM she came back and started some fluids in my IV to “try to get the baby to perk up,” and not too long after that she tried to sound calm as she asked me to roll onto my left-side and put an oxygen mask on my face. Travis stopped the movie and I tried to take slow, deep, calm breaths. No one was saying anything but they didn’t have to. I knew what was going on. It was the beginning of the end.