What's Rankin been thinking about lately?

What I’ve been thinking about recently is my wife and our soon-to-be growing family. Two Sundays ago, I shared with the congregation that Morgen and I are expecting a baby, but also that there were some complications and we were in need of prayer. Here are the two most recent entries from Morgen’s blog

May 10, 2009 – Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

Mom has been telling me for a while that I should return to writing a blog (you can see my previous blog here). And now that I have some time on my hands…I’m trying again.

Here’s the scoop: I am 14 weeks pregnant!

Three weeks ago, I hurried to the doctor because of some severe pain and bleeding, but an ultrasound showed a healthy-looking baby with a good heartbeat (whew!).

My doctor put me on bedrest and said we’d do another ultrasound in a week.

When I returned (two weeks ago now), the baby still looked great, but there was a blood clot in the uterus from the previous week’s bleed. The clot was about 5 centimeters, about the same size as the baby, and is dangerous because if it breaks apart, it will contaminate/irritate the uterus and trigger a miscarriage.

“Think of it as the vacation you’ve always wanted,” said my doctor, as she explained I’d need to stay on bedrest at least until week 26, and possibly for the duration of the pregnancy. Yikes!

So here I am on the couch, where I spend my days. It’s Sunday morning, which meant pre-bedrest that I would be at this church, listening to my brilliant husband preach. But for now I’ll listen via podcast, even though it means I have to wait a few days.

We go back for our next ultrasound on Tuesday morning, to see how everything is going inside this little belly bump!

May 12, 2009 – Doctor’s Report

We went to see our doctor this morning.

I realized as we drove over to UCLA that I was pretty anxious. We were practically whisked into the sonogram room, and once she had the image of our baby on the screen, the technician asked her assistant to find Dr J. I squeezed Rankin’s hand a little harder.

Our doctor stepped into the room, and her face lit up, “Oh, wow,” she said, “this is like the best possible news. I’ve got chills!” She explained that the clot is shrinking (from 5 cm to 3.5 cm) and that it’s no longer subplacental, or underneath the placenta. Apparently, this is very good and much less dangerous than the previous arrangement.

We both felt like crying from relief.

A few minutes later, in a different room, Dr. J gave me a hug and said, “I know you had so many people praying for you, I’ve still got chills.” (She herself was one of those praying, we are grateful to have such an amazing doctor!)

So I’m still supposed to be resting, but the restrictions have been relaxed. Still no strenuous activity or stairs or heavy lifting, but I can take a short walk after dinner, I can go to the office for a few hours each day, I can go to church. Hooray!