"Live from Hotel Clarion... its your Saturday update live!"

It's Saturday; every day seems to run together, and I can't believe that this is our 6th day! I feel like we are staying in a Hotel and I have a bad bed or something!

I'm very happy to say that Clayton is doing great! He's now sleeping in a "regular" crib in the NICU, weening of his oxygen and is really looking strong! He's now feeding from a bottle every three hours, and sleeps very well - he's getting into a good routine. He's not throwing up too much, and I point that out because my mom says that I was a projectile vomiter! i haven't noticed any drool, so I'm sorry to say that it doesn't appear that he can be called the "human faucet 2" as I was so often called. The nurses say that he's sleeping very well, and isn't fussing too much. The one thing they point out is that he is so strong! The night nurses call him little Hurculese. When he grabs on to my fingers, he tries to pull himself up - when Kate saw that she told him to slow down!! His recovery has been tremendous, and I'd say that he could be moved over to our room any day; although they may keep him for a little while longer for a few observations and stuf like that.

Kate is looking, sounding and feeling MUCH better as well. However, due to some lingering effects of the Preeclampsia and HELLP -like syndrome that Kate is dealing with, we are still going to be in the hospital until they can figure a few things out. She's gone from being nearly incoherant, blurred vision and constantly sleeping, to where she is now in feeling much better, a little sleepy and out of breath, and obviously all of the pains that a woman would have who pushed 3+ hours to give birth.

Kate came down with a form of a syndrome that affects a small percentage of pregnant women. What exactly she has/had is not certain - it appears to be an atypical form of severe Preeclampsia or HELLP. There are a number of symptoms that she had, and some classic symptoms of each that were not present in her situation - so all we know is that it was some form of this "family" of similar syndromes that can occur in pregnancy. As a result many of the major body system processes were out of whack, and even post delivery her numbers did not improve - but actually continued to decline. As of today - almost all of those processes reversed their negative trend and have improved to near-normal levels and out of the range of concern. However, there is still one lingering effect that is not yet rebounding, but still slowly progressing.

What's great, is that nearly all of the "-ologists" (what I am calling the group of specialists that have been visiting us and consulting) have written her progress off as a success, However, there is one primary "ologist" that that is actively working on this right now and getting to the bottom of what is still going on.

What we do know - is that this is all directly related to the Preeclamsia-like syndrome that she had. Some of our early posts that talked about the Magnesium may have given the appearance that this was all connected to the drug. In reality, the drug does in fact hit people hard - but it was the effects of the syndrome on her organs and body processes that exhasperated those effects of the "Mag". The drug itself is actually the best defense against the risk of having a seizure which is the worst case scenario of Clampsia, which could kill an unborn baby - so we are greatfull that with the Magnesium, she did not experience such a severe consequence.

We are confident that the doctors and nurses are doing a geat job - and Kate will be back to being as healthy and lively as ever as soon as possible! Their information, attention to detail and overall overly caring service while we've been at the hospital has made this whole situation as comfortable and bearable as possible.

I know this is alot of information, and some of you may jump on google trying to undertand more completely - but please don't jump to conclusions through all of the crazy information that you may come across on the internet. This isn't a black and white situation, and while serious, the doctors have things under control and have Kate in as good of a situation as she can be right now. She is improving every day -and I'm confident that the worst of our worries are behind us.

As for when she's going to go home - we're not yet sure. The doctors obviously want her entire picture of health to improve to normal levels. Once this happens, we'll be able to go home! While her stay at the hospital was said to me to be "indefinite", its not "indefinite" as in being for a long time - it's day to day because they need to get her back to being her normal self. My uncertain guess is that we'll get to go home sometime early next week, but again nothing is for sure. It could be tommorow for all we know!

In the mean time - please feel free to reply back to Kate and I through this website - Its been very usefull for us in getting pictures and information out to all of you who have been so caring through all of this! Kate is very aware that you guys are thinking of her - and appreciates your thoughts. She's not very good at returning messages right now, isn't answering her phone very often, and when getting visitors, hasn't been in very good shape to entertain due to needing lots of rest to help her recover - however we know you all care and are very appreciative!

I'll try to get up some more pictures later tonight! And Aunt Debbie, I'm working on getting the video of my first diaper change on here - there is footage!