More Ups and Downs

Tuesday we had another ultrasound to look at Jillian's adrenal gland. In all the craziness of the hypoplastic left heart diagnosis, this was something I'd more or less forgotten all about. Every now and then my mind visited this other "issue" but we were told it was nothing to worry about, so I didn't. Which is a miracle, because I? Worry about everything. So the ultrasound showed that the adrenal gland looked normal- before it looked as though it was hemorrhaging, but now it looks fine. Phew! That was a small weight lifted off our shoulders.
We also discussed where we'd be delivering Jillian. When all this heart stuff came up we knew we'd be delivering in Denver and were given either University Hospital or Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital as options. JR and I thought University Hospital would be good because it is literally next door to Children's Hospital where Jillian's surgery would be- 1/2 a mile away. She would be taken to Children's an hour or two after she is born, assessed and stabilized for a few days (hopefully) and then go in for her first surgery. But, after talking with the doctor we've been seeing for all of our ultrasounds we've decided to go with PSL. Delivering there means we'll have the same doctor (the one doing the ultrasounds) instead of having to drag a 4th, new doctor into the mix. It means I can keep my OB appointments with my doctor I've been seeing at home until the last few weeks when everything will just be transferred to "Dr. Ultrasound". And most importantly it means Jillian will be able to stay in the same hospital until I'm ready to be discharged. PSL has a cardiac unit that is able to care for this little babies until mom's are ready to leave the hospital so there isn't that gaping separation I had been dreading. She'll be on a different floor, in a whole different part of the hospital, but at least I will be able to visit her, instead of just hoping to get a room with a view of Children's hospital. Phew! again! Another small weight lifted off our shoulders.
So we left our ultrasound feeling more cautiously optimistic than we have for a while. The thing though, about being "cautiously optimistic" is that it requires some kind of caution to be put in place so that you're not just "optimistic". Apparently I had thrown all caution out the window, though, because I really was feeling optimistic. And how nice it was to feel like we had some semblance of a plan going. We had some idea of how this was going to play out, more or less. And we were comfortable (well as comfortable as we could be given the situation) with that plan. 
Then yesterday happened. All day I had these horrible abdominal pains. First I thought I just needed to eat something... nope. That just made it worse. I tried to just drink water... nope. That seemed to make it worse too. Finally JR came home from work- I just couldn't handle the pain and trying to take care of Oli and Athan. They didn't understand I wasn't feeling well, and they shouldn't have to at their age. And the more stressed I felt, the worse the pain was. So JR came home and I laid down and slept for a couple of hours. Surely that would help, right? Right? No. I woke up and the pain was worse than ever before, so off to the ER we went.
They monitored Jillian's heart and put the contraction monitor on me just in case. Well, it turns out I was having contractions- at 27 weeks- and every now and then when I had one Jilly's heart rate dipped, showing some sort of distress. Fantastic! Just what we need... This baby can not come out for at least another 10 weeks... at least. How am I not supposed to worry and stress about this?
A few hours, some blood tests and an IV later, things settled down enough for us to go home under the condition that I take it easy and rest for the next few days. I'm not sure how that's going to work out exactly, but I suspect it will involve the boys destroying my house on a daily basis while I just watch from the couch.