Wednesday Q & A

How (and where) is Geri?
She's home. We heard for a while that she was going to be simply moved to the hospital near her home, where she would stay until she delivered. That would certainly be more convenient for her and, arguably, her family. It did make us a little nervous for a couple of reasons: (a) Did this mean someone thought she would be delivering in the near future, and (2) the hometown hospital doesn't have a nursery that is equipped to handle 33-week babies. If they are born before 35 weeks the babies will be flown to another hospital.

As it turned out, though, they examined her at the hometown hospital and released her. So she is on Bedrest With Extreme Prejudice (only up for bathroom and maybe an occasional shower).

Is everything still going well?
The labor does seem to be stopped. As far as we know, the babies are still doing well. There is a natural tension that inevitably creeps in at this point. Geri, who is understandably miserable between the twins and the medication, wants the little darlings out. She wants them to be well, but if someone told her they would be born completely healthy today it would be a relief. Sarah and I want them to be as well done as possible before coming out. We don't want Geri to suffer at all, but if we knew they would stay in there until 37 weeks just to be sure, we would be relieved. So we all want the same things, but as we're getting news about what the doctors have (unilaterally) decided, we are listening with slightly different priorities. That's completely expected at this point.

What if the contractions start up significantly again?
If that happens before the twins "turn" 36 weeks, then Geri will go to her local hospital for what they call a "mag wash." That means they'll put her back on the magnesium sulfate to try to stop the labor. Ideally the labor would stop and they would return her to the pump and send her home. If not and they had to go ahead with delivery, we don't know where that delivery would take place. Would they risk sending her back to Kettering where they have a nursery equipped for premature newborns? Or would they deliver at the local hospital and fly the twins to the proper hospital? That would probably depend on how far along she was in labor and how far they thought she could travel. Whatever the decision, rest assured that Geri, Jeremy, Sarah, and I will find out about it long after it has been made.

I use a Tablet PC just like you, with a recent install of Windows Vista. Recently, while I was away, I began having serious problems with it. Any time the User Account Control box (i.e. "Cancel or Allow") would usually appear, it simply doesn't. This means I can't do some important things, like connect to the hotel's free wireless Internet service. Do you have any idea what might be causing this?
I have no idea, but it does sound like it would render your tablet pretty much useless, which might be very annoying if you wanted to, say, research treatments for pre-term labor or keep your family informed about what was going on.

Should I try spending hours attempting to run various utilities as an Administrator, or searching the Microsoft website for solutions?
No, that won't do any good. My recommendation would be, now that you're home, to simply ignore it and hope it fixes itself before you need to go away again. That might work.

Our car, a hatchback, has one of those automatic opener/closer thingies that allows soccer moms to hold on to their grocery cart and 2.5 children rather than having to let go to raise and lower the hatch (although they still have to let go to push the button). Recently the hatch stopped going down. My wife was completely stumped and so she just left the car with the hatch open in the garage, which of course meant she couldn't put the garage door down, either. Any suggestions?
Yes, there is an old, forgotten technique that can still be used to close the hatch. Stand behind the car and raise your hands above your head. Now put your hands on the hatch, and with a quick, downward motion just push the *&#@$ thing closed.

How is Sarah?
She is in Power Nesting Mode. We feel like the timelines are tighter now, so it adds urgency to every preparation. I don't know if I mentioned before that Sarah was diagnosed with a severe case of Bronchitis the day we left for Ohio. She doesn't have a fever, but she is on antibiotics and is supposed to do a breathing treatment every few hours.

How are you?
I may have the bronchitis, too. Maybe not. I have a fever and cold symptoms. I think I was actually sick the whole time we were down there.

So, time for the sick blogger to take a nap. Grandma has Grace today and HJ is at work, so I am in the rare situation of being home and able to rest!