A Little History...

It may help to start with a little bit of history...

My brother and sister-in-law started dating in June of 2004, and after a whirl-wind courtship, married on New Year's Day 2005. The following three years have been a bit difficult for our whole family as they have tried to start a family of their own. They experienced two early miscarriages, then became pregnant with Brandalyn Faith in 2007. After a very uncomplicated first trimester, Christi unexpectedly went into pre-term labor at 23 weeks gestation and delivered Brandalyn on July 3rd, 2007. She was a very strong baby girl, but at 1 lb., 1 oz., just too small and too sweet for this world. She was with us for three full hours before she earned her angel wings and became one of the smallest angels in Heaven.

Christi became pregnant again in December 2007 (which was an incredible surprise because she was told she would probably not become pregnant without fertility meds). She had a voluntary surgery in March 2008 at 12 weeks gestation to place a cervical cerclage (that's a fancy way to say they stitched up her cervix), since it had been determined that Brandalyn was born pre-term due to an incompetent cervix.

Again, she had a very normal first trimester, then went into pre-term labor at 22 weeks gestation (May 5th). She spent four days in the hospital taking Magnesium Sulfate to stop her labor, and was released on May 8th to go home on complete bedrest for the remainder of her pregnancy. On Monday, May 12th, she again went into pre-term labor and went back to the hospital to find that she was in full-blown labor with contractions as close as 30 seconds apart. Her doctor placed her on Magnesium Sulfate again, but had to release her cerclage because of bulging membranes. As soon as the stitch was released, her water broke. Miraculously, the Magnesium worked again, and by that evening her contractions had totally stopped. She is now in the hospital and will stay there until she delivers. She is continuing on Magnesium Sulfate to stop her labor, IV antibiotics to prevent infection since her water broke, and constant monitoring of her and Savanna to make sure Christi doesn't develop an infection and that Savanna is stable.

As of this evening, Christi has had no contractions since last evening, and Savanna seems to be oblivious that anything unusual is going on, with a very strong heart rate and no signs of distress. Christi has now been able to have two steroid shots to help Savanna's lungs develop, and we are in a holding pattern. We respectfully ask for all of the prayers you can muster to ask God to allow us to bring Savanna home healthy and happy.