25 and 3/7th weeks down

INTRODUCING NICKLAUS DIERKING.................
from Mommy's tummy of course

Both Christy and Sharon are making good progress as they deal with their medical situations. But for the moment, let's focus on Nicklaus Dierking, formally known as Baby C. The ultrasound today was very detailed, with measurements taken, heart beats monitored, and the overall health of all three babies evaluated. Nicklaus has overtaken his sister in size, being slightly bigger and heavier. He also gave the best pose, so I thought it would be fun to share that with you. To help you identify the ultrasound pix at left, picture that Nicklaus is lying on his back looking up, the head being to the right. His right arm is up to the right side of his head. I had the honor of being there to watch the ultrasound examination, unfortunately most of what the nurses and Christy saw could not be made out by me. I do know that all three had strong heartbeats, moved around a bit to frustrate the nurses, and all got positive reviews from the nurses. I do have a couple of pix of the girls, Madeline, formerly known as Baby A, and Grace, formally known as Baby B, but they are not as clear as Nicklaus, so I will wait til another time to reveal the girls. As noted in this blog's heading, today was the 3rd day of week 25. We are all praying for another 7 weeks at minimum, and with the Lord's help are confident that we can get there. Christy's stomach is getting quite large, as you can probably imagine.

Sharon is making great progress in her recovery. Yesterday we went for a short walk in the neighborhood, and this morning she wanted to go again, so we did. She still gets tired fairly quickly, and has weird pulling sensation when she stretches, but operation scars are all healing well. Her next surgery, which will be an outpatient procedure (go home same day as surgery) will be next month. And, the best part is that she is doing the cooking again, taking a huge load off my shoulders.

Please keep praying for both Christy and Sharon. I would also like to add my brother Walt to your daily prayers. Nine years ago he was diagnosed with kidney cancer and had one kidney removed. The cancer has been in remission, however, recently he had a cyst removed from his head, and the biopsy revealed that the cyst was of the kidney cancer type. The cyst was removed and a body scan failed to show any other signs of cancer, but, he needs the Holy Spirit to intervene and eradicate any remaining cancer cells in his body. So that's it for today. May God bless each and every one of you. Bernd