One of my last belly pictures .

 

It kinda looks like I have stretch marks, but I don't.. so must be funny lighting. There isn't a full length mirror here, so when I took this 5 days ago, I was shocked to see the picture myself! Ha :) The good news is my husband surprised me with an awesome Canon camera with a fancy lens; he bought a memory card for it last night and now we are all set to take some pictures of our girls!! Hurray for no more or minimal iPhone pictures :D

An update--TMI, not for the weak of heart

So far so good... I am technically in the early stages of labor as I have dilated to 3cm, but have not been progressing so I am laying low in my regular room again (I had to go up and have continuous for about 5 hours, not that bad though). Still having 2 NSTS a day.

This Thursday, Thanksgiving, I will be moved to the Labor and Delivery floor and be put on continuous. I will deliver sometime between then & Saturday. Probably Saturday because last I heard, the NICU is pretty full, and since it's not technically an emergency, they'd like to make sure there is adequate room for them. That, and the holiday...it could either be very busy or very slow. They will deliver right away if there is any sign of distress, though.

I am so nervous for my caesarian I cannot even express the element of terror it strikes in my heart. It's really quite a brutal act that makes me dry heave just thinking of it. I have been pretty good about refraining from googling it, and trying to really only direct my questions and concerns to my doctors. The image of them needing to place my womb on top of my stomach to sew it up then stuff it back in me then sew me up again will forever haunt my nightmares. And probably yours, too, now!

The terrible part is they bind your arms to the table. I have not been able to get this out of my head. It is also terrible that while you are numb, you still feel everything--all the tugging and what not. You are awake. Unless it is an emergency and there is no time for the epidural, then they knock you out with gas, which is also pretty terrifying. Some women request that the curtain is not put up because they want to watch the whole thing; brave, brave women! Eep! I could never.

When something is happening that I am uncomfortable with, what makes me feel better is to look away and have a finger in my mouth to bite down on until it is over (like getting an IV put in). But I can't do that this time because I won't be able to move my arms. My tongue will probably bleed. There are very scary risks that come along with a c section, but they are rare, especially if it is a scheduled one and not even an emergency.

I am worried about making the wrong choice by taking them "early" but honestly since I have dilated on my own (and already to a 3 out of 10), I doubt I would make it to 34 weeks anyway. We are in good hands... The OBs, the pediatricians, the nurses, and of course, ultimately, in the hands of one merciful God.

I am incredibly proud to have gotten this far in the pregnancy, and will be forever thankful. We still have a long road ahead of us. The girls' soon-to-be pediatrician said he thinks they will be home in 2-3 weeks, but I am not getting my hopes up. The standard is that they will be home by their real 40 week due date (our real due date is January 23rd), any time before then is bonus. Every baby is different, but before coming home, they must be able to regulate their own body temperature, take feedings without a feeding tube and keep it down, gain weight steadily, have lack of apnea, have absence of jaundice (nearly all preemies must spend time in "tanning beds" to photosynthesize the chemical in the blood to reverse jaundice--something that usually naturally occurs when they are carried to term), breathe room air...those are the main things.

It is going to blow my mind to meet them! My family and I are so excited! Thank you to everyone who has been following along in this crazy mono-mono journey with us and sending us well wishes, prayers, and inspirational notes. And of course all the baby gifts, haha! The girls are so spoiled already. :)

many thanks

I want to say thank you to everyone who is following my blog and has been writing me personal messages about my last post. It was definitely scary but the girls are looking great.

We recently purchased as well as received gifts of pretty much everything under the sun for the girls. Our tiny New York apartment is swimming in so many boxes of baby furniture and bags upon bags of baby clothing. It is so strange to go from having only a girly quilt we got them in Chinatown the weekend before I was admitted to the hospital, to having so much clothing there is no way they could possibly get around to wearing it all.

The girls will be here next week. I am so nervous and keep asking myself, am I making the right choice? (Bringing them into the world as early as the doctors will allow without it being a technical emergency). My inpatient stay is so close to just being a blurred memory already. It's hard to believe I've been here for so many weeks. I hope their NICU stay will fly by the same. Smoothly.

They will be here Thanksgivng or the day after. I find out tomorrow morning.

They have clothes, furniture, names, and so much love waiting for them here on the outside...I just can't wait.

to hell and back to limbo

im so unbelievably exhausted but wanted to jot down how my day was because it was intense. apologies for all the incorrect grammar im not even trying today.

reasons 9 pm last night - 2 pm today sucked.

• one baby had decels down in the 40s
• having to hear the doctor say sternly " you need to call your husband."
• my rabbit ate my husband's phone charger yesterday and he had to go and buy a new one
• had to be transferred to Labor and Delivery floor
• put on continuous monitoring for 12 hours, after a 3 hour NST
• my iphone was dead and I couldn't reach it plugged in
• had to share a room
• had to share a room and it was with a mom, her husband and her newborn twins
• had to have my 2nd round of steroids and they wear off 1-2 weeks after taking them. this is the last round my doctors will give me. praying it carries over to when I do deliver them (hopefully it will be as scheduled) so it is useful to their lungs.
• had to be on a magnesium IV for 12 hours and it made me sicker than I have ever been before -- I thought I was going to explode/burst into fire, covered in icepacks, eating ice, vomiting
• every time her twins cried, I cried. It was overwhelming. It was beautiful to hear them cry, so I cried. It was depressing to hear them cry, because they weren't mine and this lady was already with her twinnies, so I cried. They cried, and I cried because of the anxiety of monitoring. Sad sad sad.
• they wouldn't let me eat but didn't want to anyway
• when I finally got lunch, it was plain pasta zero sauce zero salt that had been reheated in a way that made it crunchy rendering it entirely inedible
• had to use a bed pan in a room with other people in it -- humiliation at its finest
• something about that room made me sneeze a lot

reasons today didn't suck:

• after the deceleration scares, and hooked up to IV etc, the twins actually gave pretty lovely readings the whole other 12 hours. go figure. but would rather it be that way of course! the doctors had no way of knowing and I am glad they took the precautions they did even if they scarred me for life and if I ever hear the word magnesium after this hospital stay I cant say for sure whether my eye will twitch but my guess is it will
• I was able to come back down to my room which is highly preferred even though I will be paranoid from here on out about having to go back upstairs and have last night/this morning repeated
• my dad bought me chipotle and hot chocolate, yum! can you tell I am pregnant
• I got a nice little 3 hour visit with my son in today which was a breath of fresh air...he's been acting up lately because his mommy and daddy are never home but today he was a sweet little treat
• lots of people still came into my room after I got back but the day nurse left me alone pretty much. yay!

tonight we will be doing a NST, i'll have vitals done, then at 3am I have to get my 2nd shot of steroids. really hope it goes smoothly, I feel so weak I don't know i'd have it in me to have a repeat of last night *shudder*

30 weeks!

Another scare...had many dips in one of the baby's heart rate and needed to be monitored for several hours. It resolved finally, but it was a total nightmare. A C-section was starting to feel imminent...

...it was 11/12/13...it was snowing, the first snowfall of the season... Things that made the day inherently special, made me feel like it just might happen.

I was crying to my husband how I just wasn't ready. He reminded me of his good friend who we just learned was born emergently at 28 weeks; not only that, but the doctor had a heart attack (!) right in the middle of cutting his mom open. You would never guess by meeting him that he had a rough start! He reminded me I was nearly 2 weeks past that and that everything would be okay.

After feeling really pressured to push past 32 by my doctors, finally today my MFM came to speak with me today. She will have me speak with the pediatrician at 31 weeks (so in one week) about 32-week babies. I will also have another round of steroid shots next week as well as a shot of magnesium, and I will be put on the schedule (!!!) for my C-section at 32 weeks, unless I want to "squeak by" as she said. This makes me so happy! I finally feel supported by them. They say the twins are looking great. But you know what, it's better to take them when it all checks out versus when things are starting to get murky. It's like Seinfeld. They let it go on for a while then cancelled it before it got bad. Yep, just like Seinfeld.

These are obviously not my babies but they are a depiction of a monoamniotic-monochorionic twin pregnancy...so this is how they are set up in there. Fun to see a visual!
 

 

 

29+ weeks and counting!

Now THIS is a happy sight! I walked out of my room and saw a precious newborn "bed" that is used for the hospital nursery as well as when the baby is rooming-in with you at the hospital. Sadly, this isn't an option for me this go round just because they will need to be in the NICU...but nevertheless, it got me excited!

 

 

This is my bump today! 29.5 weeks!

 

 

 

This week my mother-in-law took our son to Cape Cod to spend time with her & that side of the family. She is a real estate agent there right in Chatham, and her office is like a little house. She has been taking him there with her daily & putting him to work, haha! These pictures crack me up! It really looks like he is doing the chores. What a good boy.



Okay, enough pictures for this post... If you read my last post about my first scare here, in the past 4 days since I put it up, I have learned a lot more about my monitoring. What's normal, what's not, exactly what they are looking for and for how long they want to see it happen, reasons to keep me on longer, all that. A lot is out of my control so it is really nice to at least have a good understanding of everything.

 

If my girls are very active, which is more often than not, we have to try to calm them down. If they are asleep, we have to try to wake them up. When they sleep, they don't have big accels or decels--which is what they need for the NST. Can't win, haha!

 

My babies are looking great though, and we should be scheduling my c section soon YAY.

 

 

18 days, 10 hours left...!!! Give or take :)

 

 

 

First scare

Today was a little bit scary! During my morning NST, one of the twins' heart rate accelerated to 200 bpm twice (the normal range for a baby in utero is 110-160). I had to stay on another 20 minutes to see if her heart rate would resolve or not. This was the first time the nurse came in to tell me the doctors were scared. She did resolve beautifully though, thank goodness. If it were to accelerate twice more in the following 20 minutes, I would be taken upstairs and put on continuous monitoring--only allowed to get up to bathe, really. I would stay on continuous until it either resolved after a minimum of 12 hours, or, if it continued to stay up around 200, they would cut me open and get them out.

She passed with flying colors in the following 20 minutes...my heart rate was up of course which didn't help. It goes up for them when they are really excited, or in distress, or if I am dehydrated. That's why if I were to go upstairs I'd also be hooked up to IVs straight away.

Soon after, I had my follow-up fetal echocardiograph ultrasound (hearts). It's just routine to do it every 4 weeks with identical twinning. It takes about an hour per baby, so it's exhausting. They both look great and there is no sign of TTTS twin-to-twin transfusion. (I really ought to make a whole post about all the abbreviations I hear and see all the time!) During their growth scan a few days ago we discovered there is only a 10% size discrepancy, so TTTS is really not a concern at this point. They start worrying when it climbs to 20%. TTTS can either be treated or it can be absolutely devastating, so I will continue to thank my lucky stars.

I had a nice weekend with the husband, lots of cuddling and TV and nearly an unbearable amount of food that is bad for us. Perfect!

My mother in law took our son Sunday back to Cape Cod with her for the week to give us all a break on our end. He is calling my husband's twin brother "Dada" which I think is funny and cute, but poor Gavin is not amused. He misses him so much with how much he is working currently. He is a sweet papa bear. I can only imagine how protective he is going to be of these girls.

When my mother in law stopped by to pick up our little man, she passed along a present from her friend Fleur who bought the cutest little booties for the girls! I'll put a picture below. The two sock booties in the picture Gavin bought, but the others are from this sweet woman! Thank you I just know they are going to be the most adorable little ladies with all the glitter and ruffles and bows! Gavin is buying a huge chunk of all the stuff they need this weekend coming up, I will do a post about what we get. Too much cuteness.

 

The bakery down the street is awesome. It was a blessing in disguise that they have a $10 card minimum so we had to buy all these goodies. Guava rugelach, carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese frosting, carroty walnuty raisiny muffin that was actually really good, peanut butter cookies, oatmeal cookies, and cookies that had white, milk, AND dark chocolate chips in them..:

 

 

My life. Sometimes the girls stay in position when we wedge towels around me:

 

 

Now THIS is a truly beautiful sight. It's a sign on my door telling the nurse assistants to not wake me for nightly/very early vitals! They used to come in here all hours to take my temperature and blood pressure. I am the type of person that has a hard time getting back to sleep once I am up, and it was getting to the point where I was hardly getting 4 hours of sleep. This has been a huge help!

 

 

Just Amazing!

Attempting to reenact for you how amazing it was to get this piece of mail from my sweet cousin Karla!!! This would make a normal person tear up, now imagine with all those emotions and hormones running through you haha! Thank you I love you!

 

 

 



 

 

My thinking.

I spoke with my MFM this morning and she said all the things I needed to hear. She sets the goal for 34 weeks, but many are stripped of the choice and they have to take them sooner. I am not denying that it is awesome to get them that far. But if something were to take a sudden turn after 32 weeks, I could never forgive myself if the result was devastating.

I am thinking to what my reasoning is keeping them in there past 32, when that is a perfectly fine time to take them given not only the success rate, but the recovery time, and the general lack of long term problems. My main reasons are for packing on weight and to be born with the potential advantage of being able to breastfeed a lot easier/able to at least take a bottle instead of feeding tubes. I know there are other good reasons to keep them in too, of course, and that's why I need to sit down with the neonatologist again. But going off of those reasons alone, aren't really good enough in my opinion to not take them sooner to be sure of their safety. The basic NICU stay range for a 32 weeker is 3-5 weeks, maybe shorter, maybe longer. I would rather live with that and visit them a few extra weeks versus not ever getting the chance to know them because I lost them to some issue that suddenly popped up.

My MFM said I can get to 32 and take it day by day on continuous monitoring, but that it would also be appropriate if I just really wanted them to be taken right at 32. I can breathe easier knowing they aren't forcing me to push them to a further date, but comforted that they feel confident enough to deal with trying to push it--a lot of places don't. I also just would really like to avoid an emergency.

I've seen their cords, they're tangled in a big ball. I'm worried about compression or presence of true knots as the babies and cords grow. Even with aggressive monitoring, things can be missed. I just don't want to take that chance really...