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...

2 weeks down!

My goodness, the past several days have been down right exhausting! In short, the babies are doing great. The monitoring can either take 25 minutes or a few hours, and I just hate how it's a toss up. Besides the good news that they are steadily getting bigger (well, my belly sure is, so they must be) and healthy all around, I have been seizing my precious hours off the monitors and walking around with my dad and little boy. I believe I have a growth scan tomorrow to gage their weights but they should be around 2 pounds a piece.

Today is husband day, though! Yay! I only get to see him twice a week because of his busy schedule. We are going to spend the night eating food that is bad for us and watching the funny Will Ferrell movie "Step Brothers". Earlier he snuck me out to brunch al fresco in the sunny, brisk fall weather. Our little man slept through most of it. Hooray for husband day.

Wanted to share pictures from the week:

The girls are about the size of a head of cauliflower each this week.

 

tête-à-tête:

 

 

I think she looks like me. What do you think?

 

 

Lots of this:

 

 

Lots of that:

 

 

a little bit of Halloween, too:

 

 

and today, Husband Day! Glorious cornflake crusted French toast with caramel hiding underneath. His lamb burger with goat cheese and mint pesto was good too.

 

He is spoiling them already.

 

 

Little girl stuff is CUTE.



The NICU

I toured my future this morning.

The NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) was shown to me. I cannot express how sobering it was to experience it. The first child I came upon was a 29-weeker. (I'm 27 weeks). I've seen many, many pictures of preemies but it is so very different when they are right in front of you.

I've been relatively good about taking this all day by day, but I was obviously very excited to reach viability (23-24 weeks). I did alright seeing the babies that I did today, but I have to admit that if there had been a 23/24-weeker in there, I would have had to step out.

There is no denying that I feel so much more safe staying in the hospital, and that I wouldn't rather my babies be in anyone else's care once they make their grand appearance. As difficult as it was to process what I was seeing and having explained to me, looking at them, I just longed to pick them up and give them a nice cuddle. I wanted to get in that isolette and kiss the bottoms of those tee-tiny feet. The toes, oh, the toes!

In 49 days or less, my preemie ballerinas will be here. The moment they are showing a sign of true distress, or 49 days from now; whichever comes first, that is when I will deliver. It's hard to wrap my brain around it. I cannot believe there's 2 of them! I don't think I'll really believe we're being blessed with twins until I lay my eyes on them and am spending time with them.

Three different people here told me today "stay pregnant!" I'm tryinggg! Trust me, it's all I want. That, and to gain weight. I am really disappointed that I am not only not gaining how I want to, but this week I actually lost a little bit of weight. I mentioned in a different post that I met with the nutritionist here; the dietician came in today to speak with me...In my mind, dietician and nutritionist are interchangeable but by meeting the lady today, it's clear that she is with whom I needed to speak. She is putting me on Ensure drinks 2x a day as well as including high protein snacks along with my meals (& I'm still able to scribble in add-ons to my menus). Every ounce on my babies counts.

I really wanted to make this an eloquent post because the experience I had today really shook up my whole world, and no, I won't ever be the same again. But, I think if I even attempted to get in touch with the part of me that could make this the poetic post that it really does deserve, I'd spend the rest of the night crying in the shower. Instead I will leave it at what it is and share a snip-it from my NST tonight. I am so proud of these girls getting this far, playing nice-nice in there, and letting me carry them to another day. Every day counts.

One-minute video of my ponies galloping tonight (every swoosh is one of them moving) :



Sheilla is...Not a Punk Rocker.

Sheilla is not a punk rocker. But she is my favorite nurse here. She completely understands my girls' personalities and it makes being monitored so much easier and faster. When I see that she's my night nurse I am so happy because I know the NST will be over with in about 30 minutes flat. She also doesn't talk just to talk, but she talks enough that's it's not awkward. She is the only one that says they are active and doesn't mean it in a complaining and annoyed way...too many of them act like it's a bad thing that they're active. She told me tonight "It's a good thing that they're moving, I don't care if I have to stay here the whole time with my hand on one of the monitors." Because she gets it, and Baby A does NOT like to be tied down by the belts. She kicks and punches it off, but because Sheilla is awesome, she sits with me and holds it just over that baby so as to not upset her.

The past couple days were a little stressful because, well, they can't all be Sheilla. I have definitely been brought to tears a few times in the past few days. Going by other people's routine that they have set for you can be really exhausting when you are used to doing things 100 % your own way. They make me get up at 5 am to check my vitals, then 3 different people will come in at different times all before 7 am to say something to me about my day and to check my belly (for tautness?) and feet (for swelling). Then a team of doctors come in to...in essence...chitchat, but they do it in case I have questions first thing in the morning. That part is good because they are all high risk specialists, but still. Then breakfast...when it comes. Then an ultrasound. Then the NST. (both when they are ready for me). Then I try to get on with my day, but they have to check my vitals every other hour, as well as people who come into clean, get me ice water or towels, stuff like that. Then at night it starts all over again with my pm NST. On top of it I just feel really fragile in general. But the twins are doing really well which makes me so proud, and I would all of this x infinity for them to get here safely.

I don't know what I would do without my dad bringing little Lochlan over & them both hanging out with me every day. The other day he didn't bring him by until like 4:30 and I seriously felt one foot in the grave of death from boredom. My son is definitely my sidekick and I feel so lonely without him! Sometimes he can be a bit of a handful in my room here but I mean, my bed has like 80 buttons on it so I can't really blame him, he IS a baby. :)

I guess this was kind of a sad pity party post but I want to share pictures of my happy moments this weekend because they did happen :)

 

 

 

Let alone...discovering a Chipotle one block up from the hospital!!! Hehe.

 

 

Oh and this is Lochlan's new game...Mess With The Curtains....It kind of makes me cringe wondering if they've ever been laundered but he's so stinkin' cute playing hide and seek:

 

day 6

Spent the morning having hot flashes and nausea, it was just awful. My godsend was that the girls were really cooperative for the NST and it only lasted 30 minutes. But the whole time I had ice chips in my mouth, a cold pack on my chest & forehead, and was being fanned. Oof. I had a little lunch then took a two and half hour nap with my son snuggled up in the crook of my arm--the PERFECT medicine. It's pretty gloomy out today but the leaves are really starting to get vibrant, it's nice to see on my little walks.

Hehe, he is the best little teddy bear!

Conquering everything one pancake breakfast at a time

They knew what's up. Sitting here learning about how Vikings were so obsessed with buttermilk pancakes. They would use dented shields over fire to cook the pancake batter. But they used their swords to turn them over so they wound up being something like a popover-pancake-doughnut situation. There is something so innocent & familiar about enjoying doughy sweets, it is just funny to try to image these blood-thirsty beasts getting pancake crumbs in their beards.

Or maybe it's not funny, and I am just totally already going crazy in the hospital.

 

Anyway I guess you are being a sweetheart & checking into my blog to read about the twins & not diabetic Vikings. The girls look great. They are tracing really well. The ultrasounds are getting more exciting as they switch them into 4d now. Also exciting? There are 2 other ladies on the floor pregnant with MoMos! The cool thing about living in a city of 9 million people is, even if you are going through something that has a 1 in 65,000+ chance of occurring, there will still be 2 people next to you going through the same thing. I met one of them and she just had her Caesarian scheduled for next month. Getting that date penciled in is such a milestone & I am so happy for her!

 

The girls are obviously identical but I am starting to think their noses and chins might be slightly different...I don't know if it's just the angles or not though. What do you think?