The Hospital Life

My days consist of laying in bed, going to the bathroom, taking a nap, peeing again, getting my blood pressure and temperature checked, bathroom again, eating, another nap.....  It's been pretty exciting!

Actually, it really hasn't been that bad.

Last night, Hubby's family came to visit and we had a little mini Christmas party in my room.  This included Tony's parents, his Grandpa, his brother and his wife and their two little girls.  We opened a few presents and I shared the Christmas candy that one of my visitors brought in the day before.  Hey, at least I was able to contribute something!  haha!

Today brought a little bit more excitement to my hospital stay.  It seems like every time I say things are stable, something happens to change that.  During the night, my blood pressure decided to start climbing.  I was just bragging about it staying nice and low, but then my 5:00am reading came in at 155/89.  They took it several times throughout the next few hours and it continued to read high. 
We did get a few more normal readings, but it wasn't consistent at all. 

Sooooo, the doctor ordered a blood draw and they started a 24 hour urine collection.  The lab work showed my liver enzymes to be slightly elevated, which was no surprise since they have been now for several months (you can click here to read my previous post about my liver).  The 24 hour urine collection involves me peeing into a little "hat" and then dumping that into a large plastic bottle that is kept on ice.  The nurses record the amount of urine collected and the time.  Then tomorrow morning they will take the big bottle of pee and have it tested for protein in the urine.

As of now, they are thinking I have a mild case of preeclampsia.  I am not experiencing any other side effects such as a headache, blurred vision, or liver pain.  If it is just a mild case, the plan will still be to continue to next Saturday.

It's weird being stuck in a bed all day.  Pretty much everything seems to put me to sleep.  We put in a movie, and I am asleep within minutes.  I start reading a book, and I fall asleep before reading a full page.  I play games on my phone, and the next thing I know I am dropping the phone on my face because I've fallen asleep again!  It just makes me extremely sleepy to have nothing to do. 

I thankfully am wide awake when I get visitors though!  I had quite a few visitors today, which was nice.  A few of my clients from work have stopped by.  One of my aunts and a cousin dropped by this evening.  My favorite visit today was when I got to see my sister and her family though!  I have to say that was also the most exhausting visit as well!  The boys are very... active to say the least.  Oh so cute though.  It was so incredibly nice to see all of them.  The highlight was cuddling with this little one:

my youngest niece

Tonight is my first night on my own in here.  Hubby has gone home to sleep in our own bed and will be going to work tomorrow.  He felt really guilty about going home, but I told him it was more than okay.  I might be a little bored and slightly lonely, but he has been such a trooper staying here each night.  He doesn't get a very good nights sleep on the little couch and with me getting up to pee several times each night, not to mention the nurse coming in to check my vitals a few times.  He has been so good at jumping up to help me whenever he can, and he tries to keep me entertained.  He more than deserves a night in a real bed so he can work a full day tomorrow.  He's trying to work as much as he can now, so he has more vacation time when the babies are actually born.  Even then, with the babies in the NICU, we plan on him working (although I think that will be super hard for him) so that he can take the time off when we actually get to take the babies home.

It's still quite a bit surreal to think that in less than a week, we will be parents.  I will be a Mommy! Seriously?

33 Weeks

I've managed to make it to 33 weeks so far, despite the adventure of Baby A's water breaking on Tuesday.  It's been an eventful, yet boring last couple of days.

Once they got me checked in on Tuesday, they gave me the first of two steroid injections, used to develop the babies lungs faster in preparation for possible delivery.  I also got started on a magnesium IV drip, in addition to antibiotics.  The magnesium, or The Mag, was to help provide neural protection/development for the babies and to slow the labor process.  The high dose of antibiotics was to help prevent infection due to the water breaking.  In addition to being drugged up, I was also hooked up to monitors for the babies - pretty much like a non stress test, only the monitors stayed on continuously.

The drugs and the monitors were a constant for all of Tuesday and Wednesday.  I had some minor contractions at first, but nothing major, only Braxton Hicks type contractions.  I have not had ANY leaking or bleeding the entire time I've been here.

Tony has stayed the night every single night so far, sleeping on the little sofa couch in the room.  He did go to work on Wednesday for about half day, then went home to pick up a few things for the both of us and pick up the house a bit.  Other than being constantly monitored, Wednesday was fairly uneventful.  I did get the second steroid shot, and The Mag and IV antibiotics continued.  My day was mostly filled with letting people know I was doing okay and the babies were holding tight.

Let me tell you about The Mag.  It wasn't too bad at first, but it definitely has unpleasant side effects.  It makes you really hot, so I've been freezing poor Tony out.  He's a trooper though and just keeps layers of clothes on.  The Mag also made me feel pretty woozy.  I had a hard time focusing my eyes on anything.  I had a friend come visit and I had to apologize to her because I just couldn't look at her for very long during our conversations because I couldn't focus enough to really see her.  Of course she understood.

I was mostly fine while laying in bed, but when I got up to go to the bathroom, I was starting to get a little bit more dizzy and feel sick with each trip.  At about 4:00am Thursday morning, I was really feeling out of it.  I thought a lot of it was because I wasn't sleeping well and sooooo exhausted.  I could not keep my eyes open to save my life, but I also couldn't make myself sleep while my eyes were closed.  I was supposed to continue The Mag for another 10 hours, but at 4:00am, they decided to take me off of it because it was making me so sick.

I was trying to be a trooper and do what was best for the babies, so was willing to stay on it, but they said it was okay.  The steroids were in effect and The Mag was just making me too sick.  As it wore off throughout the day on Thursday, I did feel more like myself again.  The only remaining side effect is that I am incredibly swollen from the tips of my toes all the way up to my waist and into my back.  My thighs have never been so huge, not to mention what it's done to my lady bits.

Tony went to work again on Thursday, but it was very hard for him to concentrate.  Most especially because Thursday was a little bit more stressful.  Baby A took a dip in her monitoring that morning, so the doctor ordered an ultrasound to check on things.  I had called Tony to let him know there was a little concern, so of course he was on pins and needles waiting for more news. 

During the ultrasound, Baby A did great.  However, Baby B was lethargic and wouldn't move.  He had a stable heart rate, but didn't meet the other standards they were looking for.  I knew there was a problem when I got back to my room and was about ready to eat lunch, and the nurse took my tray away right as I was about to dig in.  I told her it can't be good if I'm not allowed to eat or drink anything.  She confirmed that they were very concerned.  I called Tony and he immediately left work at that point.  They were preparing for a possible c-section that night.  They hooked all the monitors back on me for the rest of the day and continued to watch the babies heartbeats and movement patterns.

By that afternoon, they determined that it was just very bad timing for the u/s because both babies looked great after that point.  They had most likely just been feeling the effects from the steroid shots and The Mag as well, which made them pretty sluggish.  As the meds wore off throughout the day, both of them were doing fantastic and have been having Kung Fu matches inside.  They have been very, very active babies since that scare.

The doctors now think there is every reason to believe I may hold onto these babies until next Saturday, when I will reach 34 weeks.  At that point, they will induce.  They believe that at 34 weeks the babies are developed enough not to have significant health complications, but the continued risk of infection and placenta problems that could potentially occur because of the water already breaking just become too high, so they will induce at that point in time.

Yesterday, they did a repeat u/s on the babies, just to be sure everything was okay.  Both of them scored 8/8 and looked fantastic.  They seem to be pretty content hanging out on the inside.  My vitals have stayed very stable.  In fact, my blood pressure has dropped lower than it has in a long time!  It was hanging around 117/66 most of the day yesterday.  Woo-Hoo!  No temperature.  No sign of infection or of labor.

We also got a tour of the NICU yesterday.  Even if our babies make it to the 34 week mark, they will still spend at least a little bit of time in the NICU, a minimum of about two weeks and up to maybe four.  It is totally dependent on how our babies are doing.  It was very important to both Tony and I to get this tour so we could mentally prepare ourselves for the first time we see our own babies in there.  It is so difficult to see little tiny babies hooked up to machines.  I know it will be even more difficult when it is our own.  One thing I am very certain of though, is that we are in one of the best facilities in the state for NICU care.

For now, we are just riding the tide and hoping to make it to next Saturday!  We are celebrating the fact that we have at least made it to 33 weeks.  The babies are being monitored twice daily, and they continue to check my vitals  about the same.  The main target right now is finding a way to hopefully reduce the swelling in my legs and lady bits.  If the swelling doesn't come down, I may not have a choice and be required to have a c-section, which is not high on my list of plans.

There is so much more I could tell you about, but this catches you up to date with the most important part, and that is that I am still pregnant and the babies appear to be doing great.

Just hanging out in my new home

32 Weeks, 3 Days: Water Breaks

This last Saturday marked 32 weeks.  Sunday was our softball baby shower. Hubby went to the shower too, as softball and these girls have been a huge part of BOTH of our lives.  We had a great turnout, but of course not all the girls were able to make it, which was probably a good thing.  With 20 years of coaching, there would not have been enough room in the house to put everyone!  We were jam packed as it was.


32 weeks

These 3 girls and their mom hosted the shower



With all the girls that were able to attend

It meant a lot that all these girls and their moms came to celebrate these babies with us.  While we struggled to have our own kids, these girls became a huge part of our lives.  It is such a special thing to have the relationships we do with them and their families.

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Now onto the big stuff.  On Tuesday, I went to work as usual, trained my first two clients, and was actually feeling pretty decent.  At this point, working and training my clients simply involved me sitting on a physio ball and directing them as to what to do for their workouts.  Easy peasy.

We were just getting started with my third appointment of the day.  I stood up from the ball and immediately felt like I peed my pants.  I was working with two gals at the time.  I looked at them and said, "I think I just peed my pants."  But I just kept leaking.  And then leaked some more.  They asked what they could do to help and I told them I had extra pants in my office.  They could go get started with a circuit workout that they were familiar with, and I would go get myself cleaned up.  But before I went anywhere, I turned around and asked them if it looked like I peed myself before I walked through the club to my office.  They said I was good.

I'd been carrying an extra pair of pants and underwear to work for about 3 weeks at this point, just in case I did actually have an accident and pee myself.  You just never know with pregnancy and I'd heard many stories so I wanted to be proactive and be prepared.  Thank goodness I had those extra pair of pants and underwear!!!!!!

Once I got back into my office, I grabbed the spare pants and undies and went into the little closet we have in the room.  I tried taking my pants off, but I just kept leaking more fluid.  I wasn't sure what to do.  I didn't want to put on the new pants and have them be soaked too!  I finally managed to get my pants off, but was still leaking a little bit so wadded them up to catch whatever I could.  I noticed that the fluid was a little red tinged, so I knew without a doubt that I didn't just pee my pants.  I wasn't sure it was my water breaking either.  It wasn't really a big gush, just a continual leak.  I didn't know what it was for sure, but knew something was going on!

It finally seemed to stop, so I put the dry pants on, went down to the desk counter and got a plastic bag to put the wet ones in.  I asked the two gals working the desk if either of them happened to have a pad I could have.  Yes!  One of them did.  I took the pad into the bathroom, cleaned myself up, put the pad in my new fresh undies, and went back up to my office.  Of course, club members had no idea what was going on and several people tried to engage in conversation.  I just kept things short and sweet and hurried on my way.

Back in my office, I called my OB to ask them what they wanted me to do.  I actually had an appointment scheduled with them for later that morning, so the question was should I come in at the regular scheduled time, did they want me to come in earlier, or go to labor and delivery.  They told me to just go to labor and delivery to get checked out.  Pretty much the answer I expected to get.

I then walked down to the weight room to let my two gals know what was going on because I knew they would be worried about me.  I filled them in, and then once again went back to my office.  I completed my training log and emailed it to my boss so I would be sure to get my last pay check.  I knew there was a very good chance I wouldn't be coming back to work, so I needed to make sure this got done.  We still need to pay the bills! 

I then sent an email out to all the club core staff letting them know what was going on and trying to tie up as many loose ends as possible.  I had gone into work that morning expecting to at least work through the end of the week, so wasn't quite prepared to not be coming back.  I had one of the gals at the front desk call my next client that I was supposed to see that day, to cancel his appointment.

Then, I was finally on my way to the hospital, which was about an hour after the leakage incident.  I wasn't in any pain, no contractions, no more leakage...everything was okay at this point.  Just needed to get checked out and find out what had happened.  Several people offered to drive me to the hospital, but I didn't think it was necessary since I really did feel okay.

I called my husband on my way to let him know what was going on.  He had to take care of canceling all his afternoon appointments and close down his office, and would meet me at the hospital.  Once I got checked into the birthing center, they took me back, checked all my vitals, and did a vaginal swab to see if my water did actually break.

When the lab report came back, we found out that Baby A had bought us a hospital admittance because her water did, in fact, break.  That was on Tuesday, and I've been in the hospital ever since.

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The funny thing is, our softball baby shower was originally scheduled for this coming weekend, but we ended up changing the date and did it a week early.  Crazy how things work out sometimes.  If we'd kept the original date, I wouldn't have had that opportunity to have that last hoorah with my softball girls.



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There is so much more to add to this story, but that will have to hold out for another day.  Hopefully tomorrow.  I tried blogging on Wednesday from our iPad, but it did NOT work at all and was super frustrating.  Since then, we were able to borrow a lap top from my in-laws, so now hopefully I can be more connected and I will do my best to keep you all informed! 





Happenings

Okay, so I have about a million posts that I would love to write but never seem to have time to sit down and put my thoughts together for you.  I actually started a post on Monday, but then ran out of time so never actually posted it.  I've deleted it and am starting over with this one.  So, here's a summary of what life has been like this past week:

We took a tour of the Birthing Center at the hospital we will be delivering at on Saturday.  I was hoping we would be able to see the NICU, which I knew wasn't included in the normal tour, but was turned down when I asked if we could see it.  We got to see the entrance to it, and that is all.  I understand the reasoning, as there are some very sick babies in there, but I would really like to be prepared if the time comes and we have our own babies taking up residency in there.  Oh well.

After the tour, we went to pick up our niece and nephews.  The plan originally was to take the older two (Eli 8, Steven 3.5) to see the new movie Frozen, and then go back and pick up Nathanial, who's 2.  However, the theater in their town wasn't showing that movie until later that night and we didn't want to be on the snowy/icy roads that late.  So we decided we would just take them all back to our hometown for the afternoon movie showing.  We discovered that the two year old isn't quite ready for the movie theater experience yet.  Not that he was bad, just had trouble sitting still and staying entertained.  Uncle Tony had to save him twice because he got stuck in his seat that folded up on him!  It was actually pretty hilarious, but I'm sure the people around us didn't think so.  Haha!

We've been dealing with freezing temperatures lately.  We've spent the last two weeks with temps in the teens or as low as single digits.  It got down to 7* Saturday night.  I don't remember it ever getting down that low before.  It's pretty unusual for our area, and our house (along with many others) wasn't built to handle it.

I'm afraid to see what our water and electric bill will be next month!  When the temps get below freezing, we generally leave our faucets at a slow drip at night so the pipes won't freeze.  Well, it didn't help too much Saturday night.  We woke up with every single hot water pipe frozen!  So we spent the entire day on Sunday trying to get the hot water running again and hopefully preventing the pipes from bursting.  Fortunately, we had running cold water at least.  Then, when we finally got the hot water running in one of the bathrooms, the cold water froze!  Arg!  Finally, by about 3:00pm, we had all faucets functioning.  However, we had water running at every faucet for over 24 hours straight in this process.  We also had the heat cranked up higher than we would have liked, hoping it would help thaw the faucets.  We've had one or two faucets freeze over during the night since then, but we've been lucky enough to get them back running by the afternoon each time.  Like I said, I'm afraid to see our bills at the end of all this.  I am praying that we don't have any major leaks somewhere from the pipes expanding and contracting so much.

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On to baby stuff....  The non-stress tests have been going well.  The babies are moving a lot and have great heartbeats.  My blood pressure has remained nice and normal and I continue to have no protein in my urine.

Yesterday I had my MFM u/s and again, the babies looked really, really good!  They still couldn't get the one arch measurement of the heart on Baby A because of positioning, but that isn't a concern as everything else looks good and doesn't indicate a problem.

At this point in time, Baby A (girl) weights approximately 3 lbs, 11 oz and Baby B (boy) weights 4 lbs, 13 oz.  He's huge!  Basically, I have just about 9 lbs of baby in me right now and hopefully they just keep on growing for another month or so.

In two more days, I will be 32 weeks and the MFM doctor said that is the point where we officially leave behind extreme prematurity.  Yay!  Then, two weeks after that I will be 34 weeks and at that point they will not do anything to stop labor.  I asked if they would still need to do the steroid shots at that point for the babies lung development and she said nope.  She asked me if we were ready to have babies in 3-4 weeks?  Wait, what?  I am so excited and in awe of the fact that we are so close to bringing these babies home!  She doesn't think they will let me go beyond 37 weeks.

While the babies are doing great, she is concerned at the risks of preeclampsia for me.  She said that of all her patients right now, if she had to name the one most likely to develop preeclampsia it would be me.  She wasn't being rude, but definitely stressing that I needed to be on the look out for signs of it.  The conversation came up because I asked about my swollen legs and feet, which have gone to a whole new level.  They are pretty huge.  Also, I am at the MAX of what my weight gain should be (52 lbs) for the pregnancy and I have several more weeks to go.  Grrr.... I guess I need to stop indulging in my ice cream.  I don't eat bad, but I definitely could eat better.

As I said, I don't have any blood pressure concerns or protein in my urine at this point, so all is good there.  The biggest markers indicating risk though, is my age (yay for being "old") and twins.  They will continue to monitor me closely.  If at any time I get to the point that preeclampsia is a concern, Dr. MFM stressed that I WILL be in the hospital if it comes to that.

Let's just hope it doesn't.

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I am still working.  The plan is to work through at least next week, but then when I thought about it, I realized the next two weeks would be short work weeks due to Christmas and New Years.  I might try to make it through the end of the year, if my body will hold out for me.  My client load is pretty minimal right now, and when I am training someone, I am sitting most of the time so it's really not that hard.  We'll see.

I could go on and on about other things too, but I think that is enough for today.  It's time to go eat lunch.

Non Stress Tests

I had my first NST on Monday.  I was told to expect it to take anywhere between 20-60 minutes, depending on how active the babies were.  They put one strap on to measure contractions, and then two more straps for each babies heart beats.

I don't think I was even there for a full 20 minutes because the babies were so active and Dr. P saw what she wanted to see!  Apparently they look for a spike in the heart rate that corresponds with movement and they want to see this happen at least twice in a 20 minute time span.

Dr. P must have forgotten our conversation from last week when I had asked her if it was reasonable for me to expect to be able to work until the 19th, because she asked me if I was still working.  She shook her head and told me I was setting the bar high for all other pregnant women.  I told her I didn't mind being the one to set such a good example!

On Thursday, I had my second NST, but met with a different doctor at the clinic.  I really liked him, but I don't think he had any experience doing an NST with twins before!  He thought he was supposed to be able to hear both heartbeats at once, but I explained to him that while it records both heartbeats, you only actually hear ONE at a time from the machine.  He spent a lot of time trying to figure it out.

It didn't help that the babies kept moving around and hiding from the monitor!  Both the nurse and Dr. H had to chase the babies around trying to pick up their heartbeats because they were moving so much!

On Monday and Tuesday, I felt really, really good.  So good in fact, that I was thinking that maybe I could even work beyond the 19th!  But then Tuesday after work, I took a few things back to Target and exchanged them for some other needed items.  I also had to shop for a baby gift for a co-worker.  I was in the store on my feet for about an hour and a half.  By Tuesday night, I hurt so bad!  My feet were pretty swollen and my back was killing me.  Not to mention my hands.  My hands hurt so much from this stupid carpal tunnel.

I totally missed my first client Wednesday morning because I apparently turned my alarm clock off instead of pressing snooze.  I woke up at 6:24am, which was 9 minutes past the time I should have left my house!  By the time I got dressed, ate something quick, threw some snack foods together, and warmed up my frozen car, it was 6:45am and my first appointment should have been starting.  It was just a cardio workout for my client and I knew he could handle it on his own, but I called to have the front desk person let him know I would be late.  I got there just in time to help him with his cool down.  Sigh.

Wednesday evening, we went to the high school girls basketball game.  Several girls from my softball team play basketball, and we like to go support them as much as we can.  We live in a small town, and of course everyone wants to stop and talk to us about the babies and find out how I'm doing.  It was kind of fun to see everyone and get so much attention, but it was exhausting for sure.  The boy's team played right after the girls. Hubby wanted to stay and watch it, but I told him I had to go home and get my feet up.  We drove separate just for this reason.

By Thursday, I was pretty much wiped out.  I fortunately had a quick workday with only 3 clients.  Then had my NST appointment, then came home and just crashed.  I hadn't had a nap in weeks and it felt so good. My feet are still swollen, which I think is probably a pretty permanent thing at this point, but I feel so much better.

It would be awesome (financially) if I could work beyond the 19th, but I'm not so sure I'll be able to.  We will see.  I'm glad to have today off and get some things done around the house, while also being able to spend a lot of lazy time.

Hubby is actually home today as well, which never happens on a Friday, but we woke up to this today:

The view out our front door

He attempted to go to work, but he didn't get very far without sliding around a bit and decided to just come home.  It's not a lot of snow, but it is frozen underneath.  We don't tend to get very much snow here in the valley, so I love to see it when we do!  I am looking forward to the day, in a few more years. that we will be able to take our kiddos out and play in it!

The Truth

Two Truths and A Lie

The rules were to tell you 3 things about myself, but I had to make one of them a lie.  I had to make it difficult for you to figure out which one was the little white lie.  I must say, I think I did a pretty good job because I even fooled my Aunt!  She didn't respond on my blog because she didn't think it was fair since she knows me in real life.  Haha!  Fooled even her :)  lol

Here were the 3 things I shared:

1. One of my favorite things to do is to take my nieces and nephews to play in the park.
2. In high school, my friends and I stole toilet paper out of port-a-potties to tp people's houses with.
3. While in college, a group of friends and I snuck onto a golf course in the middle of the night to go swimming for golf balls in one of the ponds.

The Truth:

1. False.  It is true that I love spending time with my nieces and nephews for sure.  However, I do not enjoy taking them to the park.  The park scares me!  Especially when they are just learning to climb, because they climb on everything but have no control.  Most play structures are METAL.  It would be way to easy for them to fall and crack their little heads on something.  Even though I don't like taking them to the park, I know they love it so we go anyway, but it stresses me out tremendously the entire time we are there.
2. True.  One of my nicknames in high school was the TP Queen.  My friends and I did a lot of TPing other friend's houses.  I was pretty much a goody two shoes in high school, but this is one thing we did do.  We mostly bought our the toilet paper, but hey, we were poor high school students, so yes we did sometimes try to find more toilet paper in port-a-potties.
3. True.  We were all studying late one night, but then on a whim (for some wild reason) we decided it would be cool to go swim for golf balls.  We parked down the road, snuck onto the golf course, and jumped in a pond to try to find golf balls.  I think we found a few, but mostly, we were just having a grand ole time freezing our butts off and doing something crazy.  I shudder to think what that pond water actually looks like during daylight hours.

So there you have it.  While I might have been a goody two shoes (and still am), I am not opposed to doing crazy things and having a good time.  I've never needed alcohol or drugs to be adventurous, crazy, and have a good time.