In which I ruminate...

I just turned off the alarm for the maternal heartbeat on my monitor.  It's limits are set at 50 and 120 and I go up into the 120s pretty frequently, typically this is when talking to someone, and so it was a bit annoying.  It's probably a bad sign that I'm more familiar with the machines around here than some of the nurses.  I thought about changing the upper limit, but figured just turning it off would make for a simpler return to standard state, though I believe it does reset anytime it is unplugged as well.

Why I think this fact is worthy of sharing with you, I don't really know, but eh, I never claimed to make sense! And perhaps an even better question is why I think I need to share a picture of the monitor, but I do:

And in the style of live blogging, the whole story changes!  The pulse ox cord apparently had some issues.  I do like that none of us yesterday or last night thought to actually look at the clock and take my puse, we just accepted the 120s to 150s.  My nurse today, who is a favorite and definitely one of the most competent, looked at me and declared that my pulse was not that high, took it by hand and changed out the part. 

See, isn't my life fascinating?
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I have decided that the L&D floor is a time distortion field.  Came in for three hours, stayed for 10 days.  Right now, I'm still here from my two hours of monitoring Monday night.  There had been some talk about letting me go this morning, but while there haven't been any deceleration events (which are apparently measured in minutes), there were more variables and with greater drops than the current on-call OB (who is the doctor I had for four weeks while mine was on maternity leave last time) is comfortable with.  She sounded like she wasn't concerned per se, but isn't feeling sufficiently comfortable with Lefty's strips yet.  It's now a different on-call doctor, my OB doesn't work Tuesday or Wednesday as she has three small children of her own, but today's doctor said that the next one may discharge me after 6am tomorrow
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I know I'd mentioned that I found the changes in the NICU in the last 17 months kind of fascinating when the neonatologist came down to talk, but I've also discovered another interesting change in the obstetrics side of things.  Last time, they didn't repeat steroids.  In the last few months, they've aparently had their thinking come around to be more like a decade ago and they do repeat if it's been around four weeks or so and they think there's a reasonable chance of delivery in the next week or so (this time they were thinking possible c-section for distress instead of PTL.  read as NOT MY FAULT for once).  So, I had two more doses of Betamethasone Sodium Phosphate with Betamethasone Acetate Monday night and last night.  It's possible they will do one more round if I were to go into labor or we were removing the babies for distreen reasons between about 32 and 34 weeks.

By the way, random note, but these shots are much more pleasant in the bum than in the thigh.  Four of my six doses ever have been thigh and I highly recommend taking this route.
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I am on continuous monitoring until we are assured about Lefty's strips and I'm oddly proud of my ability to come and manage.  Many people have a lot of trouble because you can't really get much continuous sleep as anytime a baby comes off the monitor, the nurses have to come in and put them back on.  I am apparently very good at noticing them come in, confirming that they don't need me to reposition and then go back to sleep while they are moving straps and monitors and all of that.  Having a real bed instead of the transformer delivery bed also makes a huge difference.  When they were talking about running continuous monitoring, I in my own mind thought that I could probably only make it about 100 hours before I started to lose it, but I really don't think this is the case.  I think I can stay on as long as necessary without too many issues.

Cool rag doll look!

Biggest problem is needing to keep the pulse ox on 24 hours a day as it makes it much harder to work on things for work or even play around on the computer/phone.  However, one of the nurses said I could move it to my thumb and this makes the typing MUCH easier as I just use my right thumb exclusively fore the space bar and all is good.
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In my last thought, girls are 29 weeks now. Officially non-micros no matter what happens now!  Still voting for them to stay put, but we are really coming along in terms of intraventricular (IVH) and NEC risks now.  AND, they are big enough to serve as a tray when I have to eat lying down to keep them on the monitor:

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So, I think the summary version is that we are still here in the hospital, but all three of us seem to be doing pretty well.  And no reason at this time to expect anything drastic to change.

Oh, and their last possible date is set, July 19.  And since they did finally change from shoulder presentation presenting/transverse upper, to breech/transverse, looks like definitely going to be the c-section route.