Yesterday, we were actually on the verge of discharge. Not as a vague hypothetical, but scheduled in a few hours after the completion of the normal testing for the day. Part of that normal testing was an NST (nonstress test) which Lefty has been looking good on for about three weeks and Righty overall for a week. You guessed it, BOTH had late decels (3 or 4) and then they BOTH had a thirty-plus minute episode of tachycardia. One of the decels was interesting because they did it at the same time, but from different baselines, so perhaps they are already working on their synchronized swimming?
This was bad enough to get our discharge yesterday cancelled, but not bad enough to deliver right then (yeah!).
This morning the on-call OB came and actually made a plan clear. Part 1 of the plan is we will stay inpatient. Had we actually been discharged, they were going to have me come into the office Monday through Friday and up to L&D on Saturdays and Sundays, but the theory is it's easier to stay here than to have to get sent back, so might as well stay in. It also facilitates them delivering unscheduled.
That leads us to Part 2. There is a scheduled c-section at 37&1 (July 19) and they would prefer that date, but apparently the tolerance for decels will drop with each passing day and they will play it by ear, but very well may decide to section them ahead of that date based on a strip. She apparently was very close to delivering them yesterday and let them know that she would have if they had been 34 weeks (they were 33&5), so the girls are definitely on notice.
My OB is back on Monday, July 2. I think that's all the dates.
They had a growth scan today which also confirmed that my sensations are correct and instead of breech/breech, they are transverse/transverse. So Lefty is now more bottomy and Righty is now more toppy, but I'm sticking with Lefty and Righty. Lefty continues to be more petite than her sister, weighing in at 2077 grams (4lb, 9oz) while Righty is a hefty 2420 grams (5lb, 5oz). These are obviously ultrasound weights and have a large range of error, but it is safe to draw from these that they are good-sized! 4497 grams total!
While 34 is obviously great and awesome, more is better and I'm starting to get greedy and want more and more gestational time. I was playing with a prematurity risk calculator on perinatology.com and getting from 34 to 37 decreases the risk of respiratory distress syndrome from almost 20% to 3.5%! And the risk of NEC drops from 1.57% to 0% and the sepsis risk from 4.69% to 0%. The risk of grade III and IV IVHs already drops to 0% at 34 weeks, so I really feel comfortable and happy with any gestational age from here forward, but would LOVE them to make the July 19 date.
However, these girls will likely be leaving the hospital in diapers and the long-sleeve hospital white shirts if they do make it that long because the clothes are all organized and sorted in the garage rather than in the house or packed to bring to them or anything ;-).
Last thought is that it is really quite odd that I'm here on some level. I feel great and am really symptomless. If they'd let me, I'm still completely capable of walking, maneuvering and generally am still very mobile, flexible and all of that. I sleep fine, I'm not in pain, I'm not grumpy, I'm not swollen. I've got friends who are more like 20 weeks with singletons who seem much more uncomfortable and are having to waddle and dealing with pain and sleep issues and all that. So, excepting the whole being stuck in the hospital, I'm in great shape! We will see how well I handle going from two to three months of total bedrest to keeping up with four kids with an abdominal incision healing though...
Showing posts with label bedrest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bedrest. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
Passive Superstition Be Gone
I think I have not been posting through a mix of passive superstition, by not typing things it is totally logical that I'm not tempting fate (right?), and honestly just not wanting to process some thoughts. Neither of these was a conscious move, just kind of happened. But I got forced to a few thoughts, including realizing that I wasn't writing anything for silly/nonexistent reasons, so here I am.
First thought: at some point in the last week or so, my expectation has changed from this could result in 0, 1 or 2 babies to there will be 2. Yesterday morning, my OB was as usual sitting in the rocking chair beside my bed chatting and writing up my chart and when she finished she asked if I had anything else. And then said that she thought there was something else and that I sometimes get a look where she knows I'm thinking something, but she just doesn't know what it was. I felt oddly stressed, but couldn't identify what it was. In thinking after, I think it really was just that I'd made the transition to expecting 2, and thus exposing myself.
That's my big thought. Figure I should give a status update and summary now since I have been so non-communicative. However, just like with Chiron/Aurelia, I've actually done a good job through Facebook and it's hard to keep straight what I've said where, so figure I'll just go general here.
Two new things were declared by the OBs this week: next baby who pulls a hijink is getting born at that time and bring her sister with her and we are staying through delivery. Why, you ask? Well, Monday when we actually were at the point of considering discharge in the next couple days, Righty aka baby A, started having late decels followed by tachycardia on our normal morning strip. Initially responded with trying positional changes while a nurse got the oxygen setup in place. Then she called the OB and had her look at the strip just to be sure she knew what was going on and the OB told the nurse that we were going to c-section them and to start an IV, get labs drawn and get me moving towards L&D. Then in the thirty minutes all that was going on little miss behaved perfectly and so my OB backtracked and said we would do 24 hours of monitoring. No more incidents occurred after that, so was shipped back to stable antepartum, but it was declared that these two were out of chances.
Background: at 25 weeks, I had a cold and my body started contracting/dilating in response to there is stress on the system, lets do something to simplify. Stayed in-patient for ten days, things calmed down and was discharged to home bedrest at 26&2. Then at 28&5 I was at the perinatologist for normal BPP and Lefty, aka baby B, was having variable decelerations and some moderate bradycardia on her NST. He wasn't worried, but wanted to make sure that it stopped rather than continued and since it was 5 pm, sent me over to L&D for two hours of monitoring. Instead of discharge after two hours, I instead got another 2 rounds of steroid shots and was admitted. She continued having some of these events until the morning of 30&5 when there was some insane fetal motion and I again started having contractions. Had dilated more and so went over to L&D. By middle of the day, I was having beautiful, rhythmic contractions of mountains and values every 2.5 minutes and it looked like we were heading towards birth. Then it just petered out. Stayed in monitoring in L&D another day and a half and then back to stable antepartum. Good news of that event was the huge motion was Lefty moving from transverse to breech and as a result seemed to have gotten her leg or whatever out of the cord loop and we haven't seen variables at all, much less bradycardia from her since. Then on Monday, at 32&5 we had the late decels event with Righty.
So, now I'm back to hanging out in stable antepartum. Looking pretty stable and while I have a couple rounds of regularish contractions a day, nothing significant. Both babies are behaving on their strips and so we continue on. The delivery date barring someone misbehaving ahead of then is July 19 at 37&1. My OB, who you may remember is really amazing, competent and just a good human, just left my room and is heading out on vacation and will be out of town until July 2. Of course, there will be other OBs on call and I know them all, but I am spoiled and really prefer MY OB, so think behaving thoughts through at least July 2. That would also get us to 34&5, which I would count as pretty awesome.
That's my ramble and now some random pictures because captions are fun.
First thought: at some point in the last week or so, my expectation has changed from this could result in 0, 1 or 2 babies to there will be 2. Yesterday morning, my OB was as usual sitting in the rocking chair beside my bed chatting and writing up my chart and when she finished she asked if I had anything else. And then said that she thought there was something else and that I sometimes get a look where she knows I'm thinking something, but she just doesn't know what it was. I felt oddly stressed, but couldn't identify what it was. In thinking after, I think it really was just that I'd made the transition to expecting 2, and thus exposing myself.
That's my big thought. Figure I should give a status update and summary now since I have been so non-communicative. However, just like with Chiron/Aurelia, I've actually done a good job through Facebook and it's hard to keep straight what I've said where, so figure I'll just go general here.
Two new things were declared by the OBs this week: next baby who pulls a hijink is getting born at that time and bring her sister with her and we are staying through delivery. Why, you ask? Well, Monday when we actually were at the point of considering discharge in the next couple days, Righty aka baby A, started having late decels followed by tachycardia on our normal morning strip. Initially responded with trying positional changes while a nurse got the oxygen setup in place. Then she called the OB and had her look at the strip just to be sure she knew what was going on and the OB told the nurse that we were going to c-section them and to start an IV, get labs drawn and get me moving towards L&D. Then in the thirty minutes all that was going on little miss behaved perfectly and so my OB backtracked and said we would do 24 hours of monitoring. No more incidents occurred after that, so was shipped back to stable antepartum, but it was declared that these two were out of chances.
Background: at 25 weeks, I had a cold and my body started contracting/dilating in response to there is stress on the system, lets do something to simplify. Stayed in-patient for ten days, things calmed down and was discharged to home bedrest at 26&2. Then at 28&5 I was at the perinatologist for normal BPP and Lefty, aka baby B, was having variable decelerations and some moderate bradycardia on her NST. He wasn't worried, but wanted to make sure that it stopped rather than continued and since it was 5 pm, sent me over to L&D for two hours of monitoring. Instead of discharge after two hours, I instead got another 2 rounds of steroid shots and was admitted. She continued having some of these events until the morning of 30&5 when there was some insane fetal motion and I again started having contractions. Had dilated more and so went over to L&D. By middle of the day, I was having beautiful, rhythmic contractions of mountains and values every 2.5 minutes and it looked like we were heading towards birth. Then it just petered out. Stayed in monitoring in L&D another day and a half and then back to stable antepartum. Good news of that event was the huge motion was Lefty moving from transverse to breech and as a result seemed to have gotten her leg or whatever out of the cord loop and we haven't seen variables at all, much less bradycardia from her since. Then on Monday, at 32&5 we had the late decels event with Righty.
So, now I'm back to hanging out in stable antepartum. Looking pretty stable and while I have a couple rounds of regularish contractions a day, nothing significant. Both babies are behaving on their strips and so we continue on. The delivery date barring someone misbehaving ahead of then is July 19 at 37&1. My OB, who you may remember is really amazing, competent and just a good human, just left my room and is heading out on vacation and will be out of town until July 2. Of course, there will be other OBs on call and I know them all, but I am spoiled and really prefer MY OB, so think behaving thoughts through at least July 2. That would also get us to 34&5, which I would count as pretty awesome.
That's my ramble and now some random pictures because captions are fun.
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| Chiron playing around with one of the new strollers while hanging out at Trajan's swim lesson. |
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| Trajan is by the rail waiting at swim. |
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| Amusing nurses with hijinks and jocularity make the world better. |
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| So do nurses drawing fun pictures. |
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| And awesome coworkers who bring amusing things as well as folding zombies out of paper! |
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| And grandparents who come into town and amuse boys and generally help. |
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| As well as hold little boys with colds when the pass out. |
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| Friends coming by, talking, bringing food, amusement and even making a five-foot tall kangaroo makes the world a lot better as well. |
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| So do wonderful friends who I've actually never met in person who amuse me every single day on multiple occasions and have sent more surprises, notes and thoughts than I ever would have imagined. |
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| Even being challenged to a massive hamburger eating contest is pretty cool. And as a bonus, you see here the pictures that some amazing friends I work with thought to print and bring up (and some of the zombies!). |
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| This little man loves wandering around the hospital on our 30-minute wheelchair privileges and is amazing us with all he's mastered. |
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| This little man prefers to be silly and luckily there are some great nurses who go along with it! |
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| These three are pretty awesome and photographic evidence that Trajan may come here to play iPad almost as much as to see me. |
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| Happy, loving boys |
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| Everyone |
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| I don't have an innie or an outie now, I have a flattie. Also, tell the kids at home not to pierce their belly button because even if it's only for two days due to some impulsivity and fun with roommates, it will stretch to impressive size as a scar. And my first two skin marks ever appear below on diagonals on each side. |
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
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
__________________________________________________
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.
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.
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:
See, isn't my life fascinating?
__________________________________________________
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
__________________________________________________
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.
__________________________________________________
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.
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| Cool rag doll look! |
__________________________________________________
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:
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.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Overachieving Fetuses
I'm not sure my brain is qualified to keep track of what I've updated here versus Facebook versus what I've told people. But it does look like we are due for an update here.
With the exception of one 12-hour stint in L&D Sunday night/Monday morning, I've been successfully serving my bedrest at home. That was the product of a flareup of the uterus of bitching. I started contracting Sunday afternoon every 6-7 minutes which increased to every 5-6 minutes after a couple hours. They were only about 40-45 seconds in duration, so it seemed very unlikely that they were causing cervical change, but since we are still pretty early gestationally and they were regular, they had me come in to get checked and run additional IV fluids on top of my water chugging.
Thought 1 from that 12-hour visit: I was dubbed level-headed and rational for the fact that I took myself. My logic was that I was pretty sure that I was not having cervix changing contractions, it was bed time and it's much easier to deal with one of your parents leaving at bed time than both and barring an immediate emergency c-section, even in the worst case scenario we should have at least 2.5 hours of warning, so Paul could get up to the hospital. The nurse said that most moms are too flipped out to think about what will be best for their existing children, so apparently I'm calm as a cucumber.
Thought 2 from that 12-hour visit: if you let them give you 5 of Ambien, you can actually get some sleep on the L&D side!
Thought 3 from that 12-hour visit: I think I've come to an understanding of my uterus of bitching. It basically responds to anything being off or stressful on my body as a system by contracting. The actual cervix changing ones from a couple weeks ago I really think were just because of the cold I had. It does seem like a rational response from the body: body under stress, want to reduce stress, evict occupants. The destabilizing factor this time is a bit more embarrassing. I think I had a little constipation going on and that was enough to make my uterus declare that this wasn't what it signed up for and it was going to make things simpler! So, I think the grand conclusion is that I just need to keep things easy on my body and the uterus of bitching will keep its trap shut aka not contracting.
Got discharged at 5:30 am, so was able to hit my normal Monday morning perinatology appointment. The preterm nurse was out of town, so I didn't have to see her and went straight to the perinatologist which was very nice! This was our first week of doing biophysical profiles. The peri was willing to accept my statement that both achieved 15 by 15 accels during monitoring the night before, so we skipped the NST and just did the ultrasound part of it. Both got 8 out of 8, but it took quite a while to get Lefty to show her breathing practice.
My favorite ultrasound picture of this appointment was Righty's hand and Lefty's feet together:
Also got a shot of someone's tongue:
And someone yawning:
Because of the time waiting to get Lefty to show off her breathing, we also get profiles and face-on views of both babies. And confirmed they are both still girls!
Also confirmed that I don't have the gestational diabetes! But my vitamin D and calcium levels are low despite the supplementation, so we are stepping them up even more by tripling my vitamin D. No changes are necessary to my calcium amounts because the theory is that getting the vitamin D levels up will increase my uptake of what I am taking. And I need to take a belly shot as requested, but here's one from last weekend for now:
And this picture of Chiron sitting on Trajan amuses me and so I am passing it on:
Oh yeah, why did I call them overachieving fetuses? Well, biophysical profiles don't normally start until 32 weeks and they both got perfect scores at this 28 week appointment and also achieved accelerations of 15 by 15 (meaning 15 beats for 15 seconds) which also isn't normally looked for until 32 weeks. So, they are overachieving fetuses. Good girls!
And in one last celebration, hitting 28 weeks will mean that they while they may still end up being preemies, they will not be micropreemies! And even if they were born in the next few days (not the plan), they should be able to skip the Giraffe incubator phase in the NICU. So again, go girls!
With the exception of one 12-hour stint in L&D Sunday night/Monday morning, I've been successfully serving my bedrest at home. That was the product of a flareup of the uterus of bitching. I started contracting Sunday afternoon every 6-7 minutes which increased to every 5-6 minutes after a couple hours. They were only about 40-45 seconds in duration, so it seemed very unlikely that they were causing cervical change, but since we are still pretty early gestationally and they were regular, they had me come in to get checked and run additional IV fluids on top of my water chugging.
Thought 1 from that 12-hour visit: I was dubbed level-headed and rational for the fact that I took myself. My logic was that I was pretty sure that I was not having cervix changing contractions, it was bed time and it's much easier to deal with one of your parents leaving at bed time than both and barring an immediate emergency c-section, even in the worst case scenario we should have at least 2.5 hours of warning, so Paul could get up to the hospital. The nurse said that most moms are too flipped out to think about what will be best for their existing children, so apparently I'm calm as a cucumber.
Thought 2 from that 12-hour visit: if you let them give you 5 of Ambien, you can actually get some sleep on the L&D side!
Thought 3 from that 12-hour visit: I think I've come to an understanding of my uterus of bitching. It basically responds to anything being off or stressful on my body as a system by contracting. The actual cervix changing ones from a couple weeks ago I really think were just because of the cold I had. It does seem like a rational response from the body: body under stress, want to reduce stress, evict occupants. The destabilizing factor this time is a bit more embarrassing. I think I had a little constipation going on and that was enough to make my uterus declare that this wasn't what it signed up for and it was going to make things simpler! So, I think the grand conclusion is that I just need to keep things easy on my body and the uterus of bitching will keep its trap shut aka not contracting.
Got discharged at 5:30 am, so was able to hit my normal Monday morning perinatology appointment. The preterm nurse was out of town, so I didn't have to see her and went straight to the perinatologist which was very nice! This was our first week of doing biophysical profiles. The peri was willing to accept my statement that both achieved 15 by 15 accels during monitoring the night before, so we skipped the NST and just did the ultrasound part of it. Both got 8 out of 8, but it took quite a while to get Lefty to show her breathing practice.
My favorite ultrasound picture of this appointment was Righty's hand and Lefty's feet together:
Also got a shot of someone's tongue:
Because of the time waiting to get Lefty to show off her breathing, we also get profiles and face-on views of both babies. And confirmed they are both still girls!
Also confirmed that I don't have the gestational diabetes! But my vitamin D and calcium levels are low despite the supplementation, so we are stepping them up even more by tripling my vitamin D. No changes are necessary to my calcium amounts because the theory is that getting the vitamin D levels up will increase my uptake of what I am taking. And I need to take a belly shot as requested, but here's one from last weekend for now:
And this picture of Chiron sitting on Trajan amuses me and so I am passing it on:
Oh yeah, why did I call them overachieving fetuses? Well, biophysical profiles don't normally start until 32 weeks and they both got perfect scores at this 28 week appointment and also achieved accelerations of 15 by 15 (meaning 15 beats for 15 seconds) which also isn't normally looked for until 32 weeks. So, they are overachieving fetuses. Good girls!
And in one last celebration, hitting 28 weeks will mean that they while they may still end up being preemies, they will not be micropreemies! And even if they were born in the next few days (not the plan), they should be able to skip the Giraffe incubator phase in the NICU. So again, go girls!
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Mensch
You know how sometimes a word pops into your head? Well, this happened to me the other day with the word mensch and I've decided to run with it. I looked it up to check that my meaning was right and it was "a decent, upright, mature, and responsible person." It's Yiddish, so I have no idea where I came across it, but I think it's a great summation of my goal in terms of my attitude and actions.
Rather than whining at restrictions, I think it's best that I be a responsible adult who can balance the needs of multiple people and timeframes and gets the significance of avoiding as much NICU time as humanly possible at essentially any cost.
I was discharged Friday and all is going really quite well with home bedrest. Paul and my parents got me set up with a minifridge and a microwave upstairs and stocked with food, cutlery, drinks and more. I've also got a serious number and variety of pillows to arrange different positions. Add that I was planner and last pregnancy had purchased a hospital bedside table and a lap table in preparation (before everything changed), and I'm in great shape. I've got a printer set up here and a friend who works at my office brought me out some things I need, so I'm in shape working as well.
Having Poppins definitely helps as she and Chiron are here throughout the day. They go for walks and to the park and to the grocery store, but it really results in about two hours being the longest duration I go without Paul or Poppins being here. Add friends who have helped with all kinds of things and life is pretty good! It's also nice because Chiron stops by a couple times a day and plays which really brightens the day and being home allows me to read to Trajan before bed like normal which I couldn't do from the hospital. And I've got pretty cute coworkers here:
Besides helping with boys, being home allows me to be useful as I can go through the mail and sort things that have been pulled out for goodwill including getting them entered into itsdeductible and lots of little things like that. Feel much less useless.
On the girls front, all is looking well. I should confess that I was secretly hoping/expecting that when I went to the preterm nurse Monday she would say that she thought the covering OB was in error and I hadn't had any cervical change, but she if anything actually identified more cervical change dubbing me one-plus, 30-50% effaced and soft where I had been completely closed when I had seen her before going into the hospital. Since the covering OB had done a cervical exam at 8 am and then 5:30 pm of the same day, it was probably a silly hope, but oh well.
The good news is that I still have 4.4 cm of cervix which is enough cervix for two pregnancies and close enough to the 4.9 value in the hospital last Wednesday. That and both girls aced their modified BPP, so we are really in good shape. The perinatologist did think that I needed to stay on as complete a bedrest as possible as I was contracting some while I was there and if just medical trips are enough to make irritable, running around free could equal instability. He also didn't like that preterm labor nurse noticed some pink blood after the cervical exam, but since I haven't seen any after, I'm going to go with that was just due to the exam.
We got a profile of Righty who is back to being the presenting baby. She is vertex in the center/left (name is based on her placenta) and then Lefty is sprawled transverse up in my ribcage. Note: I am not 8 weeks currently as the ultrasound is labelled. 8, 27, what's the real difference, huh?
I thought I'd fixed the orientation in iPhoto, but apparently not... oh well!
The one thing I really miss from the hospital (well, besides some nice and amusing nurses) is the monitoring. Seeing those lines a couple times a day just is nice:
BUT, these faces are nicer:
I'm blaming the Chiron bias here on the fact that he's much more cooperative than the others.
But in tying back to my mensch theme, yesterday one of the techs at the perinatologist said something that startled me, but also made me glad: "you're always in such a good mood and kind. You're our best patient." And this is a woman who has seen me at one of the worst moments in my life. This made me glad. Because really the best we can do is live our lives :-). What will be will be, I'm here to celebrate it and optimize it!
Rather than whining at restrictions, I think it's best that I be a responsible adult who can balance the needs of multiple people and timeframes and gets the significance of avoiding as much NICU time as humanly possible at essentially any cost.
I was discharged Friday and all is going really quite well with home bedrest. Paul and my parents got me set up with a minifridge and a microwave upstairs and stocked with food, cutlery, drinks and more. I've also got a serious number and variety of pillows to arrange different positions. Add that I was planner and last pregnancy had purchased a hospital bedside table and a lap table in preparation (before everything changed), and I'm in great shape. I've got a printer set up here and a friend who works at my office brought me out some things I need, so I'm in shape working as well.
Having Poppins definitely helps as she and Chiron are here throughout the day. They go for walks and to the park and to the grocery store, but it really results in about two hours being the longest duration I go without Paul or Poppins being here. Add friends who have helped with all kinds of things and life is pretty good! It's also nice because Chiron stops by a couple times a day and plays which really brightens the day and being home allows me to read to Trajan before bed like normal which I couldn't do from the hospital. And I've got pretty cute coworkers here:
On the girls front, all is looking well. I should confess that I was secretly hoping/expecting that when I went to the preterm nurse Monday she would say that she thought the covering OB was in error and I hadn't had any cervical change, but she if anything actually identified more cervical change dubbing me one-plus, 30-50% effaced and soft where I had been completely closed when I had seen her before going into the hospital. Since the covering OB had done a cervical exam at 8 am and then 5:30 pm of the same day, it was probably a silly hope, but oh well.
The good news is that I still have 4.4 cm of cervix which is enough cervix for two pregnancies and close enough to the 4.9 value in the hospital last Wednesday. That and both girls aced their modified BPP, so we are really in good shape. The perinatologist did think that I needed to stay on as complete a bedrest as possible as I was contracting some while I was there and if just medical trips are enough to make irritable, running around free could equal instability. He also didn't like that preterm labor nurse noticed some pink blood after the cervical exam, but since I haven't seen any after, I'm going to go with that was just due to the exam.
We got a profile of Righty who is back to being the presenting baby. She is vertex in the center/left (name is based on her placenta) and then Lefty is sprawled transverse up in my ribcage. Note: I am not 8 weeks currently as the ultrasound is labelled. 8, 27, what's the real difference, huh?
The one thing I really miss from the hospital (well, besides some nice and amusing nurses) is the monitoring. Seeing those lines a couple times a day just is nice:
But in tying back to my mensch theme, yesterday one of the techs at the perinatologist said something that startled me, but also made me glad: "you're always in such a good mood and kind. You're our best patient." And this is a woman who has seen me at one of the worst moments in my life. This made me glad. Because really the best we can do is live our lives :-). What will be will be, I'm here to celebrate it and optimize it!
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