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.

Chiron playing around with one of the new strollers while hanging out at Trajan's swim lesson.

Trajan is by the rail waiting at swim.

Amusing nurses with hijinks and jocularity make the world better.

So do nurses drawing fun pictures.

And awesome coworkers who bring amusing things as well as folding zombies out of paper!

And grandparents who come into town and amuse boys and generally help.

As well as hold little boys with colds when the pass out.

Friends coming by, talking, bringing food, amusement and even making a five-foot tall kangaroo makes the world a lot better as well.

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.

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!).

This little man loves wandering around the hospital on our 30-minute wheelchair privileges and is amazing us with all he's mastered.

This little man prefers to be silly and luckily there are some great nurses who go along with it!

These three are pretty awesome and photographic evidence that Trajan may come here to play iPad almost as much as to see me.

Happy, loving boys

Everyone

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.

All is good...

I really thought I posted something two days ago, but it turns out that perhaps I'm not the best phone blogger while on mag and I didn't put anything.  So, the short version of it is that we are all doing well.  Chiron has less fluid draining from his ears, Trajan apparently is the toughest, most resilient fella on the planet and was completely unfazed by the anaesthesia, the surgery, the pain, the hospital or anything.  And the girls are both kicking butt and I'm getting the word "stable" applied to me.

Longer version:

Bless the commenter who pointed out that I should get a book about getting the tonsils/adenoids out and talk about it with Trajan.  I did and the book said to think about your kid and the degree to tell him or her and I made the decision that he was the type who wanted to know everything that we knew included how he was be gassed, the kinds of tools that they would use to cut, that it would hurt, etc.  He took one of his stuffed animals with him to the surgery, baby jaguar, and this friend also got to go back with him to surgery (since he needed his tonsils/adenoids out) and I'm told that Trajan did a fantastic job talking baby jaguar through what was going to happen.

This is his surly, presurgery pictury and I don't actually know the story on what the face is for.  He LOVES the hospital socks.  That's baby jaguar beside him.  They happily went back through the doors to surgery by themselves, so we were two for two this week for our kids happily heading back with nurses they didn't know for surger :-).

This is his first post-surgery shot.  He came up from the anaesthesia like a trooper (unlike little brother who fought the world like a tiger and was completely disoriented).  He was in love with these rainbow popsicles.  This is immediately after surgery, so he's still pretty high on the meds, but looking great and already explaining that it just feels like he's got a booboo in his throat and that getting your tonsils out is a good thing.

Pretty much immediately after that my mom (who went with Paul for part of the day, Paul stayed the whole day and night) asked Trajan if he wanted some quiet time.  Trajan agreed and even put the nap mask on and was back asleep in less than a minute.  When he woke up from this nap, he apparently seemed pretty much completely recovered.  So, apparently my apprehension was all for nothing and I should have stuck with the half of me that knows my kid and is frankly time and again amazed by him.  Trajan really is a superhero to me.

Just another example of him explaining things to baby jaguar.  The IV is how you let your blood drink, pretty cool, huh, baby jaguar?  Kid thought that getting to sleep at the surgery center was an awesome treat/trip reward.  And then was discharged the next morning with no events!

Little brother has so far been to see me both days and I dub him my cutest visitor to date:

They both came yesterday and I'm going to need to get things set up with books and toys and all again to make this place a fun visiting spot.  I'm highly confident I know what to do to make Trajan have a positive experience with my being here, but I'm much less confident with Chiron.  Any tips to make a very attachd toddler understand visiting his mom in bed would be appreciated.  So far, he's been very happy to just lay in bed with me, snuggle, read, talk and be.  But I also think that he has a little stomach bug that may be slowing him down.

Trajan is still wearing his surgery socks and his arm band and really enjoyed realizing that I had a hospital band too!

I think my dad probably has some pictures of the boys visiting yesterday when they came with Poppins and my parents, but I was much more focused on enjoying them and the like, so all I've got is that shot that shows he has a band too :-).

I'll have an update on me and the girls sometime in the next few days, but I think I may wait until Tuesday when it sounds like we are going to have more of a conversation about "the plan".  I was just moved from L&D to stable antepartum and am set up there.  This gets me a real bed instead of a delivery bed, the right to short showers and the ability to wear clothes instead of a gown.  It also shifts the girls to getting monitored once a day with an NST rather than the continuous or hourly monitoring that we've been doing.

I did have a conversation with a neonatologist the other day and it went pretty well.  There actually have been some substantial improvements in just the 16 months since Chiron was born.  Still hoping to go much longer, but it's a much rosier picture than the conversation I had at 24 weeks with a neonatologist last time.

Anything you want to know about the uterus of doom?  About the girls?  They've been doing great on monitoring, actually achieving 10 by 10 accels pretty often which is fantastic for 25 weekers and are doing everything we could ask of them. 

That's my ramble, what should I update?

Cervical Length

I made it through the entire pregnancy with Trajan without ever even considering the length of my cervix.  Crazy, huh?

Last time, they checked my cervical length based on standard twin procedures at 24 weeks and it was 4.38 cm.   Then at 28 weeks, while on hospital bed rest, it was still actually 3.7 cm.

Despite these good cervical length values, the fact that I delivered at 29&6 takes precedence in deciding the risk management in this pregnancy.  We think that the cervical change was a result of the demise, but since we can't know that with absolute certainty, they are managing conservatively.  I had it measured early on at 8 weeks, but the value was so inaccurate that we are ignoring.  Since then, I have been measured at 12, 16 and 18 weeks.  I dropped from 4.5 cm to 3.8 cm between 12 and 16 weeks and while this was still a more than acceptable value, the shortening was a little concerning.  They didn't add any restrictions, but did recommend that I listen to my body and assume that any contracting is bad contracting so try to prevent contracting from happening by doing less and definitely lie down and hydrate any time I feel contracting.

I actually kind of like having this to worry about.  Preterm labor is definitely not good, but it is something you can take action on and DO something about.  So, I figure it's a much healthier worry than worrying about fetal demise or anything like that. 

I have been acting on this worry in a healthy manner following the advice about adding rest periods, not overdoing stairs, upping my hydration even a little more and just generally listening to my body for the last two weeks since the previous cervical length. 

Cervical length today?  5.0 cm. 

Yup, you read that right, not only did it lengthen, but it is longer than it has ever been previously measured at any point in a pregnancy!  And she said the shape was great as well.  I actually received PRAISE from a perinatologist today.  I didn't know they ever did that!

Based on the lengthening, I was cleared to go another two weeks until my next cervical length which will be at the same time as my next anatomy scan at 20 weeks.

And as a bonus, they confirmed cardiac activity and movement in both babies as long as I was in as well as their fluid levels and they both looked great! I declare ultrasound number 11 a great success.  Though, perhaps they should give keepsake printouts of the cervical length like they do the babies with scans :-). 

And here's evidence of my continued work in good eating: