Both are doing great though (I just have failed and mainly kept Facebook updated)
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
Aletheia Wren and Ariadne Mia
Aletheia Wren and Ariadne Mia made their appearance a week early tonight at 18:51 and 18:53. Addie is getting released to us now about 4.5 hours later, but Allie looks like she is headed up for a little more monitoring due to breathing being hard!
Both are doing great though (I just have failed and mainly kept Facebook updated)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Both are doing great though (I just have failed and mainly kept Facebook updated)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Still Trucking
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...
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...
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. |
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
8 lb, 4.5 oz of baby
Assuming accuracy of ultrasound weights (yes, I can hear you laughing from here), the girls now outweigh Trajan's birth weight collectively. I was not surprised by this as I also have a bit of stretch mark for the first time ever. Right now it's just two little red marks, but I bet that's just a start.
Righty, our presenting baby, came in at a petite 1719 grams (3lb, 12.6oz). Lefty is now our bruiser coming in at 2038 grams (4lb, 7.9oz), two kilos! So together they are 3757 grams (8lb, 4.5oz). Righty is at the 37th percentile while Lefty is at the 56th.
The margin of error at this age/size is about 300 grams for each of them, so their weights may not be as far apart as they look. It' a 15.7% size discordance and they apparently don't start to pay closer attention until 18-25%, so golden on that front as well. Today was 31 weeks, 6 days and those weights correspond with 31 weeks, 4 days and 32 weeks, 2 days, so the weight difference is only equivalent to 4 days growth of the fetus that is the perfect 50th percentile.
Both girls aced their BPPs as well which was reassuring as Lefty didn't get a reactive fetal strip in the appropriate amount of time this morning. She eventually did, but not within the time parameters for it to count as reactive.
Tomorrow is 32 weeks, so I think based on almost all measures, we have achieved big baby territory! Also, while their going breech-breech is a bit of a downer as it equals c-section for sure, one nice feature is being able to find each of their heads REALLY helps me to be able to discern what motion belongs to which baby which is reassuring and happy.
As requested, belly pictures demonstrating the collapse down into beer belly:
And yes, my stomach is very oddly veiny!
And a couple of the boys just because I like them:
Righty, our presenting baby, came in at a petite 1719 grams (3lb, 12.6oz). Lefty is now our bruiser coming in at 2038 grams (4lb, 7.9oz), two kilos! So together they are 3757 grams (8lb, 4.5oz). Righty is at the 37th percentile while Lefty is at the 56th.
The margin of error at this age/size is about 300 grams for each of them, so their weights may not be as far apart as they look. It' a 15.7% size discordance and they apparently don't start to pay closer attention until 18-25%, so golden on that front as well. Today was 31 weeks, 6 days and those weights correspond with 31 weeks, 4 days and 32 weeks, 2 days, so the weight difference is only equivalent to 4 days growth of the fetus that is the perfect 50th percentile.
Both girls aced their BPPs as well which was reassuring as Lefty didn't get a reactive fetal strip in the appropriate amount of time this morning. She eventually did, but not within the time parameters for it to count as reactive.
Tomorrow is 32 weeks, so I think based on almost all measures, we have achieved big baby territory! Also, while their going breech-breech is a bit of a downer as it equals c-section for sure, one nice feature is being able to find each of their heads REALLY helps me to be able to discern what motion belongs to which baby which is reassuring and happy.
As requested, belly pictures demonstrating the collapse down into beer belly:
And a couple of the boys just because I like them:
Monday, June 11, 2012
I got nothing...
I didn't mean to be dramatic by not posting, it's really just a question of I've really got nothing to say. And when I do say something, it seems to inappropriately tempt fate and I've developed an unhealthy superstitious attitude.
Still hanging out in patient. Was pretty much positive we were delivering within 24 hours last Monday. Dilated more, regular 2-3 minute contractions for hours and the like, but then it all stopped. OB, nurses, other OB and the like were all also convinced, so no clue what really happened, but I like it.
Good news is that the event that we think precipitated that preterm labor episode was the movement of Lefty from transverse to breech. And in the process, she seems to have fixed her cord issue. Free your leg and your heart will follow... We actually have not seen any of the recurrent variables or bradycardia episodes since that day and that has us at a week now. This is good news!
But with two cervix changing episodes to date and an irritable (the medicos for some reason don't agree with the term bitchy or even whiny) uterus that throws fits at such things as lying flat on back, too much fetal movement and not having a sufficiently empty bladder, they've still got me hanging here even with the improvement in the fetal strips.
We should have a growth ultrasound with their BPP tomorrow and I'll try to remember to be a good person and update with that. Because notoriously accurate ultrasound weights are fascinating, right? Does sarcasm convey in writing?
Other news is the movement on Lefty and then Righty deciding to get in the game and become breech as well (breech-breech for the win) has resulted in belly dropping from it's round ball appearance to looking like a true, sagging beer belly. Kinda fun. They are definitely bigger than I was when Trajan was induced at 38 weeks and this is pretty amazing to me.
Still getting a lot of work done for work here and I think that's crucial to my sanity. Seeing the boys and exercising half-hour wheelchair privileges with them to go on "adventures" is even more crucial to my sanity. An amazing and patient doctor plus some truly wonderful humans as nurses also can not be underappreciated.
So, life is going well. Not ideal, but good and we are blessed to be experiencing it.
Last thought: it's really starting to look like we may end up with four children. Four children living in our house. Four kids, really?!?
Still hanging out in patient. Was pretty much positive we were delivering within 24 hours last Monday. Dilated more, regular 2-3 minute contractions for hours and the like, but then it all stopped. OB, nurses, other OB and the like were all also convinced, so no clue what really happened, but I like it.
Good news is that the event that we think precipitated that preterm labor episode was the movement of Lefty from transverse to breech. And in the process, she seems to have fixed her cord issue. Free your leg and your heart will follow... We actually have not seen any of the recurrent variables or bradycardia episodes since that day and that has us at a week now. This is good news!
But with two cervix changing episodes to date and an irritable (the medicos for some reason don't agree with the term bitchy or even whiny) uterus that throws fits at such things as lying flat on back, too much fetal movement and not having a sufficiently empty bladder, they've still got me hanging here even with the improvement in the fetal strips.
We should have a growth ultrasound with their BPP tomorrow and I'll try to remember to be a good person and update with that. Because notoriously accurate ultrasound weights are fascinating, right? Does sarcasm convey in writing?
Other news is the movement on Lefty and then Righty deciding to get in the game and become breech as well (breech-breech for the win) has resulted in belly dropping from it's round ball appearance to looking like a true, sagging beer belly. Kinda fun. They are definitely bigger than I was when Trajan was induced at 38 weeks and this is pretty amazing to me.
Still getting a lot of work done for work here and I think that's crucial to my sanity. Seeing the boys and exercising half-hour wheelchair privileges with them to go on "adventures" is even more crucial to my sanity. An amazing and patient doctor plus some truly wonderful humans as nurses also can not be underappreciated.
So, life is going well. Not ideal, but good and we are blessed to be experiencing it.
Last thought: it's really starting to look like we may end up with four children. Four children living in our house. Four kids, really?!?
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Someone tell me to shut my trap
Apparently I did not learn a life lesson from this post. Note that it was written on 12/21 and Chiron was born 12/23.
My putting into writing that she had had no more decels and just some slightly extended variances may have been a bad idea. I'm not really very superstitious by nature, but both L&D and the NICU kinda make me so.
So, can you guess what happened between the last post and now? More variances plus a couple decels. They were V's, not W's, which I'm reassured is very good and she recovered on her own each time and is still achieving accelerations and the like, but NOT what we are looking for. She got down to about 90 from 150 or 160 and then recovered back to 150 or 160 over a couple minute period on one of them and I didn't get the specific numbers on any others.
Her line does look crazy compared to her sister's.
Nothing has changed, just the clock to feel confident that her positioning has resolved itself and she is not at risk has reset. Nothing to be alarmed about. Nothing to overreact to, but seriously? Just STOP doing that, little miss lefty.
I am finding it much harder to actually work while monitoring, so I'm going to celebrate the positive side and declare this an opportunity to nearly guilt-free work on getting caught up on my blog reading!
Thank you all for keeping track of us and sharing your thoughts and jokes and experiences. Really does mean the world.
Oh, and Tanika, the uterus of bitching is totally behaving, so I think we may need to get a nickname for little miss attention magnet...
My putting into writing that she had had no more decels and just some slightly extended variances may have been a bad idea. I'm not really very superstitious by nature, but both L&D and the NICU kinda make me so.
So, can you guess what happened between the last post and now? More variances plus a couple decels. They were V's, not W's, which I'm reassured is very good and she recovered on her own each time and is still achieving accelerations and the like, but NOT what we are looking for. She got down to about 90 from 150 or 160 and then recovered back to 150 or 160 over a couple minute period on one of them and I didn't get the specific numbers on any others.
Her line does look crazy compared to her sister's.
Nothing has changed, just the clock to feel confident that her positioning has resolved itself and she is not at risk has reset. Nothing to be alarmed about. Nothing to overreact to, but seriously? Just STOP doing that, little miss lefty.
I am finding it much harder to actually work while monitoring, so I'm going to celebrate the positive side and declare this an opportunity to nearly guilt-free work on getting caught up on my blog reading!
Thank you all for keeping track of us and sharing your thoughts and jokes and experiences. Really does mean the world.
Oh, and Tanika, the uterus of bitching is totally behaving, so I think we may need to get a nickname for little miss attention magnet...
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.
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?
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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.
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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.
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| Cool rag doll look! |
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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:
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.
Monday, May 21, 2012
See this angelic face?
She was misbehaving on her NST, so we are over at L&D for some monitoring. She was having relative bradycardia events, dropping into upper 90s/lower 100s. Both girls got perfect 8s on their BPPs, but the perinatologist sent me over to L&D to monitor for a while longer to make sure that the bradycardia events stop.
Strip is looking pretty good so far at L&D though, so hopefully just here for a couple hours. He said if the events didn't reoccur that they would let me go, but if they do reoccur, we are going to need continuous monitoring.
He did some extra visualization and studying of her cord (that's Lefty) and it is actually positioned really well, so hopefully is just a fluky, benign thing.
The perinatologist was also able to confirm that my feeling that fetal motion was different this morning is due to repositioning as I theorized.
Being honest, I did get a little toward panic during the NST while the tech was noticing the bradycardias, but the perinatologist was very reassuring with his ultrasound examinations and doing this extra monitoring is really helping me to feel confident.
So, think behaving thoughts their way and if so, I'll update you with fun baby tiedye tomorrow from the house instead of medical!
And here's evidence of the girls conspiring:
UPDATE: well, they decided to do two more rounds of steroids since it's been four weeks and so here for 48 hours. But strips are looking good.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
24 hours
If I can be good for 24 hours, discharge shall be mine, wahahahaha. By good, I mean that I have to stop bleeding and have no new bleeding, contract minimally on the monitor and I guess feel like I'm good and stable? We are theorizing that the bleeding was only due to a cervical ultrasound yesterday and so we went ahead and did a cervical exam today so I can have a calm cervix and get discharged.
I'm supposed to be good because my OB is leaving town and won't be back until Monday night and we established that I have a history of misbehaving when she is out (read maternity leave for her in version 2010). However, I argued that one event doesn't make a history! And so I can define a new trend.
I really think I am comfortable with the discharge. I don't feel like I'm in preterm labor. I feel like I have a pissy uterus that likes to express its displeasure with the world when anything doesn't quite go its way. But I think it's bark is likely much worse than it's bite. So maybe it's not a uterus of doom? Maybe it's just a uterus of bitching?
I'm supposed to be very limited in what I do at home. No lifting the boys in any time or condition. No stairs just for giggles. No housework. The oddest explicitly stated limited that she gave me was "no shopping". I'm taking this as meaning physically shopping, so don't worry dear friend Amazon! I can shower, bathe, go to the bathroom and go to doctor's appointments though and continue working from home similar to how I do in the hospital (and since the house is a mile from the office, this is MUCH easier if I need files or anything to be brought to me).
I think I forgot to mention here that in celebration of finishing mag I bought a stroller the other day! We have settled on a two-stroller solution to our stroller logistics and I purchased stroller number one. This is a Baby Jogger City Select with the second seat. I was feeling enthusiastic enough that I ordered the glider board thing as well. This stroller will take both of the Chicco Keyfit 30s, but I haven't ordered the adaptor bars yet. My theory for ordering this stroller now is multifaceted. One, it allows us to sell the Bugaboo and it's accoutrements on Craigslist while still allowing Poppins and Chiron to get out. Two, the weight limit on this stroller actually still includes Trajan, so he who has never really used a stroller much can get to play with it this summer and get that out of his system some before it gets into real use. Three, the 2012s are out and have been out for a while and the 2011s haven't dropped in price and since there were so few changes to the 2012 model, they probably won't anyway, so it made sense to be the stroller to buy.
If you're curious, the second part of our stroller logistics solution that we have settled on is a Valco Trimode Twin with a Joey Seat for Chiron. The BJCS will be more for Paul and I (who can sling or Ergo a third if necessary) and in the car while the Valco is mainly for leaving at the house and for Poppins to utilize. The model years on the Valco don't seem to be updated and I want to get more on top of it's product line development and history before I buy one. Also, the colors are giving me pause. I think we'd probably do best with just the Raven, but it doesn't seem to exist, so maybe the Arctic?
Have we noticed the leaps of faith I've taken? We are employing an entire person, I bought a stroller and we have girl clothing in our garage up to 3T. We also now have three crib mattresses and are moving towards figuring out bunk beds for Trajan so we can turn his full-size bed back into a crib.
And in other news, my subtle pity party has ended as scheduled this morning and I'm back on board conquering the world and generally being competent and in charge. It was a subtle pity party, but it still feels good to be over.
And for some random pictures because I think they are fun:
Chiron on the way to storytime with nanny yesterday in a picture she texted me:
I'm supposed to be good because my OB is leaving town and won't be back until Monday night and we established that I have a history of misbehaving when she is out (read maternity leave for her in version 2010). However, I argued that one event doesn't make a history! And so I can define a new trend.
I really think I am comfortable with the discharge. I don't feel like I'm in preterm labor. I feel like I have a pissy uterus that likes to express its displeasure with the world when anything doesn't quite go its way. But I think it's bark is likely much worse than it's bite. So maybe it's not a uterus of doom? Maybe it's just a uterus of bitching?
I'm supposed to be very limited in what I do at home. No lifting the boys in any time or condition. No stairs just for giggles. No housework. The oddest explicitly stated limited that she gave me was "no shopping". I'm taking this as meaning physically shopping, so don't worry dear friend Amazon! I can shower, bathe, go to the bathroom and go to doctor's appointments though and continue working from home similar to how I do in the hospital (and since the house is a mile from the office, this is MUCH easier if I need files or anything to be brought to me).
I think I forgot to mention here that in celebration of finishing mag I bought a stroller the other day! We have settled on a two-stroller solution to our stroller logistics and I purchased stroller number one. This is a Baby Jogger City Select with the second seat. I was feeling enthusiastic enough that I ordered the glider board thing as well. This stroller will take both of the Chicco Keyfit 30s, but I haven't ordered the adaptor bars yet. My theory for ordering this stroller now is multifaceted. One, it allows us to sell the Bugaboo and it's accoutrements on Craigslist while still allowing Poppins and Chiron to get out. Two, the weight limit on this stroller actually still includes Trajan, so he who has never really used a stroller much can get to play with it this summer and get that out of his system some before it gets into real use. Three, the 2012s are out and have been out for a while and the 2011s haven't dropped in price and since there were so few changes to the 2012 model, they probably won't anyway, so it made sense to be the stroller to buy.
If you're curious, the second part of our stroller logistics solution that we have settled on is a Valco Trimode Twin with a Joey Seat for Chiron. The BJCS will be more for Paul and I (who can sling or Ergo a third if necessary) and in the car while the Valco is mainly for leaving at the house and for Poppins to utilize. The model years on the Valco don't seem to be updated and I want to get more on top of it's product line development and history before I buy one. Also, the colors are giving me pause. I think we'd probably do best with just the Raven, but it doesn't seem to exist, so maybe the Arctic?
Have we noticed the leaps of faith I've taken? We are employing an entire person, I bought a stroller and we have girl clothing in our garage up to 3T. We also now have three crib mattresses and are moving towards figuring out bunk beds for Trajan so we can turn his full-size bed back into a crib.
And in other news, my subtle pity party has ended as scheduled this morning and I'm back on board conquering the world and generally being competent and in charge. It was a subtle pity party, but it still feels good to be over.
And for some random pictures because I think they are fun:
Chiron on the way to storytime with nanny yesterday in a picture she texted me:
The awesome alligator that one of my friend's fiance's crocheted and she brought to me. He does amazing work!
My bed stuck up high by the exuberant Trajan. He really does enjoy the hospital bed.
And my view, because well, ain't it awesome?
So, the conclusion is that my uterus and my cervix are both whiners and like to vent their agitation frequently, but they keep doing what they are supposed to do despite being big pansies. Keep it up guys.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Am I irrational/insensitive?
I think I may be not seeing some other side of the coin, so here's wondering if there's something I'm not seeing and someone can make me see straight.
Context: Trajan had tonsils and adenoids out almost a week ago. He's been a complete trooper, but like clockwork, he started complaining yesterday of pain. They'd told us to expect this because of the cauterization. Paul also had vasectomy yesterday afternoon and I'm still living at the Seton Resort and Spa.
School has been giving Trajan his ibuprofen doses during the day, but they forgot the four pm yesterday, so he took some around six. He then woke up at midnight calling and asking for his ibuprofen and again at five thirty. He went back to sleep after each dose.
Here's the part where I'm guessing that maybe I'm just not seeing things from Paul's view and so need some help. Paul was irritated at Trajan for not wanting to take his antibiotics this morning. Then he went into a rant (to me, NOT where Trajan could hear) about being upset with Trajan for waking him up. My thought is Trajan did exactly what he should do and shouldn't have just laid there hurting.
I gave sympathy for it not being fun and being annoying to be woken up and acknowledged that Paul would rather sleep through the night, but in my mind, that's just a part of life. And getting upset about it does no good. And that he'd be MUCH better off to accept the reality he's in and optimize instead of getting mad at the kid.
Well, this upset him and he declared that I was saying that he didn't have a right to feel how he felt about things. This isn't really what I meant, I more just meant that feeling or doing something that has no possible positive outcome just doesn't make sense to him.
And then I said that I honestly didn't have empathy for him for having to wake up twice in the night to give ibuprofen. That I could agree that it wasn't fun and would be better to not, but that that honestly wasn't even TOUCHING on the list of things I'm currently concerned or worried about.
Also, what's sleeping through the night?!?
Somebody help me see the other side so I can understand better instead of just muttering things under my breath (at myself) about petulant child. Because I know he is Not. He loves those kids and does what is necessary and it just confuses the hell out of my brain that he seems to embrace the martyr aspects.
Help please!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Context: Trajan had tonsils and adenoids out almost a week ago. He's been a complete trooper, but like clockwork, he started complaining yesterday of pain. They'd told us to expect this because of the cauterization. Paul also had vasectomy yesterday afternoon and I'm still living at the Seton Resort and Spa.
School has been giving Trajan his ibuprofen doses during the day, but they forgot the four pm yesterday, so he took some around six. He then woke up at midnight calling and asking for his ibuprofen and again at five thirty. He went back to sleep after each dose.
Here's the part where I'm guessing that maybe I'm just not seeing things from Paul's view and so need some help. Paul was irritated at Trajan for not wanting to take his antibiotics this morning. Then he went into a rant (to me, NOT where Trajan could hear) about being upset with Trajan for waking him up. My thought is Trajan did exactly what he should do and shouldn't have just laid there hurting.
I gave sympathy for it not being fun and being annoying to be woken up and acknowledged that Paul would rather sleep through the night, but in my mind, that's just a part of life. And getting upset about it does no good. And that he'd be MUCH better off to accept the reality he's in and optimize instead of getting mad at the kid.
Well, this upset him and he declared that I was saying that he didn't have a right to feel how he felt about things. This isn't really what I meant, I more just meant that feeling or doing something that has no possible positive outcome just doesn't make sense to him.
And then I said that I honestly didn't have empathy for him for having to wake up twice in the night to give ibuprofen. That I could agree that it wasn't fun and would be better to not, but that that honestly wasn't even TOUCHING on the list of things I'm currently concerned or worried about.
Also, what's sleeping through the night?!?
Somebody help me see the other side so I can understand better instead of just muttering things under my breath (at myself) about petulant child. Because I know he is Not. He loves those kids and does what is necessary and it just confuses the hell out of my brain that he seems to embrace the martyr aspects.
Help please!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Monday, April 30, 2012
No news news
No news is the best kind of news, right? Still hanging out at the Seton Spa and Resort, but am now ensconced in stable antepartum care. I saw my OB this morning and the plan is to evaluate Thursday. I was supposed to have my weekly growth/modified BPP scan today, but the perinatologist shifted it to tomorrow. If that is good, plus I look good on a cervical exam which my OB does on Thursday and I can commit that I can adhere to real bedrest at home, then I will be discharged Thursday. If any of these three conditions are not true, then I stay here.
Right now I'm trying to keep an open mind to either outcome. Being honest, I'd rather be at home. I really think between having Paul and Poppins, I should be able to be a good bedrester (and my mom is here for right now, but she has responsibilities out of town, so trying to plan without relying on her) and this would let me see the boys. And bedrest is much better with dogs than without!
There are nice features of hospital bedrest as well though. In particular, visitors! I think people are more comfortable dropping by the hospital than a house, so I get to see more folks which definitely helps the mood.
I luckily am able to work full-time from either the hospital or the house which I think is crucial to my good spirits. The house is a mile from the office while the hospital is 15 minutes or so, so the house would be a little more convenient to the poor soul whose job includes running me files, but she is a very good sport, so I'm sure she's happy to do either way. I am not having Paul bring my hospital printer up here to get setup in advance of Thursday. If they keep me Thursday, then I'll have him set it up.
It's odd being back in antepartum because I know the nurses and staff so well, but it is a nice familiarity and there is real sanity benefit in getting an NST every day and fetal heart tones every night.
It should be obvious from these last few paragraphs that I have no clear preference between being kept for the duration and being discharged. I think the real truth is I'm on board with whatever the OB and the perinatologist believe is best for the girls. If I could keep them out of the NICU for one week by being in a bed with my head slanted towards for the floor for a month, that would be more than a fair trade. Seriously, it is so much easier to be the patient than to watch your child as the tiny patient. Any hour we can decrease their stay in the NICU by is honestly an hour that's not just better for them, but for our entire family. So, stay put girls.
The boys basically come here to eat and read books. And Trajan likes to adjust all the bed buttons. And there's unlimited pudding. What's not to like?
Right now I'm trying to keep an open mind to either outcome. Being honest, I'd rather be at home. I really think between having Paul and Poppins, I should be able to be a good bedrester (and my mom is here for right now, but she has responsibilities out of town, so trying to plan without relying on her) and this would let me see the boys. And bedrest is much better with dogs than without!
There are nice features of hospital bedrest as well though. In particular, visitors! I think people are more comfortable dropping by the hospital than a house, so I get to see more folks which definitely helps the mood.
I luckily am able to work full-time from either the hospital or the house which I think is crucial to my good spirits. The house is a mile from the office while the hospital is 15 minutes or so, so the house would be a little more convenient to the poor soul whose job includes running me files, but she is a very good sport, so I'm sure she's happy to do either way. I am not having Paul bring my hospital printer up here to get setup in advance of Thursday. If they keep me Thursday, then I'll have him set it up.
It's odd being back in antepartum because I know the nurses and staff so well, but it is a nice familiarity and there is real sanity benefit in getting an NST every day and fetal heart tones every night.
It should be obvious from these last few paragraphs that I have no clear preference between being kept for the duration and being discharged. I think the real truth is I'm on board with whatever the OB and the perinatologist believe is best for the girls. If I could keep them out of the NICU for one week by being in a bed with my head slanted towards for the floor for a month, that would be more than a fair trade. Seriously, it is so much easier to be the patient than to watch your child as the tiny patient. Any hour we can decrease their stay in the NICU by is honestly an hour that's not just better for them, but for our entire family. So, stay put girls.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
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?
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.
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'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.
That's my ramble, what should I update?
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