Avoiding Blogging for two years...

Sigh.
I really thought I'd use this blog to keep track of all the little things that go on each day. The highlights, the triumphs, the annoying little shit, the huge mistakes. But No.
Then, today I realized I could be recording PODCASTS!!! On our drive home from An Outing, I recorded my thoughts on the matter. All excited, I tried to figure out a quick and easy way to make a podcast, but it seems a lot more complicated than I thought.
So I'm putting that one on the back burner for now.

Here's an update: H&L are now 2 years old.

BED REST: The final chapter

WEEK 32

I have now been on bed rest since December 21st. A little over three weeks. It all happened the day I went for that ultrasound appointment. The babies were measuring fine, (whew!) but my cervix had thinned too much too fast, and also, I was having too many Braxton Hicks contractions. They hooked me up to monitors and decided to put me in triage in the labor and delivery ward next door in the hospital. I was alone and terrified. Jesse was at work. I texted him what was going on. He came to meet me and they monitored me for a few more hours.

I was there all day, and finally they sent me home around 6pm. I was to begin home bed rest, level 2. That meant I could use the stairs once a day (to go up to bed and come back down in the morning), I could get up to use the bathroom, to shower, to cook myself simple meals. I was not to stand around or walk much at all. The tricky part was that my mom was arriving at the airport that evening for her Christmas visit.

I could not sleep a wink that night, thinking about what to tell the people at work. I would have to quit work two months early. As far as they knew, I was due back at work right after Christmas, business as usual. What would I do about income? About insurance? Would they be mad at me? What about projects I had been working on? I didn’t want to leave them in the lurch. Of course I called the next morning and everything turned out fine. I had lots of sick time accrued and even some vacation time left. I was probably going to get three more paychecks. 

Christmas was pretty weird for me. 28 people at Thea’s house, gathered around the table, and I’m laid up on the couch, trying to eat dinner lying down. I felt like a freak, I felt sorry for myself, I felt guilty for not being able to do anything fun and entertain my mom. I also felt very lucky that I was not stuck in the hospital, doing my bed rest there. What could be worse, I wondered. Well, I was about to find out.

In the wee hours of Wednesday, January 5th, I awoke to crazy abdominal pains. They feel like gas but I knew from experience (miscarriage #2) that they were labor pains. The real ones. Even in my foggy half sleep I was able to be in denial enough to ignore it and go back to sleep. I called the docs first thing in the morning. They requested my presence, immediately.

I was admitted to St. Vincent Medical Center, Labor and Delivery, birth suite 11. The room was nice! Private, with a shower, it was kind of like a sweet hotel room, but with huge stage lights on the ceiling above me and lots of computer equipment. I started worrying immediately about how I was going to pay for all this. Plus I had no idea how long I would be there. I was 30 weeks along at this point. I had left Jesse at home that morning, happy to drive myself to my appointment and wanting him to spend his day off doing whatever he needed to do. I had to call and tell him what was going on. I let him know by saying “well, looks like you get the bed all to yourself tonight!”

I was given Magnesium Sulfate by IV. This stops contractions. It also makes the patient feel bloody awful. I was flushed, hot, shaky, and it was hard to focus my eyes. They gave me a pretty high dosage for the first day or so. My liquids were limited. I could have only so much water in 24 hours. It was hard because the drug made me so thirsty. It worked, and they began decreasing my dosage. A wonderful side effect of Mag is that it also boosts the brain function of the unborn babies. (It is given to people with brain injuries) I was also given two steroid shots to help the babies’ lungs in case they had to be delivered early.

I was in the hospital for four days. I never knew how long I would be there - they don’t tell you much. The doctor would come in once a day, in the morning to see me for a few minutes to give me an update. There were 11 other “ladies in waiting” there on hospital bed rest. Many times I thought I’d be there for the duration. I just didn’t know.

My contractions eventually stopped and they felt it was safe to send me home. My bed rest is a bit more restricted now. I lie down most of the day. I only get up to pee and we’ve got a plastic chair in the shower so I don’t have to stand up in there. I get myself snacks and water from the kitchen but I am to do no housework at all. No driving. No Sunday dinner. I don’t even eat at the table anymore.

I’m glad to be home, but also, I felt very safe in the hospital. If anything were to go wrong, I was in the best place I could be. The nurses were great, and I got to order room service three times a day from a menu that was pretty good, considering. Now, whenever I have a BH contraction, I drink lots of ice water and lie down. I still get them a lot, but not as much as before. Every little pain I feel is worrisome, but it usually just turns out to be gas.

The hardest part is being alone when Jesse works his four 10-hour shifts. I only see him in the morning and late at night on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuedsay. Wednesday through Friday are great. I really look forward to the days when he’s home.

Everyone has been calling and visiting and offering to help. I really hate not being able to do the damned dishes or the laundry. It piles up for Jesse to do on his days off. He has enough to do! He’s working on his reel, trying to get a better job. He’s building our babies’ co-sleeper. He also needs time to relax. This has been harrowing and stressful for us both. People keep telling me they will help with chores, but I have a hard time asking my friends to do my stupid dishes.

I keep busy. I have learned to knit (although troubleshooting my own mistakes is nearly impossible because I don’t really know what I’m doing yet) I watch lots and lots of tv on my iPad (currently watching season 2 of the X Files), and I finally got these files up and running on my laptop so I can continue to write about this crazy time in my life. I also nap a lot. There were so many times that I just wished I could sit on the couch and watch the clouds go by or watch the rain fall, with my kitty curled up on my lap. Now I am living that dream, you could say.

There are new worries since my last appointment a few days ago. Now the babies are very different sizes again (girl is a whole pound bigger than boy!) and if they don’t even out soon they will have to take them out. They are still within a normal growth curve but it looks like he’s not getting all the nourishment he needs. I talk to him every day and let him know he’s got to be strong and keep growing. I feel him kicking all the time, and every time I’ve been on a monitor, his heart rate has been good and strong. I have faith that he will pull through. I hope this is not a preview of things to come: his sister being a bully. Actually, the neonatologist told me that in girl/boy twins, it is ALWAYS the girl that is bigger. Strange.

To add to that worry (yes it seems there’s always more) I’m flirting a bit with pre-eclampsia. I keep having traces of protein in my urine samples, and my blood pressure is sometimes a bit high. I do not have any of the symptoms, though, so I’m also kind of not too worried about that.

ALL I CAN DO, really, is take it easy and keep my hospital bag packed. They want to see me every week now, and at any appointment they might keep me and I might not come home until the babies are born. Every day that I wake up I’m thankful I made it another day. 32 weeks is a huge milestone as far as preemies go. I want to make it to 36 or 37 weeks. It’s only another month or so. Bed rest kind of sucks, especially when I read everyone’s posts on Facebook about all the things they do, the places they go, but it’s worth it when I think of the babies and how every day they get bigger and stronger.

Also, another good thing about bed rest is that I’m staring to understand that women who are carrying multiples really just ought to lie the fuck down. At this point, I’m carrying a little over 7 lbs. of baby. I’m the size of a full term singleton pregnancy. In the next few weeks I will get HUGE. I no longer have to worry about getting dressed, about my belly looking freakishly huge, about annoyingly insensitive remarks from strangers, about being out of breath trying to keep up just walking along side someone, about varicose veins or anything like that. I’m kind of in hiding. All anyone in this state should really be doing is eating and resting. And on that note, I will arise and get myself a snack.

Week 28

Hello Third Trimester!
I’m so happy to have made it here. Even though I’m more and more uncomfortable all the time. I think it’s kind of funny - I try to stay amused as much as possible. For instance - I was lying in bed the other morning, contemplating turning over. In the past I would start with my head, then get my shoulders into place, then spin the rest of my body around to the desired position. This took a few seconds to do. Now if I want to turn over, well, it’s lots of slow, careful, little movements accompanied by grunting and heavy breathing. It never occurred to me that getting up from a low, modern bed would prove to be a serious challenge. But I do it, every day. I also navigate our ridiculously narrow & steep stairs in the wee hours every night to visit the restroom. That was something that worried me from the start, but here I am, doing just that. No problem.

Other discomforts: I have to quit wearing my wedding ring due to bloaty-ness. Also, I have a curious, tingly sensation near the bottom of my left ribcage. It isn’t painful, just weird. I can’t slump forward in the least or it comes on tingly-strong. So it’s making my posture better. It stumped me for a couple of weeks, and when I finally asked the doc, she said it was the nerves that weave around the ribcage, which is slowly stretching to accommodate the babies. “oh, it will get worse, and won’t go away right after childbirth.” So now that I know what it is, I just deal with it.

Also at my appointment I learned that at my last ultrasound in November, the babies were measuring more than 20% different in size. It’s something we are going to have to keep an eye on. I have another u/s tomorrow morning at NW Perinatal to check the progress/status of this size difference. It seems that Chong is hogging some of the nutrients away from Cheech. Hmm. Aside from yelling at my belly for her to quit being a bully, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Doc Grant told me this was a lesson in letting go. I’m going to worry about my children for the rest of my life and I might as well get started letting go of stuff I can’t control. Easier said than done.

Week 26

Week 24

Had another ultrasound and routine doctor’s appointment the other day. Baby girl’s stomach is just fine.

They thought it looked a little “pronounced” in the last ultrasound, a month ago. When I heard this, I immediately thought it was some sort of possible deformity. In reality, it’s just that babies in utero ingest the amiotic fluid, which plumps up their bellies, then they pee it back out again, returning the belly size to normal. This happens all day long, over and over, all the time. That is all it was. And that if it were something serious, they would not have waited a month to call me. But still. You have to wonder why they couldn’t have explained the whole “pronounced” thing over the phone. Sheesh.

Somehow I was able to keep my worrying to a minimum.

Jesse got to attend, and see how big they are. It was pretty great. We saw the four chambers of their tiny hearts, pounding away. We saw them stretching out their legs completely and kicking each other. A lot. (Baby girl’s feet have been kicking my bladder today, in fact) They are still in the yin-yang position. Boy is vertex (head down) and girl is breech (feet down). There’s still time for them to change positions, so I can’t get too excited about at least one of them being in the perfect vaginal birthing position.

Speaking of The Birth...I’m conflicted. Of course I would LOVE to have natural childbirth. In a groovy tub of water. With no pain meds. Goddess-style. I’m not sure how great the odds are since I’m HIGH RISK (cue the bells of alarm!). On one hand, it seems like a c-section would be easy in that it could be scheduled, they do it, there’s no hours of pushing and shit like that. But it IS major surgery. And how do you feed and care for two tiny ones when you are recovering from being cut open? I just can’t know how it will turn out. I have to just keep imagining the perfect scenario in my mind: an easy, uncomplicated labor and delivery. Heck, why not imagine an orgasmic birth while I’m at it? It has been known to happen.

We met with Dr. Grant, too. She gave me the rundown on heartburn, body pillows and round ligmament pain. (so that’s the funny dull ache I feel right after I pee.) Also, she has cleared me for air travel.

I’m flying to California in two days for Thanksgiving. I have aisle seats, and I will move about the cabin as much as possible. I wish Jesse were coming too, but his new job and schedule kind of got in the way. He will be able to spend the day with Ann and the family, so that’s good. I’m really looking forward to having more than a week off from work! Yessss! And to really start things off right, I’m ending my workweek today with a Watsu massage. It’s a combination of Shiatsu and water. You float in a warm pool and the therapist sort of floats you around and works on you. Apparently, it’s just the thing for expectant mothers. I am so excited to be floating weightless and being massaged at the same time!

Current list of favorite foods: DAIRY EDITION!

yogurt, any kind
yogurt “Parfait” from Starbucks (which is distressing since I think Starbucks is shitty, corporate & evil - but their parfaits are the best)
Bare Naked berry granola with milk
Burgerville burgers, fries and milkshakes (I try to limit these)
cottage cheese and Newman’s pretzels (together, always)
orange juice (tastes like liquid gold, incredible life-giving nirvana juice)
oranges
canned peaches
egg salad sandwiches
Sprite
Hot chocolate with whipped cream

This list reflects a not-surprising lack of vegetables. Jesse is taking up the slack in that department. He’s also running every day, eschewing carbs, and totally not doing the whole “sympathy weight” thing, and often strongly suggests I share his brussels sprouts. Which I do, because I love him. And it’s a good thing, because I now outweigh him.

Week 22

I have decided to start calling the babies “Cheech & Chong”. It’s so much funnier than “A & B”. I have heard lots of other suggestions too, such as “Donny & Marie”, “Wallace & Gromit”, Captain & Tenille”, “Bartles & Jaymes” “Lars & Lita” and more.

The kicks are very strong now. When I lie still and lift my shirt up, I can literally see my belly move from the force of them. It is amazingly cool.

The only bummer really, is the Satanic Fiery Lava Heartburn. (I don’t think I can eat Amy’s Black Bean Chili anymore, or anything even slightly spicy for that matter) It’s proving to be brought on even stronger with worry and stress. And I have been both of those lately. Jesse’s new work schedule at Stream has him working nights and weekends. I feel pretty alone and bummed out, and add the sudden daylight savings time darkness of fall, and it’s a pretty dismal feeling. I see him for about an hour in the morning and about an hour at night. And it’s the same on the weekends.

I worry that he won’t be around when I go into labor, or whatever...I mean, my mind goes crazy. I could win a contest for Crazy Imagination: Negative Thoughts Category. Also I had quite a time scheduling all of our prenatal education classes. With Jesse’s shitty schedule, we could only take classes on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday nights. Many of them are only available on weekends. It took me three days navigating two different healthcare systems to pin down our classes. Plus, they cost an arm and a leg. And one of the women I talked to on the phone kind of freaked me out by stressing the importance of taking the classes AS SOON AS POSSIBLE in case I have to go on bed rest. So now I’m frickin worried about that, too. Eventually I was able to schedule everything. There are a couple that he will have to call in sick from work to attend, or possibly switch shifts with someone. Sigh.

Finally, I got a call today from the doctor - at the last ultrasound, they could not get a very good look at Chong’s stomach and I will have to come back for another look-see. Now I knew that this was a possibility, the tech who did the ultrasound told me that since there are two babies, it’s really hard to get a good view & measurement of all the babies’ organs and most likely I would have to come back another day. (and that it’s very common and nothing to worry about) And that is all it is. But the worrying side of me is very concerned that something is wrong. So the battle between my rational/irrational mind begins. And no amount of ice cream seems to help.