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Monday, May 31, 2010

35 weeks 3 days



Still in it!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

34 1/2 week appt and next steps

Note: This has been updated below

Yesterday we had a whole bunch of appointments to check out the girls and myself. We started with a NST. Both girls were reactive. However, the nurse forgot which baby was A and which was B because A was sleeping so she buzzed B thinking she would wake her up and she buzzed the wrong baby! How did B get even but by rolling off the monitor of course! I only had one contraction during the NST which was good since I had three during last Fridays.


After the NST we had an ultrasound to check out their growth. They have each grown about a pound in 2 weeks, Baby A weighed in at approximately 5 pounds 3 ounces and Baby B weighed in at approximately 4 pounds 15 ounces. These weights are estimates based on the size of their heads, bellies and femurs so they can be off. Hopefully they continue to chunk up over the next couple weeks before our next ultrasound. Also, we got to see their hair!!! Both girls have lots of hair, it was really cool.

Finally, we saw the doctor and he came in and asked if I was happy to be back on this side of the Ohio River? I said of course it means I am home! He then measured my belly and it was 43 centimeters!!! I'm officially bigger than a regular full term pregnant woman, not a surprise since I have over 10 pounds of baby in me. He asked if we have lined up a plan for delivery and I said no but can we set one up? As you may or may not remember I will most likely have a c-section because Baby A is breech and she still hasn't turned, at this point she probably won't. I asked if it was possible to deliver the girls at 37 weeks (term) and he said we could schedule it for then if I had an amnio 2 days beforehand to check their lungs to make sure they are fully developed. I agreed to this and he said we'd go ahead and get everything set up. So as long as the girls have fully developed lungs we will deliver them on June 11th or sometime in the next 2 weeks if they decide to come out sooner!! We are getting very excited for their arrival!!!!

Update: The amnio date has been pushed back to the 11th and the c-section is now scheduled for the 14th.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

I Thought Weekends Were Supposed To Be For Resting

This weekend was a busy one. Friday afternoon I worked a half day and then came home to pick Melissa up (since she is on bed rest and doesn't go to work, although she is working remotely) to take her to her doctor's visits. She doesn't feel comfortable driving herself on the highway plus the doctor said it would be best if I drove her to her appointments, from here on out. We went to Melissa's appointments and then went home. We had a nice dinner and then went to bed.

Saturday we got up and I headed out to Old Navy to buy something other than "flip flops." Now why is this important, because Saturday was Old Navy's Flip Flop sale, & yes there was still a line @ 1:30 PM! I got the PJ's that Melissa sent me for and then promptly stood in line for 20 minutes (I asked a sales person for help and said I wasn't there to buy flip flops, to which she said "Why?"). Next, I headed to Babies 'R' Us to pick up some items and the headed to Meijer to do the grocery shopping for the week. I was able to get almost everything on the list and even found the Jennie-o Turkey Burgers that Melissa really likes. I headed home and was greeted at the door by an excited dog who was happy I was home. We have been trying to prepare for when the babies come by starting to prepare and freeze dinners ahead of time. Today I made to 2 servings of lasagna I put one in the freezer and one in the fridge for the week. I continued the cooking excursion and for dinner we had turkey burgers, potato salad, & corn. It was a full day.

Sunday, I headed out to church, and then headed to Kroger for some more groceries for the chicken enchiladas I was making for the week and next week. We figured that since Melissa is on bed rest that we would start watching some TV shows over again.

We chose to watch Showtime's Weeds. While doing this I cleaned up around the house (Melissa has been making lists for me which really helps keep me focused). We also got out the Graco Pack N' Play we bought and put that together so it would be ready for when the girls are here. We also took advantage of this down time to put together Melissa's Christmas present to me. She came up with the idea to take all of out bib numbers and medals from our races over the past year and put them in a shadow box to hang on the wall.

April - "20 lbs. of Terror!"

Wanted to let everyone know that as of lately April has started to become a great little watchdog. Recently, she has started to bark at anyone who she sees (or in some cases hears). She scared off the scamming magazine people we had recently in the apartment complex & we think she will be a good little protector to these little girls! More on the "20 lbs. of Terror" to come!

Friday, May 21, 2010

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Saturday morning at Good Sam



Greg brought April for a visit!!!!!!

Ellen sent popcorn!!! It is so yummy I had to make Greg put it on the windowsill so I wouldn't eat it all!

Friday, May 14, 2010

33 weeks


Were you expecting a picture of my belly? Ha! Not sharing that here, it isn't pretty after all I am in the hospital!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Scary weekend

This is going to be a long one but it pretty much summarizes the past few days of craziness and where we go from here.

Friday afternoon I realized I was coming down with a cold. I had a nasty cold around 20 weeks that turned into a sinus infection because I didn't take anything for it for fear of harming the babies. I came home and went to bed to get some rest. I woke up in the middle of the night Saturday and took an approved decongestant and went back to bed. I really didn't want to end up super sick again.

When I got up Saturday I felt like I had a full blown cold and made the decision to rest up all day. Around 1 I took another decongestant and went back to sleep. I woke up 2 hours later with some chills and took my temp it was around 100. I took tylenol and called my OB's office for advice. She prescribed a z-pack and told me to call back in two hours if the fever didn't break. It was around 100.5 when I called back and she had me come in because she was concerned about infection around the placenta. When I got there my temp was 100 initially and I went the bathroom and gowned up. When I came back into the room I started shivering uncontrollably. The LPN who was monitoring the babies was convinced it was nerves but I could tell my temp was going up. She finally got us hooked up, got my IV in and left the room for a minute. When she came back I asked if she would take my temp again because I had a feeling it wasn't good. She took it again and said yes I had a higher fever but didn't tell me what it was for fear of worrying me. She came back with some tylenol a little while later and they moved me from triage to a room. She also apologized for telling me it was just my nerves, so I knew the fever was a bit higher than I'd felt. At this point Greg knew we were in for a night at the hospital so he called our parents to let them know what was up and we prepared for what was in store.

When we got to the room and I met my nurse she took my temp and it was around 101. I asked her what it was earlier and she said she would check and let me know. She came back and told me it had been 103.6. All this time the babies' heartbeats were in the 190s. I also started contracting every 3-6 minutes. My temp was still around 101 about an hour before they could give me another dose of tylenol. The nurse was coming in an monitoring me a lot so I knew things were not good.

I got my tylenol an hour later and the doc came into see me. She was concerned that she didn't see anything odd in any of the tests they ran on me and was begining to think I had an infection around my placenta. She wanted to triage me to the another hospital with a level three NICU so they could do an amnio. She called the doc at this facilty and the doc said if she suspected it she would just deliver. So they were planning on delivering me where we were. My doc talked to the neonatologist on site and he said I needed to be transferred to the better hospital so she called back and made the arrangements. While this was happening the babies heartbeats started to come back into the 160s and I could tell my fever was beginning to subside. My husband I began to prepare for what I thought was going to be the scariest day of my life.

When I arrived at Good Samaritan Hospital and was wheeled to a triage room I could tell the nurses were preparing to roll me in for a c-section. I asked whether they were going to evaluate me first and they said a doctor would see me first and we could talk about next steps. They took my temp and it was down to somewhere in the mid 99 range, but this was about 3 hours after my last dose of tylenol so they weren't sure if it was down on it's own or not. However, the babies heartbeats were much more regular. The doctor came in and examined me and said she didn't see any signs of infection but that since I seemed more stable and they would hold off on the c-section for the moment and do the amnio. So at this point I was moved to a regular labor and delivery room for further monitoring.

Later that morning I met with one of the maternal fetal medicine specialists and by this point my fever had completely broken so he was less inclined to do an amnio because if there were an infection around the placenta the fever would not have broken at all. He said he would keep me here for a couple days run a couple blood tests, continue to monitor the babies and do a complete ultrasound scan Monday morning. I was no longer having contractions either. I did have low platelets on my last CBC so he ordered a million tubes of bloodwork. Additionally he ordered steroid injections that would help develop their little lungs so if we need to deliver early this will help them out.

By Sunday night they decided the babies were stable and no longer needed continuous monitoring. I woke up in the middle of the night and my contraction monitor had been disconnected as well. However when my nurse came in she said my platelets were still low and there was protein in my urine. So they started a 24 hour urine protein test. I think they are concerned that I may have pre-eclampsia. My BP has been under control throughout this experience so hopefully this is not a sign of things to come. They gave me my last dose of IV antibiotics and took me off my fluid drip as well.

Monday morning I had some spotting when I went to the restroom which made my day because I got another speculum exam! The resident thought it looked like old blood. However, when I saw the MFM a little while later she thought it looked like a mix of new and old blood and said they are going to go ahead and keep me here for the rest of the week. She also asked if anyone had discussed bedrest with me and I said well not recently but I knew it was a possibility. She told me that I was officially on it at this point. I'd hoped to make it through the pregnancy without ending up on bed rest but I'd accepted it as a possibility all along. I just wanted to make it a few more weeks. I do know that I have to do what is best for my girls so I accept it and will hang out in bed hopefully for a few more weeks. We would really like to get them to at least 36 weeks but 34 weeks would be the earliest we'd like to see them.

I also had my ultrasound Monday morning. Both babies looked good. Baby A measured in at 4 pounds 4 ounces and Baby B measured in at 4 pounds 1 ounce. They still measured in the 40th percentile which is where they have been all along. It is good to see that they a growing well through all of this craziness.

As of Tuesday morning I am officially here for at least another week. I had a little bit of spotting again this morning and they are going to keep me for 7 days to make sure it is completely gone before I can go home to continue to rest up and bake these girls.

We will continue to keep you posted as to our progress over the next couple of weeks. My exclusive goal right now is to bake, bake, bake my little girls until at least next Friday but would really like to keep them in until the beginning of June.

Monday, May 10, 2010

32 Week 3 Day Ultrasound



They measured in at 4 pounds 4 oz and 4 pounds 1 oz.

Friday, May 7, 2010

32 weeks


April cracks me up! She knows to sit for the camera!

Twins at 32 weeks

By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Nursery Pictures

Tonight we put the finishing touches on the babies' room. As promised here are some pictures:

The glider rocker & car seats.

Do you like my pretty Boppy covers?
Finding Nemo pictures for the wall!The desk area converted to a changing area.
The cribs! If you look by the closet you can see where Greg has the swings stored for now. We've had this dresser forever!
The cribs. One of the pack and plays is between them, probably the only thing we haven't opened yet.Their stuffed toys and first books.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Car Seat Installation

Last weekend we took the car seats we bought down to the Wilder Fire Department and had them installed by one of the certified car seat installers. One of the firemen and his captain both took a 40 hour course at Cincinnati Children's and are certified car seat installers and inspectors. The fireman installed all four bases in the two cars and showed Greg how to re-install them if we ever need to take them out and then he showed us how to ensure the seats are balanced properly. We have the Latch system in both of our cars so it made the installation very straightforward. Once the installation was complete I was once again overwhelmed by the look of two of a baby item somewhere in out lives now. We don't have much longer to go and I have been taking it easy the past couple weeks so these girls stay inside me as long as possible.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

On The Run!

Today I ran in the 2010 Cincinnati Flying Pig 10K. The race started out with thundertorms and rain. I got up early, showered and got dressed. Melissa dropped me off and I walked acrossed the bridge that I would be running on to re-enter KY in 20 minutes. I arrived just in time to catch my breath and mentally prepare for about 15 minutes and the get to the starting line. Then it was "On your mark, get set, GO!" time. We took a quick run through downtown and the ran across the bridge into KY, made a left in front of Newport on the Levee, and then along the waterfront. I had recently started training on the hills outside out apartment and that was helping out a lot with my endurance and stamina. I ran the Turkey Trot last year and probably walked 2/3rds of it because I was ill prepared for the hills. I managed to run the entire 10K this time. Running up to the third bridge I was thinking "I am running to get healthy and be around for our unborn twin girls." This kept me going. When I hit the 4th mile marker I knew the end was near. One more trip through downtown and then we hit the homestretch. I hit the finish swine and was overjoyed because I ran the whole thing. You can see my time below:

Age: 31
Gender: M
Overall Place: 812 out of 1586
Division Place: 77 out of 107
Gender Place: 406 out of 586
Time: 1:07:52
Pace: 10:57

I am looking forward to the Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon in the fall and I'll be back next year, maybe for the half! Good luck to all the other racers!