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.