Easter Bunny v Stork

I've always heard that the stork brings babies. Apparently that's not quite right. In our case, the Easter bunny welcomed both babies home from the NICU!

We are overjoyed, exhausted, and a bit scared, and it's all wonderful! Baby boy has actually been home for about two weeks, but his sister kept having bad apnea/bradycardia spells that required intervention to resolve. She has now gone 6 days without any spells during sleep, which is what the neonatologists wanted for discharge. She does still have spells that require us to intervene during feeding  which is terrifying. Fortunately we can now recognize them with relying on the monitors, and resolve with just tactile stim. she should grow out of them as time passes. Till then, she's on apnea precautions and we're a bit scared but thrilled to be able to love on her at home!

The Other Roller-coaster

In the past, I've ridden the ART roller-coaster: each bout of good news is followed by bad news. As my pregnancy progressed, I thought I was finally done with the roller-coaster. Nope! Now there's the NICU roller-coaster.

The babies have gone from CPAP to needing the vent to CPAP again to room air. Baby girl continues to have some challenges with oxygen sat levels and reflux, but is gaining weight. Baby boy was having bradys, but has mostly stopped and has great sat and heart rate numbers. Over the course of two weeks, we've gone from one on one nursing care for each baby and the fear that baby girl would have to go to a different hospital to "just" being feeder/growers. It's a roller-coaster, but it's looking up.

Here's a picture of DH with both babies on the day we were in the room where both could be held at once. We're in new rooms now, so we can't hold both until they come off the monitors to go home.

Finally My Lines Now

Please allow me to introduce the two newest loves of my life: Tess and Aaron. She's the brunette, he's the blond.

 I started contracting again during my parents of multiples class last night. They kept getting closer, so we called and went in. At that point they were 3-6 minutes apart, and within an hour the cervical pain was constant. The decision was made to do a c-section ASAP.

Despite the fact that it was 11 pm and she was not on call, my OB came in for my c-section. Because of the concern of hemorrhage, and the challenge of cerclage removal, the on-call OB from my practice also came in. Several of the nurses were the same who were in triage for my Jan admission. Everyone was so thrilled for us.

Baby girl was born a few minutes before midnight, weighing in at 3lbs 11oz. Her brother was born a minute later, and was 3lb 7oz. They are so beautiful to me, although I've only barely seen his face. No hemorrhage and cerclage came out clearly!

Alas, I've been puking too much to go downstairs and see them. So, so sad about that.

Both babies are on CPAP, otherwise doing well. One day at a time. I'm still on heavy meds, so apologies if this makes no sense. Trying to keep from going mad waiting to see them again.

30w3 Days: Grateful but Struggling

Still pregnant at 30 weeks and 3 days! Just four days left to hit our 31 week milestone, and I’m even home again. To say I’m grateful is a massive understatement.

I’m also struggling. I feel like a bomb whose fuse has been lit, but can’t be seen, so there’s no way of knowing when the explosion will happen. Each contraction I get during the day makes me think: is this the start? Will I have to go in again? Each time I wake up at night and everything hurts, I wonder if it will turn into the same contraction pain I had a few weeks ago. I’m just bloody scared.

At the same time, I’m 30 weeks! I’d have given anything to be 30 weeks and scared in my past pregnancies. It’s an easier scared than 19 weeks and pPROM’d. Maybe it’s fair to say this is scared and that was terrified.

I’m not keeping up well. I’m trying to work when not in the hospital (actually I worked a ton while I was in this time, taking conference calls at all hours to try to wrap things up). It’s good due to the distraction, but it’s hard because I never know which action items I take on that I’ll get to complete and which will be dumped on someone else if/when I am out again. I’m not keeping up with friends and family as well as I’d like, because everything just seems harder right now. I guess that’s what fear does to you. Well, fear and a 30 week twin pregnancy with regular contractions!

Thank you to everyone for keeping us in your thoughts. That really helps with the scared and it’s so, so appreciated, even if I’m not doing a good job of saying so, or staying up to date here. It’s so comforting to know these babies have people all over rooting for them, along with their big sisters and great-grandparents. That gives me hope.

29.6 from the hospital

Alas, no news really meant: my cellphone forgot my account password and I'm stuck in the hospital and couldn't look it up.

Same basic story: started having painful contractions every 7 minutes and went in where they were confirmed via monitoring. MFM made the decision to try to keep me pregnant for a few more days with the hope of getting a rescue dose of steroids and mag in. Good news: dose is in as of midnight tonight. Bad news: having lots of contractions through the tocolytics. I'm not super optimistic that we're going home again still pregnant this time.

Had another NICU consult today and they really pushed that 31 weeks is when everything gets better, so I'm hoping for 8 more days, but don't know how realistic that is. Hopes, prayers, good juju, all are appreciated.

Home Again!

Our first day in Antepartum, I told DH that my goal was to leave the hospital without memorial bears this time. We have three bears, two given to us when we delivered Alexis and Zoe, and one from Quinn. They're part of the loss program at each hospital we delivered at. Don't get me wrong, I love our bears to death, talk to them, and am grateful to have them. They remind me of our girls, in a good way. That said, I didn't want to add two more because it would mean we'd lost these babies, too.

Today we went home without any bears! Best of all, we went home with me still pregnant! No one can predict how long that will last, but everyone is hopeful we'll get a few more months of inside babies.

Thank you so much for the amazing good wishes and thoughts and prayers - I believe they helped! I'm on work from home restrictions until delivery because I do contract when I'm up and moving, but that's totally do-able! If my uterus can just stay calm for 10 more weeks, all will be well! So, so grateful!

28 Weeks and Still Pregnant!

I think the whiteboard in our room says it all. 28 weeks today!

Last night was fantastically boring. I have to do monitoring 3 times a day. Morning monitoring showed only one contraction and best of all, it was just a Braxton Hicks! The on-call MFM, who is my absolute favorite and the one who delivered Quinn, says that if I can stay with only BH for two days after the tocolytics stop, I can go home!  She's positive about our chances. Ultrasound tomorrow to check baby weight and cervix length and cerclage tension.

It's hard being here in the same place we were with Quinn, but I'm so glad to have good care and hope for the babies.

Here's my hospital bathroom photo. Haute couture in my pjs!

Send good, calm uterus thoughts to us?