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?

Hospital Again

The title says it all. Woke up around 1:45 to painful, constant contractions. Called the OB at 2:30 when they hadn't stopped. Went to local triage where they confirmed I was actively contracting. Sent by ambulance to the University Hospital. Have done round 1 of betamethasone and am on magnesium and indomethacin. So badly want to keep these babies in, and while contractions have died down, they're not gone. So sad and scared. These babies need to stay inside for so much longer. I knew the risks of prematurity with TAC twins, but I've been counting on 33 to 35, not 28.

Come on, uterus, work with us. Keep them safe.

27 Weeks!

Amazingly, despite all my fears, we've made it to 27 weeks. I go in for a growth scan on Wednesday, and I'm hopeful baby boy is keeping up with his sister. Ideally they'll both be over 2 pounds by now. I have honestly no idea how my body can hold up for another 10+ weeks. My OB is saying c-section at 38, which is late for TAC twin moms. Heck, it's late for TAC singleton moms! Having said that, I don't really think I'm likely to make it to 38, and if I do and it means no NICU time, that's worth the pain. 

My awesome coworkers gave us a shower last week. It was so deeply meaningful, given our past. With my gluten issues, it's been 10+ years since I've enjoyed a slice of cake with frosting, so I decided to bring my own to the party. I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out! 

DH and I had round two of 'the talk' this weekend. You know, 'the talk' where you decide on baby names? What, you were thinking of a different talk? ;)  The end result is that I think we've got names we're both happy with. It seems unreal to be giving names to babies who will have to live with them for their entire lives. Also, coming up with a total of four girls' names that DH and I both like is . . . well. . . I have NO idea how those with large families do it! I'm glad our first three girls got names we loved, but it's made it much harder for this little one! I definitely understand why they re-used names in Victorian times.

  How far? 27 weeks!! They pretty much all merit exclamation points by now! :)
  Measuring? I won't know for sure until Wednesday. Hoping to be over 2 lbs by now. 
Size? Cauliflower!
  Heartbeat? We'll see on Wednesday
  Total weight gain/loss: Up 23 to 141. 
  Stretch: No change.
  Sleep: Somewhere between bad and awful. I've reached a point where for the first four or so hours I'm trying to sleep, I wake up every 45 minutes with a combo of acid reflux and vomiting. That's fun when in bed. I'm a lousy sleeper to begin with, and trying to sleep while sitting up isn't working outstandingly well.
  Movements? Kicks, taps, rolls. Love it! The movement is the one bright spot in an otherwise rough pregnancy.
  Cravings? I don't think this is going to happen. Aversions I still have plenty of, but cravings just don't come around. Since I have my GD test this week, I'm trying to go back to my TTC way of eating: no sugar, no processed food. I know that will increase the nausea, but if I do have GD, I'll need to figure out how to eat this way anyhow. Please, please let me pass the one hour.
  Miss? Same as always: I miss feeling good. I miss getting to enjoy this pregnancy, but it's made me so appreciative of Quinn's pregnancy. It's also interesting to see how the intersection between actual physical symptoms and loss impacts my perception of enjoyment. With Alexis and Zoe, I felt this bad, but I was so happy at all points after the CVS because I thought I was bringing home healthy babies. With Quinn's pregnancy, I was more emotionally cautious, but I felt good for about a month and really enjoyed the heck out of that time. This time, with these guys, I feel consistently awful and I'm terrified of another loss. There have been moments, literal moments when the nausea backed off and the pain wasn't there that I was happy and grateful to be pregnant, but this time I can't muster the overall happy I had in 2016, nor the enjoyment from 2017.
  Looking forward to? Being done with our basement reno and seeing the babies again!
  Feeling? Very, very pregnant.