Hello 3rd Trimester

We’re very excited to have reached the 28 week mark. The last few weeks were pretty rough for us, so making it this far before the girls’ debut is a definite win. I’m hoping to carry them for at least another month, but at least now I’m far enough along that the risk of serious long-term health issues for the girls is pretty low. If we can’t make it to 36 weeks, I’m kind of hoping to deliver them on 11-11-11, but that seems like a long way off at this point.

I apologize in advance for the novel of a post below.

I had my 26 week doctor appointment on September 19^th. I had been good about following my doctor’s orders throughout the previous week, but still had been having contractions. Nothing painful and no more than 3 in an hour, so I was within the allowable range, but I still had a bad feeling going into the appointment (I was also still trying to figure out the “really bad news” from my dream a couple days before). I gained another 4 pounds over 10 days, which seemed impossible given I hadn’t been eating much. The ultrasound tech took the girls’ measurements and they came in at 1 lb 15 oz and 2 lbs 3 oz. One baby was measuring 1 day behind my due date and the other was 3 days ahead. We’re happy that they’re staying on track.

The doctor came in and went straight to doing her own measurements of my cervix. We were shocked to see how much it was funneling (basically opening up from the inside) and had gotten even shorter than it had previously been. Within 5 minutes of having her in the room, we were told “I don’t know what your plans for the rest of the day were, but they’re changing. I’m sending you straight to the hospital.” So off we went. The doctor’s office is in the building next to the hospital, so we were over there pretty quickly. I was admitted into labor and delivery and was immediately given a steroid shot to try to help develop the babies’ lungs. I’ve had some pain on my right side just below my chest, so they thought my liver may not be functioning properly so they also began tests for that.

Then they got an iv going to give me antibiotics to get rid of potential infections that could harm the babies if they were delivered right away and they also started a medication to stop contractions and try to avoid preterm labor.

I also had an ultrasound of all the organs on my upper right side. My liver was functioning fine, but the pain was coming from sludge in my gallbladder. Looking back, I think my gallbladder was likely having issues even before I got pregnant, but all the stuff I had been eating to try to gain weight made the problem even worse. So now I’m supposed to continue gaining weight, but on a low-fat diet. If I weren’t pregnant, they would go ahead and remove my gallbladder now since it’s not an essential organ, but they don’t want to risk harming the babies so I need to wait until after the girls are born to have the surgery.

By Tuesday night my doctor was pretty sure things were under control, so I was moved to an antepartum room to continue iv meds and monitoring. The next morning I was walking to the bathroom and my legs collapsed underneath me. I thought it was strange but kinda tried to shake it off. As the day went on and I got more doses of the medication, I started having a hard time breathing. I felt like I had a brick sitting on the middle of my chest. I mentioned it to the nurse and she got my doctor on the phone who agreed to give me a smaller dose. I continued having problems and they had to stop the contraction medication all together because fluid was building up in my lungs. They gave me medication to try to get rid of the fluid and then gave me a different type of contraction med – the kind I had been on at home. Again the same result and so I got another dose of the stuff to get rid of the fluid and was put on oxygen.

In addition to all this, Luke was at his diagnostic thing down the street through most of the day on Tuesday and half of the day on Wednesday. Since it took so much time to get him onto their schedule, I really didn’t want him to miss or reschedule it. I really wanted to be there, not just to be a second set of ears, but also to make sure nothing was left out and to be able to ask them questions directly. Technology is a wonderful thing – Luke left the iPad with me and had his laptop with him in his room. So I was able to be there virtually via Skype. The doctors weren’t sure how the head doctor was going to respond because they had never done that before, but it turned out that he seemed to like it. I think he enjoyed having an audience and felt like he was on TV. At one point he even stopped the conversation and walked over the computer to tell me that “Dr. House is in the house” and then went on to have a brainstorming session with the group. In true Dr. House fashion, he asked everyone what they thought and then told them why they were wrong. Fortunately they didn’t have to do near as many tests as we were anticipating because Luke brought the results of all the work that had been previously done. I was very happy to have him back with me sooner than expected and that he hadn’t had any major procedures done to recover from. They were pretty sure they had identified the problem, but were waiting on the results of one last test before getting to the diagnosis which was supposed to occur the following week. Unfortunately we still don’t have a diagnosis. The doctor called yesterday and explained that while he knows what the problem is, he doesn’t know what’s causing it and just wants to follow up in a few months. So frustrating!

Thursday morning I woke up to someone coming in with a portable x-ray machine to look at my lungs. Then someone came in to do an echo to check my heart. It was a really crazy day - people kept coming in to do all kinds of tests and specialists kept coming in to check on me. After numerous blood draws, an ultrasound of my legs to look for blood clots, another xray of my chest, and a ct scan of my chest, they eventually determined that my heart was in good shape but that my breathing problems were the result of the fluid in my lungs caused by either pneumonia or compressed lungs from the weight of the babies. It was all a bit of a blur – I didn’t entirely know what was going on or how serious it was. They started some iv medication to fight my potential pneumonia but within minutes I was having major contractions, dripping in sweat and could hardly breathe. They stopped the medication and gave me Benadryl to deal with my allergic reaction. I was an emotional mess at that point, but fortunately the Benadryl put me to sleep.

I got another dose of meds in the morning to try to get rid of the remaining fluid in my lungs but after that, the only medication I was getting was the stuff to fight infections. I finally started feeling better at that point. I still needed to be on oxygen, but it was a huge improvement over the previous few days. The pulmonologist (who was brought in from another hospital) came to see me at least once a day each day between Thursday and Saturday. He was able to rule out pneumonia based on my improvement without medications. The fluid seems to have been caused by the contraction medications, so the longer I was off of them, the better I got. The weight of the babies isn’t helping the situation, but I lost 6 lbs while I was in the hospital which they think was the result of the removal of the buildup of fluids.

I tried to convince the on-call doctor over the weekend that I was ready to go home. I at least had him considering it because he called my doctor at home to get her opinion. He came back and told me she basically said “heck no!” and that I needed to wait til she was back on Monday to talk to her. On Monday I feeling pretty good, and was hoping to go home. My nurse on Monday was the same one as on the previous Wednesday and Thursday. I told her I was hoping to go home and she explained how unlikely that was. Apparently I was much worse the previous week than I realized. She said they didn’t want to scare me by letting me know everything going on, but I was very close to being transferred to the ICU. She was right, the doctor was not ready for me to go home yet that day.

I continued breathing exercises and oxygen for most of the week, but was finally well enough to go home without an oxygen tank or medications by Friday. The doctor did an ultrasound before I left and my cervix has gotten even shorter but I’m not dilated at all and hadn’t had any contractions in a week. She didn’t really look at the babies at all – their heart rates stayed in the normal range throughout my time in the hospital, so I don’t think they’re the concern at this point. After a long lecture and making me promise to be on strict bed rest at home, I was released Friday night.

I go back in this Friday, 10/7 (my birthday), for a follow-up and to check the girls’ measurements. We’ll see whether I end up back at the hospital afterwards. Let’s just say I’m not planning any big celebration for that day.