Family

the twins in pictures – 3 months!

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Lots of pictures of the girls!  Carrie is on the left, Ellie is on the right.



A few solo shots of Ellie:



Don’t adjust your monitor – the color of Ms. Ellie’s hair is definitely RED.  How, you may be wondering, could two brunette parents have a child with such brilliantly red hair?  It’s all in the genes.  My dad’s beard came in red when he was younger, as did my mom’s dad’s beard.  Plus, my dad’s family is Irish and my great Uncle Frank was a red head.

And Ms. Carrie:

What is hard to see with Miss Carrie is her hair… and that’s because she has very little up on top!  Most of her hair is in the back and is very dark brown.  Looks like she got her mom’s dark hair and blue eyes.

the girls: a three month update

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It’s been three months since we had the girls.  It’s hard to believe that time has flown by so quickly!

Because the girls were nearly two months early, their development hasn’t been quite as speedy as most three month old babies.  That being said, they are working very hard to catch up to the babies that were born full term in February.

Both Elliana and Carrigan are smiling, cooing and even giggling at some times.  They are getting good at holding their heads up and are awake a lot more during the day.

In the past week or so, they’ve started sleeping longer stretches at night.  Elliana has made it through the night twice, while Carrigan only got up once a night.

Their acid reflux continues to be an on-again, off-again problem.  We have a few days where we think we’ve kicked the puking habit and then, bam, one of them has a streak of puking that makes me wonder if it would be more efficient just to pour the formula directly on myself, the child, our couches and floors.

It’s fun to see their personalities emerge as they get older.

Elliana seems to be our more thoughtful child.  She doesn’t smile as much as her sister, but rather seems to study things very intently.  She loves to be put on the floor on her activity mat.  She looks around at her toys and bats at them with her arms and legs.  She has big, luscious cheeks and perfect little bow lips.  Her eyelashes and eyebrows are coming in a pretty shade of red and her hair seems to get redder with each passing day.  She is not as impressed by my singing and playing with her, but I think I am starting to grow on her.

Carrigan is a very expressive baby. She smiles, laughs, coos and even raises just one eyebrow to show her delight and interest.  While her sister will stare at things intently for a long time, Carrigan likes interaction.  Carrigan has smaller, more delicate features and while her sister is more of a fair complexion, Carrie has a little bit darker skin tone.  The little bit of hair that is coming in around the sides of her head (she is totally bald on top), is a dark brown.

Both girls have pretty blue eyes and are still sporting the cute button noses that most babies have at infancy.

We’ve gone for lots of walks, trips to the mall, visits to the grandparents houses and outings to see friends.  They’ve had all of their shots, which they took like champs at their two month appointment.  Carrie was 9 lbs 2 oz and Ellie was 10 lbs at their two month appointments, so it will be interesting to see how big they’ve gotten at their four month appointment.

I’d write more, but both girls are crying at the moment.  Duty calls!

mother’s day

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When we were going through infertility treatments and struggling to get pregnant, this day was so bittersweet. I have a wonderful mom and a great mother-in-law. But the pain of feeling excluded from this day, because of the challenges we faced having a child, weighed on me.

This year is different for two obvious reasons and I am beyond grateful for our twin girls. They are smiling, cooing and starting to develop a little bit of personality.  It definitely helps make the long nights worthwhile.

But since I had the twins, a realization that had started to take shape when we struggled with infertility has continued to become more clear to me.

Motherhood does not happen to you, it happens in you.

Yes, it sounds totally cliché and trite, but bear with me. I did not magically become a mother on February 19th of this year. There was not a moment in the delivery room where a rush of hormones released a locked part of my brain, making me a mom.

Becoming a mom started a long time ago when I watched my own mom care for my sister and tried to imitate her with my doll I named Karen. It started in preschool when I pretended to be the mom when we played house. It continued to develop when I would babysit my siblings and neighbors. In my career, my instincts to mother grew as I learned how to nurture my coworkers and help those who reported to me achieve their goals. In volunteer work, I practiced and developed mothering skills with teenagers – one of the toughest and most rewarding groups to work with.

That being said, on February 19th when the doctors gave me my daughters to hold, I was filled with the requisite awe and wonder at our infant daughters. And while I loved them immediately, the moment was not transformative as I had previously imagined it would be. Sure, now I had the title, but it occurred to me that I had been doing the job, in one way or another, my whole life.

Am I saying that being a mother isn’t full of responsibility, challenges and difficulty? Certainly not. After being up most of the night with the twins, I have new appreciation for my own mother. I also have an even greater appreciation for my husband who was up with me, changing diapers, making bottles, rocking and burping.

But I also have a great appreciation for all the women in my life that have mothered me without having the official title. From teachers, bosses, mentors and friends, I have been fortunate enough to have a fantastic biological mother in addition to an army of women who have come alongside me and used their mothering skills to help me grow and flourish.

Mothering is encouraging, growing, nurturing, challenging, comforting, loving and caring for others, with little to no reward.  For the women out there who feel excluded from this day because they do not have children, I hope that this realization affirms the wonderful women that they are. It may not take away the pain and heartache of not having a child in your arms, but I want you to know that the amazing work you do in the lives of others is not, and will not be, forgotten.

And for everyone out there that has had the great fortune of having an army of mothers as I have had, I hope that you can take some time today to thank some of those outstanding women.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the women who mother – you are all a wonderful treasure!

fuzzy logic…

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Anyone who tells you that they operate just fine on less than five hours of non-consecutive sleep for days at a time is a liar.

But there is a remedy for the no-sleep baby blues: Diet Coke.

For anyone who knows me at all, you know that have had a love/hate relationship with Diet Coke.

I hate all of the nasty stuff in it.  I am positively certain that Diet Coke is probably one of the worst things I can put in my body.

But!

I LOVE how much work I get done while drinking Diet Coke.  I love how zippy I feel.

I’m not addicted, though.  I can quit whenever I want to.

Sure, you might snort at me and say, “Sure, Em, I believe ya.”

But really, I can stop whenever I want.  I don’t get headaches when I am off The Sauce (my pet name for Diet Coke).

And I’ve stopped before.

Cold turkey.

But for now, I am worshiping at the alter of The Sauce.

For as cute as the twins are, these sisters are not fond of long stretches of sleep in any consistent pattern. So if I’m going to be useful during a work day, I need Diet Coke.  Preferably in a 32 ounce container.  And, if I’m being picky, I like a wider straw – it gets the Diet Coke in faster.

I’d do an IV drip, but the IV accessories don’t really go with my outfits.

I have my priorities.

why I didn’t call Meghan back…

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My dear friend Meghan called at about twenty minutes to five today.  Oh, the joys of receiving a phone call from an adult!  And, as luck would have it, I just finished changing and feeding the girls, so there was a happy calm over the entire house.  Ahh…. the calm before the storm.

At 4:50 p.m., Frank announced that dinner was ready and I told Meghan, “I’ll call you right back, we’re just going to have dinner.”  Yes, that’s right – it wasn’t even 5 p.m. yet and we were ready for dinner. To say that our biological clocks are a bit off would be an accurate assessment of the situation.

Carrigan was in the bouncy chair and I put Elliana in the swing.  About three seconds into eating, Elliana started squawking.  Frank picked her up to comfort her and discovered that she was all wet.

This was curious because she wasn’t wet when I put her down and she didn’t have any signs that she had spit up. Frank decided to check her diaper upstairs in the nursery.  Mistake number one.

While I was still seated at the kitchen table, I heard Frank discovering the horrors in our daughter’s diaper.

“Oh-oh-ohmygosh!  It’s a blow out!!”

“Do you need help?” I called up the stairs.

“No. But, ohmygoshohmygosh! Oh, ew… eww!!  Ellie! Oh, that is just – that is just EVERYWHERE!  You have got to be – ohmygosh – Ellie!  What did you do??”

“Are you sure you don’t need help?”

“Maybe.”  Silence. “Yeah, yeah, I need help.”

I thought I would feel differently about our first blow-out diaper.  You know how you imagine the romance of being proposed to, the joy of your wedding, the bliss of giving birth to your children, etc?  I thought that there would be mass hysteria on the streets below, a soundtrack of terror in the background and some sort of angry monster banging on our front door.  Instead, I could hear birds chirping outside the window, the sound of children laughing as they played soccer on the field behind our house and the roar of our neighbor’s engine as he peeled out of his driveway.  But in front of me was a nightmare of poop covering my child, her changing table, my husband and an escalating number of diapers.  Every time Frank attempted to put a new diaper on it, the stream of baby nastiness spewed forth.

“Ah, um, what can I do?”

“I don’t know – it’s everywhere!  It’s on her clothes!  It’s on my hands! EMILY! IT’S ON MY HANDS!”

And just then, as he was taking off her third diaper, Ellie stopped crying.  I cocked my head to the side.  Time slowed down.  When Ellie stops crying during a diaper change it usually means one thing…

“PEE!” I yelped.

And indeed, there was pee.

For. The. Win.

Frank and I looked at Ellie and she looked at us.  And she started crying again.

“Well,” said Frank slowly, “I think she’s going to need a bath.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.”

Now, this is where I should’ve cut our losses and done what we knew worked.  I should’ve just given Ellie a sponge bath upstairs and thrown everything in the hamper.

But no, that is not what I did.

My mother-in-law suggested that we give the kids baths downstairs on the washing machine.  Initially I balked at the idea – I’d heard that washing the kids on a counter was dangerous because the tub could slip off the surface.  But after thinking about it, I figured that I could put towels over the washer and dryer and get a nice little bath system set up.

So, I lugged a bath tub, towels, soap, new clothes, a new diaper and a screaming, half-naked Ellie down to our finished basement.  I put Ellie in the pack’n’play and started getting the bath ready.

But her bath tub didn’t fit under the faucet of our slop sink very well.  I thought about using our floor-washing buckets to fill up the tub, but I felt that sent the wrong message to Ellie.  I went upstairs and grabbed our extra-large red tupperware salad bowl.

Frank, who was attempting to finish his dinner, saw me with the red salad bowl.

“What are you doing with that?” he asked mid-bite.

“I’m using it to give Ellie a bath.”

“What?”

“I’m using it to give Ellie a bath,” I repeated.

“Why?  Don’t you have her tub downstairs?”

“Yeah.”

“So what are you doing with the salad bowl?”

“I’m using it to give Ellie a bath.”

“In the salad bowl?”

“NO!  I can’t fit her tub under the faucet so I’m using the bowl to fill up the tub.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I went downstairs with the red salad bowl, filled up the bath tub, undressed Ellie and put her in the tub.

Ellie looked at me and I looked at her and then I heard the ominous sound of farting in a bath tub.

I looked down and saw that Miss Ellie had pooped in her bath water.

“CRAP.”

She cocked her head to the side as though to say, “Well, now what?”

“FRANK!  She pooped in the bath tub.”

Now, it’s worth saying that Frank does not like giving the girls tub baths.  He feels like he can give them a more thorough sponge bath than a tub bath.

He came downstairs and saw Ellie cold and screaming in her bath towel and me looking at the bath tub and announced he was going to give Ellie a spa sponge bath.

“Whatever.”

I cleaned up the bath tub (lots of antibacterial spray) and started the laundry.

When I made it upstairs, I found Frank and Ellie in the nursery.  Frank had turned on zen spa music and was carefully cleaning Ellie.

And Ellie was not crying.

“See?  Zen baby,” said Frank.

Frank taking care of our zen baby!

Zen baby, indeed.

Meanwhile, sweet Carrie was sitting quietly in her bouncy seat, staring out the window and plotting.  I’m sure she will not let herself be outdone by her sister.

Carrie staring out the window and plotting ways to out-do her sister.

Send help.

Even the stuffed animals in the nursery were appalled by the diaper disaster!

And that is why I didn’t call Meghan back.  Or answer Sue’s phone call.

Sorry ladies!

twinpocalypse

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If you drive by our home right now, you’ll see a white flag waving in the front yard.

We’ve succumbed to the twinpocalypse.

It was only a matter of time.

To be sure, I’ve managed to shower nearly every day.  I’ve put on make-up every day.  Maybe not a lot of make-up, but just enough to feel human.

We’ve ventured out into the world for things like a new cell phone, groceries and doctor’s visits.

We were actually in a wedding this weekend, which was only possible thanks to my mom, my sister (Caitlin), my sister-in-law (K1), and my aunt and uncle.  To thank all of those wonderful sitters, each of the girls puked mightily.  Because the K family’s motto is “Go big or go home,” the girls decided that simply spitting up was too… quaint? … for their liking.  Instead, they sprayed vomit in excess of 18 inches from their little selves, coating the couch, the carpet, various family members and, of course, themselves.  As a fellow projectile vomiter, I was proud of my girls.  Well done, sweethearts… well done.

In spite of our efforts to make our beds, keep the house somewhat orderly and keep ourselves fresh(ish), there are signs around the house that it is a losing battle.  Crusty stains on the couch (no matter how much we blot and spray and clean) and a never ending pile of burp rags by the basement steps headed to the washing machine tell the tale of two parents fighting the good fight.

If you were to drive by our house in the middle of the night, not only would you see a crisp white flag of surrender fluttering neatly in the breeze, but you’d also see various lights on throughout our house.  If the light is only on in the girls’ room, it is a calm night.  If the lights are on in the girls’ room, our room, the family room and the kitchen, well – game over.

I find myself feeding the girls in the middle of the night thinking of how easy it would be to have only one baby.  Feedings would take half the time.  While feeding the second baby, I think jealously: I could be in bed right now.

I also find myself thinking of my coworker’s daughter who had triplets and thanking my lucky stars that I have an equal number of hands to the number of children in our house.

Thankfully, we are mostly sleeping at night and awake during the day, which is very helpful in feeling like a normal human being.  We are still keeping up on some of our favorite TV shows (um, hello – FRINGE??  So good!) – even if there are quite a few interruptions to make bottles and change out the laundry.

And even though I am sure that it is only gas, the girls are smiling and cooing and “singing” in their sleep, which makes this all seem worth it in the end.

the twins’ birthday: a day in pictures

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About a week before the twins were born, Frank snapped my last pregnancy pictures in my super fancy, extra-large hospital gown.  What can I say?  I’m a trend setter!  For anyone wondering why most of my smiles look so pained, all you need to know is that I had a scary cervix.  A very, very scary cervix.

 

 

Then there was the morning of the twins’ birth.  The first picture is of my mom and me and the second is of my mother-in-law and me.

Grandma Mary Kay and me

Grandma Sandy and me

Then, after wondering if Frank was going to make it to the birth – he arrived!!  Hurrah! (note to self: pictures of me lying down are not the most flattering…)

Baby Daddy and me

After sitting around for about 90 minutes, the doctor determined that it was go-time!

Ready to have some bebez!

After pushing for about 20-30 minutes, sweet baby Elliana was born:

Baby Ellie

And then just three or four short minutes later, sweet little Carrigan made her way into the world:

Dad and Carrigan

In just under an hour, our little family of two became a family of four!  Mom holding Elliana and Dad holding Carrigan:

Our first family photo!

 

Yo’ Mama’s Got a Scary Cervix

/ emmykay / 7 Comments

… and other tales of child-birthing.

At some point last week, all of the maternal fetal medicine doctors (MFM), OBs at my practice and neonatal intensive care doctors were monitoring my condition from the sidelines.  One MFM doc told a NICU nurse that I was the patient with “the scary cervix”.

Sure, I knew that things didn’t look all rosy from a cervical standpoint, but in my fight to stay positive about the situation, I didn’t really think that my hooha was “scary”.  Well, not scarier than usual.

Anywho.

On Friday I had some visitors and I started to feel badly by the end of their visit.  My blood pressure was rising, which is not typical for me, and I was just feeling “off”.  I tried to get some sleep before the 1 a.m. nurse shift change when they conveniently wake up all of the sleeping patients and get their vitals.

After the 1 a.m. check-in, I stayed up to wait for Frank to land in Denver.  Oh, did I not mention that Frank was flying?  We decided that since it seemed like I could stay in my current condition for a long time, it didn’t make sense for Frank to take time off just to watch me sit (not patiently) in a hospital bed.  So Frank was flying into Denver and landing at about 2 a.m. CST.

During our conversation I mentioned to him that I just didn’t think I would make it until Monday to give birth.  I just had a feeling.

I tried to sleep after talking to Frank, but I felt like I had to go to the bathroom a lot.  I kept getting up to go, and then didn’t feel like going.  Finally I realized that  I might be having contractions again (what can I say?  My contractions just didn’t feel like contractions).  I called my nurse, she started monitoring me on the fetal heart rate monitor and saw that I was having contractions every 3 minutes.  She stepped out of the room to call my doctor and the hospital OB.  The hospital OB made it upstairs and assessed the situation.  I was at 5 cm and the amniotic sac was definitely bulging.

I was going to Labor and Delivery.

But no one would say for sure that I was going to have the babies for sure.  So after asking multiple times if I should call my husband in Denver and not getting an answer, I finally just called him.  Within minutes, he was up and getting dressed and racing for a flight.

The doctor did a quick ultrasound and determined that the babies were both head-down (how did the second twin flip around again in such tight quarters???).  I asked for an epidural both because I had to have one since we were delivering twins and because I knew it would slow down labor and give Frank a chance to make it to the hospital.

My mom and Frank’s mom arrived and sat with me while the epidural set in.  Note: epidural pain meds are not fun.  I was pretty pain free for the next hour or two while we waited for Frank.  He landed in Milwaukee at 9:30 a.m. and ran from the airport to the car.  Once he was in the car, we talked about delivering vaginally or via c-section.  He told me he thought that I would regret not trying it vaginally and I knew he was right.  I let the doctor know that we were going to do a vaginal delivery.

At 11 a.m., Frank arrived at the hospital.

Once Frank was there, they decided to administer pitocin to kick start the labor since the epidural had slowed down contractions.  After getting the pitocin started, I started to feel all of the contractions in my cervix.

Before that moment, I couldn’t tell you where my cervix really was.  I could vaguely say, “my cervix is down there.”  But once the pitocin started in, I realized exactly where my cervix was and what it was doing.  I complained to the nurse, as I breathed through the contractions, that this epidural business was a farce.  She said, “Are you feeling pressure?” and I said, “NO.  I am feeling pain.”

In the hospital, they often call painful things they can’t do anything about “pressure” because then you are not in pain.  If you were in pain, then they’d have to find something to do about it.  But pressure, well, that’s just too bad.

The anesthesiologist came back in, increased the pain medication and looked at me like I was crazy.  After he left, I told the nurse that I was still feeling a lot of pain.  Not pressure.  Pain.  In my cervix.

The nurse looked at me with the same confused look – how could I be in pain while on so much epidural medication.  She called the doctor in and after a quick check, he announced that I was complete.

What in the world does complete mean?  It means you are ready to push.

They gave Frank scrubs and started prepping me to go to the Operating Room because twins are never typically delivered without easy access to surgical equipment.

They wheeled me into the operating room and then told me I needed to scoot myself over to the operating table.  Excuse me?? I thought I hadn’t heard them right.  But I did.  So, me and my numb legs and giant pregnant belly scooted across the labor bed onto the operating table.

After everything was in position, I pushed for about 20 minutes and delivered Elliana and then 3 minutes later I delivered Carrigan.  Both babies were born screaming and generally ticked off.

Elliana was 5 lbs 10 oz, 19 inches long with tons of fuzz on her head.

Carrigan was 5 lbs 6 oz, 18 1/2 inches long with a little bit of black hair.

And they are doing awesomely well for being born at 32 weeks 5 days gestation.  No oxygen, no warmers and they are eating like crazy.

We are madly in love with them.

 

three things: hospital bed rest part one

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Hello from a fancy hospital bed that goes up and down and has wheels!

In the land of lost dignity (bed pan much?) and swallowed pride (sure, I don’t mind if four people watch this cervical exam), I’ve been enjoying the view of the world from between my two elevated feet.  Since it appears that I will be here at the hospital for at most another 12 days, this might not be my only “three things: hospital bed rest” editions.  Bearing that in mind, I thought I’d share three highlights from my stay in the south tower.

thing one: the food

If you know me at all in real life, you had to see this coming.  Initially, I didn’t have an appetite.  Shocking, I know, but that just tells you how intense the mag drip was.  An Emily without an appetite is really not an Emily that anyone wants to know.  Since I didn’t have an appetite when they handed me the menu, I was really impressed with the seemingly extensive food offerings available and looking forward to the day when I would be hungry enough to order them.  Of course, my appetite has returned with a vengeance and now the menu looks all sad and boring.  Really, I can work through a lot of things, but bad food might cause me to go back into active labor!

Fortunately, just as the reality of my menu/food situation was settling in, a nutritionist stopped by to talk to me about my eating and to encourage me to… wait for it.. EAT MORE!  She told me to order snacks and even gave me access to the general population cafeteria which has things like PRIME RIB and COCONUT SHRIMP and SPLIT PEA SOUP!!  And, the extended menu changes daily!!

I’ll check back in on this issue in the future, I am sure.  But so far, the food has been OK.

 

thing two: the outfits

Let me tell you, I’ve started several amazing fashion trends while here in the hospital.  From support hose to gowns that open in the back, fashionistas in Milan have nothing on this girl.

Let’s talk gowns first.  Loose, flowing gowns are all the rage.  Everyone who is anyone is wearing one.  Especially when they are a pale mint green with pastel purple and blue hash marks.   You’ve heard of gowns that accentuate your cleavage?  Well, these gowns reveal your entire rear end – far more risqué than just a bosom-bearing frock.  Have a heart condition?  No worries! There is a handy pocket in the front with a secret hole that will allow your doctors to monitor your heart while you are working the party circuit.  Who says being health-conscious means ignoring your cardiac issues?  And if you’re not a cardiac patient on the run, it’s a great place to store your cell phone.

Because no mint green bootilicous fashion statement would be complete without the perfect footwear, my friends at the hospital have hooked this girl up with some rockin’ kicks.  Wearing plain gray socks would not only be boring, but possibly very dangerous due to the chance of slippage.  These fashion-forward, highly functional socks feature TREAD!  And because it’s hard sometimes to remember to put the tread on the bottom of the socks, these socks have tread on both the top and the bottom.  Sweet!

For those of you who like shapely legs, might I suggest a pair of compression stockings?  You might work up a sweat getting these socks over your big toe, but once on, the socks do an excellent job of relocating any cellulite from your calves to your knees.  And everyone knows that if your knees look really big, your feet will look small and dainty.  Who doesn’t love small and dainty feet?

 

thing three: free cable!

While I am totally aware that I am still paying for cable at my house that I am not watching, there is something about watching free cable in a hospital room that makes it seem all the more delicious.  Maybe it’s because when I watch TV at home, I am acutely aware of the fact that by watching extensive amounts of TV, I am NOT doing something I think I SHOULD be doing.  Like… pretty much anything else.  But as a patient in the hospital who is not even allowed to leave the room without being put in a wheelchair, I have no other options most of the time that I am sitting here. It’s like watching cable is part of what it is going to take to keep these babies healthy and happy.  And what kind of mother would I be if I didn’t consume as much TV as possible in order help my children?

That being said, for those of you who may be sleeping at around  3 a.m., you should just know that Food Network switches over to paid programming.  Just in case you were wondering.

That is all.

wait, what?

/ emmykay / 6 Comments

Some of you may know that I am currently hanging out at the hospital, trying to keep my legs crossed and keep the babies from spraying out alien-style.  For those of you who do not know that – I am in the hospital on bed rest and trying NOT to give birth.

And here is how this came to be.

I’ve been warned against trying to find all of the things that I could’ve, would’ve or should’ve done to avoid finding myself in this current situation.  It’s hard, as the primary care giver for your little ones, to not go down that path.  So hopefully, without too much self-blame, I can relate the story of how I came to be sitting in the mother-baby unit, still attached to both of my babies.

Since last Sunday, I’d been getting up way more frequently in the middle of the night, noticing that my stomach was very hard.  A few times, I was even up every 30 to 45 minutes, which was kind of concerning.  I realized by Tuesday night that the reason I was waking up so much was not necessarily to use the facilities as much as it was because I was experiencing abdominal discomfort.

Wednesday at work was fine – I put my feet up at my desk and cranked on some projects.  By Wednesday night when I arrived home, I was noticing that same tightness in my abdomen.  I told Frank to feel my stomach and he noticed it was really tight too.  So we sat on the couch for an hour and counted about 4 or 5 “contractions”.  They didn’t hurt, so I figured it was normal – after all, my uterus was measuring full term for a singleton baby.

Wednesday night was horrible.  I was up very frequently and had a hard time sleeping.  I eventually gave up and took a shower at 4:30 ish in the morning, with the intent of going into work early.  The shower seemed to calm things down, though, and I took a little bit of a nap.  Considering the tightness and how much I was up, I decided it was probably appropriate to see the doctor just to be sure that everything was OK.

I called the doctor, expecting an afternoon appointment, but instead, they wanted to see me as soon as I could get in.  Completely believing that it was just the usual case of neurosis for me, I decided to wait until 10 a.m. to go in so that I could get a few things taken care of at work.

The visit to the doctor’s office was pretty uneventful.  They hooked me up to the monitors and naturally, I didn’t have any contractions while I was sitting there (not surprising – mornings have been pretty quiet for me) and the babies seemed to be having a grand old time bouncing around.  The doctor did a fetal fibronectin test which predicts with 99% accuracy whether or not a patient will go into pre-term labor within the next two weeks.  She also checked my cervix and noted that while it was still long, I was dilated to 1 cm.  Hrm, I thought.  That’s kind of surprising.

Back to work I went.  I decided earlier that week to do all of my maternity leave debriefs a bit early, just because I am having twins.  Who knew that Thursday afternoon would be my last day in the office??

While I was sitting in my office, I noticed a few more “hard stomach” moments, but nothing crazy.  I went home to Frank and had some dinner.  Then he went out to visit with a friend and I settled down on the couch to write thank-you notes and watch TV.

Within a few minutes of writing the notes, I noticed that my stomach was getting hard at regular intervals.  I logged on to contraction master and decided to just keep track of how many times I was contracting and for how long.  After two hours of writing thank-you notes and watching HGTV, I had a very consistent pattern of contractions/tightness every 4-5 minutes, with a few instances of less than 3 minutes.  The tightness was lasting 30-45 seconds, sometimes longer.  My doctor had told me if it went on for longer than an hour, to call… at two hours of contracting, I figured I finally had to face the music.

See, I hate calling my doctor.  Loathe it.  It seems like every time something like this happens, it’s after hours.  Blah.  I told the nurse about the situation and she said she would talk to the doctor and get back to me.

Thinking it would be a while, I called Frank to tell him the scoop and advise him that he should probably start coming home.  By the time I hung up with him, the nurse already called back and told me to head to Labor and Delivery immediately.

And of course, the only thing I hate more than calling my doctor is actually going to the hospital, especially when I’m not 100% sure that this “tightness” I was feeling was really “contractions” or just “typical twin pregnancy stuff.”  Ugh.  I mean, my uterus was measuring full term for just one baby – perhaps this was just all part of the joy of twins!

We didn’t pack anything because, really, I didn’t think I had to pack for an overnight stay.  I figured I’d go in, they’d tell me I was nuts, and we’d be home in time for the 10 p.m. news.

On the way to the hospital, I had a few more “tightness” situations.  We got to the hospital and of course, just like when you take your car to the mechanic, everything started feeling better.  By the time they sat me down in the bed in Labor in Delivery (in the ridiculous gown that opens in the back) and hooked me up to the fetal monitors, I was 100% sure that they were going to tell me not to come back until the babies were crowning.

I actually said that to Frank: “They aren’t going to let me come back until the babies are crowning.”

Funny story.

While I was sitting in the bed, feeling ridiculous, I was having contractions 3 minutes apart.  The OB on staff came in and did a cervical exam and announced that I was 3 cm dilated with a bulging sac.

I looked over at Frank and just said, “Well, that’s not very good.”  And Frank knew that wasn’t very good because we already took the class and because he’s a good husband, he remembered what effacement was and what dilation meant and well, a bulging sac just never sounds good.  So he looked back at me with wide eyes and nodded and we just sort of sat there, taking it in.

And then that’s when the craziness started.  IVs were brought in, I was unceremoniously turned over and given a steroid shot in my tush.  Then they started the magnesium and the contractions got worse.  They were, at some points less than 2 minutes apart.  The doctors wanted me to try to sleep and let the magnesium drip take affect, so they gave me an ambien, but the pain was pretty bad still and I definitely couldn’t sleep through it, so they gave me some pain medication.

I don’t remember sleeping a lot, but I think I got a few hours in.  At 7 a.m., the contractions were still 5 minutes apart.  We were getting nervous and still had four more hours until the next steroid shot could be administered to help mature the babies’ lungs.

Around 8 a.m., the contractions finally started to space out and we were able to breathe a sigh of relief for the moment.  They kept the magnesium going and finally, everything seemed to be moving in the right direction.

So let me tell you about magnesium sulfate.  It works because it relaxes your uterus – and everything else, too.  Also fondly referred to as “mag”, this delightful concoction makes it harder to breathe, blocks up your sinuses and generally makes you feel like a wet noodle.  Oh, and when mixed with Ambien, it causes hallucinations.

At 10 a.m., the perinatologist and OB came in to assess the damage.  They wanted to keep me on the mag drip until I had my second round of steroids to mature the babies’ lungs.  Then things kind of get foggy and blurry.  At some point, I tried to go to sleep for the night, but was having a hard time sleeping because I was so hot (another mag side effect) and I couldn’t breathe.  So they brought me a cool wash cloth and an Ambien.  Hello, hallucinations. I woke up several times that night trying to get out of my bed, unsure if I was pregnant and wondering if the monitors I was wearing were guns or … monitors?  I doused myself with a washcloth full of water, threw pillows on the floor and asked the nurse if I broke my water.  I also asked the nurse if I was having triplets.

The nurse thought I was hilarious.

On Saturday morning, the perinatologist and OB had a pow-wow and determined the side effects of the mag were far worse than going into pre-term labor and so they stopped the drip.  And then we started waiting again.  Over the course of the next few hours, the nurses slowly disconnected me from the catheter, IV drips, etc.  By Sunday, I was completely wireless and essentially contraction-free!

Since then, it’s just been a waiting game.  The doctors feel that we’ve cleared a major hurdle and probably have at least another week before the babies make their grand entrance.  This will let the babies’ mature further and spend less time in the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU).

We’ve been so blessed with so many of our friends and family praying for us and thinking about us – it’s been such a boost!  While this whole situation isn’t ideal and has both of us a little bit ragged, we are both keeping positive attitudes.  Our doctors and nurses have been great and everyone has been very impressed with the babies’ activity levels and heart rates.  And if these babies miraculously stay in until 34 weeks, I’ll get to go home because the doctors will no longer try to stop labor if it starts again.