Last night was really long. The contractions got to be pretty strong, not painful, but strong enough to keep me awake. I was having hot flashes from the magnesium and the babies would not stop moving around which meant that the nurse was in every 20 minutes to readjust the fetal monitors. I got blood pressure and lung check every hour and new IV bags every couple hours all night long.
When I'm not pregnant I sleep on my stomach. Pregnant I sleep on my side. Well, these fetal monitors really only stay in place if I sleep on my back. I have never been good at sleeping on my back but I had to try. By 4:00am they decided to give me an Ambian to try to get me to sleep some but it didn't really work. I think I got about an hour of sleep last night with all the activity going on around me but it's ok. It's only one night. I read up on mama inpatient blogs months ago to prep myself for what I figured would probably happen at some point and they ALL said the same thing. The first two nights in the hospital are tough, especially if you come in with complications.
The good news is that the magnesium seems to have slowed down the contractions significantly but I should also expect to experience them pretty regularly from this point on. If I have pain then we have a new problem to address but no pain, no problem. I had an ultrasound today to check on the twins and fluid levels were almost identical to my appointment on Tuesday:
Twin A @ 7.9cm
Twin B @ 7.2cm
My cervix (also known as the great wall of -gina) was still a whopping 4.2cm. Anything above 3 is considered good and it had measured at 4.7 on Tuesday. Strong heartbeats on both kiddos and no signs of internal bleeding. All good things to hear. Two of my usual perinatologists came in to brief me and say hi. I will definitely be inpatient until the boys are born and they are going to do all they can to keep them there until 35-37 weeks (7-9 weeks from now). I got my second dose of steroids and this is my last 24 hours on magnesium (yay). Tomorrow afternoon they will take me off the IVs and give me oral pills instead and we will do fetal monitoring 3 times a day, usually after meals, for 1 hour each time. That also means that I don't need to sleep with the fetal monitors on which will be amazing, I can't wait. I will still need to be on bedrest, only making trips to the bathroom 15 feet away and back to the bed but it's the small victories that I need to be celebrating each day.
I had some visitors today, got to see Ann who brought me watercolors, paintbrush, watercolor pencils and mixed media paper. We'll see what kind of masterpiece I can make for you all. Mom brought Juniper down along with some other activity books for me, drawing books, a women's journal to work my way through and some beautiful flowers from her garden. Juniper had a good time watching Little Mermaid and exploring the room I am in. She was definitely overwhelmed with all the machines and sounds when she first got into the room but she soon relaxed into the rhythm of the room. She tried to snuggle with me for a bit but the fetal monitors made that pretty tough to do with any bit of comfort. Mom left to go get Dad, his flight back from Denver had arrived early. Greg got here around 6:30 and we all hung out until about 8:30pm when they needed to head home.
Some parts of this so far have been easier than others. It's all stressful and I am still working on mentally adapting to my new environment. With all my prepping for this potential situation I never really factored in how hard it would be to be separated from Greg and Juniper. I will cry every time they leave. Hell, I was crying snuggling Juniper into the nook of my arm while watching Sarah and Duck tonight. It's ok to cry, let it out, it does no one any good to hold it in. But the pain from that separation stings a place deep down inside. I know it's just another step on this crazy journey the Universe has deemed our destiny, this too is temporary, this too shall pass, but even the strong struggle. Helps remind us that we need to stay humble, grateful, thankful for every breath.
With Love,
Whitney