Today is day 17 of inpatient and I am starting to get tired of being here. I know that it is the best thing I can do for the twins but wow, I've done more sitting and laying down in the past two weeks than I ever thought I'd be able to do in my whole life.
Spring is here and this is my favorite time to be outside prepping the garden and greenhouse for the summer ahead. It has been really hard to watch the green emerge from my little window. Oh how I long for all that dirt stuck under my nails.
This past Monday I had to switch rooms because they got really busy in L&D (Labor & Delivery). Here at the hospital they have 4 swing rooms in the NICU that they use whenever the NICU or L&D get super busy. Although my new room in the NICU is about a third of the size of my previous room, the TV is larger and closer to the bed and the bathroom is much nicer. Sleeping has been tricky here because the door is glass instead of solid wood. The only option I have for making the room darker is to close the privacy curtain but it's still a lot brighter than I am used to. Change often requires adjustment.
The doctors are keeping an eye on Twin A's right ventricle in his brain. It is larger than the ventricle on the other side and they haven't been able to figure out why or what that means for Twin A. Tuesday morning I will have an MRI to see if they can learn anything else. They want to make sure that there isn't anything they need to be aware of that would require that twin to receive different care once he's born. In the meantime, I have ultrasounds every Tuesday and Friday to check progress.
We've had a couple decels this week. A decel (short for deceleration) is where the baby's heartbeat slows down significantly, usually due to umbilical cord compression & lack of oxygen flow, and stays slow for an extended period of time. The first time Twin A's heartbeat dropped from 145 to 80 and stayed there for a minute and a half. The nurse rushed in and checked my pulse to make sure that the monitor wasn't tracing my heartbeat instead. After 10 seconds or so the twin's heartbeat was back up to normal but due to that decel I had to start over and do another full hour of monitoring to ensure that it didn't occur again. If the decels are repetitive then it means I need to go back to 24 hour monitoring. It's a sign that the twin is in distress and it could be a sign that we are close to the babies needing to be born to ensure that no brain damage occurs. The second decel was also Twin A but only lasted about 40 seconds and didn't reoccur. Seeing decelerations on the fetal monitors is probably the most stressful part of inpatient right now.
I wanted to send out a thank you to everyone who has sent me books, gift cards and art supplies! I'm having a lot of fun exploring all the activities I don't have time to do at home. I finished crocheting the blanket I started shortly before I got here. I also crocheted an octopus stuffed animal to give Juniper for Easter.
My in-laws have been here the past week to watch Juniper and help Greg around the house. I know Greg is VERY thankful to have them around and it is nice that my Mom gets a break too. She's been coming over here a bunch this week and it's great having company :)
I am 30 weeks pregnant today which they tell me is a HUGE achievement considering all the set-backs we have had along the way. At 30 weeks gestation the baby's bone marrow takes over production of red blood cells. The baby also begins to practice breathing. The most significant milestone though is that if the twins were born today, they have a 100% chance of surviving :-D
But we need to keep these boys cooking for as long as we can and hopefully that means for 5 more weeks. Every day in utero is one less day in the NICU and we'll take every single day we can get. Doctors are all saying that things are looking great, boys are moving all the time and their heartbeats are very strong. All good news.
With Love,
Whitney