Last night marked our first unscheduled trip to the hospital with one of the kids.  Around 9:30pm, Rebecca woke up crying.  She does that sometimes, but I knew her teeth had been bothering her and she was just having a rough day, and it was definitely no-kidding-around kind of crying. so we decided to go get her.  Immediately, M remarked how warm she felt.  She was bright red and warm to the touch, and the thermometer confirmed a temperature of 103 (all while mid-dose of Motrin for tooth pain), despite the fact that she was almost shivering.

M asked if we should call the doctor, and I said not to bother and just go straight to our local ER. Honestly, if we called the doctor, that’s all they would have told him to do aside from Motrin/Tylenol and lukewarm baths. Might as well go straight there.  There was a brief moment of debate as to which one of us would go, or if both of us would (our friend happened to be visiting from out of town – Hi M.C.! – and offered to stay with the soundly-sleeping Daniel).  I made the quick decision that M should go, helped him pack a little bag, and off they went.

I had a few reasons for wanting M to go.  For one, he’s much more of a worrier than I am. I probably would have been OK with keeping her at home and doing the bath and the Tylenol, but I know he’d just be worried that something serious was wrong.  And if I took her, he’d be equally worried because he wouldn’t know what was going on, since we’ve discovered there’s zero cell phone reception in our hospital.

Plus, I sort of wanted him to have the opportunity to be the Daddy in Charge.  Being the full-time stay-at-home mom, I’m generally the boss when it comes to all things kid.  And while he’s a perfectly capable and certainly devoted Dad, he still tends to ask me what to do in most situations.  I wanted this to be all him, since I obviously trust his judgment and thought it might be good to gain a touch of confidence and experience.

Anyways, after a few hours and a very thorough examination, infections were ruled out and every parent’s favorite vague diagnosis was issued: probably a virus, treat the fever with Motrin and Tylenol, call if the fever stays high even on the meds.  Sleep was (and is) restless, little girl is cranky, mommy and daddy are tired (Daniel’s just peachy, thank you). Rebecca’s first late-night trip to the ER was a pretty uneventful one.

After spending about 20 of my first 21 years in Illinois, I moved out here to New England eight years ago this month. I was ready for a change of scenery, an adventure. Six months later, I met M, and the rest is history. Now I live in the ‘burbs in my four-bedroom Colonial with my husband, two kids, and a dog. I’ve mentioned my internal conflict about whether or not to return to Illinois someday, but in general, I’m pretty happy here in Massachusetts.

There are things, of course, that I do not like about this crazy state. The roads, in particular. They’re neither parallel, nor perpendicular. They curve and twist and change names with alarming frequency. Not that you’d know about the name changes, since there are no legible street signs. I don’t mind semi-aggressive driving, but the fact that turn signals are viewed as a sign of weakness is a problem for me. While there are plenty of nice individuals here, people as a whole are a lot less outgoing and friendly than the midwesterners I grew up with. And don’t get me started on the lack of good Mexican food.

But there are plenty of things I really like. The seasons, the scenery, the history. Liberal politics and marriage equality. The fact that you can drive for two hours and be in three states. I really am digging the fact that Massachusetts has a rate of twin births 34% higher than the national average [some people don't think this is a good thing, see my post today over on How Do You Do It? for my response], and that my twin club has well over 200 members. And I love that we have awesome health insurance.

I know, that’s a weird thing for me to write about, but just roll with it.

In Massachusetts, they recently passed a law that requires all residents to have health insurance, and nearly all employers to offer it. I think this is a good thing, though I’m sure some people resent it. MA also has good laws about what insurance companies are required to cover. For one, we have among the most comprehensive insurance for fertility treatments in the country, as MA requires insurance companies to cover it, including IVF (hence, in part, the unusually high rate of twins). Prenatal and maternity care is great, too. I barely paid anything in co-pays for my entire pregnancy, delivery, and hospital stays for all three of us. MA also requires health insurance companies to cover a minimum of 48 hours in the hospital post-vaginal birth, and 96 hours post-c-section. If everyone is doing well and wants to go home, some doctors will discharge you earlier, but I felt no pressure at all to leave.

I had no idea this wasn’t the way of the entire country until my niece was born last week. Mom and baby were doing just fine after an uncomplicated vaginal delivery, but why does that mean they were all but booted out the door 24 hours after she was born? Literally, she was born around 5pm, and they were out the door by 6pm the next day. My cousin, who lives in the same area, apparently had the same experience a few months ago when her daughter was born. I know some people hate being in the hospital, and want to get up and go as soon as possible. Not me. Sure, I had the surgery to recover from, and babies in the NICU, so that contributed to my lack of desire to leave. But seriously, in the hospital, you have professional help! You have nurses, wonderful nurses, to help you get up and out of bed, to help you in the less dignified moments, to help you take care of this strange new being that you’re supposedly responsible for creating and now raising. You have lactation consultants! The early days of breastfeeding can be so hard, I can’t imagine being at home and on my own after barely a day. You get food delivered to you! I know some hospitals have a bad reputation, but mine had pretty darn tasty food, and I was even able to order from a menu!

Thankfully, my new niece and her parents are doing just fine, and my stepmom is out there being as helpful as she can, while trying to walk the fine line and not be overbearing. But still, and extra day of nurses wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, in my opinion.

Didn’t I tell you? Practically perfect in every way… I can’t wait to meet her.

Within one short minute early last Friday morning, I suddenly went from pregnant to not. It would seem like such a monumental change should take place over a longer period of time, but as my husband would say (quoting from an episode of West Wing), pregnancy is a binary state. You either are, or you aren’t. And now, I’m not. Whew.

So, after the c-section, I was groggy but happy for a while. Since I had felt some pain during the surgery, I had been given a little extra dose of happy juice while they put me back together. They also used something called duramorph. Instead of having a morphine pump for pain after the surgery, they injected a long-lasting dose/form of morphine with the spinal. For a solid 24 hours, I can honestly say I felt no pain, and I noticed no negative side effects. For that period of time, they also gave me pitocin to help contract my enormous uterus and IV fluids. I had inflatable cuffs around my calves, not unlike alternating blood pressure cuffs, to keep circulation going and avoid blood clots. It was a little odd at first, but not terribly uncomfortable.

At this point, I hadn’t slept in a good 24 hours. But as there were new babies and it had reached somewhat reasonable hour of the morning, there were phone calls to be made. Excited grandparents were weepy, aunts and uncles (real and honorary) were cheering us on. I was sleepy, but the adrenaline (and frequent checks by the nurses) would keep me up for a while.

The first day saw me confined to bed, but no shortage of visitors. My dad arrived directly from a business meeting several hundred miles away by 2pm. Our only local relatives (my aunt and my sister-in-law) came by as well. I smiled sleepily at them and assured them I was feeling no pain. They got to go with the new daddy to see the babies in the nursery. I was jealous.

By Saturday morning I was unhooked from my various tubes and wires and was able to slowly start moving around. I finally was able to go to the nursery to see the babies for myself. It was really the first time I’d seen Daniel at all. My first thought was how small he looked. I knew he was bigger than Rebecca, so I figured he’d be huge. But no, he was a little six-pound newborn. It’s only after spending time with or holding his sister that he suddenly looks like a linebacker.

Since I knew I wanted to breastfeed the twins, and they were not really in a position to be directly nursing, I was started on the pump. You can’t help but moo the first few times you get your boobs into the suction cups. Though I likely wouldn’t produce much of anything at first, I was instructed to pump for 15 minutes, every three hours, to help my milk come in. Fun times.

Sunday I was able to walk to the nursery on my own and not require a wheelchair or assistance from the nurse. I started going more frequently, realizing I was welcome there, and tried to make it to as many feedings as I could. I learned what it took to “stay on top of the pain.” Motrin and Percoset became good friends. The pain was quite manageable, but my elevated blood pressure and swollen extremities would not abate. I was instructed, yet again, to spend more time on my left side, and keep drinking plenty of water. And here I had been so excited to finally sleep on my back again. Ah well.

In the meantime, we had scrapped our original plans of hubby spending nights with me in the hospital. Since the babies weren’t rooming in, we decided we’d both have a better shot at a good night’s sleep if he went home and took care of the dog and kept his snoring to himself. I’d not only be able to sleep instead of yelling at him to roll over every 10 minutes, but he’d be able to rest up instead of being on an uncomfortable cot, waking up every time the nurses came in. We both liked this plan.

Sunday night, as he got ready to go home, I got my first case of what I refer to as “the weepies.” Hormones combined with a huge emotional life change are a really special cocktail. I assured my husband I was just fine and insisted he get home and get some rest, and then proceeded to cry for 30 minutes. No particular reason. Just the weepies.

By the time Monday came around, I was feeling a lot more human again. I was more comfortably mobile, able to shower and wear something other than the hospital gown and a robe. As much as I missed being home, I was also getting anxious about being discharged. Not that I was concerned for my health, but rather because I wanted to keep being down the hall from the babies. Not across town lines. I was additionally stressed because the pumping was coming to absolutely nothing. Three solid days of dutifully pumping every three hours, and I had nada to show for it. I don’t mean “not much.” I mean nothing. Every time I went in to feed the babies, someone asked if I wanted to put one to breast, or if I had any pumped milk I wanted to feed them. I tried one of them at breast at least once a day, just for the sake of practice, but there was nothing for them to get.

Monday night, the weepies came on with a vengeance. I cried at the thought of leaving the babies at the hospital. I cried out of the guilt of having someone else take care of them, even if it wasn’t a matter of choice. I cried at the feeling of not being able to take care of them myself. I literally woke up three times during the night, bawling. Tuesday morning was no better. I had finally gotten a hold of myself when the nurse came in to take my blood pressure. Unsatisfied with the results, she told me to lay down and rest and she’d recheck me in half an hour. I once again burst into uncontrollable tears. I wanted to get to the nursery to be with my kids, and I had to lie down again for my stupid blood pressure. I was a wreck.

Just before I left for home that afternoon, I finally got my first measurable amount of breastmilk from the pump. I kid you not, it was two milliliters. Total. Both breasts combined. And I brought it right over to the nursery so someone could eat it. The nurses were great, and proudly combined it with formula so the babies could have it. We came back to the hospital a few hours after leaving to feed the babies, but I was running on empty. I couldn’t stop crying, no matter what. The kind SCN nurse insisted that it would be a good idea for me to just go home and rest, and I could come back in the morning.

It was nice to be home, but again, very mixed. After being unsure how “connected” I would feel to them since they were in the nursery all the time, the prospect of being further separated positively broke my heart. I ached from missing them. I couldn’t even look at the polaroid of the three of us from two days earlier without sobbing.

Wednesday and Thursday, however, were improvements. We were at the hospital for four feedings a day, and all the pumping was FINALLY starting to produce something. The first time I got a full ounce, I nearly jumped for joy. It wasn’t enough, but it was finally progress. The babies were doing well, and it looked like they would come home. I was having minimal pain from my incision, and was able to keep it at bay with only ibuprofen, maybe a single percoset at night.

And here I am, the end of day two with babies at home. My in-laws were here the last two days and were more helpful than I worried they’d be. It was good to have the extra set of hands. I still burst into tears with minimal provocation, but it’s getting better. My belly is a big, stretch-marked bowl of jelly and my feet and legs are still determinedly retaining lots of fluid, but I’m trying not to worry about it. The pumping is yielding 1.5-2.5 ounces at a time, which is enough to keep up with their current needs (doctor sent them home alternating breastmilk with high-calorie formula to help gain weight).

I’m pretty tired, and I haven’t got the foggiest idea what I’ll do when my husband goes back to work in a couple of weeks, but I can’t possibly think that far ahead. Tomorrow is our first full day by ourselves, so we’ll see how that goes. I think we’ll make it.

So, that’s the story. This is now, officially, a “mom of twins” blog. Hard to believe, but it’s really true. I have two babies. Yipes!

After being born, Daniel was whisked directly off to the hospital’s Special Care Nursery. It’s technically a “level II” unit, which means they can care for all but the sickest and/or most premature infants. It’s got 16 beds, and is staffed ’round the clock by a neonatologist and 4-6 nurses.

So, there went Daniel, who was grunting quite a bit, indicating he was working somewhat hard to clear his lungs and breathe freely. Rebecca, though smaller, was breathing well and came back to recovery with us. On the way over to my postpartum room, they wheeled me in to see Daniel, though all I could really see were his feet. He was lying in a warming bed attached to monitors and an IV, but they were letting him try to work out his breathing issues on his own. No extra oxygen, no CPAP, just letting him work it out. And by later in the afternoon, he had.

Around lunchtime, Rebecca and I were hanging out in my room (as I managed to spill jello on both of us), when my nurse noticed her feet and hands were looking a little too blue. It’s not unusual for newborns to have poor circulation to their extremities, but hers were looking a little too dark. They took her off to the well-baby nursery to get watched, and a little while later they moved her to a warmer in Special Care so that someone would be able to keep a closer eye on her.

By Saturday morning I was unhooked from my various wires and tubes, and was wheeled over to see the babies. They were in separate warmers, but both looked good. Rebecca was taking some food by mouth and some through a tube in her nose, and Daniel would start doing the same shortly. I was even allowed to hold them for a few minutes. By Sunday morning, Rebecca’s tube was out as she proved to be a voracious eater. We even tried putting her to breast a few times, and for such a teeny thing, she has a pretty decent latch. Daniel would take about half of his feed and get tired. The rest would be pumped down the tube so he could get the calories without having to work too hard.

Sunday evening, Daniel was fussy in his warmer and they decided he didn’t need it anymore. He was off of the IV, as he was able to take his feeds and infection had been ruled out, so antibiotics were stopped. They swaddled him up and put him in an open crib, and he happily settled down. At the next feed, Rebecca joined him in the crib.

Monday was spent improving on feeds, which were formula since all of my pumping was coming to naught. Tuesday was my discharge day, and a difficult one for me. Rebecca’s bilirubin levels were slightly elevated, so she had to leave the crib for an incubator with lights. Daniel was still not taking his feeds as well as we wanted. And I had to leave the hospital.

By Wednesday, though, things started to turn back around. Rebecca came off the lights and back to the crib, and Daniel pulled out his own feeding tube in protest and started taking his feeds better by mouth. They even had us bring in a carseat so they could do their carseat test that night (must be able to spend 90 min. in the carseat without respiratory or cardiac troubles).

All tests came back good on Thursday, and they started to really seem confident that Friday would be discharge day. We were going to the hospital to do four of their feeds every day, and though the hospital is less than 10 minutes from home, the back and forth was really getting tiring. We learned how to give them a quick sponge bath, and got a lot of safety tips and instructions from the nurse. I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high, in case anything happened overnight, but Friday seemed like it would really be the day.

Indeed, all was well when we went for the 8AM feed this morning. No one had any feeding, breathing, or circulation trouble overnight, weights were good, bilirubin levels were down. We got some brief instruction in Infant CPR, and the nurse told us we could go disconnect them from the monitors and get them dressed to go home, one week exactly since they arrived.

Excuse me?

That’s when we got a little nervous. You mean, there will be no screen we can look at to make sure they’re still breathing? No 24-hour RN keeping a watchful eye over us? Are you sure this is wise?

But we made it. We got them dressed and safely buckled into their carseats and secured into the van. We drove a little more cautiously than usual on the way home, but it didn’t take the 30 minutes we predicted to go the three miles to the house.

There was a small part of me that was even a little sad to leave the SCN. It was tiring to go back and forth, hard to grasp the reality of having babies when someone else is taking care of them and you only visit and do what they say. But the nurses and doctors were nothing short of wonderful. They were not just skilled and efficient, but also caring toward the whole family, happy to help the new parents take on additional tasks when possible. They were very supportive of efforts to breastfeed, and would be the first to call in the Lactation Consultant to come help. They were funny and personable. I’m looking forward to my first of the annual SCN reunions around Labor Day.

But nothing beats sitting at my computer and looking over at my two babies, sleeping snugly in the Pack n Play in our den. This is the best.

Despite having a c-section scheduled for 36 weeks, 6 days, the babies decided to arrive a bit early. I won’t lie, after last week, I didn’t mind too much.

On Thursday, I was having some intermittent lower back pain. I knew they were likely contractions, but they were sparse and not terribly painful, so I chalked it up to one more discomfort. Around 10pm, that all changed. I was in bed, and was suddenly hit with a painful contraction that started in my back and wrapped its way around my belly like a really bad period cramp. It lasted a good minute. And then about 7 minutes later, it happened again.

I told my husband to get the stopwatch, and we started timing. They were very regular, coming about every 6 minutes. The worst part was that they seemed to be lasting about 2-3 minutes, peaking a couple of times. It was quickly becoming not at all fun. To add insult to injury, for whatever reason, I found I needed to pee really badly about every other contraction. So not only was I in quite a lot of pain from the contractions, but then I had to deal with the additional pain of rolling out of bed and hobbling to the bathroom.

Anyways, after three hours of timing the contractions, we decided they were not going away and made the call to the OB. At 2AM, we arrived at the hospital.

Because they knew I’d be a c-section if I delivered, they apparently decided I didn’t deserve one of the rooms with the nice beds. No, they basically put me on a stretcher. There’s nothing quite so lovely as having (what I presume to have been) back labor while on a flat, hard, not-adjustable stretcher. Once hooked up to the monitors, my contractions slowed for a while, so they were not entirely convinced I was really in labor. Great. But they checked my cervix, and I was indeed dilated to 3cm. So they hooked me up to an IV (which took three tries, of course) and gave me fluids. The contractions came back, but weren’t really registering on the monitor. They started saying how they wouldn’t just deliver a 36-weeker because I was “uncomfortable,” and it was all I could do not to cry. But they did pick up again, and upon another check, I had progressed to 4-5cm. Delivery would, indeed, be today.

The nurses prepped me, the neonatologist and anesthesiologist talked to me about what to expect, and my husband was given his set of papery blue scrubs. Around 5:30AM, I was wheeled down to the operating room. Somehow, I didn’t really feel all that nervous. For once in my life, I was kind of just living in the moment, not really thinking much about what would come next. Maybe the pain was distracting me from my usual distractions, I don’t know. Excited as I was, I didn’t freak out.

Getting the spinal was a little strange. The shot of lidocaine to numb my back hurt more than the “actual” spinal. As soon as he gave me the anesthesia, I was to lie down as quickly as possible. Suddenly my lower body started to tingle. The strange part was that I was still quite aware of people touching and prepping my belly, but no pain. Husband came in a minute or two later, and things were underway. There was plenty of tugging and pressure, as they tell you, and I did feel a little bit of pain very low in my pelvic bone. But the anesthesiologist didn’t want to give me any more meds until the babies were out, so they wouldn’t get any of it, so I just stuck it out. It wasn’t bad.

The next thing I knew, I heard them say “head is out,” and then “I need a time of birth for Baby A!” The anesthesiologist responded, “6:03.” A gurgly, underwater-sounding cry came from somewhere on the other side of the sheet at my chest. Very shortly thereafter, another gurgly cry and a “time of birth for Baby B, please.”
“6:03″
“No, that was baby A. I need a time for baby B.”
“Still 6:03.”
That’s how fast Rebecca came out after her brother.

Immediately after they were out, the anesthesiologist gave me an extra dose of “happy juice,” and according to my husband, I started snoring. I think I was only out for a few minutes, and when I woke back up, he was able to give me reports on condition and weights. Daniel was 6lb 2oz, and Rebecca was 4lb8oz. Daniel was working a little bit hard to breathe, so they took him off to the special care nursery. Rebecca was breathing better, so she got a little cuddle time with her dad, and was wheeled back with me on the stretcher to the recovery room.

C-section was fast and relatively painless, and before I knew it, we were back in the room I had so hated a few hours earlier. I sleepily looked to the other side of the room and saw my husband in a chair, gazing adoringly at our new daughter. Not such a bad room, after all.

More later on the days that followed. For now, some pictures.

Skinny Ms. Rebecca was first to get on the scale.

Daniel looks downright pudgy by comparison.

Happy daddy in the operating room.

Some of you may have guessed by my silence…

Daniel and Rebecca arrived Friday morning, August 3, at 6:03 AM (yes, they were both born at 6:03!). Daniel arrived first at 6 pounds, 2 ounces. Rebecca followed almost immediately thereafter at 4 pounds, 8 ounces.

I’ve been discharged from the hospital, but the babies remain in the Special Care Nursery for a bit longer. They’re in an open-air crib together, and neither needed any intervention for their breathing. Little peanut girl is feisty as can be, and is eating her brother under the table. Lazy boy looks like a linebacker compared to her, and takes his sweet time eating.

We’re thrilled, feeling good, recovering well, and can’t wait for the babies to join us at home.

Off to pump again before we go back to the hospital for the next feeding. I’ll try to post the whole story later. But you’ll understand if it takes me a bit of time…

Still cooking, alas.

Today was plenty of good news for babies, which is of course a mixed blessing for me. I half hoped there would be some indication for delivery, since I’m so tired and uncomfortable, but it’s just not in the cards.

Babies looked great on the ultrasound. Crowded, of course, and I was quite correct that baby boy A is way low against my cervix now. But fluid levels were good, breathing movements and all of that were good. And, though it’s always possible the estimates are off, they seem to be growing quite well. Baby boy is estimated to be about 6lb7oz, and baby girl is all the way up at 5lb7oz. 12 pounds of baby in my belly… no wonder everything hurts.

Non-stress test was fine. As always, little girl decided it was a great time for a nap and we had to get out the buzzer, but after that she woke right up. My blood pressure was high, but not as bad as Monday (which was apparently as high as 150/100 at one point!), so my doctor (who was at the hospital, anyways) sent me home.

So, here I sit! Still really uncomfortable, but the contractions have gone away for the moment. Hopefully I’ll get in a good nap this afternoon, since I was not able to sleep well last night at all. If everything stays the same, I’m off to the OB on Friday for my pre-op appointment… Who knows, maybe I’ll make it to next Thursday, after all!

Still pregnant!

But I wasn’t totally off the mark, as yesterday was a rather new and different day.

I called my OB’s office to report the new pressure I was having, mostly to ask if I should do anything or ask for anything special while I was already going to be at the hospital. My doctor wasn’t in, but my favorite doctor (ha!) from a few weeks ago called back and said I should come by the office after the NST for an exam, presumably to see if my cervix was dilating. Sounds like fun!

Off to the hospital. The BPP ultrasound went just fine, both babies dutifully practicing their breathing motions, still plenty of fluid, all of that good stuff. The non-stress test started rough, though. For some reason, little miss really likes to sleep during those, so it’s been taking a while to get her to be “reactive.” We keep ending up needing to zap her with the little buzzer or poke her to get the heartrate variation we want. Once we finally had the results we wanted, the nurse was almost ready to let me go when she realized she had never taken my blood pressure. And then it got interesting. I never heard the actual reading, but it was apparently high enough that they decided to keep me a bit longer for monitoring, especially since it was taken after an hour of me lying down. The on-call doctor ordered blood tests to see if I was developing preeclampsia. Basically, if the bloodwork didn’t come back with good results, it was going to be birthday time. Yikes! Thankfully, it all came back just fine, kidney and liver function were good. Four hours after the start of the NST, they sent me home. I had missed the opportunity to go in and get checked at the OB’s office, so I was instructed to call her in the morning.

Of course, as soon as I left, the back pain I had been experiencing in the uncomfortable hospital bed turned into pressure, and soon I was having regular cramping. By 7:30, it would start as a low back pain that wrapped around my lower belly like a really bad menstrual cramp. Hubby and I started timing them, and they were about 9-10 minutes apart, with sometimes a lesser aftershock at 4-5 minutes. I remembered my OB saying I should call anytime I had anything regular and painful, so call I did. The on-call doctor sent me back to L&D, so at nearly 11pm, off we went. The cramps indeed showed up as contractions on the monitor (it’s not all in my head), and babies were good and active, not distressed at all by these new developments. They were still relatively far apart and somewhat irregular, though. And when the nurse did my very first internal exam (short fingers! OW!!), we discovered I was not even a little bit dilated. The contractions, fun though they were, were not making changes in my cervix. So at about 1:00am, back home we went. I had been worried about a “false alarm,” but the nurse reassured me that I had done the right thing to call and come in, and not to worry about it.

Unfortunately, the contractions stuck around all night, ranging between 4 and 20 minutes apart. And these were not the painless braxton hicks I’ve had for the last many weeks. These hurt, enough that I had to really concentrate on breathing through them and not tensing up the rest of my body. Needless to say, it was an awful night’s sleep.

I talked to my OB this morning. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a big part of me that sort of hoped she’d tell me to head in and just deliver today. But as the contractions were still irregular and not close together, she wanted me to stick it out and wait at least for tomorrow’s growth check at the peri’s office. Much as I’d love to be done, the babies are still officially premature at this point, so we need a better reason than discomfort to justify delivering them. She was kind enough to say that she half hoped that tomorrow’s ultrasound would show slowed growth so I could get it over with, but in the meantime, the plan is to just kind of suck it up. (No, she obviously doesn’t want my babies to not grow well! She just understands how “done” I am…)

After a few more contractions this morning, they more or less petered out by about 11am. I’m still having some low back pain, but it’s definitely not the contractions I was having earlier. I’m resting and drinking my water like a good girl, and hopefully will get in a good nap to try to make up for last night.

Tomorrow at 11 is the big (final!) growth ultrasound, so we’ll see how it looks. If either of them has slowed down or stopped growing, it may very well be delivery time. If not, well, I get to keep on hanging out until I either go into labor on my own (which is feeling more likely!) or make it to August 9.

Things are getting interesting around here!

I have a date for my c-section.

Certainly, as previously discussed, things could change between now and then, and earlier could become better. But if everything continues to march along nicely, then these babies will be born on Thursday, August 9th.

How crazy is that??

I will continue to have my twice-weekly BPP/NST combo, plus my weekly OB checkup, and the next ultrasound growth check remains August 1. Assuming all is well, I will have a pre-op appointment with my OB on August 3, which I understand to be more of a discussion on what to expect with the surgery. On August 8, I will have pre-op testing at the hospital. And on August 9, I am expected to report to Labor & Delivery at 8:30am, for a scheduled surgery at 10:30. I will be 36 weeks, 6 days.

I can still hardly believe I have just over two weeks remaining. This has all gone so fast! I’m beyond excited. I’m excited to meet these two, though certainly anxious to make sure they’re both OK. And honestly, I just plain can’t wait to get my body back. Everything hurts, everything is uncomfortable. I apologized in advance to my husband, because I think I’m going to burst into tears every night between now and then, out of the sheer frustration and discomfort of late-stage pregnancy. But the end is very much in sight. Hallelujah.

Oh crap. I have a lot to do!!

An interesting day, indeed, at the hospital. Today was a growth check with the ultrasound, in addition to the biophysical profile. Both babies passed the BPP, though we had to poke little boy to get him to wake up and move around for us. Weight estimates were encouraging, but interesting… Baby girl appears to have had a bit of a spurt and put on a full pound to reach 4lb4oz. Baby boy actually slowed down and gained only 10oz to reach 5lb3oz. Of course, these are estimates, and can arguably be further off the bigger (and more crowded) the babies get. But still, very encouraging that little miss continues to grow. An unusual twist, however, that her brother is slowing down. He also appears to have a bit less fluid than she does. As the peri said, it’s not as worrisome as it would be if little girl was the one with less fluid, but something to keep an eye on, nonetheless. Non-stress test was just fine, and as of next week, I’m going to actually go in TWICE every week. Good thing I’m done working!

The craziest part of the visit, however, was our discussion of when to deliver. First of all, if I go into labor spontaneously anytime tomorrow or later, they will not attempt to stop me. If it were to peter out on its own, they wouldn’t try to restart it, but they won’t stop me. OK. Wow. And then she said, “so, when do you think we should have these babies? I’m thinking 36-37 weeks.” Whoa!! Used to be 38, then 37-38… now 36? Holy crap! That’s two weeks!!

Basically, the plan is this: I’ll have my twice-per-week BPP and NST. If anything looks concerning, they might decide it’s a good day for a birthday. My next growth check will be in two weeks (August 1, to be precise). If either one of their growth has slowed or stopped? Birthday time. If growth is still good, they’ll schedule me for induction or c-section at right about 37 weeks.

WOW! I can barely wrap my mind around it. Three weeks at the most, possibly two or less. I’m pretty darn excited, but mostly it’s just not sinking in at all.

I’m off to my OB’s office shortly, where we definitely need to have a discussion about delivery method. Baby boy seems to have really taken over at the baby A position, and is head down, so vaginal delivery is an option on the table. We shall see.

Oh, and my blood pressure seemed to be creeping up at the NST today. We’ll see if that issue proves to be the dark horse that determines birthday time. I’ll update after the OB’s office if there are any interesting developments.

OB Update
After talking to my OB, she’s totally cool with me going directly for the c-section. She seemed to think it was probably a good idea in my case. If I change my mind and/or they both flip to vertex, I’m welcome to try for vaginal (if they don’t flip, then only if she’s the one on call, because she’ll do a breech extraction of twin B). But otherwise, she’s going to schedule my c-section for right about 37 weeks! To be moved up if things change, of course. Holy crap!!