Day 6

Today was an okay day... It was one of those days that was a little difficult for me emotionally. I have my good days and I have my bad days. Nothing much happened today until Craig got here late this afternoon. He took me for a stroll around the hospital, then we went back to my room.

Craig's brother Kyle and his wife Michaela stopped by to visit and give Craig his birthday gifts since we missed the family monthly birthday party today. We had a nice visit.

After they left, I had the nurses put the monitor on because I felt like I was having more than my normal contractions. And sure enough...I was having too many contractions (probably 5 or 6 in a 30 minute period). I knew what was coming next...more Terbutaline. After getting the shot, my contractions stopped for which we are very thankful, but it sure left me feeling jittery and wired.

I had a nice surprise with more visitors this evening. Our friends, Elizabeth and Tamara came to visit. I was glad to have more company especially after the day I had. It helped get my mind off of things.

I really appreciate everyone that stopped by today. Sorry I forgot to take your picture! :) I am going to try to remember to take everyone's picture, so I will have it on my blog for the future when I look back at it.

Day 5

Today was a pretty good day. I did my usual...get up, order and eat breakfast, take my medicine and have my vital signs read, have my much anticipated shower, watch a little t.v., check my emails and do some reading.

Nivens came by to see me and I asked her if she would order the relaxation therapy and crafts/social time that is given once a week or so. So, now I can look forward to doing that every week or so! I can't wait!

I didn't have any monitoring done until late this afternoon, but all went well with the babies and the contractions. Thank goodness! I didn't have to have any more Terbutaline today. That stuff makes me so jittery and shaky! Not fun at all!!

Once Craig got here tonight, we just stayed in my room rather than taking a stroll around the hospital. He took me out last night and it was so nice to actually step foot outside my hospital room for the first time in 4 days. Anyway, he brought Lacy up here to see me today, which was why we stayed in the room. It was fine though because I haven't seen Lacy in 5 days and I enjoyed seeing her. All the nurses loved her, but Craig did say he got a couple of nasty looks from people coming into the hospital with her.









My brother Les and his wife Kim also came by so visit me tonight. We had a good time talking and laughing and listening to Les sing different songs. :) He loves to sing!





I am looking forward to tomorrow night, because Craig is going to spend the night with me.

26 weeks! Day 4 - a better day

Today seemed to be the best day at the hospital so far. I started my day off to a good start by sleeping in later than I have so far (7:30 a.m.). I had my appointment with Dr. Koster this morning and the babies all look great and my cervix still looks great. It was such a treat to get to step foot outside of my room for the first time in 4 days!



My mom visited Wednesday and brought us some yummy homemade vegetable beef soup.

I also had three visitors today with the addition of Craig of course. Craig's mom visited me this morning for just a few minutes. She was working and couldn't stay long. She brought me a little gift for my spiritual birthday. Then, my friend Angi stopped by with her daughter and she brought me lunch. It was so good, Angi! Thanks! A little later, my SIL, Michaela and her son Michael stopped by and brought me lots of goodies. They brought a little Christmas tree for my room and decorated it for me. She also brought me some magazines and a crochet "how-to" book along with some yarn etc. to crochet with.





I am also 26 weeks today. Each week that we get through is a milestone in our book. Hopefully these babies will stay put for several more weeks.



I got my doctor to change my monitoring. Monitoring the babies twice a day for 20 minutes is so exhausting for me. It takes forever for the nurses to get the babies heart beats because they move so much. Plus, with all the pushing they do to my belly to get their heart beats, I wouldn't be surprised if the monitoring causes contractions. So, now they are only doing the monitoring once a day (that is for the babies only). They will still do the monitoring for contractions twice a day if not more.

I also got her to approve pet therapy for me which means Craig can bring our dog up here to see me. I was very surprised to find out that the hospital allows this. All we have to do is provide proof of her shot records.

I also got her to give me wheel chair privileges so I can now leave my room for an hour each day. Of course, that is if my contractions and everything else are still doing well.

Maybe I spoke too soon about having a better day. Just before I started this post, I felt like I was having contractions every couple of minutes. I kept watching the clock for about 30 minutes and called my nurse. She hooked me up to the monitor and my contractions were just a few minutes apart. Within about 10 minutes of monitoring, she came in here and gave me Terbutaline. It is a more fast acting drug to control contractions. Let's hope and pray it works so I don't have to start magnesium.

I have a couple of pictures to post and I will try to do that if my contractions get under control.

Day 3 nothing much

Today, I seemed to be getting into the swings moreso. My emotional state was better, but my physical discomfort was worse than yesterday. The twice daily monitoring is killer. It takes forever for the nurses to get all the babies hooked up and keeping them on their monitors is the real chore. They are so active! It is an exhausting experience every day...exhausting to me and the nurses. I think the babies actually enjoy torturing us this way. LOL :) :)

My contractions are holding steady. I am still having them but no where near the 10 per hour that my doctors say is my limit. I am having a cervical check again tomorrow. I think Thursdays are going to be my day. I am looking forward to getting out of this room and of course to seeing the sono and cervical results.

They pushed back my second glucose test because the steroid shots that were given to me when admitted could give a false reading of my glucose test results. They have pushed them back a week to give the steroids time to work through my system. I will be doing the test next week some time.

My mom brought Craig and I dinner tonight. We had some yummy vegetable beef soup with corn bread. It was good... I love home cookin!

That is about all I have to report today...nothing much just a few updates. I will keep you updated on everything.

Day 2

Day 2 was pretty rough quite honestly. Still trying to get settled in and get into the swing of things. I had several emotional upsets, but I am sure that is all very normal considering what is going on.

They came in to monitor the babies and my contractions in the morning and evening and will continue to do that unless something changes for the worse, then I would get closer monitoring and possibly a different dose or kind of medicines to better control the contractions. Yesterday, I did show to be having a few contractions during the time they monitored (about 20 minutes), so they weren't super concerned about that. I believe my doctor has said they don't want to see more than 10 an hour.

My doctor came in to see me yesterday afternoon and we had a nice talk. She is so sweet, personable and patient. I just love her. She listened to me and answered all my questions which made me much more at ease with a lot of things. Then, she told me that I had failed my glucose test. :( She wants me on a certain diet today and maybe tomorrow, then they will do the second test the following morning. This is the 3 hour test where they take blood once every three hours to see how my body is breaking down the sugars in my system. I haven't been diagnosed with gestational diabetes yet; this test will be the determining factor. If I am diabetic, I will have to change my diet and possibly receive insulin shots every day. Hopefully this test will come back negative as Nivens said only 15% of people fail the second test. If I do have it, then hopefully it will just be for the duration of the pregnancy and I will not have any problems with it afterwards.

Again, a HUGE thanks to everyone for praying for us and thanks to so many of you who have offered to help. All the things you do for us, help us tremendously.

Back in the hospital

Yesterday afternoon I was re-admitted to the hospital. I had an OB appointment yesterday morning. It seemed to go okay although I was monitored for contractions and it was picking a few up. Nivens didn't seem too concerned about them alone because at that point everything else seemed to be going well. The babies heart rates etc. all looked good.

I did have a glucose test and a FFN (the test that detects whether delivery will occur in the next 2 weeks). I don't have the results from the glucose test yet, but I got a call from Nivens yesterday afternoon with the results from the FFN and unfortunately, it came back positive. She told me this test isn't as accurate (maybe 40)when it reads positive as it is when it reads negative (maybe 99%). We are hoping the test is wrong and that the babies will stay put for a while.

After getting those results, Koster wanted to see me for a cervical check and my cervix has shortened quite a bit (for me that is). My cervix is still considered long, but for me, it is short because my cervix has consistently been very long. My doctors aren't concerned that it is too short, they are more concerned by how much it has changed in the past week. Koster thinks the fluid around the babies might be partly to blame for the shortening cervix because of the added weight it brings. She says they have good fluid, not too much, but this may be part of the cause. We were told I would be admitted, which we somewhat wanted to do anyway just to have close monitoring.

I got settled in and they immediately started monitoring my contractions. They were pretty frequent, so they gave me more procardia. I had my first steroid shot last night. This is to help speed up the babies lung development in the event they are born in the near future. My contractions really hadn't slowed down after several hours of monitoring, so they were going to give me tributilene (sp)but my heart rate was too high so they didn't give it to me. Some time in the middle of the night my contractions slowed enough to take me off the monitor and not need to go the next step of taking tributilene.

It is Tuesday morning now and not much has happened yet except I had my 2nd and final round of the steroid shot. They haven't been in yet to monitor the contractions or the babies and I haven't seen my doctors yet, so I don't know much as far as where everything currently stands. I will try to update you tonight and give you daily updates.

We appreciate all your thoughts and prayers, emails and phone calls. Please continue to pray that these babies will stay put for a while longer and that everything will go smoothly.

Maternity pictures etc.

I don't have anything new to report, but I thought I would share some pictures with you. A few of them are just random, but some are maternity pictures we had taken by my SIL, Jill.





These were taken last Saturday before the hospital excursion. Craig got the strollers put together and put the carseats in them. I think he got a little overwhelmed just seeing them put together. He was practically speechless. About all he could say was, "MAN!"



We got a hospital bed to borrow, so we put it in the living room. I think it will help me be much more comfortable. Our living room is a wreck, with furniture all over the place, but I don't care... All I care about right now is being as comfortable as possible. Oh and check out my support hose! Aren't they cute??? Hopefully, they will serve their purpose and prevent any blood clots in my legs from forming from all this laying around. :)

These are some of my favorites of the maternity pictures. They haven't been cropped or edited yet, so some of them aren't perfect. But, if any of you are interested in having my SIL do pictures for you, I can give you her info.