this of Cole and thought we needed one of the girls as well.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Our amateur maternity photo with I phone :)
this of Cole and thought we needed one of the girls as well.
The 34th Week events with L&D stay
It never fails that being pregnant with twins at 2 weeks before delivery that your doctor has to go out of the country for a week right?? And during that week what are the odds that something will make you need to be seen or visit L&D? 100% for this girl! I saw Dr. Juhn and things were ok but she informed me that she would be in Korea until this Friday June 29. She told me to be good and that I better be pregnant when she gets back. Ha!! I said I would do my best but the girls may have other plans.
It seems as though every time I go to an NST I plan for not coming home afterwards. My BP is always high and this results in a call to the on call doc. Dr. Juhn did warn me that any other physician will be concerned about me if I go in the week she is gone and my BP is high. Luckily my nurse who does my NST is usually always the same. We both know that my initial BP will be high and that if we wait a few minutes and I tilt to my left side that it will come down. So we just wait and then she can let the doc know it was initially high but it has come down and this is normal for me. Since I have had a few 24 hour urine tests and quite a bit of PIH bloodwork (pregnancy induced hypertension) that they seem to be okay with sending me home.
On Sunday night however, my contractions decided to pick up in intensity and frequency. I was having about 6-8 per hour and they were rather strong. Not painful but my medication didn't seem to be affecting my contractions anymore. I was taking it every 6 hours but I was told by my Dr. I could take it as often as every 4 hours. I started to do this and it was not working so we thought I should go in. Sure enough I was having more contractions than even I could feel. My BP was high (shocker I know) Dr. Scates who was on call came in and talked to me and said he wanted to check me because of how many contractions I was having. I was surprised to find out I was dilated to 2 already. Surprised because 3 days earlier on my US my cervix was long, thick, and closed. Needless to say I was admitted because they thought I was going into labor. They had the NICU team come and talk to me because if I was in labor the twins would have to go to NICU because they would be delivered prior to 35 weeks. All babies < 5lbs or <35 weeks gestation must go to NICU for observation at least. This of course scared the crap out of me as I was not anticipating delivery this day. In turn, my BP was High due to this event. They gave me more Nifedipene and kept me on a consistent every 4 hour regimen. They also gave me 3 liters of fluid which in turn made me swell up like a wood tick. It has been 4 days since I was discharged and I still am more swollen than when I arrived Sunday night. They actually did not want me to leave but really they were doing the same things I could do at home with the Nifedipene and monitoring my BP. I probably slept 3 hours that night and I was incredibly uncomfortable. So I thought if I went home and slept I would feel a lot better. My contractions had slowed considerably. I think the nurse talked the Dr. into letting me come home because she said I was pretty in tune to my body and she felt confident I would know when to return. She said most of their patients don't quite know when they should come in and be seen and this results in either Pts coming in too late or when they do not need to.
Since my Discharge I have had 1 NST and 1 Dr. appt. My NST was surprisingly uneventful and was super duper quick. I was in and out in 45 min. Record time for me. The girls stayed on the monitor and both had 2 accels in the 20 min period. My BP was initially high but we used our method I discussed before and it worked well. So I was off to home in no time at all.
I was supposed to see Dr. Scates on Wednesday as Dr. Juhn is out of the country. However, he was out (not surprisingly) delivering a baby when I showed up for my appt. He apparently tries to be at all his pts. deliveries even though it really inconveniences his pre natal pts. I was able to see Dr. Khwong and she was great. She actually has Mono -di twins herself so she was on the up n up. She also seems to have read my chart before she came into the room because she already knew about my stint in L&D. This made me happy and impressed. This appt ended up being long because my BP was (you guessed it ) high. So I had to sit for 3 repeat blood pressures every 10 minutes to be sure it came down. It did but not much. I finally told her assistant "Thats about as good as you are going to get" and she then told Dr. Khwong and she said I could go.
That brings us to today.....So far things are uneventful at home and my symptoms that would signal a trip to L&D have subsided or have not showed up yet. Im hoping we can make it another week. I am so amazed we have made it this far and I know we are in a good place if delivery is today but as they say...1 extra day inside of me is 3 days less in NICU if need be. So, 1 week of pregnancy could prevent 21 days in NICU potentially. I just sit and try to pass the time. I am trying to enjoy my last few days of peace and quiet but the anticipation is getting to me. We will see how my NST goes tomorrow. I have a pre-op appt on Monday for my C-section. I see the perinatologist on Tuesday as part of my last 2 week growth check. Wednesday is the 4th, Thursday is my last NST and Friday is BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!
It seems as though every time I go to an NST I plan for not coming home afterwards. My BP is always high and this results in a call to the on call doc. Dr. Juhn did warn me that any other physician will be concerned about me if I go in the week she is gone and my BP is high. Luckily my nurse who does my NST is usually always the same. We both know that my initial BP will be high and that if we wait a few minutes and I tilt to my left side that it will come down. So we just wait and then she can let the doc know it was initially high but it has come down and this is normal for me. Since I have had a few 24 hour urine tests and quite a bit of PIH bloodwork (pregnancy induced hypertension) that they seem to be okay with sending me home.
On Sunday night however, my contractions decided to pick up in intensity and frequency. I was having about 6-8 per hour and they were rather strong. Not painful but my medication didn't seem to be affecting my contractions anymore. I was taking it every 6 hours but I was told by my Dr. I could take it as often as every 4 hours. I started to do this and it was not working so we thought I should go in. Sure enough I was having more contractions than even I could feel. My BP was high (shocker I know) Dr. Scates who was on call came in and talked to me and said he wanted to check me because of how many contractions I was having. I was surprised to find out I was dilated to 2 already. Surprised because 3 days earlier on my US my cervix was long, thick, and closed. Needless to say I was admitted because they thought I was going into labor. They had the NICU team come and talk to me because if I was in labor the twins would have to go to NICU because they would be delivered prior to 35 weeks. All babies < 5lbs or <35 weeks gestation must go to NICU for observation at least. This of course scared the crap out of me as I was not anticipating delivery this day. In turn, my BP was High due to this event. They gave me more Nifedipene and kept me on a consistent every 4 hour regimen. They also gave me 3 liters of fluid which in turn made me swell up like a wood tick. It has been 4 days since I was discharged and I still am more swollen than when I arrived Sunday night. They actually did not want me to leave but really they were doing the same things I could do at home with the Nifedipene and monitoring my BP. I probably slept 3 hours that night and I was incredibly uncomfortable. So I thought if I went home and slept I would feel a lot better. My contractions had slowed considerably. I think the nurse talked the Dr. into letting me come home because she said I was pretty in tune to my body and she felt confident I would know when to return. She said most of their patients don't quite know when they should come in and be seen and this results in either Pts coming in too late or when they do not need to.
Since my Discharge I have had 1 NST and 1 Dr. appt. My NST was surprisingly uneventful and was super duper quick. I was in and out in 45 min. Record time for me. The girls stayed on the monitor and both had 2 accels in the 20 min period. My BP was initially high but we used our method I discussed before and it worked well. So I was off to home in no time at all.
I was supposed to see Dr. Scates on Wednesday as Dr. Juhn is out of the country. However, he was out (not surprisingly) delivering a baby when I showed up for my appt. He apparently tries to be at all his pts. deliveries even though it really inconveniences his pre natal pts. I was able to see Dr. Khwong and she was great. She actually has Mono -di twins herself so she was on the up n up. She also seems to have read my chart before she came into the room because she already knew about my stint in L&D. This made me happy and impressed. This appt ended up being long because my BP was (you guessed it ) high. So I had to sit for 3 repeat blood pressures every 10 minutes to be sure it came down. It did but not much. I finally told her assistant "Thats about as good as you are going to get" and she then told Dr. Khwong and she said I could go.
That brings us to today.....So far things are uneventful at home and my symptoms that would signal a trip to L&D have subsided or have not showed up yet. Im hoping we can make it another week. I am so amazed we have made it this far and I know we are in a good place if delivery is today but as they say...1 extra day inside of me is 3 days less in NICU if need be. So, 1 week of pregnancy could prevent 21 days in NICU potentially. I just sit and try to pass the time. I am trying to enjoy my last few days of peace and quiet but the anticipation is getting to me. We will see how my NST goes tomorrow. I have a pre-op appt on Monday for my C-section. I see the perinatologist on Tuesday as part of my last 2 week growth check. Wednesday is the 4th, Thursday is my last NST and Friday is BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!
33 weeks 6 days and our final UCSF trip
We made it through our last trip down to UCSF. It has gotten much more difficult to travel down there at this point in my pregnancy. I set myself up in the way back of our car with the seat in front of me folded down so that I can put my feet up and hopefully not swell too much. This tactic seemed to work well and I was pretty comfortable.
This was actually the first time out of our many visits to S.F. that we were late. We have always arrived with time to spare but today there was extra traffic in Sacramento because of a mattress that flew off someones car and caused 7 cars to crash. So, Scott decided to "take a short cut". Im sure you all know what that means? We got lost in a subdivision. I had to pull out the GPS and get us back to the freeway. I realized about 9:30 when we hadn't quite yet crossed the bay bridge that we were not going to make our 10 am appt. I called and they said no problem. Luckily, they were running behind and it was not an issue that we were late. We only ended up about 15-20 min late so not bad at all. I would have been pretty upset if they had to reschedule after traveling all the way down there. As always, they seem to come through.
Our girls were giving the sonographer a run for her money and making life a little difficult to get all the measurements. The sonographer even told us that she wanted to cry because she was having such a hard time getting the measurements. I felt really bad that she was having such a difficult time. At least she skipped the measurements she was unable to get instead of just "guessing" like our sacramento sonographer seems to do. She went and consulted with the radiologist and came back to try again. This time they were more cooperative but I think she earned her salary that morning.
We then needed to wait for Dr. Rand to arrive at 1:00 so we went to lunch and enjoyed a burrito at the taqueria near the fetal treatment center. They have yummy burritos!! We then met with the staff and Dr. Rand who basically told us everything looked great. Of course I was thrilled to hear this and I was thinking things were ok as well but I felt I needed to hear from them to really put my mind at ease. I actually feel a little selfish even asking them to see me because I know most of their patients are in much worst places than I am but I feel with how tumoltuous everything has been that I must get their blessing to move forward and lower my stress level. If it even helps keep my BP down for one more week it will have been worth it. I also think they like to have the "success" stories come through because I assume they deal with a lot of doom and gloom situations, so to see a family really graduate and have healthy babies makes what they do worth it. I am trying to figure out how to thank them for the immense emotional, physical, and psychological support they have been throughout this process. Im not sure what will be good enough to cover all that. A basket of fruit or cookies doesn't seem to do justice for what they have given me. They have wonderful baskets of wines as well but can you send wine to a hospital for doctors? I don't even know if they drink? Ill have to think a bit more and send them pics of the girls along with a special gift I have yet to determine.
So we left with a huge sigh of relief and a smile on my face. Scott even said how much happier I seem when we leave S.F vs. Sacramento perinatology. The babies are 6 pounds 2 ounces and 4 lbs 14 ounces as of Thursday June 21, 2012. So if we can make it to July 6 we may have 6 and 7 lb babies. woo hoo!!!! Im not sure if I can fit that with how little room I feel I have left but I welcome it for the girls health :)
So I continue my NST twice a week and seeing my Dr. once a week until the big day......
This was actually the first time out of our many visits to S.F. that we were late. We have always arrived with time to spare but today there was extra traffic in Sacramento because of a mattress that flew off someones car and caused 7 cars to crash. So, Scott decided to "take a short cut". Im sure you all know what that means? We got lost in a subdivision. I had to pull out the GPS and get us back to the freeway. I realized about 9:30 when we hadn't quite yet crossed the bay bridge that we were not going to make our 10 am appt. I called and they said no problem. Luckily, they were running behind and it was not an issue that we were late. We only ended up about 15-20 min late so not bad at all. I would have been pretty upset if they had to reschedule after traveling all the way down there. As always, they seem to come through.
Our girls were giving the sonographer a run for her money and making life a little difficult to get all the measurements. The sonographer even told us that she wanted to cry because she was having such a hard time getting the measurements. I felt really bad that she was having such a difficult time. At least she skipped the measurements she was unable to get instead of just "guessing" like our sacramento sonographer seems to do. She went and consulted with the radiologist and came back to try again. This time they were more cooperative but I think she earned her salary that morning.
We then needed to wait for Dr. Rand to arrive at 1:00 so we went to lunch and enjoyed a burrito at the taqueria near the fetal treatment center. They have yummy burritos!! We then met with the staff and Dr. Rand who basically told us everything looked great. Of course I was thrilled to hear this and I was thinking things were ok as well but I felt I needed to hear from them to really put my mind at ease. I actually feel a little selfish even asking them to see me because I know most of their patients are in much worst places than I am but I feel with how tumoltuous everything has been that I must get their blessing to move forward and lower my stress level. If it even helps keep my BP down for one more week it will have been worth it. I also think they like to have the "success" stories come through because I assume they deal with a lot of doom and gloom situations, so to see a family really graduate and have healthy babies makes what they do worth it. I am trying to figure out how to thank them for the immense emotional, physical, and psychological support they have been throughout this process. Im not sure what will be good enough to cover all that. A basket of fruit or cookies doesn't seem to do justice for what they have given me. They have wonderful baskets of wines as well but can you send wine to a hospital for doctors? I don't even know if they drink? Ill have to think a bit more and send them pics of the girls along with a special gift I have yet to determine.
So we left with a huge sigh of relief and a smile on my face. Scott even said how much happier I seem when we leave S.F vs. Sacramento perinatology. The babies are 6 pounds 2 ounces and 4 lbs 14 ounces as of Thursday June 21, 2012. So if we can make it to July 6 we may have 6 and 7 lb babies. woo hoo!!!! Im not sure if I can fit that with how little room I feel I have left but I welcome it for the girls health :)
So I continue my NST twice a week and seeing my Dr. once a week until the big day......
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
33 weeks 5 days
Just a quick update on my weekly check up from today. I received the c-section packet with my surgery scheduled for July 6,2012 @ 7:30 am with a 5:30 am check in time. CRAZY!! Seems so surreal. I can't believe it is almost here.
I also got the results of my bloodwork and 24 hr urine test which was done because my BP has been high. It seems I have mild pre-eclampsia. I have high protein but my liver enzymes and kidney function look great. So my doctor feels that if I really stick to bed rest I can push through 2 more weeks. My doctor is going out of the country next week and she really pushed the fact that I do strict bed rest because if I go to the doctor and my BP is high then another doctor may see that and want to admit me or deliver me. I don't want that. Every NST I go to I always have high BP the first time they take it and then after I relax and rest it always goes down to the normal range. So hopefully we can make it to my scheduled c-sec and my DR. will be here.
We talked to UCSF and decided for peace of mind that we will travel down there tomorrow. This will give us a little more accurate assessment of how the girls are doing growth wise because I know they will thoroughly and accurately measure them more precisely than the perinatal doctor we see. My regular OB gave me her pager number to give to UCSF so she can get an update on how to proceed since she leaves the country the next day. I'm glad she is concerned and wants to get my status evaluated to help take care of me rather than leaving me high n dry when she goes to Korea for a week. She's been really wonderful.
We are off to UCSF in the morning and I have an NST on Friday. Hopefully next week I can get through my 2 NST,s with no problems since my doc is out of town. I'll update after our appt tomorrow with UCSF.
Monday, June 18, 2012
33 weeks 3 days
I seriously want to punch my Dr. sometimes. I was really hoping to go to the perinatilogist today and get good news that made me feel confident that things were going well and then I could cancel my appt in S.F. and continue on the current path for the next 3 weeks until delivery.
It didn't exactly go that way. I am grateful however that things are going well and the girls appear to be doing fine. What bothers me is the nonchalant half assed assessment I get on ultrasound and the conflicting answers I get week to week from this particular Dr. I feel I have been around enough, learned enough, and researched enough to know when a Dr. is not being thorough on an ultrasound I have had almost weekly for 15 weeks. This first issue today was the sonographer finishing the ultrasound without doing any measurements of the babies. I said to her "umm, aren't we doing a growth check today?" She responds "not that Im aware of, I think this is just a follow up. We just did a growth check 2 weeks ago." to which I follow with "yes, we have been doing a growth check every 2 weeks for the last15 weeks." She states that she will "go find out." This makes me a bit irate because this is the second time they have done this to me and I have explained and discussed why we have been doing these check bi weekly and UCSF recommends this and they have agreed it is a good idea. So why now all of the sudden are we not doing it??? So, I wait and the Dr. walks in and he's all excited and says things are great the fluid looks good, bladders look good, and dopplers look good. All of which I am extremely happy to hear and this is great. My concern and anger of course is because of the growth check mainly because this is what is of extreme concern at this point especially for Baby B because she has such a small share of the placenta. We need to make sure she is growing to determine that life in utero should continue. This is what UCSF has told me and makes complete sense to me. Now maybe I am completely out of touch but Im obviously upset. So I explain to the Dr. that we are supposed to be doing growth checks every 2 weeks as UCSF has explained and we have discussed previously. He says, "Well we don't need to do a growth check every two week because it won't be accurate." "Its not like putting a baby on a scale and weighing them." "Its variable up to 10% both ways." Are you F'in kidding me????? So, why in world have we been doing it for 15 weeks then???? HMMMMM. So when we discussed this being a good idea months ago you were lying to me??? I didn't phrase my next question exactly this way but I said " So why exactly is it inaccurate if we have been doing it this way? Are the babies too big to get as accurate as in the past?" He says "ya"but Ill do it anyway." Meaning he do the growth check for me. With no other explanation or further explanation. I really just feel at this point he's making things up to appease me. I know I am not a Dr. or have near the expertise that he does but if you feel strongly we don't need a growth check EXPLAIN it to me so I understand because you have been telling me for months as does UCSF that we do indeed need it???
So, He does the growth check begrudgingly it seems and measures the babies heads and leg bones. He says that Baby A is 5lbs and Baby B is 4 lbs 13 ozs. So Now I get concerned because Baby A was 5 lbs 3 oz 2 weeks ago. So, does this mean she is not growing? Baby B on the other hand has grown 10 ozs which is good. The thing that upsets me about this is that in S.F. and at other growth checks here in Roseville you measure head, abdomen, leg, and arm to get an accurate measurement of size. He half -assed it and just did head and leg??? So, to me this seems not as accurate. Had he measured all maybe Baby A would be a bit bigger? Just a theory. I just feel completely brushed off and unimportant to this practice. Maybe I am overly worried or we are asking too much but if this is the case they are not explaining to me WHY my concerns are invalid. They just say "ok we we will just do it."I'm all for not needing unnecessary procedures and exams if you can give me a good reason for it. They just never seem to come up with a good reason.
So, at this point I am torn because although all things seem really good regardless of my concerns with the Dr.s lack of thoroughness I still am debating on traveling down to S.F. on Thursday to get a more accurate and thorough ultrasound. Obviously the girls are getting great blood flow on doppler, they have good size bladders, are moving around well, and Baby B seems to be growing. These I can all see for myself on the us. The other thing I am slightly worried about is that the fluid levels are 10cm for baby b and 8 cm for baby A. Although we have had worse and better fluid levels before I was worried that 10 CM was getting on the high side. We have had 12 cm on Baby A sack in the past and they were discussing amnio reduction and stating that she had polyhydramnios in the past. So 10cm is getting closer to that mark. The Dr. today explained to me that 10cm was perfect and that excessive fluid would be 20cm? 20? really? Not according to textbooks. Textbook is >8cm. So I just don't know what to do? Everything seems fine so going to S.F. is not necessary but it would put my mind more at ease.
Scott decided to call UCSF and see if they could take a look at my chart from today in Roseville and see how they feel about us coming down there. I would feel confident that if they read the findings from today and still felt I would do ok without traveling down there then I would feel better. I just want the experts who have been guiding me this whole time about how important growth checks were every 2 weeks to let me know Im doing ok. I would just really beat myself up if things don't go well and I didn't consult UCSF after everything I went through today.
It is very difficult to go from a point where we were monitored so closely for so long and were told that things did not look good and this would be a very difficult pregnancy etc. to now where we have made it this far to be told oh you are fine we will see you in a month. It just doesn't make sense to me or feel right in my heart.
We are waiting to hear back from S.F. to determine if we will travel down there on Thursday. If we do it will be our last appt in S.F. as we are planning to deliver July6, 2012 by C Section. I hope we don't have to go though.
I will continue my NST appointments 2x weekly and go see my regular OB weekly as well. Hopefully we can make it another 19 days with no issues. I am hoping to get these girls closer to 6 lbs in the next 3 weeks. My ob says if I can get them up to 5.5lbs that would be a great weight. I'd prefer bit chubbier but Healthy I will take no matter what the weight.
On a side note, Baby B who has been Breech for sometime now has flipped. So both girls are in the vertex (head down) position. Which by the way when she flipped I could tell and it was pretty painful. So I suppose they are getting prepared to enter this world and meet mom, dad, and their big brother Cole very soon. Cole will be excited to meet his sissies as he calls them.
It didn't exactly go that way. I am grateful however that things are going well and the girls appear to be doing fine. What bothers me is the nonchalant half assed assessment I get on ultrasound and the conflicting answers I get week to week from this particular Dr. I feel I have been around enough, learned enough, and researched enough to know when a Dr. is not being thorough on an ultrasound I have had almost weekly for 15 weeks. This first issue today was the sonographer finishing the ultrasound without doing any measurements of the babies. I said to her "umm, aren't we doing a growth check today?" She responds "not that Im aware of, I think this is just a follow up. We just did a growth check 2 weeks ago." to which I follow with "yes, we have been doing a growth check every 2 weeks for the last15 weeks." She states that she will "go find out." This makes me a bit irate because this is the second time they have done this to me and I have explained and discussed why we have been doing these check bi weekly and UCSF recommends this and they have agreed it is a good idea. So why now all of the sudden are we not doing it??? So, I wait and the Dr. walks in and he's all excited and says things are great the fluid looks good, bladders look good, and dopplers look good. All of which I am extremely happy to hear and this is great. My concern and anger of course is because of the growth check mainly because this is what is of extreme concern at this point especially for Baby B because she has such a small share of the placenta. We need to make sure she is growing to determine that life in utero should continue. This is what UCSF has told me and makes complete sense to me. Now maybe I am completely out of touch but Im obviously upset. So I explain to the Dr. that we are supposed to be doing growth checks every 2 weeks as UCSF has explained and we have discussed previously. He says, "Well we don't need to do a growth check every two week because it won't be accurate." "Its not like putting a baby on a scale and weighing them." "Its variable up to 10% both ways." Are you F'in kidding me????? So, why in world have we been doing it for 15 weeks then???? HMMMMM. So when we discussed this being a good idea months ago you were lying to me??? I didn't phrase my next question exactly this way but I said " So why exactly is it inaccurate if we have been doing it this way? Are the babies too big to get as accurate as in the past?" He says "ya"but Ill do it anyway." Meaning he do the growth check for me. With no other explanation or further explanation. I really just feel at this point he's making things up to appease me. I know I am not a Dr. or have near the expertise that he does but if you feel strongly we don't need a growth check EXPLAIN it to me so I understand because you have been telling me for months as does UCSF that we do indeed need it???
So, He does the growth check begrudgingly it seems and measures the babies heads and leg bones. He says that Baby A is 5lbs and Baby B is 4 lbs 13 ozs. So Now I get concerned because Baby A was 5 lbs 3 oz 2 weeks ago. So, does this mean she is not growing? Baby B on the other hand has grown 10 ozs which is good. The thing that upsets me about this is that in S.F. and at other growth checks here in Roseville you measure head, abdomen, leg, and arm to get an accurate measurement of size. He half -assed it and just did head and leg??? So, to me this seems not as accurate. Had he measured all maybe Baby A would be a bit bigger? Just a theory. I just feel completely brushed off and unimportant to this practice. Maybe I am overly worried or we are asking too much but if this is the case they are not explaining to me WHY my concerns are invalid. They just say "ok we we will just do it."I'm all for not needing unnecessary procedures and exams if you can give me a good reason for it. They just never seem to come up with a good reason.
So, at this point I am torn because although all things seem really good regardless of my concerns with the Dr.s lack of thoroughness I still am debating on traveling down to S.F. on Thursday to get a more accurate and thorough ultrasound. Obviously the girls are getting great blood flow on doppler, they have good size bladders, are moving around well, and Baby B seems to be growing. These I can all see for myself on the us. The other thing I am slightly worried about is that the fluid levels are 10cm for baby b and 8 cm for baby A. Although we have had worse and better fluid levels before I was worried that 10 CM was getting on the high side. We have had 12 cm on Baby A sack in the past and they were discussing amnio reduction and stating that she had polyhydramnios in the past. So 10cm is getting closer to that mark. The Dr. today explained to me that 10cm was perfect and that excessive fluid would be 20cm? 20? really? Not according to textbooks. Textbook is >8cm. So I just don't know what to do? Everything seems fine so going to S.F. is not necessary but it would put my mind more at ease.
Scott decided to call UCSF and see if they could take a look at my chart from today in Roseville and see how they feel about us coming down there. I would feel confident that if they read the findings from today and still felt I would do ok without traveling down there then I would feel better. I just want the experts who have been guiding me this whole time about how important growth checks were every 2 weeks to let me know Im doing ok. I would just really beat myself up if things don't go well and I didn't consult UCSF after everything I went through today.
It is very difficult to go from a point where we were monitored so closely for so long and were told that things did not look good and this would be a very difficult pregnancy etc. to now where we have made it this far to be told oh you are fine we will see you in a month. It just doesn't make sense to me or feel right in my heart.
We are waiting to hear back from S.F. to determine if we will travel down there on Thursday. If we do it will be our last appt in S.F. as we are planning to deliver July6, 2012 by C Section. I hope we don't have to go though.
I will continue my NST appointments 2x weekly and go see my regular OB weekly as well. Hopefully we can make it another 19 days with no issues. I am hoping to get these girls closer to 6 lbs in the next 3 weeks. My ob says if I can get them up to 5.5lbs that would be a great weight. I'd prefer bit chubbier but Healthy I will take no matter what the weight.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
33 weeks 2 days
19 days and counting until we meet the girls..... CRAZY!!! We have been doing our NST 2x weekly and going to the Dr. at least once a week as well. My last two NST ended up in L&D visits as well due to high BP and contractions. I am always prepared to stay for a few hours when I go for my NST's which take a mom with a singleton and no issues about 20 minutes to pass. My twins are a little sassy and never want to stay on the monitors. They are supposed to get 2 Accelerations in heart rate from resting hr 15 BPM(beats per min) for 15 Sec. Their resting HR is about 140 so they need 2 accels with a Hr of 155 for 15 sec simultaneously. So to get both babies to do this in a 20 min period is nearly impossible. And even after 2 hrs and the babies passing I always end up with several contractions and or high bp which turns into blood work and urine tests etc. I really need to learn to eat more before I go in because if I end up staying till 2pm like I do they won't let me eat. I am STARVING by the time I leave. I have to do the 24 hr urine test again. I had to do that 2 weeks or so ago and it was not fun and I am not looking forward to doing it again but I was spilling a little bit of protein in my urine last week when I was there so they want to make sure I am not getting pre eclamptic.
We have a appt tomorrow with the perinatologist to do a growth check and make sure the girls are growing. I hope they are getting big and able to join us healthy pretty soon. I can feel hiccups very often so that is good. I know they are practicing their breathing in there. I hope that after tomorrow I feel confident that the Dr. is being thorough because we have an appt in SF on Thursday that I would like to cancel if I feel we are getting good care here with the perinatologist. SF doesn't feel we need to be seen by them anymore but are more than willing if we feel we need it. I hope to be able to cancel it after our appt. tomorrow. Traveling to SF has not been a problem top until last time we were there and it was quite uncomfortable. I know I am not going to enjoy a 2 hr car ride at this point. I can't even sit in a restaurant booth for 1 hr to eat without being incredibly uncomfy.
After our appt tomorrow we have NST's Tues/Fri and an appt with my reg OB Wednesday. I am pretty much at the Dr. or hospital everyday next week. Which is totally ok with me because it gives me something to do and I get reassurance the girls are doing ok.
We have been really lucky lately for some wonderful moms for PC moms of multiples for bringing our family dinner recently. I want to thank Joy, Debbie, Lacey, and Jenni for the wonderful meals. Also, Michelle form SFD and Colleen from my mommy group with Cole who have all brought us yummy food. I feel so blessed and this has been a tremendous help for not only me but the stress Scott has been under as well. Thanks to all and Ill update next week after our appt.
nn
Thursday, June 7, 2012
31 weeks 6 days
I feel so blessed and lucky today. I feel this way most days but today has been a good day. After looking back and seeing where we have come from and the odds we were up against I am so thankful for what I have and for the people and friends in my life. This experience has opened my eyes to the extreme thoughtfulness of friends, family, and complete strangers. We have had so many offers for help, prayers, well wishes, etc. and I couldn't be more grateful. I got an email today form the Moms of multiples group I joined recently with the offer to bring meals a few times in the next 2 weeks. This is so sweet and generous seeing as how I have not even met most of them yet. I have not been able to attend any functions due to my modified bed rest and now strict bed rest. So, for them to be willing to help me out is awesome. I have also been blessed by my mommy group friends who have done so much to help me out as well. They planned a sprinkle for me and brought all the food, decorations, etc. and made a great day for me and my girls. They have been such a great support system and I appreciate all of it. My family has also been a wonderful help with Cole and taking care of him so I can rest and Daddy can catch a break. You all are the best and we love you!!
We went to our 2 week growth check today and got wonderful news. All is well and the girls have grown about 1 lb each in the last 2 weeks. YAY!!!! So exciting. Baby A is 5lbs 2 oz and Baby B is 4 lbs 1 oz. This is still about a 24% growth discordance but like I have said before is not of extreme concern because A is such an over achiever. Baby A is measuring about 34 weeks and Baby B is right on track at 32 weeks. This would be dis concerning if A was average for gestation and B was behind. I am not sure but I like to think all the extra protein I have been eating has helped put some weight on the girls. The fluid for each baby looks good as well. It even looks as if things may have shifted to where baby B has a little more fluid than A. This has been the opposite the entire pregnancy. Either way they both have abnormal amount at this point. Baby B has 7cm and Baby A has 6cm. The membrane is still intact and bladders look great. The girls are moving quite a bit still although with 9 lbs of baby I'm not sure how this is possible. LOL. 9 lbs of baby with 4 weeks to go. YIKES!!! I hope to continue the pattern of 1/2 lb per week and if we make it to 36 weeks that would make baby A 7 lbs and B 6 lbs. That would be so great!.
Now I continue with the NST's twice a week and hopefully my contractions mellow out on the nifedipene. I think it is helping some but I still feel contractions pretty regularly and I can tell when it is getting close to needing another dose of meds because the contractions do pick up.
Thanks to all who have been apart of this journey and continue to follow our blog. I am glad I have a place to keep everyone updated and to vent my feelings and emotions onto paper to have forever. Until next time.......
We went to our 2 week growth check today and got wonderful news. All is well and the girls have grown about 1 lb each in the last 2 weeks. YAY!!!! So exciting. Baby A is 5lbs 2 oz and Baby B is 4 lbs 1 oz. This is still about a 24% growth discordance but like I have said before is not of extreme concern because A is such an over achiever. Baby A is measuring about 34 weeks and Baby B is right on track at 32 weeks. This would be dis concerning if A was average for gestation and B was behind. I am not sure but I like to think all the extra protein I have been eating has helped put some weight on the girls. The fluid for each baby looks good as well. It even looks as if things may have shifted to where baby B has a little more fluid than A. This has been the opposite the entire pregnancy. Either way they both have abnormal amount at this point. Baby B has 7cm and Baby A has 6cm. The membrane is still intact and bladders look great. The girls are moving quite a bit still although with 9 lbs of baby I'm not sure how this is possible. LOL. 9 lbs of baby with 4 weeks to go. YIKES!!! I hope to continue the pattern of 1/2 lb per week and if we make it to 36 weeks that would make baby A 7 lbs and B 6 lbs. That would be so great!.
Now I continue with the NST's twice a week and hopefully my contractions mellow out on the nifedipene. I think it is helping some but I still feel contractions pretty regularly and I can tell when it is getting close to needing another dose of meds because the contractions do pick up.
Thanks to all who have been apart of this journey and continue to follow our blog. I am glad I have a place to keep everyone updated and to vent my feelings and emotions onto paper to have forever. Until next time.......
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
31 weeks NST and L&D visits
Im a little behind on my weekly update. A lot has been going on this week as far as being seen by the doctor and in L&D. I started my weekly Non stress tests to monitor the babies Heart rates and measure contractions 2x per week. These appts are Tues/Fri for me with a DR. appt in between usually on Thurs. These NST (non- stress tests) are to help determine how often I have contractions and what the babies HR does during this period. The babies have to be monitored contiuously for 20 minutes together and must have a couple of HR accelerations during movement (Each babies HR should increase during movement). This can be quite difficult to keep two babies on the monitor simultaneously. They like to move and come off the monitor. I feel like I cannot move a muscle in an attempt to get them to stay on together.
So, I started my first NST Tuesday morning at 8:45. I think I left L&D at 3:00pm. Not what I was expecting. Quite a day of continuous issues. Nothing too serious but my girls don't like to make things too easy for me. I passed the NST pretty early on in the morning but my BP (blood pressure) was borderline high and this concerned my Dr. She sent me from the ATU (antepartum testing unit) where the NST's are done to L&D down the hall to be monitored a little more and have blood work done to rule out signs of pre-eclampsia. I have been experiencing headaches but no swelling and or vision disturbances. During this monitoring session I started contracting about every 2 minutes. I did not feel all of them but I had been feeling the stronger ones. I had one really strong one that made my smaller twins HR have a deceleration. The Dr. was not too happy with this. This pretty much guaranteed me a c section when delivery comes because it shows that Baby B won't tolerate labor well at all. She told me that it would be a good idea to do the steroid injections to mature the lungs of the girls at this point. I am at a good gestation for the shots and she thinks I will probably deliver earlier than expected. The shots are betamethazone and they are given 2x in a 24 hr period. I got the first one Tuesday about noon. I was to come back the next day for the other shot. I was also given Nifedipene to slow and hopefully stop my contractions. This medication I will continually take every 6 hrs for the duration of my pregnancy. Lucky for Scott , the only pharmacy that carried the type I need was in Auburn. They called 14 pharmacies in town and none carried the 10 or 20 mg rapid release dose. The all only carried the 30mg slow dose. Nice huh??? I like to make it difficult! LOL.
The blood work all came back perfect. No protein in my urine, good platelets, not anemic, no uric acid, and liver and kidney enzymes were good as well. It is quite ironic that what I initially was being seen for (high BP) turned out normal but the contractions ended up being the issue. It was a good thing I went in. Also, since I was contracting so regularly the Dr. did a FFM (fibro fetal something or other). This tells the Dr. whether I will go into labor in the next 2 weeks. If the test comes out negative it is 98% accurate. If the test comes back positive it only has a 60% accuracy. So, mainly they are looking to see if the test is negative, which for me it did come back negative. This is great! So I probably won't go into labor in the next two weeks but the other issues need to be looked at as well.
Today I returned to L&D for my second steroid shot which bought me a ticket to another NST as well. They were never able to get both the girls on the monitor at the same time but were able to get good strips individually. This appeased the Dr. enough to discharge me. However, I did have a few high BP's again and now I get to do a 24 hr urine catch. Awesome right? I get to pee in a jar all day tomorrow and then refrigerate it. EWE!!! I had Scott run to Walmart to buy 2 gallon freezer bags so I don't contaminate the fridge. We will clean it, don't worry. Haha.
I go tomorrow to see the perinatal associates in Sacramento to check the growth, fluid, dopplers etc of the girls. This will tell us if they are growing still and getting the proper nutrients and oxygen from the placenta to continue life in the womb or if things might be easier on the outside.
Hopefully we can push this out another 4 weeks. Thats the goal. I'm not sure how realistic this is but I can be hopeful. I know the girls will do well at this gestation but I want some bonus days to reduce NICU time and all the risks of prematurity.
I may also end up on hospital bed rest in the near future as well. I think my Dr. hints about it regularly and with the difficulties of being on bed rest at home with a toddler it might be in my best interest to optimize rest and reduce stress on Mom and Dad.
I shall update after our appointment tomorrow and let you know how life in utero is going. I hope they have grown and the fluid looks good. There is such a nervousness prior to these appointments for me. I hope I can relax and get some good news.
31 weeks 3 days
Can you see the BIG contraction?
So, I started my first NST Tuesday morning at 8:45. I think I left L&D at 3:00pm. Not what I was expecting. Quite a day of continuous issues. Nothing too serious but my girls don't like to make things too easy for me. I passed the NST pretty early on in the morning but my BP (blood pressure) was borderline high and this concerned my Dr. She sent me from the ATU (antepartum testing unit) where the NST's are done to L&D down the hall to be monitored a little more and have blood work done to rule out signs of pre-eclampsia. I have been experiencing headaches but no swelling and or vision disturbances. During this monitoring session I started contracting about every 2 minutes. I did not feel all of them but I had been feeling the stronger ones. I had one really strong one that made my smaller twins HR have a deceleration. The Dr. was not too happy with this. This pretty much guaranteed me a c section when delivery comes because it shows that Baby B won't tolerate labor well at all. She told me that it would be a good idea to do the steroid injections to mature the lungs of the girls at this point. I am at a good gestation for the shots and she thinks I will probably deliver earlier than expected. The shots are betamethazone and they are given 2x in a 24 hr period. I got the first one Tuesday about noon. I was to come back the next day for the other shot. I was also given Nifedipene to slow and hopefully stop my contractions. This medication I will continually take every 6 hrs for the duration of my pregnancy. Lucky for Scott , the only pharmacy that carried the type I need was in Auburn. They called 14 pharmacies in town and none carried the 10 or 20 mg rapid release dose. The all only carried the 30mg slow dose. Nice huh??? I like to make it difficult! LOL.
The blood work all came back perfect. No protein in my urine, good platelets, not anemic, no uric acid, and liver and kidney enzymes were good as well. It is quite ironic that what I initially was being seen for (high BP) turned out normal but the contractions ended up being the issue. It was a good thing I went in. Also, since I was contracting so regularly the Dr. did a FFM (fibro fetal something or other). This tells the Dr. whether I will go into labor in the next 2 weeks. If the test comes out negative it is 98% accurate. If the test comes back positive it only has a 60% accuracy. So, mainly they are looking to see if the test is negative, which for me it did come back negative. This is great! So I probably won't go into labor in the next two weeks but the other issues need to be looked at as well.
Today I returned to L&D for my second steroid shot which bought me a ticket to another NST as well. They were never able to get both the girls on the monitor at the same time but were able to get good strips individually. This appeased the Dr. enough to discharge me. However, I did have a few high BP's again and now I get to do a 24 hr urine catch. Awesome right? I get to pee in a jar all day tomorrow and then refrigerate it. EWE!!! I had Scott run to Walmart to buy 2 gallon freezer bags so I don't contaminate the fridge. We will clean it, don't worry. Haha.
I go tomorrow to see the perinatal associates in Sacramento to check the growth, fluid, dopplers etc of the girls. This will tell us if they are growing still and getting the proper nutrients and oxygen from the placenta to continue life in the womb or if things might be easier on the outside.
Hopefully we can push this out another 4 weeks. Thats the goal. I'm not sure how realistic this is but I can be hopeful. I know the girls will do well at this gestation but I want some bonus days to reduce NICU time and all the risks of prematurity.
I may also end up on hospital bed rest in the near future as well. I think my Dr. hints about it regularly and with the difficulties of being on bed rest at home with a toddler it might be in my best interest to optimize rest and reduce stress on Mom and Dad.
I shall update after our appointment tomorrow and let you know how life in utero is going. I hope they have grown and the fluid looks good. There is such a nervousness prior to these appointments for me. I hope I can relax and get some good news.
Life In L&D with twins. One monitor for each baby and one for contractions......
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