29 week checkup + 36 hour hospital stay = complete bed rest unil 34 weeks

Last Tuesday started out completely normal. Garrett and I got up, got ready and headed off to our weekly appointment to get a peek at these boys. The ultra sound went great. Both boys were moving around and weigh just under 3 pounds!. Baby A sits very very low. So low that when I go from seated to walking it's extremely painful. During my exam with the doctor, he noticed that my cervix was softer then it should be at this point and he could feel a lot of pressure from Baby A's head. (Gross, I know). He suggested that Garrett and I "stop by" labor and delivery on our way home to make sure I was not having any contractions. So Garrett and I made our next appointment and headed off to the hospital.

We get to the hospital, check in, and I'm hooked up to three monitors. One to see if I'm having contractions, and one for each baby's heartbeat. After over an hour, the nurse came in to read the charts and teach Garrett what each monitor was doing. Garrett and I had some lunch, watched some TV and waited. The nurse came in again, read the charts and left to get the on call doctor. She came in 45 mins later, looked over everything that the monitor had picked up over the past 3 HOURS (!!!). She asked if I had been feeling anything. I said no, nothing but normal movement. The doctor let us know that I would have to be admitted overnight because even though I was not feeling them, I had been having contractions 4 minutes apart for about 45 minutes! She said that this is common in twin pregnancy. Even though the babies have not reached full term my uterus has. My body decided it was done being pregnant before the babies were ready so now we had to stop my body from contracting. The nurse came back in, hooked me up to an IV and took me up to my room for the night.

Garrett and I get settled into our room and the nurse explains everything that is going to happen. I am going to be hooked up to two IVs, one for fluids and one of magnesium sulfate, a drug used to slow contractions. For the next 24 hours I will be hooked up to the magnesium sulfate and I will get two steroid shots (24 hours apart) to help mature the boy's lungs in case they insist on coming early. Since all of this is being started after 4pm, we probably will not be released from the hospital until Thursday morning! Garrett headed home to pick up a few things and bring Jack over to his mom to watch while I settled in and try to relax.

The first night at the hospital was horrible, for me, Garrett slept just fine through the night. The magnesium made my legs extremely hot so getting comfortable enough to sleep was out of the question. Every hour a nurse was in our room to check my monitors and unplug me so I could use the bathroom. It was quite the project. As if being woken every hour wasn't bad enough, they had to take blood every 3 hours to make sure the levels of magnesium we not getting too high in my system. It was a rough night.

We spent all day Wednesday in the hospital watching movies and watching my monitors. We had an appointment with the high risk Doctor at the hospital. Both babies looked great so he didn't show any concern. I was still not feeling every contractions but I could watch the numbers on the monitor go up so I knew I was still having them. The contractions had slowed down overnight so they lowered my dosage of magnesium to get me ready to be taken off of it completely. We still had to spend another night in the hospital so I could get my second steroid shot.

Thursday morning I was taken off of all my IVs. I was still having contractions, but they were hours apart and no more painful then before. Since the babies showed no stress during this and showed no sign of making an early arrival we were able to go home at noon. I could not wait to get the IV, get home and sleep. Our doctor was on call that morning so he gave us all our instructions before we left. Until I reach 34 weeks I am on complete bed rest. I can move from bed to couch to bathroom. That's it. I am only allowed to sit upright while eating. I can take a cold shower once a day but my time standing during the entire day can equal no more then 2 hours. Every week from during my doctor appointments (the only time I am allowed to leave the house) I get a progesterone shot to remind my body that it had to stay pregnant a little longer.

This is going to be a long four weeks...