The Long and Short of it...

Day 1 hospital bedrest

Well doesn't that just say it all!  Let me tell you how I got on the hospital bed... S&B picked me up right on time this morning. On the way to the hospital, we grabbed a bite to eat at McDs.  We really did luck out with traffic this morning and got to our appt early.  We went back to ultrasound about 730am, and right away, we could see the funnel had changed back to "dynamic" instead of the "open valley" of last week.  They said our length remained the same, but it looked like contractions might be causing the dynamic funneling (open/closing of the top of the cervix).  Of course yet again, I was like "what!?!?" because I'm not feeling anything.  They brought Dr. S in from our MFM team, and she just said that they wanted to put me on the monitors up in Labor and Delivery for a bit to really see if indeed I am contracting. I was just happy my cervix didn't get any shorter!  Up we go to L/D, I swear I looked like "robot woman" with all the monitors they had on my stomach. B was joking that the twins heartbeats sounded like race horses LOL  My nurse Heidi (who was great) noted that I was having very very mild contractions.  She mostly thought since they were so "small" that it was just uterine irritability.  Dr. Duke the resident OB on duty came in to do an exam (not fun w/a speculum) just to double check I wasn't leaking any fluid.  She found no fluid -- YAY, and they weren't concerned about my contractions.  I told S I can taste the cheesecake now, we'll be able to make it out of here!  I spoke to soon...she did the internal exam of my cervix with her fingers -- 2cm dilated!  Me and S couldn't believe it.  As soon as Dr. Duke said that, I knew I was going to have to stay.  She had a pow-wow with Dr. Henderson (the MFM on the floor) for the "new" game plan.  They got my IV started, blood drawn and kept me on the monitors for another 3 hours.  The Drs. wanted to see if indeed these contractions were causing change -- if that was the case, I was going to stay on the L/D floor instead of going to the ante-partum wing.  I had to down the awful sugar syrup (tasted like sprite syrup YUCK), and then I got the shot of steroids for the babies lungs (not gonna lie that one hurt).  I get the 2nd dose tomorrow (24hrs later).  Finally, Dr. Duke came back in to check my cervix -- NO CHANGE!!!  We all breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I would just be in the ante-partum wing.   I am now on Procardia every 4hrs (to keep the contractions at bay), will have non-stress testing 2x week (to check for contractions w/the monitors), physical therapist is coming tomorrow to show me more bedrest exercises, and our new goal is 28 weeks!  If at 28 weeks, I am still 2cm and doing well they said there's a good chance I could go back to at home bed rest.  That would be wonderful :)  But first and foremost, my job is to keep these babies in as long as possible - so let the countdown begin! I am here for a definite 4 weeks, so just keep those positive vibes coming!  I did get the results back from my gestational diabetes test : 8 points over the limit of 140 (148).  They're just going to keep an eye on my diet and stick me before each meal -- they're not very concerned.  Just stinks it was still over the limit. Well my dinner just arrived... 

Until Tomorrow,

Whitney & The Twinkies