The Verdict

The verdict is in, I am officially at the hospital until babies decide they want to come.

I spent the weekend in the hospital, and got my cervix checked again on Monday morning. As we suspected it had shrunk even more. 

The attending high risk doctor, Dr. Branch, came in and talked with me later that day and said they would feel better if I was here. There is nothing much they can actually do for me, just keep an eye on me, and give me drugs when needed. But when these babies decide its time to come, they are probably going to come fast. 

We need to try and keep them in to at least 28 weeks, and everything after that is even better. I want to do whatever is best for these kiddos, so if that means sitting in a hospital bed for an undetermined amount of time, then that is what I will do. 

It has not been too bad so far, today marks a week since I was admitted. And tomorrow will mark 26 weeks into my pregnancy. I have been staying busy with cross stitching and movies mostly. Justin comes to see me most mornings before going to work, and then comes and spends the evening with me. My awesome dad comes to see me most days and brings me cheese. There is a movie rental machine downstairs so we watched The Secret World of Walter Mitty the other day. We will probably get to watch a a lot more movies together. 

Periodiclly I get other visitors either family or hospital staff. Its nice to break up the day with that.

So my new boaring adventure has started. I want to say hopefully it does not last long, but hopefully it does last long so these babies have a better start when they decide to come. 

25 Weeks

Usually I wait a few weeks before posting again, but there is never a dull moment with this pregnancy. If you remember from the last post I was admitted into the hospital because of my short cervix. Well guess what! One week later I was getting my cervix measured again, and it shrunk some more. This time by almost half.
This week has been a repeat of what happened last week. I am currently sitting in my hospital bed typing away because I am bored out my mind.
There is not much they can do for me right now, they just want to observe me, and have me close by if something were to happen. They are telling me I may get to go home on Monday, it just depends on how my cervix looks again on Monday.
My honest feeling, or maybe its just wishful thinking, is that these babies will probably come earlier than I would like, but I still have a few weeks to go. My goal is to get them to at least 30 weeks. However,  I am thankful for every day that they stay in, and grow bigger and stronger. I am also thankful for my amazing husband who brings me whatever I need to stay sane, including flowers, skeins of floss when I run out of a certain color, clean clothes, candy, pictures of my pups (who I miss terribly), and whatever else I may need or want.

We are still trying to get as prepared as possible. From last week's visit we had a bit of a fire list under us. Justin went home that weekend and worked his tail off. Jake and Justin painted the nursery on Friday and Saturday. Justin Went to Ikea on Saturday with his cousin Becca and her husband Tony and they helped get cribs and a dresser. He then spent the rest of the weekend building furniture. We got the car seats and stroller purchased, and they came on Tuesday. There is still lots to do, but I have wonderful help from my parents, and we have a lot of great family who is willing to help us out with whatever we need. Even if what I need is pretzels, and picking up packages and bringing them to the hospital for me. (thanks Dad)

Things I have learned from being in the hospital...

• It's not that great when the Emergency staff welcomes you back.
• Keep a good attitude, its probably going to be a long road, and a bad attitude will just make it longer. 
• Learn to let people help you. (This has been one of the hardest lessons to learn, and I am still learning)

I'm sure I have learned more, but those are the ones that stand out the most. 

24 Week Ultrasound

Just another routine ultrasound....wrong....
We originally went in thinking that this was just a routine 24 week ultrasound. The babies looked great, and we were just waiting for the OK to leave. Thats when the ultrasound tech came back and said, "i'm sorry, you cant go home. Your cervix is really short, and we think you might be having contractions. We are taking you over to OB Emergency."
This totally took us off guard, but we went with it. I guess my cervix was slightly short on the 20 week ultrasound, but not terribly abnormal so they did not worry about it. This week is was a good .5 centimeter shorter.
They wheeled me over to OB Emergency, and hooked me up to the contraction monitor. Sure enough I was contracting about every 2 or 3 mintes. I was totally oblivious to the contractions. What really made us a little nervous is they took us over to Labor and Delivery next. Was I really in that much risk at having these babies right now. We were really confused.
I hung out in Labor and Delivery for the night while they monitored me and gave me something to stop the contractions. Pretty much after the first pill they stopped, but I spent the night, and then in the morning they took me to the Women's Special Care Unit.
The next 36 hours was uneventful, so I will spare you the details. I hung out, monitored the babies every few hours, and got a lot of cross stitching done.
The funniest part is Justin and I were hanging out in the room, didn't really know what was going on. We didn't know how long they were planning on keeping me, or anything really, when Dr. Edmunds walked in. Dr. Edmunds was the one that assisted in on the surgery I had just a few weeks before. He walked in and was like "Hi, I was just talking about you today." I guess every other week at there board meetings or what not, they talk about the cases they have worked on, and he had brought up mine since it was particullary strange. We had a good laugh, and he asked what had brought us in today, he had just been walking by and noticed my name. We had a little chat, and he said he was not working that week, but he would go find the Doctor for me. She came in a few minutes later, and the first thing she said "that was you he was talking about today?" And we all had another good laugh.
I ended up staying in the hospital from Wednesday evening until Friday afternoon. I took the rest of the weekend easy. And then went back to work on Monday.

Ovarian Torsion

This was by far the worst weekend ever. On July 27th, I got up to go to church and was in a lot of pain. Pain was nothing new, but this by far had been the worst. I still got ready for church and I was waiting for my mother to come pick me up. We were headed to a fair-well for one of my work buddies (my first mate). As I was sitting on the couch waiting I came to the realization that there was no way I was getting out of the house. So I called my mom and said I'm sorry I'm just in too much pain. I was so sad.
I decided to call the after hours OB line and they told me to come in as soon as I could to get checked out. Justin was busy at church that day too. He didn't have a teacher for his class, no one to help get things set up but he left it all so he could take me to the emergency room.
The car ride to the hospital was terrible. I was writhing in pain the whole time, I couldn't sit still. I made Justin pull over on Beck Street so I could throw up....I didn't, but it would of made me feel better. We got back on the road and finally made it to the hospital.
We got upstairs, and then I threw up which was fun, throwing up in the hall way with everyone watching. We finally got in a room and they started checking me out. The babies turned out to be fine. Their heart rates sounded good. They narrowed it down to either being my appendics or an ovarian torsion. This is something else I had never herd of before. Apparently your ovaries can twist and the blood flow gets cut off. This is actually what it ended up being, but it was a long road to figuring it out.
They did some blood tests, so basically we just had to wait. I was still in the worst pain I had ever been in. I actually asked Justin for a blessing. Jake, his brother, came up and they did that for me. After that I was finally able to get some pain killers. They started with morphine. I was so excited, bring on the pain killers. But to my despair the morphine did absolutely nothing! It made me feel weird in the head (more so than usual... Just kidding) but it did not even touch the pain. They switched me over to a synthetic morphine which then helped, but I could only get this every 4 hours I think. I didn't actually take all the pain away, but it settled me down a little and I was able to hold still for more than 2 seconds and I could breath a little better.
After a while they still didn't know what was wrong.  They took me downstairs to get an ultrasound to check the ovary. It ended up being not very helpful. I pretty much tried to sit as still, which I didn't really succeed at. I watched the two sweet girls that took me down there look at me with extreme pity. Like I said the ultrasound was not very helpful. They did tell me the ovary looked like it did have a little less blood flow, but all in all it was pretty inconclusive.
There next step was to take me in for a MRI. They took me back up to my room to get me ready.
This is when everything turned around. They had just put me in the wheel chair and we were headed down the hall and another nurse stopped us. She yelled "don't go the doctor wants to see her first." It was not just any doctor it was MY doctor.
When Dr. Adelman walked in I think I just about lost it. I was so happy to see her. She was just in her street clothes, she said she stopped by to see a patient and they told her I was here and so she was like "ok I'll check on her too."
She said we were not doing an MRI. She was going to get me prepped for surgery and go in and see what the problem was herself. No matter what ended up being the problem, she was still going to have to do surgery. So why do a MRI and keep me in pain longer than I needed to be.
Within about 30 or 45 minutes I was being wheeled into surgery.
Right before I went down they gave me another shot of the synthetic morphine so I was pretty calm. But I told the anesthesiologist he was my new best friend. He was pretty awesome. They were still getting the room prepped when they took me in, I got to talk with them, and joke around. They were pretty fun. Finally, he gave me the good stuff and the last thing I remember is Dr Adelman coming in giving me a pat on the arm, smiled, and I was out.
I then woke up in recovery and they gave me ice chips and I slowly woke up. My Mom and Dad and Justin were in the waiting room, and according to my mother, Justin was getting a little impatient. It look me a lot longer to come out of the anesthesia then they had originally said. But I was finally awake and the took me up to the Women's Special Care unit.
They were so awesome up there. My nurse took the best care of me. But unfortunately I soon started to bleed. It was not too bad but was just another thing to add to the list of awful things happening.
The short version from here is I was pretty much a mess, couldn't do anything for myself, and Justin an the nurses we amazing. I stayed the night and by the morning I was a lot better. I could walk around by myself, and the doctors said I could go home. I chose to stay just a few hours longer. I was still bleeding and kind of worried, and to top it all off it was Justin's birthday.
The resident doctor that assisted with the surgery, Dr. Edmunds, came and told me that my ovary was barely getting any blood. They got in there and it was twisted almost three times around, and it was purple. They ended up untwisting it and it turned pink pretty fast, so luckily it didn't die and they didn't have to remove it. They also ended up tacking the ovary down onto my pelvis so it would not twist again.
They were totally baffled on how this happened. They said there is no room inside a pregnant woman, let alone a 22 week pregnant woman to have an ovary get twisted. They jokingly asked if I had been out doing cartwheels. In the end I'm just glad it got fixed.
It took about a week for the swelling to go down in my stomach. I have three little incisions from the surgery, and now it's been a little over two weeks and I haven't had any more problems....with my ovaries. continue reading and you will get to see what fun we had next. (Spoiler alert: I'm typing this from a hospital bed).

20 week Ultrasound

Top: Baby A(boy) Bottom: Baby B(girl)

20 weeks is always the big ultrasound. We were pretty excited to see the babies. Normally at check ups we just get a quick peek and hear their heart beats. But this time we got a good glimpse of what was going on.
First she needed to determine which baby was Baby A and Baby B. Baby A is the baby that is going to come first, and it helps to determine them for future appointments.
they had some difficulty figuring it out. Both baby's were right there and she could not determine 100%. So we had to do a quick vaginal ultrasound to find out for sure. That posed another problem because of the Placenta Previa. We didn't want to cause irritation and start up bleeding again.  She had to call my doctor and get the ok. The doctor gave the Ok, and Baby A turned out being the baby on the right and also the boy.
It was fun to get the see the babies so much. It was so fascinating to see there brain, spine, cute little feet and hands. It's amazing that they can pick out the kidneys and other body parts so easily.
The other good news was that Baby B is a girl!

16 Weeks - Placenta Previa

So for every few weeks I am affirmed that we made the right decision to stay at the U.
I will take you back to a Tuesday evening in late June. I was not feeling that great but really that was no big deal, I never feel that great. We had plans to go to Salt Lake to hang out with Justin's brother. I tried to put on my happy face, and I drove out there to meet them. We brought in dinner that night and later we were sitting around, (I was laying on Justin's lap on the couch) and I knew instantly something was wrong. I calmly went to the rest room and sure enough I had started to bleed.
I quietly went out to Justin and said I think you need to take me the hospital. So we got up, excused ourselves and left. Since we were in Salt Lake already it was nice to be so close to the hospital. We went right up in about 5 minutes. Justin dropped me off at the ER and I checked in, and they took me up to the OB Emergency.
This was my first experience up there, and I have decided the OB Emergency room has 1. The most uncomfortable beds ever! And 2. The contraction bands they make you wear when you get there are just about the most uncomfortable thing I have ever worn. So on top of being totally scared out of my mind, and that I was loosing my babies, they make you extremely uncomfortable.
They started with an ultrasound to check out the babies. They ended up being just fine. Bouncing around and looking good. They said their fluid was good, and their heart rates looked good. We were also able to find out that one of them is a boy! We could not obviously tell the gender of the other sadly.
After some further investigation they determined that I had Placenta Previa. As this being my first pregnancy I was like "say what?" That is something I had never heard of before.
Placenta Previa, for those that are as clueless as I was, is when one of the babies placentas is partially or fully covering the cervix. Apparently the cervix is rough, so as the placenta rubs against it, it then can cause bleeding. Since it was so early in the pregnancy they said as my uterus grows the chance of the placenta moving higher (where it should be) is pretty high. I just needed to be careful and watch my activity level because that can cause more irritation between the placenta and cervix.
They continued to monitor me and we ended up going home at about 3:00 in the morning when the bleeding calmed down. They gave me instructions on what to watch for and determine if I needed to come in again.
It was a fun night, and everything was great for a a few weeks.