Hospital Again

Well, here I am, back in labor & delivery. I came in Friday morning for my scheduled non-stress test and haven't left. The babies did great during the non-stress test, but the doctor didn't like that I was contracting so much, so they admitted me for longer monitoring. The contractions continued--not painful, sometimes I didn't feel them at all--and eventually the doctor came in and checked me. 1cm and 90% effaced...oops! The doctor was a bit concerned about my cerclage and decided to keep me overnight until my OB was in the next morning.

Saturday morning my OB came in and decided to take out the cerclage and start me on IV fluids. She checked me right before she took it out and I had progressed to 2cm...oops again...and the cerclage was basically hanging off, not really doing much. I don't even think she needed scissors to cut it, so she just pulled it off. It didn't hurt at all--I've had pap smears that were worse--and I only bled a teensy bit. She checked me again and now I was 3cm and 90 % effaced...big oops. She and the nurses were convinced that I was just going to go into labor, so they moved me to a bigger room. They were wrong, though. After getting the fluids my contractions basically stopped. When they checked me later on in the day I was still 3cm. :-)

So, I'm still here. Amniotic sacs are both intact (yay), and I believe my mucous plug is still hanging in there, although I don't really know how... The doctor says she may send me home if I reach 34 weeks (on Tues) and haven't progressed at all. So, I'll be in the hospital until further notice. We spoke with a neonatologist yesterday and he reassured us that babies born at this point do very well (especially since I got the steroid shots last week). The babies would have to stay in the NICU until they get released from the hospital, and that usually happens between 36 to 38 weeks gestational age--most likely closer to 36 since they're not *so* early. As the neonatologist said, "There's preemie and there's really preemie." There's also a difference between pre-term and premature.

Well, that's all for now. Back to watching Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family. :-D

Sooooo Furious

A few of my fellow bloggie friends (Murgdan and Lollipop) posted this yesterday, and it made me so angry. Check out what the Georgia government is trying to do to us poor infertiles.

Georgia Reproductive Specialists along with other Atlanta fertility clinics, RESOLVE and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) oppose both of these bills. Firstly, Senate Bill 169 would restrict doctors' ability to perform IVF in accordance with best medical standards.

Here are the key provisions:

• No more than 2 or 3 eggs could ever be fertilized in a cycle; if a woman produced more eggs, they still could not be used.


• Only 2 embryos could ever be transferred to the uterus, unless the woman is age 40 or over (then a max of 3).


• No extra embryos could be cryopreserved. If they are created, they have to be transferred.


• No financial relief, such as insurance coverage, is proposed to help with the added financial burden of using less effective treatment. Patients will still have to pay out of pocket for less effective treatment.


• Bans all financial compensation for donor gametes, such as egg donor, sperm donor, or embryo donation, which would reduce the pool of available donors in Georgia.

SB 204/HB388 is an embryo adoption bill. It would subject embryo donation to all the same provisions as required by law for adoption of a child. This would subject infertility patients needing an embryo donation to go through the judicial proceedings, home visits, and other procedures required for an adoption. We do not believe that such treatment is appropriate or needed for embryo donation.

This is truly an outrage, and I encourage everyone to oppose these ridiculous bills. Can you imagine? If they had allowed me to fertilize only two of the eggs that we harvested during our IVF cycle, we may not have ended up with ANY that continued to divide, and we almost definitely would not be having these twins right now. You can read some more about why this is such stupid and hurtful legislation on Murgdan's & Lollipop's blogs.

Doctor's Appointment & Ultrasound

I saw my OB today. She checked my cervix and says that it's completely thinned out. :-) But somehow the cerclage is still holding and not strained...I have no idea how that is possible. She doesn't want to take the cerclage out until I'm either in labor or the cerclage starts pulling at the cervix. Because the cervix is so thin and Baby A's head is so close to the other side, if she were to go in there with scissors, she might nick the amniotic sac or the amniotic sac might rupture on its own much quicker. She's very proud of me for making it to 33 weeks and hopes I can go a few more. I, on the other hand, am so ready to be done. :-)

Then I had an ultrasound. The babies are sooo big, measuring in at a hefty 4 1/2 lbs each. Baby A is actually a teensy bit bigger than Baby B now, which I think is really funny. :-) Baby B also decided he's going to be a good boy and is now head down!! WOOOO!!! Baby A's head is so far down into my pelvis they nearly couldn't measure it. heh They also confirmed that my cervix is pretty much non-existant (ie fully effaced), but not really dilated. The doctor noticed that Baby B's umbilical cord blood flow was a bit sluggish, so she sent me down for a non-stress test. Both babies passed that with flying colors, so they sent me home after about an hour. Unfortunately, they want me to repeat the non-stress test on Friday morning. urgh!!

I posted a new belly pic last night, so go take a look!

33 Weeks!

Wow. I still can't believe that I made it to March. I'm really psyched for my ultrasound tomorrow, because they'll do measurements and I'll find out the twins' estimated weights. I also wonder what my cervix looks like, but I don't think they're going to check it. My contractions have definitely calmed down since I started on antibiotics for my UTI, but I still get a few every day. (Much better than a few every hour!)

I also thought you all might want to see how awesome the complication rates are at 33 weeks (yeah that sounds weird, but I couldn't figure out a better way to put it):

Survival: 96%
Respiratory Distress Syndrome: 34%
Intraventricular Hemorrhage: 0% (yay!)
Sepsis: 5%
Necrotizing Enterocolitis: 2%
Intact, long-term survival: 96%

Not bad, eh? And I'm not really worried about respiratory distress because I had the steroid shots last week. Woooo!

Doing OK

I've been doing ok since being discharged from the hospital. I got nearly no sleep on Friday night. I kept waking up every hour and there was a spot on my back that hurt SO badly! I tried everything...changing positions, cold pack, tylenol, and finally a hot pack. It was the hot pack that took away the pain, but I still couldn't sleep. Last night I did MUCH better! Slept all the way from approx 1am to 6:30am! I also have to make sure I keep my legs up...my right ankle is way swollen. I'm going to start wearing the compression stockings I got, and I need to consciously remember to keep it elevated. I never realized how uncomfortable swollen ankles are! It just feels so funny.

My mom came to visit last week and brought us a ton of baby clothes (including hand-me-downs from my sister and me). My mother-in-law also keeps sending us packages with clothes in it. Man, baby clothes are SOOOO cute! I'd take pictures of all of it, but it would require me to stand for a long period of time in order to show you everything. We also had all of our furniture delivered last week, so we actually have a nursery! How cool is that? Now I just need to get all of my clothes out of the nursery closet so I can fill it with baby clothes. :-)

Eventful Week

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger, but I've been SOOOO busy. Firstly, I've been helping the Jewish day school in my community with a project, and it's taken up SO much time this week. Secondly, my mom came to visit. So any time I wasn't working for Torah Academy, I was spending time with her. Thirdly, I've spent nearly the last 24 hours in the hospital. Urgh!

So here's what happened. Yesterday morning I had an OB appointment that went perfectly well. My belly measures 46cm (eeps), my blood pressure is great, I'm on antibiotics for another UTI and the babies have super heartbeats. She did another fetal fibronectin test as well as my group B strep test (no speculum). Later on in the day, I noticed that I was spotting! Not a lot and it was brown, but I called the doc to see if she thought it was from my appointment earlier or if it might be something else. She basically told me to get my tush down to labor and delivery. :-) So my mom and I came on over to the hospital. They did a speculum check and low and behold I'm dilated to 1cm! Whoops that's a change from being "tight as a drum" last week. As of last night my cerclage is still holding well and isn't pulling, but they wanted to keep me over night to make sure that 1cm doesn't turn into 2. I'm STILL waiting to be checked, and if it's fine I need to make it home before Shabbos. We also decided to go ahead and get the steroid shots, because now that my cervix is *really* not behaving, we want to be safer than sorry. So far so good! No weird side effects from the first shot.

Now, the reason I haven't been checked yet is because my doctor (actually a med student) came to see me this morning and he just so happened to be someone I went to Brandeis with. lol He's doing med school at Tufts and is doing his OB rotation here. In order to prevent the incredible awkwardness of having him check me, he transferred my care to another doc...but I still haven't seen her yet. She is supposedly going to come in about 10 mins to *finally* check me. I'll give an update then!

UPDATE: Still 1cm and will be going home in time for Shabbos! I just have to wait to get my second steroid shot and then I'm all set.

Honest Scrap

I've been tagged! Both Jenni & Wiseguy tagged me with the "Honest Scrap" award.



The Rules of the Award:

1) Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.
2) Show the 7 winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with "Honest Scrap." Well, there's no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
3) List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

Blogs I Pick:

Rebecca @ The Binky Diaries
Lisa @ A Day in the Life of Preachman's Wife
A Few Good Sperm
Sherry @ Sherry's World
Marie @ Where is that Special Water?
Jewels @ Empty Nesting
Murgdan @ Conceive This!

10 Honest Things About Myself:

1) I have no clue how I'm going to handle two babies at once.
2) I am a cat lover.
3) I still keep in touch with my three best friends from college (and see one of them every few weeks).
4) I play nerdy computer games.
5) I enjoy bed rest because it gives me an excuse to be lazy.
6) I had very, very few friends going through school.
7) I'm incredibly short (4'11").
8) I like things that are organic, natural and/or environmentally friendly.
9) I have never smoked a cigarette, taken any illegal drugs or been drunk.
10) I spent the night after my wedding night in the hospital. :-)