Just Another Routine Visit?

This is going to be a long one…

Tuesday was our appointment in Seattle to check on the boys’ growth.  Our appointments started at 12:30 pm, so we had to leave the house at 9:30 am, drop Calista off with our friends at 10 am and be on the road to Seattle by 10:30 am.

Leaving Calista went well, and the drive started out well.  Then Skip got a speeding ticket.  And we learned that we don’t have our registration in our car.  Nice.  That was entertaining.  Interestingly enough, the last time Skip got a speeding ticket was over four years ago, I was pregnant with Calista and we were on our way to Seattle.  Go figure.

We made it to the University of Washington Medical Center, and all we had to do was park.   The instructions that the medical center emailed to me said to turn at the second parking sign.  Well I never saw the first one, so we passed the second one and then ended up going too far.  I suggested to Skip that we turn around, but being a man, he decided to try to find his way back without turning around (though his version of the story is that there was no place to turn around).

We tend to fight in the car over directions and driving, so I kept my mouth shut but I was starving (had hoped to eat before we went to our first of four hours of appointments) and I had to pee so bad that I seriously thought if I so much as moved I would pee my pants.  Instead of asking him why he would just turn around, I started to cry.  Nice.

We got there just in time for the appointment, and the first appointment was with a Genetics Counselor.  She reviewed the situation with the boys’ growth and then our family histories to try to determine if we might have any genetic reason for the growth issue.  Thankfully, she was quick and nothing was found, so she sent us down to the cafeteria to get lunch.  We had about 30 minutes to eat before our next appointment.

We got back for the second appointment, and were called back immediately.  This part was the ultrasound.

We were in there for about two hours, and they checked and measured everything.  We got some really great profile images of each boy, and I’d love to share them here, but I unfortunately left them in the UW parking garage yesterday.  :(  I’m going to try to get another copy of each.

They meaureds heads, arms, legs, hearts, kidneys, spines and everything in between.  Baby A measured normal  for dates and Baby B measures two weeks ahead.  Baby B also has more fluid for some reason.

We also saw that Baby A is now head down — YAY! — and Baby B is sort of semi-breech, semi-transverse, lying at some weird angle at the top of my uterus.  Whatever suits him, I suppose.

They measured my cervix, which was only 2.3 cm, and saw I also had some funneling.  Thinning and funneling happen in early labor to prepare the cervix for birth, and they told us that a cervix under 2.5 cm was a cause for concern.

After all of these measurements, we were off to our third appointment to discuss the results with the perinatologist.  She felt that there was no major concern over the boys’ growth, and that B was just “a chunk” (guess that’s a medical term!).  That was good news.

The bad news was the cervix and we started talking about pre-term labor.  I told her that last week, I had called my OB after I had contractions every ten minutes for two hours, but they felt it was “normal” and didn’t have me checked.  So Dr. H (the peri) sent me to be monitored.

I was monitored for about an hour, I think, and had several small contractions as well as a couple of large ones.  They asked if I could feel them, and I said yes, and if they hurt, to which I said no.

Dr. H said I had an irritable uterus, and combine with the short cervix and funneling, that they could send me home with medication or I could stay overnight for monitoring, which was her preference.

We opted to stay for monitoring, so I got sent to labor and delivery and checked in.  They hooked me back up to the contraction monitor.

We called our friends who were watching Calista.  Our friend was smart enough to suggest we send Calista with  some overnight things just in case, which we had, so she had everything she needed for the night.  When I told Calista that the doctor wanted me to spend the night at the hospital, she gleefully exclaimed, “I guess I’ll have to spend the night!”  Our friends have three girls of their own, so Calista had her first official sleepover with them while we were at the hospital in Seattle.

The doctor gave me 600 mg Ibuprofen and said that they would monitor my contractions to see if the Ibuprofen settled them down.  If that didn’t work, they were going to try Magnesium Sulfate. While they were waiting to see what happened with that, they did a non-stress test on the babies.  That was great fun.

Basically, they put on doppler on my stomach for each baby, to pick up their heartbeats.  They have to stay on for 20 minutes and they monitor my contractions and the baby’s heart rates, to make sure that the babies aren’t under any stress.  First, it took three nurses and finally an ultrasound to even locate both heartbeats, as the boys were moving so much that they couldn’t get them both at once.

Once we were hooked up, the boys hated the pressure of the belt around my uterus and on them and they just went nuts kicking and rolling and after an hour of being on the monitor, we didn’t have more than 5 minutes of consistent monitoring that I could tell.  They called it good and unhooked me.

The first round of Ibuprofen didn’t do much for my contractions, so they wanted to give me an IV to hydrate me.  I have the PICC line, which means there’s no need for an IV stick, but they had to verify the line, since they didn’t put it in.  This meant we had to wait for an x-ray technician come to my room and do a chest x-ray to make sure that the line was placed properly.  Then we waited an hour for those results and when it was determined that the line was OK, they started my IV.

When the IV was done, they did my one hour glucose tolerance test (GTT) where you drink this gross syrupy drink (mine was orange) in 5 minutes, and an hour later they draw your blood to see fi you have Gestational Diabetes.  The cutoff is 140, and I ailed with 152, which meant I had to do a three hour version of the test.  It was already after 11 pm, so we decided we’d do that the next day.

I had another Ibuprofen at midnight and and watched me through the night via the contraction monitor.

They came into my room at 6 am for another Ibuprofen and said that I had no more than two contractions an hour through the night, so they were pretty satisfied with that and that the Ibuprofen was helping, so we didn’t have to move to the Mag Sulfate.

We did have to do another ultrasound to check my cervix, so they brought in the machine and then they made me lay on this wedge shaped pillow that practically had me upside down while they checked.  Headstands while 26 weeks pregnant with twins is not fun.

They said that the funneling appeared to have stopped and the cervix was a bit over 2.5 cm again, so they could let us go home.  However, we still had to repeat the 3 hour GTT, so we stayed for that.

They did my baseline blood raw, and then I had to drink more of the syrupy stuff and was not allowed to eat prior to or during the test.  I forced it down and spent the next few hours trying not to throw up.  They came every hour for three hours to take more blood (thank goodness for the PICC line!).

After the last blood draw, they told us they wanted me to do another NST (non-stress test where the hook the dopplers up to check the babies) so we spent over an hour trying to get the boys to cooperate (they didn’t) and the nurse had to sit and hold the dopplers the whole time because the boys did not care for the belts around my stomach.

By the time THAT was done, they came and said I passed the 3 hour GTT (yay!  No Gestational  Diabetes) but was anemic.  They gave me prenatals, iron pills, stool softener, heartburn medicine and Iboprofen.

We were finally released at 3 pm on Wednesday.  From there, we went to downtown Seattle as I had a 4 p meeting there I  was supposed to be at, so I popped in to just go over a few things, and then we made the trek home.  We picked up Calista by about 7 pm and came home last night to relax.

I now have to continue my care with Dr. H in Seattle, so I have another Seattle appointment on Monday, and I think from now on, I’ll be taking an overnight bag, just in case…