At some point last week I lost track of the days. I didn’t know the date and I had to ask Alex what day of the week it was. At first I thought this was a bad sign that bed rest was driving me into a meltdown, but then when I thought about it I didn’t quite know. Maybe free floating in time for a little while isn’t so bad, especially when the last 28 weeks have been an intense marking of days resulting in no small amount of stress here and there.
Even so, be assured I was completely aware when we all reached Week 28.
It was last Wednesday, 12/3. Two days after my last ultrasound and check-in with the OB/GYN and all was well with us. It was some point after that, but before I started to feel fairly ill that I found myself totally unaware of what day it was.
Then Friday night I began to feel sick to my stomach and got a headache. I had no appetite. A couple of Tylenol took care of the headache, but I had a really tough time eating. I wasn’t sure what to think of this. I hadn’t been anywhere to see people I could catch a stomach bug from. I do know later in pregnancy women lose their appetites because there’s not much room for the stomach. With twins this is obviously going to happen earlier. But it seemed to happen suddenly, with no improvement on Saturday or Sunday. I just didn’t feel right.
Then mid-Sunday morning the contractions started again. About four an hour, not regularly (like one in 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 8 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.) which is supposedly okay, but I had just had a good week with hardly any contractions all day on most days. So the onset of this was unnerving. And the contractions were a little different. Some of them were painful, crampy. The kind they said to look out for.
I’ve read that nausea, diarrhea (oh yeah, for your daily dose of TMI, I had that too) can be early signs of labor. Plus I was having the contractions and they went on and on from about 11 am until around 5, which was when I finally broke down and called the on-call service again.
“Come in,” they said. Of course they did. They always want you to come in. “It’s the only way we can tell anything.”
I am getting really tired of pelvic exams, by the way. But two – yes two – last night showed that my cervix is indeed still closed and thick. The first pelvic they did soon after I arrived so they could do another Fetal Fibronectin test (fFN). The resident said, “How do you feel? You’re not contracting at all.” Well I felt great when I heard that.
But after the pelvic, guess what? I was contracting a whole bunch.
“We’re going to start an IV for fluids.”
No, you’re not. If I’m not going to have surgery, and you’re not planning to give me IV meds, you are NOT giving me an IV. Sorry. I mean, why do they even want to give me an IV for that when I can drink?
“Okay, I’ll bring a pitcher of water.”
Great.
Another ultrasound showed Doot and Bing to be totally fine in there, though Bing has flipped around from head down to transverse. Ouch. I asked the doctor if that much movement could have triggered the onset of the contractions. She said no. I didn’t believe her (she’s one doctor there I don’t like all that much, which is pretty good given that there are about 72 doctors I’ve seen there so far).
My fFN came back negative, though. That’s another 7-14 day insurance policy against pre-term labor. Three residents, a medical student, the doctor on call and the nurse all came in to tell me. No shit – six people. Three of them remained to give me a second pelvic exam, “Just to check your cervix to be sure the contractions aren’t changing anything there. Hey (lackey medical student), can you go get my maglite from the other patient’s room?”
It was still the same, and I am not at all certain the second pelvic wasn’t just practice for them.
Is it me or are pelvics getting more intolerable?
“We feel comfortable sending you home.”
Good. Fine with me.
I am back home now and see my regular OB/GYN tomorrow. Of course, I am with a group that has 743 doctors so the only thing regular is the office space – not the physician. I am still not feeling great, but not sure now how much of it is mental. Am I contracting? Sometimes. I’m trying to just ignore it unless it’s super obvious. You can get pretty stressed out with this stuff. At least I can. Even when you’re supposedly doing okay.
I’m already tired of the hospital, and I’m sure I’ll be there again and again before the big day comes. And as helpful as it is to write, I confess it’s hard to blog when you feel sort of shitty all day. Though for whatever reason I still feel like it’s important. To me, at least.
Now, let us not forget there are two babies inside of me growing and growing. It’s week 28 and the boys are:
- through the 28 week hurdle, which is a huge deal when you’re worried about pre-term labor. 90% of babies born at 28 weeks can survive.
- 2.3 oz (Doot) and 2.5 oz (Bing) each and continuing to grow. I thought those weights were fairly kickass, but then I saw this chart and realized that they are merely average. That’s okay. I know their spectacular specialness will shine in other ways. And in pregnancy, I think it’s good to be average.
- are opening and closing their eyes. But you’ve got to wonder, what can they see in there? It’s gotta be fairly dark, especially under the covers most of the time.
- still kicking, after all these weeks.
As for me, the above has covered most of it. But a few other things to mention:
- Colostrum. I’m not going to say anything more about that, other than it was one of my “what the hell is that?” moments last week. If you don’t already know what it is and truly need to know, go here.
- Mood. Was feeling pretty good last week when the contractions had subsided. Not so much this week with an upset stomach and all. It’s like a dingy damp cold towel has been wrapped around my brain and I can’t get it off. It’s absolutely no damned help at all that “general malaise” is often cited as a precursor to all kinds of terrible pregnancy problems, like HELLP and/or pre-term labor.
- Alex put up curtains in our bedroom to block out the light so I can sleep during the day. I love that man.
As badly as I want Doot and Bing to hang in there for the next 10 weeks and go to full term, some days I feel so done with this pregnancy stuff. It’s little things that I miss being able to do, like go for a walk or hey, how about out of the house to someplace that’s not a medical facility? I now have too much fear about every little thing I feel in my body and I am a lot more frightened of giving birth than I let on.
Can I say all that and not feel like a jerk? Because when you’ve overcome infertility to get to this point, sometimes you just feel ungrateful voicing those feelings. I swear, I am not ungrateful.
I’m just tired. And worried.
And I know, I know. “Get used to it – you’re about to be a mother.”
