BEDREST...how I got here. (part I)

Where have I been recently?

Sitting or laying around...

and being forced to do so. :(

As of Jan 31st, I've been ordered to finish the rest of this pregnancy on bedrest.

I still feel like this all came out of nowhere and I'm having my share of trouble complying with the decision...

Here's the story:

Last Monday, Tim and I got the opportunity to go to my High Risk OB appointment alone! Kinda like a mini date. :) We planned to go to Red Lobster afterwards while we took advantage of free babysitting.

The appointment was at 2pm, and luckily we were able to get in right away (you know how waiting rooms go!). Per routine the Ultrasound Tech started on the belly, and we could see boys moving around on the monitor. She measured their "giant" heads, legs, hearts, arms...everything. It's always a beautiful experience to see your children from the inside out. The boys looked great! Thad (baby A) measured in at 2 lbs, 12 oz, and Shepherd (baby B) is showing to weigh 3 lbs! Their weights indicated they were in the 54th and 67th percentile (and this was in comparison to singletons)!!

Starting at week 24 the doctor ordered the fFN test and a transvaginal ultrasound to see if my cervix was shorting. (Perhaps this is too much information, but it's the key ingredient to the recipe of my bedrest.) Last month my cervix was 37 cm (where they like it to be at least 30 cm) and it presented itself as closed tight. Great news for 6 months.

A WHOLE different story at 7 months.

The u/s tech did what she needed to and basically stopped short. She called attention to the doctor (who was just a few feet from her). We heard alot of "uhhhs and oohs" and I wasn't sure what I was looking at. Last month the scan looked like a long paperthin line among blurriness on the screen. But last week I saw what looked like a V with little feet nearby. I had no idea what was going on and at first I didn't think anything was wrong. Is that one of the baby's feet? I asked.

It was, and the feet were kicking into the canal. I started laughing. I have nervous laughter...and it's very odd. The tech said she only measured 2mm (basically nothing left) for my cervix and I started laughing more (yes, it's VERY odd). The V seemed to grow as I laughed and they told me to stop because it was like I was 'bearing down.' My laughter quickly turned into crying when the doctor called the hospital talking steriod shots for the babies lungs, bedrest and a possible long hospital stay.

Wait, what?

Why was this happening? Everything was fine. Perfect in fact. Last time I saw Dr. Hodor he told me I would have no restrictions...and that I was doing everything right!

But something changed.

He checked for dilation. He said I was dilated 1 cm.

Dilated already? Was it my fault? I had been to the gym like 6 times since the last visit (I figured I finally had the energy and wanted to maintain some muscle in the last few months.) He said it wasn't anything I did, but that all this probably started happening over the past 2 weeks... I felt no different from the past weeks.

Nevertheless we were sent right over to the hospital. Nervous laughter began again and Tim and I joked about how we should just blow it off and go to Red Lobster first! :)

But when I got there and they hooked me up to monitors, gave me an IV and the first steroid shot, my tune changed again. They were admitting me they told me and started me on terbutaline...medication to stop contractions (which I guess I was having some of). We were in the Triage part of Labor and Delivery for over 2 hours until we were taken to another room. The nurse was nice enough, but with no TV for distraction and no new information given to us, Tim and I just grew silent. He was off and on the phone with people to watch our boys for the duration of the night and updating close family on our situation.