And so it begins ...

As I've mentioned before in my blog I am not the most pleasant pregnant person. Typically this gets worse as I enter my 3rd trimester. Sometime I don't even know it's coming ... the other day I just followed a total stranger into the store who happened to have been driving on GA 400 with me earlier not using his blinker and I felt the need to ask if his blinker was broken or if there was another reason he felt he felt he could change lanes all down 400 and not let anyone know he was doing so. When he just stared at me I add - I only ask because if you need a new bulb for your blinker they are in the back right of the store. I then added a nice smile and a have a nice day and I took my cart and carried on with my shopping. Now I do have guidelines prior to my confronting people so I know that I still have some element of my senses. For example, I only talk to these types of people if they smile at me, hold a door or make some sort of gesture that they won't shoot me :-)

This is just one of many aggressive acts that come to play when I am in my 3rd trimester. There are more but I won't bore you with them since that is not the point of my post today.

When I was pregnant with Ashleigh I went into labor 19 times before my water finally broke and she was born via c-section. I went through lots of bed rest, steroids, etc. to bring her into this world as safe as possible and she still came 6 weeks early and weighed 6 lbs 2 ounces. She was early but she was healthy and she didn't spend any extra time in the hospital after her birth.

When I was pregnant with Adam I had a very lavish birthday party for Ashleigh during my 3rd trimester in mid-October that put me over the edge and on complete bed rest but I still only made 1 labor trip to the hospital and then was able to keep everything under control from home with medication and staying off my feet for another month. Unfortunately, he too came early by 5 weeks - but he weighed 7 lbs 2 ounces and was only in ICU for the first 2 days of his little life. He was able to come home with us and didn't have any side effect of being born early or being in ICU.

So now the time has come for my 3rd trimester of this pregnancy and I am go down hill fast.

It started with preparing for Ashleigh's birthday, add in more shopping than I should have, throw in a 2 hour trip to Elbert and a 2 hour trip back, add a dash of a 45 min trip to Pendergrass and back and a pinch of a one hour trip to Athen and back, stir in an out of control incident regarding the candles for Ashleigh birthday cake. Sprinkle in a trip to drop mom off at Marta and a few hours at the office and VOILA - you've just baked yourself an extended stay at the hospital!!!

So that's where I am at now. I've been here since Tuesday morning and could possibly be here until the boys are born. Monday night I wasn't feeling very well at all and I was having a lot of contractions but I got them to stop on my own and went to bed. Tuesday I woke up and still didn't feel so hot - I thought I should probably not go to the office but I had to take my mom back to the airport so I went ahead and went in. By 9:oo AM I was really feeling bad so I called my doctor and they told me to come over. Between the long walk to my car - the drive to the doctor - the cruise through the parking garage to find a parking spot (which was a chore) and then the walk from the garage to the office I was worked up to painful contraction every 3-5 minutes and the babies were in distress. Lucky for me my doctor's office is across the street from the hospital so they put me in a wheel chair, pushed me through the underground tunnel, got me into a room and stopped my contractions. Once the contractions stopped the babies heartbeats went back to normal and we thought all was good and I would go home. Then we went to ultrasound.

At my last ultrasound we were given a bit of bad news about Andrew but we were told it was no big deal so we didn't want to mention it to too many people but he had some extra fluid on his brain. Apparently they want least than 1.0 on the brain and Aiden was at .57 - which is great - but Andrew was creeping up on .89 so they wanted to keep an eye on it. If it continued they would have to drain the fluid from his brain when he was born - if it got over 1.0 they would have to drain it while I was still pregnant which was risky for me and the Aiden but was necessary for Andrew.

I tell this story now because the good news from our ultrasound is that the fluid on Andrew's brain is down and appears to be going away on it's own. The bad news is Aiden, who has always been a little smaller, is not getting enough nutrients and his placenta is "less than idea". This means hospital bed rest, steroids, high calorie diet -yeah for me because I get as many desserts as I want with each meal - I can even have cake with breakfast if I want to!!!

Tuesday night I cried a lot because I felt so torn. I want to be home with my family and take care of my two kids and husband but I know it's best to stay here at the hospital and take care of these two kids. I cried so much and was so sad Travis brought the kids back up to hospital Tuesday night - after he had already come up to be with me all day. He's so great in these situations - he jumps right in and does what needs to be done. Ashleigh is a huge help too! I gave Travis a small list of things to bring me that I needed but Ashleigh saw the list and knew there was no way I was thinking straight! She told Travis should would take care of my packing and she brought a whole big bag of stuff for me. Sure enough she remembered everything I would need and didn't list ... like slippers, socks, extra books, chapstick, etc. I am so lucky to have a daughter and a husband that take such good care of me. Adam didn't come empty handed either - he brought lots of kisses and cuteness :-)

While staying here instead of being home is hard we found out yesterday that it's working. Aiden is already doing much better and tomorrow we will be able to see how he is responding to the steroids.

When I asked the doctor at my ultrasound (which is in another part of the hospital) when I would get to go home he said ... well if things are getting better than we want to keep doing everything the same way ... if it's not getting better than we need to try some more drugs and monitor you more. I was happy with his response and went back to my room. After I thought about it for a bit I realized that neither of those options sounds like I was going home ???? When the nurse came in I asked her to look at my chart and see if it referenced any type of release date - she looked it over for a bit and said ... yes, here it is ... it says until delivery.

I knew the twins would be early and I knew that I may end up in the hospital but my actual due date is Jan 29th so I wasn't really planning on being in the hospital so long. Missing Adam's first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Adam's 1st birthday, Christmas, etc. At the same time I don't want the babies born too early that they have health problems.

Though it's too late to make a long story short - the just of the situation is I can't wait till next year when all of this is behind us and don't have think about it. It's just the fertility stuff - it's awful when you go through it but when it's over you don't really think of it again. Same thing with pregnancy and the new born stage - it's a lot of work and stress while your doing it but 3 years from now I probably won't even look back on this time without anything but jealously because while hospital bed rest isn't ideal - everyone weights on me hand and foot, no one is asking me for anything, no dishes to do, laundry is brought to me as are all of my meals, medicines and drinks. I don't even need to keep track of what time I need to take my medicaine because everyone else does that for me. They do everything for me! I also do know that this will be my last change to be along, read a book, watch TV and be alone for a very - VERY long time :-)

I'll try to keep everyone posted as things develop and change - my hope is things will really progress and I can go home in a few weeks but I'll post as I get updated. I won't go for another ultrasound until Friday so please keep us in your thoughts and prayer as we need all the help we can to bring these two precious little people into the world safely!