33+3 Weeks

So, we are still in the hospital, but hanging in there. Plan seem to change so much from day to day. One day it seems like I could go to c-section any day, and the next day it seems like we could hold out a few more weeks. It's all a matter of looking at labs, my physical health & the babies physical health. So far, the babies look great & are moving around like crazy. Nicholas challenges every nurse, every day, with trying to record his fetal heart rate tracing. He wiggles and rolls around the whole time making it almost impossible. Victoria is my good little girl who stays in one place & lets us monitor her easily. Don't get me wrong though, when she kicks & moves I really feel it; she hurts. :)
Right now, my blood pressures are still running high and stay around 150/86, even on a blood pressure medication. Usually I can tell when the blood pressure is higher than that because I start getting a headache. The doctors are also watching my platelets because they sometimes run pretty low. They won't let them get much lower than 100, and they have dropped to as low as 111. Today they are back up to 118 so that bought us a little more time (hopefully). It changes from day to day though. The other lab they watch closely is my protein in my urine. Tuesday the protein was 283, and we are checking it again tomorrow. Also, overnight I lost 3 Lbs of fluid last night. :)
My nurse explained a few things to me on the trends of preeclamptic moms. The doctors call us "Watch Pots", meaning they are watching the pot to make sure it doesn't boil over. Now that my protein is almost 300, I'm not going anywhere. They will watch my swelling, protein, reflexes, b/p's, platelets, and weight to determine when it's time to deliver. She said it isn't a question of if I'll get sicker, it's a question of when. She said she has seen women with protein slowly climb to as high as 5000, but as long as it slowly creeps up, the doctors just watch it. But, If from one protein check to the next my numbers double, that would be a reason to deliver me. Or, if I wake up weighing 5 Lbs more than the day before, with a migraine, swollen face, high b/p, hyper reflexes, upper gastric pain, they would deliver me. If my b/p's won't come down or get super high they will deliver me. I could still hang in there a while. :) I am remaining optimistic...

32+2 Weeks today

So, a lot has changed since my last posting. I ended up in the hospital for high blood pressures. Working 12 hour shift started to really wear on my body, and yesterday morning at work I started seeing spots in front of my eyes. One of the nurses checked my blood pressure & it was 154/100. (High blood pressures & spots before your eyes are a sign of preeclampsia & if it gets too bad the only cure is delivery.) A doctor was notified & she said I had to go to the hospital right away. I went to Baptist Hospital & they admitted me to monitor my high blood pressures & to run labs. All though the evening my blood pressures were high, but through the night my blood pressures finally went down to almost their normal range. Speaking with my doctor, she is preparing me for the worst case scenario, but hoping for the best. Worst case scenario, we stay on hospital bed rest & monitor me frequently & babies end up being delivered soon. Best case scenario, I stop working & go home to partial or complete bed rest with frequent blood pressure & baby checks at the doctors or by home health. They are giving me injections of steroids to mature the babies lungs, for just in case. We will find out more today, after my ultrasound and all my test/labs come back. We sure didn't expect this, but at least the babies have made it past 32 weeks. If the babies were born today, they would more than likely do really well & be in the NICU for about 3-5 weeks. It will be hard, but in the future none of this will matter. So, maybe during this time off I can try to find a nanny, catch up on baby books & do some scrap-booking. Pray for us, and we will keep you posted!!

32 Weeks

Well, we have made it to 32 weeks!! The babies are really starting to roll around & kick a lot more. In the last few days I could actually push on a body part and feel it move out of the way or kick back :) I love this feeling and hope I can experience this for a little longer. I feel great for the most part, but these 12 hour shifts at work kill me. We were so busy last week that I just came home & started whining at how badly my body ached. Phil did everything he could to make me comfortable & he even gave me a nice foot massage. I feel like I can't do this much longer, but as long as everything except my swelling is normal, the doctors don't seem anxious to reduce my hours. Friday was our 32 week doctors appointment, and it was quite a disappointment. We expected to see a doctor, but instead was scheduled to see a midwife who didn't seem to know anything about my history or me. She didn't even introduce herself & kept her back to my husband almost the whole time. We were hoping for some answers as to plans for the c-section, but she didn't have any answers for us. We asked her about reducing my hours, but she didn't seem too eager to make any changes. I guess it will take having problems in order to get a little time off work, but I don't want that. Otherwise all is well for now & we will keep you posted.

30 Weeks & growing

I am starting to feel huge!! Last night, Phil said he thinks I grew over the course of the day, but of course tells me I am beautiful. :) I am still working almost full time & my legs are so swollen with fluid that they started weeping fluid last night a little. Getting around is definitely getting harder & I try and put my feet up as much as possible on my days off. The baby room is almost complete. The last thing we need to do is decorate the walls with wall art, decals or possibly have a muralist come in & paint. I am getting so stressed about getting everything done!! I am working on trying to get my second round of thank you notes out for the last baby shower, and the hospital is throwing me a baby shower on September 17th. I will need to send out more thank you notes for that, and then I need to work on preparing birth announcements. I have been pretty good about doing my blog, but I haven't filled out the baby books or done scrap booking in forever. I need to start those ASAP. I just wish I had some help! We only have about 5-6 weeks to finish everything. We aren't even sure what we are going to do about child care. We are thinking about hiring a nanny, but it is going to cost around $2,000.00 a month. That just sounds crazy!! We are also looking into Nanny Cams & Phil has an appointment with ADT security on Saturday to discuss cost. Kids are so expensive!! :) Well, other than that things are good. We have our next doctors appointment on Sept 17th, before the shower, and hopefully we will find out more about a possible c-section date. We will keep you posted.....

29 Weeks Pregnant!!

Friday night, we celebrated Phil's new Vice President position with other employees of Beaches Rehab. We went to a really nice restaurant at Jacksonville Beach called Roys. See picture: It was Anya (Phil's new partner), Phil & I, Joey (the office manager who has been with Beaches Rehab since it opened 7 years ago) & his girlfriend, and Anya's brother Eugiene & his wife. The dinner was wonderful & drinks & champagne toast went on for many hours. :) Phil's first official day at Beaches Rehab is on September 6, 2010. We are so excited!!
Today was my 29 week ultrasound. The babies are getting so big that it is hard to get good images of them. Most everything looks perfect with them. They both have plenty of amniotic fluid around them & they are growing just like they are supposed to. Nicholas is weighing at 3 Lbs & Victoria is weighing at 2 Lbs 10 ounces. Victoria is laying in the left side of my lower pelvis all curled up, and Nicholas is spread out across my abdomen & lying breech. So, no matter what we would have to have a c-section. He is going to come out mooning the world. :) Anyways, little Victoria is cramped for space & so it seems she is mostly entertained by kicking her brother. This is at least the 4th ultrasound where the doctors have commented on her kicking her brother in the head. In the 3D ultrasound pictures you will see Victoria's face & then you will see Nicholas covering his head to block Victoria's kicks. The last picture is Victoria's foot & Nicholas poor little head getting kicked. :)
As I mentioned, for the most part the babies look perfect, but they have detected one small problem with Victoria. She has a dilated left kidney which means that she may have a kinked kidney vessel (ureter). She is peeing fine though & in most cases this issue resolves at birth. They will do further testing when Victoria is born just to make sure all is well. If she still shows signs of problems, she may need to go home on antibiotics to prevent a kidney infections, and then return in 2 weeks for further testing. Other than that, all seems perfect.

28 Weeks and counting

On Saturday, August 21st, Phil's parents & sister threw me a surprise baby shower at Carrabba's. I had a feeling that they were planning on throwing me a baby shower, but had no idea when it was going to be. That day, Phil told me we had to meet our new accountant at Carrabba's, to discuss future finances. He played it off so well that I believed him. Well, when we walked into Carrabba's and everyone yelled surprise, I must have turned 5 shades of red. I had no idea!! The place was decorated so cute & the party favors were adorable. The theme was 2 peas in a pod. The turnout was great, and so many of my friends and family were there. Victoria & Nicholas were spoiled with all the great baby gifts. They got so many cute little outfits, a stroller, piggy banks, newborn Halloween Costumes, bouncies, mobiles, nursery decor-lamps, Texas baby plates, and so many other cute things. After the shower, a lot of people came back to our house & hung out for a while. Everyone did a champagne toast to the wonderful events going on in our life right now, from twins on the way to Phil becoming co-owner to Beaches Rehab. My friend Ale stayed the night, and in the morning we went shopping at Babies-R-Us. She bought the twins their bed mattresses & Phil and I bought their comforter sets with gift cards. The baby nursery is really starting to come together. :)
Monday, I had my first appointment with Dr Fox at Baptist Medical Center. She came into the room & hugged me right away. She reviewed my records and started to discuss a plan of care with me concerning the twins delivery. She discussed really wanting to do a c-section on me & would prefer to do it around 35-36 weeks of gestation. Dr Fox doesn't even want to take the chance of me going into labor because of all my scar tissue & she wants a very controlled environment for the c-section. She plans to have general surgeons awaiting standby just in case my surgery becomes unexpectedly difficult. She wants to perform an amniocentesis around 35 weeks to check for fetal lung maturity & go ahead with surgery if their lungs are mature. I will be 35 weeks pregnant on October 11th. That's kinda funny because my moms birthday is Oct 5th, my birthday is Oct 8th, and their birthday could be Oct 11th. Kinda strange.... We would have two little Libra's. :) Phil and I would really prefer to wait until they are 37 weeks gestation to deliver, if all is going well, but if the doctors feel it is best to deliver early then we will of course listen to them.

God placing people in our lives

So much has happened since my last posting. First of all, I want to mention how blessed we are & how god puts people in your/our lives when we really need them.
I joined a twins group in the past & it has really been an avenue for great resources. I had been thinking about transferring my prenatal care from Naval Hospital Jacksonville to Baptist Medical Center (a higher risk hospital). Baptist has a great NICU just in case the babies need one, plus it is attached to Wolfson's Childrens Hospital. Well, one of the ladies in my twins group had posted that she was selling bottles. I was interested & went to her house to pick them up. Wow, what a lot of bottles. As we got to talking, come to find out she has triplets (2 girls & 1 boy-see above picture of her.) that were natural- without invetro or any medications. Her husband is a fertility specialist & she is an OB Physician at Baptist & part of the only team of doctors that the Navy refers patients to at Baptist. I told Dr Fox that I was interested in transferring my care & she said that they usually don't accept patient transfers past 20 weeks, but she would wait for my consult & review my records with her team & make a decision. Well, 2 weeks later I got the call that I was accepted into Baptist!! Yea!!
On August 17th, I had a routine fetal echo done at Wolfson's Childrens Hospital to examine the babies hearts. Everything looked perfect with their little tickers. :)
Besides having twins on the way, another big event happening in our lives is Phil becoming VP & co-owner of beaches rehab. A few weeks back, I had gone to another girls house from my twins group who was giving away a stroller. Come to find out she is a lawyer who specializes in reviewing business contracts. Well, when it came time for Phil to have his business contract reviewed, Jen was our lady & she did a very thorough job. On Thursday, August 19th, Phil became co-owner of Beaches Rehabilitation. :)