Wednesday, February 28, 2007

35 weeks and 2 days!

Things are going well here. As well as it can when you have a rash all over your body and are on bed rest. Luckily yesterday the doctor gave me some good news, I'm almost done! With the preeclampsia and the babies being a good size he said we can induce at 37 weeks, that is if I don't go into labor sooner. Right now I'm dilated to 3 so there is always the chance. I'm still going twice a week to the hospital for Non Stress Tests, once a week to the lab and once a week to the doctors office. Normally this would be really annoying but knowing that's the only thing I can do it makes it okay.

Ryan's been doing well with taking care of me. Warming up meals and doing laundry after coming home from a long day at work. I hate not being able to do much but I know it's not for much longer.

We can't wait to meet these babies and see what they are! Any guesses?

Friday, February 23, 2007

Bed Rest :-(

Well the doctor called with my lab results yesterday and said that I have mild preeclampsia. It's bed rest time. I can still go to the doctor office and I am allowed to go to the couch rather than staying in bed all day but that's pretty much it. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, Ryan's doing the cooking now...

Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Loooooooongest day EVER

Well yesterday morning I had an ultrasound with my regular ob. It's really hard to get a lot of good pictures of anything right now, they are both so squished and there are a lot of shadows. After getting all the measurements they could they were concerned about the babies lack of growth and low amniotic fluid levels. With my blood pressure also starting to inch it's way up the doctor was saying things like "34 weeks is a good time to deliver". First though they wanted to send me over to the perinatologist for a more detailed ultrasound and scan of abbies brains.

They scheduled me in immediately and I had accross the street. Here everything looked much better. they had both babies measuring over 5 pounds and good levels of amniotic fluid. the doctor was quite happy and said our babies are very healthy and we shouldn't worry. Of course it only took an hour and a half of ultrasounding on a table laying practically upside down to determine that. And of course there is a but... While the growth looked great they caught an accelerated heart rate on baby A of over 200. Obviously not good as a baby's heart rate should be between 110 and 170. They were not able to reproduce the heart rate but needless to say they wanted to send me over to the pediatric cardiologists office at Riley Childrens hospital. So they squeezed me in there and I headed downtown.

Luckily after doing echos on both babies hearts and looking at the entire structures more carefully they felt that they both looked good. No reason to be concerned just keep up the NSTs. They had an explanation but my mind was so warped by then I didn't really take it all in.

So you would think my day was over but of course it wasn't. I had to go back up to the Northside for more lab work so they could further investigate my blood pressure. Hmmmm I wonder why my blood pressure might be up, could it be because I have a rash all over my body and all I do is go from hospital to doctors office to hospital all day? Nah.

Well hopefully now things will calm down. Ryan's parents and sister Katie are coming down to help this weekend. Get some food made and freeze it for later. These babies could be here pretty soon!

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Quick Update

Well I went to the doctor this afternoon because of the rash. He realizes it's pretty severe and gave me some steroids to start on. We are hoping they work as my blood pressure has now also gone up. They think it may be the stress from the rash but are running tests to make sure it is not preeclampsia as well. We will take it from there. I see him again tomorrow for an ultrasound and visit. I also had an NST today and the babies did really well. They sound great and I didn't have any major contractions. Cross your fingers that theses steroids help, the pharmacist said they may make me a little wired....great.

Monday, February 19, 2007

PUPPPS

That's the name of my rash. I told everyone about it last week but it was NO where near as bad then as it is now. It's pretty much touched every part of my body from the knees to my neck. Some areas are definitely worse than others. Right now my back is driving me insane. There is not much that can be done. I've been using three different types of lotions, one prescribed by the doctor, two I found out about from people who have suffered with this rash. Also I have been taking several oatmeal baths a day and taking benadryl. Anywhere from 1 in 200 to 1 in 150 pregnant women get this rash to varying degrees. Mine is severe to say the least! I go to the doctor Wednesday and am hoping they have more ideas. Ryan has been wonderful even when I break down and cry. I'm slowly going insane, please keep me in your thoughts and pray for me, I really need all the help I can get to get through this.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

33 Weeks and 3 days!

Today was another ultrasound. I thought it would be my last but it turns out I'm having another one next week. Baby A is now 4 pounds 12 ounces and baby B is 4 pounds 4 ounces, exactly 9 pounds of baby. My stomach is measuring at 40 weeks. Eek! They both have good strong heart beats, 158 bpm and 152 bpm. Also both look like they have a lot of hair. It was hard to get any good looks at anything else on the ultrasound because they are now so crammed in there. Both are still head down. There was a little concern that baby B has a little less amniotic fluid, hence the next ultrasound. they told me to get a lot of fluids this week and they will measure again. It could just be that its hard to measure any good size pockets of fluid because it's hard to measure anything with two babies.

From now on I will be getting Non Stress Tests (NST's) twice a week and seeing the doctor every week. That's a lot of going to the hospital! The NST is basically two monitors, well three in my case, one to monitor contractions and two to monitor the babies heart rates. You just lay there for a little over an hour and watch tv or read a book.

I'm doing okay. Not good, not bad. Still having contractions on a regular basis and sometimes even when I'm not doing anything. I still take terbutalene for that as needed. I got a Rx for a lotion for my stomach today. I'm getting strectch marks (I had been doing so well!) and a rash on my stomach. It's called PUPPS which stands for something I don't remember, it's basically just really itchy and should go away when the babies come out.

The nursery is finished pretty much. My family came down last weekend and helped Ryan put the legs on the dressers and put up some shelves. It was a bit tricky because we realized we didn't have a level, they improvised and it looks great to me!

Here are some pictures of the nursery so far...