Pregnancy Week #33

November 23rd, 2003

Our Age - 31 weeks
 Time until we make our appearance +/- 3 weeks
 (Twins are considered full term at 36 weeks)

November 21, 2003 - November 27, 2003

This week (crown-to-rump) we measure up to 12 inches each. Head-to-toe we measure up to 19.4 inches each! We each weigh about 4.4 pounds (2kg).

Mommy’s Note: Well, it’s been a bit of an interesting week. Wednesday night at about midnight I started feeling really bad. I knew, then, that I shouldn’t have been bragging about how wonderful I’d been feeling lately! I had a really bad backache and cramping in my stomach and was just feeling really bad overall. I took my blood pressure and it was at the top limit allowed by my pre-term labor team. I called the Labor & Delivery unit at the hospital and told them what was going on. They said that I should come in and be checked out. So Caley and I got in the car and arrived at Kaiser around 1am. I was so uncomfortable by the time that we got there, that Caley insisted on pushing me in a wheelchair. I only protested for about 2 seconds.Once we got up to L&D they got me on a monitor and checked both babies heartbeats. I had just gone through this monitoring earlier in the morning at my regular appointment, so the boys were less than thrilled to be ’strapped up’ again. Their little hearts were beating away. The monitor also showed that I was having quite a few contractions. The doctor came in and checked me to see if my contractions were changing my cervix. She said that they weren’t. That was a good sign. They drew some blood and checked for any signs of pre-eclampsia (pregnancy induced hypertension). All of the tests came back negative, so my high blood pressure earlier in the evening was probably just because I wasn’t feeling well and was starting to stress myself out a bit.They continued to monitor me for a couple of hours, then checked my cervix again to make sure it still wasn’t changing. During the few hours I was there my contractions really picked up to the point I was quite uncomfortable and was having to breathe through them. My cervix was still fine. The doctor did an ultrasound and found that Lex was completely wedged down in my pelvic area. No wonder I’d been so uncomfortable the past couple of days! She was even surprised how far down he was. They gave me three options. They said I could stay and continue to be monitored, but chances were that nothing would happen for awhile. They could give me a shot of terbutiline to try and stop the contractions or I could just go home and wait it out. I wasn’t too hip on getting any terbutiline, so I opted to just go home. We left the hospital at about 5:00am, absolutely exhausted!

We were able to get a few hours of sleep when we got home and then Caley went into full nesting mode. He felt that the house had to be in perfect order before we stepped foot out of it again. Once he was happy with the cleanliness level of the house we went up to my parents for some Thanksgiving dinner. After we came home Thursday night we were both able to get a lot more sleep.

Friday morning I was still feeling pretty miserable and was basically ready to head back up to the hospital and have these babies. I called L&D again and went over everything with them. I spoke to Nurse Kathleen and she was wonderful. She was one of those ‘tell it like it is’ nurses, not one of those pampering ‘let me say what will make you happy’ nurses. She said that she completely understood how miserable I am. This is how most singleton moms feel at 40 weeks. My body believes I’m now PAST 40 weeks and has honestly had enough. But she encouraged me to stay home and find a way to be comfortable. The bottom line is that yes, my boys would be ok if they were born now, but there is simply no better incubator for them than me! Even if I can stay pregnant for one more week, it will mean the world of difference to the boys. They’ll be able to eat more easily, hold their own body temperature and weight better and spend much less time in the NICU. I would rather be home and miserable with them still inside that to give birth to them and have to leave the hospital without them and have them stay in the NICU for 1-2 weeks! That really helped put it all into perspective and even though my pain level hasn’t changed at all, I’ve accepted it and am simply trying to make the best of it.

The boys seem oblivious to it all. They are as active as ever. That alone is a wonderful reassurance.

Posted in Pregnancy Journal |

One Response to “Pregnancy Week #33”

  1. on 23 Nov 2006 at 9:58 pm   Barb

    Wow - your journalling is terrific Son - I feel like I am right here with you and Caley!! LOL Did you write all this down right at the time, because you have every detail. What a treasure for the boys - and their wives and grandchildren later on. Thanks for sharing, can’t wait for them to get born now…

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