our trip to labor and delivery

I guess it was bound to happen at some point.  A trip to labor and delivery.

I had an OB appointment on Tuesday afternoon.  It was not a great appointment.  The office was super busy and I felt like my concerns regarding the braxton hicks contractions were not taken serious enough.  However (and I say that with emphasis) I have also been struggling with a very bad cold all week long and I know that my emotions at that appointment were off the chart.  So I am starting to think I may have overreacted a bit after the appointment.  Essentially I was told that as long as I could get the braxton hicks contractions to reduce in number by laying down I should not worry about a thing.  Okay.  Got it.  So that takes us to yesterday ...

I always get a horrible cough with any cold.  And I was severely coughing on both Wednesday and Thursday.  Needless to say when I woke-up on Thursday morning I felt completely awful.  I quickly made a decision that work was out for the day and crawled back into bed to try to get as much rest as possible.  I was still coughing and started to notice that I could not get the braxton hicks contractions to stop.  I just assumed the coughing was irritating my uterus.  I finally decided to give the OB a call around 11am.  I explained the situation.  I explained that I had a bad cold.  And I explained that I was probably overreacting.  So cue jaw drop when the nurse got back on the phone and told me the OB wanted me to go over to labor and delivery.  Huh?  I immediately thought ... Now you all get panicked??

I immediately called Kara at work and told her that I was headed to labor and delivery.  But that I did not feel a need for both of us to miss work.  It is really hard for Kara to leave suddenly for the day.  I knew if I really did need for her to come over to the hospital she could be there in only a few minutes.  I got dressed (debated on showering and thought nope I do not have energy for that one) and hopped in the car.  Much to my amazement the entire experience was not a bad one.

I actually found a parking spot immediately (a rarity at the hospital where I will be delivering) and walked up to the 2nd floor of the hospital.  I got all checked in by the receptionist (who was simply amazed that I was 21weeks pregnant with twins by how tiny my belly is ... I made a mental note to send her a thank you note).  I was taken back to a triage room and I changed into a hospital gown.  My nurse for the afternoon came in to introduce herself and to send me off down the hall for the customary urine sample.  I noticed several times during this visit why it is nice to have another person with you at the hospital.  For example ... tying a hospital gown or picking something up off the floor when you are hooked up to monitors or getting you something to drink when you are thirsty.  Thankfully the nurse helped me with tying the hospital gown so that I didn't show the world my undergarments while walking down the hallway.

We came back to the room and the nurse tried to get both babies on the monitor.  The nurse was amazed that both babies were laying vertical in my uterus and both were head down.  She indicated that I was on the right track to delivering these babies without a c-section (fingers crossed).  The nurse was able to get Baby A on the monitor right away.  Our wiggle worm ... Baby B was a whole other story.  She tried repeatedly but could not locate Baby B on the monitor for any extended period of time.  We picked-up his heart rate for a brief second but then it would go right back to swishing noises indicating that Baby B was moving like crazy.  I think it is interesting because Baby B seems to move much more than Baby A but I only feel Baby B kick me every so often.

The nurse then put me on the contraction monitor and left me for some time to see if the monitor would pick up the braxton hicks contractions.  I experienced a couple of contractions but when the nurse came back in the room she said the monitor was not picking them up.  It turns out the monitor was too lose on my tummy.  So we started all over again ... immediately I could see the contractions on the monitor.  See ... I'm not crazy!  I knew I was having contractions.  They monitored me for about two hours.  I would get a braxton hicks contraction every 5 or 10 minutes.  However, the intensity of the contractions never increased and that is the most important factor in determining whether or not these were bad contractions.

Eventually a medical student came into the room to go over my history and indicated that a resident would be in to examine me.  The resident came in about an hour later and indicated that I was most certainly experiencing contractions but that they appeared at the moment to be harmless.  I also did not have any signs of an infection (no fever and my urine was awesome).  The resident wanted to check my cervix and then do another u/s to measure the length of my cervix.  The resident indicated that as long as both check out okay then my official diagnosis is an irritable uterus.  Essentially that means I will continue to have these contractions through the remainder of my pregnancy.  Great.  The resident checked my cervix ... um?  not fun ... I cannot imagine the fun that will be when I am 30+ weeks pregnant with twins.  All looked good.  The u/s also indicated that my cervix was still measuring between 3cm and 3.2cm.  The same it was a week ago.  It is good to know that after another week of braxton hicks contractions there has not really been a change to the length of my cervix.  Because of this the resident was comfortable with sending me home as long as my OB agreed.  A quick call to my OB and I was sent on my way.  I did talk briefly with the attending physician (a requirement before I am allowed to leave) and he indicated that I now have a good basis for the intensity of the contractions.  Therefore, I am not to worry as long as the intensity of the contractions does not increase or move to my back.  The frequency of these contractions I must now ignore.  It might be normal for me to have one an hour or it might be normal for me to have 15 an hour.  I just have a really irritable uterus that gets upset anytime I do anything.  I also need to pay attention to the other signs of preterm labor.

So that is where we stand at the moment.  I am very glad I went to get checked out at the hospital.  It has brought me a tiny bit of reassurance.  These boys have already become my world and I just need to get to a point where they have a chance of surviving outside of my body.  We need a few more weeks for them to even get a fighting chance.  But each morning I wake-up and I am thankful that we have made it another day.  Please keep sending all the positive vibes you can muster in our direction.

Mary