Thursday Night

I had an appt. with my doc Thursday night at 5:00 (later, so Tim could come). The plan was to check my cervix, the position of the boys, and schedule an induction date. For the first time ever, my Doc was running 30 min behind schedule, so there was a lot of waiting in what felt like a very warm room. Finally, we were called back and the nurse weighed me and checked my blood pressure. She was a little concerned about both. It turns out that I'd gained 8 lbs in 2 weeks and my blood pressure was higher than normal. It had also been a little higher at my NST's the day before. Then, my urine sample showed some protein in it. Not good. All of these (along with swelling--which I may have had a very mild case of but honestly, I think it was all the waiting in the warm room with my sweat shirt on) suggest preeclampsia or pregnancy induced hypertension. Statistically, it happens in 1 in 5 multiple pregnancies compared with 1 in 20 singleton pregnancies. The only cure is delivery. Luckily, it looked as though I was only in the very early stages but my doctor didn't want to take any chances. He checked my cervix and discovered that I was 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced. I was also 36 weeks and both boys were still head down and doing well, so after checking all these things, he asked:

Did you bring your hospital bag with you? It looks like you'll be spending the night at the hospital and we'll probably go ahead and induce you tomorrow.

What???!!! Needless to say, Tim and I were a bit shocked. And of course I didn't have my bag, to be honest, I hadn't even packed one yet. My doc said that I should go home and eat, take a shower, pack my bag, and come back to the hospital in a few hours. He planned to run some more extensive tests and monitor the babies overnight. And then we'd go ahead and induce me the following day. Craziness.

Well, we headed home and had a nice dinner together as a family, we called our parents to let them know what was going on, and then we took some pictures, packed the bag and sent Marcus off with my sister-in-law Kaylyn. Tim gave me a really nice blessing and then we headed out. We arrived at the hospital around 10:00 and discovered that my doctor had been a bit worried about us and had expected us to arrive much sooner. In fact, both he and the hospital had called my cell phone (which was in my bag, so I didn't hear it). Whoops. I apologized later, but I still think my doctor thinks I'm some sort of rogue patient now :)

They put me in one of the posh labor and delivery rooms and started monitoring the babies' heartbeats and my contractions. They also checked my blood pressure a million times and then they gave me a cathater. Yes, you heard me right. It was horrible. Horrible, people. I guess they wanted to check my urine right from the source to see if there was any protein in it. Sorry, if that is TMI. Well, guess what? All my tests looked great. No protein in my urine, great blood pressure, and the boys looked healthy as can be. So then I began to think that if everything was looking so great, I didn't want to be induced the next day. Sure, I am really uncomforable right now, but I've always wanted to stay pregnant as long as possible for the health of these little boys. I still had to stay the night at the hospital and my doc came in the next morning. He said that even with the better test results he thought that I may still be in the early warning stages and since I was 36 weeks and showing a "favorable cervix" he was still willing to induce me that day. He said that the latest he'd let me go would be Tuesday, but that if I did choose Tuesday, I would have to go home and be on bed rest. Well, that's what I went for, so on Tuesday, at 7:00 AM I will be induced--just one day shy of 37 weeks. I feel really good about that and it gives me a few more days to rest, prepare, and be with Marcus and Tim before Owen and Eli join our family and change our lives forever :)