35 weeks

I can't believe in 7 more days I will be 36 weeks. The thought of possibly being able to take these kiddos home with us is amazing! (And driving me through the "OMG I wish I would just deliver now" thoughts!). We have made it to the average twin gestation now.

We will find out what the plan will be tomorrow, but I'm going to tell her I'm not ready for the cerclage to come out yet. I'd like to make it to 36 weeks if possible.

I'm definitely into the "uncomfortable" stage. The last few days my skin has felt like it is tearing and it's difficult to stand up long enough just to shower, but I know this is all worth it. I've started getting a lot lower blood sugars at times, which is rumored to be a sign of upcoming labor. In the very beginning my prediction was I would deliver at 35 weeks, so we will see if that comes true this week! No matter what we are within 15 days of meeting them!

I will update after my drs appointment!

ultrasound

The babies are growing! Little miss was estimated to be one day ahead at 5 lbs, although they were unable to get a good head measurement, so she could be a little bigger. And little man was a week and a day ahead at 5lb 6oz. His head was measuring like 3 weeks ahead! Because they are both head down I told her I'm still going back and forth on delivering them vs. c section. There is so much push to have a C Section from everyone that its making it a hard decision. I want these kiddos to be safe, but it's also hard to elect to have surgery when it's possibly not necessary. Recovery time is much longer and it can cause your milk to come in later. There is also no guarantee that just because they are born by c section that they won't have any complications. She said if I do decide to deliver she may remove my cerclage next week then and we can just see what happens.  Although at that time I would only be 35+1, so if I delivered prior to 36 weeks they would have to spend some time in NICU.  I think she would only do this is because she is gone the week that I'm 36 weeks, which is usually when dr's will remove cerclages.  She is supportive of whatever we decide to do, but made the comment, "knowing what I know about c sections, I know what I would choose, but this is your decision".  She also hasn't had to make that decision herself though, and elect to have one and then have two newborns to take care of.  She doesn't think little man would flip once little miss came out, so really the next hurdle would just be that sometimes labor can slow down and it is more difficult to deliver baby B.  So Joe and I have a tough decision this week.

34 weeks

We celebrated 34 weeks this morning with a little trip to the hospital to make sure I wasn't ruptured. Everything was fine though and I was sent home. I'm continuing to have contractions, some of which are getting much longer. Since I was having so many contractions while i was there on the monitor they checked just to make sure I wasn't dilating. The nurse of course commented on how low little miss is. No dilation but very thin cervix, which of course we have known. Hopefully things will stay calm for 14 more days so we can make it to 36 weeks! 14 more days!! Wow!

After my trip to the hospital it was Tommy's turn. We had to take him late Friday after he started acting very strange and was stooling on the floor and had blood in his urine. They gave him antibiotics but he started back up again last night. They found no explanation other than stress due to the upcoming arrival of the twins :( He's such a sensitive cat. Hopefully he will calm down and if anything is wrong the antibiotics will help.

Appointment and ultrasound are on Wednesday. I'm anxious to see how big they are now! I feel like I'm getting to my max stretching ability! (The tank top certainly is!) 😊 crazy to see the growth in even 2 weeks time!

33 weeks!

It was a good afternoon of appointments! Cervix measured the same as last week so the Dr was happy- and very thankful for the cerclage. Without it she thinks we probably would have not gotten to this point and I surely would have dilated. We will just keep going a day/week at a time and watch for signs of labor. The ultrasound tech was amazed at how low little miss is and asked if I could tell... That's a big yes :) So once again no pictures of her, but little man finally turned his head while we were looking to get a side profile! :). He was pouting his lips the whole time! She tried to get a 3D picture of him but couldn't get a good picture. Joe was so excited to finally have a picture of little man he stuck it in his frame on his desk at work (hes not playing favorites or anything! :) The Dr wants to do another growth scan next week so we will get another full ultrasound, but the appointment is not until Wednesday. So I'll have a couple more NST's in the meantime. If we can make it 20 more days there's a chance of zero NICU time and the babies coming straight home! Crazy!!

My typical day

Since people always ask what I do all day :)  This is what occupies my brain most of the day- otherwise it's TV, magazines, organizing baby stuff....

Get up around 8:30-9am- if I have a Dr apt that day I will get up earlier and ride to work with Joe
Check blood sugar
Make breakfast with under 30g carbs
Check blood sugar 1 hour after breakfast
Give shot of heparin
Take procardia at 11am
Take a shower
Make lunch with under 45g carbs around 12pm
Check blood sugar 1 hour after lunch
Take glumetza
Around 2-3p make snack with under 30g carbs
Take procardia at 3pm
Around 4-5p make snack with under 30g carbs
Around 7-8pm have Joe figure out dinner :) and eat no more than 45 carbs
Take procardia, glumetza, aspirin, and folic acid
Check blood sugar 1 hr after dinner
Around 10p have snack with under 30g carbs consisting if mostly protein
Give another shot of heparin (Joe usually does this one)
Take procardia and glumetza at 11pm
Go to bed and set alarm for 3am and 7am to take procardia incase I'm not awake then (yeah right! :)
Get back up around 9am and repeat!

See, I have plenty to keep me busy! :)

32 weeks

Today I had another NST, which went pretty well. Babies looked good and I only had a couple contractions. Next was my cervical length ultrasound. We were surprised, and bummed, to discover it was just barely above where my Dr admits you to the hospital (thanks to little miss who is desperately trying to work her way out! :) We weren't able to see the Dr today because she was in surgery, but the ultrasound tech wanted to make sure to let her know since it was a significant change and make sure she didn't want to admit me. Luckily they called to let us know its ok to stay home for now. I think it's probably time to get that hospital bag packed though! Its a little crazy to think we are no more than 5 weeks away from meeting these little ones (and most likely closer than that!). I'm still waiting for all this to sink in!!! My attempts at sleeping are becoming more and more unsuccessful... Lots of contractions and trips up to the bathroom. I wake up feeling like my body attempted to run a marathon the day before. My sugars still seem to be doing well. I was supposed to see them also this afternoon but canceled. Thursday is another NST, and then back to the Dr Monday for another cervical length. We are getting close!!

NST

Today's NST was same old :) The babies looked good and I had the usual amount of contractions. I thought I'd show everyone the monitors and my button :) The computer screen is showing their heart rates along the top. The bottom line shows anytime I'm having a contraction.

Today's updates

Today's first appointment was my NST. The babies looked great, and as usual I was contracting every 6 minutes. I'm starting to have a lot of back pain with the contractions. Overall today I'm just feeling really uncomfortable. Next was the ultrasound. Cervix has (amazingly) remained stable! wahoo! Little Miss is really getting anxious to make her arrival- she's so low they couldn't do her head measurement with regular ultrasound, so we couldn't get a profile shot of her. Luckily the cerclage seems to be holding her off for now. She was measuring around 31 weeks 5 days, with a weight of 3lb 12oz. Little Man is still head down and wrapped around my right side. He was still looking face down so all we could see was the back of his head! He was measuring around 32 weeks 2 days, with a weight of 4lb 4oz. Amazingly this is still only 75% percentile, so that makes me feel better about their size and potential for blood sugar issues when they are born. Something really cool she did point out was all the hair they are growing, which I didn't even realize you could see on ultrasound! :) After that we talked to the Dr. We have tentatively scheduled the C/S during week 37 if the babies can hold out until then. I'm back for another NST on Friday. I asked if she was getting tired of them calling to say I was contracting. :) She said she trusts I would let her know if something wasn't right :) That's all for now!

31 weeks

Wow! 31! Still hanging in there. I'm anxious for tomorrow's appointment to see how things are going. I think I'm getting closer to moving my "home" to the hospital. Thursdays NST went the same as Mondays- I was having contractions about every 5 minutes so they called the Dr on call and she said just to make sure to take my meds and call if they didn't slow down. They are definitely worse after moving around and going in for appointments, but will slow down once I am back at home. Lately I've been having some pretty painful ones that wake me up at night every couple hours. My blood sugars have been pretty good. The "diet" most days is easy, just extremely boring and repetitive. I really miss drinks more than anything- big glasses of milk or lemonade. I will try and update after tomorrow's appointment!