33 weeks - an unexpected victory

We made it. 33+1 in my books, 33 in my OB's (no idea why but whatever) and I never thought I'd be so surprised and grateful to say that. I've been in hospital since Dec 30, admitted with preeclampsia, it was an insanely intense and terrifying evening with a real possibility that babies would need to be delivered.  Spoiler alert: they're still cooking!

On Tuesday afternoon I went for a regular appt at my OB's office, I really expected nothing exciting to happen, I hadn't even had a recent ultrasound. Evidently there have been some significant weight gain since my previous appointment, my blood pressure was elevated and they found protein in my urine.  All of these signs led my OB to send me right over to the hospital to get checked out at L&D.  I, of course, began to panic although she told me not to (yeah right).  I went straight home and grabbed H (who had been sound asleep napping) and tried to calmly tell him we need to head to the hospital. How you can say that and not incite panic is beyond me.

When we got there they repeated the urine test ran some blood test and did an NST to see how the babies were doing.  They asked about a whole bunch of other warning signs that I unfortunately had to say yes to; I wasn't experiencing them that day but I had in the last few weeks or month of my pregnancy.  The nurse quite honestly looked at me and said, "I don't think you're going home."  The on-call OB came over to see us and he very strongly tried to prepare us that the babies may in fact need to be delivered that night. It was terrifying and everything was moving so quickly our heads were just spinning. My lab work definitely supported the diagnosis of preeclampsia.  They told me I would be admitted to the hospital so that I can be very closely monitored. That involved getting hooked up to the mag drip, saline fluids, bloodwork every six hours, the catheter, regular BP readings (bi-hourly) and continuous monitoring of the babies. Very fortunately, my condition stabilized and the babies continued to do well.

The next day was rough, I won't lie. I was hooked up to some many different cords and machines and I was really quite distraught over the quick and crazy turn of events.  I just kept praying that these babies did NOT show up in 2014, that's not even the right year!!  I'm supposed to have 2015 babies!!  I had inquired about the steroid that helps babies lungs develop when they're likely to be delivered early, so we got the first dose of that in the morning of the 31st and then you have to wait 24 hours to get the second so we just kept praying that we made it to then. Ideally you want the last dose of the steroid to be administered at least 24 hours before delivery, so making it until Friday became a very big goal in our books.  So we made it to 2015, huge victory, and then we made it to Friday, woo hoo!!

***continued on Saturday***

I got tied up doing a long NST last night so here we are, blogging on Sat night with inside babies still!!!  Ok so where am I?  My brain is so scattered, shocking right?  We saw the high risk, chief of OB doctor (Dr. A) yesterday, he was awesome. I have to say all of the OBs have been super amazing. Taking their time to go through everything with us, make sure we understand what's happening and why, answer all our questions.  Dr. A basically went through everything and we discussed how this is really all a balancing act - weighing my health and stability - BP, platelet count, other warning signs that the preeclampsia is revving up, against the babies well being and ability to thrive inside vs outside the womb. There is a decrease in their growth and blood flow from the placentas to the babies so I go for daily ultrasounds to ensure it doesn't get any worse.  We are doing NSTs twice a day and checking their heart rates another two times a day.  When any of these things change for the worse, the babies will be coming out via c section. So we basically are just in a wait and see pattern, praying for another day at a time.

This has taken me like 15 attempts to write so I'm just going to leave this here.  Every day is a victory in my world, every day that they stay inside and we all stay healthy and stable is something to celebrate. I want to do everything I can to give them the best shot, whatever that means for me.

Babies, I hope you know how very much mommy and daddy love you. I can't wait to meet you but please don't rush out!!  You are my heart and soul, you are a part of me in a way I can never fully describe. I love you and all I want is what is best for you. If you can just stay put a little while longer we'll all be that much better off, so please just keep cooking in there. I love you with every ounce of my being, with every part of me.
Xoxo