The Twin Story (Part 4)

The doctor told me the day of 24 Weeks, 1 day into my pregnancy that we would take this whole bed rest thing in chunks.  My first “Goal” was to make it to 24 weeks over the weekend which I had done.  Now my goal was 28 weeks (from there 32…then 36 for delivery).

So what in the world was I going to do stuck in a hospital bed for 4 weeks??

A nurse came in shortly after the news and told me now that I was in for the long haul she wanted to change my room to a room with a view.  So she helped me pack my things and gave me a nice room with a huge window looking outside to a mall across the way (before my window faced another window from another hospital wing.

I also have amazing friends and a great church family that stopped by with things to help me pass my time like a laptop to borrow, crosswords, snacks, etc.  

I watched WAY too much reality TV and started a “read your bible in a year” program with a goal of doing 1 week worth of reading every day.

You would THINK I’d catch up on sleep, but at the time I was being woken up every 6 hours for meds and so at 6AM they would come in and I could never go to sleep after that.

One of THE hardest parts of bedrest came just a few days after I was admitted.  My kids were starting school.  For the first time I was missing it.  Elijah was starting Kindergarten and I wouldn’t be there for his FIRST DAY of starting his “student” life!  It may not seem like a big deal and I am positive my kids didn’t notice, but this was hard for me.

Justin helped and brought the kids (and dinner) to visit after their first day so they could tell me all about it.

From that point things are a blur and I cannot remember what happened when, but here are some highlights:

• I found out the contraction medication I was on could not be given to me if my blood pressure was below 100/70.  I can’t recall a time in my life I have ever been over 100 or over 70.

• The nurses checking my BP were giving me the medication anyway

• There was a couple of times the nurses were going to give me the medication without checking and I had to remind them (and ended up not being able to take it)

• Because I couldn’t take the magic contraction pills they had to give me some injection (It was SUPER painful)

• They did an ultrasound and babies were healthy, but my cervix had gotten down to a .5

• They gave me a round of steroids to help with babies’ lungs (which causes contractions by the way).  THIS caused me to ache from head to toe.  Like a deep ache that made me want to curl up and cry.  I did not handle steroids well. 

• My surrogacy group ladies came to have our group meeting in my hospital room!  This was AMAZING! I love those ladies.

And that is the “in between” time of my bed rest.  So here I was…27 weeks, 3 days… I was almost at my 28 week mark.