29w5d: PPROM

It's been 6 days since I was diagnosed with PPROM (preterm premature rupture of membranes), and admitted to the hospital. I'm still in shock that this happened to me. Apparently PPROM occurs in only 3% of pregnancies and on Friday morning, I joined that small minority of pregnancies.

As I creep nearer and nearer to 34 weeks, I have been peppering the nurses with questions about the labor and delivery process. They have all been up front with me about how painful and messy it all is, and I appreciate their honesty. I do have a long history of severe anxiety though, and asked them about ways to cope with the "fear of pain." One of my nurses (Jill) told me to ask my doctor about nitrous oxide ("laughing gas"). She suggested this when I told her I was planning on having an epidural, but I was fearful of the pain that might come with an epidural. I discussed this with my doctor and he told me to request nitrous oxide before the epidural to relax me. He said the anesthesiologist wouldn't let me inhale the gas as the epidural was going in, but I am crossing my fingers the nitrous oxide will have a lasting effect through the epidural, to the point where my anxiety will be reduced. My nurses also told me they give Dilaudid for patients with contractions, but not dilated, and too soon for the epidural. I wanted to ask my doctor that question, but I was too embarrassed to ask. I understand women can get anxious before birth day, but I feel like I take it to a new level...

A typical day at the hospital consists of round the clock antibiotics. The first two days I was given lactated ringer solution fluids, ampicillin and magnesium. My nurses described magnesium as "flu in a bottle." It just makes you feel terrible and weak. I received two steroid injections and a Tdap injection. I stopped IVs Sunday and take oral medications only. I take oral antibiotics every 8 hours and a prenatal vitamin once daily. On an as needed basis, I take Pepcid, Colace, Diclegis, and at night, they offer Ambien. I felt guilty taking Ambien, but the doctor has OK'ed it and told me everyone on the floor takes it. It's so hard sleeping here, and it simultaneously helps with anxiousness. I suck up the guilt and try to remember the doctor OK'ed it. Twice a day, we do fetal monitoring and babies have been doing amazing. Other than one night with brief decelerations, which they checked on ultrasound, and they received a perfect 8/8 score. According to the tech and doctors, we cannot be sure which twin's sac ruptured, but it appears the girl's sac broke because she has the least fluid. They measure their fluid using the "deepest vertical pocket" of fluid and as long as it's over 2, it's fine. The boy's fluid measures 2.4 and the girl's fluid measures 2.1. In singleton pregnancies, they use the term AFI (amniotic fluid index), but not in twins normally.  On ultrasound, it appears the girl twin is no longer twin B. She migrated down and is now twin A (closer to the cervix) and both twins are both head down. Every day, I do "leak" amniotic fluid and doctors tell me I will leak until I deliver, so I wear this embarrassing huge blue pad that makes me feel like I'm 90 years old. *sigh*

I had a few visitors today which was so nice. It made me feel human again. Everyone in my church has been extremely helpful from bringing my husband food to bringing me some sort of gift in the hospital. I still haven't announced my pregnancy officially yet on facebook, and only family and few friends know, so it's nice that the few that know, care. It helps me from stressing out and keeps my mind from wandering. I hope they continue to remember me the next 30 days.

Twin Pregnancy: 23 weeks + 2 days

Second trimester has been slightly easier than first trimester. Now, instead of my head in a toilet vomiting everything, I am able to eat most things (still can't eat spaghetti and some chicken ingredient foods).  In fact, I get sudden hunger pangs, where I go from zero to one hundred in a second, and I need something to eat right then. Luckily, since I can tolerate more foods, I have been eating more at home, and less out to eat. Which has saved us a lot of money. Now that I am seeing prices of baby items, I'm really trying to be more fiscally responsible with finances. 

I had acid reflux in the first trimester periodically, but now I have it nearly 24 hours a day. There's no "heartburn," but more like the sensation that food is stuck in the back of my throat. It doesn't go away with Zantac 150mg twice daily either. What I did find, was that milk of magnesia helped resolve that food-stuck in my throat sensation well. Only problem is, the taste milk of magnesia makes me nauseous. It also is effective with constipation and deemed okay for use in pregnancy. As my OB put it, "drink as much as you want. It's fine." With constipation being a common symptom in pregnancy, many women resort to milk of magnesia, as Colace (I found) was ineffective). Constipation effected me more in the first trimester. So far, I find if I drink at least 80oz of water daily, constipation relatively resolves itself. OB recommends a gallon a day, but between me peeing every 20 minutes, I don't think my body could physically tolerate any more water. Sometimes, I will come out of the restroom, only to go back 30 seconds later to pee again. Husband jokes he can't take me around any more to run simple errands, because I have to pee as soon as we walk in and then 10 minutes after. In order to help with the pressure on my bladder, I find myself having to take small steps and walk slowly. I'm sure I look ridiculous, along with my pregnancy waddle. 

The most painful symptom I have had, started yesterday. I think one or both of the babies have confused my cervix for a punching bag. I nearly cried last night they were so active. My mom is concerned they may be contractions, but at this time, they're irregular anyway.

The other day, I went to Costco, around lunch time, and I hadn't eat lunch yet. I went, not hungry for lunch yet and planning to eat once I got home. During this errand, in Costco, I started breaking out into a cold sweat, feeling lightheaded, and dizzy. I've been experiencing shortness of breath for the past few weeks, but my shortness of breath was even worse during this dizzy spell. The dizzy spell lasted an hour or more. I wasn't even hungry, so I wondered why I was experiencing these symptoms.  I called my mom to let her know to stay on the phone with me, in case anything happened, and I fainted. Thank goodness for moms. When I got home, I immediately downed a protein shake, and I felt much better. Now, I always try to eat before running an errand to avoid a scary dizzy spell. 

Just last week, we were at a huge public event where thousands of people attended. I had a sudden pang of bladder pressure and urge to pee. I held it for an hour, until we could find a restroom. Holding it started to become so painful. I found port-potties to use, with a huge line. I still can't believe I resorted to this, but I approached the he cop near it, and told him I needed to use the restroom right now. He said to stand in line. Without even trying, I broke down in tears, telling him my situation. He did probably what every chivalrous male would have done and got me to the front of the line. There were a lot of angry people, but I had heard, that holding your urine too long can cause contractions, and like I stated, it already had become very painful. I am so embarrassed to even admit that I did this though. Don't judge me to badly. 

With all these typical symptoms and my ever growing rounded belly, it was becoming difficult to hide this from family. We told my in-laws during a camping trip that I was pregnant (didn't tell them I was having twins though) at almost 15 weeks. We told my family I was pregnant with twins between 15 to 16 weeks. My grandma was ecstatic, calling me "her successor." She had fraternal twin girls, but has no idea we used IVF. At 20 weeks, my husband's side of the family and us, went on another camping trip, and for my husband's birthday, we told his side of the family we were having boy girl twins. We didn't do it in any cute sort of way, which I kind of regret, but my husband was bursting to tell them. They were shocked. Some inquired about IVF, but my husband denied it, I just don't need or want anyone's judgment to weigh on my pregnancy. I already have an extra 15 pounds on my belly, and don't need anyone else's judgement to weigh me down further. 

Kudos to anyone that is open and honest about their whole process though. 

At around 21 weeks, I found decent cribs at Walmart on sale, which I nabbed immediately, even though I had promised myself I would not buy anything until closer to 24 weeks. I am glad I didn't pass up the good deal though. We still need crib mattresses. Who knew a decent crib mattress could be so expensive! I am trying to do research on them. Speaking of research, I've been trying to learn everything I can about strollers. I ordered the City Select Lux yesterday, because it was on sale from normally an $829 price tag to $639. I may return it, if I find a used on for half that price though. $639 doesn't include the cost of two infant car seats and two adapters. 

I hope to write more frequently and am sad I haven't been writing as often as I would have liked. 

14 weeks 6 days pregnant with twins

I told myself I would blog consistently so that I could always look back on my first pregnancy. Every time I thought about sitting down to blog though, I felt "too sick," "too tired," or had so much to say, I felt "too overwhelmed." The general theme of this pregnancy from 6 weeks 5 days even up until today, is nausea and vomiting. Mid my 12th week, I also experienced bleeding with quarter sized clots for one day. I attributed it to possibly stopping my progesterone and estrogen pills the first day of my 12th week. My OB did an ultrasound 1-2 days later, and the babies were bouncing around with healthy heartbeats. On my 13th week, I started feeling safer, being in the second trimester, that my chance of miscarrying were low, and the genetics testing (nuchal translucency an trisomy blood test) returned normal. My in-laws still didn't know I was pregnant, and my husband was dying (begging me) to tell them. His family had planned a camping trip when I would be exactly 14 weeks pregnant, and I gave my husband the okay to announce that I was pregnant. We said nothing about it being a twin pregnancy though. As fate annoyingly would have it, I started bleeding bright red and pink blood without clots an hour after he announced. I didn't have reception in the woods, so we just prayed everything would be okay and finished the last 2 days of the camp out. 

I called my doctor at 8am on Monday to let them know what happened Saturday, and they immediately saw me within 2 hours of my call. The ultrasound showed two healthy babies wiggling around with healthy heart beats. He did note a possible subchorionic hemorrhage on my left side though. He referred me to a perinatologist. 

I had a long ultrasound with the ultrasonographer and a consult with their doctor. It was such an amazing experience. My sonographer asked me if I wanted to know the genders as soon as she spotted both babies, and I enthusiastically told her I would. Baby A, was a "he" and was obvious! Baby B, was a "she" and also obvious. I would have been happy with any result, but if we had done PGS testing, this is how my husband and I would have chosen. Otherwise, she did not note any subchorionic hematoma. The perinatologist did note that baby A's placenta was 9mm away from my cervix, which may or may not have caused the bleeding. If it would have been over the cervix, that would have been called "placenta previa." She said the placenta would not grow over my cervix because the placenta would grow away from it, which made me feel better. 

My husband was working, and didn't attend the appointment, so I got to think of ways to surprise him when he got home. This was exciting to me, because nothing in IVF is really a surprise because everything is so meticulously planned. I quickly ordered 2 custom cream filled cupcakes for him. 

When I got him, he was already showered and ready to slice open some cupcakes to find out my secret. He didn't hesitate. He grabbed a plastic knife and plunged it through. He selected the blue cream filled cup cake first. He was ecstatic. I think every father wants to know he has a son, right? He didn't even stop to take a bite from the $10 overpriced custom cupcake before slicing through the next cupcake. Again, he was ecstatic. Every father wants to know they're going to have a daughter, right? I took video of the whole thing, but to spare my anonymity, will not post it here. 

We are overjoyed with this news and it makes all my sickness worth it!