Let's call this the worst 24 hours since I arrived here. For starters, I'm fine and so are the babies, right now anyway. After a very quiet Monday and Tuesday, and a Wednesday full of visitors and laughing, I awoke Thursday morning to more ridiculous bleeding. I hadn't even gotten out of bed yet. The nurses came and cranked up the bright lights (thanks for the warning, by the way) and hooked up all the monitors. The babies were in good shape, and the doctor on call came to do a quick ultrasound scan determining they all had an appropriate amount of fluid and placentas were in place. But I had to stay hooked up to the machines all day, which is very constricting. It's annoying to have to ask someone if I can go to the bathroom. Finally at 4:00, after no more bleeding, they let me take a shower. Hallelujah.
Things were pretty calm the rest of the evening, and I had big plans to go to bed early having went to bed late the night before and been woken up with commotion that morning. Jesse and Axel called later in the evening to check in and report on their day, which had been kind of exciting, too. One of Jesse's dad's sheds collapsed in the snow - the one that was housing Jesse's '64 Pontiac convertible. Doh. It was dark when he went to look at it, but he was pretty sure one of the rafters or something landed right down the middle of it going the long way. That car hauled around some of our wedding party, so hopefully it's able to be salvaged. Otherwise I guess we'll have some insurance money to put toward a new family bus which we now require.
About 3:00 this morning I got up to go to the bathroom, and wouldn't you know, more bleeding. I called my nurse (who did not barge in and turn the lights on, but she is usually my overnight nurse and is used to coming in and giving me pills in the dark - she must have night vision) and she came in and hooked up the baby monitors; everyone was still doing just as well as before. We had to leave them on for an hour - did you know CBS news is on at that time? Hopefully they rerun the segment about Super Bowl snacks later in the day, because I'm pretty sure no one is planning his party at 3:30 on Friday morning.
Since everyone was in good shape I could be unhooked and go back to sleep. At 8:00 I had another biophysical, which showed all the babies with good movements, good breathing, the hiccups, and plenty of fluid and intact placentas. Yet another doctor that I hadn't met came in to give me her opinion after the test. She said having two bleeds in 24 hours is not a good thing. It's not an instant emergency, but I'm now on high alert. If I am to have any more of this they will probably take the babies at that time. They are fine but keeping them in to see if I continue to bleed is not good. Another day or two will not matter to them (they need weeks) but it will matter to my health. My hemoglobin has dropped a whole point since I got here, which is apparently a lot but still normal. It will drop a couple of points during the C-section, so they can't afford to have it too low going in, because then I get into blood transfusion territory. It's not the end of the world, but they'd like to avoid it.
Other than all this bleeding nonsense I still feel really good and the babies are doing well, so it's irritating to be on high alert for something that may or may not happen again. I think this is probably all happening to remind me that there's actually nothing I can really do about it, consciously - the babies, my body, and God I suppose have their own ideas. John Lennon sang, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." That is kind of our theme for this whole triplet business.
On another downside I seem to be getting poked with needles more often these days. They draw blood regularly to have a current record, and I have an IV line in should I need an emergency transfusion, and it has to get changed every four days. The labor nurses tried to do it the first night I got here but they suck at it, so they poke a few times and wiggle their needles and then say, "Oh, it didn't work. We'll get the IV team up here." Then they call the people who specialize in this and they have numbing stuff, plus it takes them like two seconds and they're done. I say let these people do their jobs if that's what they're here for! Since that first night they've just called the IV nurses right away, until Wednesday night when my nurse thought she could do it herself again. So she poked around on the side of my wrist, which looked like bone to me, not a vein, and sure enough, it didn't work. I think I offended her when I asked if the IV people weren't here this late at night (which they were), but good grief. Let them do it.
I hear other women in labor in the rooms around me, and they are in pain! One night someone was yelling like Tarzan, which I can giggle at in the privacy of my own room. Some people need to yell, and the rest of us get an epidural, I guess. This is long again, sorry. Hopefully I'll have little to report next time, but who knows. Remember John Lennon. . .
Just want to say that I am enjoying reading your posts. I have subscribed to them so that I get an update when there is something new. You were always entertaining in high school and that obviously hasn't changed. Thinking of you and those babies and hope that you can keep them in as long as possible so that they are big and healthy!
ReplyDelete