I have completely neglected my blog for the last several months and I have not updated on my pregnancy near as much as I did when I was pregnant with Scout. Life is just different once you have a child. Between work, taking care of the house, and making time to play with Scout...by the end of the day I am exhausted. Needless to say...the poor twins already seem to be getting the short end of the stick when it comes to documenting their life. I am hoping I can some how manage to do a better job of keeping track of things once I feel normal again.
Speaking of normal....
Another reason I have not been blogging is because I haven't been able to feel my fingers on either hand for about six weeks now. It's due to all the extra fluid putting pressure on my median nerve and causing carpel tunnel syndrome. It should hopefully go away shortly after the babies are born ...but typing a lot is really no fun right now. I suppose it goes with out saying that being pregnant with twins is a lot harder than being pregnant with a single baby, but not for the obvious reasons. My belly is HUGE now, but I haven't gained as much weight overall as I did with Scout. I am way more uncomfortable though. I haven't had a lot of swelling until recently which is good, but everything else is harder. It's harder to move, harder to breath, harder to feel comfortable in any position. I have had sciatica off and on for several weeks due to how the babies are positioned. I have said this countless times over the last couple of months...but I really do not know how in the world women can carry more than two babies. HOW??? After carrying two for 34 weeks, the thought of having 3 or 4 in there just completely blows my mind! Wow!
Ok, enough complaining :)
I still have moments where I really cant believe I am carrying two babies. Even knowing that twins are in my family and it was always a possibility, I still can't believe I am going to be the mother of twins. It's sort of scary and overwhelming still, but such a blessing!
So..overdue update:
A few weeks ago we went in for our scheduled sonogram to get measurements and weights of both the babies. At that visit it was determined that Abby Callahan was weighing 4 pounds and 3 ounces and Colton was weighing 3 pounds and 2 ounces. Colton was also measuring small in the abdomen which brought his overall numbers down in to the 31% whereas Abby Callahan was in the 66% . Everything looked good with everything else but Dr. Stevenson felt it was necessary to refer us to a maternal/fetal specialist to get a more detailed sonogram and to watch Colton's fetal growth % more closely. So the following Thursday we went to see the specialist. I was pretty nervous about it but after an hour and half of looking at both babies I felt a lot better. At that visit Colton was weighing 3 pounds and 14 ounces and AC was weighing in at 4 pounds and 12 ounces. Colton's fetal growth % was still significantly lower than AC's (21%) so we were instructed to get bi-weekly sonograms in order to watch his growth closer and make sure he didn't continue to drop. He was receiving adequate blood flow and obviously growing but for whatever reason, AC is getting more of the nutrients than he is. If Colton's fetal % continues to drop that would be reason to induce labor and get them out. Everything else they looked at on both babies looked great. Both seem to have very healthy hearts, both have normal head measurements, diaphragms are contracting, blood flow looks good...all in all it was a good report.
So we left that visit on November 15th with plans of spending the weekend and the next week with Scout celebrating Thanksgiving and anticipating our next Dr. visit which would have been on this past Wednesday. On Tuesday I woke up feeling nauseous and just extremely exhausted. I spent pretty much all day on the couch and just felt completely drained. I monitored my blood pressure throughout the day and it was running a little high for me. Finally at about 2:30 I decided to drive to CVS to take my blood pressure there to compare numbers. My blood pressure at CVS was 155/84 which is quite high for me.
I called Dr. Stevenson's nurse and she called me back in an hour and said to go ahead and go to triage and get hooked up on the monitors and Dr. Stevenson would meet us there. So Kris picked up
Scout from school and off we went. Of course on the way to the hospital there is a wreck on 35 and we spend way too much time sitting in typical Dallas traffic. I am progressively feeling worse and growing very impatient ( that is my usual feeling when driving in Dallas at 4:30 though). When we got to Baylor, they hooked me up to the monitor and my BP was still high and there were a large amount of ketones in my urine which indicates severe dehydration. At some point Kris left to go meet Kelly and Lewis so that they could pick up Scout and take her to their house. Before I could even get anyone's attention, I managed to throw up all over my room. It was so bad, that they had to move me to another room. I really don't think I have ever threw up that much at one time..it was pretty awful! We ended up spending 6 hours in triage hooked up to the monitors. I am already 3 cm dilated and 50% effaced. Also my platelet count was low. Dr. Stevenson thought it was best to send us up to AntePartum for a 24 hour urine collection test. The test came back with high amounts of protein, which along with my high blood pressure meant that I had preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is a gestational disease that can show up after the 20th week of pregnancy in which the mother develops high blood pressure and high levels of protein in their urine. It isn't known what exactly causes preeclampsia but it does seem to be more common in women who are carrying more than one baby. So we are here until the babies are born. Thanksgiving wasn't exactly spent how we had planned but Jonne was nice enough to watch Scout and our house for us while we have been here, and Josh, Lana, and Jonne made and brought us Thanksgiving Dinner. We have had so many people calling, texting, and facebooking to let us know that they are praying for us, and Kris' family came over on Saturday and helped get the house ready for when we get home. Mandi, Blake, Kelly and Jonne helped Kris get the nursery finished, Scout's new bed painted, the Christmas tree and lights up and all the new clothes for the twins washed. We SO appreciate the help! Our sweet neighbors sent us a care package and also a little Christmas tree to liven up the room a little. Our other neighbors have helped watch Knox at a moments notice and sent Kris with a stack of magazines for me to flip threw while I am stuck in my room. Our friend April spent most of yesterday afternoon keeping me company while Kris went home to work on the house. We have been very well taken care of!
The doctor has told us that she doesn't expect us to be here much longer since my BP seems to be ramping up. The babies are looking good on the monitors and and we are having labs run again tonight to make sure my platelets haven't dropped any further. We are far enough along in the pregnancy that the babies should be able to avoid the NICU and I may even be able to avoid a C-Section. Pray that happens so that we can get home ASAP.
I feel a little robbed of those last few days with Scout before the twins come. I have definitely had some moments when all I want to do is cry because I miss her so much. She runs me ragged, but I love that little tornado and I miss hearing her say "good morning momma, good morning" . I miss laying down with her at night. I even miss watching Dora over and over and over. That has been the hardest part these last five days. I know we will be home soon enough and we will all be together, but just pray I can be patient in the meantime. I know we could be here for a lot worse reasons than waiting on two precious babies. We are all very ready to meet them!
I also want to say that I have the best husband ever! He has been here with me every night so far sleeping on the most uncomfortable bed/chair ever! I keep telling him its ok for him to go sleep at home if he needs to but he insists on being here with me. He worked hard yesterday getting the house in order since we had a lot we were planning on getting done over the weekend. He has been so wonderful and loves me way more than I probably deserve. I wouldn't want to go through life with anyone else. I love you Kris.
Here are our last several sonogram pictures of the babies.(Baby A is boy, Baby B is girl)
Can't wait to see them for real!
I will update if there are any other changes. Thanks to everyone for all your prayers!!
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| Colton |
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| Abby Callahan |
