A brief hospital stay...

Just got discharged from Fairview Hospital. It's been a dramatic couple of days.

I had a check up with my doctor on Wednesday. I was 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced. She decided it was time to get the steroid shots. Since I've been having some contractions on and off, she wanted to admit me to the hospital so they could make sure I was able to get the two steroid shots in without going into labor. She also did a quick ultrasound (#12) and both babies looked good - though baby A is really, really low which is causing a lot of the pressure and dilation (she is trying to escape!)

I had my first steroid shot at the hospital (which is given in the butt and hurts!) and then they hooked me up to the monitor. I was having a lot of contractions (every two to three minutes) which was making the doctors nervous. They did another vaginal check on me and I was 3 cm dilated. At that point that started giving me various medicines to stop/slow the contractions. The first one didn't work, but procardia finally was able to slow the contractions. At that point, the main goal was to keep me from going into delivery before I could get the next steroid shot (they have to be given 24 hours apart). Anyway, by 11 pm, the contractions were finally easing down. I had a lot of contractions again around 4 am and they almost had to give me another med but they stopped after an hour. Did not get much sleep last night obviously.

Today was pretty low key. They finally took me off the IV and monitoring device and then I just had to wait around until I got the second steroid shot. I got discharged around six and I'm back home now. Still on bed rest, still doing the home monitoring twice a day.

I think the hardest part of the hospital stay was that when I got there at 4, I hadn't eaten since lunch at one not realizing they would put me on a clear liquids only restriction! That was torture! They finally let me eat real food around 10 am the next morning. Jello, warm broth and Popsicles were not cutting it!

Doctor is optimistic that I can probably make it to 32 weeks but skeptical I'll make it to 34. At this point, every day we can hold on makes me feel a little better. I'll be 31 weeks on Saturday. And now that we've had the steroids, the babies' lungs will be good and strong. We'll see what the specialist says tomorrow.

The good news is that every time they monitored the babies, the girls are active with strong heart beats. Now if they could just stay put a little longer....