Hurry up and wait!

Sunday night proved to be an exciting and frustrating roller coaster of a ride for about 36 hours. We were about to order a pizza for dinner because we are lazy like that and didn't want to cook, when contractions started coming on at 5pm ever few minutes. The threshold for acceptable contractions is six in one hour, by 20 minutes I was on twelve contractions. I promptly called L&D who wanted me to come in. This order put into plans we'd been trying to get into action for months now. Sean needed to gather my bag (packed about 75%), a bag for D (not started), I called my mother-in-law to meet us at the hospital and take D, just in case. We made it out the door in about 20 minutes, and managed to get caught in a little holiday traffic, but to the hospital in about 30-35 minutes. We parked, met my MIL, I went on to get changed and observed. Monitors confirmed babies were fine and I was indeed having labor contractions. The doctor on call came in to do an exam. I barely began to dilate at this point, I was at 2cm. The big concern was, the pregnancy had not reached 35 weeks yet, I had 2 days to go, and that the babies lungs would not be fully developed. A game plan was quickly decided that I needed an IV, two rounds of steroids to develop the lungs and give the babies their best possible chance of not being in NICU for too long, and give some meds to stop the contractions. A few hours later the contractions did not fully stop, we were told I was not going anywhere, I was being admitted, and transferred to a room. At this point, Sean and I felt for sure we would be parents in a few hours. Time ticked and ticked into the wee hours and I was given at least another shot or two by the nurse to stop labor. Finally by around 7am the contrax stopped and I was given a new game plan. The second dose of steroids would be administered at 10:30am, and that point on they would no longer attempt to stop labor. They also weren't going to do anything to induce labor. During the wait process, I began to dilate slightly further to 4cm, but still the babies didn't drop yet. We were in for another night of waiting. Tuesday morning my nerves were shot, I was exhausted, sore from the bed, frustrated, confused, and probably every other emotion there is. I'd seen four shift changes of nurses and doctors. We were getting to be over it if nothing was going to happen. 8am, new doctor: he let me know that no changes meant  I was free to go. They successfully bought more time.

Well. I was hugely relieved to be going home and the babies having more time to bake. I admit, I am/was also a bit disappointed to be leaving the hospital still pregnant. I'm now on bed rest and can only do minimal tasks and go to doctor's appointments. There was good news to come out of this "trial run" of L&D was we learned both babies are currently head down. Every doctor that saw me was VERY pro vaginal birth. Each doctor was also trained in doing multiple births where the second may be breech or vertex. One doctor took the time to make a great case for an epidural, which I wasn't going to consider unless things got very hard to handle. A cesarean birth or an emergency C-section can happen for many reasons, because of this, and epidural was advised in the event an emergency c-section needs to be performed, they have a line set in place to up my dosage of meds and perform surgery. If I was not on an epidural and an emergency section needed to be done, I would need to be put under general anesthesia and would not know what happened. I would not be able to hold my babies immediately, I'd be unaware of any possible complications, etc. The epidural makes sense, there's less risk in the long run, not to mention pain if the second baby needs manual assistance coming out (insert squirm factor). 

So, here we sit and wait. I'm contracting regularly but using that as a baseline to feel for increased duration and frequency before the big event. I had a good doctor appointment today and an uneventful NST (non-stress test). Tomorrow I have an ultrasound appointment to check growth and everything else. I know we are closer than farther away from everything happening. I just want the twins to be as healthy as possible with an easy delivery to the world. We'll keep you posted!