Let's start back at week 20 of the pregnancy, because I think that's about where we left off.
WOW! Twins! Can you believe it?? I didn't really wrap my head around it until I could start distinguishing their kicks. Stella was first (baby A) head way down in my pelvis but her long little legs stretched all the way up to my ribs and kicked away as she pleased! Elsie was on my left side of my pelvis head down with her feet kicking away at my right side and at her sisters legs. On the ultrasounds we would watch them have little wars with their feet and all I could think was... "God, is this payback??"
I wasn't a bad child. I actually like to think that I was pretty good... but I had my moments. Moments that I wouldn't take back if I could because I learned lots of lessons from them. They taught me how much my parents loved me, even if I screamed at them or rolled my eyes with a terrible attitude. They taught me that I wouldn't get my way by being an angry teenager!
So now all I could think was two little Lindsay's running around torturing their parents... oooh dear.
The first torture they didn't know they were ensuing was gestational diabetes. We found out I had that at 24 weeks. The Dr's told me that it was fairly common with twins and that I shouldn't worry. They did put me on insulin right away because my only bad blood sugar in the day was my fasting blood sugars in the morning and I couldn't really use my diet to control that. Every night before I would attempt to sleep (I was already getting pretty uncomfortable at this point and didn't sleep well) Ryan would inject insulin into me. Fun.
At this point I thought... well if this is as bad as it gets that's not so bad. Night sickness for the first 20 weeks or so and now diabetes... I can handle this.
At this point we are going to ultrasounds once every 2 weeks. With our type of twins, mono-di (one placenta, two sacs), they like to make sure the twins are growing at the same rate. This is due to a condition called twin to twin transfusion (where one twin would take more blood and nutrients than the other and grow more leaving the other twin behind). Our girls looked GREAT! Never more than 2% different in size according to the ultrasounds. We were sitting pretty until gestational week 26.
The Perinatologist went to a conference on twin to twin and learned of a new way to scan to see if one baby was possibly anemic. So here I am at my first ultrasound that I ever had to go to on my own and bam they find that Elsie was possibly anemic. She wasn't anemic enough to be concerned yet but they wanted to keep a close eye on her so we went to ultrasounds twice a week.
Ugh, now I'm a little worried! I hope I can keep these babes in me!! My personal goal was to be working (not on bedrest) until April 23 (my brothers birthday). And then to keep them in me until May 12 (my mom's birthday). It felt nice to have some goals to strive for. Well, one day while going to an ultrasound (the 2nd one I went to alone) the nurse noted that I looked rather swollen and asked to take my blood pressure. The perinatologist deemed my BP too high to go back to work so off I went to bed rest.
Now, remember, I was working 8 hour days prior to these people putting me on "bed rest" and what exactly is "bed rest" anyway (remember I told you I was a stubborn teenager...?)?? I didn't know! so I would lay on the couch for a few more hours than normal but I still needed to eat and get water and whatnot so I was up... and of course I wanted to go out to eat with my friends before I would never have the freedom to again! That was my bad. They put me on bed rest on a Thursday and by the next Tuesday I had another appointment with my Dr's. They took my blood pressures again, discussed them and sent me straight to the Hospital.
I was informed that I would be spending the night to do a urine test and some blood work then was going to be able to go home and be on STRICT bed rest until the babies decided to come. Well that all fell apart when I sat up to eat some lunch one afternoon and the nurse took my blood pressure. I don't know if I was excited to eat or really had that high of pressures when I was sitting up but those blood pressures landed me in the hospital until the birth of the girls. And I bawled. and bawled.
So nurses took care of me for 8 days. One week after I was admitted I had a few phone calls that rose my pressures sky high and they just never went down! 24 hours later my Dr. walked in and asked how noon sounded? Ryan asked noon on what day? and she said, "today!" So I quick got to calling our parents and Ryan wanted to run home quick to change and shower... that is when the nurses came flying in and asked him where he was going?! "Oh no, Dad, you aren't going anywhere. Noon doesn't work for us. You guys are going to have these babies right NOW!"
It was a good thing I didn't have time to think took long about what was happening! (I'm sure it would have made my blood pressure go up! ;)
More to come... stay tuned...
-L
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