Day 41 - Inpatient Stay

I hope that everyone's week is off to a great start. Ours has been very stressful and frustrating. Of course yesterday was a typical Monday with all of the problems that Monday's seem to bring. The difficulties started off with the morning monitoring when Baby B had heart rate decelerations following my contractions. She followed that up with an absent flow on her ductus doppler during the ultrasound. This is one of the things the doctor’s are watching for to indicate problems with the tangling of the cords - which I will get back too.


Upon returning to my room the doctor came in and said that due to all of the complications we were going to get all of the predelivery medications in my system. I was going to be getting magnesium for 12 hours which is something that is used to reduce the risk of the babies having cerebral palsy. I would also be getting my second round of steroid shots and be put back on the medication to stop contractions. It was a very long day that resulted in 13 hours of continuous baby monitoring, 3 different ultrasounds and two different types of drugs to control my contractions.

On Tuesday morning I was hooked back up to the monitors for the morning session and I was still contracting every two minutes. Only about every third or fourth one was uncomfortable for me.

During the morning ultrasound they took a cervical length measurement to see if the contractions were making any progress. Unfortunately, the contractions are doing what contractions do best. My cervix shortened from a 34 to a 23. Below 29 is considered not good and means restrictions on movement and activity level. Since the contractions were still coming the doctor put me on yet another med to control contractions and this one finally did the trick. The babies looked about the same as yesterday during the ultrasound and so the doctor increased the monitoring intensity to every six hours and also is doing two ultrasounds a day to check the ductus dopplers.

One major concern currently is the condition of the babies’ cords. At the current moment each baby has approximately only 4 to 6 inches of cord before the cords are entangled. They believe they have also identified a true knot in the cords now. This brings up even more concern for the well being of the babies and adds only more worry for us.

Currently we are 16 days until the delivery of the girls and only two days from 30 weeks gestation. Each day we can postpone delivery of the babies will really help them out. We are praying that god is keeping a close eye on them to keep them safe until their entry into the world comes. We are also hoping that tomorrow is a complication free day!!!! Thank you so much of all of your thoughts and prayers. I will update with any new developments or I will update at 30 weeks on Thursday! Have a good evening!