Monday, September 15, 2008

Week 34, almost 35

Girls still both doing fine, but wow what a week. A brief timeline:

Wednesday: I catch the flu. Called in sick to work, Jenn and I basically spent most of the day in bed. By the evening I was feeling better, was able to eat some Jello and soup.
Thursday: I was scheduled to be out of work anyway as Jenn had two sonograms that day, in the morning with our OB and the afternoon with the specialist. Felt OK, maybe dragging a bit but was able to keep real food down, no big deal. We go to the sonograms, all is looking great. That night, Jenn throws up. Uh oh.
Friday morning: Jenn is throwing up again that morning. I drop off her laptop at her work for repair that morning, and when I call her for directions she's sounding like death warmed over. I go to work for about an hour and tell Penni I've got to head home the rest of the day to take care of Jenn. Stop at the store on the way home and get the usual "I'm sick" stuff; soup, 7Up, Gatorade, Jello, etc. I get home and try to get some liquids in Jenn, and she can't even keep Gatorade down. I head out again after a bit and get some Pedialite after doing a little internet research on how best to stop dehydration. After sleeping some Jenn's doing a little better, she's keeping down water and the Pedialite, and by the evening is able to handle some toast.
Friday night: Jenn has been having contractions all day, but around 7-8 they start getting more frequent, and, more troubling, more severe. She grins and bears it for a while, we hem and haw some trying to decide what to do, and eventually err on the side of caution and head to Wesley. We get checked into labor and delivery there, and by then Jenn's having contractions 3-5 minutes apart and is starting to think this might be the real deal. They check and indeed, she's 60% effaced and 1cm dialated. They call our OB and docs decide that she's dehydrated, so they're going to put some fluids in her to see if this helps, then check her cervix again and see if progress is being made. Nurses seem to think that this might be happening though, they're asking us if we like 9-13 as a birthday.
Friday around 12-1am: The torture begins. In the best of times getting an IV is something that Jenn mortally fears; being dehydrated, it's pretty much all she can do to keep it together. Several nurses try and fail. They call in an anesthesiologist nurse, she fails as well. Finally they call the anesthesiologist, and he gets it, though it was a bit of a struggle for him as well (and he was kind of a jerk about it too). Finally though, in go the fluids. At some point during all this though, another cervix exam is done, and there is no change, which basically means Jenn's not in labor. So along with the fluids Jenn also gets a little morphine to help her relax and help dull the contraction pain.
Saturday around 4am: Another doctor does another cervix check, still no change, definitely not labor. Jenn's gone through about 3 bags of fluid by now, turns out she was more than just "a little" dehydrated. We both try and sleep fitfully at various times during the night, we're basically just hanging out so they can monitor the girls and make sure everything is OK.
Saturday around 6am: We finally get the OK to get out of there. After all of that we go home, grab some McDonalds breakfast on the way home and start our weekend.

The good news is that getting all those fluids did wonders for Jenn, her contractions are nowhere near as severe as they have been, and we got ample confirmation that the girls are still doing great. The "bad" news, of course, is that she's still pregnant. Week 34 with twins is definitely taking it's toll on poor Jenn; getting out of bed/chairs is painful, babies and bladder keep her from sleeping well at night, it's hard for her to get comfortable, etc. Nothing you wouldn't expect from a twin pregnancy I suppose, and as far as the girls doing well, we basically could not have asked things to go any better so far, but still, not very fun for momma. How long it will be now no one can say, but presumably it will be within the next couple of weeks or so.

As for the rest of it...there really isn't all that much of the rest of it. We're just kind of in a holding pattern of course right now, so there's not really all that much to tell. Kevin sends word that his crew are in Chicago tonight, getting ready to head over to France tomorrow for the next 9 months. Parts of Wichita had 8+ inches of rain this past weekend, lots of houses were flooded. Jenn's birthday is Thursday, assuming we're not in labor, sounds like maybe Mom and Dad are coming down. Chiefs are galactically bad, and I'm sitting here rooting for the Cowboys of all teams because I have Romo on my fantasy team.