Review

Here is our attempt to summarize the events of the last few weeks....

On Tuesday February 7th we saw our perinatologist for our monthly ultrasound. It's always a joy to see our two little munchkins and soak up any information they can tell us! We found out that they were both weighing approximatley 3.5 lbs, which is wonderful and bigger than expected! They looked terrific. The newest development was that my cervix had shortened from a long 4cm to 2.3cm and looked to be starting to dialate. The perinatologist recommended that I stop working to keep pressure off of my cervix and that I speak to my OB. We were a little nervous with that information but figured all would be fine. Michelle saw our OB the next afternoon. He determined that she was dialated about 1cm, told her she was to be done working and sent her to the hospital for monitoring. After arriving at the hospital, and getting hooked up to all the monitors Michelle was having contractions every 8 minutes and her cervix was dialated to 2cm. At this point things happened pretty quickly.

Michelle was quickly hooked up to an IV from which she received magnesium sulfate to try to stop labor, penicilin for the possibility of Strep B, and fluids. Due to the side effects of the magnesium (dizziness, nausea, blurred vision, extreme hot flashes and in general a very drugged state) she also had to have a catheter put in. And last but not least she was given the first of two steroid shots to speed up the development of the babies lungs. This was how things stayed from Wednesday evening until Friday mid-morning. Miserable and scary!!!

On Friday it was determined that the contractions had slowed down enough that Michelle could be taken off the magnesium (THANK GOD) and started on an oral medication, Nifedipine. They kept us at the hospital until Saturday afternoon for monitoring. The contractions decreased and became irregular. We were sent home on bedrest with Nifedipine and instructions to call if Michelle experienced 4-6 contractions per hour. Our own bed and a shower was like heaven!!!!

Even though the homecoming was wonderful it also posed it's own problems. It seems Michelle has just enough contractions to make us crazy but not quite enough to go back to the hospital. We felt more confident as the days passed though and our poor dog is much happier now that we're back home! Luckily we have family next door who were willing to take care of her while we were away!

All seemed fine until last night, Wednesday, when the contractions started coming every 15 minutes for about an hour and a half. Back to the hospital! Luckily they slowed themselves down eventually and there was no change to Michelle's cervix. We were able to go home!!! We were given the okay to increase the frequency of the Nifedipine.

SO!!! After all that...we see the OB weekly now with ultrasounds still every 3-4 weeks. Baby A (our little lady) is head down...WAY down, they can feel her head in Michelle's pelvis and Baby B (our little man) is still transverse or sideways. As long as Baby A continues to stay head down we will attempt a vaginal delivery, regardless of Baby B's position...the doc will deliver him breech if need be. Of course a c-section is always a possibility. We realize it's out of our hands now and we just need to be flexible and go with whatever will bring our babies into the world safely! Our OB is expecting/hoping we will make it another few weeks. Our goal right now is to make it to 34 weeks, we're 31 right now. Who knows? Maybe we'll surprise everyone and last until 37 weeks!!

That should catch everyone up! Thanks for all of your support and prayers! Keep it up, as much as we are so excited to finally meet these two, it's too early just yet! We'll keep you posted as to any new developments!