2 weeks down

Well, I've survived another week of bed rest. Really not much has changed from last week, except that I failed my 1 hour glucose test. Oh, and I'm slightly anemic. So I go on Thursday for my 3 hour glucose test and I have to take an iron supplement every day now. Hopefully I'll pass the test on Thursday. I also go for my ultrasound on Thursday- hopefully that will go well, too. Ben's parents are coming with us to this one, but hopefully it won't be nearly as long or eventful as the last one when my parents were with us.

This is actually a busy week around here. Yesterday our nursery furniture was delivered. The dresser/changing table came all put together- and looks awesome! The cribs are in boxes and Ben will have to put those together at some point. Today we had our A/C serviced. A couple of weeks ago it decided to stop working for two days and then start again (weird, I know) so we had them come out and check it out. Turns out it's in fine working condition and the guy couldn't find anything wrong with it, except that it's 18 years old. But as long as it works, we're not going to do anything about it. Tomorrow I've got electricians coming to put in ceiling fans in the two rooms for the girls. I've made a request for someone good and trustworthy since I can't be on the same level where they're working. Hopefully they'll actually send the guy they told me they might be able to send... Thursday I have my glucose test and ultrasound. And then Friday we're getting our new windows installed. It's kind of nice having something to look forward to each day. And Thursday I actually get to drive myself to my lab appointment, so that will be exciting. I haven't driven at all since I was put on bed rest.

Ben's parents finally got the pictures from the last ultrasound scanned. Here they are:

One week down, hopefully 9 to go...

So I've survived my first week of bed rest. It really hasn't been as bad as I thought it might be. Turns out I'm pretty good at laying around all the time. And Jefferson is loving it! He's actually curled up snoring on my legs right now. He lays with me basically all day every day. And he especially loves that he gets to see at least one of his grandmas almost every day.

Speaking of Jefferson's grandmas, I don't know how we would be managing with me on bed rest if it wasn't for our parents! Ben's mom comes over pretty much every day that Ben has to work (or sleep) and takes Jefferson out and hangs out with me for a bit. And this week she's also been bringing us food for dinners. My mom came up today and took Jefferson to the vet to get his nails cut and went and got me lunch. She also brought me books and clothes and food. Both of our moms have also brought me cross stitch projects to do. They want to make sure I don't get too bored. And they're doing a good job of it so far.

Today was my big day when I got to leave the house for a little while. I had an OB appointment. Good news- the doctor didn't find any changes in my cervix from what she felt last week! So now we just wait until my ultrasound next week and hope for no changes on that. And then they "might" loosen my restrictions if there are still no changes. I don't know what loosening my restrictions means, but I'll take it if I can get it. It'd be nice to be able to get up occasionally and do some stuff around the house. But I'm also fine just laying around all the time if that's what is best for my girls. I also did my gestational diabetes test today. If they find any issues with the bloodwork, I'll probably get a call on Monday, but no news is good news, so hopefully I won't get a call. We'll see, though.

You know, I thought being on bed rest I would update this blog more often, but so far that hasn't happened. I'm still working on finding a position that is really comfortable for working on the computer. I can handle it for short periods of time, but after awhile my back and neck start to hurt from the position I tend to be in. I'm going to try to update it more often, though. Especially since I still need to post about Mollie's bachelorette party and my shower from this weekend. But for now I need to stop typing before my back starts to hurt even worse than it hurts right now...

Busy week...

Wow, it hasn't even been a week since I last updated this, yet so much has happened! I'll write about the bachelorette party weekend later, I'll start with the pregnancy news...

At my appointment on Monday my doctors pulled me out of work and put me on bed rest. The babies are fine, but my cervix is thinning, so they're being cautious and putting me on bed rest to try to ensure that these babies stay in there for as long as possible. My cervix went from about 4.8cm to 2.3cm in a week and a half- not good.

My parents went to the appointment with us thinking we were just having a routine ultrasound. But after the ultrasound they took me up to labor and delivery to be monitored. I was hooked up to heart rate monitors for the babies and a contraction monitor. Both of the heart rates looked good and they didn't pick up any contractions with the monitor, so that was good. They gave me a shot of steroids that will help the babies' lungs develop just in case they're born early. I had to go back to the hospital Tuesday for the second and final dose of steroids.

When I went in Tuesday I got my second shot of steroids, they hooked me up to the monitors again. The heart rates still looked good, although Baby B kept trying to avoid the monitor. The contraction monitor, on the other hand, wasn't so good. They were picking up minor contractions. I wasn't feeling a thing, though. They called my OB and since I wasn't feeling anything she let me go home knowing that I had an appointment with her today.

At today's appointment the doctor did an FFN test. This test is to give us an indication as to whether or not I'm going to to into labor in the next two weeks. If it's negative there's a 98% chance of me not going into labor in the next two weeks, but if it's positive there is only a 30% chance that I will go into labor in the next two weeks. I'll get the results in the morning. But the results won't really change what we're doing right now. I'm stuck on bed rest until further notice no matter what. But that's fine. I'll do whatever I need to do in order to keep these babies inside of me for as long as possible.

Ideally we'd like them to stay put for another 10 weeks, until I get to 35 weeks, at which point I'll be allowed to get up and move around as much as I want. I just want two healthy babies. That's all I want in this world right now.

I go back to the OB next Wednesday for another cervix check and to do my gestational diabetes test. That should be loads of fun. Let's hope my cervix doesn't change between now and then and that I manage to stay away from the hospital until my next ultrasound. My OB wants me to be more paranoid than normal, so if I notice anything out of the ordinary, she wants me to call her.

I go back for another cervix check on May 1st and if everything looks good at that, they might loosen up on my restrictions, but I'm just planning on being on strict bed rest until the babies are born. Right now I'm only allowed to get up to go to the bathroom and to take a shower. It looks like Ben and I are going to be spending a lot of time at doctor's appointments over the next several weeks. But I'll be happy to just stay off of hospital bed rest, which is still a possibility.

I think I'm handling bed rest alright so far, but I'm only 2 days in. I'm sure I'll get more and more bored as time goes on, but I'm hoping I come up with some projects that I can do to keep myself entertained...

Bachelorette Party Weekend- WooHoo!

I'm going out of town this weekend for Mollie's bachelorette party in Bethany Beach, DE. I can't wait! I had to call the doctor's office on Monday and get permission to go, and she said to go and have fun, so that's what I plan on doing! I'm so glad that I'm getting one more (that makes it sound like I do this often, which I don't) weekend away with the girls before the babies are born. It's basically my last hoorah before becoming a mommy. And I won't be the only pregnant one there. One of Mollie's oldest friends is also pregnant. She's actually going to miss the wedding because she's due a couple of weeks after it, but she's coming to the bachelorette party. It'll be nice to not be the only pregnant one there. At least I know one other person won't be drinking. I'll post about the weekend next week sometime, after I recover from it...

I've had to rearrange my desk a little this morning. I was handing out paychecks this morning and realized that my feet were starting to swell, well, mainly my left foot. So I scooted my keyboard, mouse and monitor so that I can sit further back and be able to put my feet up. I have them resting on my CPU. And I have a fan blowing on me because I'm so freaking hot! I'm actually glad it's supposed to cool off some for the weekend, or my feet might have exploded this weekend.

I ordered a new pair of shoes the other day and I really hope they come today so that I can take them to wear tomorrow night, but I'm not holding my breath. They're crocs, but they basically look like ballet flats. One of the girls on one of the message boards I frequent recommended them. I hope they're really as comfortable as she made them sound... Okay, I just checked on my shoes on the USPS website and they arrived in Centreville this morning, so I should get them today. YAY!!!

Speaking of packages, we've started receiving some baby gifts in the mail. Just this week we've gotten 4 packages- from Gene & Raluca and Scott & Tara. Our house is filling up with baby stuff. Ben cleaned the paint supplies out of the crib room last night so that we can start moving some of the baby stuff from the living room to the crib room. We definitely need to start cleaning out the closet in the changing room and figure out what we're doing with the closets. We're going to need that space very soon, especially with the shower being next weekend.

Here are some pictures from my work shower last week.

And the most recent belly pics- taken at 24 weeks 1 day:

And here is Ben torturing poor Jefferson by making him ride in the stroller. Ben asked Jefferson if he wanted to go for a ride, so of course Jefferson got excited- thinking he was going in the car, not in the stroller! He was a good boy, though, and just sat there.

My work shower

My work threw me a shower yesterday afternoon. It was great! We had lunch (Baja Fresh), cake, played games and I got presents. The company got us our double stroller and our car seats! And some of my coworker got us other stuff- a bathtub full of bath supplies, bibs, onsies, photo albums and things to use to get molds of the girls' hand prints. We actually have a decent amount of baby stuff in the house right now!

After work I went for my prenatal massage. That was fabulous! It was an hour of bliss. I wish I could go all the time, but that would get really expensive really quickly. The massage therapist said she would like to see me back there once a month until I have the babies, which would be nice, but we'll see how long I last before my doctors wouldn't let me get a massage...

When I got home from my massage Ben unloaded the car and then he started getting the stroller out. He put it together and after we ate dinner he put poor Jefferson in the stroller and strolled him around the living room. Jefferson was very good, though, and let Ben do it. He just sat there until Ben took him out of the stroller. We also took out one of the car seats to check it out. I love them! We'd never seen them in person, I just found the pattern online, so I'm glad we actually liked them when we saw them. So now we have a double stroller sitting in our dining room and an infant car seat in our recliner.

I've been looking online today trying to find closet organization stuff so that we can get the closets organized and start to put some of this baby stuff away. My shower that Beth and Mollie are throwing is in 2 weeks, so we're going to need to have somewhere to store stuff after that one. And, hopefully, I'm going to be out of town next weekend for Mollie's bachelorette party, so hopefully Ben and I will be able to get out one evening this week and look at closet stuff and get the nursery furniture ordered. I just want to get stuff taken care of as soon as we can...

Busy weeks...

We've had a busy last couple of weeks. We bought a new car- a 2004 Honda Pilot, we bought new windows- after a good 8 or more hours with window sales people in our house, and we had another ultrasound. We also got the second nursery room cleaned out- at least furniture wise- and Ben put the glider together. Our next big things are actually ordering the nursery furniture and selling my Civic. I don't particularly want to get rid of it, but there's no reason for us to keep it.

We had another ultrasound yesterday. Everything looked great! Baby A is still head down and is 1 pound 8 ounces. Baby B has flipped back to breech and she's about 1 pound 7 ounces, so we have two good sized babies in there now. We no longer have a fat one and an average one. I don't know what kind of percentiles they're in now, but I know they're good sizes. Their fluid levels are still a little uneven, but they both have plenty of fluid, so that's ok.

Here are the pictures from yesterday.

Baby A- she's going to be our camera hog after they're born. She acts like she loves to have her picture taken. Here are a couple of 3D shots of her and then one 2D shot of her. The odd looking thing in front of her is an umbilical cord, but we're not sure whose umbilical cord...

Baby B- she wasn't in a good position for us to be able to get any good 3D shots of her, so all of hers are normal 2D pictures.Ooh, I have an appointment tonight for a prenatal massage. It's with the massage therapist at my chiropractor's office. I can't wait!

And today is my baby shower at work. Apparently they're going to play a game where they have to guess how big I am around. I just had to cut a piece of yarn to be used as the piece to compare everyone's guesses to. This is going to be a good, fun day!

They hired my replacement at work, and two days after she started they fired her. Apparently it's not a good idea to lie on your application and omit information about criminal charges... So now we're back to searching for a replacement for me. Hopefully they'll find someone soon so I can get them trained and be ready to leave when the doctors decide to pull me out of work.

Here's a couple of belly pics from 23 weeks. They're not very good since I took them myself, but Ben's working weekends so it's hard for me to catch him to get him to take pictures. But next weekend is his last weekend! And tonight he's starting his last 4 weeks of nights. I can't wait for him to be off of this schedule. 4 and a half weeks and he's done with shift work, for now at least!

Now for the belly pics: