Bed Rest

Well I should actually be on the couch or in bed right now, but I felt like my blog was being neglected and I thought it would be okay to post a couple of things. Then straight back to the couch:) On Friday, I noticed that I had gained a few pounds a bit more quickly than normal and my blood pressure was high as well. I called the doctor just to make sure and see if he wanted me to do anything. He was out of the office and the only nurse that was in ended up telling me to go to the hospital to get it checked out just as a precaution. I think she was just busy and didn't want to risk anything since she had never seen me before. Anyway we headed down to the hospital and my blood pressure was fine. They hooked me up to a bunch of monitors to check the babies heart rate and to monitor any uterine activity. It was actually the first time we had heard the heartbeats. We do an ultrasound at every appointment, but not the heartbeat doppler. Very cool to hear! One of the boys got the hiccups while he was being monitored which was funny to hear. The monitors were picking up the heart beats just fine, but they were also picking up quite a bit of uterine activity. I was having contractions about five minutes apart and other uterine irritability in between contractions. They are not painful and I barely notice them which makes it difficult to monitor them on my own. After a few calls to the doctor, they ended up giving me medication to try and stop the contractions. They also gave me a steroid shot to help with the babies lung development. I had two doses of the contraction medication and the contractions died down quite a bit. My cervix was dilated to about 1 cm so the contractions were doing something. Anyway things were looking good with the contractions, but I am now on bed rest. I also have to continue taking an oral form of the medication to try and keep my uterus calm. After about 5 minutes of laying on the couch, I was already thinking of the list of things I should be doing instead.

We had to go back into today to get a second dose of the steroid and they monitored my contractions (or lack thereof) for about 30 minutes. Everything looked good. I will go see the doctor on Monday and find out further instructions from there. I am just about 35 weeks along, and I am grateful I have made it this far with so few problems. Until Monday I am on bed rest and probably will be until the boys actually come. They are definitely running out of room in there. Hopefully they will wait another week or two before they decide to join our family.