Stabilized

Wednesday night was a rough one for me. Although the contractions I was having weren't painful, they were consistently 1-3 minutes apart, which became concerning for the doctors after a few hours. They decided to put me on a medication called magnesium sulfate to stop the contractions. This drug is also useful for protecting the babies neurologically if they were to be born before 32 weeks. The problem is, the magnesium has a lot of side effects, like hot flashes, nausea, muscle weakness, grogginess, etc. and it can depress your reflexes and decrease your blood pressure. Because of all this, you have to be on STRICT bedrest while on this medication, and they only allow you to eat ice chips and small sips of clear liquids. We were told they were going to put me on it and reevaluate after 24 hours. I quickly ate something and took a shower before starting the drip, knowing that I'd be in bed and hungry for at least the next day.

The first half hour of the drug is a "loading dose," where they give you 6 grams of the magnesium over a half hour. After that, you receive 2 grams per hour. On top of feeling crappy, I had to be hooked up to a blood pressure cuff, pulse ox, 2 IV lines, and 3 monitors on my belly the entire time. Not ideal for sleeping. If a baby moved (which they did a lot), the nurse quickly came in to adjust the monitor. In addition, my blood pressure was checked every hour, temperature every 2 hours, and reflexes every 2 hours. Luckily, my contractions slowed down nicely, and in the middle of the night, the chief resident came in to tell me that they were going to consider shutting the magnesium off in the morning. I had only gotten 45 minutes of sleep the entire night, so we were ecstatic that they decided to turn it off yesterday, only 14 hours after starting it. :)

(PS -- I complain a lot about having to be on the magnesium, but we are actually very thankful that it did such a nice job of slowing the contractions down and for its neuroprotective properties for the babies. We just hope that I won't have to be put on it again. :) )

Things have been looking up since I was taken off the magnesium. Since the babies looked great throughout the entire thing, they took me off continuous fetal monitoring, and now they are just going to monitor the babies for about an hour per day. After the contractions slowed down, they decided I didn't need an uncomfortable labor and delivery bed (with a hard bar behind your back) and my nurse yesterday hooked me up with a new comfy bed with an egg crate mattress cover. Score! I slept over 8 hours last night, so I'm feeling much better now.

The monitor is off!

Trying to get the babies to hold still

Nate keeping himself (and me) entertained

Our room. Everyone's sign is color coded. Pink happens to mean that you're not supposed to be having a baby/babies anytime soon. We hope our sign will stay pink for a few more weeks and not change to yellow (labor).

We are just playing the waiting game now and trying to keep ourselves occupied. We are looking forward to some visitors this weekend. Thanks for your prayers!

Sara & Nate and the Girls