Our Road To Triplets (Part 6)

So I have had so many requests to hurry up and get back to the triplet story that I figure I better get writing and I apologize for taking so long!
So 29 weeks rolls around and we had an appointment scheduled for Monday, May 3rd to be exact. I was very uncomfortable as I was getting so big and I had a baby stuck in my rib cage. We first that day we had our 3rd or 4th level II Ultra Sound to make sure the babies were growing and looking good. We got a great report from that ultra sound.
Next, we moved across the hall to have an appointment with the doctor. Everything was fine until she decided to check my cervix. Apparently, this was not fine. She immediately sent us over to the Hospital were I was to be monitored. I started to bleed at that point. I was having a lot (I can't remember how many) of contractions per hour. I was giving the shot to help develop the babies lungs and told I needed to stay over night because I would need another shot in 24 hours. I was then moved into a more permanent room and this is when the Magnesium Sulfate drip started. I HATE THIS MEDICINE. It is giving through an IV to women are in Pre-Term labor. This drug made me feel HORRIBLE! I remember I was soooo hot. Jon had to go home and get a fan for me because I really thought I was going to die from the heat. Jon was so cold in my hospital room that he had to wear a t-shirt and two sweat shirts just to stay warm. This drug also caused my vision to be all out of whack so I could not read or watch TV, basically I all I could really do was lay there in the hospital bed and watch the clock tick. My impression was that after I had the second shot they would allow me to go home and be on full bed rest (only to get up to go to the bathroom). I was so mistaken. When the doctor came in the next day she told I would be moved to the Antepardum ward and she was not sure if I would go home before the babies were born.
The good news is that I ended up with the best room in the entire hospital. It had a wonderful view of downtown and it was HUGE.

There was a microwave, refrigerator, VCR, and a pull out couch for Jon to sleep in. It also had an extra phone jack so Jon was able to work from the hospital. Between Jon and my mom I always had company to visit with. They did a great job to make sure I was not alone. Jon slept at the hospital with me every night I was in there. I was so grateful for all of the support.
It was very hard to be in there and on the Mag.. It made me very irritable and I felt lousy and very uncomfortable. I am sure I was not very pleasant to be around but for some reason I always had company. At my low about day 5 I looked at Jon and told him that I would rather be dead than laying in that bed. I felt miserable. Then the doctor came in that day and told me that he thought I could make it another 6 weeks~! YIKES. After the doctor left the room Jon excused himself and came back 20 minutes later with Ice Cream and gifts. He felt so bad for me. Now, not to be mistaken, I knew that the best thing for the babies was to try and relax and let them gestate and long as possible. It was just that the meds were making me crazy.
I remember that everyday was all about numbers...like today we are at 30 weeks 3 days, etc.. There was a calendar on the wall and every morning the nurse came in she would rip off another day...that always felt good.
They would monitor the babies twice a day for about an hour. It took a lot of time to get set up because they always had to make sure that they did not have the same baby on two different monitors. There heartbeats were generally the same so it was hard to tell. Also, the babies would move around a lot so they would fall off the monitor and then reappear. They would monitor me also for the number of contractions I was having. Being so pregnant I never felt my contractions. So I had not idea if I was having to many.
About the 5 th or 6th day of my hospital stay I started to have a lot of contractions at night. They started to give me Terbutaline shots. Jon hated this medication because it would make me shake all over. However, it would stop contractions so it worked. A few nights of this and the doctors suggested that I go off the Mag Sulfate and get hooked up to a Terb. pump that would automatically give me the medication every few hours. This my friends was my ticket home! That is right after 10 days on bed rest in the hospital I got to go home. I have never been so happy to be home in my life!

At home my cats kept me company.

I went home with the terb. pump, a home monitoring system that dialed through the phone, and nurse visits every two to three days. We have a two story house so I was allowed to go down the stairs once a day and then back up at night. This trip back up the stairs just about killed me as I was so out of breath but I was 50 pounds heavier and very uncomfortable. I started to sleep in a separate bed than Jon as it was really hard for me to get comfortable. He understood and since I was up every hour going to the bathroom I am sure he slept better that way.
As I mentioned before, the nurses would come every few days to monitor the babies and check in on me. It was cool to have ultra sounds right from my own bed. The home health care nurse was my friends mom (I mentioned this earlier in this story) so we got really close to her. She was very straight up with me and she told me that she thought I was going to end up with Preeclampsia as I was starting to show the signs. She told us that if my vision started to get funky and if I was unusually crabby or had a bad head ache that we needed to go in. One afternoon I started to have the signs for this but we did not want to go all the way to the hospital if it was nothing. Colleen (nurse friend) rushed over to take my BP to see what was happening. She said it was getting high and we needed to get check out at the Hospital. So away we went all packed for not coming back home until we had babies.
After being monitored the doctor on call let us go back home because all looked fine and my blood pressure was at safe levels. I was very happy as I was about 32 weeks and I wanted to make it a little longer.
A few days later we had another appointment with the doctor and she suggested that we schedule my C-Section for 34 weeks. She said that she thought the babies were going to be fine so June 3rd, 2004 was going to be their birthday. I could not wait to meet the babies and be more comfortable. At this point Ella's little head was in my rib cage all the time. It hurt so bad and I was so afraid that she was going to break my ribs. OUCH!
We had our last Level II Ultra Sound scheduled for Tuesday, June 1st just so they could take a look and make sure everything was fine for Friday the 3rd. The night before this appointment I started to feel sick again. At this point we had borrowed a BP cuff from my mom so we could monitor my blood pressure from home. Jon and I were watching the Timerwolves (basketball) on TV as they were in the play offs. Jon said if the T-wolves lose tonight you will have the babies tomorrow. I just laughed....the T-wolves lost that night! Around Midnight I really was not feeling all that great and my blood pressure was high. My vision had started to get funky again too. I called the Maternal Assessment Center and they told me I needed to come in. I asked them to call the doctor back to see if we could wait until morning since we had an appointment at 10 AM. I hated the maternal assessment center as it was always so uncomfortable there. I wanted to try and get some sleep. The doctor allowed us to wait until morning unless things got worse.
We made it until morning and headed down for our appointment. We packed everything up because we never knew when they would not let us come back home. I think we both knew that I would have the babies that day. To be continued....

This is my the day before I had the babies...