Well, clearly I never got around to writing that post about the horrors of being on a heavy magnesium sulfate treatment. Honestly, I have no excuse since I was on bedrest for most of October - but it really was pretty traumatic and I kept thinking I'd be okay to detail my experience, but I have decided not to because..well..Idonwanna. So, let's quickly look over the last 4 weeks.
I was given the go-ahead to come home from the hospital after 4 days due to our close proximity to SJMC and the assurance that I would be well looked after by family and friends. Thank you family and friends for all your help! My confinement was originally to be for about 2 weeks, but at the tail end of that the boys/my body started acting up again so it was decided to extend that bedrest until I was 35 weeks along (2 weeks ago at this point).
Also, during this time period I had another growth scan (at appx. 34 weeks) that had quite a few alarm bells ringing for the growth and health of the twins, this of course after the previous perinatal appointment during which I was essentially told we were in the clear. Basically, at some point between the growth scans at 30 and 34 weeks, Baby B (who had been making strong gains in recovering from his earlier growth deficits) completely fell off his growth curve creating a very wide growth margin between himself and Baby A and also was measuring well below the 10th percentile for his gestational age.
This information and diagnosis of Interuterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) put a great deal of stress on us all (doctors and parents) since the only course of treatment is delivery. At this point, intense monitoring every 3 days began with the knowledge that every time I go in could be delivery day if the dopplars were not favorable. Thankfully, there have only been a few questionable test results during these last 3 weeks and we remain hopeful that the boys will both be delivered healthy and that, in particular, Baby B continues to rise above the odds. This diagnosis also spurred on the strong belief that meeting the 37 week goal is the final one, and going beyond that point becomes highly risky.
Throughout the entire pregnancy I have also been hoping for a "good old fashioned' delivery, but with Baby B being breech for quite some time that was not going to be possible. Of course, once I had resigned myself to surgical delivery - he decided to flip head down a few days ago. This of course threw us back into the discussion of how best to manage my health and each of the boys. It has become pretty clear that Baby B will not tolerate labor well (based on the many monitoring sessions we've had) and so we will go ahead with a C-section. I finally have a peace about this after talking and length with my health care providers as well as the perinatologists and quite a bit of prayer. So, tomorrow is D-Day (delivery day)!
The hospital has some funky uploading things so I am not sure just how quickly the word will get out, but it is our plan to start spreading the word as soon as we can. Because their morning was full, I am not scheduled to report to L&D until the afternoon so please don't be concerned if you haven't seen an update until the evening. Thank you so much for following us during this journey and supporting us in word, deed, and prayer. We have absolutely seen God's grace through this process and are reminded of that whenever the doctors/sonographers make off-hand remarks about having made it to where we are today....these boys are truly remarkable and I can't wait to share the good news with you.
Now...off to name them?
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