Recap on the last couple of weeks

Hi everyone! We're still here! It's been just over two weeks since I've posted anything, which is unlike me I know. Actually a couple of times I did try to post more maternity photos from our photo shoot but our internet or the blogger site wasn't working and they didn't post.

Anyway today marks 25 weeks and 5 days. I cannot believe we're already looking at 26 weeks! It's amazing. Each and every week is a milestone. Really, everyday is success because these babies have so much growing to do!

I've been doing pretty good lately. We've had some little bumps in the road I guess you could say but overall things are going really well to be 25/26 weeks along. We're pleased and relieved to have made it this far!

Starting where I left off we did our maternity photo shoot in Madison on Saturday April 10th immediately followed by the baby shower. I was pretty wiped out even during the shower but it was great to see everyone, open gifts and hang out. It was a busy day. Following the shower we went to hang out with long time friends from Madison (Nathan and Grace and their daughter Ann and Brandon and Nadege and their daughter Simone). We decided to head home and I was SO uncomfortable all afternoon and kind of thankful to be on our way to home sweet home. The day was wonderful...but my body was telling me to stop and rest. Everything was bothering me - my head (I frequently get migraines), my belly/abdomen was a huge part of it and just the overall feeling of exhaustion. I was in pain the whole way home so it was nice to hop in bed when after we arrived. We went to bed that night at 6:30 PM or so, woke up around 11 PM to eat some "dinner" and went back to bed until the next morning around 9:30 or 10 AM! Like I said we were both exhausted!

Then on Sunday Clint had some work things to catch up on and I rested all day until we met for our young couples bible study later that evening. We were all just hanging out before dinner and I was talking to my friend Stacy about the weekend and how I was feeling. As I described my symptoms/pain she was like "um you're having contractions...those 'cramps or tightening' you're feeling are actual contractions." I guess I never really thought much of it and tried to not worry myself over what I'd been feeling since several weeks prior to that one of our sonographer techs told me it was normal and my uterus couldn't grow if it wasn't contracting. Well theses seemed stronger, closer together and bothered me more than before. We went home that night and I don't remember anything else much happening. The following morning I still felt the same way after all the resting I'd been doing but the thing that prompted me to call Clint at work was when I was feeling really faint and lightheaded. Even that morning (Monday) as we sat in the Kitchen eating breakfast I felt like I was going to fall out of my chair just sitting there! It was weird. I thought maybe I was dehydrated or something so I'd been trying to drink a lot of fluids. After I called Clint at work he said I should probably just try to call our O.B. just to see what he has to say or if he has anything he can do.

I called our O.B. later on and spoke with his nurse. She relayed the message to him and returned my call maybe an hour later. By this time it was close to 2 or 3 PM. She told me she talked with him and that he wanted me to come in immediately. Well, this kind of freaked me out since he's not that conservative and normally would just say "Oh you'll be fine" or something to that effect. Anyway, it kind of scared me even though I really didn't think anything major could be wrong. Really in a way I was glad because I felt like they were being proactive and making sure everything was okay.

So I went in and they got me in right away for a non-stress test. You get this band around your belly and a monitor is placed on it to track contractions. So I sat in this back room hooked up to the machine and read a book for probably about an hour. It seemed like forever at least. I watched the contractions come and go every few minutes and saw these numbers rise and fall. I wasn't really sure what exactly what the numbers meant but I know going from a 4 to a 40 seemed like a lot to me. The nurse just told me after I asked that it was just a way to track the contractions. I think they don't want to bother you or do anything to freak you out when you're suppose to be sitting there still and relaxed. Our O.B. came in and tried to feel my belly tighten as I would have a contraction. I was having 12 or more per hour.

I asked what the difference between Braxton Hicks and real contractions were and how I'd know the difference since this was my first pregnancy. He told me real labor contractions are when they're regular, stronger (in general), and you can notice change in your cervix. And that is the next thing we did.

Dr. Lund personally wheeled me through the entire hospital going down to the basement (it was a crazy wind tunnel) and up all the "personal only" elevators until finally arriving at the Children's Hospital side of Froedtert. We got up to the 6th floor where I go every two weeks to the Maternal Fetal Care Center to get ultrasounds and see our perinatologists. I was feeling okay and glad I was being taken care of and taken seriously but it still was kind of scary after he'd told me he thought my contractions were in fact real labor contractions. Remember, at this point I was only just a few days over 23 weeks and I certainly did NOT want to be going into labor!

We arrived upstairs and did what is called a Fetal Fibronectin test followed by a transvaginal ultrasound to measure my cervix and manual check of my cervix. I was debating posting this but oh well here it goes anyway.

A Fetal Fibronectin test measures the level of a certain protein in a woman's cervix and can predict if you may have a preterm delivery. The thing about a FFN is that it is accurate and conclusive if it is negative, which is what you want. However, if it is positive it could mean you tested too early, something is skewing the results and positive FFN tests are also in general less predictive and definitive than the negative result. If you tested too early and get a positive result you may not have been between 22/23 weeks to 36/ 37 weeks. This protein is in a woman's cervix before 22/23 weeks, disappears and should not show up until later, closer to the time of delivery. The test could be skewed because something such as intercourse or having a transvaginal u/s exam within 24-48 hours can create a false positive. Other things could skew the test too. Anyway, going into this test we had no idea what it was all about.

Turns out just 5 days prior to this check of my cervix it was measuring perfect at 3.7cm. On this day the tech measured it at 3.3. They told me that was still good and it can vary from person to person who measures it but my O.B. made me think it had still shortened a bit and we needed to keep an eye on it! That kind of bothered me some but as long as it didn't continue to shorten I thought I was doing okay. Phew.

The thing that scared me most is when they walked out of the room and the sonographer looked back at me with these sad eyes and said with a "you poor thing" grin "Hey, hang in there okay?" That scared me because I thought "why do I have to 'hang in there?' I'm okay, my babies are okay...right???"

Dr. Lund told me either he'd call me or someone would to tell me the results of the FFN. He said it would probably be about an hour but if we didn't hear anything right way no news was good news. At that point I was telling myself, okay I hope he doesn't call then.

Clint met me up at MFC and he wheeled me back to the parking garage and we went home for the day. What a day! (sigh)

Sure enough at just over an hour after the FFN test my phone rang! It was an "unknown" number. I was laying down in bed as my O.B. had told me to (well, he said take it easy and rest...not really "bed rest" but I was going to do everything I could to help my babies) and Clint was trying to dig through my purse to find my phone. We didn't get to it in time so we just listened to the message. I hesitated to even call my voicemail for several minutes because I just knew it was Dr. Lund calling with the results. That was such a bad feeling. So much for "no news is good news" right?

On his voicemail he said the test was positive! Positive? What? We were reading about the test at the time and really all we knew was that if it was positive it meant you had a chance of going into labor with in one to two weeks!!! I couldn't possibly go into labor. I couldn't possibly be in labor...I mean, I was only 23 weeks! Froedtert and most places don't even recognize the baby to be viable until 24 weeks minimum!

So, here were are with a positive Fetal Fibronectin, slight change in my cervix and contractions every few minutes. We thought the worst. It was a horrible way to end the already bad day and I would like to say we remained optimistic but that would be a lie. We were kind of freaking out.

We tried to read more about the test and its results that night and we just hoped and prayed everything would be okay one way or another. I hate even writing this because it makes me revisit how I felt and how scared we were at the time. I did the only thing I knew to do and that was to pray, find out more information and talk to other triplet/high risk pregnancy moms who had had the test performed on them. Thank you to those who offered me encouragement and support and let me even cry on the phone with them (Becky). I stayed pretty strong but lost it a few times.

I called the on call O.B. physician that night because I was still having those contractions and they were close together. She tried to reassure me I was fine and not to worry too much but just to rest. That was not reassuring.

Tuesday came and went. I laid in bed all day and every couple of hours would track contractions. Still every 3-7 minutes.

Wednesday came and still contractions after lots of rest and fluids all week. I put in a call for Dr. Lund and he was in a 2 hour meeting but the nurse said he would try to call when it was over. We think highly of our O.B. He has been very kind to us and things have gone well. Plus he was recommended my multiple others who said he was great. We have been happy to have him as our physician. Thankfully, or maybe not so thankfully, he called later that evening. We had a conversation about how I was feeling and yada-yada-yada. I was already scheduled to come in the next day (Thursday) for my monthly O.B. check so we kept the appointment and he said we'd do another FFN and cervical exam then.

In the meantime during our phone conversation I told him that I was getting nervous because I'd been tracking my contractions and I felt as if they were growing stronger and were ever 3-5 minutes! So scary. I just kept thinking and saying aloud "I'm not having these babies at 23/24 weeks! I'm not!" My O.B. told me "We don't like to talk about this...but even if you come in tonight and are still feeling this way, let's say you're dilated to five centimeters...here's what we'd do: we'd go ahead and do delivery via cesarean, take your babies out, and they would die." My heart hit the floor! WHAT!!!??? I panicked. I held it together until our conversation ended and I'm not even sure I even heard anything else he was telling me. I was devastated. I do remember pleading to him for medication and anything he could do (steroid injections to develop their lungs, medicine to stop contractions and hopefully halt labor, I begged to go on hospital bed rest ect). He just said there was nothing they could do at this point...nothing. Nothing until at least 24 weeks! I was sad, frustrated and even angry. I would do anything for these babies! I would be 24 weeks in just two days. Why the heck couldn't they do something NOW verses two days from now when it might be too late!? You have no idea how frustrating that was for me to hear and I was pretty badly upset that night especially.

My pregnancy induced carpel tunnel is getting the best of me so I need to end soon but basically what happened was I had a hard time sleeping that night and went in the next morning to the hospital for repeat tests. Late in the day we found out the FFN was negative praise God!!! What a relief that was! We were told I would probably just feel these contractions for the remainder of the pregnancy and just to drink fluids and rest when I felt my body needed it. Dr. Lund told us he then saw no reason we still shouldn't be able to go until 35/36 weeks still for delivery. They won't let a triplet mom go past 36 weeks anyway so that would be the longest we could go which puts us right around the 4th of July. 35 weeks is July 2nd and 36 weeks on the dot is July 9. It will be a miracle if we go that long which is considered full term for trips but I still believe it is possible. I feel good, just the "minor" things which I can handle and I will gladly take any day over not being pregnant or even worse loosing my babies too early due to prematurity!

We are so thankful the second test was negative and that I'm still not on bed rest although I pretty much stay in bed most of the day just because i feel like I do need my rest and I get worse contractions the more I do. Even standing for several minutes or sitting upright hurts me but when I lay down I feel the best. So, that's what I try to do.

Phew, now that was a record long blog! Hope I didn't put anyone out there to sleep! I could easily write a lot more and share more information and details but my numb fingers can no longer feel the keys on the keyboard and my right wrist is killing me.

Oh, just one more thing. I had another O.B. appointment today because we're going every two weeks to the O.B. and every two weeks to the peri so we see someone every week - right now we go in every Thursday. We were going to repeat the FFN but I talked him out of it and he said he understood and that it was fine especially since the previous week I'd been to see my peri and I would go see them again for a u/s next week too. He said he thought the test would be negative but if I felt uneasy repeating it we wouldn't have to. I said no just because I didn't want to get another false positive and have to worry myself sick like last time. No thank you!

Thank you all for all your continued prayers and support. Thanks for being patient and waiting for this blog post too. I was just a little scared to post anything at first when we didn't know what was going to happen but I think things have settled down a little bit more now.

Keep praying for these little babies to grow and stay in for another eight weeks! The longer the better. I cannot even fathom how uncomfortable I will be as I already feel like I'm 50 weeks pregnant but its SO worth it for these little babies and I would do anything for them, anything. The nurse today asked me "So, are you going to get your tubes tied after this?" I almost fell out of my chair! "My what?! NO WAY! Are you kidding me?" Not that it would matter anyway. Ha. I turned toward her and said "Actually, we're planning on having more, a large family. Plus, we WANTED THIS! We tried for this!" She was like "Oh" and left the room. lol. Dr. Lund came in and said "I heard you told my nurse you wanted more children." I looked at him and smiled and said "Yes, of course. Why not? I mean, we may wait a few years or so but we love children and always wanted a big family."