23 Weeks

I'll start this post off by saying: The babies are fine. I'm fine. It appears that everything will remain that way for the indefinite future. Yay!

However, our weekend was a bit more eventful than usual. On Saturday, I was feeling kind of tired and lazy. I'd finally received a big box of yarn from Knitpicks, so I took the opportunity to lie around most of the day knitting a little sweater:



On Sunday, I was officially 23 weeks along. To celebrate, I woke up at 5 in the morning with a nasty back ache. I got some water and food, and went back to bed. But I couldn't sleep because my back was bothering me and my stomach muscles were doing strange things. Whenever my stomach muscles stopped doing strange things, the babies would have a little break dancing party on my ribs and bladder. Finally, around 8 or 9 o'clock I gave up trying to stay in bed. I got more food and water, and decided to reread the preterm labor chapter of my twin pregnancy book. The book seemed to think I should call the doctor. I decided to wait and see what Dane thought. (I know, I know. I'm a jerk.) Dane had been up late playing a very addicting version of pinball, so I had to wait a while. When he woke up, he could tell I was acting funny. I made him read the book. He thought I should call the doctor, too. I insisted on eating more food first, since in my world food always makes you feel better. Watching me squirm around on my chair while I ate didn't convince Dane that I shouldn't call the doctor. So, I finally did. I told her I thought I was having contractions, but I wasn't sure. And she said that I had to go to the hospital to be monitored.

While I was waiting to get through to the doctor on the phone, I started to feel a bit better. And by the time we got to the hospital, my back didn't hurt at all and I felt fine. We got a bit lost finding our way to Labor and Delivery, and nearly got herded in with a child birth class that was touring the facility. Seeing all of the pregnant women (many of whom were less distended than me) waddling around like stoned ducks made me feel quite cheerful. "See, Dane!" I said, "I'm not the only one!"

At any rate, we found our way to the nurses' station. We told them who we were and that my due date was in November. They didn't waste any time getting us into a room and getting me trusted up:

As you can see, I was feeling pretty good at this point. But it turned out that I was (still) having contractions. They did a variety of tests to see if I had some kind of infection, to see if I was producing any of the hormones that start labor, and to see that my cervix was doing it's job of holding everybody in. They also spent a long time trying to position heart rate monitors on the babies. It ultimately required a quick ultrasound and two nurses to get the heart rates, since the babies were more interested in kicking and doing gymnastics than being checked out. Eventually, everything was most of the way situated, and we just had to wait for the test results and watch the contractions on the print out. It reminded us both of taking data on the 40-foot telescope at Green Bank.



We ended up being there for about four hours. The contractions were all mild and I was only having about 4 per hour. Toward the end, I think they were slowing down even more, though the nurses didn't tell us directly. I knitted and rested. Dane gave me apple slices, asked the nurses lots of questions, and played chess. In the room next to us, a baby was born and we heard it squawking indignantly through the wall. All of my tests came back perfect. At the end of the afternoon, they sent us home, telling me to rest a lot and drink lots of water.

And that's about it. Dane took the picture at the top of this post immediately after we got back from the hospital, and immediately before I fell dead asleep on the couch. I guess all that resting tired me out. Since our regular doctor wasn't the one on call over the weekend, the nurses also told us we would need to talk to him in case he had other advice or wanted other tests. He's supposed to call us Tuesday morning. So today (Monday) I stayed home from work and was even more lazy than normal. I didn't think that was possible, but it's amazing what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it. :-)

(Thank goodness they don't want me to exercise to keep those babies in. Then I'd really be in trouble.)