25 Weeks

I'm pleased to report that Rocket Girl continues to expand:

We're seeing our OB/GYN every week now at the clinic, since he continues to be concerned about the possibility of pre-term labor. He had prescribed a medication that would help, which Hanna agreed to take. Normally, she and I both have a "walk it off" mentality when it comes to medical issues, eschewing most all medication save for Vitamin I and relying on combinations of rest, ice, athletic tape, Ace bandages, tea, and sheer bloody-mindedness to get us through most problems. However, we've had the good fortune to have always been in good health; until recently, the various pains and occasional injuries associated with being fairly serious athletes have been the only problems we've faced. Now, the complications of Hanna's pregnancy, coupled with the fact that we're making decisions for our future children as well as ourselves, have changed a lot of that attitude. It's one thing to take a bad fall ice skating and simply "walk it off", it's quite another to try to tough out the many burdens of carrying twins. An ice pack and a hot toddy may cure a lot of Taekwon-Do injuries, but they aren't much help for premature births. I think Hanna and I would have avoided hospitals in favor of a midwife-assisted home birth if we were only having a single child, as is done in 70% of births in other countries such as Japan and Sweden -- countries which also have much lower infant mortality rates compared to the United States. Looking at our situation, though, we've come to realize that we need to make the best call for our growing family, and sometimes that call is to a hospital or pharmacy.

Unfortunately, the night after taking the first dose of the medicine our doctor prescribed, Hanna discovered first hand what the information sheet that came with the drug listed as "severe abdominal pain" under possible side effects. As directed by the instructions, we called the hospital and spoke to the on-call physician. The doctor was quite nice and patient as I described the pain Hanna was in, and advised us to come in if she didn't start getting better in an hour or so, when the drug should begin to wear off. Thankfully, that is exactly what happened, and after some time she was able to get some sleep.

Hearing about this at our weekly appointment, our OB/GYN was surprised, and agreed with us that Hanna should not try to take the medication again. However, he was still somewhat concerned, and as a result has put Hanna on weekly injections of progesterone, a hormone that does all sorts of things for pregnancy. He was up front with us, however, and pointed out that there were no studies showing progesterone would help Hanna's particular case, i.e. carrying twins to term when there are risk factors for premature labor. That said, he also assured us that in the worst case, it would do nothing; there were no side effects or risks to Hanna or the twins. He also counseled us to make sure Hanna rested as much as possible.

Following this advice has actually been a lot easier than I thought it might be. Before we found out we were having twins, we had all sorts of plans to explore state parks, run around San Francisco, play on the beach, and otherwise explore northern California. However, even trips to the grocery store are beginning to tax Hanna, so our running around has been postponed. For now, we fill our evenings and weekends watching movies, playing Scrabble, and trying to figure out what we will name our future sons.