2-1/2 Weeks

I won't give you a blow by blow description of my days in the hospital before the babies were born. Reading my account of those days takes me back to a place that I would rather forget, and I don't want to bore you with the details. Suffice to say that I looked back with longing on the days when I had the freedom to walk about the house (without IV in tow), eat when I pleased, and move to a new room when I felt like it. There is none of that in the hospital. There is nothing to do in a hospital room except lay in bed and watch TV (no cable). Forget about sleeping -- there is a constant parade of people in and out of your room. Every hour on the hour, a nurse would come in to look at the printout from the monitor (which I was connected to from the moment I got there until they wheeled me into delivery), count the contractions, take my temperature, pulse, etc. In between there were lab people for the blood draws (every 6 hours at first, then every 12, finally once a day), volunteers delivering food trays, the social worker, dietician, physical therapist (who I sent away) and God knows who else. Every now and then one of my two doctors would stop by to offer encouragement, and once a neonatologist came by to talk to us.

Eventually we settled into a routine. Mark brought some things from home -- nightgowns, books, laptop, decorations (from the 2 baby showers our friends had held), a cooler and a few other things. Mark decorated the room (the nurses loved that), we put up my Olen Pregnancy calendar, and began the countdown to 36 weeks. I settled in and began to feel more at home. Even the babies started to feel more comfortable and came out of hiding, moving around and kicking a lot more. The mag sulfate had slowed all 4 of us down, I guess.

It seems like every day I would get a different nurse, and almost never the same one twice. It was amazing, but even on the last day, I was still meeting new nurses. I couldn't believe they had so many. Every now and then I would get a nurse that I had seen before, but at least once a day I would meet a new one. They all did things differently too, and I learned to be very outspoken about how I liked things to be done. For instance, no one was to touch the thermostat or the light switch. I learned to move pretty well with my constant shadow, the IV. I only needed help when taking a shower (every other day), when they had to help me get my clothes off (but remain hooked up to the IV).

I had my good days and some pretty miserable ones. Between the blood suckers and the IV moving from left arm to right, I was black and blue in a lot of spots. It was a constant battle with the lab people, they always asked could they put the needle in my hand and I steadfastly refused. Nothing hurts worse than a needle in the hand, right next to the bone. When the IV was in my right arm, I couldn't do my favorite thing -- put my hand under my left side or between my stomach and leg to feel the babies moving. It got harder and harder to move, doing anything took major effort. I became really irritable and everybody started to get on my nerves.

One journal entry said: "Dr. J. (my other doctor) said that they're not trying to make my life miserable, that's it difficult for the nurses too. Yeah, well, so what. Doesn't make me feel better. I am just sick of being in the hospital, and it''s only been one week."

The one thing that drove me crazy was the non-stress tests that the nurses would do every day. This is when they atach the belts to me and try to get the babies' heartbeats on the monitor. They like to get them all on the monitor at once and get a good test strip, 30 minutes long. In the meantime, the babies would move (running from the sensors), and they would have to adjust the belts, find the heartbeat again, and start over. All while I was on my back, the worst possible position for a woman of my size. I mean, I couldn't breathe. They were supposed to do it every day, but it was so uncomfortable for me and I bitched so much about it that my doctors finally reduced it to every other day. They would try to guilt me into doing it more, but I just wouldn't. Some of the nurses were better at it than others, and were able to find the babies' heartbeats rather quickly. Others fumbled at it until I snapped at them in frustration and grabbed the sensors myself. Toward the end they ended up doing it almost every day for one reason or another. It's the thing I dreaded the most, second only to getting the IV site moved every few days. Sometimes I got so ornery that I wouldn't cooperate. I'd tell them to go away, and tell my doctor if they wanted to. (After the babies were born, Mark sent the nurses a nice flower arrangement to thank them for putting up with me.)

Every now and then the printout would show more contractions than usual, and I would get a terbutaline shot on top of the mag. The first time that happened (my second day there) is when it really sunk in that I must have really needed the mag. I mean, if it takes terb and mag to keep things under control, then I was right where I belonged. Maybe I wasn't too happy about the quick move to mag but I began to see why Dr. T. did it and was glad he did. There was a standing order to give me a shot of terb when I needed it. This was to continue up until the day I delivered. Eventually, it reached a point where even mag and terbutaline couldn't keep the contractions under control. That's when we scheduled the c-section.