The end of my Twin pregnancy!!
The end of my pregnancy was tough, but I can't complain too much, because my pregnancy was relatively smooth and overall a pretty amazing experience. At the end I had severe carpel tunnel which was not fun to deal with. Writing was impossible and brushing my teeth or hair sent a shooting pain all through my hands and up to my elbows. My feet and legs began to swell in November... I was waddling everywhere, it was impossible to bend down and impossible to put my shoes or pants on. I was somehow still working on my feet during the busiest part of the year for my line of work.
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| Work belly photo!! |
The first week of December (31 weeks) my face and pretty much everything started to swell pretty badly. My heart would race at night and I was waking up every 45 minutes to an hour to pee. It this point I was getting very little urine out and it was actually painful to get my body release any urine at all. At times I would sit on the toilet at 4 in the morning and cry, because it was so uncomfortable.
The second week of December (32 weeks) my blood pressure started to get high, I was starting to have a few dull headaches and occasionally seeing a few spots. Moving around and getting to work was so hard on my body.
The third week of December (33 weeks) I was asked to do a 24 hour urine collection to test for protein in my urine. I went in for a midwife visit and had a super swollen body, and it was confirmed that I had protein in my urine. I was just not feeling great at all. I was officially put on strict bed rest and done with work for the remainder of my pregnancy. I could not have been happier to finally get off my feet and rest. I still can't believe I made it to 33 weeks working on my feet.
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| Last weekly belly photo!! |
At 34 weeks, the week of Christmas, I got a little active buying a few gifts, visiting my cousin's house for a gift exchange and then going to my In-laws for a Christmas dinner. I was not super active, but doing a little more than I should have been doing for someone on strict bed rest. The day after Christmas Josh and I decided to make a quick little trip to Walmart to spend some gift cards. I had been on the couch and taking it easy and thought one little trip out would not be that bad. On the drive I started there I started seeing spots and just felt terrible. When we got to Walmart I went to the pharmacy area to check my blood pressure while he went and got what we needed. They didn't have a blood pressure machine so, I just sat on the bench waiting for Josh to come back. We decided to buy a wrist blood pressure cuff so I could check things out while at home. When I got home and checked my BP it was 162 over 93... I contacted my midwife; she said take it easy and if I started to feel worse to go in to maternal observation at the hospital. I decided to just take it easy for the night and see what my BP was the next morning. My midwife said anything over 140/90 was considered high for pregnancy. The next morning it was still high and I wasn't feeling Baby A move at all. I started to get really nervous and worried so, we went to the hospital for observation. I was there for most of the afternoon and then sent home to do another 24 hour urine collection to check for protein. I was developing preeclampsia and advised that I needed to continue with STRICT bed rest. The urine collection showed that my platelets were dropping and the protein was at 480.
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| A few days before birth!! |
I continued with strict bed rest and and went in to see the Midwife again the first week of January at 36 weeks. I was swollen and all my numbers were high, but she wanted to see if I could stick it out one more week and make it to 37 weeks. We thought that sounded fantastic and scheduled my induction on for January 8th. I was scheduled to see my high-risk doctor on January 6th to monitor the babies and positions to see if we were still okay to go ahead with a vaginal birth.I went in for my high-risk appointment on the 6th of January and my blood pressure was 165/123. It was extremely high so, my Doctor came back into the room and said "Are you ready to have some babies"... I was immediately sent to Labor and Delivery for induction two days earlier than we originally planned!!!
(Birth Story to come soon)
As a side note - Josh's school semester ended in mid December and I can't praise him enough. He seriously cooked all of my meals for me, took care of me day in and day out, did what ever I needed, cleaned the kitchen, washed our clothes, drove me to all my doctors appointments, tended to the dogs and just took amazing care of me. He was amazing and I did not lift a finger for anything. It was nice having those last weeks together just he and I with no other responsibilities or duties required of us. During my pregnancy he went to school full time and I worked so, we didn't always have a lot of time together. During those last weeks of my pregnancy, we spent time pondering what our lives were going to be like, how we'd change, what the Boys would look like, how we'd feel, guessing what day they'd come and binge watching "Frasier" on Netflix. Thank goodness for Netflix, and Thank goodness for Waffle House!! It was only about 7 minutes away from our house and Josh let me get out of the house on a few late night occasions to go eat breakfast food. It was always a great way to break-up the bed rest and it felt like a little date. We got to to know the late night crew, hehehe. To be honest it was probably the best 4 weeks we'd had together in a long time and I'm so grateful we had the time even if I felt miserable in the physical sense... it was all very much worth it in the end.
