So, where do I begin? Home monitoring for contractions is interesting. Twice a day I hook myself up to a monitor for an hour, then hook the machine up and it wirelessly transmits data to a nurse. She then discerns how many contractions I had over the past hour and calls to let me know how many there were. This is a stressful part to my day, especially recently as the numbers are on a steady incline. If I have to many contractions, I get a second hour on the monitor. If the number doesn't go down, I am sent to the hospital. So far, this has not been the case for me. The few times I have been over my threshold, by the time I re-monitor for a second hour, the number of contractions has come down to an acceptable amount. Phew! As much as I like Edwards Hospital, I don't want to be there yet!
Gestational diabetes, oh my! I knew I was at risk for having it, but was really hoping that I would have avoided it. I have been able to manage it with just monitoring my diet and restricting carbs, thankfully! I check my blood sugars four times a day and report to a nurse daily. Now I just have to hope that I will continue these meal portions after the babies are born, because I am sure it is a much healthier diet than what I had been consuming!
The trip to the hospital was so unnecessary. In my opinion, the doctor had over reacted to my level of contractions - and three days late! Seriously, Tuesday and Wednesday of last week I was having quite a few contractions - much more than my normal. It wasn't until Friday afternoon that they sent me to the hospital. After monitoring me for about 2 hours, they sent us home.
Good news is that we are passing some of the major milestones. The first hurdle we had was to make it to 26 weeks. Done. Our next milestone is just a few days away, and that is 28 weeks. I am confident that we will make it with flying colors! At 28 weeks, the brain is completely developed, so the major risks will be that the lungs are not fully developed. Which, in the next few weeks, as precautionary measures, I will be given medication to help speed up the process, should they be born early. The next milestone is around week 32, which is when the lungs are pretty much completely developed, and the babies then spend their remaining time in the womb learning how to suck and gaining weight. Our goal is to make it to 36 weeks, which is the longest the doctors would allow for triplets. So that means we have 8 1/2 more weeks to go! Some days that hardly seems possible, and yet other days it seems like it will be a piece of cake.
This past week, my mom has bought me the supplies I needed to start working on Joshua and Haley's cross stitching project. So, I have spent some time this week working on that. I am hoping to have both done before they are born, so I need to be diligent! And really, since I am on the couch, can I really have an excuse to not be working on it? Not really!
This picture of me enjoying my new glider was taken about a week ago - at 26 1/2 weeks. And I keep growing!
