Seven years ago today... (part 1)

For the month of June, I decided to write a series of posts about my twins' first month of life to help raise awareness about prematurity and TTTS (twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome).

Seven years ago today, I was 33 weeks pg with my twins. I had a regular ob and a neonatal specialist, and I went in to the specialist that morning for a level 2 sonogram to check how the boys were doing. They took my blood pressure and it was something like 160/110. They sent me straight over to the labor and delivery unit (the dr's office was at the hospital) where I was admitted and later that day, diagnosed with severe preeclampsia. They wouldn't even let me go home to pack a bag. Ironically, I had actually attempted to pack my bag the day before figuring we were starting to get close, but was so tired I'd only managed to make a list of what to pack. I had to have dh bring my things. They put me on strict bedrest and said I wouldn't be going home until after the babies were born.

In hindsight maybe my body was trying to give us a clue that our babies needed to be delivered early, although we were trying to keep them in the womb as long as possible. As my doctor said, every day they can stay in the womb is 3 days they won't have to spend in the NICU. For the next few days, I started having regular contractions every morning around 4am and was given terbutaline each time to prevent labor. I was on 3 monitors at all times, one for each baby to check their heartrates, and one for me. We managed to bring my bp down a bit, but it was still higher than it should be.

To be continued...

For more info on prematurity, see www.marchofdimes.com
For more info on TTTS, see www.tttsfoundation.org