Thursday, we ended up going in to Labor and Delivery because I could only feel one of the boys moving. After Wednesdays ultrasound and talk of failing placenta, it was very scary to only feel one baby moving. The lovely nurse who checked me in couldn't seem to believe that i don't usually know which baby is which. Its not as easy as you might think, especially since just about every time we have an ultrasound, it takes them 10-15 min to figure out which baby is which and they have a window into my belly.
They admitted me, and were able to find two separate heartbeats. After some monitoring and discussion of the concerns with the placenta, they thought that more testing to make sure everything was going well was necessary. Since our perinatologists office is in the hospital, they wheeled me over to have a biophysical profile test of the babies. Baby A, the one who had not grown much, did not do the practice breathing, despite them observing him longer than the normally allotted half hour. They said this was okay and and possibly because i had not eaten since breakfast. We figured out why I was okay feeling one baby move, they were stacked on top of one another, one to the inside and one to the outside. However, it was almost like the boys understood the problem, and during the ultrasound, baby 2 moved into a different position, so I could once again feel that there were two separate babies in there.
I also got the second of two steroid shots, which will help with lung development if the boys come soon.
Overnight Thursday into Friday, I was not feeling well. With my contractions, I was having extreme shortness of breath and a racing pulse. My lungs and chest area felt sore and tight by the morning, making it hard to breathe. I was contacting about every 10 minutes and barely able to draw in breaths during the contractions. The contractions themselves weren't painful and didn't seem like what I think real labor contractions would feel like. I thought if I took a warm shower, it might help calm the contractions down. While in the shower, I started to feel light headed, and then my ears started buzzing so that I could barely hear the water over the buzzing in my head. I went to lay down and felt better, but decided it was time to call my doctor. He sent us to L&D in the hospital again.
My blood pressure was high, and they were concerned about preeclampsia, which is a life threatening condition where the only cure is delivering the babies. They ran some additional tests on my blood and urine, and all the results were normal. After monitoring my blood pressure for awhile, the average reading was about 165/80. Since the lower number was not elevated, the decided that I was okay to go home, but gave me other warning signs of preeclampsia to watch for (headache, vision changes, pain in the right side near ribs). I am also doing another 24 hour urine collection and they will compare the results to the one I did at 20 weeks. If the protein in the urine is starting to increase, then they will know preeclampsia is starting.
At our ultrasound, the boys both passed the BPP quickly. Both did all of the required movements, practice breathing, and normal heart rates. Their Dopplers looked about the same as Wednesday, so the doctor felt that everything was looking good. We go back in Monday morning for another ultrasound.
I am still contacting, short of breath, and having chest tightness. The ear buzzing and lightheaded sets happened again this morning (they thought that might be due to low blood sugar first thing in the am). I am hoping my body can take this pregnancy a bit longer, but it is getting tough. It's all good news, but rough going.
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