Well, I made it to 18w. Three weeks post rupture, and still no sign of anything sinister happening. Still getting kicked, still peeing a thousand times a day, still spewing. And I made it through week three with only one visitor, two if you count Pete who arrived this morning, and is currently at the shops procuring lunch for me while Inigo and Mark are off having adventures.
Yes, I know, more boob propaganda. But hey, I have time on my hands…
One of the symptoms of the toll all this is taking on Inigo, is that he has started to get anxious about going to daycare on Fridays. A couple of weeks ago, I had to leave him in tears for the first time ever, as I had to leave to go to a medical appointment (I always make sure I drop him well before I have to be somewhere else, so I have ample time to get him settled in before I need to leave him). Previously, (once he got used to being there), I haven’t had to wait more than half an hour before he is ready for me to leave.
Since Mark has been dropping him off the last couple of weeks, Mark has had to go through the trauma of leaving him while he is distressed. This morning, he threw a whammy before he even got out of the car, but once he was coaxed inside, he immediately sat down, set up a tea party, and waved goodbye to daddy.
“See you later Daddy!”
Strange creature.
I went to the hospital today, and saw another registrar. Fortunately, I also saw the first doctor I had seen there, who I really like. She is the senior fellow, and is specialising in high risk pregnancies. She (Roshini) has taken a special interest in my case, and apparently I will be able to see her at each weekly visit, rather than a different resident each week. This is great news – I will be able to have a single point of contact, and it’s someone I both trust and like, and who has a sense of humour!
So I am still healthy, still have normal blood pressure, normal pee, normal blood. Still pregnant (still spewing, though much lees), and still have two little heartbeats banging away. Oh, and I have lost 7kg since I booked in a couple of months ago.
If I owe you an email, you can expect it in the next couple of days, I am slowly catching up 
As I enter my third week of bed rest, I am reduced to recording the adventures of other people. Mark took Inigo to the park yesterday, and sent me this picture.
And today they went to visit our friends Richard and Miriam, who welcomed baby Anastasia on Wednesday. Richard and Mark have put an extra car seat in the vintage Jaguar, and have taken Oscar and Inigo to the zoo.
I hope they have fun, and take lots of pictures for me to enjoy vicariously.
Apparently, I have a genetic mutation that makes my blood prone to clots. Factor V Leiden, for which I am heterozygous for (which is less scary than homozygous), could have been the cause of the issues I had with Inigo’s birth, but it probably wouldn’t have anything to do with what is happening now. If this pregnancy continues though, I will probably need to be on blood thinners at some point.
I found this out, because my gorgeous midwives at Hornsby hospital suggested that I get tested for it because of the state of Inigo’s placenta. I asked my OB to test for it, and then today he rang and asked me why he had decided to test for it. And then he told me I’m a mutant.
It explains a lot.
As for my hospital visit yesterday, it took nearly 5 hours to pee in a jar, visit the vampires (give blood), have my blood pressure taken 80/120, have a long conversation with the high risk OB, and then a visit with the Midwife that co-ordinates the high risk patients. She wanted to know if we wanted to see a social worker to talk about how horrible this experience is. Um, no, I don’t think so. Frankly, if we were all cheery and full of coping, I’d suggest a padded cell, but I can’t see the social worker being able to make a huge amount of difference. This is an awful situation, it is NORMAL to feel awful. We’re doing well considering.
I’ve been told that I will have to go to the hospital twice a week, every Monday and Thursday, where I will have to pee in a jar, visit the vampires, have my blood pressure taken, and then wait around until a doctor has time to see me. I will be spending a great deal of time at the hospital, and a great deal of money in the car park ($8 in coins needed each time!).
So I am loving my iPad right now, and looking forward to getting a sim card so I can have internets in the waiting room…
And this is why I love my husband – the care package he came home with on the weekend. A new top of the line iPad, the new Kylie album, the new Scissor Sisters album, and some plastic cheese (no, I wouldn’t normally eat this shit, it’s a pregnancy thing).
Iggy was helping Mark put some Greens flyers in letterboxes today.
After spending a few hours at the hospital, talking to midwives and doctors about how to proceed, which drugs I could and could not be given because of my previous c/s, and how long we could wait before I went into labour naturally, I was given a blood test (to check for infection), and sent over to ultrasound to make sure there was no heartbeat.
Well, there was a heartbeat. Two, in fact. Both babies are alive and well, with healthy little heartbeats, and measuring big for gestational age. No amniotic fluid, but alive.
We have decided to proceed with the pregnancy, I will remain on bedrest, and switch my care to the high risk clinic at Westmead. If these babies are born alive, it is very likely they will come early, and they will need a neo-natal intensive care ward, so Westmead is the most obvious choice, despite the bus shelter atmosphere of the waiting room.
And if we make it to 20-ish weeks, I’ll be booked in as an in patient to continue my bed rest in less comfortable surroundings, but closer to a NICU.
So sorry for the drama, but you can imagine that Mark and I have been all over the place emotionally today.
Were on our way to Westmead hospital to find out what happens next. Hopefully I will go into labour soon, and then open the gin.
Mark took this video a few months ago, but rest assured, he is still cute.
Here is a link to some stories of women who have had premature rupture of membranes. Some of the stories end happily, some not.
I can’t thank everyone enough for the endless messages of support, love, and offers of help. It means so much to me that other people care, and I wish I was able to adequately thank everyone.
As far as practical help goes, at the moment we are fine, mum and dad have had Squishy for three days, he came home last night and has spent today with Bev & Ted. Tomorrow and Thursday mum and dad will take him, and Friday is his regular daycare day. Simone popped over on Sunday and cooked a pot of soup which has kept us both very well fed for the past few days, and I am catching up on some dvd watching, some novel reading, and tomorrow I might even try to tackle some knitting (though how that is going to work lying down I am not sure).
Timing is a funny thing though, next week, mum and dad are leaving for a long planned trip to Thailand for a Tai Chi retreat, so from next week most of the Squishy care will fall to Bev and Ted. So next week I’ll be calling in favours, both to take some of the pressure of them, and to help Squishy feel special while chaos reigns. He has been amazing, but it’s obvious that he knows something is going on, and it’s been really hard for him too.
According to my OB, there is no reason to hope that the amniotic sac/s will repair. And without a repair, the babies won’t have any room to grow. Normally, the amniotic fluid provides a comfy cushioned room for the babies to grow, without that cushioning, there is nowhere for them to grow, so the soft little bones just can’t grow properly. The other function of the fluid is to help little lungs to develop. Without the fluid, the lungs will develop into a solid mass of tissue, without the holes needed to make the lungs function. So while the placentas are still doing a wonderful job, without a repair there is no hope.
I was 15 weeks on Saturday. Perhaps, if they had a few more weeks, there might have been more hope. As it is, I have chosen to hope. My midwife says not to give up until there is nothing to hope for, so while putting myself on bedrest isn’t likely to achieve much, it’s the only thing I can do, so that is what I am doing.
If the babies die, apparently it could take weeks and weeks. And then I will labour and give birth to them.
Obviously, we are devastated, but as yet, we don’t have anything to mourn.
Both babies have lost almost all amniotic fluid. Chance of survival is less than 1%. More waiting. Not much hope.
The ob thinks the amniotic sac around one of the babies has ruptured, and I will probably miscarry both babies soon. As of a few hours ago, there were still two heartbeats, but we havent been given much reason to hope.
A friend sent me to this blog post, a mum who is just thrilled and amazed to be a mum of twins.
I’m getting there.
Dear universe,
The twin news wasn’t welcome. It was scary, and, frankly, you could have chosen someone more, well, motherly. I know lots of people that like children, and want more of them, and would be really, really awesome parents. But no, you picked me. So I’ll have to deal with it, and I will even try to be gracious about it.
Especially in light of todays news.
Mark has just accepted an new job, with a $13k pay rise. And an iPad.
Thank you.
Mushroom Soup is a great thing to cook with Inigo, it doesn’t matter if the slicing isn’t perfect, and it keeps him occupied for ages – and he gets to say he cooked dinner!
Just in case you’re wondering, the knife is a serrated “steak” knife, not terribly sharp, and apart from trying to slice his hand open at the end of the clip, he really was very good with it!
It looks like we won’t be able to fit three baby seats in our current car (which we love and don’t want to replace). And even if we can physically fit them in, the tether straps all go across the boot, so getting a pram into the car is going to be impossible.
So it looks like we’re in the market for a second hand people mover. Hopefully it will seat at least five, preferably more (in case we ever need to give someone a lift), have at least three anchor points for car seats, have a manual transmission, power steering, air conditioning, less than 100,000 on the clock, and not be brown. Oh, and it needs to be reliable, cheap to run, and cost almost nothing (which is what we currently have budgeted for a new car).
Yes, we’re depressed.
Inigo’s latest response to being asked a question.
“Inigo, can I pull our pants up?”
“Of course you can”.
Hmmm… Perhaps it’s time to start using “may” instead of “can” in front of him ;P
We saw the obstetrician on Friday. He doesn’t think there is anything to be overly concerned about. And frankly, if there was, our ability to do anything about it is limited.
Three years ago, when we had the 12 week scan for Inigo, they did far less tests, because the ultrasounds were far less powerful, and they couldn’t see nearly as much detail. So in the opinion of our OB, three years ago, we wouldn’t even have known there was a potential issue at 12 weeks, so we would not have have had anything to worry about.
At this point, I’d like to talk about abortion. If you find that upsetting, don’t read any further. No, I am not planning to terminate this pregnancy, but there are some technical issues which are pertinent to how I am thinking at the moment, and it’s fair to give warning.
With a singleton pregnancy, if there is something drastically wrong with the baby* (it is growing without a brain, or has another condition that is incompatible with life), a mother can choose to terminate the pregnancy, up to about 20 weeks I believe. But with twins, after about 12 weeks, you can’t kill one baby and leave the other – and even at that point it is risky for the other baby. So if there is a problem with one of them, I would have to kill both of them, or neither.
You can’t do a CVS with twins. CVS can be done at 12 weeks, but Amnio can’t be done until 15 weeks, and then it is a 2 week wait for the results. So I wouldn’t know anything until 17 weeks, at which point I would have no options anyway.
I am not saying that I would consider an abortion, but it just seems that testing is pretty irrelevant at this point, because I certainly wouldn’t risk a healthy baby.
I’m probably just rambling, but the last couple of days have been a pretty horrendous roller coaster of emotions. Mostly fear and worry. And that’s no way to grow healthy babies.
*Or if a mother chooses not to continue with a pregnancy.
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