First trip to labor & delivery...

Yesterday I was feeling really achy all day and the boys were moving around like crazy. I chalked it up to the fact that my tummy was being punched and tried to ignore it. At around 6pm, I was waiting for Christian to get done with some work stuff by walking around the mall when I started to feel really crampy. I sat down and the pain got worse, like period cramps all over my belly.

We decided to go home and grab dinner on the way - maybe I was just hungry. I ate, drank two big glasses of water and put my feet up while watching Friends. This didn't help so I jumped in the shower. That didn't help so I laid in our bed on my side and counted my contractions and rated the pain I was having. It was 8:30pm by the time I decided I needed to call the doctor and see what they wanted me to do - I was having about 8-10 contractions an hour lasting 2 minutes each and about 5 minutes apart, and they actually hurt and took my breath away the cramping and back pain was even worse.

I called and was immediately transferred to the Family Maternity Center (after I said "twins" and "contractions") since my doctor's office was closed. I spoke with the triage nurse who said she wanted me to come in, didn't ask any of the normal questions and when I said "but what if it's nothing" she replied that she would be the judge of that and wanted to see me.

So we headed out, our first adventure to the L&D center at Evergreen. The staff was amazing so nice and didn't make me feel bad about coming in. I kept apologizing saying that I didn't know what I was feeling. Each time my nurse said they just wanted to check and would let me go when I was all checked out.

It was the typical routine, hospital gown, urine sample and get up on the bed. Then they had me put on this tummy band, and hooked up three monitors to my belly - two fetal heartbeat counters and one to measure my contractions. The nurse had a hard time finding the heartbeat of baby B, since he was moving all over the place.

Almost immediately the monitor picked up a contraction, the numbers went from 14 way up to 79 within about a minute. So they continued to monitor me for about an hour which picked up very regular contractions ranging in intensity. Then I got an IV so they could give me some fluid (my body sucked up one entire bag in less than 30 minutes!) and did an internal exam.

My cervix was "firm, closed, and anterior" - good news. They also did a fetal fibronectin test to see if I would go into labor in the next week. We found out (4 hours later) that the test was negative, a very good sign that I wouldn't go into labor anytime soon and became the deciding factor that I could go home.

Over the course of the next few hours I got another bag of fluids and had quite a few more contractions, though they seemed to slow down and my belly ache went away. All of a sudden I felt two really strong contractions (back up to the 80's on the monitor) in a row. The nurse came in and said that I probably had to go to the bathroom because of all of the fluids and this sometimes causes contractions. So they got me unhooked and away I went. I came back and it took another 20 minutes to get the babies heartbeats to stay on the monitors.

That's when the contractions started getting worse, not better. After looking at my charts from the past hour the nurse called the doctor on call (wouldn't it be my luck that it was Dr.Davis - luckily she just called him and I never had to actually talk to him). Dr. Davis said that he wanted to stop my contractions by giving me a dose of terbutaline, a medicine that would relax my uterus to stop the contractions. I was given this immediately and told that I would likely feel my heart rate go up and feel shaky - the nurse was right. It felt like I had been given 20 cups of coffee, I was shaky and my heart was pounding. Luckily this only lasted for 30 minutes.

They continued to monitor me and saw that I was still having contractions. After the nurse consulted with Dr. Davis again they gave me another does of terbutaline. After another hour my contractions were subsided and I was released after seeing the doctor who was in the hospital on call. She was friendly and said that the babies looked great for being 28 weeks. I was instructed to come back in if the cramping or contractions came back and drink more fluids.

All in all we spent almost 5 hours in Labor & Delivery, and were released at 1:30 am. The nurse and doctors were glad I came in because I was having actual contractions that wouldn't have likely gone away on their own. I go back in today for my regular 28 week checkup and I'll see what my doctor says.

Wouldn't be a twin pregnancy story without at least one pre-term trip to L&D right? :)