Week 33 Another eventful week... to say the least!

Last Monday was the start of our twice weekly visits to the doctor for BPPs (Biophysical Profile). BPPs consist of testing to monitor the babies during the last few weeks of pregnancy and include an ultrasound and non-stress test.  During the ultrasound, there are several things that they look for to determine overall health of the babies, but one thing that they really look for is movement of the baby over a certain amount of time. For my test, they like to see the babies move at least once every 30 minutes. Well, Baby B, for whatever reason, did not move during the 30 minutes allowed. He had a wonderful heart rate and at one point, we could see him practice his breathing, but as far as movement goes, there was very little, if any. The ultrasound tech had me drink something sugary, walk around and then we tried the ultrasound again to see if maybe this would get him moving... it didn't. We did another 30 minute ultrasound and he still wasn't moving around. This was terrifying!! The radiologist called my MD and sent me to the hospital for further testing. We got to the hospital and they put me one the fetal monitor and said that he looked wonderful on the monitor, but wanted to keep me over night for observation. Thank goodness we had an uneventful night and a repeat ultrasound on Tuesday showed that Baby B was doing great.  There really was no explanation as to why Baby B wasn't moving around during the first ultrasound, but we were so very relieved that the second ultrasound went so well!!

Tuesday evening, after discharge from the hospital,  I noticed a few "Braxton Hicks"  which I attributed to stress, maybe need for extra hydration and lack of rest from the previous days events. On Wednesday, I felt a few more "Braxton Hicks" but nothing I was too worried about, it was more like a little tightening across my abdomen and lower back, but resting seemed to help. Well, at about 1:30am on Thursday morning, I woke up with lower back pain and contractions, which were about 10-12 minutes apart. We had an appointment scheduled for Thursday afternoon and honestly, the contractions weren't too painful, just uncomfortable, so I thought we would wait until the appointment to tell the doctor about it, but then we decided to go ahead and call to see if they would want to see us any earlier.. Of course, they did! We went straight to the doctor and after monitoring the contractions, they admitted me to the hospital with preterm labor. For those of you keeping score, yes, that's twice in one week at the hospital.. fun fun! 

The initial plan for the admission was to monitor the contractions and start oral medication to help relax the uterus and calm the contractions. My doctor also wanted to give me a round of steroid injections, 24 hours apart, to help the babies' lungs mature, in case these contractions did lead to delivery. After 3 nights in the hospitals and a nice cocktail of medications (Procardia, Indocin, and Magnesium) to stop labor, we were able to come home on Sunday.
We saw the doctor again yesterday and had another ultrasound. Baby A is approximately 5 lbs 5 oz and Baby B is 4 lbs 12 oz. I'm still having contractions and I'm extremely uncomfortable, but we are hopeful, the babies will wait until at least 34 weeks to make their debut, which is tomorrow! The doctor says that if I go into labor from this point on, she will not try to stop it again and we will get to meet our babies!! Please keep us in your prayers! We really are excited about our little guys arrival, but we also know that each day they get to spend in the womb is another day they can grow stronger!