Week 6: May 18-24

This was a pretty good week. The babies didn't have any major problems. On Tuesday (day 37), Elise had a slight decel, but, fortunately, I didn't have to stay on the monitor for too long before my doctor decided it was safe to come off. Both Anne-Claire and Elise had wondeful ultrasounds all week. Their fluid levels were on target and their cord dopplers remained stable. Their biophysical profiles coulnd't have been better. On Friday (day 40) I started have some regular contractions, so the on-call doctor suggested my cervix get checked and if everything was fine, my nurse could take me off the monitor. I knew they were just Braxton-Hicks and not going to do anything significant. The contractions returned on Saturday (day 41) night and became more frequent, so theon-call doctor had my nurse check my cervix and sure enough it was nice and closed! Then on Sunday (day 42), Elise had a 3 1/2 minute decel into the 60s that earned me more time on the monitor. When Dr. D-P came in and did my ultrasound, she said the girls looked wonderful and she wanted to review the tracing around 8pm to see what was going on. Unfortunately, she came back 3 hours later and said that there had been slight dips throughout the afternoon, so she was keeping me on the monitor until further notice. I slept sitting up because that seems to be the only way I can get any rest and keep the babies on the monitors. On Monday (week 7, day 43) morning I woke hopeful that the constant monitoring would soon be over. Unfortunately, by the time Dr. D-P arrived Elise had had another decel, so she felt I need to stay on the monitor for longer. I was really disappointed because Chris and the girls were spending the day with me and being on the monitor makes our visits much more difficult. They were going to go ahead and leave but Chris saw how disappointed I was and decided to stay. I'm so glad. Being on the monitor continuously is hard enough but doing it alone is even harder.

June 2: The above was written on Monday, May 25. Little did I know that the very next day my girls would be born and the significance my notes from Sunday and Monday would have.