Uh, Happy Birthday Jason, I Think

I know that's a werid title. Jason's birthday was Sunday the 14th. For his birthday he almost got to have twins! Let me go back to the beginning, shall I?

Jason was scheduled in at 8 in the morning on his b-day. What a sucky time to work, on your birthday of all days! I got woken up to James playing video games. When I dozed back off, he asked if he could use the portable dvd player that is actually Katy's and stashed in my room, I said NO. He went in, took that out, and also took out my DS. He couldn't get that to work, or maybe he could, I dunno. He said he couldn't but I have a strong disbelief in anything he says when he's trying to get OUT of trouble. Izzy decided that since we had locked the fridge (a piece of rope and a padlock) he would take EVERYTHING he could out of the back hallway and dump that on the floor instead. UGH!

I dragged James out of bed and had him clean up the back hallway as his punishment. Izzy, I made him stand in time out, get a bath with no toys (*gasp* NOT that, trust me, he wasn't too happy), sit in time out in the office on the stool, no movies, and no snacks. He spent a lot of time sitting in the crib, he found it appealing for some reason and I could keep a better eye on him as he was in the office with me, or upstairs. James was ok with cleaning up the back hallway once he found out that Izzy was being punished too and said "good, now I won't have to retaliate against him". That kind of statement so bothers me coming from that kid!

About 1 in the afternoon, I started having regular contractions. Keep in mind, I won't be 32 weeks until Wed this week, so contractions, regular ones at that, are NOT good. I timed them a while to see if they would go away. I drank a bottle of water. I moved around. All a big fat not working. Great. They were about 5-7 min apart. At 3 I finally decide I have to call the midwife to see if I should go in. That was a big "Yes ma'am, get your butt in here". I tried to call Jack, he was at work. I called Katie Ann. I called Jason at work. Katie was first because she had a lot further to drive, being up at my mom's and all. Jason still made it here before her. Katie got here about 4 and off we went.

They set me up in triage, which is now roomy and nice, especially compared to how they had it set up at the old hospital. I get on the monitors. Damn, regular contractions! Little ones, but they were there. They couldn't get both babies on the monitors so I was sent downstairs for an ultrasound, that Jason unfortunately missed because he was dealing with my ever so impatient sister.

Side note here. How long did she honestly expect it to take us at the hospital? Why is it that we are there an HOUR and she is already calling us and asking when we will be done? Also, why the HELL wasn't she keeping a closer eye on Izzy? When I got home, my house was much more trashed than when I left!

Back to the main story here. The babies were both doing fine. Jack is head down, but he has his back to my cervix. Abbey is curled up inside the U that Jack makes. They were both practicing their breathing, a very good sign for them. She didn't take measurments to determine their size, that wasn't the goal. She measured each ones fluid and took some readings of blood flow through the umbilical cord. She checked Jack's kidneys. They both had a little fluid in each one. One of Jack's kidneys may be bigger than the other. I see a doc for that later today (with today technically being the 16th). The cords are not around the babies' necks.

I get back upstairs and the contractions are BIGGER. Well crap! So it is decided that I get a shot of terbutaline. That is some NASTY stuff. I also get a bag of fluid. And the Doc (who happens to be the same doc I saw in the office last time) ordered steroids for the babies' lung maturity to go a little faster. The terbutaline gave me some AWFUL side effects, but I was told of them. My cervix is way up high and closed tight, both good things. They got the contractions to ease up quite a bit. I was still having them, but they were much less frequent and much more mild. I was ordered not to stray away from my home town (which rearranged a couple of plans for the week) and to drink enough water to drown a fish. I also had to go back on Monday and get the 2nd shot of steroids.

Jason went down stairs at one point to call his sister and let her know to come pick up the kids and to cally my sis and let her know what was going on. She had called my bro and asked him to come over because she was freaking out about needing to leave to go pick up Alex and wah wah wah. In this time frame, James ran away again. I didn't get Katie's side of that until earlier today (today being the 15th, which I am still on). She called the police. And my bro to come look for James. Thankfully he didn't run too far, and he came home on his own. Our family worker happened to be the one on call, so that worked out for us as well.

Jason came up and told me about James and Katie and that whole debacle. At that point, I am huddled up, shivering and freezing, under a blanket (heated) and a sheet. I start having coughing fits because apparently, terbutaline is also a med they give to asthmatics to stop their episodes. Great, just great. I'm having a hard time breathing well and I need to give Jason the number to our therapist because it isn't programmed in to the cell phone, something I apparently need to remedy. The therapist gets called, James comes back, Audra gets there, things get settled down, thankfully.

Audra has willingly taken the kids until Tuesday evening so that I can have a couple of quiet days of rest. I really need them. I am SO exhausted. I could barely sleep last night. I think the worry of the twins coming too soon and the meds and all of that just got to me. I FINALLY went to bed at 6 this morning, but then woke up at 8:30 because I thought I heard someone come in to our house, and it turned out to be our neighbor getting ready to take his boat out ont he lake. Good grief! I laid around in bed most of the day while Jason cleaned. I told him that was my plan and he was very OK with that. He called in to work last night for today. He felt he needed to be home to make sure I was OK.

Speaking of Jason and myself. Sitting there in the L & D Triage gave us some time to talk. I told him that what he had said hurt me so much and why. He told me that the choice of words he had used weren't accurate. We came to a meeting place at least. Things are definately smoothed over. I did ask him to utilize our family therapist and actually TALK to her. He did that today, while the kids weren't home, so he could speak honestly and not worry about little ears overhearing what they shouldn't. We've decided that as a stress reliever, he needs to stop hiding away and do something active. So now I'm on the search for a punching bag, one of those big ones you hang from a rafter. He'll put it in the basement and when things get stressful, go take that frustration and aggrevation out on the bag. It at least seems like a good idea. I have thearpy. He will have a bag. Ironically, in our mismatched male/female roles, that right there is very sterotypical.

Tomorrow (later today technically) I have an ultra sound and an appointment with a Maternal Fetal Medicine doc. It's just a consult. I see a midwife on Friday. I was already going to start having weekly appointments, but I think now it will become guarenteed to be there every week and I'll get Non Stress Tests (NST's) as well as the every other week or so ultrasound. Right now the hope is the babies stick it out for at least 2 weeks, until I hit 34 weeks. The nurse was impressed that I hadn't needed a terbutaline shot before now and the midwife was VERY pleased at the closed cervix. They also did the fetal protien test, the one that tells if you may go in to labor in the next 2 weeks, and that was negative. I kind of figured it would be, with having scraped a very closed cervix and all.

This week is a busy week. Tuesday is the Maternal Med doc. Jason has Tue, Wed, and Fri off, which is nice. Wed I have therapy that morning. Thur morning I am meeting with the doc that did James' psych profile. HOPEFULLY we will get some narrowing down of what is going on with James at that point. On Friday I see the midwife. Jason's folks are coming up for dinner and they had it catered by my sil. Yum, good food that I don't have to cook! We always get together for "our" birthdays. My birthday is Thur. Jason and I are/will be 32 this week.

Because of my "stay close to home" restriction, I can't go get Katy Beth for her 3 week visit. This makes me very sad because I was REALLY looking forward to the time with her. We're going to set it up so that after the babies come and James and Jayden are with Grandma Linda that Katy will come down for a bit. She had said that she wanted to while they were gone. Hopefully her swim and baby sitting classes won't be taking place at the exact same time.

Well, I'm heading off to bed now. I'm VERY sleepy. I'm sleeping back in the bed tonight, and last night. It just makes me feel "safer" I guess. The security of having Jason right there next to me is soothing.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you all have a less chaotic week than mine is shaping up to be!