Today marks 29 weeks and day 32 inpatient! I had a growth ultrasound yesterday, and the babies seem to be on a good trajectory. Last time, they were quite small measuring at 5th and 10th percentile. Yesterday, they were better at 9th and 20th percentile. Their pesky femurs are still lagging behind, but my doctors don’t seem too concerned about this. They say their legs will catch up once they come out. Their estimated weights are now 2lb 11oz and 2lb 7 oz.

This also means we started talking about delivery dates and when this whole inpatient journey will end. Of course, the babies could be delivered at any time before that date if things look dicey, but we at least have a sense of the latest possible date now. This is a hard decision. The standard range for mono/mono twins is delivery between 32 – 34 weeks. Some hospitals are really adamant about not going beyond 32 weeks at all because they say the risks of staying in are worse than the risks of coming out. My doctor tells a different story, which logically makes sense. She says that once they get to 32 weeks, they are pretty much stuck in their positions, so a sudden dramatic cord accident is unlikely. It’s more likely that we would see gradually increasing decelerations as the babies get bigger and start to compress the cord knots that they have most definitely created in there. She says the risk actually sort of goes down at that point because they can’t move as much. I’m still a bit nervous about going too far past the 32-week mark, but since they are on the smaller side, a few extra days doesn’t seem worrisome. It’s not like be babies will wake up and say “it’s 32w1day. Let’s go crazy!!” Anyway, we are thinking of shooting in the middle for 33 weeks, which means I’ll be outta here by ~Sept 15. We are still discussing dates and scheduling, and of course this could change. We’ll do one more growth ultrasound at 31w6d to help us further decide.

This past week brought on some intense emotions.

Possibly because I’ve been here for over 30 days, which felt like a big milestone to cross. On day 30, I was full of anger at all sorts of random things. I also think I had a subtle idea in my head that this whole situation would become less stressful after 28 weeks because the babies are more viable. It turns out, though, that this situation never really gets less stressful. Each new phase is different, but still stressful. This has happened a number of times already — “Oh, once I get to this point, I’ll feel better!” NOPE. Last week, I became suddenly fixated on my fear of losing the babies between or during monitoring. It started with a bad dream and carried into the next few days. It ended during a night time monitoring session when one of the babies fell off the monitor for an extended period of time and my nurse didn’t come back. I just lost it. I pushed my call button and started crying hysterically. This sort of thing happens all the time, so it was a bit of an over-reaction.

The next day, when my doctors came in for rounds, it went like this:

“Sooooo, how was your night?” my doctor asked.

“Did they tell you I lost my shit?”

This was followed by some reassurance that losing your shit is normal.

Then my doctor said “So, there’s not a lot we can do to make the monitoring better, BUT what we can do is take you off the heparin shots.”

If you’ll recall, last week I was all up in arms about the sudden requirement for me to get heparin blood thinner shots 3x a day in the stomach. I thought this was unnecessary because I walk more now than I did before I came in, and I’m consistently averaging 1.5-2 miles per day! I conceded anyway and tolerated the heparin shots (in the stomach) for over a week. Earlier last week, my doctor did agree that if anyone on the floor could skip the heparin shots, it would be me. I guess it just took losing my shit for them to grant me that gift of no more shots in the stomach.

Thank you for that lovely gift! Now I feel like I need to walk more so I don’t get a blood clot. I have definitely upped my steps since I’ve been off the shots.

Otherwise things are fine here. I’ve settled into a pretty good daily routine. Wake up at 7am, shower, make my bed, get dressed. Do some work. Get monitored at 8am (and try to keep working). Make coffee. Go for a walk (which involves a stop at the cafeteria breakfast line to get eggs, bacon, and sausage — gotta beef up those babies!). Do more work. Eat lunch, usually with a lovely lunchtime visitor. Do more work. Get monitored again at 2pm. Go for another walk and treat myself to a Diet Coke (oh the luxury!). Do more work. Play with Sam and Erin (Sam usually wants to leave after a short visit). Eat my hospital dinner. Get monitored again at 8pm and watch TV. Read Harry Potter and fall asleep.

I don’t think anyone really believed me when I said I would work from the hospital. However, I am very grateful that I am able to work! I would definitely be going crazy if I didn’t have work to focus on. Even with work, there is still plenty of time for walks, TV, reading, crochet, and weaving.

As for projects, I’ve stalled out a bit on my creativity at the moment. I am working on a mobile for the babies made of crocheted ninjas and ice cream cones. I’ve currently got 2 ninjas and 2 ice cream cones. One of each to go. I hate making the same thing multiple times, so I’m finding this to be tedious.

Another thing that happened this week is my friends came by for a picnic! The weather didn’t cooperate and it rained, so we had our picnic inside. That didn’t spoil our day, though!

Thank you so much again to those who have visited. It really does help the days go by, and I really appreciate the effort you go through to get here. Special shoutout to Melissa who saved this whole bag of Smash (the best Scandinavian treat ever!) for me! I ate it all in one day.

Also sorry if I am repeating myself. My memory is going fast.