It finally happened. I’m officially on bed rest. Sorry for the long delay in updating but now I’ll have lots of time to update on the exhilarating life of bed rest.

Here’s a short version of how it all went down. The detailed version follows.

4/24- Told to stop working while during a sonogram my cervix shortened to within 1 mm of bed rest when I had a contraction
4/27- Home bed rest ordered after another sonogram.
4/28- Check to see if I was dilated and a fetal fibronectin test (predicts labor within 2 weeks)
NO and negative meaning holding off on steroid shots to promote lung development
4/29- 25 WEEKS!! Papa and Bambi here
4/30- Lying on the couch watching Rich, Papa and Bambi do projects, cook, laundry and bring me high protein snacks

Here’s the long version:
On Friday (4/24) I had echocardiograms of hearts of all of the babies. We found out that both Baby B and Baby C have an identical heart defect in the same place called a ventricular septal defect which I talked about before. When the cardiologist looked at B and said something about the VSD of course I thought he was really looking at C because we already knew that about C and those little rascals move like crazy. But both girls have the same thing in the same place. Hmmm, maybe they are identical after all…

This defect for each is very small is in an ideal spot because they think when the hearts grows, it will grow around the hole, maybe before birth or maybe within a few months. Everything else looked fantastic (valves, pressures, measurements). The skill and technology is truly amazing. The heart of the little boy looked great but I’ll tell you more about that little troublemaker in a minute.

Then I walked down the hall to my perinatologist and they measured growth and looked at organ development. They are compared on a singleton growth chart and even on that they looked great.
Baby A: 1 lbs, 9 oz
Baby B: 1 lbs, 10 oz
Baby C: 1 lb, 8 oz

They noticed A, the boy had changed positions. Where before all 3 were across, or transverse. Now, the boy is head down, ready to rock on roll which I think is what is contributing to all of this trouble. Then they were measuring my cervix and noted that it had shortened but still okay and then all of the sudden it got really quiet and all 4 sets of eyes of the staff were as big as saucers. Someone said, “Did you feel that?” I really didn’t know what they were talking about because when your uterus is the size of a small watermelon, nothing too much gets you riled up unless you get kicked in bladder. I guess I had some sort of contraction while they were watching and my cervix shortened to 26 mm. 25 mm is the start of bed rest so I contracted to within 1 mm of bed rest. I was put on restricted activity meaning I had to quit work, limited walking around the house with occasional outings to maybe dinner or a movie with follow up on Monday with my OB.

And I didn’t even get any pictures. I had been getting either echoes or a sonogram for 3 ½ hours and they were perfectly behaved until it was picture time then they all faced backwards and refused to move.

My restricted activity lasted 3 days. On Monday I went back to my OB and my cervix had shortened further so I was put on bed rest. Bed rest is staying horizontal to combat the gravitational force with the intention of preventing or halting pre-term labor. I’m allowed to use the bathroom, get up to eat a meal and shower once a day. No lifting my precious little Pickles (20 lbs partially blind pug) onto the bed. No walking the dogs. No sitting up for long periods of time.

I had been told to expect this but it was a little more sudden and sooner than I had hoped.

The following day I went back to the OB and they checked to see if I was dilated and to do a fetal fibronectin test. This test is a good negative predictor of going into labor in the next 2 weeks. If it is negative I have a 99% chance that I will NOT go into labor within 2 weeks. A positive result is not as good of a predictor but it means that labor is more likely and they would start to think about steroid injections to help mature the lungs and probably more monitoring and restrictions.

I found out on Wednesday the test was negative (PHEW!) but in the meantime, Rich came home from Detroit on Tuesday night to help out. He is very patient and a quick study. In case anyone is wondering, he now knows how to separate the white clothes from the dark when doing laundry, how to separate egg whites from the yolks to make me eggs in the morning and the importance of daily Swiffering to pick up pug hair. I also have a bell next to my bed that I can ring when I need something. He doesn’t really like the bell so I try to reserve it for emergencies.

My dad and Bambi arrived on Wednesday night for round 2 of house projects. Between that and 6 girls from work coming over to have lunch on Wednesday (Rich likes to be here with 7 “nurses” as he called them and I’m a little surprised he didn’t fake a cardiac arrest), I’ve not been bored.

The other good news is that now that I’m no longer on my feet, my legs are not swollen and are about half the size they were last week. I should have taken a picture of my swelling. I love gross medical pictures so that would have been a keeper for my treasure collection.

So now I have lots of time to look at the internet, take silly pictures and think about how to pack in 160 grams of protein in a day which has been my latest challenge. Stay tuned...