30 Weeks

I feel like I don't have much to say on days where we don't have a scan. But today I am 30 weeks. Two more weeks until the next milestone. We did take a belly shot today, but I haven't gotten around to downloading to the computer yet. Suffice it to say, I am HUGE.

Today was a bit of a down day. i woke up in a bad mood because I had trouble sleeping last night and was dreaming that I was leaking fluid. Turns out I just had to pee. But I think the fear is definitely starting to sink in and I'm trying not to let it get the best of me.

I had another postpardum nurse today, which makes for a really stressful day. The postpardum nurses don't usually work with pregnant women and, therefore, know very little about monitoring. I had to guide her and take responsibility myself (I don't get paid for that!). To make matters worse, this particular nurse is just slow. It took her 30 minutes to take my vitals this morning before she would give me my medication. And she tends to just putz around my room, even when I have company visiting. Our doula was here this morning for our first prenatal visit (we moved it up given the circumstances) and we were still trying to finish up the morning monitoring session (which ended up taking 2 1/2 hours). The doula was laughing at me because every time the nurse would walk into the room, my heart rate would increase and then it would immediately decrease right when she left the room. Telltale sign that she was stressing me out. I'm so transparent!

I did convince her at some point that she needed to grab one of the L&D nurses to help with the monitoring. Once the L&D nurse was in here, I mentioned to her how frustrating it was having a postpardum nurse. She mentioned that they fill in on postpardum too and it is difficult for them to help women breast feed when that isn't what they are trained to do. What is wrong with this system? She did promise to get me an L&D nurse for tonight, which she did. I know that when L&D is short on nurses, the bedrest patients get the fill-in nurses, because they can't really help during deliveries. But still. I'm paying for this care and I shouldn't have to stress because of their administrative issues.

The doula today mentioned that drinking gelatin in water can help increase amniotic fluid. Anyone heard of this? I did a search on this and didn't find a whole lot. I did drink one cup of it this afternoon, but I just wonder if anything additional will go to Banana anyway because his placenta seems to be functioning better. During the monitoring session this morning, it took forever to get Apple to stay on the monitor and then Banana's heart rate was looking flat. A normal, healthy baby will show brief accelerations and decelerations in their heart rate during monitoring. The good news is that the monitoring session tonight went a little smoother and the babies seemed fine.

I had a couple of visitors today (other than my parents and B who visit every day) and one of our friends brought us a little rocking sheep for the babies. it is so incredibly cute and I can't wait to see it in the nursery. It seems like forever since I've been in the nursery. I miss our house and the dogs. Tonight B and I did a quick video chat so I could talk to the dogs. Scout was cocking her head back and forth listening to me and trying to figure out where my voice was coming from. Molly just looked bored. That is until Scout decided I must be home and ran to the garage door barking. One of the nurses told us that we can bring dogs in to visit if we can prove they've had all of their shots. It was a tempting idea, but I think it would just wig them out further. And Scout's barking would disturb the entire hospital.

Let's see, what else? B went to our second HOA meeting last night and apparently things got a bit heated. I hate missing stuff like that-oh the drama!

Not much else going on. I can't believe I've been here a week. I NEVER thought this would happen when we came in last week. Thought I'd be going home that night or maybe the next day. I've gotten to know quite a few of the nurses now and most of them are pretty good and really nice. The food here is actually not bad (since you asked, Jen). There is a menu you order off of like room service and it is actually a pretty varied menu. They have breakfast items, sandwiches and salads, and entrees and you can order any of them at any time 7am to 7pm. I am definitely staying fed. Plus B and my parents (and some friends) keep bringing me outside food so I don't get bored of the food here.

The weather has turned to fall and gotten colder here, but I really don't know the difference. I have a nice view of the mountains out my window, but it would be nice to be able to breathe the fresh air. I do have wheelchair privileges, so I guess I could have someone wheel me outside, but I didn't bring any cold weather clothes here.

Tomorrow is our next scan with the peri. I am nervous, but I can't wait for it to be morning so I can count another day that the babies are safe inside me and I just hope things have improved since Wednesday. They are coming to get me either at 7:30am or 9:30am. If I'm not able to go home tomorrow, they are going to set up a tour of the NICU for us so that we can get a little familiar and more comfortable with the idea of having our babies in there for awhile. And so we can also see some preemies and feel a little better that Apple and Banana won't look like aliens if they are born soon. It is a fine line between trying to stay optimistic and trying to prepare for the worst if we need to.

That's all for now. Time to go hook up my fancy leg compression thingies and try to sleep for 2 hours until they wake me up for my next pr.ocardia. Until tomorrow.