Saturday, November 8, 2008

A Day in the Life

  • 8am-Get out of bed, brush teeth, pee
  • 8:15am-Order breakfast and do bed rest exercises, eat breakfast
  • 8:55am-Call nurse and ask to be placed on monitors
  • 9:00am-Nurse arrives with medicine and takes vitals, pee
  • 9:05am-Monitoring Step 1:  Nurse thinks she has both babies on monitor and leaves room with confidence, promising to "watch from the desk"
  • 9:06am-Monitoring Step 2:  One or both babies moves and monitor loses track of heart beat, attempt to move monitor to find missing baby(ies)
  • 9:25am-Monitoring Step 3:  Get annoyed that nurse has not been watching and doesn't come back to find missing baby(ies)
  • 9:26am-Monitoring Step 4:  Call nurses station and ask for help getting missing baby(ies) back on monitors
  • 9:27am-Monitoring Step 5:  Decide might as well pee while waiting for nurse, unplug three monitors (one for each baby and one for contractions) and pulse-ox, curl into a ring and carry with to the bathroom with goopy gel all over belly hanging out.  Try not to let shirt fall into goop.
  • 9:30am-Monitoring Step 6:  Nurse is back and spends anywhere from 2 minutes to 20 minutes getting babies back on monitors
  • 9:50am-Monitoring Step 7:  Horrible back-ache sets in and decide must absolutely shift sides or will die soon.
  • 9:51am-Monitoring Step 8:  Roll over in bed, lose both babies off monitors
  • Repeat Steps 2 through 8
  • 10:35am-Babies cooperate for 10 continuous minutes.  Obsess over tracing because not showing proper accelerations.
  • 10:45am-Notice that it looks like both monitors are tracing the same baby.
  • 10:46am-Call nurses station asking for assistance, that is the same baby on both monitors
  • 10:50am-Nurse comes in and tries to find second baby.
  • 10:55am-Nurse leaves to find other, more experienced nurse for help.
  • 11:00am-Both nurses try to find second baby.
  • 11:10am-Both babies finally cooperate for a bit.
  • 11:11am-Have to pee.  Focus really hard to avoid peeing in the bed every time a contraction hits and pushes on the bladder.
  • 11:12am-Doctor shows up on rounds.  Asks questions, answers questions.
  • 11:25am-Nurse decides we've gotten enough and arrives to take me off monitors
  • 11:26am-waddle to bathroom as fast as I can
  • 11:30am-Order lunch and sit in warm bath watching tiny body parts poke out of belly
  • 12:05pm-pee, do bed rest exercises, eat lunch
  • 1:00pm-check email, return phone calls, pee, nurse arrives with medicine
  • 2:00pm-nurse asks when I want to go back on monitors
  • 2:01pm-2:30pm- attempt to answer emails, return phone calls, visit with visitors
  • 2:31pm-Nurse comes back.  "Ready to monitor?"
  • 2:32pm-4:00 or 4:30 pm-repeat monitoring steps as above
  • 5:00pm-nurse arrives with medicine
  • 5:15pm-call nurses station and ask to go sit in tub
  • 5:35pm-wonder if they've forgotten about me
  • 5:36pm-Call nurses station again and ask if I've been forgotten (whoever took the call forgot to tell my nurse)
  • 5:38pm-Nurse arrives with wheelchair to take me to tub room and apologizes
  • 5:40pm-6:10pm-sit in warm tub and watch earthquake going on in belly
  • 6:02pm-return to room and realize haven't showered yet today, pee
  • 6:10pm-shower
  • 6:30pm-order dinner, do bed rest exercises, pee
  • 7:00pm-eat dinner
  • 8:00pm-night nurse arrives and asks when I want to be monitored again, pee
  • 8:30pm-begin monitoring steps as above
  • 9:00pm-nurse arrives with medicine and takes vitals
  • 10:30pm-pee, go to sleep
  • 12:15am-pee
  • 1:00am-nurse wakes up to give medicine and take vitals, pee, go back to sleep
  • 3:30am-pee
  • 5:00am-nurse wakes up to give medicine and take vitals, pee, pretend to go back to sleep
  • 6:00am-slowly drift off back to sleep
  • 7:00am-wake up to loud noises in the hallway from cleaning or construction crew, pee
  • 8:00am-start all over again
Throw in the random ultrasound, blood draw, weight check, NICU tour, etc. somewhere in there.

Are you exhausted yet?  I am.

9 comments:

Paula Keller said...

Wow! That CERTAINLY doesn't sound very restful!

But the little earthquakes going on in the belly!!! That's got to be exciting!

Amanda said...

Your day is beyond exhausting! I'm thinking of you and Apple & Banana.

Maryanne said...

I am worn out- I am sure not as you are though! We are thinking ofyou daily and sending good thoughts your way!

Rhonda said...

gosh...you pee a lot! ;-)

miss you this week.

Duffy said...

yeah, "bed rest" sounds like a bit of a misnomer now! Wow lady! I think when the twins are finally home with you it will be more restful than this! And I will say it again - you are such a trooper.

Looking forward to seeing you soon! Hang in there!

George said...

Exhausting! I don't know how you havne't lost your mind...I hate staying in hospitals. The 3 nights I was there for my induction and 2 days post-partum sucked. Although, it was helpful to have some nurses around to answer questions about my newborn boy, I barely slept and was poked/proded way too much for my liking!

Good luck to you...take as many of those warm bath's as you can...that's probably the most relaxing part of your day!!!

Ms. J said...

Holy heck. Bed rest is NOT relaxing!

Rebecca said...

"Order lunch and sit in warm bath watching tiny body parts poke out of belly"

Not everyone can say THAT!!!

Sounds like you're peeing a lot...it sucks, doesn't it? I never wanted to pee again...I was also pretty sick of eating!

Staying in the hospital is horrible b/c they keep waking you up and when they're not, someone else is! Hope you can get some rest at some point...sounds like you've got some active babies in there! You are going to be so glad you chronicled this so you can throw it in their faces when they're acting like bratty teenagers! I'd frame this post!!!

Io said...

Whew. I am exhausted reading that. I'm glad those kiddos are staying put though. I hope it gets better and there is less peeing.