rollercoaster

day 11:
september 11, 2014

today i woke up from a great night's sleep to my nurse coming in to do my NST. the nurses down here are so so great and sweet but i still miss all the nurses i had gotten to know upstairs. my nurse tells me that they don't think they can fix my shower with me in this room and so she says i will have to change rooms. AGAIN. i text cal and ask him if he can come move my room around lunch time and maybe we could also do our NICU tour then too! he says that will work. we start the NST and in comes doc towers. he said he had been reading the latest study on momo twins (he is the WIZARD of studies. one of the residents told me that they talk about him in her textbooks) and the latest study doesn't have the moms going inpatient until 28 weeks (instead of the normal 24 weeks) the reason he tells me all this is because he said there isn't a consistent way to handle this type of pregnancy. doctors have varying opinions on it. he said if i suddenly went to a whole new set of MFMs they may totally change my care and he said it wouldn't necessarily be wrong. but he felt like my NSTs have been looking good (and he told me he's studied over 8,000) and he felt like i could go back up to the 4th floor and go back to my 3 times a day NST for an hour a day. i was so so so excited with the news!!! i texted cal and told him i would be moving up to the 4th floor instead of down the hall!

about halfway through my NST, my nurse comes in and says that doc towers talked to doc hennessey and they've changed their mind (not based on any events that happened) and decided that they want me to stay down at labor and delivery and continue doing our same plan as yesterday: 4 hour NSTs twice a day. i was really upset because i had gotten my hopes up. my sweet nurse says she will pack up my things and start moving them down the hall to a room with a shower that works. she packs and takes 3 cartloads of my stuff while the maintenance men continue to work on my shower in here. when she comes back to get my last load the men tell her they're done and my shower is fine to use now! so now my poor nurse has to move EVERYTHING back to this room!!!!!!! this is the 4th time we have changed where i will be living in a matter of hours! absolute roller coaster. my hope is that we can continue the same care as long as their is no changes in the babies. cal told me if i don't like whatever is happening, that it will change soon enough. he's right.

cal came right as my NST finished and we met with a lady named hilary for our NICU tour and consultation. i volunteered in the NICU at children's hospital when i was younger and felt more prepared for what i would see than i knew cal would be. we started the tour in the dragon fly room. the first baby we saw weighed a little bit less than both of my boys do (they weigh about 2 lbs each) she wasn't intubated or on cpap. she was just on oxygen. this brought me a tremendous amount of hope. she appeared to be doing SO WELL and she looked much bigger than i thought my babies were. i could see cal was about to tear up looking at her. i don't think he's ever seen a baby so small. hilary showed us around to a twin room and explained the "rooming in" process for going home. cal had lots and lots of questions and i was so glad we got to do the tour together.

after we left, we came back to my room (which if i lost you earlier is room 12 in labor and delivery) and just talked about the tour. cal said the best thing he took away from it all is that the babies will be there as long as they need to be and it could be until december (or earlier or later) until they come home. he was glad they'd be absolutely ready to come home when they do. i told him it was so encouraging to me to see babies thriving that are so small and so young. i know it isn't the case for every baby, but to know theres that chance, means a lot. its a lot to process and i know you can never prepare yourself for NICU. on our way back a nurse stopped us and said "i have a surprise for you!" and i said "i'm scared. i am getting sick of surprises. haha" and she said "no its a good one! we are getting you a mini fridge!!" BEST NEWS EVER. i have missed my fridge so much because i can't save leftovers or have fresh fruit.

cal's lunch break was over and he had to get back to lunch, so i jumped in the shower to get ready before debbie brought simms and lunch up. also..real quick… i would like to give a MAJOR shout out to her. i cannot thank her enough for keeping simms all day, while i know she has tons of work to do. on top of all that, she is running errands for me. she's doing the job of 3 people and rocking it. so debbie, THANK YOU.

while i waited on them to get here i realized this is one of my favorite things to see in the day:

 MONITOR IS OFF

theres 3 things that the hospital staff can do to keep me sane: 1) let me walk around when I'm not on the monitors 2) let me sleep through the night without disruption 3) let me shower

today i have gotten to do all 3 so i am one happy lady. they brought my mini fridge while debbie and simms were here. amazing! simms is taking more and more steps and getting so close to full on walking. its crazy how much he changes day to day. he's also talking nonstop, LIKE NONSTOP. he carries on full conversations that make absolutely no sense. i love it. i can't wait to see what all he has to say when it starts to make sense.  i walked simms and debbie out to the garage as they left. it was nice to finally be outside again. 

cals coming back up tonight with simms and dinner. i haven't gotten to see bendel in a few days and miss him.. but cal hasn't had time to go grab him, and simms, and dinner. its a lot of work. theres just so many people doing so much to make this inpatient time work. its so incredibly humbling to me but really overwhelming because i can NEVER do enough to repay everyone.