Well, Joy was in pretty good spirits yesterday. She was very tired, but doing well. When I got to the hospital she was no longer on the IV, but had to keep the IV hookup in her hand. She is not pleased with that and I really don't blame her. She uses the hand a little, but for the most part sort of ignores that she even has a left hand. For whatever reason having a needle stuck in your hand can be painful from time to time. She tries to keep in elevated which seems to help.
At the moment Joy's contractions have subsided. She still has them, but they aren't as intense as they were on Wednesday night. The doctor (the director) again reassured her that contractions are normal for multiples, but they will not go too much further with preventing the natural progression if they become more intense and frequent.
I'm guessing the doctor's thought process about the contractions is this. The C-section is scheduled for about 9 days from now. The NSTs always look great, good BPP scores, they've had two rounds of steroids and the girls are probably pushing 3 lbs. each by now. They probably figure that given the riskiness of the cords and how close we are to our goal it wouldn't hurt to get them a little sooner than later if Joy's body starts to labor before 32 weeks. I imagine they would have a different thought process if we were back in the 24-26 week range.
Last night we had a great dinner. A friend of ours made us a great meal. Joy was so excited. Joy loved the fresh fruit and the cucumber salad made with lemon juice and sugar. It was very refreshing. The yummy stroganof like pasta really hit the spot as well.
It's too bad the nutritionist wasn't in the room to see that meal. Joy generally has a few grocery bags of "junk food" in the corner of the room, which she knows the nutritionist and doctors do not like to see. If they looked a little closer they would see it wasn't too bad. Mostly nuts and grains. Heck they were the ones bringing her packs of Oreos. In her defense, it is hard to keep any fresh healthy items around if you don't have a fridge and up until the last week or so she didn't. Plus, the dietary people almost always forget to bring her a snack and sometimes they bring her warm cheese sticks and milk...um those should be cold not room temp. Eh, we are almost done :)
Then it was shower time. With one hand you can imagine how hard that is. So, I had to continue adding to my husbandly duties and help Joy take a shower. It looks like they may become part of our new nightly routine for the next few weeks. We joked about how you almost have to get married to have someone help you with this sort of thing as you get older. It reminds me of that movie "Death Becomes Her" where Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn become immortal so they can stay young and retain their beauty. The problem though is that their body doesn't heal. So, as they get injured they have to repair each other with sheet metal, tape, and spray paint. By the end of the movie they look pretty busted up. It's worth a watch if you've never seen it.
After that we headed down to the NICU to ask some questions for another friend who wants to knit some hats and booties for premies. It turned out to become a pretty educational little trip. We saw that they had an infant CPR class we missed, but they hold them every two weeks. We can't take the next one because Joy will be a bit wrapped up with other things ;). If I remember right, I believe the lady we spoke with said we had to take the class to bring the little ones home. We also found that they have two overnight stay rooms for the parents. The rooms are used the day before the babies come home. The idea is that you get a dry run of caring for the little ones before you come home. This way if you have any questions or issues giving them their medicine and what-not you can just step out the door and ask for a hand. It seems like a bit of a pain, but I think it is a good idea.
Our evening ended a little early last night. Joy curled up in bed and started to doze off a little before 10. Poor thing, this is really getting old for her. I headed home once I noticed that, I too was a bit worn out from the long Wednesday night.
2 comments:
Joy - I know the IV hook-up stinks but best to keep it in until the end at this point. It will make it a lot easier to give you the medications when you need them!
The problem is that they weren't using it for anything and they had to flush it every 8 hours with a sodium chloride solution that burned for a long time. Not to mention it seemed to throb a lot. It seemed like a lot of discomfort and pain for something that may not be needed for 11 more days.
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