28 Weeks - November 21st, 2010

Here are some new comparison pictures, the pink ones are me currently at 28 weeks with twins, the blue ones are 36 weeks with Clark, won't be much longer until I look full term!

I have my next appointment on Tuesday, but I never posted about my last one so I will give you the highlights now:

• Passed my glucose test
• Found out I have low hemoglobin (anemia) and was prescribed iron and vitamin C
• Both twins were about 2lbs 2oz and measuring a few days ahead of schedule
• Measured 32 centimeters -the equivalent of 32 weeks along for a single baby
• Baby A was still head down, Baby B head up
• Doctor recommended having at least two laying down rests a day and taking it easy as much as possible to lessen the chance of having them arrive early

On Friday we had a little scare. I noticed several contractions throughout the evening and about 8pm we started to watch a movie and I stretched out on the couch drinking water, because this is supposed to help stop the contractions. I kept having them however, and after noticing several in an hour at regular intervals that were not going away, we decided to cal the doctor. She had recommended that we call if we noticed 4-6 in an hour that didn't go away even if they are not painful, which mine were not. I actually had about 8 in the hour that I tracked them. The Doctor on call wanted me to come into the hospital for monitoring, so we had a neighbor come stay with Clark and headed in about 9:30. They hooked me up to about 5 wires to measure contractions, both babies' heartbeats, my heartbeat and my blood pressure. I was still having fairly regular contractions, so although I was not showing any other signs of being in labor they decided to give me a shot of a smooth muscle relaxer to stop the contractions. This worked almost immediately and so after watching me a little longer they sent me home with a prescription of the same medication that I can take in the future if I need to.

I was somewhat reassured by the fact that there was no dilation or other indicators that this was true labor. At my last visit my Doctor assured me that it was OK and normal to have some contractions, that they just want to know if I have regular or close together ones so that they can catch potential preterm labor and stop it before it progresses. I am hopeful that this experience will help me to better judge in the future if the contractions I have are something we should worry about or not. It seems that when I start to worry about them they only get worse, so our first line of defense if I start having them again will be to relax and distract me from thinking about them too much!

I will try to post another update after my appointment on Tuesday.