Happy Sunday to all! Today Luuk and I had a really restful day, including a nap for me and a visit from his parents — which was very encouraging!
However, yesterday…was not so restful. The babies were especially difficult to keep on the monitors. Did I say difficult? Make that IMPOSSIBLE! I think over the course of the whole day, from say 8am to maybe 6pm, none of the nurses were able to really find them consistently. And they were so incredibly active! Which is of course a really good thing, but also can be worrisome because we don’t want their cords to tangle more and of course it makes them a monitoring nightmare. But, it’s a blessing that they move a lot because it is a sign that they’re healthy too!
So after all of that, when we finally got got the girls on the monitors it was only through holding the monitors on by hand at a very awkward angle. But, I was happy to hold them for an hour or so in order to get a solid strip of monitoring on the babies. I’m already babysitting :)! After maybe an hour of holding the little ladies on the monitor, I noticed a quite drastic deceleration in one of the their heart rates. Their heart rates were both pretty comfortably between 140-160, and then you could hear it slowly come to what seems like a standstill at around 70, then shoot up to the 190s. A nurse came in to check on some other things and I pointed it out and she said they were monitoring from the desk (the machines in my room are connected to the network so they can monitor it from the nurses station instead of staying in my room all the time). Within 10 minutes, this happened two more times. At that point, I knew this was not good. Two nurses came in saying that the decels had coincided with several contractions I had had, and I was immediately put on IV fluids, oxygen, and given a shot of terbutaline to stop the contractions. The shot was a pretty unpleasant one, and causes you to shake and get these heart racing moments where you feel really hot. I was also not allowed to eat dinner, had to take off my wedding ring and earrings, and get in a hospital gown to prepare for a possible c-section if things didn’t turn around. Everything happened so quickly…initially Luuk wanted to protest the IV fluids and oxygen because some of the nurses have been quick to medicate me or put me on fluids when I could just drink water, but I looked at him and told him this was different — this really could have ended up being a c-section. Once I had seen those decels I knew that the decisions were out of our hands and that we had to surrender to the knowledge of the professionals around us and rest in God’s will. I can’t say I felt like I wasn’t going to have a c-section or had great confidence that everything was going to be okay…it all happened so fast I just knew it was time to pray. I was very shaky and at risk for a fall so Luuk helped me to the bathroom and helped me change and we prayed together, and then I started to feel some peace. God is so good to never leave us alone in those moments. My contractions subsided and the babies were doing well, so I didn’t end up needing a c-section, but after we came out of the bathroom it would have been okay even if I had. Because the Lord was going before us. At that point I was able to really relax and just lay and allow my body to relax. I still wasn’t allowed to eat that night, but I did get some jello which I think is a right of passage in a hospital stay :). The night after that went pretty well — slowly my IV fluids came off, the oxygen came off, and I was able to go to sleep. The girls did pretty well in the night, and the nurse only came in a few times. And then, of course as I said before, today has been really good.
In a way, I’m really thankful for that practice run. Now that the specialist has looked at the strip she said that it was concerning and they took the right actions, but it was only mildly concerning. I’m glad of course that they did intervene so it didn’t get worse and we didn’t push the boundaries. But I’m also glad that I now know what steps would be taken if I were to need an emergency c-section, which statistically is a very real possibility with momos. Only about 50% of momo pregnancies make it to their scheduled delivery date, and the other half are emergency c-sections due to concerning monitoring or various other things. So the Lord gave us some heads up and prepared us for that outcome. Did I mention Luuk had been working that day and got here only minutes before the first decel? How mighty is our God! He is so good in every circumstance!
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