Our Trip to L&D

In typical Kari fashion, we cannot do anything without a little extra drama and excitement, right? Well of course my pregnancy with the twins would be no different. We have to have at least one scare per trimester apparently.


Over the past couple of weeks, I have been experiencing some new aches and pains. I hadn't really thought much about them since I figured it was just all part of carrying two babies, two placentas, two sacs of water, and all kinds of extra fluid. My body has been super hard at work, and I haven't exactly slowed down to compensate. Last Sunday, we had yet another baby shower and as usual, I was completely worn out afterwards. My hips, back, feet, legs... basically everything boobies down ached from standing, sitting, walking, moving. It took both Trey and Gavin to put me into bed that night.

On Monday morning, I woke up feeling the aftermath of over doing it the days before. I knew it would probably be a good day to stay home and rest, but instead I got ready and went in to work anyway. I had every intention of only working until noon, but thanks to the way things work at my place of employment, my intentions were overshadowed by things that "needed to be done".  Mistake #1 of the week.

On Thursday morning I didn't feel 100%. It was Thursday though. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. The week was almost over and it was almost the weekend. Work was... well work as usual.  My days were numbered. My days were very numbered at this point. As the morning progressed, I began to feel worse and worse. I made one call to the doctors office, but hung up before the receptionist even picked up. I wasn't exactly sure if I was having actual contractions or if this was just some extra nasty Braxton Hicks contractions. By around 9:30am I decided I should probably start timing my contractions. As I had feared, they were coming about 15 minutes apart, they were super tight, and they took my breath. I tried so hard to time my contractions and focus on my work at the same time. I knew the end was near and I knew I didn't want to leave anyone with the burden of digging through a mess if this was in fact my last day at work. Mistake #2 of the week. I won't go into anymore details about what happened at work. I'm sure those will surface when the time is right in the near future. I will say this though.... I stayed at work longer than I should have.

I finally convinced myself to call my doctor's office after I had timed my contractions for about 2 hours. They were not getting closer together, but I had noticed I had not felt the babies move as much as they normally do. My mind was racing with all of the things that could possibly unfold in the next few hours. All I wanted was to get to Murfreesboro and make sure my babies were ok. When I called my doctor's office, I was immediately transferred to my nurse. She asked me a series of questions regarding my symptoms and told me to get to their office by 1:30 and they would check me. She said if the contractions got stronger or closer together, I needed to go straight to labor and delivery. So that was it. I hung up the phone, went back into work, grabbed by things, and headed out the door. This is something I should have done probably an hour before. Hindsight is always 20/20 though, right?

Trey was in a meeting at work when I told him I was going to the doctor. He asked if he needed to go with me, but I told him not to worry about it because it was probably nothing. After I thought about it for a few minutes, I decided I probably shouldn't venture to the doc at 30 weeks with contractions by myself so I called my mom and she left work to go with me.

Once we arrived in Murfreesboro at the clinic, I stopped by the lab to give them my urine sample then headed to the OB waiting area. I was seated in the waiting room for maybe five minutes before my name was called. I was taken to a room where the doctor and nurse practitioner performed a physical exam to check my cervix. They also did a  fetal fibronectin (fFN) test to determine my chances of going into labor within the next 2 weeks. My fFN test came back negative. Praise GOD!

After the physical exam and a quick pep talk from my doctor, I was taken down the hallway to an ultrasound room. The ultrasound tech performed a BPP Ultrasound to check on my not-so-active little ones. It was the longest ultrasound of my entire life. It took Ryker forever to move. I stared at his body on the screen as he just laid there. The tech poked. She asked if I had eaten. She offered to give me candy. We were desperate to get this little munchkin moving. Finally she suggested I try to cough to "wake him". I gave it my best shot and after the longest 2 minutes of my life, Ryker Christian decided to join the party and show us he was in fact still alive. He finally moved and we could finally tell he was breathing. Praise GOD! The tech also checked on Averlee. She was doing her normal thing. She had her hands next to her face and she was flashing her lady parts for all to see. The babies were ok.

After the ultrasound, I was taken back down the hall to a huge chair beside the nurses' station and hooked up to three monitors. I had one monitor for each baby and one monitor for contractions. I was left on the monitor for about 15 minutes. My doctor came in, checked the monitors, and made the decision to send me over to the hospital to be admitted to labor and delivery. I was in fact having contractions. He wanted to take extra precaution since I was (a) carrying twins (b) only 30 weeks and (c) we live almost an hour away from the hospital.

So that was that. I was admitted to labor and delivery so they could give me steroid shots to aid R&A's development. They also started magnesium sulfate (a.k.a. the devil) in my IV. If you have not had the pleasure of experiencing the wonderful [insert sarcasm] joys of magnesium sulfate, just imagine the sickness of the 1st trimester multiplied by about 15 and add blurry vision, loss of muscle control, and inability to focus on anything. I was on mag for about 24 hours to slow my contractions. Even though the mag was absolutely a nightmare, it was all worth it. My babies were going to be fine. On Saturday we were finally discharged from the hospital. I was not restricted to bedrest, but I was instructed to take it easy and not over do myself. So I've just been taking it day by day.

Basically we have anywhere between 3 and a half to 6 weeks left in our pregnancy. The babies are coming when they are ready. There is nothing we can do at this point to stop labor. I have been given steroids. I have taken precautions. It is all up to God's timing at this point. We just have to sit back and wait. I just pray that no matter when the babies decide to come, they will be healthy. That's all I ask. I just want them to be healthy.