Big Fat Fail...Again

I took the 3 hour glucose test yesterday. YUCK!!! I was miserable all morning. I was so nauseous and light-headed the whole time. Chris was so sweet. He came and sat with me for the last hour and then we went to lunch afterwards...at Olive Garden. :-) I figured, what the heck, why not have one last scrumptious meal just in case I ended up failing the test. Speaking of failing the test that is exactly what happened. As the nurse said today "you failed the test pretty significantly". Superb! If I'm going to do something I might as well do it all the way! Apparently I passed the first blood draw, failed the second blood draw by one point and then completely blew the third blood draw out of the water with a big.fat.fail. I officially have gest.ational diab.etes. :-(

I now have to wait for the diabe.tes center to call me tomorrow to schedule an appointment ASAP. I will meet with a nutritionist and they will develop a meal plan for me and I will be taught how to monitor my blood sugar throughout the day. I know this is not the end of the world but I'm still really bummed. I think the unknown of this whole condition is what's bothering me, plus the related complications that can develop for me and the babies after delivery. I'm worried that I won't be able to get enough calories on my new meal plan to continue to feed the babies properly. I'm just so ready to have this appointment and find out exactly what all this is going to entail.

So, a small, fairly minor bump in the road. Tonight I will continue to be bummed, but tomorrow I'll put my big girl pants back on and move forward. :-) Thank goodness the weekend is almost here!

Big Fat Fail

I had my 28 week appointment with my OB last week and she ran a couple of different tests. The first test was the glucose tolerance test. The lab work I did that day also tested my iron levels. Finally, she did a fetal fibronectin test. This is a test where they scrape some cells from your cervix and then send them off to the lab to be analyzed. If the test comes back positive it basically doesn't mean anything. You could potentially go into preterm labor or you could be just fine. However, if the test comes back negative that means there's a 95% reassurance that you won't go into preterm labor within the next two weeks.

Now for the results. The fetal fibronectin test was negative. Yay! My iron levels are low and I'm anemic. This did not surprise me at all considering I'm carrying twins. I just have to take an iron supplement every day. No big deal. Now for the shocker...at least for me. I FAILED my glucose screening test and when I say fail I mean a big.fat.FAIL! I now get to experience the wonderful 3 hour glucose test this Wednesday morning. Yay for me! To say I was shocked that I failed the test is an understatement. I have been so good this whole pregnancy about what I've put in my body. I've been even more conservative than my OB told me to be. So how on earth do I fail the test??? One thing I did find out from the nurse and several other people is that it was out of my hands. Being pregnant with twins has just put too much strain on my pancreas and my body is not able to process the blood sugar properly. If I fail my test on Wednesday I will be labeled as having gest.ational dia.betes and I will be sent to a diab.etes center to have a meal plan mapped out and I will be taught how to check my blood sugar throughout the day. Doesn't that sound like fun? I am just hoping and praying that I somehow pass my test on Wednesday. I don't mind modifying my diet more if necessary, but I really don't want to have gest.ational diab.etes. There's just too many other risk factors that come into play with that for me and the babies.

I have been in such a funk over this since I got the results on Friday. I feel like I've already failed the babies even though I know I didn't do anything to cause this. I just keep trying to remind myself that things could be so much worse. This is just a small bump in the road and it's no the end of the world. The babies are healthy, growing and showing no signs of trying to make an early debut. For these things I am so grateful and I thank God every day for these precious miracles and that they're still developing and growing well.

Well, wish me luck on Wednesday! I'll let you know how it goes.

Help please!

So, on Wednesday I'll be 28 weeks! Yay! There hasn't been anything new going on lately. We did have an appointment with the specialist last Monday. Thankfully both babies are still doing well and as of last week they they were both weighing a little over 2 lbs. That was great news and we don't have to go back again for another 3 weeks now! I see my OB on Thursday and I'll be doing the gestational diabetes test. I'm not really looking forward to that. I hate having blood drawn at my OB's office because the lady there is not that gentle and hurts me everytime. As long as I get good results it will be worth it.

I've been told that I should try to have our hospital bags packed by 30 weeks just in case these little ones decide to make an early appearance or I get put on hospital bed rest for some reason. So this is where I need your help. What are the must-have items to pack for myself and the babies? Is there anything that you couldn't have lived without while in the hospital? Is there anything that you didn't pack and really wish you would have? I know I'll be having a C-section so what clothing was most comfortable to wear afterwards? I greatly appreciate any input and advice you girls have!

Here's a 27 weeks and 4 days belly pic!

What a week!

We have had quite the eventful week. Let me just start from the beginning. Monday afternoon a good friend texted me and said that she thought her water had broken and they were headed to the hospital. Yay! Her little baby girl was going to be about 3 weeks early, but we were all excited for her to be born! That evening Chris and I attended our infant CPR class at the hospital. While we were there I kept mentioning to Chris how tight my belly felt, but I dismissed it and didn't think too much of it at the time. We got home that evening and my belly just kept feeling tighter and also started feeling really sore. I was questioning whether or not I should call the on-call doctor. I decided to first call my sister and get her input. She reminded me that I am pregnant with twins and should never feel silly about calling the doctor. So I hung up with her and called the answering service to have the doctor paged. She promptly called me back, I described to her what I was feeling and she said that it could definitely be pre-term labor. WHAT!? Yikes! She told me to empty my bladder, get some water and go lay down in bed to see if I could get comfortable and get to sleep. She said that if it didn't get better or if it got any worse to go straight to the hospital.

Let's skip ahead to about midnight. I had manged to doze off for maybe 30-45 minutes and then woke up to horrible pains on my right side. They didn't come and go. It was just a constant pain. I got out of bed to make a trip to the bathroom and quickly hunched over in pain. It was much worse when I stood up. Needless to say I woke Chris up and told him that we needed to go to the hospital. We quickly got dressed and were out the door within 10 minutes of me waking him. It took us only 20 minutes to get to the hospital and we headed straight up to labor and delivery to check in at registration. After what seemed like an eternity the registration lady walked us down the hall to an antepartum room, gave me my gown to change into and then the nurse came in and took over. After I changed and was in bed she hooked each baby up to a monitor and then also put a monitor on to keep close tabs on any contractions. Both babies heart rates were great and at first she was only picking up on some uterine irritability. The next time she came in she checked the monitor again and it had picked up a few contractions. The on-call doctor had her give me a shot of Terbuta.line to calm down my uterus. The nurse also checked my cervix and thankfully it was closed and did not show any signs of me being in labor. We were then left in the room to wait for my doctor to make her rounds later that morning (this was about 2:00 AM Tuesday morning now) and she told us to try and get some rest. Um, sure.

I was not able to sleep at all and my doctor finally came by around 8:30 that morning. I was so glad to see her because I had to wait for her before they would allow me to order breakfast. I hadn't eaten in over 14 hours and I was STARVING! She said that my monitoring strip looked good, my cervix looked good and the babies heart rates were good. She was very reassured by all of this and said that I wasn't in pre-term labor, but that it was just one of those things. My uterus was just irritated by these two babies it is currently housing. She allowed me to order breakfast and said I could go home after that. She told me to stay home the rest of the week and rest and that I could return to work on Monday. Yay! Meanwhile, I had learned via Face.book that my friend's little girl had made her grand debut at about 3:30 that morning. I was so excited for them! Apparently our babies were just throwing a party for their new friend they can't wait to meet and this irritated my uterus!

Terbu.taline is not a nice drug. I felt horrible all Tuesday night and all of Wednesday. Thursday I finally felt much better, but I had noticed that the babies were not moving around near as much as they had been. So again I started to worry. I finally decided to call the nurse at my doctor's office Friday morning and she had me come in for an ultrasound just to make sure that everything was ok. Thankfully both babies were fine and they've been moving and grooving like normal since Friday afternoon. I think the Terbu.taline must have affected them too. Poor things.

I know this has been a lengthy post but I also use this blog as a way to record this pregnancy and I wanted to write all this down before I forgot. Thank you to our sweet family and friends who prayed for us and these babies this week. Praise God that it all turned out ok and that these little ones are still baking! It just reminds us that everyday with these babies is a miracle and we have to leave it in God's hands and be reassured that He is in control and holding these babies in His hands. My sweet friend, Laura, wrote something in an email to me at the beginning of this pregnancy when we were told the babies might be sharing a placenta (they're not, by the way). I had emailed her to ask for prayers for the babies and she reminded me that God was not surprised by anything that the doctor had discussed with us that day. She also reminded me that God loves these babies more than we ever could. I love that! I think about that truth everytime I get scared or worried during this pregnancy and it helps to calm me down.

I know I owe several of you a recent belly pic. I promise I'll try to post one tomorrow! Hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend!