{Back home!}

Here is an updated belly pic from this morning. Dear lord, this thing gets bigger and bigger every single day.


So after spending two days in the hospital getting pumped full of IV fluids, antibiotics, and pain meds, I am finally back home! It is so good to be with my family and in my own bed.
I am still in a lot of pain and my pee is still pinkish orangeish as I have not passed the kidney stone yet but I am trying to down as much liquid as I can to help it on its way. The good news though is that I had an ultrasound of my kidneys, bladder, and ureters (sp) that showed no blockages. This means that the stone is not large enough to obstruct the flow of urine and cause any major issues. Any infection that I had or was developing has been taken care of with the antibiotics I was given. So pretty much this is just a thorn in my side at this point and is of no immediate danger to me or the babies.

While at the hospital I had an NST (non-stress test) every day to monitor the babies. This is a test where they hook you up to heartrate and contraction monitors to document contractions as well as the babies "reactivity". This means that they monitor the heartrates to increase and decrease with movement and it tells them if the babies are getting enough exercise and are developing the way they should be at this gestational age. The test can take anywhere from 1-3 hours and is quite uncomfortable because you have to lay completely still on your back for all that time. It doesn't normally take that long with one baby but with two, it is really hard to track both at the same time and for a solid 20-30 minutes without losing them on the monitor. If they lose one baby they have to start all over again from scratch. It can be quite frustrating because I was in so much pain and lying on my back was about the worst position to be in. Regardless though, all three NSTs I had turned out great. The babies were both very reactive and looking quite healthy. The only acception was that the last NST I had on Wednesday morning picked up some very strong contractions. Dr. A had lowered my Procardia dose intially in the hospital because my blood pressure was so low and after seeing the NST results he immediately upped it again.

Here is a picture of my belly getting an NST...looks like fun, huh? The monitor on the top is for baby boy, the one in the middle is the tocolytics monitor for contractions, and the one on the bottom is for baby girl.


I have a follow-up appointment with Dr. A on Monday and an ultrasound on Tuesday. I will update after those. Hopefully this weekend I will feel up to posting about the vacation!