Shaving the Couch

So, in case you didn't hear, I'm on strict bed rest. I basically wake up, take a shower, get dressed, and head to couch for the rest of the day. Only to get up to get water and food and go to the bathroom. It pretty much sucks because the state of my house is out of my control, which drives me nutso.

We bought a sectional a few months ago and I'm not sure what the material is, but Optimus's feet are making it pill up like a bad Christmas sweater. It used to get on my nerves, but now that I am spending 12+ hours a day lounging, eating, and sleeping on the couch, I cannot STAND it.

Do you see that? The little balls of fabric all over the place? It's our own fault for allowing our dog on the couch, but he's a member of our family and Avery (and Troy) like to use him as a pillow, so he stays on the couch for snuggles. But, oh LORD his rough paws are trashing the fabric.

I got on Amazon and bought a sweater shaver. I figured, I'm sitting here all day, reading and watching TV. SURELY I can make time to "shave the couch." It arrived in 2 days. THANK YOU AMAZON PRIME! And now my cushions look like this!

Here is a picture of the couch with the far cushion cleaned up and the close cushion ready to be shaved.

This is after about 20 dumps of the little container of pilled fabric. Gross huh? But the couch looks gorgeous again. I'd say that was worth the $8.50! Thanks Amazon! It took about 3 hours, but eh, I wasn't doing anything else.

Another Reason My Doctor Rocks

1. Here

2. He listens to Transformers during surgery

3. He gave me his cell phone number and accepts calls at all hours of the night. And talked to me on his day off for 30 minutes. Even though I was in trouble...

4. He texts me and makes me LOL

Bed Rest - Day 1

Yesterday was not a good day.

It started off great. Troy took leave for the day so that he could do some things around the house and spend some quality time with his mom. We all went out for an early breakfast at Babystacks, a local specialty pancake place. They dropped me off at home so that I could have a relax day. All alone. YES. They traded me for Optimus and went to Floyd Lamb park, which has peacocks and is very cool. They all went straight to the vet on base.

I was feeling kinda weird at home. I was relaxing on the couch, drinking tons of water, and watching trash tv. It should have been a good day. But I was having contractions and heartburn and my stomach hurt and I just felt "weird." I called Troy around 1230 and asked when they were going to be home. He said they were on their way and I told him I was going to head upstairs to lay down because I didn't feel well.

Once I got upstairs, I climbed in bed with my kindle. Now that I was completely still, not watching TV, with no distractions, I decided to start timing my contractions. I was had 5 in 10 minutes. Woah. I texted my doctor and he immediately told to forget my meds schedule and go ahead and take a muscle relaxer and get back to him in 2 hours. DONE!

Troy put Avery down for her nap and climbed in bed with me to keep me company while I ate lunch and kept timing contractions. They were NOT calming.

At 3 I texted Dr. Adashek again and told him what was going on. He wasn't in the office that day, but told me to get to the office within 15 minutes or to head to the hospital. We decided to book it out the door and avoid the hospital. That was the LAST place I wanted to go. Thank God Troy's mom was here, we could head out the door immediately and know that Avery was taken care of.

We got to the office and they immediately ushered me back for an ultrasound. SURE ENOUGH, Kinley's head is RIGHT on my cervix and I had 2 contractions during the ultrasound, during which you could see my cervix dilating all the way to where the stitch was the only thing holding everything in. Crap.

Then they took me over to a fetal monitoring room where they strapped me in and measured my contractions for about 10-15 minutes. Sure enough, there they were. Steady and strong. Double crap.

Another doctor I had never seen before came in and gave me a new medication called nifedipine. It's actually a blood pressure medication and some kind of calcium blocker...which the doc said could make me really dizzy since my BP runs low anyway. YAY side effects. He also said that this medication should be considered an "in case of emergency, break glass" medicine. I made sure to take it right when I picked it up. He also told me that if I started bleeding or having pain to go to the hospital. If the medication didn't help he also wanted me to make an appointment the next day.

Troy and I went and picked it up immediately and I took it in the car before we headed home. I hung out on the couch and snuggled Avery, watching "Toy Story" while Troy and his mom made dinner. My contractions were still going. We ate dinner. My contractions were still going. Avery got a bath and came down and said good night to me. And my contractions were still going.

So I texted my Doc again. He asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. Um no. He called and gave me a pretty ugly lecture. He informed me that the medications I'm on are a pretty heavy duty and there is nothing else they can do at this point. AND that those medications SHOULD be the second line of defense behind bed rest, but he's been giving me the benefit of the doubt that I've been taking it easy already. Which clearly I wasn't.

He explained that if I didn't figure out a solution for help at home with Avery, he would admit me to the hospital and FORCE ME to figure it out and get help. I am allowed to go to the bathroom, shower, move from the couch to the bed (and vice versa) and use the microwave. That's pretty much it. OH and go to doctor appointments. He said that the LESS activity I did, the less contractions I'll have. Which makes sense because when people are trying to get babies OUT at 40 weeks, they are walking, cleaning floors, having sex, hula hooping, etc to bring on contractions. Which is what I want to avoid. No hula hooping for me.

So I am officially on bed rest. If you know me at all, this is torture. I'll have some tips for you later this week for how to keep from going insane. YAY!

My cousin will be here friday, so I'm currently arranging help until then. And attempting to bribe family with slobbery Avery kisses to fill holes in the visitor schedule until my mom comes in October.

All I can say is thank you Jesus for our Air Force family and small group from church.

Mom. Seriously. If you don't send that paperwork soon, we will have words. Loud ugly ones. Mkay? LOVE YOU!

2 Appointments Later... and 25 weeks Pregnant!

Appointment from 8/6/13

If you haven't read yet, I had a cerclage outpatient procedure 2 weeks ago. You can read about it here.

I had my follow up appointment a week later and my doctor was very pleased with the results. We looked at the ultrasound of the babies (still happy and kicking in there) and he did an internal ultrasound to look at my cervix.

It was neat because you could actually see the stitches in white in the ultrasound. My doctor was all, "look at that beautiful cerclage! Who did that??" Love him.

So then he's like, "So about rest and work...."

And I interrupted him. I said, "Troy and I have talked about it. I work because I love my job and I see it as 'me time.' I don't HAVE to work. I'm going to call it quits for the rest of the pregnancy because it's not worth the medical risks the babies or I could face if something happens."

And he says, "Oh thank God. I was going to tell you that you could go back to work if you wanted to. If you were MY wife, I wouldn't let you work. But I hate telling people not to work because you never know what their financial situations are or they're going to lose their home because you tell them not to work. I'm so relieved that you made this decision on your own."

So based on LAST week, I'm now at home full time until I decide to go back to work. After the babies are born. And I can tear myself away. And we figure out child care. And how I'm going to breastfeed. And we know what Troy's schedule is going to be like.

Appointment from 8/13/13

I was scared to go to this appointment. With Troy's new weird schedule, he's not really available for now. The last time I went to an appointment by myself, I found out that I needed to have the cerclage. I just keep feeling like I'm waiting for bad news and I don't want to face that alone.

This was a pretty exciting appointment because I was having another growth ultrasound. Most people have ONE growth ultrasound, at the 20 week mark where they find out the gender of the baby. But I had one at 21 weeks and will have one every 4 weeks until the end of my pregnancy (my 29 week one is already scheduled). So since it was my 25 week appointment, they were checking everything out.

Things we found out:

1. Kinley is seriously low. Like, SO behind my pubic bone that they could NOT get a head circumference on her. No wonder sitting down is uncomfortable. I feel like I can't bend AT ALL.

2. Last week, both babies had their heads down by my right hip. Caris is now ALLLLLL kinds of stretched out. She has also flipped and has her head by my stomach, her butt is under my liver, and her feet are by my right hip (where her head was last week). She is in a giant "L" shape. Poor Kinley is shoved down into my pubic bone and curled up in a little ball.

3. They are both still looking great developmentally. Their brains and hearts are GORGEOUS. From the mouth of the ultrasound tech :)

4. They are both a little small. Kinley is measuring 1b 11oz (46%) and Caris is measuring 1lb 8oz (33%). But that is nothing that the doctor is worried about. Especially since Avery was born on time and was only 6lb 13 oz. Maybe I just have small babies... which is not so awesome for multiples, but we're going to see how they're measuring at the next appointment.

So then Dr. Adashek came in a told me my babies are gorgeous (well, duh!) and gave me a hug. He did the internal ultrasound to look at my cervix and see if the stitches were holding.

He said that they still looked great and he still wants me to take it easy and keep taking my uterine muscle relaxers. Even though I had taken the medication 2 hours before my appointment (they last 6 hours), the tech told Dr. Adashek that I had 4 contractions during my hour long ultrasound. Eeek. So we're still dealing with that.

My doctor is feeling good about how everything is going and I was cleared to go back to my every 2 week appointments instead of once a week. Well, I still have to go in every week for my progesterone shot (to tell my body that I'm pregnant and not to go into labor) but I'm back to going every other week to see him.

The good news is, we have some help right now :) YAY! Ask and you shall receive!

So Troy's aunt arrived the day before my cerclage, stocked our freezer, cleaned the house, and yelled at me before I could break my rules, and left 10 days later. Troy's mom got here LATE Tuesday evening and is leaving almost 2 weeks later. My sister, Taylor is coming the first week in September. My cousin Laura is coming for a week or so in mid September. Then my step mom is coming for a week at the end of September. And then my friend Kristen is coming here for about a week at the beginning of October. Then I can hopefully con my mom into coming to in mid October...when I hit about 34 weeks. And staying...FOREVER. Kidding. Sort of. Not really at all.

In short, we are expecting LOADS of company to help and pass the time between now and when the babies come. Especially if my oldest keeps trying to jump in deep end of the pool.

We are SO Late Jumping on the Netflix Bandwagon

Seriously...I've known what Netflix was for foreva. I did. But we never bought into it because we have cable and DVR. Who needs both? That just seems like overkill. Troy's Aunt was visiting last week and convinced us that we just HAD to get it. Especially since the first month is free. You guys know I can't resist free. Or a good deal. And $7.99 a month is a great deal. Especially for this new couch potato.

We decided not to get the actual DVD to the mail box, just the instant Netflix in the house, which we currently have wired through the Wii. Our Wii has gotten more action in the past week than it has in the past 2 years. Seriously.

So far, we have watched a few movies, a few kid movies (for Avery of course...but who doesn't enjoy Disney classics?), and some series.

We are currently watching "Orange is the New Black," with is a Netflix original series. It's a little risque, but we are really enjoying it. I told my mom and she recommended another Netflix original series called, "House of Cards." I had NO idea that Netflix even HAD original series and apparently, they are starting to compete with networks like HBO and Showtime. So that's been a nice surprise.

Who else has Netflix? How long have you had it? Do you still have cable? And MOST IMPORTANTLY: What are you watching? Recommendations?

Now that I'm not working, Avery's nap time and early bedtime (7pm muahahaha) have been Netflix exploring time. Move over DVR...you're getting put on hold for the rest of the summer. Until Parenthood starts up. And New Girl. And Big Bang Theory. When does the fall line up start again?

Thank God for Her Puddle Jumper

Troy's schedule is going to be weird the next few weeks. His hours are scheduled from 12noon to 8pm. He leaves for work around 11 so that doesn't give us much family time in the morning.

On Troy's first day of his crazy schedule (and me on my own for the first time since the cerclage), I decided to take Avery to the pool. I thought this was a good idea. Avery can get in/out of the car/car seat by herself, in and out of the pool, and walks in and out of the facility. And we spend some time in the sun and Avery burns off energy. And it makes my hips feel good. Win win all the way around, right? WRONG!

We get to the pool when it opens and everything is going fine. Avery wears a puddle jumper floaty (which is Coast Guard approved...and cute) and spends MOST of the time at the kiddie pool climbing out of the pool (which is about 2.5 feet deep) and jumping back in. Over and over. There is a beach walk in area on one side and it gets to about 2.5 to 3 feet on the other side. The kiddie pool has 3 lifeguards and is about 20 feet from the deep end of the big pool with the diving boards. When I take her alone, we just hang out in the kiddie pool. When Troy comes with us, he takes her to the big pool to swim and they watch the people jump off the diving board. She likes being in the pool with HIM, I think, more than being in the big pool where she can't touch the bottom, but floats great with her floaty (which we call her "Shark").

Here is Avery and Shark:

I was sitting with my back against the deep end of the kiddie pool and Avery 2-3 feet from me, jumping in and out of the pool. I would count to 3 and she would jump. Over and over.

Well, this time, she climbed out and took about 3 steps towards the big pool and pointed and said, "daddy over there?" And I said, "no, daddy's at work." And she took off RUNNING at full speed towards the big pool. I immediately stood up and tried to haul my pregnant ass out of the pool, with no ladder, 3 feet deep and started yelling her name.

Avery jumped RIGHT into the 12 foot deep end of the pool. She went down about 3 feet and floated right back to the top.

I was only halfway out of the kiddie pool when the lifeguard pulled her out. The lifeguard only had to stand on the edge and pulled her out of the deep end using the straps of her puddle jumper and another hand under butt. I got over to her and I said, "AVERY, you CANNOT swim over here alone. Are you ok?"

She looks up at me with a BIG smile and says, "that was FUN!"

Seriously? Child, I almost had a heart attack.

I felt so judged by the lifeguards. I mean, I was right there watching the whole time! It wasn't like I was sitting on a lounge chair, scrolling my Facebook newsfeed. I'm hugely pregnant and she's fast. And she had on a life jacket. I'm just not as physically able as I normally am.

I guess I have a water baby on my hands and will definitely make sure to put her in swim lessons. Like ASAP. She has no fear. None. She gets that from you, Troy...

And seriously...thank God for the puddle jumper. I recommend them to ANYONE with a child from 30-50 pounds. She loves hers and asks to put it on, even at home in the plastic baby pool. It doesn't inhibit her movement, but it's Coast Guard approved. Go buy it.

UPDATE*** Here's Troy's response when he found out. Such a dad...

Incompetent Cervix and a Cerclage

****Here we go gentlemen! Another girly post!****

I have been feeling good and working. I have been in good spirits and feeling awesome about the pregnancy. A little more tired physically, but that's to be expected. We bought baby cribs (I'll get a post up with those after we get them put together), Troy's Aunt Kathy was coming to help out with Avery and some things around the house, and I was feeling so optimistic.

I worked on monday and tuesday. Tuesday was a CA-RAZY day. I worked, Troy was off. Troy's aunt was flying in from North Carolina for about 10 days. Troy had an optometry appointment at 3 and I was leaving straight from work to make a 330 doctor's appointment while Aunt Kathy stayed home with Avery. So, of COURSE, I was at the doctor's office BY MYSELF, thinking, I've been feeling good, we are still at our regular routine of appointments. Well, as regular as a high risk doctor's schedule can be.

My ultrasound was great. The girls looked awesome. Dr. Adashek came in to do the vaginal ultrasound to check the status of my cervix. He used that wand thing with one hand and using the other hand, pushed down on the top of my uterus to simulate a light, moderate, and strong contraction (he has done this at all my appointments) and so far, every appointment, he has said that I "have a beautiful cervix." Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it! My cervix is beautiful!

Except for today.

He does a light push and then a moderate push and BAM! You see the INSIDE of my cervix open in a "V" shape about half way down. In an ultrasound, the cervix looks like a cylinder with a thin white line in the middle. When he pushes on it and nothing changes, that's great. But when he pushed on mine, it opened at the uterus end about 1.5 cm and 1.5 cm down. The length of my cervix is about 3.5 cm. So the shape of the "V" looked like an equilateral triangle basically.

I was like, "WHAT IS THAT? No, don't answer that. I know what it is."

He says, "Noooo, I was expecting a normal appointment today. You're funneling. No. No. No."

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Am I on bedrest? What now?"

He says, "well, tomorrow you're having a cerclage. I'm sending in the nurse to schedule you and go over the details."

Well, crap. He told me that if I didn't have the procedure (not that I was considering going against medical advice) I would deliver in the next 2 weeks. Yikes. 25 week old babies = bad bad bad news bears. I am also now scheduled to come in 1x per week for a progesterone injection to tell my body that I'm still pregnant and not to go into labor. Double awesome.

The nurse came in and told me to be at the hospital at 830am for a 1030am procedure. It is considered an outpatient surgery and I had to fill out some forms about anesthesia. She gave me my shot and sent me out the door with a follow up appointment scheduled for a week later.

I felt really disoriented and confused. Everything had been going so well! Every time I have started to get excited about this pregnancy, God has thrown me another curveball. Triplets? SURE! We get excited and schedule our contractor and buy a new car, only to find out that one has anencephaly. We have a GREAT 20 week ultrasound and order the cribs and now I could deliver anytime? WHAT?

Luckily, God knew this was going to happen. Aunt Kathy flew in THAT day to help, and boy do we need it now. Troy just happened to be off the next day for my procedure so that worked out too.

I have said before that my doctor is amazing and I love him. I will continue to say it. He called Troy's phone at 10pm that night to talk to me. Honestly, he's lucky we were still up. Well, maybe he knows that I am a worry wart would still be up, so we were sitting up in the living room talking when the phone rang. SO LATE. Troy thought it was a work recall or something with the unknown number. Nope. Just my OB calling to see if I was okay, had any questions, concerns, etc. Seriously guys. I talked to him for 20 minutes and he answered every question and annoying concern that any mom would have. He's amazing.

So Troy and I got up for my procedure the next morning and got all checked in to the labor and delivery floor. They gave me an IV, hooked me up to a fetal monitor, made me answer a SLEW of questions about my pregnancy, history, allergies, etc. The doctor using the OR before my procedure was running late, so we were running about 45 minutes late also. I was not surprised. That's just how these things go sometimes. So me and Troy snuggled in my hospital bed watching trash TV.

IT WAS FREEEZING. Troy has spent some time with me in hospitals over the past few months and came prepared. He wore jeans, a fleece, and brought socks. And I was in a flimsy hospital gown with 2 cold IV bags running through my arm.

They wheeled me back for the cerclage to the OR. MY NURSE WAS AMAZING. So funny. She was like in her late 50s/early 60s and witty. It was freezing and she got me heated blankets and gave me hugs. She let me hug her and squeeze her triceps while I got my spinal anesthesia from the doctor. I hate hate hate needles. I'm so glad you can't watch epidurals. I would faint. They got me into "position" after the spinal while I could still feel and move my legs.

Y'all. Lets talk about this. If I hadn't had Avery already, I would have been HUMILIATED. Talk about a procedure that takes away ALL of your modesty. I was laying on my back, with my knees by my ears, and my feet HANGING about 2 feet over my head in these hook things. They put up a drape and had 2 of those spot light things RIGHT on my vag.

I started laughing. Seriously. I was like, "Can my life get any weirder right now?"

Ask and you shall receive.

Dr. Adashek walked in all prepped and clean with his IPOD. And I AM NOT KIDDING - he put on the Transformers movie music sound track. So I listened to THIS while he put stitches in my cervix to keep my babies in:



I was like, "Dr. Adashek...is this Transformers? Really?"

And he goes, "I'm seriously impressed that you know that."

**Side note: I have this FREAKY ability to remember original scores from movies and can identify which movie it is based on the orchestrations...I know it's weird. But seriously. I'm good. It just goes to show how important original theme music is for movies.**

So they raise the table up to his FACE level...while he's standing. And I guess he does the procedure. I didn't feel anything. And I was distracted. I felt like I couldn't breathe and my chest was getting crushed. I started feeling nauseated and hot. I think I was having a panic attack. I couldn't feel my legs. I could feel they were up, but they felt asleep and I kept trying to jiggle them to wake them up, but they weren't moving. My blood pressure was LOW. The anesthesiologist gave me something through my IV to help with the nausea. I was RIPPING the blankets off to cool off and breathing hard.

The whole procedure was done in about 20 minutes. Dr. Adashek said that he was so relieved that they had done the procedure because my cervix felt like mashed potatoes and it was supposed to feel like the end of a nose.

They lowered my feet out of the stirrups and I started freaking out. I was looking at my legs laying flat on the table and they still felt like they were up by my head. Weirdest. Feeling. Ever. My nurse said that since the last thing my body could feel was them up in the stirrups, my brain could still only register that position. Until I got the feeling back in my legs, they would feel that way. They did a sliding board transfer over to my hospital bed and wheeled me back to the room, where Troy was eating chinese food from the cafeteria. Barf. It smelled awful and I was still feeling nauseated. They laid me flat, hooked up heart monitors, a fetal monitor, and my IV.

About 45 minutes later, I started to feel like I had peed in the bed, so I looked down and I had a bunch of watery blood all over my legs. So then I called the nurse.

She came in to check me out and was like, "that's kind of a lot of blood. I think your water may have broken during the procedure (one of the risks) and you're also having some pretty strong contractions."

They cleaned me up and changed the pad under my butt. I also got an IV smooth muscle relaxer to stop the contractions in my uterus and an oral medication that does the same thing. While I totally panicked. Thinking, "oh no, my water broke, I'm delivering these babies today and they're not going to live at 23 weeks." TOTAL panic.

The sensation of getting the feeling back in my stomach, legs, and feet was SO weird. I slowly started to be able to move over the course of 1.5 hours. Still feeling like my knees were by my head. I NEVER want an epidural again. I don't know how people do that. Seriously. My nurse said that people who have "control issues" normally hate the anesthesia. HA. You don't even want to know about my control issues lady.

They came back about 15 minutes later to check the pad under my butt for more fluid and it had slowed and my contractions were gone. They wouldn't let me leave until Dr. Adashek came back to check me out because of the amount of fluid and strong contractions I was having. He came back from the office to deliver a baby and check me out. He said that my water did not break, explaining to me what that would have been like if it had.

I stayed for about another hour, putting our total time at the hospital at 8 hours. Again, thank God, Aunt Kathy flew in the day before. Seriously, the timing could not have been better.

That night was rough. I was scared and once my meds wore off, I started having contractions again. I started timing them from about 1230am to 230am. I was having about 6 per hour, but not at regular intervals. I might have 2 in 10 minutes, and then not have one for 20 minutes. I texted Dr. Adashek and he called me in a prescription for a muscle relaxer for my uterus that I am now taking once every 6 hours. And I am on "modified bedrest" until next tuesday, at least. I am keeping stair climbing to a minimum, not picking up anything over 10lbs (poor Avery), and generally, sitting only. Aunt Kathy keeps yelling at me for doing anything. I think I may be done working for the rest of this pregnancy.

So now, I am trying to drink almost 200oz of water a day, taking uterine relaxers, doing nothing and hoping that the stitches hold. Prayers please. And if you are available in the month of September or October for a trip to Vegas, let me know. Seriously. I'll put you on the calendar.