This Patient is Forever

(27w1d)

I have been classified as a "forever" patient.

Meaning I will be here in the hospital until the babies are born ... no matter how long that is.

Dr. G was covering for Dr. Peri last night... who is out of town for the next week.  Nice, Dr. Peri... dump me in the hospital and run off to some tropical location :-).

When Dr. G arrived it was clear there was no chance I would be heading home to sleep in my bed and swim in my pool.  My pressures fluctuated between 150s-160s/90s (highest being 164/98).

While on bed rest.

Laying down.

On my left side.

High enough by itself to classify me as preeclamptic.

In addition, I am spilling significant amounts of protein, my kidney function was sub par and my uric acid was a bit high.  All in all not great news.  BUT that babies seem to be doing well and although they keep calling my Womb-Thing "highly irritable" (What you talkin' about, Willis?), I am only having a few "real" contraction an hour.

I attended the baby shower yesterday via video conferencing that Matt set up.

Not ideal, but quite fun nevertheless.

Afterwards, some people came over and hauled all the presents into my hospital room (much to the delight of the nursing staff who thought I should have had the shower here).  I gleefully spent a few hours opening all the gifts for the babies.

I am overwhelmed by the amount of concern and love that our friends and family have shown to us and the babies.

Marsha, Natalie and Tami pulled out all the stops for the shower (I know since I got to sample the food later!)

I will post some pictures and more about the shower in the next few days.

Jennifer and Diana were here for the weekend and among other very important things both gave my tired, swollen feet a good rub.

My digs here are great.  I am in a fairly new hospital and I have an enormous (and I mean ENORMOUS) private room.  The nurses have been fabulous.  And get this... even the food is tasty (or maybe that is the result of having little variety in my diet since being on home bed rest?)  There are really only two drawbacks to being at this particular hospital...

1) It is quite a ways from our house.  Our first choice of hospital no longer has a contract with our insurance company.  The two hospitals with Level III NICUs that were closer were completely full when Dr. Peri admitted me on Friday.  So he called the fourth and last hospital in town with a Level III NICU and they had a room (if not, apparently my insurance would have had to pay for me to be treated at our first choice hospital since they also had a room).  As the freeway between the hospital and our house is undergoing construction and parts will be closed in the evenings for the next month, the commute will be even more painful than normal for Matt.

2) This hospital has had Level III NICU status here for just under a year.  Rumor is that they run a great NICU, but as far as I can tell (judging by comments from several nurses), we are their first set of triplets.  The good news is that the neonatologist who will be caring for the babies (per Dr. Peri and per reputation), is fabulous.

So there you have it.

I am getting settled into what will hopefully be a long hospital stay.

Every day the babies remain inside is a blessing at this point.

Signing off from Room 304