Adventures with Preeclampsia

Well, it had been smooth sailing, but at 30 weeks, Mom's blood pressure started to rise. We were all pretty sure that this would happen at some point, since she developed gestational hypertension when she was pregnant with our big sister, and unfortunately, we were right.


At 30 weeks along, Mom started going in twice a week for doctor appointments and ultrasounds and her blood pressure readings in the office were high. She was noticing that the home readings were getting higher, too, especially when she walked around. So, she spent 4 days in the hospital for observation and more tests, and left with the diagnosis of "mild preeclampsia". After spending 8 glorious days at home on bed rest (soaking up as much sun, fresh air, and Kaira as she could get), the doctors sent her back to the hospital to continue her bedrest there.


Her platelets have been slowly going down and the protein in her urine has been slowly going up, so they want to carefully monitor her in case the preeclampsia gets aggressive quickly. They'll keep monitoring the two of us here, too, and if something looks like it's not going right, we'll all be in the right place! After all, Mom's goal is to leave the hospital with 2 healthy babies and 2 healthy kidneys!

The plan now is for Mom to chill out in the hospital, being the best baby incubator that she can be, until June 14th or so, at which point we'll be 35 weeks along. We will be delivered and enter the real world at that point. Why not wait until 40 weeks? Well, since we are sharing a placenta, the risk of mortality in the womb increases greatly after 35 weeks (not to mention the fact that it's gonna get really cramped in here!), and so we will be better off on the outside.


So far, though, we continue to do well and continue to grow! At 32 weeks, Thing 1 was just under 5 pounds (and at the 78th percentile for a single baby!) and Thing 2 was just under 4 pounds (and at the 48th percentile for a single baby!). Unfortunately, Thing 1 is still breech and Thing 2 is transverse. So, we've now got 17 days to get into the right position so Mommy doesn't have to have a c-section. Mom's even given Thing 2 permission to kick Thing 1 into place if necessary. Kaira keeps texting us telling us to get into head-down position because she doesn't want to have to wait 6 weeks after we're born to play monkey again with Mommy.


Mom's been having quite the diversity of roommates since she's been in the hospital. She's thinking about passing the time by writing a book with each chapter describing the roommates that she's had. Maybe she should call it the DSM-5 .


The other adventure has been with the AC in the hospital room. Even though it's May, it's been hitting the 90's outside and the hospital air conditioners can't keep up. Plus, it turns out that whenever the hospital helicopter lands on the roof, the AC shuts off in the maternity ward. Brilliant planning! It's not like the patients in here don't all have one (or two) little heaters inside them or anything.


Keep up the good work, Mommy! We know that it must feel a bit like prison to be in the hospital for so long (afterall, they're giving you 3 hots and a cot, making you wear those crazy "chains" on your legs when you're laying in bed, and aren't even going to let you out for good behavior), but you're taking good care of us by being where you are. You put the "PAR-T" in "antepartum"!