26 weeks today!!!

YAY!!!  These weekly posts will start having a whole new meaning to Jeff and I now that we actually need to hit each week as a “milestone” in our pregnancy.  Actually, our first “milestone” our perinatologist wants us to hit is 28 weeks (7 months), which now doesn’t seem so far away.  Just as a FYI, the second “milestone” will be 32 weeks, and finally, the last “milestone” will be the end of my bed rest, which will be 33 1/2 weeks.  Hopefully our boys will be big and strong enough to live in the outside world by then (they are already measuring ahead of normal, so that’s good), because I have a feeling we will be meeting them a lot sooner than we had originally anticipated.

Speaking of my bed rest, I feel the need to clarify exactly what my prescribed bed rest actually is, since it seems as if some of my friends think I’m just on an 8 week long vacation.  Hardly.  Under the strict orders of my perinatologist and my OB, I am to remain laying down, with my feet elevated above my cervix pretty much all day long.  My peri said he would “allow” 2 hours per day of either sitting or standing, but the rest of the day must be spent laying down in the above position, preferably on my left side.  That two hours a day goes by REALLY fast if you take into account the fact that (a) I’m 6 1/2 months pregnant, so I pee all.the.time, and (b) I try to shower every day, and that usually eats up at least 15-20 minutes of standing up time.  So for my friends who have suggested that I take up scrapbooking or arts & crafts as a way to pass the time,  you will now see that it isn’t really possible for me to do that because of the whole not-sitting-up thing.

The reason my doctors don’t want me sitting or standing isn’t only because of the cerclage (cervical surgery I had a week and a half ago), but because I was so far along when the cerclage was performed.  They don’t normally do cerclages on women who are as far along as I am (they are typically done between 14-18 weeks), and unfortunately when you are this far along, the stitches only have a 40-60% chance of holding up (far less of a percentage than if I hadn’t been so far along).  Any unnecessary pressure or stress on my cervix (which can happen from simply standing or sitting too long with the weight of our two babies on my cervix) could potentially bust open my stitches, and we do NOT want that happening.  Hence, the super strict bed rest.  When I am laying down with my feet elevated, there is no pressure on my cervix, no babies threatening to bust open those four stitches holding them in – basically we are safe.

A few of you have asked what would happen if the stitches were to bust open – and although I really hate thinking of that, it is a reality, so I may as well talk about it.  If that were to happen, the likelihood that Baby A’s water sac would come out of my cervix and eventually break open is very, very high.  That would mean early delivery for at least Baby A, and possibly even Baby B, too.  Scary, huh?  As much as Jeff and I are ready to meet our little boys, we aren’t that ready – not yet at least.  They need at least a few more weeks inside, and preferably about 8 weeks.   The one thing I don’t think Jeff wrote about while I was hospitalized, or that I never said anything about on here before now was what the perinatologist said to me after the surgery was done.   He told me that he usually performs 4-5 cercalges every week, and he’s been doing it for 20 years, so he’s seen a lot of different situations and circumstances that would lead to someone needing the surgery.  He said that my circumstance was one of maybe a handful of patients in the last 20 years that he has been really apprehensive about, only because Baby A’s water sac needed to be physically pushed back into my cervix before I was stitched up.  He said he was terrified that he was going to puncture the water sac because it was that close (even after they pushed it back in).  If I wasn’t willing to follow the bed rest rules before he told me that, I was afterward.  

Anyway, back to the 26 week update! 

The babies are still eggplants until we hit our first milestone of 28 weeks, so keep thinking about them being about 14 inches long, and probably (for our big boys at least) around 2 pounds each.  During this week, their testicles are beginning to descend into their scrotum – this journey takes a few days, and just absolutely fascinates me (probably because I don’t have those parts).  The nerves inside their ears are also becoming more sensitive, and I’ve read that the boys should be able to differentiate Jeff and I’s voices as we talk with each other.  How cool is that?  The babies also are taking small amounts of amniotic fluid in and out of their little mouths, which will help to develop their little lungs (they were also both given shots of betamethasone, which is a steroid that helps to develop their little lungs in case they are born early, when I was in the hospital).

I haven’t gained any weight in the last three weeks, but I am definitely getting bigger (as Jeff points out to me all the time, in a loving way).  My one single stretch mark is no longer lonely, as I found two more little guys today – one on the other side of my belly button, and the other one near my hip.  Good times.  Really, I’m not too concerned or freaked out – it’ s just weird to see my body changing so much, moreso in the last few weeks than before.   

Kerry