Worst Doctor's Visit Ever!

First of all, yesterday was a really bad day. I can't do much of anything, yet Shawn decided to work at the library and leave me with Bridget. It's kinda hard to watch her and take care of her when I'm falling asleep every two hours! She deserves better care. I let her watch E.T. while I took my first nap. I think she was in her room for mandatory rest time when I took my second nap. She got herself into quite a bit of trouble during that time too. When I woke up, she was about to color all over her shirt with a dry erase marker and dry erase doesn't wash out of clothes. She didn't nap, and her room was a mess. Shawn was with her when I took my third nap of the day. I don't know why I was so tired. Maybe because I was trying to do laundry, but I didn't think I was particularly overdoing things then. I guess I'm just at the point where I can't do much of anything anymore. Also, I was having difficulty breathing because the babies are getting so big, and it's just really hard to take a nice deep breath with their 9 lbs. laying on my diaphram. Then overnight, I woke up at 3 am to go to the bathroom, and couldn't get back to sleep.  I tried surfing the net to tire me out. I tried sleeping on the couch, but that was too uncomfortable, so I headed back to bed. Bad idea...Shawn won't wear his mask, and would much rather keep me up with his snoring, so I made him go sleep on the couch after listening to him for another hour or so. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep overnight, and I had an early doctor's appointment today.

So, I headed to the worst doctor's visit ever! I knew it was going to take longer than Monday, because they told me Monday, that I'd be at the other office, and they don't usually do the non-stress tests there. Also, I'm always called back to the room in less than 5 minutes after arriving, and today it took almost 20 minutes to get called back. Oh no, this isn't looking too good!

So the nurse from the "old" office was at the "new" office, which was nice, and the first thing she tells me is that the fetal monitoring machine was really old, and Dr. had told her "Good luck" with hooking me up to it. Oh yeay! I'm already crabby and tired from being 10 months pregnant with no sleep, and I'm not looking forward to the rest of my morning. Anyway, the nurse hooks the first baby girl up to the monitor and says, "the good news is that you only have to stay on for 10 minutes per baby." Great! First good news I've heard. So my 10 minutes goes by as I count the ceiling tiles and spots on the walls, and the nurse returns. Asks if everything is ok, I say yah. She says the dr. will be in to check the print-out. Two seconds before the dr. comes in, the machine beeps, and I could tell that it ran out of paper. I tell the dr. this, and he does nothing. Another billion years passes by, and the nurse comes in and says, dr. wanted me to stay on a bit longer. Ok fine. I tell her that all this time there was no paper in the machine. Enter doctor. Nurse puts me in the middle of their bickering about why dr. didn't replace paper. Wonderful!

Ok, the first baby takes well over an hour before the dr. is satisfied with the results. (He is the more thorough doctor, which is good I suppose...sometimes!) During that time I thought I was going to pass out, because I was laying on my back, and I can't do that anymore. I was about to push the emergency button when the nurse came in, saw me sweating and asked if everything was ok. "Heck no!" I said. I told her I was burning up, it was so hot in the room. I told her I can't stay on my back that long and I was really uncomfortable. So she got me another pillow, propped me up a whole lot more, and brought me some water. Almost immediately I felt better.

Next up was the baby boy. He was the scary one. The nurse couldn't find his heartbeat with the monitor. Even though I felt him kick at least once while she was trying to find the heartbeat, you start second-guessing yourself. Maybe that was the girl's feet that I felt kick and not the boy? So she leaves to get the dr. and the ultrasound machine. Now this just brings back memories of the October when the dr. wheeled in the ultrasound machine to confirm that I had a late term miscarriage. Then I felt another kick. That had to be the boy, right? So dr. does his ultrasound magic, and as it turns out, the boy's heartbeat is way on the side of my belly-directly below my armpit and ribcage. He moved WAY over, and the docs have been saying that they'll pretty much stay put from here on out because they're running out of room. So that was a surprise. I still can't visualize how he's sitting in there because it doesn't seem physically possible for his head, butt and heart to be where the dr. said...but that's how it is, I guess.

Alright, so the main drama is over. His monitor is on. Everyone leaves me be to count the number of tears in the wallpaper. I'm watching the print-out and to me it looks worse than the girl's. His heartbeat seems to be all over the place, and now I'm getting worried that he's going to send me off to St. Joe's to deliver these babies, and I haven't even packed my hospital bag yet. Only 10 minutes goes by, and the dr. comes in and says, "I like this baby. You're done. We're moving on to the last baby." What!?! Shows how much I know about the monitor!

So the other baby girl was easy to find because when dr. had the ultrasound out, he located her heart, and put a little smiley face on my belly to mark her position. I'm feeling much better at this point, the end is near, and I don't feel like I'm going to pass out or anything. Well, baby girl #2's print-out looked the same and baby girl #1's print-out, and that means I'm going to be there for awhile. Sure enough, she was monitored for over an hour as well. But I survived. And the dr. and nurse were being quite friendly because they knew it was frustrating and uncomfortable for me, so at least that part was good. 

Summary: all three babies heartbeats were mainly in the upper 140's and low 150's. The girls were very consistent, didn't vary too much. The boy had lots of variation where he spiked as high as about 165 and as low as 125. Don't know what that all means, but my guess is they like to see that variation. 

After that, I had my progesterone shot to prevent pre-term labor. Then they had forgotten to take my weight at the beginning so I had to go do that too. I was surprised that I only gained one lb. in 10 days. I feel as though I've gained 10 lbs. in 10 days! Oh yah, my blood pressure was elevated for the first time. I'm supposed to rest more. I almost asked for that in writing because I knew Shawn wouldn't believe it. Sure enough, when I got home and told him that, he says I do nothing as it is.  I guess being Bridget's primary care provider for at least 9 hours a day requires that I "do nothing." I really wish men could be pregnant for one day of their lives-maybe then they'd understand. 

Now keep in mind as you read the next paragraph that if I'm on my feet for more than a minute or two, or walking more than a few steps, it totally wears me out because of the babies sizes and positions. It's similar to any one of you running a quarter mile as fast as you can.

Shawn bowled tonight, so again, I "did nothing" but made and fed Bridget dinner, loaded our dirty dishes into the dishwasher, got her three refills on her drink, got her a snack later, read books to her, played Play-doh, colored with her, put away some stuff from the prior shopping trips, fought the bedtime routine with her. Changed her diaper, got her changed into her pj's, helped her to brush her teeth, got her to clean up the toys in her room, put away a basket of her laundry, read her a bedtime story, tucked her in, and said good-night. Then I finally got to lay down after 8 pm.

Bridget's teacher wrote on her daily report that Bridget told her that her sisters' names were going to be Holly Kate, and Ruler Mint and her brother's name was going to be Tape. Gotta love her mind! 

Also, next time you see Bridget, ask her what E.T. was about. She does a pretty good job explaining the plot of the story. My favorite part of her rendition is that E.T. was laying on the table, and his heart glowed, and it was red in his belly, and when the doctors take the babies out of Mommy's belly with scissors and knives that's what her belly is going to look like. Where does she come up with this stuff? To prepare her for my being in the hospital, I have told her that the doctors are going to operate on me and take the babies out of my belly, but I've certainly never mentioned scissors or knives! She was pretty cute too, at the end of the movie when E.T. was "being sick" she was all nervous and crying and that reminded me of Ryan's story watching E.T. Ryan said his allergies were acting up during that scene. Bridget was very happy when his heart glowed and he "got better" after that.