House Arrest Update

June 10, 2008 in Family Stories, General by Melisa | Comments

So, I’ve been home from work on “house arrest” since May 16th now- my 26th week of pregnancy.  House arrest simply means that I need to be off my feet most of the day, not lift things (such as Lucy) and generally take it as easy as possible.  Being home has been really different than teaching every day and pretty mundane, but not as hard as I thought it would be actually to not being doing much.  I guess when your body tells you to slow down, you have no choice.  I spend my days doing stuff on the computer, some light stuff around the house, watching ridiculously mind-numbing TV and finally, meeting JD at daycare to pick up Lucy together.

What is strange though is that I don’t have Lucy with me during the day and can’t fully care for her when we are alone.  It is simply hard to get off the floor and get down onto the floor with her at this point, let alone changing her and lifting her in and out of her crib.  I watch her leave with JD in the morning for daycare and wonder what she is doing with other people and kids all day- that is the hardest part.  This morning, she crawled away from me to JD and called him Mama, giving him a hug, when she was sad.  I was so sad.  Due to me not being able to physically handle her, our relationship is definitely changing and she is relying on Dad more, which is sweet, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad sometimes about us losing some closeness.  I try to maintain perspective that this has to happen and is a natural part of growing a family and is seen in all cultures, but still at 6:30am I want to be the “Mama”!

Anyway, I have seen lots of women on a variety of house arrest, bed rest, etc. online and no one talks about this side-effect much.  Many talk about how boring it is and say in retrospect that they couldn’t have made it through the multiple pregnancy without having someone help with their older child or having their older child go to daycare, which I actually agree with at this point, but man its hard (financially too!).  Anyway, the weeks are going slowly.

So, in multiple pregnancies the pregnancy is counted in weeks more so than a normal “singleton” pregnancy.  A pregnancy with one baby is around 40 weeks and for twins 38 weeks is term.  This means that in a normal pregnancy, anything between 38-42 weeks is a normal term pregnancy and for twins anything from about 34-38 is normal.   They don’t let you continue beyond 38 weeks with twins because of the risk to the mother and babies for growth restriction and high blood pressure issues.  So, I am now at about 29 weeks (30 on Saturday- yay!) and counting.  To be on the safe side, the first milestone to meet is 32 weeks- June 27th.  Next, 34 weeks (in July).  Then, from there, anything else is “gravy” as my Dr. tells me.

Starting next Monday, I will be getting monitored at the hospital each week to check the babies for growth issues or for distress.  They will do a Biophysical profile (BPP) and Non-Stress Test (NST) on each twin (amniotic fluid, blood pressure, heart beat and response to stimulus, etc.) and an ultrasound about every other week.  As of last week, when I had my last ultrasound, each baby is about 2.5 lbs. and 15 inches long from head to feet!  Yikes, where is all that baby going!?  Each of them were “practice” breathing, which is great and shows that their lungs are developing well.  These weeks never felt so long before.  I heard that every day that the babies can stay within the womb, it saves 3 days in the NICU if they are very early.  At this point, if I delivered them, the average a baby stays in the NICU is about 40 days.  Each day is a huge relief and each week feels like crossing another finish line.  Hopefully things will stay this non-eventful for at least 5 more weeks!

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Viewing 3 Comments

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    This is totally blowing my mind right now. Well, maybe it's the wine. Oh, and Tras's medical commentary. I wish you nothing but the best. I'll pray to God for you!

    ;-)
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    How about this for blowing your mind- if the babies were delivered right now in their gestation, the average cost of their care in the NICU, per baby, based on figures from 1991, would be $91,343.

    Now imagine not having health insurance or being able to afford it. Now think about those people that don't have health insurance- they are often of low income, which adds up to probably poor prenatal care, which can lead to preterm deliveries. What if I was a single parent and could no longer work and pay for my health insurance? Vicious cycle? Health care is, I think, the number one issue that impacts all the others. If we can't care for the health of ourselves and others, what kind of society are we?
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    It's hard to imagine the emotional tumult of feeling distant from Lucy - this all happened so fast that the newness of motherhood hardly had time to wear out.
    Maybe you could take solace in the fact that once the twins are born you'l be able to reconnect with Lucy, and you can hand twin duty over to Jay! But honestly - I think that this might be a blessing in disguise. Lucy is young, and dare I say, forgetful. Imagine this happening when she was older - your distance from her or inability to care for her might not just cause changes in behavior (calling Jay 'mama'), it might cause actual behavior issues (tantrums, acting out, etc).
 

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