Hospital bed rest day 82 W33: 33 weeks woohoo! And belly pictures

My prayers have been answered!  Today we completed 32 weeks and enter our 33rd week of triplet pregnancy.  Praise the Lord indeed!

Here is a belly picture taken at 32 weeks and 2 days, i.e. the day after I was discharged for the second time from the labour ward.

As you can see, I'm really not that big for a triplet mother-to-be.  Some times I really can't believe that there are three babies inside there.  They must be really tiny babies! 

At our weekly scan last Friday, the babies weight were:

     Baby A: 1.675kg (3 pounds 11 ounces)
     Baby B: 1.379kg (3 pounds)
     Baby C: 1.786kg (3 pounds, 15 ounces)

Of course these are just estimates.  The babies may be up to 5 ounces lighter when they come out.  I'm really hoping that they can reach 1.8kg  before they come out.  2kg would be an ideal weight, but I'm realistic enough to realize that I'm probably not able to carry three 2kg babies!  Everything else looked good on the ultrasound.  No more trans vaginal scan from now on as the cervix starts to shorten at this time anyway, so that's great!

One thing that I experienced after being discharged from the labour ward was that my babies had dropped.  You know that happens when a pregnant woman is approaching her delivery date.  The babies move lover towards the pelvic in preparation for a normal vaginal delivery.  I now feel their movement lower in my belly.  The drop has also caused my belly to flatten, and my belly seems to be growing sideways rather than frontwards.  It's easier to breath lying down as the pressure of the babies on me is lesser.

I also see parts of my babies sticking up from my belly.  I've been reading this old book called, "Praying for your unborn child".  The author encourages mothers-to-be to engage with the unborn baby by caressing the baby when the baby moves, so every time I feel a bump, I will rub that bump or gently tap it.  The book also encourages parents-to-be to sing to the unborn baby, but okay, we aren't going to that extreme!

So I've been on complete bed rest for a week now!  It isn't as bad it sounds.  I guess knowing that I am in the final league of my triplet pregnancy makes things tolerable!  The most common reason for getting up from bed is to pee.  The nurses brought me an old bed pan, (which looks like the picture except it is all rusty and old) but I tried using a bed pan while I was in the labor ward and hated it.  I'm also not keen in having the bed pan on my bed, although MIL has offered to scrub and sanitize the bed pan for me!  When I was in the labour ward, a midwife proposed that I pee in a plastic bag instead after my first bed pan attempt, and I really liked this alternative.  So I got DH to buy some trashcan bags for me...he got those really flimsy black ones which aren't so great to use.  What I do is to sit at the edge of the bed, pee in the bag, tie it and pop the bag of pee in the trashcan beside the bed.  The I get the nurse to throw it into the proper waste disposal bin.  Not so fun but it sure beats having a nurse carry your pee in a pan and cleaning the pan of your pee!

If I hate the idea of peeing in a bedpan, then doing a big one in the bedpan is yucky.  For that I get a nurse to wheelchair me into the washroom where I do it in the toilet, i.e the normal way.  The nurses decided to leave a wheelchair in my room, so now I figured out that I'll just use the wheelchair to go to the washroom to both pee and do a big one!  I either get a nurse to assist me or I am actually able to do this on my own, which is great!.  Yes I have to stand to sit on the wheelchair and to get up from the wheelchair, so I'm not sure whether my Peri would be happy or not.  The other day I was holding onto the towel railing as I lowered myself onto the toilet seat when the railing gave way and I fell, thankfully on the toilet seat.  My MIL was with me and she almost freaked out!

I'm doing well though, and I'm thinking that the occasional standing and few steps I take should at least help my leg muscles not go to waste.  Bed rest can really weaken the leg muscles and getting back the strength after prolonged bed rest can be very frustrating!

I also had my first sponge bath in the labour room and that wasn't fun either.  So I get DH or a family member to wheel me into the washroom, then I slowly get up and sit on the chair in the shower and have my bathe there.

Other than these peeing and pooing moments, and shower moments, I'm pretty much confined to the bed!  I know its the best thing to do for now.  My legs and feet turn red whenever I'm sitting up or on my feet so I'm guessing that my stomach is blocking the blood circulation to my legs.  I think that's good enough a reason to limit my movement.  And since I'm really no longer ambulatory, I've finally relented and requested that they start giving me those blood thinners to avoid blood clots.  I get a shot every morning at 10.30am.  So much fun!

Apart from that, I'm really not in pain and the discomfort is tolerable, especially since I'm no longer walking.  My only complain is that my belly is lopsided to the left as you can clearly see from the photo, so it's a bit uncomfortable to lie down and have your whole body misaligned and this is surely no good for my backbone.  I have to put a cushion underneath the left side of my belly for more support. The lopsided belly also means that I can only get up from the bed on my left side, but have difficulty doing so on my right side!  I have a slight backache due to the lopsided belly, and I'm hoping that it will not get worse.

I sure how that I will get another belly shot in before the babies come out.

Hospital bed rest day 78 W32D2: Back to the wet market aka the labor ward, and finally, the 32-week milestone!

I was looking forward to posting a nice smiley picture of myself with a 32-week belly and a happy note that we have reached the 32-week milestone, which is the average duration for triplet pregnancies.

Just the day before we celebrated DH's birthday.  Sis was back from Switzerland for a holiday with her kids, and there was nothing like a good cheer that little kids bring along with them, which I so needed as a long term patient stuck in hospital!

Monday morning was like any other week day at the hospital.  My Obs came in during her ward runs and I had no complains as usual.  Apparently it was stated in my Peri's treatment plan that I was scheduled for a CTG scan at 32 weeks, the Obs decided to go ahead and get it done that morning itself since I was just a day before 32 weeks.  Just in case you are wondering, a CTG scan refers to a cardiotocograph where the babies' heartbeat are monitored over a period of time.

I was quite happy to finally get a CTG scan before I had wondered before whether I'll ever get one.  The one thing I have learned about triplet pregnancy in Malaysia is that I cannot assume that the management will be similar to how it is in USA, especially as I am at a government hospital.  Yet, happy as I was, I was also very sleepy having stayed up late all night on my labtop.  The nurses got me hooked on not one but two CTG machines - they said this way it would be quicker.  In my dazed, half-sleep mode, I wondered briefly whether I should attempt to take a picture of my belly and the many straps that were fastened around my belly, but I abandoned the idea feeling that it would be silly to do so in front of the nurses. What I couldn't remember was that the CTG scan could also monitor my contractions.  As I dozed off, I saw one of the nurses looking at the graphic printout and  telling the other that I was having two contractions in 10 minutes.  Half asleep, I opened my eyes and the nurse told me that given the regular contractions that I was having, I might have to get an emergency C-section.

As soon as the CTG scan ended, the nurses notified the medical officer on call and my Peri.  Things moved quite quickly after that.  They inserted a speculum inside me and then measured my cervix (both were not fun exercises).  My cervix was dialated 1 cm.  I did not know how good or bad this was, but the next thing I knew I was whisked off to the labor room once again to be tocolyzed.

So I found myself back in the awful labor ward or what I call, the wet market! I was wheeled into the familiar room for the second time, and it was exactly as I remembered it to be - the bright, glaring fluorascent lights, medical staff walking in and out, the noisy corridors, women in labor screaming and babies crying. Pretty soon they had me on the IV drip and started administering Nifidepine orally, which is supposed to relax my muscles and hence, reduce the contractions.  My Peri came in and was relieved to know that I had not taken my breakfast yet as I was supposed to fast in case I need an emergency C-section.  So they gave me anti-gastric jabs as well.  My Peri also said that if the Nifidepine does not work, I will be put on magnesium sulfate again.  Darn!  The magnesium sulfate drip is supposed to be the awful stuff with the horrible side effects that triplet mothers are familiar with.  My experience with the magnesium sulfate when I was admitted into the labor ward at 24 weeks wasn't too bad, but what I hated was the urinary catheter that went along with it. 

We then received news that there weren't enough ventilators in NICU as several sets of twins had recently been delivered.  So were were informed that if all our babies needed ventilators, some of them would have to be sent to the nearest government hospital in the next town.  Not good news! 

I knew that my babies were not ready to face the world yet.  They were kicking a lot in my belly that morning, oblivious to the impending danger that they might be pulled out of their snug little home at any moment.  And I was not in pain, so I really didn't want a C-section yet!  I prayed really hard that the Lord would give the babies at least one more week so that we could complete the 32 weeks.  I could still feel the contractions so I could not tell if the nifidepine was actually working or how long it would take for it to work.

I spent the rest of the day in the labor ward listening to my neighbor in the next room screaming in pain  every few minutes - now that's what I call painful contractions!  It was quite a juxaposition, with one poor woman screaming like the world was ending whilst the rest of the medical staff continued their daily routine unaffected.  She was already screaming when I arrived, and continued to scream and scream for the rest of the day right till evening.  If you remember my previous post, epidurals are not an option as a pain relief for women in labor.  I heard that she finally delivered.

Finally, at about 6pm, they allowed me to have a light snack of biscuits and milo.  Definitely not enough for a poor starving triplet mummy-to-be who hadn't eaten for more than 15 hours.  I resumed my fast again till about 1pm the next day, when I was allowed to take a small bowl of cereal and milk at my request.  My poor babies!  I could hear them crying, "Food, food, food!" They continued to keep me in the labor ward since I was still having contractions of 1 to 3 in ten minutes.  I was allowed to have another light meal for dinner.  By this time, I could feel my contractions slowing down.  My Peri finally said I could leave the labor ward and return to my old ward at 10.30pm but instructed that I had to go on completed bed rest from now onwards.

So, right at 32 weeks of my triplet pregnancy, I'm  now on complete bed rest.  That means no toilet trips or anything of that sort!  I am pretty much confined to my bed for the rest of my pregnancy.  Oh what fun!