Hospital bed rest day 34 W25D2: I'm not too sweet!

Thanks to the increased hormones produced to carry more than one baby, we mother-to-be of multiples have an increased risk of developing gestational diabetes.  Apparently, these hormones interfere with the babies' ability to process the insulin.

I had my first test for gestational diabetics at week 16 and thankfully, the results were negative.

Back in my former ward when I was still in the 4-beded room, I had a roommate who was diagnosed with gestational diabetics.  She had to test her blood sugar level several times a day and give herself daily insulin jabs, as well as count her daily calorie intake.  Not fun!

Gestational diabetes can lead to complications for both the mother and the baby. These complications may include:

• Macrosomia (oversized baby)
• Increased chance of cesarean section delivery
• High blood pressure during pregnancy
• Low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) in the baby immediately after delivery
• Stillbirth
• For the child, risk of obesity and developing type 2 diabetes later in life

Come last Thursday, the Obs decided to have me retested for gestational diabetics earlier than scheduled.  Sucks!  I had a nice marble cheese cake and three cup cakes in my mini fridge and now I felt nervous about eating them.  So after an 8-hour fast, I had my blood taken, then drank a cup of sickly sweet glucose, and waited another 2-hours for my blood to be taken again.  I've read about the sugared drink that comes in several flavors - cola, orange, and etc. but I guess they keep it pretty basic here at a Malaysian government hospital.

More than 24 hours later, I was still waiting for my results! The nurses kept on saying that they have yet to receive the results, and the medical officer said that she will go and check on the results but that was it.  No news after that!  In a private hospital you can get your results pretty soon after the test, but not so here.  Finally, when I complained to MIL who visited me with lunch, she went to check with the nurses and hey presto, the results were already in.  Just that nobody bothered enough to inform me!  Not even the medical officer who was happily sitting behind the nurse counter. I guess no one here really cares about the anxiety of a patient waiting for her blood test results :(

Anyway, the blood test revealed that I'm not too sweet!  I passed!  I passed!  I don't have gestational diabetics! Yahoo!!!  

Time to celebrate with a cupcake 

Hospital bed rest day 30 W24D5: Belly picture!

I had my scan today and all babies are active and doing well!  

Here are their weights:
Baby A: 700gms (1lb 8oz)
Baby B: 684gms (1lb 8oz))
Baby C:790gms (1lb 11oz)

I'm quite sure that Baby B was Baby C and vice versa, but the scan was done by the other FM Specialist since mine was out of the country.  I'm just glad that she made time to give me a scan today!

I was a bit worried about the differences between baby B and baby C's weight, but the FM Specialist said this was okay.

My cervix is still at 3.5cm!  Woo hoo!  They were going to give me daily progesterone pessaries if my cervix was shortening.  I had to insert one of those down there every day for several weeks during my earlier days threatened miscarriage so I'm glad I don't need them right now.

Right now they feel so heavy!  Yet, I'm hoping that they will surpass double of their current weight before they come out.
I shared my threatened pre-term labor scare to the ladies on the forum and I was really comforted when one of the triplet mothers replied (she has 3 mth old triplets delivered at 35 weeks 3 days):

I was hospitalized for 5 days for monitoring at 24 wks but went on to carry for 35 wks. I was told the goal was to make it 28 wks, then 29, 30, etc.

I took nifedipine from then until the day before the delivery. I had steroid shots then and again at 28 wks because of a positive FFN test. I thankfully avoided magnesium.

It was always hard to tell the diff between contractions and movement. I was always asked if I'd been feeling contractions and my answer was "I don't know."

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that it's certainly possible to carry to 35 wks given what you just went thru. But, make it a short-term goal to reach 28 and every wk after that is a bonus.

I still have mild contractions and I'm hoping that they don't become more regular.  Apart from that, and the increasing discomfort, I'm hanging in there :)

Hospital bedrest day 29 W24D4:Good day!

I was sleeping so much yesterday that I stayed up all night doing my favourite hospital past time - reading blogs by triplet mothers.  I thought that I'd have plenty of opportunity to sleep in today but today was a fairly "busy" day with a steady stream of visitors.  Visitors are a luxury for me since the hospital I am in is about an hour's drive away from KL, and since I'll be here for eon years I've told my friends that they have no hurry in coming to visit me.

First came dad in the morning at 8.45am.  He brought me Farmhouse Milk - my essential diary intake!  Yay!  He also brought the McDonald big breakfast that DH had bought for me this morning!  What a treat!  I was joking to DH about it just the night before but I never expected him to actually get one for me.

Dad was only in for 10 minutes when the guard came in to shoo him out of the ward, saying that he had to leave as the morning visitation hour was over.  We begged the guard for another 10 more minutes.

Then came the Obs with her team of trainee doctors.  Let me rewind a bit first.  It is all about hierarchy here among the doctors.  The houseman will first come in early in the morning to check on me and to get updates.  Then the medical officer who is probably an Obs-in-training will come in with the houseman and listen to the houseman's report about my progress.  Finally, the Obs will come in together with the medical officer and the houseman and they report to her about my progress.  So yeah, I pretty much have to repeat everything three times each morning.  The Obs will check my medical file to ensure that the treatment plan outlined by the FM Specialist is being followed.  The Obs is pretty powerful though.  She knows DH well, so I took the opportunity to request whether dad, who had come up all the way from KL, could stay with me past visitation hours.  Thankfully the Obs understood psychological well being (which many here doctors don't!) and acceded to my request, so dad got to stay with me in my room till the afternoon visitation hour! Dad took my latest belly pictures that I will post tomorrow!

My MIL and FIL arrived promptly at 11.30am when the afternoon visitation hour started.  MIL had, as usual cooked lunch for me.

Everyone left at about 1.50pm.  I was due for my fortnightly scan today but apparently the replacement FM specialist (who is scheduled to do my scan since my FM is on holiday) has her hands full today so that didn't take place.  So I took the opportunity to have an afternoon nap.

At 5pm, friends from KL arrived with homemade nachos...yahoo!  I've not had cheese for goodness how long - that's an important source of protein too, which I need.

At 5.30pm, another friend drop in with two slices of cheesecake and walnut bread.  The triplets and their mama are having a feast today!

At 7pm, DH finally arrived after another long day at work and was happy to eat up my hospital dinner.  DH was pretty tired as usual so after everyone had left, we napped together (not on the same bed, though!) till 9pm.  DH is the only who gets to stay in with me after visitation hours as the husband.  But then again, let's just skip the husband part and give him 24 hour access to my room since he is a doctor in this hospital.  Not that he would ever above this privilege anyway.

DH left at 9pm - He looked so tired that we decided to postpone our favourite hospital couple activity for the next day - watching the latest episode of the Game of Thrones together.

10.00pm - Shower time, followed by my usual supper time.  I feel good about my protein intake today.  I had three eggs (ugh!  Had to throw some of the yolk out even though it was rich in iron, which I need!) and I even forced myself to eat the fish that MIL cooked (I've developed a distaste for fish since becoming pregnant).  Also had lot of cheese and an avocado - more power food for my babies.  And of course my nutrition shake made with my Farmhouse milk.  I think the triplets are quite happy too :)

So yeah, with a day packed with activities like that, time sure passes by a lot faster.  It is those days with not much activity that time passes by so slowly and reaching the next target duration of pregnancy feels like eternity.

28 weeks, 28 weeks....every day I wake up and chant this number.  Come quickly!

Hospital bed rest day 28 W24D3: The 24-hour ordeal

Here's my recap about what happened last Friday (Hospital bed rest day 26, W24D1):

It started out as a normal day in the hospital.  I was up early as usual (thanks to the frequent toilet trips and the nurses that loudly barge in at 5am).

8.15am - Dad came from KL for a visit.  He usually follows DH up to the hospital on Friday mornings.

8.30am - I was in the middle of showing dad my contractions when the Obstetrician taking care of me came in for her ward rounds with the medical officer who typically visits me twice a day.  The first thing the Obs asked me was whether I had any more contractions and I told her yes, I've been having them throughout the night (though not timed) and in fact, I was having one right then.  She felt my belly and confirmed that it was a contraction.  Things happened quite quickly after that.

8.45am - Obs did a vaginal probe and took a swap, which was awful!  The good news was that she confirmed that my cervix was still closed.  She decided to send me down to the labor ward for observation anyway, and to take the necessary precautions for pre-term labor.  I found out later that there was another triplet mother-to-be in hospital, also in her 24th week, who also had experienced pre-term contractions, and who was currently under observation.  So perhaps this is why she was also quick to react this time to my contractions.

9.00am - They whisked me down to the labor ward...the only thing I got to do before that was to brush my teeth.  The labor ward was a market place - it was noisy, fast-paced and brightly lit!  There was as long room that looked more like a long corridor, with beds in the middle and nurses, doctors and midwives walking up and down from both sides.  I could hear newborn babies crying in a distance and some baby's heartbeat being monitored through a fetal heart monitor.  It was not a fun place to be.

I was then put on an IV drip for magnesium sulfate to help protect the babies brain.  I hate being on drip but the worse was the catheter that they inserted into my bladder.  It hurt having the catheter go through my uretha and it felt awful having a full bladder and not being able to pee.  They wanted to monitor my urine output to ensure that the magnesium sulfate wasn't staying in my body.  Then came the painful steroid shot that is to help develop the babies' lungs.  That hurt like hell but the midwife who gave me the shot was pretty experience and it was over as fast as it could have been.  They also gave me nifedipine (thankfully these came in the form of pills) to stop my contractions.  Then I was told to rest...how the heck could I rest with all the chaos going around me?

2.00pm - Finally they took me out of the awful long corridor like room and transferred me to the small room just across the walkway.  This room had two beds and I soon discovered that the other triplet mother-to-be under observation was in the first bed.  She had already ended her 24-hr observation, was doing fine, and was waiting to be transferred back to the ward.  I felt jealous that her ordeal was over and mine had just started.  I also learned that she had conceived triplets through timed conception just like me but using clomid!  Yay to discover another non-IUI/IVF triplet mother-to-be!

The second room that I was in for the rest of my observation did not offer much privacy as well.  It doubled up as the doctors' workstation so there were doctors and nurses walking in and out the whole time.  The door was always left open so I could hear all the chaos that was going on.  They deliver babies non-stop here....all throughout the day and the night.  For the rest of my observation, I hears women crying in labor, newborn babies' crying as they take in their first gasp of air, and of course midwives talking loudly in the doorway.  I saw exhausted women being wheeled out of the labor warm just after delivery and midwives carrying new born babies in their arms.  I learned that in this hospital epidural was not an option for women who would go through a natural delivery because there were not enough anesthetists (and the epidural is too expensive and not considered a necessity?).  So they all had to tough it out and endure the labour pains.  I remembered my MIL telling me that it was possible to get admitted in here for delivery and be discharged the next day, and in such cases, the hospital bill only comes up to about RM10 (less than US$4)!

Back to me, with all the stuff poked inside of me, I couldn't move much or get out of bed.  So I stayed in the same position for 24 hrs.  My poor buttocks ached without relief.  I told DH that I really felt like the Princess and the Pea but DH had no idea who that was!  I couldn't drink as much as I usually did because I was afraid of having the uncomfortable feeling of having a full bladder again and I didn't feel like eating much.  My poor babies!  I said sorry to them but hoped that they would be able to toughen it up for this 24 hours.

Towards night time, the nurses who came to do 10-minute monitoring of my contractions reported that my contractions were 1 in 10 minutes or none.  My blood pressure was being monitored hourly and since it was getting low, some one gave instructions to stop the nifedipine.  Yet, I continued to feel the contractions.  I even told DH about it and he said to get the doctor to resume the nifedipine since my blood pressure was no longer low.  DH then had to leave me to travel back to KL.

I was again told to get some rest.  The doctor instructed to nurses to give me some pain relief medication that would help me relax and sleep but I refused.  I was not in pain, I told them.  I just wanted something to stop my contractions.  They told me I was just being anxious and that I didn't need the nifedipine because my contractions were irregular.  How I wished they had a contraction monitor here!

1.05am - I was wide awake.  Still feeling my contractions and timing them.  I felt 7 contractions between 1.05am - 2.25am.  When the nurse came in I told her about my contractions but she said that they only time contractions on a 10-minute basis.  I asked to speak to the doctor.    Sometime later a doctor came in...probably a houseman or a new medical officer.  I asked for the nifedipine again but she didn't dare to allow it without the green light from her superior.  At that point I decided that there was nothing else I could do so I tried to get some sleep, waking up every now and then when I felt a contraction and when the blood pressure monitor tightened around my arm.

6.30am - The nurse came in and offered to take me to the bathroom for a warm shower.  How the heck was I going to do that with the IV and the catheter?  I just didn't feel like going through all that, so they finally decided to give me a sponge bath.  The air-conditioning and warm water wasn't such a good combination for me.  I started shivering so badly that they ended the sponge bath.  They did however do a thorough cleaning down there, and that wasn't fun at all.  It was nice though to be able to brush my teeth and change into new clothes.

7.30am - I'm counting the hours to be taken off the damn catheter and the IV drip.  MIL sneaked in to give me breakfast.  She managed to meet the Obs in charge of me and told her about my contractions and wanting to be back on the nifedipine.  The Obs came in and spoke to me.  I had several contractions during our conversation and she immediately instructed the midwives, "Patient is anxious about her contractions so resume her nifedipine unless her blood pressure drops to 50."  They finally gave me the nifedipine and my contractions slowed down and subsequently stopped.

10.40am - The second steroid shot was worse than the first.  The took out the awful catheter and stopped the drip.  I waited for my bladder to fill up and requested to go to the toilet.  I was afraid of the pain that comes with peeing again after using a catheter, but thankfully there was no pain and I could pee like normal.  It's such a wonderful feeling to be able to pee again!  I'm feeling much better and am waiting to be released to the ante-natal ward (no choice, they're not sending me back to my old ward after this!)

3.30pm - I've finally got the green light to leave the labour ward.  Yipee!  Contractions have stopped.  Double yipee!

Babies, babies, during this awful ordeal, I knew you would be safe.  The Lord filled me with his peace and told me it wasn't time yet for you to come out.  I don't know how long more you'd stay inside baking, but I did know you were not coming out right now.  Mummy is not a good patient, she's not a very brave person.  But mummy will try her best to hang in there for you.

Hospital bed rest day 25: 24 weeks and viability!

I've finally reached the first target milestone of a triplet pregnancy - week 24 and viability!

Now my triplets have officially graduated from "fetuses" to "babies".

At this point, if my babies decide to come out early, there is a possibility that they will survive.
Yet, I read somewhere most do not survive past the first week of delivery.  Those that do survive would often require prolonged NICU care and be at risk of severe complications.

No belly pictures yet because there is no one to take one for me.  Maybe tomorrow.


I mentioned to the Obs today that I was experiencing pelvic pressure and painless contractions at 6 per hour.  I read in Dr. Luke's "When you're expecting Twins, Triplets and Quads" book that both could be signs of preterm labor so I was a bit worried.  The Obs got the nurses to time my contractions during a 10-minute interval.  I had no contractions during the first timing, and I only had one short contraction during the 2nd timing.  I guess this is good news, but I am SURE I was having quite a lot of contractions this morning!

The Obs that is taking care of me has instructed that the nurses do a fetal heart monitor every once in four hours.  I also got my tetanus jab today.  The Obs has also given the green light for me to be moved to the ante-natal ward, even though the ward typically admits pregnant mothers at 28 weeks and above.

I haven't mentioned yet that my MIL used to be a sister in this hospital, and she still gets a lot of recognition among the staff here.  She managed to take me for a tour to the ante-natal ward (on a wheelchair, of course).  The ward is a lot quieter than the female general ward that I am currently in.  It doesn't have a lounge because visitors are not encouraged to be hanging around.  There is a "husband's room" just around the corner, which is where I guess the husbands wait when their wives are in the labour room.

The bad thing is that there is a guard sitting right outside the entrance that did not want to let us through until one of the nursing staff recognized my MIL and called her "sister".  That means visitors would only be allowed during visitation hours and only two visitors would be allowed in at a time.  What a drag!  They are a lot more relaxed over here in my current ward, and the strict visitation rules only apply to those in the third class ward.  This was the deciding factor for me not to move to the ante-natal ward right now but to wait until 28 weeks.  The other reason is that they only have a single room available, and I'm trying to avoid being in a single room at the moment because we'd have to pay more than double per night compared to what we are paying in this 4-bedded room that I'm sharing!  I would love to have a quieter environment and my own private bathroom, but I think I can hang on for a little while longer where I am!

My next target - 28 weeks.  That's the real, safe target.  That's one more month to go.  That's 28 more days of waiting.

Hospital bedrest day 22:There's an earthquake on my belly!

It was about 4.00am the other day when I step out from my room to the common bathroom for a pee trip.  The ward was quiet, no nurses in sight.  I slowly tiptoed to the 3/4 length mirror hanging on the pillar in the lounge. 

It has been over 20 days since I last saw my belly in the mirror.  Since being on hospital bed rest, I only have a top view of my belly, so the only thing I can see past my belly button are my toes.  There are tiny mirrors in the common bathroom, large enough only to see you face.  Some time ago, mum brought me a small compact mirror which hasn't been very helpful.  My room is too dark and the mirror is too small to get a good view of my belly.

So there I was, standing in front of the 3/4 length mirror all by myself.  I gingerly lowered my sarong to take a look at the damage.  My heart sank.  It was bad, pretty bad for a 20-over weeks pregnant lady.  My skin was cracking all over my belly.  I saw for the first time, the constant itch and lumps that I felt but could not see before.  There was really an earthquake on my belly :( Gone was my smooth, flawless tummy skin.

It was too depressing.  I've had many more late night opportunities, but I've never been back to the mirror since then.

Hospital bed rest day 20: I've splashed on some expensive oil!

It's getting harder to stand up and walk with the babies pushing down against my uterus.  Sitting down relieves the pressure so I'm definitely doing more sitting and walking!  I can't wait for my maternity belt to arrive!

The Palmer's Cocoa Butter just doesn't seem to be elevating the itch or helping with the stretch marks :(.  I'm realistic enough to accept that there is no miracle magic potion to prevent the stretch marks, but I'm still hoping that I can at least minimize the damage to my poor skin.  I also decided that I deserve to upgrade to a more expensive product given my circumstances, so I went ahead and ordered the Mama Mio Tummy Rub Stretch Mark Oil.

DH can't understand why I have to spend so much money buying this, he thinks I'm being extravagant -  but then again, wasn't he surprised at the amount of stretch marks that has appeared on my belly the other day?