24 weeks, 6 days

Greetings from the hospital!  I'm finishing up day 13 of being here.

So here's the story:

Back in April when we did the ultrasound to check the growth/organs/gender/etc they also checked cervical length.  The specialist said this should be checked every 2-3 weeks.  My initial measurement was April 5th and it was 3.6 cm.  The doctor said that anything over 2.5 cm is good.  I think your cervix can be as long as 5 cm.

My next appointment with the specialist was a month later on May 4th.  I hadn't had a measurement done since the previous appointment in April.  My OB was aware of this and had planned on doing it herself every 3 weeks after the May 4th appointment.  So on May 4th I went to the specialist to meet with a pediatric cardiologist.  Apparently there is a higher chance of heart defects in multiples conceived thru IVF.  The cardiologist didn't see anything major wrong.  Yay for healthy babies.  Next up was the growth scan (get them every 3 weeks).  Everything looked good there as well and both babies were estimated to be about 1.5 pounds each. The last step was to measure my cervix.  It was 2.6.  That was a HUGE difference from just a month ago.

They took me to another room and put me on a monitor to see if I was having any contractions (which can cause the cervix to shorten).  I spent about an hour on the monitor and they didn't see anything.  The specialist called my OB.  She wanted me to "take it easy" the rest of the day and come back the next day for another measurement.  I thought it was pretty dumb to come back less than 24 hours later.  I mean, how much can it change in such a short amount of time?  I was shocked to see that it was 2.4 the next day.  So it got even shorter.  The specialist called my OB and they decided to admit me for monitoring.  If I wasn't having any contractions, then I had the option of getting a cerclage (stitch the cervix together).  They don't recommend getting a cerclage beyond 24 weeks usually.  I was 23 weeks so I had to make the decision.  They had the OR ready for me that afternoon if it was something I wanted to do.

I talked with J and we decided to go ahead with the cerclage.  Our options were bedrest with monitoring or cerclage.  The cerclage seemed kind of drastic but it also seemed like the only thing that was guaranteed to help.  I knew I would hate myself if I didn't do it and something happened later and it was to late to fix it.

So that afternoon I went to the OR for the cerclage.  I had a spinal which was pretty scary.  J said to consider it practice for my c-section when the babies are born.  It wasn't bad.  It looks much worse on tv.  They spent 2 hours trying to do the cerclage and just couldn't get it.  The doctor described it like this:  Think of the cervix as a circle.  They put in a stitch at 12:00, 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00.  Then they pull the stitches like a drawstring bag.  They couldn't get the stitch in at 6:00 because that part of the cervix was much shorter and farther back.  She just couldn't reach it.  She even had another doctor come in and try but she couldn't do it either.  So there was nothing we could do.

They decided to keep me on bed rest in the hospital thru the weekend (Thurs-Mon).  Then they would check the cervical length on Monday (5/9) and go from there.  Well Monday came and it was even worse.  It was 1.7 with funneling (cervix opening up from the inside).  So they said I was to stay another week.  This Monday (5/16) they checked again and it was 1.6.  So it had shortened a tiny bit more but not as drastically as the previous changes.  The OB said she would talk to the specialist to see if I could go home on bed rest (still requiring 2 weekly visits to the OB for monitoring and guaranteed to be admitted to the hospital again if the cervix changes) or if it would be best for me to stay in the hospital.  The specialist said she preferred me to stay in the hospital because I was still so early.  So I'm here until Monday for sure.  Monday (5/23) they will measure again and then reassess.

The floor I am on is devoted to people like me who are on bed rest and scheduled c-sections.  There are 30 rooms on this floor.  There is a support group every Wednesday.  There are people here who have been here for months.  There are people here who are on their 3rd stay.  It's nice to know that I'm not alone. 

It's almost time for the nurse to come in and put me on the contraction monitor so I better get this posted.

More later if I can find time between napping and watching t.v.  :)