Day 0 – Monday, July 17, 2017
After returning from the hospital around 3 am, we got to sleep about 3 hours until I woke up with painful, consistent contractions and knew it was time to head back to the hospital. I knew it was probably nothing, but that I needed to head back in to get checked out.
We arrived to the hospital at 8 am and my cervix checked, I was 100% effaced and dilated at 1 cm. Immediately after being checked, I was surrounded by 8-10 nurses and/or doctors hooking up multiple IVs, giving me shots and feeding me medication. I knew this was very serious and that my labor was advancing. They were trying to work as quickly as possible to get my labor to stop. It was a very surreal moment because I had anticipated to be sent home on bedrest like I had with my first pregnancy. Given their response, I knew this was very serious.
My doctor was called in to see me and was not happy I had been sent home the previous evening. He also did not like that he had not been called. He was great and compassionate. He said, "your goal is to stay pregnant for the next 24 hours." The reason is because I had already had one shot of steroids to help the babies’ lungs. I could get one more in another 24 hours and the steroids would significantly help my babies should they come early. This was one of the most intense moments. I had fully anticipated being admitted and then sent home on bedrest like I had with my first pregnancy. This was different, it was serious, and we were scared.
Up until this point, we had firmly decided to not find out the sexes of our twins. I began feeling like I wanted to know in case things did not go as planned. I had a strong urge to get better connected to these babies perhaps to convince them to stay put. I discussed this with my husband and, in the end, we decided to stick with the plan and not ask the sexes.
The rest of our Monday was pretty uneventful. I was not able to eat or drink anything in preparation of a potential caesarean section surgery. During my first pregnancy, my daughter was delivered via c section because she was breach. We knew that my twins were going to be delivered via c section as well. The twins were continued to be on 24/7 monitoring and so were my contractions. I felt pretty good most the day and was just waiting to hear that my labor had stopped so I could be sent home on bedrest.
That evening, it did not appear my labor was advancing, and my doctor even gave me the go ahead to eat dinner which meant he did not expect me to deliver. Everything seemed stable and so my husband and I tried to get some sleep at the hospital.