Just One Blink & 25 Weeks

Firstly, we are 25 weeks today!! Thank the good Lord for one more week! Noel and I had a lovely, peaceful date night planned to celebrate another weeks' milestone - just the two of us at the hospital and a whole bunch of delicious Indian food. Yum. Yum. Yum.

Well, our boys had other plans. We are scheduled for ultrasounds every two days, and since our last on Wednesday (which showed the fluid and size discrepancy that we've been seeing for a while, though both twins were stable so the discrepancy was of unknown origin) we are now in full blown twin-twin transfusion syndrome. In just 2 days!!! Just like that! I understand now why they were monitoring so closely. If things changed that quickly in a blink on an eye, there's no telling what might have happened a week from now. We could be in a very different place than we are now. Baby A - the recipient twin - has definite tricuspid regurgitation (heart stress as he's now pumping more fluid than he can handle) so he's considered to be in stage 3 (of 5) of the syndrome. Baby B - the donor twin - is literally shrink wrapped, strapped to the placenta. He still shows a bladder, though small, and stomach, so he's considered to be in stage 1. What the doctors told us is that sometimes the babies will skip stages, which is what ours have done, and so we're considered to be in stage 3.

To make things even more interesting, my cervix has shortened again. Only this time, we're down to 1.3cm. As if we didn't already have enough going for us.

So I was immediately discharged from the hospital and told to grab the next flight to Toronto, and that they're waiting for me with an appointment on Saturday. We booked a flight leaving about 5 hours from the time we found out about all of this. My mom and Noel - working hard painting the new house - dropped everything. Noel went back home to Lilah and started packing. Ninang Ana was there watching Lilah all day, and let me tell you, that cousin of ours is a life saver. My mom picked me up from the hospital with all my stuff (I was mostly packed already from being away from home for almost 2 weeks) and dropped me off at home. I lied on the couch while I watched Noel and Ana frantically pack for himself and Lilah, and grab a few things for me, too. We definitely would not have made our flight were it not for Ana. I must have had her walk up and down the stairs 20 times to grab more things I thought to pack for Lilah. Thank you, Banana. You have no idea!!

On a side note: it was really nice seeing home again. I'd made myself get used to the idea of possibly never seeing the inside of our sweet, cozy first home that I LOVED again, after I had unknowingly slept my last night there almost 2 weeks ago. So that was a welcome feast for my eyes, especially as Ana somehow managed to clean after she'd put Lilah down for a nap (seriously, who are you?! haha).

So my mom arrived at the house, helped load up Lilah and our luggage, and Ana drove with us to the airport to take our car back home (thank you again, hunny!) We made it just in time to catch the last of boarding without really being late. Noel grabbed dinner, and we were on our way. We were all hungry, especially Lilah...that monkey goes crazy when there isn't food in her belly. She was in excellent spirits for the entire flight after she'd eaten.

My first goal was to make it through the flight without my water breaking and with few to no contractions. I was most nervous about this. I had seen baby A's membranes bulging into the gigantic funnel that used to be 4/5ths of my cervix, knowing that this increases your risk of premature rupturing of the membranes, and I was terrified that all the walking and moving and sitting up I'd be doing would cause this to happen. Thankfully, it didn't, and I was more than relieved when we landed, knowing we were now close to a hospital and not 40,000 feet in the air if anything major happened. I also had only a few contractions - I'm not even sure if I would call them real contractions. These were more like heavy braxton hicks or irritable uterus tightening type things. Uncomfortable, but not frequent or regular. I made sure to drink as much water as I could to keep the contractions away, so maybe that helped.

We arrived at our hotel around 2am EST, slept at around 4am (I was famished so Noel grabbed some food, turns out our hotel is in party central so there were tonnes of places open), and woke up at 7:30am to make it to our appointment at Mt. Sinai for 8:00am. They admitted us, and we are supposed to be seen by Dr. Farine today for an ultrasound and consultation, and then Dr. Ryan tomorrow who will be performing the surgery. So here we wait, in a very similar hospital room to the one we had back home, except this one comes with a super cheerful roommate whom I instantly love. Her name is Cindy, and she's 34 weeks along, expecting identical twin girls. She's been here just over a week and is being monitored frequently to see when it would be better for her babes to be out, rather than in. I'm thankful to have her if I happen to have to stay here!

I'm not sure yet whether they are keeping me overnight, or if I'll be discharged until the surgery. But once I have the surgery I will be kept overnight, and hopefully discharged to rest at the hotel and will come back to the hospital to be monitored until he surgery is deemed a success. We're only 4 minutes away from the hospital, and a taste of those hotel beds makes me want to go back so badly...though of course I'd stay if they thought it was a good idea. Nurse Betty doesn't seem too concerned about my shortened cervix...so that sort of relaxes me a little bit.

So, still waiting...sort of wish we could have slept a little longer, but I'm glad we're here safe and sound. I'll see if I can nap here now.