Hi All – Some of you have asked how the rhythm of this experience has been, what a day looks like from the inside. Below is my daily run of show.

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24/7 – Oxygen therapy; 12am – 9:30am – Fasting

1am – Monitoring + Vitals

• Monitoring: Paddles (or monitors) are strapped to my belly for an hour to first find and then trace the babies’ heartbeats. If the girls move – ahem, when they move – or if the heartbeats change pace, my nurse investigates until she can issue the all clear.
• Vitals: Assessment of blood pressure, oxygenation, temp, reflexes, edemic swelling

5am – Monitoring + Vitals

6am – Visit with onsite physician + Blood glucose test

• Visit with onsite physician: Check-in with the OB assigned to the day on how the babies are faring, how I’m feeling. “Isn’t it a shame the Packers aren’t in the Super Bowl.” “Wow, what a bright sunrise on such a cold day.” It’s nice to make small talk that doesn’t involve me belly-up.
• Blood glucose test: Finger prick with a lancet to gauge blood sugar. Anything >150 = insulin shot.

6:30am – Monday/Wednesday/Friday: Blood draw to run labs on my pre-eclampsia

8am – Ultrasound: BPPs and Dopplers (and Wednesday Weigh-ins)

• Ultrasound BPPs: Biophysical profiles are conducted for each baby. Explained further here; in a nutshell, the ultrasound techs are scoring each girl on their movement, amniotic fluid levels, and capacity to breathe. And on Wednesdays, they get weighed – a nail-biter break in routine. (And hurray to our favorite ultrasound tech, Jenny! After hours of horizontal conversation, a new and true friend.)
• Ultrasound Dopplers: This is the big daily headline. Also explained in more detail here, but in brief, whether the babies (… Baby C, really) shows either intermittent (kind of fine), absent (less fine), or reverse (not at all fine) diastolic flow dictates our course of care day-to-day and week-to-week.

9am – If the BPPs were a score less than 8/8 → Monitoring + Vitals + Daily pills / otherwise Vitals + Daily pills

9:30am – Breakfast tray (maybe). If it’s determined surgery will not take place today, then I can drink water and eat.

10:30am – Blood glucose test

11:30am – Lunch tray

12:30pm – Blood glucose test

1pm – Monitoring + Vitals

4:30pm – Supper tray

5pm – Monitoring + Vitals + Blood glucose test

8pm – Bedtime FaceTime with Case and Lu! We play Candy Land (Casey is a trustworthy proxy for me… Lu is deeply competitive, so not so much), or make up songs about our day, or just babble as Lucy points the phone up at the ceiling.

9pm – Monitoring + Vitals

10:30pm – Lights out! Until 1am, when we begin again.