Woolsey Family Chronicles

I was woken up this morning by a new male student nurse. He came into my room at 7:15, all chipper and ready to learn a thing or two. Unfortunately he was not privvy to my new rules: do not wake the mothership up before 8am. I recently had all of my meds adjusted so I only get woken up at 2am instead of 12 and 6. It is important that and I stockpile sleep now you see, because I figure I may never sleep again. I was polite and kind to my very enthusiastic male nurse, and did what he asked of me, but later today he will have to learn about my new rules.

Yesterday was kind of a down day for me. I have found when you live in the hospital and you are as uncomfortable as I am, there are good days and down days. Partly I was feeling down because Ava had come to visit the day before and wasn't very happy. She threw a tantrum in the hospital lobby with Laura until a nurse saved the day and brought her a Minnie Mouse wearing a Kimono. I am not sure what the Kimono was all about, perhaps Minnie had gotten back from a vacation in Japan, but it worked magic on Ava. She just wasn't herself and Laura told me that she has really been missing me. The other day Chris was with Ava in the grocery store and a woman came up to Ava and said "what beautiful hair you have" and Ava replied with "my mommy's in the hospital". The lady wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. Chris said, "tell her why mommy's in the hospital" and Ava said "because she has threeeeeeeee babies in her belly". I guess Ava and this lady had a pretty nice conversation on the topic. I am happy Ava understands what is going on and communicates it with others. I know she will be happy when I am home and so will I.

So, I guess that yesterday I just wanted to go home and be with my family and be in my own house instead of this lonely hospital room. I was later reminded about why the hospital is the place I need to be.

I have been experiencing contractions every night for the past 3 nights. Sometimes they start at around 4 and sometimes they start around 6. It is just a tightening of my belly - no pain or other symptoms associated with them. It is pretty normal for someone in my position to have contractions but we need to keep them under control and monitor the babies to make sure they aren't under any stress. So, I went on the monitors and everything was pretty normal until my night nurse came rushing in and told me to roll on my side. I knew right away that meant that my sensitive little Baby B was having heart rate decells. I rolled on my side facing away from the monitors and all I could hear was a slow baaaa buuuuump, baaaa buuuuuump. She said, roll to your other side. Again, baaa buuuuuump. Then the nurse started to panic. She was calm, but I could tell she was panicking. She said "get on your hands and knees like a dog". And so I did. I felt like just screaming, "get these babies out. Get them out because I can't handle the stress anymore." But instead I stayed calm and tried visiting my happy place which didn't work again. Now I was on my hands and knees but we couldn't even find a heart beat. This is when the nurse called for backup and I thought I may die of stress. We eventually found the heart beat and it turns out that Baby B likes it when I am in the dog position. The thing that scared me this time was that Baby B's heart rate dipped for no real reason. I wasn't having major contractions. I asked that my nurse please let my doctor know what had happened and that I want to speak to her. My nurse came back in and told me my doctor is busy and fairly unconcerned with my baby's heart decellerations. Hmmmmm. Okay great. I thought, hopefully her heart won't just stop beating altogether while I'm sleeping tonight. Well, my doctor ended up coming in and she said, "did that scare you?". Ummmm, yeah that scared me! She explained to me that this happens to all babies, but because I am so closely monitored we see more things. She said my baby recovered very well and looked great for the next hour and a half that she was on the monitor and that is what is most important. I felt reassured.

Chris is coming down today at 11 for a big ultrasound I'm having. This will be a very important ultrasound because they will look for any signs of problems and they will measure and weight all the babies. Those babies better weigh at least 3 1/2 pounds with all the eating I've been doing.

In the meantime, I have a big project ahead of me. I forgot to comb my hair the last two days and when I woke up this morning I realized that I have something resembling dreadlocks for hair. It is quite alarming. I probably need to start brushing now and maybe by 11 my hair will be tamed.

Happy Valentine's Day.

More later today. . .