Year Ago Flashback: June 11, 2008

PREFACE: Since I did not start this blog until the babies were 3 months old, I'm going to be spending the upcoming days leading up to the triplets' first birthday going back through the events leading up to their birth.

Here's what I wrote a year ago today:

Well the good news is, we've made it to 31 weeks! This is considered quite the feat for carrying triplets, especially with the very few problems I've had along the way (32 weeks is the average). I also found out that I do not have gestational diabetes so that was reassuring! Unfortunately, I received a phone call this morning from the OB who said I needed to be admitted into the hospital due to pre-eclampsia symptoms: swollen feet and ankles, higher than normal blood pressure and high levels of protein in the urine after a 24 hour urine collection. The doc said I would need to receive a steroid shot immediately so that the babies' lungs can develop more rapidly because they could be delivered as soon as Friday the 13th (hopefully not) and that I would be getting admitted until they babies were born! We already had a c-section date scheduled for July 9th and was optimistically hoping that we would make it to this date, as it would be 35 weeks into the pregnancy but things changed rapidly.

Upon arriving to the hospital, my blood pressure was checked and was a little elevated. The OB came and talked to me explaining that pre-eclampsia can change at any time and that the hospital was the best place for me to be so that I could be closely monitored. It was emphasized again that I could deliver in 2 days or 2 weeks or whenever else. The goal of course: to keep the little ones inside for as long as possible for each day they stay in the uterus, that's less time they will need to spend in the NICU after birth! Anyhow, they hooked me up to monitors to check their heartbeats as well as see if I was contracting. Fortunately, both things looked good. It was also reassuring to receive a priesthood blessing of comfort and healing by worthy men who hold the authority to grant such things. As the night went on, I got more tired by the minute but was too hot, exhausted, stressed, lonely and uncomfortable to get any sleep.