Updates

Pregnancy: My doctor and I appear to be on the same page, which is that if I do receive a positive lab diagnosis of cholestasis that I should deliver earlier than our already scheduled June 3 date. The labs should come back today or over the weekend, so she is going to look into available OR time next week because my symptoms are so classic that she is relatively certain of the outcome. But as always, the babies are doing awesome--and the non-stress test (fetal monitoring) yesterday showed that. They are clearly having a blast in there, as evidenced by their enthusiastic kicking and punching, lots of heartbeat accelerations, and general movement, which is wonderful. I am going back today (3rd day in a row at the OB office!) because of a snafu with the sonogram schedule yesterday. I hope to have a baby weight report when I return this afternoon--maybe the last until we have the actual birth baby weight report next week! I am also lucky that Tricia, our wonderful friend who may also be our birth coach (if allowed by hospital policy), is coming up for a visit this afternoon and to take me to the sonogram.

I feel conflicted about scheduling the earlier cesarean birth, because as developed as the babies are, I know that they would still benefit for some more time to pack on weight and mature their lungs and develop their brains before they are out in the world. But I also know that from everything we know now, they are healthy right now, and additional days smooshed in together can promote dangers in addition to any they may be facing now. I did get a steroid prescription yesterday that I started taking last night but it had no effect on the constant itching all last night again, which means that, again, I got about 2-3 hours of sleep total last night. It may begin having some impact by tonight. And I am super-uncomfortable during the day most of the time, too, so it does give me some selfish relief to think that this part of this process might be over next week (and on to cesarean recovery! yay!). I just think it's kind of too bad, after holding my breath to keep these babies in for so long, that now we have to hurry to get them out earlier than they otherwise would want to come out. On the other hand, it is so exciting to think we might get to meet them next week, that we could enjoy Memorial Day weekend getting to know our babies!

House projects update: A carpenter agreed to come by and do whatever work on the stairs is required on Saturday morning, which means that the carpet can be installed as early as Monday. Unfortunately both the side door and front door locks have been working poorly or not at all, so I am going to have to see when I can get a locksmith in to deal with that.

We hope to have the first crib assembled and set up tomorrow, as well as the rest of the nursery, which is very exciting. We are down to unpacking those last few boxes, which are always the hardest, but mostly the unpacking is done. We still haven't figured out where all the furniture really fits, or whether it fits in this house, but I am happy to report that the house is very livable right now. I had been having possibly pregnancy-related freakouts about what I decided was dog smell in the living room (other people generally couldn't smell it as strongly as I could) but it appears to have been completely resolved by removing the old carpet from the stairs. So that's fabulous.

Probably I will have more updates later this afternoon or tomorrow, depending on when I am up for it. Thank you to those of you who have reached out after reading Wednesday's post to express your concern. I sincerely feel very positive and hopeful about everything at this point and I am relieved to know that we are getting closer to holding our babies. There have certainly been some blips in this road but it is exciting and a relief to know we have made it this far and are almost there--and ready for the next big adventure to start!