Free At Last

I am home sweet home. It feels so good to be back. Thank you all for your messages, concern and good vibes. I’ll admit I was remiss in getting Nicole to update my blog, and I know how nerve-wracking it is when people delay between posts, especially when their last post is something like “I am going to a hospital now.”

But Nicole was running herself ragged, being Shirley MacLaine to my Debra Winger in the classic Terms of Endearment. She was running around getting my medicines and such. She had to help me do things like shower, because I couldn’t really use either of my hands. And in between it all, she had to bring me food and entertainment, while also squeezing in work. She stayed with me every night past her own bedtime and even missed the season finale of her favorite new show, Heroes (it is Tivo’d, so all is not lost). How could I possibly add one more item to her list? However, I learned the lesson that we need to come up with a good updating strategy for when the babies are born, since it seems like there is no wireless internet access at my hospital.

My heart really goes out to all of those people who are on bed rest in hospitals. It’s one of those things that I think you really need to experience to understand (although some people have a much more attuned sense of empathy than others). My friend Jen was in the hospital for weeks before she delivered her twins (early). I now have a taste of how annoying it must have been for her. There are so many people in the Blog World who are in hospitals right now on bed rest, for much longer than I was. I am so lucky to be sprung after a mere six days. I am looking forward tonight to getting some sleep. The dark secret about hospital stays is that you never get any rest because people are constantly coming in to check on you. I never really understood that until I lived it. Tonight, the only thing waking me up will be my bladder.

Here is the latest: I did six days on the antibiotic IV, which should knock any MSRA out of my system. I have an appointment with the infectious disease doctor next Thursday to follow up. The staph never went systemic, so the babies are both fine (knock on wood).

The pyogenic granuloma (or: pyogenic granular…same thing) is still going strong…meaning, it got a little bigger and while it isn’t painful like a sprained ankle or a broken bone, it does hurt a bit, kinda like the way a cold sore hurts. And it throbs. When we take off the gauze, we can watch it pulse up and down! It has a life of its own. And maybe its own heartbeat. Nicole just called it Baby C.

We have been taking pictures of it every day, but I won’t post those, as some people might not want to see it. However, I found a picture of one online: click on this link and scroll about halfway down. Mine looks almost exactly like the one on the far left, except it is a little bigger and it is on my palm. To protect it, since it bleeds like a gunshot wound if it is even slightly tapped, I have to wrap my hand in gauze like a mummy.

I will see Dr. Soap Opera Star (the hand surgeon) next Wednesday. He said he wants to wait till after the babies are born to remove it (because there is a 40 percent chance of growing back) but I stressed how difficult it will be for me to hit the ground running with twins when I have one hand that I can’t really use for much. As it is now, I can really hold anything, grasp anything or do much with my left hand, with this growth in the middle of it. He said we can talk about removal next week. In the meantime, it just might start going down a little on its own. We’ll see. I am trying not to look a it because it is disturbing, and no matter how many times I remind myself that it is just a pyogenic granular, I can’t help but get a wee bit freaked out, because it seems so wrong for something like that to grow so quickly and so large. Sometimes I just want to twist it off to make it go away.

After being released, I had a growth sonogram upstairs at the hospital. Here are the stats: Baby A is still head down and weighs 6 pounds 7 ounces (a nice gain from her last measurement of 5 lbs 2 ounces). Baby B is still in the penthouse, stretched across my entire top of uterus like she owns the joint, and now weighs 7 pounds 4 ounces, which means she grew almost a pound in two weeks. Of course, there is an error of margin here, but it could go either way. Allow me to say this: There is almost 14 pounds of baby in there and it has ceased to be comfortable. And I am only 36 weeks and 4 days. But I am grateful that the babies seem to be thriving. What more can I ask for?

I spoke with Dr. Nothing Bothers Her and, in keeping with her special name, nothing bothers her. She said that she thinks I can try for a vaginal delivery, since Baby A is head down. A C-section at this point would be elective. Again, I feel rather ambivalent about this: I can see positives and negatives to either exit strategy, and my doctor is willing to do what I want. But I don’t know what I want. My doctor said she would let me get to 38.5 or 39 weeks before doing any sort of inducing. But at 38 weeks I think I might get aggressive about doing some of those old wive’s tales/tricks. To wit: I will tweak my own nipp.les while walking on a treadmill for hours and drinking balsamic vinegar. At the very least I will entertain my fellow gym-goers. Any other suggestions would be much appreciated, because these babies act like they have no intentions of going anywhere any time soon.

And now I have quite a few blogs read! The good thing about being computer-less for a week is the fact that I am so looking forward to catching up on everyone’s lives. I had Nicole give Riley updates, but beyond that, I have a lot of reading to do.

Pictured above is Baby A, in profile. Baby B has her back to us, so no picture of her!