Hanging in there...21 weeks 4 days

I haven't posted in a while. It's been a long and scary week.

I had some cramping last week that came on when I was out shopping. It felt like menstrual cramps and I immediately headed home to put my feet up. When I called the doctor they said to come in to the ER unless it went away pretty quickly. The cramping lasted 45 minutes and then stopped. So I was ordered to stay off my feet for 24 hours and to call if it came back, otherwise everything was probably fine and I just over did it. Basically this was my body telling me that I needed to modify even daily activities.

After taking it easy and feeling much better since the cramping went away J and I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean at the movie theaters on Sunday. When we got home my lower left leg started to hurt (throb & ache) and go numb. I pretty much couldn't put any weight on it. It didn't get better overnight. In fact it worsened and started to swell a little. I once again called my doctor and he said to go straight to the Labor and Delivery b/c it could be a blood clot and those can be life threatening. After assessing the situation, they took me straight to the ER for monitoring and to have both an abdominal u/s and deep vein u/s on my leg. Once there I had a horrible experience w/ misplaced paperwork, miscommunication and waiting when the intake doctor from Labor and Delivery wanted me seen ASAP in the ER. While waiting I went to the restroom and saw red blood on my panties. Hysteria followed along w/ me running back up to Labor & Delivery. They were shocked and upset that I was still waiting over 3 hours later when they sent paperwork to the ER saying to admit me right away. I was then admitted into a room at Labor and Delivery, where they did an abdominal u/s, a vaginal exam that showed the blood was coming from hemmroids not vaginally, checked my vitals and they made the tech come to me to do the deep vein u/s on my leg. There was no evidence of a blood clot (thank god) but they think it may be sciatic nerve pain. This was actually good news b/c all I wanted to hear was that there wasn't a blood clot. I really would have been surprised if it had been that since I'm on Lovenox injections and daily baby aspirin. But- my doctor didn't want to take any chances. My discharge instructions now are to take it easy- modified normal activities. They also suggested I wear support hose since I'm already having problems w/ my back and issues w/ leg pain. I'm hobbling around right now with pretty bad pain in my left leg. It may be b/c I've now put on 17 pounds on my small frame. I'm 5'6" and started this pregnancy out at 115lbs so I can really feel the weight already affecting me.

Starting next week I go in for an u/s and office visit every Monday. Some of these will be checkups w/ a quick peek on the u/s, others to measure my cervix and then a full u/s every month to check growth on the babies. My first cervix check is at 23 weeks so I'm anxious to hear that I'm nice and long and closed up tight. At the hospital both babies looked great... Baby A is transverse and Baby b is breech.


On a positive and happy note. We have picked out our names......

Matthew Alan & Andrew Patrick

The name Alan/Allen runs in both of our families (names of both of our fathers) and Patrick is in honor of J's Mom "Patricia" that passed away when he was a teenager.