3 weeks and counting

Well, we've officially been in the hospital for 3 weeks. They say the first two weeks is supposed to be the hardest but I don't agree.  The first two weeks went by relatively quickly for me.  It's this last week that has really been the struggle. 

We had to come off a medication a bit earlier than expected and that has led to a dramatic increase in my contractions.  On Saturday, after the initial spike in contractions, my doctor put me back on an IV with magnesium sulfate to try and get things under control.  For those of you that have never taken magnesium sulfate, be grateful!  My treatments have only been for 2 days at a time so far and that is about all I can handle.  While on mag you feel hotter than you can ever imagine and overall feel like you have a really bad case of the flu - really weak muscles, fatigue, etc.  I seem to have a very dramatic reaction to magnesium - I am unable to focus my eyes on anything and someone asking me my name proves to be a very difficult question for me to answer.  Definitely not the way I wanted to spend my weekend :(  

The great news is I am off the mag again and all our tests are pointing to us at least being here 1 more week (fingers crossed we can go even longer!).  Bad news is for the last couple days I am having contractions every 2-5 minutes.  For any women reading this that have gone through labor, these aren't the full blown level 10 contractions - more like a 2-3 with an occasional 4 or 5 thrown in there.  It's just amazing how one stops and the next one pretty much starts right away.  Most last anywhere from 1-2 minutes but sometimes I'm fortunate enough to get ones lasting from 5-9 minutes!  Those are the ones that make it hard to catch my breath and really make me close my eyes to focus on breathing through them.  Fortunately, those are few and far between so we don't have to deal with them too often.

Today we had some more testing, including a growth ultrasound on the boys, and I'm happy to report they're still packing on the lbs! Baby A is estimated to be 3 lbs 14 ozs, Baby B is estimated to be 4 lbs 7 ozs.  Baby B has taken a liking to parking himself under my rib cage and likes to generously give me what I like to think of as love taps throughout the day.  Although painful, I really do love feeling both boys kick and punch - it makes me smile to know it's us against the world right now - as long as they stay put I can keep them safe.

Here are a couple photos from the last couple days.  Nothing exciting, but hey, that's my life right now, right?!  Not much to see or do when you're confined to a hospital room 24 hours a day :(

32 weeks 1 day - weighed in yesterday at 176 lbs!  Definitely never thought I would be excited to  be reaching that kind of number on a scale :)

Cole practicing feeding himself yogurt.  We're trying to be supportive of his independence but man does it get messy!

A close up look at the mayhem 

Cole drinking from a straw - the only way he likes to drink his water now