practice

This past week has been full of practice...practice for labor and practice for how crazy life with twins will be at times (though I'm sure neither were even close to the real thing). It all started a week ago this past Friday. Due to some symptoms I was having, I had to rush to the doctor to get checked for pre-term labor. Because the risk of pre-term labor is so much higher with twins, I was terrified, but thankfully everything was okay.

Fast forward to Wednesday. I literally felt like I had been hit by a truck. On Thursday I called the doctor, and they recommended I come in for testing the next morning. That afternoon, I had my first Braxton Hicks contractions--an unwelcome surprise. The nurse said they were fine as long as there were no more than 4 per hour. When 4:30 finally rolled around, I drug myself home and decided to take the dogs for a walk to try to up my energy level a bit. At the very end of the walk, Stella hurt her paw. Cue the emergency vet. Stella got sedated, which ended up giving her just enough rest to be magically cured. With Stella conked out, I thought I could rest for the remainder fo the evening. Not so fast. Around 9:00, I had three strong contractions within 15 minutes, so we called the on-call doctor. His recommendation? Take a 30 minute bath and drink 2 liters of water. I was a little nervous about this prescription, but gave it a try anyway and was able to fall straight to sleep after.

Friday morning we gave Stella a dose of her medicine, then I headed to the doctor before work. I still had an infection--the antibiotic I had been taking for a week hadn't worked--and I told the nurse about the contractions the night before. Once the doctor got out of surgery, he decided he wanted me to come in at 2:00. When the nurse called to tell me, I informed her of the shooting pains in my back. Her response: how quickly can you be here. For the second Friday in a row, I was checked for pre-term labor, and again got a good report. All the symptoms were most likely caused by the infection.

I went home for just a few minutes to catch my breath while my new prescription was filled, and Stella got terrible diarrhea. I spent the next 30 minutes cleaning her. Needless to say, she didn't get any more medicine. A wonderful end to a wonderful day.

I'm sure this is just a small glimpse into the sometimes chaotic life of a twin parent, but it was exhausting nonetheless. I guess practice makes perfect!