Typical Day

6 am - night nurse takes my vitals - blood pressure, temperature, and pulse. On a side note, my normally low blood pressure is especially low in the mornings. It amuses me when it is low enough to trigger the an alarm of beeps and flashing warnings of "low!". The alarm is tripped at below 75 for the first number. My lowest has been 68/40. The nurse also gives me my Zofran.

6:15 am - medical student rounds. She asks the standard questions, "any bleeding? any loss of fluids? any contractions? any pain? baby still moving?"

6:30 am - resident rounds. She asks the same questions. Then she briefly listens to my heart and pokes my stomach to check for tenderness. I wonder exactly what she expects to discover during her 2 second listen of my heart. Isn't she aware that the nurses do a more thorough heart exam several times a day? My current OB resident is much too cheerful for 6:30 in the morning.

8:30 am - all of the OB folk round. The group consists of the MFM doctor, OB residents, and med students. About 6 people peer at me and again ask the standard questions (see above). This is my chance to ask the MRM doc any questions, but after 42 mornings of rounds I rarely have any questions anymore.

Next I gather my breakfast supplies and devotional material on my side table so I'll have everything accessible when I'm stuck in my bed for my morning monitoring. It takes an hour for food to arrive from the cafeteria, so sometimes I order it the day before, sometimes I order it early in the morning, and sometimes I just eat the yogurt and cereal that I keep on hand.

9:00 am - my day nurse arrives to again check my vitals and ask the standard questions. In addition she listens to my heart and lungs, and gives me my vitamins and iron. She hooks me up to the monitor to check on Wyatt. His heart rate and my contractions are typically recorded for an hour twice a day. Just yesterday I got my time reduced to 30 minutes twice a day. This monitoring is the equivalent of a "non-stress test".

10:00 am - my nurse takes me off of the monitor. My monitoring often takes more than an hour when Wyatt is particularly active and keeps squirming away from the sensor. The nurse then helps me get ready for a shower by covering my PIC line with a plastic bag and tape.

10:15 am - shower

10:30 am - get dressed, then painfully peel the tape off of my arm. Under my arm, the tape always separates from the adhesive. So I spend the next 10 minutes picking a layer of sticky goo off of my arm.

After this, my mornings vary a little from day to day. On Mondays, the dressing on my PIC line is changed. On Tuesday, I get a massage in my room. On Thursdays, we have our "Incubators Support Group" for all of the pregnant moms in the unit. During group, we play a game or complete a craft. The leaders usually out number the moms, and it feels very juvenile and patronizing. But it is something different to do and I get to meet other moms, so I attend faithfully.

Early afternoon is spent on lunch, chatting with other moms, cross-stitching, TV, reading, or on the computer if I get an Internet connection. Sometimes Jeffrey is able to stop in for a short lunch break with me. My sister Amber and I have a phone date at 2:30 each day. Usually I'm in good spirits when she calls. But some days she catches me when I'm not filling my day with activities, but am instead just lying on my bed feeling sad.

4:30 pm - most days, my wonderful caregiver brings the kids over to visit with me after their naps. One of my favorite activities is to send each kid one at a time with the caregiver to go for a ride on the hospital train. Not only do the kids love the train, but this also gives me about 20 minutes of alone time with each kid. When other adults are around, I am likely to chat with the adult. So I think it is important for me to be alone with the kids sometimes. When I'm with Zion, we usually work together on a puzzle. He adores puzzles and wants to complete them over and over again. With Elise, we usually read books or we tell "turn stories" where we take turns creating the next piece of the plot. She is especially enjoying reading out loud to me lately.

5:45 pm - Jeffrey arrives from work and we all eat supper together. We eat at a table in the lobby of my unit. We generally have the room all to ourselves. Sometimes the caregiver brings food from home, and sometimes we order take out. It is a bit of our normal routine that we've transported to the hospital. I love it.

7:20 pm - kids and caregiver go home. Most days Jeffrey heads home as well to help put the kids to bed. On Thursdays he stays we me instead so we can have a date night in the hospital. We watch TV, play games, or go for a spin downstairs in the lobby.

9:00 pm - my night nurse hooks me up for my evening monitoring.

10:00 pm - I get off of the monitor. I get my last set of questions from the nurse and measurement of vitals.

10:30 pm - I chat with Jeffrey on the phone before we go to sleep. I have got to tell you, a good night on the phone is a far cry from sneaking in to tuck in my sleeping babies, laughing with my husband over the funny things they did that day, and then falling asleep close to the 3 people I love most in the world.

11:00 pm - I thank God for another day with Wyatt still tucked safe inside of me and then I go to sleep.