August 1-10

...after receiving the two steroid shots and further conversations with our physicians, Gwynne was released from the hospital on the 1st to go home to continue her bed rest. We were also leaving with a much more relaxed about the context within which the previous two days had transpired. It was true that the smaller baby was nervously small and low on the percentile growth standards. It is also true that the smaller baby was still growing and that all heart and lung function looked good. As it turns out the steroid shot was a precautionary measure should we get into the need to delivery earlier rather than later. All of our doctors were surprised that we hadn't been admitted to the hospital up to this point, let alone only for a precautionary series of injections and fetal monitoring. During today's appointment, one of our specialists indicated that the odds of Gwynne and the twins progressing to their current state given where we started is about 5%. In that sense I suppose we are very lucky.

We had another round of fetal growth measurements today, Aug 10. Both babies are still growing with the larger weighing in at 3.5 lbs and the smaller at 2.4 lbs. The smaller has moved up to the 13th percentile in the last 10 days. The doctors are increasingly optimistic compared to just ten days ago.

Now you must be wondering how Gwynne is coping with the bed rest issue.?. She is moderately misbehaving within the loose parameters of her imposed restrictions. She is still working feverishly on the computer preparing for the races each weekend. Though she broke the rules this past weekend, she will no longer be traveling to events on the weekends. She is rarely driving, really only to come into town for her doctor's appointments. Other than that she is pretty much on home confinement.

The term bed rest has also been loosely interpreted within our house. She does spend most of her timing sitting in a chair or on the couch. Some time is spent truely in bed, but more realistically laying on the couch has been her primary mode of bed rest. Though the doctor's orders were no cooking or cleaning, one shower a day, and one trip up and down the stairs per day they express their pleasure with her "compliance" thus far (only off the record, of course).

How have the twins been responding to the bed rest restrictions. Well, I've already indicated they have experienced strong growth over the last ten days. Her stomach has also grown exponentially. This has been attributed to the lack of physical stress she has been under lately, which has allowed her abdominals to relax enough to stretch to meet the added requirements for space. Her lower caloric expenditure also reduces her body's leaching of nutrients from the twins to allow them to better support themselves.

Thank you for reading thus far. Now that we are all caught up with this blog page, we'll try to keep updated after each visit each Monday and Thursday. Stay tuned.