Sleep, atrophy, oh my!

The ATU was nice and uneventful again...

The Biophysical Profile yielded perfect babies. (10's!) They were moving and practicing breathing with perfect fluid. (We are so lucky)

The NST also showed active (understatement!) babies with accelerations and decelerations as wanted. A few contractions, but nothing unusual.

So we are off for another week. :) Weights next week. :)

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But I have come (not really recently) to a new discomfort of pregnancy that I didn't know last time! (Or rather, two)

1. SLEEP. OH MY GOODNESS I CAN'T SLEEP ANYMORE. This really started in the hospital when nothing was comfortable. And has so continued and gotten so much worse. At 27/28/29/30 weeks in the hospital sleep would just take a little while longer. The bed had to be angled just so, I had to be on my certain side (I rebelled and slept on my right just as often as my left!), the room had to be a certain temp, my blanket had to be just so. Yes, I was neurotic, but I could usually get 6 or so hours as night plus a decent afternoon nap.

Then I came home. I can't sleep. Period. We have a clock that projects on the ceiling and I stare at it ALL NIGHT LONG. I get to know that I am up for the bathroom at least 2x an hour. Colby always wakes up between 1:30 and 3. The minutes tick by oh so slowly. I feel like I've been there forever, but it's only been 13 minutes. You know the feeling. I'm usually in so much pain by morning. My hips, my back, my legs... you name it. They should be rested from LAYING DOWN but really, I do that all day, so why would that be restful?

Usually, after Johnny and Colby are up and gone for the day I can spread out over the whole bed, prop an assortment of pillows and get a few more solid hours of sleep. But I'm afraid those days are over because instead I spent from about 5am to 7am (when I gave up this AM) counting intense contractions that never amounted to anything.

2. HOLY BED REST MUSCLE LOSS. I never had the problem last time. I guess 3 weeks of bed rest wasn't enough to truly let my muscles atrophy? But the 6+ weeks we're working on? Plus the 35+ pounds (vs. the less than 20 last time)? It's all coming together nicely to make my muscles cry out in pain with every.single.movement. Everything from my shoulders to my toes hurts. Occasionally I can get into an awesome position and be super comfy. But rest assured that 15 minutes later I am going to have to go to the bathroom. If I try to fight the bathroom I start contracting painfully. So I can't ignore it. Then I huff, puff, groan, and moan as I alter my body to sit up and then stand and then walk. It's quite ridiculous and a sight to see. :)

I constantly tell Johnny that I don't get how moms of 3 or 4 or more do it. :) I really think it would be easier without bed rest because I think a lot of my pain is from muscle loss.

But I will keep on doing it until the very end! Because, really, I'm 3 days away from 34 weeks. That means, even if my babes ended up in the NICU, I would be able to breastfeed when they were born (well, once they were stabilized... none of this silly 7 WEEKS thing we had with Colby!). And they wouldn't (barring some horrible unforeseen circumstances) be rushed out of the room before I could see them. We could hear them cry. They would be "late premature" and none of this "micropreemie" stuff where no one is sure if they're going to live or where they are already intubated before we can even see them and days old before we can hold them.

I have stretch marks on stretch marks. I don't know what the heck my belly is going to look like after I have these babies. I can't walk or touch my toes. I live in sweats. I can't decorate the baby room (alcove). I can't sleep. I can't get my own food. I can't function on a basic level.

BUT my body is keeping my babies safe.

I won't say I ever lost faith in my body last time or with the IF issues... but I did think it was kind of lazy and needed to get in gear. :) It's doing it's job now!!!