Our next appointment was on May 7. Chrissy assumed she would be admitted to the hospital again because she was sure her cervix had once again shortened. The doctor checked and her cervix was still short but was not inducive to labor so she was sent home for at least two more weeks, until her next appointment which will be May 24. She will be at her initial goal of 30 weeks!!!! At that point they will do another level 2 ultrasound to measure the size of each baby again. We are hoping they will be over 3lbs.
The home health nurse comes out every Monday to make sure things are going ok for me and the boys. This week (5/10/04) I was scheduled to have a biophysical done. This is to check for five major things that can indicate how well the babies are doing.
1. Movement - makes sure each baby is moving on it's own
2. Muscle Tone - how much they are wiggling and if they can extend their arms/legs back and forth at least twice during the test.
3. Fluid Pockets - on a singleton they normally check the 4 quadrants to see how much fluid is in the sack and it should be around 13 overall. But with multiples it is too hard to determine fluid pockets when the babies are bigger because they seem to blend into each other. So with multiples they just check at least one fluid pocket they know belongs to each baby to make sure it is at least 3 cm of fluid.
4. Practice Breathing - each baby may have already learned to practice breathing on their own for at least 30 seconds at a time or longer. At my gestational age (28 weeks) it is just 50/50 if they will be able to do so. If they can't yet do it it isn't too serious because they are still young.
5. Non-stress test - monitors are hooked up to each baby's heartbeat for 20 minutes to measure how their hearts react to their own movements. In other words when the baby moves the brain should tell the heart to increase its heartbeat because more oxygen is needed throughout the body especially the brain. At this gestational age they may be able to do this or may not.
Each number above can score 2 points therefore 10 points total on the test. This test will be done weekly until the 30 week mark which is onoly one more week after this. Once I reach my 30 week mark they will do this test twice a week - once at home and once at the Maternal Assessment Center at Abbott Northwestern Hospital while I am there for a regular doctor's appointment.
Our results: Well the boys all scored perfect on the test this week. They are doing well (A is on the border of either and 8 or 10 - and the nurse said 8 is just fine at this stage). Their heartbeats are on target, their breathing is great, fluid, muscle tone, and movement are all good. The nurse said that sometimes they will have to spend a half hour on each baby to get the first four checks but all of the boys participated very well this week (A was playing games with his breathing but he did it) and they showed their stuff right away...hardly any waiting.
So who knows, maybe I will carry the busload to 35 weeks! YIKES!!!!
Oh, the betamethasone shot they gave me in the hospital to help their lungs develop has nothing to do with any of these checks.
We had the second biophysical on the boys again today. Everything is looking good and B&C scored 10/10 and A scored 8/10 but again was on the borderline of being perfect. They all got points right away for their movements and muscle tone. The fluid pockets ranged from 2.48 to 2.9 which this nurse said was just fine. The breathing took a little while with A. For some reason he didn't want to show off right away but did after a while. B&C did fairly quickly. So so far so good. Our next appointment is Monday May 24.