More Than the Facts, Week 23

Today's Dr appointment showed that my incompetent cervix has done its incompetent thing (very competently, I might add) and has opened all the way to that stitch. So, now we are putting all our faith in the handiwork of the good Dr K. The good news is, the cerclage is placed very high up, leaving me 2.6 of cervix below it, and the Dr. said the cervix feels firm and strong and the cerclage is doing its job beautifully.

However, they now have asked me to do lying-down-all-the-time bed rest. And they've put me on medicine called indocin for a few days that makes me feel like the side of drunk right before you throw up in the street. I know it seems out of character, but I do actually have experience with that side of drunk, only once, after a terrible NYC improv show: long story. And I'm still on weekly p17 shots, which add a lovely dose of emotional instability to the mix. And preventative anti-biotics three times a day, which mean I had to write out a schedule to figure out when, between the meds, the pre-natal vitamin, the iron supplement, magnesium and zinc I can get these girls their calcium. My milk drinking and kale consumption is on a strict schedule. My life is so off.

It is 3 in the morning and I am awake, somewhere between scared and bored. Time has screeched to a halt and where I was counting in days, I'm now back to counting in minutes. Bruno has rearranged the living room to let me lie on the couch there for parts of the days and nights. His way of dealing with all this is to build: build a new living room, build a new bed side table arrangement, build a contraption of bowls and jelly jars and towels and ice so I can have my milk in the middle of the night without getting up. And it even fits into the milk schedule. I love my husband very much.

I am scared for what happens next. I think this stitch will hold, that the stitch and the lying down all the time will stop my cervix from opening further, that we'll just take a long slow slog to the girls' safe arrival. But I can't stop being scared for what it all could mean if the stitch doesn't hold, if we end up on the shit end of the statistics yet again.

OK, I think I have to go back to the minutes. What happens in the next few minutes is I put the computer away, make a mental note to ask Bruno to include a toothbrush in the middle of the night milk plan, and get some more sleep for my gals. That's all that happens next. And we'll go from there.