Because my contractions kept coming, my ob decided I needed to be started on a terbutaline pump. This is a little device that delivers a constant supply of terb to my system. A nurse came by the hospital yesterday afternoon to give me a lesson on how to use it.
I have to shoot a needle into my leg (upper, outer thigh area), which is no big deal for me after all of the ivf shots I gave myself. This inserts a little catheter right under my skin, and some tubing comes out of the site on my leg. The first picture above shows the connection site. Make sure you zoom in close to see my hot, stubbly legs. Listen people, I can barely see my legs anymore. Do you think I can actually maneuver well enough in the tub to shave well? I try, but I always miss spots. I'm sure this will get worse. It's not like it's that big of a deal, since I'm not going to be sporting a swimsuit this season, unless they make them for whales.
Okay, back to the terb pump. The tubing that you see connects to a little device that looks like an old cell phone, and it contains a program indicating how often to release the medication. This device goes into the little blue bag pictured above. This is my little purse that I have to carry around everywhere. I usually just clip it to my pants, which continues to increase my sexiness because it looks like a fanny pack. There is nothing hotter than a fat chick with a fanny pack.
The tubing has to be changed every 5 days and alternated between my left and right legs. The meds that go into the device have to be replenished daily, and I got a reminder of that this morning, when the alarm on the little machine went off at 7 a.m. I had no idea what was going on with it, and I had to read the instruction manual. I was able to figure out how to get the new medicine cartridge in. The nurse had taught me the day before, but my pregnancy retardedness made me forget exactly what I was doing.
As if that's not all enough, I also have to check my blood pressure and pulse and wear a contraction monitor twice a day (at least). I'm supposed to do it all at 8:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. To monitor contractions, I hook up the monitor to my belly and sit around for one hour. Then, I connect the monitor to my phone line and transmit the info to a nurse. She reviews the data and calls to tell me how to proceed. They don't want me to have any more than 4 contractions per hour. The first time I transmitted last night, I only had 3 during the hour. However, this morning, I had 5. Therefore, the nurse called me and told me to drink 4 glasses of water, do a demand dose of the medicine, and monitor again for an hour. A demand dose is when I have to manually push some buttons on the device so that it will give me more terb.
I followed all of her instructions and transmitted again. Unfortunately, I had 6 contractions the next time. I am all jacked up on these crazy meds, and my contractions won't stop. This is killing me!
Now, I have to check my pulse at 1 p.m. If it's not over 120, I have to give myself another demand dose of terb and monitor for another hour at 1:30. Good grief, this is all driving me crazy. Now, I have to be my own full-time nurse!
I have to go tend to my issues, but there's still more to write. I have updates on the babies. We had another ultrasound yesterday. I also have updates on our house hunt. I'll try to get it all posted today or tomorrow.
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