Full up

No one could figure out exactly why the blood was causing all this chest pressure, but as soon as they had stopped the IV I started to feel a lot better. The answer to me was easy, my body had enough of this pregnancy and trying to add more liquid was just making it have to work that much harder. But, no one else (at least the doctors) seemed to care.

The doctor's plan was just to wait a little bit and try to start the IV again. There was a specific amount of time that they had to get the blood into my system, or they would have to get a whole new bag. All that red tape they had to cross, i's dotted and t's crossed sort of thing.

After waiting a "little bit," the nurse started the IV again. She flushed it first to make sure the tubing was clear, and it stung so incredibly bad I almost screamed. OUCH! That could not be normal.

She (the nurse) thought that maybe it was just the saline she used to flush it that stung, which didn't make sense to me, but she started the blood anyway. OUCH! This clearly was not working, and it hurt way too bad to continue. Maybe the IV slipped in the vein so it wasn't in the right spot anymore, or something, but I was not having it. No way I could stand HOURS of time for this blood to pump in me with this pain. Yet, another bump in the road.... what else could go wrong?

The IV had been in for many days at this point, ever since I got admitted again this last time. (At this point I had no idea how long I'd been in the hospital, exactly, it just seemed like FOREVER.) So we decided to just take that IV out and start a whole new one. That meant waiting for the IV team to come in. Tick tock, tick tock. We needed to get this thing going, and SOON! I did not want to have to wait anymore for this and the time for the blood to still be "good" was running out. It took a certain number of hours for each bag to go through my system, too.

Finally, the IV team came, started a new IV and we got the blood going. We were all looking at the clock this time, hoping I made it through the 15 minutes that I was oh so close to last time. I think we all breathed a huge sigh of relief when that time came, and all was still going well.

My mom and sister Sarah were finally up at the hospital with me, and waiting anxiously for all of this to be over with so they could meet the twins. Out of everyone, even E & S, I think I was the most anxious. It had seemed like an eternity since I first decided to do this, since meeting E &S, since the embryo transfer, confirmed pregnancy test and first ultrasound. I couldn't believe that soon, (as soon as possible I hoped), it would all be over.

At 10pm that night (July 23rd) I FINALLY was "full up" on blood. Because it was so late, my OB decided not to induce me until 5am the next day and let me get some rest that night. I knew there was no way I would actually sleep, but didn't have a choice in the matter. 7 more hours until induction... I could wait that. 7 hours was nothing compared to everything else.