Will there be babies today??

I feel like I've written this post 5 times in the last several weeks, and so far every time I update my expectations don't end up happening! I thought for sure we would have had the babies by now. But alas, here I sit, in a hospital bed none the less, at 36w2d!

So, let me explain how I got here, and the plan for where we go from here. We had an OB appointment yesterday at 12:30, and my OB took one look at me and knew I was pre-eclamptic. I'm not surprised. . .I am SO swollen, my BP is crazy, and there has been protein in my urine for over a week now. He did an ultrasound scan of the girls, and as usual they look great! Both are weighing in at about 6 lbs according to the ultrasound. We got to watch them breathe on the ultrasound again - it's so cool! Baby Olivia was still head down, but Baby Brianna was still breech. He was concerned about a vaginal delivery with Brianna being breech at this point (I don't know why since he wasn't concerned before - maybe he didn't expect to deliver us at 36 weeks so he thought she would be stronger?). Anyway, so we ended up having the C-section conversation yesterday. I didn't want a C-section. . .at all. I had every intention of having these babies vaginally unless an emergency came up or something. BUT, my OB knew my feelings that we would deliver one way or the other, but not both, so he felt that the safest way to get both babies out would be a C-section. He told us to proceed to L&D at the hospital we were going to deliver at and he would have orders waiting for us. He intended to deliver either last night or first thing this morning. Well, we don't have babies yet, so imagine the fact that that didn't happen!

What did happen? Well, we were admitted for "observation", and blood work and another 24 hour urine collection was ordered. The blood work came back okay - trending downward (platelets a week ago were 144 and yesterday were 132) - but not bad enough to deliver right away (they have to be under 130 to deliver right away). My blood pressure on the other hand - all over the board!! At once point it spiked up to 180/95! Yikes! My OB requested a consult from the maternal fetal specialist that I saw a couple of weeks ago. He came in and talked to me, and essentially said I was fine. Maybe on Thursday he would consider doing an amniocentesis, but until then he thought I could just be observed. Well, my OB most definitely disagreed. My OB wanted to deliver me right away and didn't want to risk my health or the babies health at all. The specialist came in at 7 PM to see me. My OB followed up at 10 PM last night (crazy right?). The problem? Politics. Since the other doc is the specialist, my OB really needed to follow the recommendations that the specialist provided. If he chose not to, he would be subject to peer review and other not so nice things. So, he decided that his plan would be to request that the specialist do an amnio today (Wednesday) and if it came back that the babies lungs were mature, he would deliver me that night (Wednesday).

The specialist came in this morning to see me and talked about just wanting to observe me again, and potentially doing an amnio on Thursday. I asked if we couldn't just go ahead and do one today. He said sure! (Seriously, right?). They had just brought me my breakfast so they promptly took it back away, and they did the amnio. It didn't hurt at all! Brianna was TICKED OFF and kept kicking at the needle, but it really wasn't what I expected. We should have the results back within the hour. It's my understanding that the plan is that as long as the babies lungs come back as being mature, these little ones will be born via C-section tonight! They actually did an ultrasound when they did the amnio, and little miss Brianna (the bugger!) has flipped back to head down. Geez! So I will have to talk to the OB and see if he for sure wants to do the section, or if he wants to try and go vaginal again. Like I've said before - these girls DEFINITELY have minds of their own!

Anywho, I will keep you all posted! With just a little bit of luck we will have babies by the end of the day today!!! How awesome would that be? =)

***Update***
We got the amnio results back, and they were a 69. Anything over 55 on the amnio lung test is considered mature, so we are good to go! The OB called back and talked to my nurse and he is giving us the option of C-section or being induced for a possible vaginal delivery. At this point it's our call. He won't give us anything to start the induction process until later in the afternoon and until he is closer to the hospital (he is seeing patients at his out of town clinic today). So. . .the show is on the road!! YAY!!