I've been in hospital...

Sorry for not updating.
We've had a bit of a week of it.
Father in law left on Friday and the weekend was a whirl of social engagements. Mostly for the children! When did my diary stop being a neatly written reminder,  full of drinks parties and dinners out and become a scrawled mass of playdates and "Jungle House" invitations etc?
Saturday was football for Sam and Josiah joined him for the first time - I am proud mummy of both the "Player of the Week" - Sam - and the "Best Debut Player" - Josiah.
It threw it down part way through but the boys played on.
After lunch Josiah had a party to go to so I released Ben into the soft play centre and J played mini golf with Sam.
Sunday was Sam's day for parties and we took Josiah and Ben to try the mini-golf which they loved.

Back to school on Monday and a welter of PE kits and book bags, returning notes etc. There was a space available to park so J took them in while I waited in the car.
I had some pain at the top of my bump but it felt muscular or positional rather than anything else. Still at J's insistence I phoned the midwives who gave me some advice on relaxing anything that had been pulled - paracetamol and warm bath mainly.
It worked and all seemed well.

I got up on Tuesday feeling tired but physically better. We chased the boys into uniforms and sorted packed lunches. As I strapped them into the car though I had a contraction. Not a mild one, full on agony. All down one side of the bump and around the bottom.
They continued throughout the drive. At school there was no where to park so though I could really have done with staying put I walked them into school. It takes a few minutes but in that time 3 teachers stopped me to ask if I was ok. I clearly wasn't.
I got to the car and J drove straight to the hospital. We didn't stop to phone. My notes were in the car but I couldn't phone, the contractions were agony, one on top of another.
The ported wheeled me from reception to the maternity ward. J bringing Ben.
On the ward the midwife said "you're in labour aren't you?"
"I don't know" I gasped.
"I think I do" she replied and told the porter to wheel me straight into delivery.

They set me up on the monitors instantly, as soon as I lay down the contractions eased a little but the toco showed them strong and clear all the same.

Phoning the on-call ob-gyn consultant she told him what she was seeing and thinking and about my two most recent very fast deliveries.
He said he was on his way but told her to waste no time and give me the first of the two steroid injections I would need to mature the twins' lungs for an early delivery. And to get set up to give me the necessary drugs to try to stop the contractions.

J rang my friend Sam who said she was on her way to the park with her son and mindee and would swing by the hospital to collect Ben and take him along too and then keep him as long as we needed.

J took him down and I had the first steroid jab. The consultant arrived to examine me take swabs to check no infection was causing early labour, scan for positions etc.

The good news was that my cervix was closed - phew!
The scan showed that twin one had moved quite dramatically in a few days, possibly all that morning, causing my uterus to start contracting. Unhelpfully though, he'd gone from breech with his head on my right side, to transverse with his head on my left.
If this was going to be labour and delivery it was going to be a c-section. They warned the theatre.

They put a cannula in, I'm very hard to cannulate so this took some time and they ended up using the tiniest one they had and then got the drip started.
They kept me on the delivery suite until they contractions had subsided to less than three in every ten minutes which took a couple of hours, though well before then they were far less intense and then took theatre of standby though they continued to prepare scbu.
Then they moved me to the ward and J collected my hospital bags from home.

Sarah and Sam between them took care of the boys until school pick up time and J popped into work and then collected them, he fed them and then Sarah and Sam came back to put them to bed while he came back in to see me.

Embarrassingly, just as a road accident is certain to happen when you are wearing your oldest knickers, this happened when my house was the messiest it has ever been! We've been reorganising the children's bedrooms and the family room, and I've been having tot take it a bit easy so other, normal, housework has taken a nose dive.

And my two friends with lovely clean organised houses were now in mine!


They were wonderful those two, they tidied up a bit and got the children to bed. Next morning Sarah dropped the big two at school and then had Ben for the morning before dropping him off at Sam's.
The doctors let me out at lunchtime, when I'd had 24 hours on the drip and a few off it and the contractions had been settled for a while and I'd had 2 steroid doses.

J brought Ben back at about 3.

Mel, another friend, collected Samuel and Josiah from school and took them to her house for tea with her son, Sam's best friend. J collected them at around 6 and we got them to bed. Everyone was exhausted!

This morning Sarah arrived to take the boys to school and Sam a bit later to take Ben to charge about at soft play.
They have put their foot down those two and insisted on coming in to clean and organise next week while I keep my feet up.

Honestly, friends, what would we do without them?