More Testing

The doctor has decided I need to have more tests performed. I will now be going twice a week to the hospital for monitoring. During that time they will be checking the heartrates of the babies and monitoring the contractions.

Why are they doing this? They want to have a better understanding of how often the contractions are, how strong they are and how they are affecting the babies. They want to make sure the babies are handling the stress of the contractions, especially the smallest baby. They also want to make sure there aren't any problems with the placentas. This could be the reason the smallest baby is growing slower than the others.

What does this mean? If it looks bad for the babies, they could schedule a c-section. If things aren't that bad, but they think I need to go ahead and have a c-section in a few days, they will probably admit me to the hospital, give me some steroid injections to speed the development of the lungs of the babies and then perform a c-section in a few days. If things look good, I'll just continue on. The doctor is now saying he would like me to go to 33 or 34 weeks, if possible. Each time I talk to him he increases the amount of time by one week.