Hi all
Thanks for your messages of concern. I'm back home again now, as of yesterday afternoon, and have a chance to give you the update (note the time - can't sleep!)
So on Wednesday morning we were on our way to the routine midwife's appointment and I had a little niggling pain on the right side of my abdomen. Arrived feeling a bit het up and with the pain spreading more over the whole of my pelvic girdle, and was also very sick. We had the appointment and the midwife didn't seem concerned particularly - said the pain would be round ligament stretching and to go home and rest. I laid in bed for an hour or two before I just couldn't take any more (and was being sick very regularly) so we went back to the hospital to A&E.
To their credit they saw me quite quickly but it took ages before I got any pain relief and in the end they decided to admit me with suspected appendicitis. I had a similar thing earlier in the year when in early pregnancy, so it all seemed a bit horribly familiar. They gave me anti-emetics and paracetamol, got me on a drip, gave me IV antibiotics and then eventually shots of pethidine to help with the pain. (God, pethidine is good). Eventually by night time I was OK.
Kept me in for a few days and just as I thought I was getting better (still tender in womb but no longer racked with pain) I woke up in the night feeling that I was leaking. I went to the loo and there was blood, they put me on a commode and suddenly there was a great loss of 'tissue' that I could feel - I was so scared, I just thought I've been in early labour and that's what this has all been about, I've lost the twins and it's all been for nothing. After 20 mins of not daring to look and see what I had passed, the on-call gynae came to examine me - and frankly treated me like an animal, he was so rough I was crying out - he said I had not miscarried but looked as though I might as the bleeding was from the womb. Whatever I had passed seemed to be a bit of placenta.
We called my husband who came straight away (4am) and we had the worst morning of waiting and crying until we could go for a scan - both of us thought it was all over. When they scanned me and found the babies were both there and moving around, I tell you we both had jaws hitting the floor. Such an enormous relief! My cervix was closed, too. I can't work out what had been going on there but they do seem fine (have been scanned 3 more times since then) and although I still have this tenderness in my womb, and slight signs of an infection, eventually the hospital were happy for me to go home. I have to go back as soon as I have any more pain but for now, thank goodness, I am home again.
Sorry, this is really a mammoth message. The hospital were brilliant apart from that emergency gynae, and I have to thank them for being so kind, but I was going insane with discomfort in there and am really glad to be home. My parents are here to look after me now my husband has to go back to work, and I will be well cared-for. But can't sleep at all, I think I need to re-learn the skill again after a week of hospital beds, noisy roommates and no husband, and am also so much bigger than I was even a week ago (now 18 weeks). Better get a dream genii I think.
Hope this isn't too boring to get through but it has been such an utterly terrifying week and really brought home how much we have invested in our babies. I hope we can have a very boring time of it from now on, and the anti-biotics I'm on will keep any appendicitis suppressed - they said I might have to go back after the babies to whip it out.
Hope everyone else is well: jjkm hope your babies are getting stronger and that Jenz and Swazzee 's beautiful newborns are doing really well. Poor Amber being so uncomfortable, I can really imagine how wretched you must feel and must be dreading the time passing until your CS date. I am off work for the rest of the week at least and so will at least get a chance to rest when I can.
Love to all and sorry for missing anyone out.