The ball is rolling...

Well, we've had quite an eventful couple of days. Gigi woke me with a shout from the bathroom at 2:10am on Monday morning. She had passed a good amount of blood. We quickly called our neighbors Jon and Michelle and they graciously took Clara in for the rest of the night. We headed straight into the hospital. We arrived at 3:00am. They quickly took Gigi into a room to examine her and determined she was 2 cm dilated and her contractions were just 2 minutes apart. There was no more blood discharge. As she is just 32 weeks into the pregnancy they wanted to try to slow down or halt the labor. They tried to do this with a drug called Nifedepine. In addition, they gave her a steroid shot to help the baby’s lung development in case they would be delivered in the near future.
After a few hours they checked Gigi again and found that she had dilated to 3-4 cm. They said if she got to 6 cm they would have to deliver the babies. At around mid day they changed the "labor slow down" drug to Magnesium Sulfate (or "Mag" as they call it in here) but didn't really seem confident that it would work. And it has some uncomfortable side affects. We had a doctor from the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and an Anesthesiologist come visit us. The doctor from the NICU told us that at 32 weeks old the babies would go directly there and stay at least until 36 weeks but more likely 37-40 weeks. She seemed pretty certain she would be seeing us again later that day.
At 1pm Gigi was still 3-4 cm. And this was still the same at 5pm and again at 11pm, so it seemed the "Mag" worked. By late afternoon Gigi was feeling much better. The contractions were now further apart also, around 4-6 minutes.
Gigi's Mom had driven down from Novato at 7:30am that morning and picked Clara up from the neighbors and took her to school. She spent the rest of the day with Gigi before leaving again just before 5pm to collect Clara from school. Marge has been a great help in getting us ready and prepared for the birth and has been a great help the last couple of days as well.
Gigi's brother Jay arrived to the hospital at 5pm and we had a fun evening together. Gigi was in much better spirits after a really rough day. Gigi and Jay watched The Batchelor (Jay is a big fan) while I went out to an old favorite Palo Alto haunt, Rojoz, to get a Bombay Chicken wrap.
A little after 9 pm Gigi was doing so well that they decided to move her from a Labor/Delivery room to the Ante-partum room. At 11pm she was still at 3-4 cm and her contractions were more spaced apart (around 5-6 minutes) and they were happy that she had stabilized sufficiently that she was allowed to eat for the first time in more than 24 hours. The food didn't stay down very well but I think she was just glad of the taste and to get something inside her. More than the hunger it was really the thirst that was making her very uncomfortable during the day. Her mouth was dry and they wouldn't even let her suck on some ice chips for most of the day.
Today (Tue 7/7) was a much more relaxed and comfortable day. I stayed with Gigi at the hospital on Monday night. Marge took Clara to school and came into the hospital at around 10am. Gigi was in good spirits all day and her brother Jason and Aunt Kathy came to visit her. She also had a special visit from Clara in the late afternoon. Clara was very excited to see her mommy and they had a good time together. All the visitors left at around 7pm and Gigi is getting ready for hopefully a good night's sleep now.
Early tomorrow morning (Wed) will be a telling time. They will stop the "Mag" as it has done its job, delaying delivery for 48 hours until the steroids have had time to take effect. The doctors are happy to then let nature take its course. They really don't seem to know whether Gigi's labor will progress quickly again or if things will just remain as they are. Gigi's main doctor thinks she will still go a few more weeks now before delivering. Other doctor's weren't so sure. Gigi has had a lot of doctors come by. Because it is a university hospital there are also a lot of trainee doctors around. Each morning there's a line of 6 doctors at the end of Gigi's bed for about 15 minutes questioning her. It’s quite a parade.
They haven't checked Gigi's dilation at all today because they don't like to do it too often. They seem happy that she is stable. Her contractions are random now but on average are 15 minutes apart. They never did find the reason for the blood discharge, though they are speculating it might have been a slight tear in one of the placentas.
If anyone has any name suggestions please respond in the comments section and throw them out there. I think we're solid on two names but still a little unsure on one. My favorite suggestion so far has been to call them after The Three Amigos -Ned, Dusty and Lucky (thanks to Zan for that).