I'm Not Very Happy With My Cervix At The Moment

I will warn you right now, I'm going to reveal details about my cervix that not everyone may wish to read about.  So there, you've been warned!

This all came about two weeks ago when I visited my maternal fetal medicine specialist.  Part of the appointment was doing a detailed scan of the babies and taking all kinds of measurements.  The other part of the appointment was doing a vaginal ultrasound to measure my cervix.  

I'll start with the good news:  the babies look fantastic!  They each measured 11 ounces, which is exactly how much they should measure at this point in the pregnancy.  They both had good, strong heartbeats.  They are both moving around.  All of their other measurements were within the normal limits.  Basically, they looked pretty darn perfect.  

Now for the not so good news: the vaginal ultrasound revealed that my cervix is starting to shorten.  This is not what you want to happen at this point in the pregnancy.  The fact that my cervix is shortening now means I could go into preterm labor.  It doesn't mean that I definitely will, but it means that I could.   

Needless to say, this freaked Adam and I out a bit.  My doctor said we aren't looking at numbers that are super scary yet and there were a few things that could be done to hopefully stop my cervix from shortening more.  One of the things was to start taking progesterone, which is taken vaginally.  So I got a prescription filled and started that right away.  

Since my doctor didn't have a baseline measurement, we all agreed to have me come back the following week and see how things were going before moving onto other options.  So the following week I returned and after looking over the ultrasound results, my doctor said some of the measurements were looking better, but some looked slightly worse.  He reccommended putting a pessary around my cervix.  When he was describing what a pessary was, he said it was a ring that he would put around my cervix.  The idea is that the pessary will hold the cervix tightly closed.  And the more weight and pressure that is put on it, the tighter it would cinch up around my cervix.  He did let me know that it's not FDA approved, but is widely used in England.  He said there are mixed results about the effectiveness of it in twin pregnancies, but that it certainly wouldn't harm me or the babies.  So I decided to go ahead with it.  

So he put it in that day.  (This part might also be more information than you want to know about me, so read on with caution.)  I asked it if would hurt during or after and he said it wouldn't feel much different than a pap smear and that I might have some cramping afterwards.  I am a big ninny, so I started to get a bit nervous about the whole ordeal.  

My doctor pulled out the pessary and handed it to the nurse so she could take it out of the plastic wrap.  She pulled out this giant blue thing and I assumed that it was some sort of packaging that the pessary came in.  But, no.  That giant blue thing was the pessary!  From his description, I had envisioned a tiny ring.  But this thing was the size of a very thick donut!  Yikes!  

So he put it in me and it wasn't as terrible as I expected.  I would say it was more uncomfortable than a pap smear, but not exactly painful.  Just unpleasant.  After it was in there, I surprisingly couldn't feel it at all.  

So I am now walking around with a giant blue donut inside of me, in case anyone would care to know.  I have high hopes that it will do its job, along with the progesterone.  I go back this coming week to see how things with my cervix are going.  

Needless to say, it's been a bit of a damper on my pregnancy.  Adam and I tend to worry about things, given our last pregnancy experience.  But we are both trying to be really hopeful and focus on the positive parts of the pregnancy.  

For example, I am now 21 weeks along!  That is more than halfway through the pregnancy.  

 

And our babies are healthy and adorable.  Here's a shot of the two of them together.  

Here's our little girl.

And here's our little boy. 

I'm still holding out hope that my cervix makes it to 38 weeks!  As Adam reminded me, it's pretty darn miraculous that we are pregnant with twins in the first place.  Why not hold out for a 38 week miracle?