Knitting Therapy

Someone asked if I was engaging in knitting therapy and I most certainly am. And proving that crafters are some of the most generous people, my knitting instructor even came over to give me an at home lesson since I had to drop out of the class I was taking.

I’ve finished all my works in progress – the main one being Levenwick, which I cast on back in August before the crazy part of 2012 – selling our house, moving twice, P starting school, getting pregnant – descended on us. Of course I couldn’t remember the needles I’d used, and my knitting gauge and consistency has changed considerably. The top part is a little imperfect but I love it, and it works very well as a maternity sweater even though I can only get the top couple of buttons done up.

Knitting is soothing and keeps the mind from being too active. Also, it can be done while reclining, which I am supposed to be doing nine hours a day. Even typing is hard to when lying down.

The day I found out about the rupture my blood pressure rose up through the roof. The nurse kept saying “That can’t be right!” Then I pulled P’s unfinished Owlet out of my bag and started a row of stockinette. She wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my arm again a few minutes later and my pressure was back within normal range.

I say “found out” because I’d been ruptured a week at that point, but they couldn’t confirm it. After two trips to labour and delivery, they scheduled a follow-up ultrasound to confirm all was well. Instead, they could see there was water pooling between the two babies. The doctor who’d seen me at L&D when I initially went in came in to give me the news. She has this incredibly calm manner and so I took a deep breath and headed off to my appointment.

First they sent in the resident who started telling me there was no rupture again. “No it’s been confirmed now” I said. He insisted it wasn’t and told me women were mistaken about this all the time. “You’d be surprised!” he said. “I have two children and I don’t get surprised” I said. Turns out he hadn’t seen the ultrasound report yet. Soon, another doctor came in. She had that warm reassuring manner like the first doctor, so I cried. She got me a sandwich since I’d been waiting to see her for so long.

That was a month ago and now we’re now at 26 and a half weeks. We’re entering 80 to 90% territory in terms of survival which is always reassuring. Although 10-20% is still kind of scary especially because there are mitigating factors that make things riskier for these two, especially Twin B. A is the most active baby I’ve ever had. She’s constantly kicking and squirming and twisting. She’s breech and she butts her little head up against my belly. B, my little ruptured B, is my quiet one. I imagine this is as much a function of having less room in there as it is of her personality, but I still think of her as the subdued type. Last night I felt her hiccups for the first time. I always loved that feeling with P. But instead of just enjoying it, it starts a cascade of thoughts – She’s drinking which means there must be fluid around her right now. She needs fluid to keep exercising her lungs and kidneys so she’ll have the best shot on the outside. But don’t bump around too much in there B, or the leak will get worse.

And time ticks on – M and P go to the park, or go on bike rides and playdates. J buys groceries and run errands. And I move from upstairs to down, or take my occasional field trip to the hospital. I get anxious when the kids are away from me, which is strange because when I’m at work I never worry about them. But at home in bed or lying on the sofa all I have is time to think. I try to stay away from the PPROM websites, of which there are many, but I can’t always resist. Many are positive, many are not. The ones that scare me most are the ones who make it weeks like I have and then still go wrong, but I have to just rely on the fact that I can’t control that, and take comfort every day when the nurse comes and finds their heartbeats galloping away.

P took a music camp over spring break and came home singing about Mozart and Vivaldi. He even painstakingly copied out some sheet music. Of course he chose to do this while we were all eating dinner, but who wants to stop genius for a meal?