17 weeks

I am 17 weeks pregnant. Wow! Time is flying by...since 20 weeks is the halfway mark for those pregnant with a singleton, the 18/19 week mark is halfway for people with twins (or so I am told). I can't believe I am almost halfway through this pregnancy. I sometimes wish time would slow down just a little bit because I am enjoying it so much and am pretty sure I won't be getting this experience again.

I am still growing, and growing. I will post another picture when I am at the 19 or 20 week mark. I can definitely tell a difference just in this past week, but I doubt it would come across as a dramatic growth in a picture. I am pretty much out of all my old clothes which is fine because the maternity clothes are much more comfy. I've been slathering my belly with lots of goodies in the hopes that I will avoid a bunch of stretch marks. I haven't gotten any yet, but I know it's still early.

Things are still going smoothly. I feel weird saying that because it is almost like I am tempting fate. But I can honestly say I feel really good. I did start to have a minor freak out about all of the things we need to buy and the fact that I really need to start going through Connor's old stuff to see what I still have. But Bobby calmed me down and told me that once we know the gender of the babies, then we can start freaking out :-) So for the next few weeks I am going to try to put any baby planning out of my mind and just enjoy being pregnant.

Oh, there is one new weird thing...I have been getting terribly achy legs when I sleep. Not really leg cramps, more just an achy feeling always about halfway through the night. I think this is probably from sleeping on my sides when I am so used to sleeping on my back. Oh, how I miss sleeping on my back. I know some people say back sleeping is ok but I was directed to stop when I hit 16 weeks because it can cut off the blood flow to the uterus (and in turn the babies) - yikes. So now I keep a pillow behind me when I sleep so if on the off chance I end up on back, I am not laying totally flat but at more of an incline. Oh, the things we do... Anyway, I'm not sure what to do about the achy legs. I heard putting pillows under my feet might help, but I gotta be honest...I think adding any more pillows to our bed might mean there will be no room left for Bobby and I'm not sure he's on board with that. Then I heard that I need to drink milk or eat a banana before bed. So, I guess I will try all of these things, but if anyone has any advice on this one, I am all ears.

* If you haven't voted in the poll, you only have 15 days left, so please feel free to tell us whatcha think! *

I'll update again at 18 weeks and I promise to have something interesting to say :-)

Boo on me (oh, and 16 weeks update)

So, I know, I know....boo on me for not posting my belly picture when I said I would. For some reason the fall is always so busy for us. And to be honest at the end of the day when I think about taking a picture, I think hmmmm....I'm not looking all that hot and I've already changed into my comfy clothes....do I really want the blogworld to see me looking a little haggard?

But finally tonight, I decided to suck it up and have Bobby take a picture. Good or bad, I said I would document this long journey so what you get is a blurry 16 week belly shot of me at the end of a long, long day. Enjoy.

Anyway, I have made it to 16 weeks. This is the magical week when I "could" start to feel the babies moving. No such luck yet...although I have had some gas that I was originally suspicious could be the babies, but turns out it was indeed just gas (TMI, I know...sorry).

I am so excited to feel them that every time I feel anything, I'm like "oooo, I wonder if that was the babies", but then I'm all "no I don't think that's what babies moving feels like". But then I'm like "hey, how the heck would you know what moving babies feels like?".

So, I have decided I will wait until I am absolutely sure that I am feeling these little ones before I make an announcement that I felt the babies. 'Cause that would kind of suck to announce that I felt them move, only to really feel them move a few days later, and realize what I announced was actually gas.

Oh, and Bobby and I are getting antsy to find out the gender of these little ones. Now that I know the date (Oct.16, btw) it feels like Christmas is coming. I wonder how they will tell us...will it be anatomy scan of first baby and at the end they'll tell us what that baby's gender is, but then we'll have to wait for another hour so she can scan the second baby and then tell us the gender of that one? Or will she (oh, the "she" I am referring to is the ultrasound tech) keep the info till the very end and announce it after 2 hours of looking at our little ones? OR will she put us out of our misery and just get right down to it as soon as we get there? These are seriously questions that keep my mind racing at night. I know...get a life Jennifer.

Well, we decided that while we wait we would do some of the old wives tales testing. First we did the Chinese birth chart. Which indicates I have a 50% chance of having a boy and a 50% chance of having a girl. So if we have one of each then this chart is exactly right. We decided the only other test we could do was the wedding ring on a string test...all the others were simply too hard to figure out with twins. So we didn't have string and instead tied my wedding ring to a strand of floss (unused of course). I figured, string...floss...close enough. I had looked up online what the results would mean but did not share the info with Bobby because I didn't want to "taint" the results. (This is all very scientific, as you can tell).

Bobby held the string ring over lefty (or where we think lefty is) and I gotta say we didn't agree on the movement of this one. It looked to me like it was going in a circle, but from Bobby's angle it looked to move from side to side. We tried again and it did look more side to side, so we agreed on that for lefty. For righty, it was definite side to side right away. According to what I read online, side to side means we are having a girl...or in this case 2 girls. This is funny because that is what Bobby thinks we are having and it totally validated his "intuition". I laughed because all day I have been feeling like we are having 2 boys. Wives tales are fun, but at the end of the day they really don't tell ya squat! It will be fun to see if they are accurate though.

All in all I am feeling really good. No complaints what-so-ever. I think I was expecting more issues, but besides being tired (I mean, c'mon...I am growing 2 people here) I don't really feel any different. I do have a little swelling in my hands and my ankles. They aren't quite cankles but they aren't really cute either. I attribute this to the heat and have decided I need to watch my salt intake. I love love love my growing belly and am finally happy to "look" pregnant and not just chunky. I'm thinking I like this second trimester thing :-)

15 weeks and appt.

Well, I had my appointment yesterday afternoon. Everything is looking really great. They took the heartbeats with the Doppler when we first arrived...156 and 148, so they both sound really good.

The appointment was more of an informational meeting at first. At this particular office they eventually like you to see all of the Dr.'s so you have a repore with each of them. I have seen all of them in the past, and I like all of them so basically I just decided to go to whoever is available on the day of my appointment. This is working out really well. They are really informed of our situation (they remember us from our all of our years of infertility hell) and they are all so great about taking the time to talk with us, answer all of our questions, etc. I feel lucky to have such a great team of people on our side.

Anyway, this time I saw one of the male Doctors (and Bobby's favorite). He was great. I pulled out my list of questions and he didn't even bat an eyelash at it's length. I told him my concern about my week of spotting and round ligament pain and mentioned that we wanted an ultrasound so I can see that everything was ok. He agreed and said that it would be a good idea to make sure that the placenta hadn't moved over the cervix (I guess that could be a problem). Then I asked him about some other stuff, like tests we will have to take in the future (glucose and some general blood work), is it ok to travel (yes it is), etc.

Then he took us in for our ultrasound (he stayed a half hour late to do this for us...again, I love these doctors!). First he did a pelvic exam to check my cervix. Everything looked a-ok there. Then we did a tummy ultrasound to see the babies. The looked so wonderful. Lefty had the hiccups...too cute! And Righty had moved positions, so the babies are now still side by side but are touching feet right near the middle of my belly. The were really active. The Dr. said earlier in the appointment that sometimes you can see gender at this point if the babies cooperate, but sadly during this ultrasound they did not. He then checked the placentas and they seemed to look to be in the right area, but he decided to do an internal ultrasound just to be sure.

So, on to the internal ultrasound. Placentas looked good. So he followed the cervix to see if there was anything that would cause concern and that's when we saw what was possible the cause of the spotting. The third sac (now completely empty) was being pushed down by the babies. So, while most of it was being pushed into the uterine wall like it should be, a tiny part of the end of it was being pushed over the opening of the cervix. This really isn't a problem, but more than likely explains the spotting. I don't know why but seeing the cause of the spotting in black and white just took this huge weight off my shoulders. I am a visual person, so to actually physically see something that made sense to me just made me feel a hundred times better.

Anyway, the ultrasound was the end of our appointment. So we went to the front desk and made our next monthly appointment AND our anatomy scan appointment (where we will find out the gender of these little ones).

An anatomy scan sounds pretty cool. It will take 1 hour for each baby - so a big 2 hour ultrasound, woo hoo! They basically check everything from head to toe on each baby, especially the heart chambers, making sure the blood is pumping the right way, the bladder, the lungs, etc. And the fun part is, we will get to know what we are having. This appointment is scheduled for Oct. 16th at 7am and then afterwards I have my regular monthly appointment. (I will be 19 weeks and 3 days). I am so excited for this ultrasound!

I'm know I said I would post a belly picture and I will....this weekend. Bobby and I went on a date after our appointment and frankly we've been so busy that we haven't had a chance to take one. But I promise one soon!

Upcoming appt. and other stuff

I have an appointment this Thursday. This appointment is just my monthly check-up and what I hope will also be an ultrasound. I am supposed to get one every month but there is some debate over whether or not the ultrasound I had for the down's testing will count as this month's exam. Due to my spotting (which has stopped btw), I am going to insist that they just do a quick one.

Oh, and we got the results back from the "markers" test that looks for certain disorders and everything looks normal and good...so that's a relief!

Things have been going pretty well. Like I said, the spotting has stopped and even the round ligament pain has seemed to ease up except of course at night when I roll from one side to another.

The belly is growing, and growing. I will post a 15 week pic when I post about my appointment on Thursday. We also decided to start measuring my tummy every week...I will Not be posting these numbers but I will be able to say "I grew 2 inches in a week", so that will be fun. I am pretty much out of my regular clothes. The Bel.la Band is still working pretty good for my jeans, but my shirts are pretty much all to short and my belly likes to hang out the bottom which is not the sexiest thing in the world. Luckily for me, I have the best mom in the world and she took me on a little maternity shopping spree over the weekend. I now have clothes that fit (some with plenty of room to grow). Who knew maternity pants could be so darn comfy?

The weird thing is what's happening with my belly button. No, it's not "popping out". Instead it looks like this giant saucer under my shirt. The stinkin thing is huge! I am told it's because I have a normally deep belly button and because I am carrying the babies high. Hopefully when the babies start moving around, they will go under my belly button and push some of the "dip" out, but for now I guess I will have to live with the saucer button - so lovely. Oh, and I am getting that faint little line down my tummy. I can't remember what this is called, but I always thought "oh, I hope I don't get that". Now that I see it though, it's not that bad, and just another visual sign that yes, I am actually pregnant! (you would think that would stop surprising me at some point!)

I'll update on Thursday with the details of my appointment, and hopefully new pics of the babes!

Pregnancy Scare

I know for most people, a pregnancy scare means that they freaked out because they thought they might be pregnant. Well, folks, since that situation will never happen for us, I have decided to re-purpose the phrase and use it to explain that "we are pregnant, and yes we have had a tiny scare".

So this weekend I started to feel some pain in my lower abdomen - mostly on the left hand side. It wasn't cramping, just this weird pain that came and went, mostly felt when I rolled over in bed or stood up from a sitting position. I didn't really think much of it....until.....

Until yesterday when I started bleeding. Ok, bleeding might be too strong of a term. Spotting is probably more accurate. But in my opinion, any kind of blood during pregnancy is scary. So anyway, here I am, now feeling some pain AND spotting. Of course, this was on Labor day so every place in Moscow and Pullman is closed.

I called the on call dr. (which as luck would have it is my ob) and she asked me a bunch of questions and said that we should watch it and if it continued to call the office first thing in the morning. If it got worse, I was to call her back immediately. Then she asked me my blood type. I told her that I was O negative, or at least I was pretty sure I was, and she ordered me to the hospital to have my blood drawn to confirm my blood type and to look for some sort of antigen in my blood. You see, if you have O negative blood, you have to have this fancy dancy shot called a Rhogahm shot. This is normally given at 28 weeks. The reason has something to do with your body's blood basically attacking the baby because of antigens you either do or don't have.

Frankly, I find it all very confusing. But I do know that it's unusual to have to have the shot so soon. In my case, I needed the shot just to be safe. Because I lost that third baby, and now I am spotting, I guess there is a chance that things could be getting dicey with this RH Factor thingy. I will have to have the shot again at the 28 week mark. It isn't a bad one - pretty big needle in the hip, but since I'm used to that because of IVF, I didn't even flinch. I was told to be on bed rest for the entire day, so I spent the holiday watching tv and playing dinosaurs with Connor in my bed.

Anyway, I woke up this morning and the spotting seemed to have subsided a little, but when I got to work it was back in full swing, so I called the Dr.'s office again. This time I had to wait for a call back. Finally someone called me back and asked what color the spotting was - me: brownish red. Asked me about the cramping - me: not cramping, more like a pulled muscle pain. She told me that because I was spotting brownish that it was old blood and not new bleeding, which is a good thing. If it increases in amount or turns bright red, then I need to be seen immediately. She told me that the pain I was feeling was round ligament pain. Apparently my ligaments are stretching and this is a pretty common pain in pregnant women, especially when you are carrying more than one baby. She told me to rest as much as possible until the spotting stops and to practice "pelvic rest" until my next appointment. Which basically means no sex until my next appointment...I go back to the Dr. on the 17th.

So until then, I will take it a little easy and hope that the spotting and round ligament pain go away. I feel relieved to know that it is nothing serious, but there is still a part of me that is paranoid it could be something worse, so I don't mind being overly cautious.

Till next time...

13 weeks

I am 13 weeks today, and I am feeling great! I had my ultrasound yesterday to check for abnormalities with the babies. When I got there, they told me that the results actually got sent to a lab and that I won't get the results for a week or so. Surprisingly, this was kind of nice because I was able to just enjoy this little peek at the babes and not worry about suddenly getting bad news.

The ultrasound tech at my dr.'s office is super nice and so willing to answer any weird question that I may decide to ask. She went searching for the babies and started low, below my belly button. Then she moved up, and up and up until finally she found them, side by side, right above my belly button. These babies are high. I actually felt a little relieved to see for myself where I was carrying them because I thought it was weird that I didn't get the "pooch" under my belly button that most women get and instead just all the sudden had a very round belly. It is hard at the top and still a little squishy at the bottom, but she said my whole belly will be hard soon enough.

She was hemming and hawing about which baby to call Baby A and which would be B. Normally it is easy to tell because one is on top of the other one and the one closest to the cervix is Baby A. At this visit it was important to get these labels right because they will no longer change. Baby A will now always be Baby A and same goes for Baby B. Anyway, she couldn't figure out who to name what because my little bambinos are side by side and they are in a dead heat...I mean there isn't one that is even a cm closer to my cervix. They looked so cozy right next to each other, but it was clearly frustrating the poor ultrasound tech. Finally she said she thought it looked like the baby on the left was Baby A, but just to be sure we keep it straight, she labeled all the pictures with not only Baby A or Baby B but with Baby on the Left and Baby on the right.

I just had to laugh because I thought it was cute these little ones liked being so close. (tell that to my ribs in a month or so because they are dangerously close to being able to kick them). Bobby and I decided we would call the babies "lefty" and "righty" because it has a nicer ring than "A" and "B" (I think there might be 2 of my friends smiling right about now!)



So anyway, Left and Righty are doing so great. Heartbeats are strong at 154 and 148. They were a little slower than last time, but mostly because they were resting this time...although Lefty did give me a little wave hello. The tech said the heartbeats need to fall between 100 and 180 during this period, so we are perfect. Also, they are both measuring exactly the same size...13 weeks and 1 day. Keep in mind this was yesterday so they were measuring 2 days ahead of where they should be. This is fantastic! Especially for twins. We are just praying they keep growing at such an amazing rate.

All in all things went really well. It lifted my spirits seeing the babies...I think there is still a part of me that can't believe I am actually pregnant and to see it live on a screen really reinforces it.

As for symptoms: Let's see, no nausea, but no cravings either. I'm a little tired, but depends on the day...sometimes I actually feel really energetic. I am starting to develop heartburn and it's no wonder since the babes are so high up. Still managing to fit into my regular jeans with the help of the Bel.la Ba.nd (thanks for that tip!). My shirts are getting a tad to short because of the growing belly and boobs I have going on. And that's about it. Oh, here is my 13 week belly picture :-)
*you can click on the ultrasound pictures to see a bigger version