Entering Uncharted Waters

Today marks 18w6d.  At this time in my last pregnancy, I was waking up from surgery, deflated belly, and not happy about either of those facts.  This time, I'm still pregnant, I'm not in the hospital, and as an added bonus, I'm not bleeding.  

Yesterday was a mix of great and sucky.  

K had the day off so we were able to start the day with a good snuggle.  Since buying the Snoogle, there's a great lack of snuggle so it was good to catch up.  

On lovey dovey holidays like Valentine's Day and our anniversary, K tends to wake up in the middle of the night and place presents on my desk for me to find in the morning.  He overslept so he tried to sneak out to get the stuff from his car while I was on a bathroom break.  I come out of the bathroom and he's rushing in towards my desk with a stuffed lion with a rose in its mouth and a variety of chocolates.  Busted!  It was adorable.

For the most part, we just hung out all day.  We're not big on holidays and I really try to treat him like it's Valentines Day every day, so we just kind of don't know what to do differently when the actual holiday comes around.  It was also a tense day because of where it fell in the pregnancy.  Last time, the loss started after dinner on 18w5d, so ya know, holding breath.

K made a wonderful dinner of steak, lobster tail, and creamed spinach.  I'm totally spoiled and I love it!

And in the evening, my body decided it hated me.  It started having some gas pains.  Ya know, like the kind of gas I thought I was having the last time but they were actually contractions.  So I'm freaking out.  It's one thing to be a little tense that it might be a difficult night to get through emotionally, it's another to have your body play practical jokes on you to really get you triggered.  All evening, I'm watching the clock making sure that there's no pattern to the occasional gas and asking K "I was in pain last time right?  I wasn't just a little uncomfortable, I was in real pain early on, right?"

We pulled out the doppler (again) and found the heartbeats really high up.  They're pretty much in line with my belly button now.  That actually calmed me down quite a bit.  It was confirmation that it wasn't happening again, because if I was pushing something out again, we would have found their heartbeats much lower.

And here's the weirdest thing.  Ya know how I've talked about maybe feeling movement a few times?  Ok, every time I've felt it, I've reported it here.  So that's 2 or 3 times total.

So I'm sitting on the couch, and I've got my hands on my stomach.  I set them there and kind of press a little bit sometimes, just to feel the hardness of the uterus through the fat.  And while I'm doing that, I think one of them kicked my finger!  But that can't be true right?  I really don't feel them internally, but it seemed like I felt one swift kick externally?  Logic fails on that, but that's sure what it seemed like.  It felt like a pea sized pebble bounced off my fingertip from below.  Some time was spent being shocked at that.

Well, here I am.  Currently pregnant a few hours longer than I was last time.  I've crossed over from "been there, done that" to "what the heck is gonna happen now?"  I feel like I'm on borrowed time from this point forward.  I think, there's a good chance, but I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I just might be having a couple of babies this year.

Let's do this!

Ultrasound video

Just because I didn't get around to posting this yesterday, here's my 18w1d ultrasound video.

Twin A is pretty clear, but Twin B is just so far buried that it's hard to get a good shot of her.  But we think she might have been sucking her thumb at some point.

But we did see an explanation as to why I'm not really feeling kicks yet, they're too busy kicking each other to kick me!

Always carry clean underwear

Yesterday was 18 weeks.  Yay!  This is the hold your breath week, and then we get into completely new territory.  Lots of random thoughts from the last 2 days so this might wander a little bit.

**************************

I had a video shoot yesterday morning.  And I gotta say, I was a hot mess while doing my job.

Here's what I think happened.  I'm normally such a dietary garbage can that no matter what I eat, it doesn't really affect me.  I think those days are over, at least for the moment.  On my way to the shoot, I had my normal latte (good mix of a little bit of sugar, a little bit of caffeine and some protein from the milk to hold me over) and I also had one of those pieces of lemon loaf.  I think that particular breakfast spiked and then completely crashed my blood sugar.

About halfway into the shoot (they take about 90 minutes), I suddenly had to sit down, had some trouble catching my breath, I was shaking, and nearly vomited.  I tried to soldier on a few times, but finally had to take a real break, like 15 solid minutes, eat some fruit chewy things that I keep in my purse and down some water.  After the break, I barely pushed on enough to get the footage necessary to do my job and got out of there.  Called my bosses and told them that I probably did not make the best impression.

**************************

Found out this morning that I've put on 5lbs in the last 2 weeks.  Well, that would explain why I'm a little more huffy puffy lately.  And why I've felt like my belly has popped a bit.

My belly seems to be bulging out, and then deflating.  For a day, I'll feel like I'm huge, and the line around my waist will soften from being pushed out, getting towards round instead of a cut off line between fat rolls.  But then another day it will seem like I'm back where I was a couple of weeks ago.  Still 2 confirmed fat rolls that just read as fat and gross rather than cute baby belly.

At the ultrasound this morning, I was told that they had shifted positions a little bit.  So what I've probably been experiencing is that sometimes they are side by side (on my smaller, but just fat days) and sometimes they are one in front of the other (on my popped out baby belly days).

Either way, it's been a few weeks, so it's belly pic time!  Again, my original 10 week photo versus my now 18 week photo.

10 Weeks

18 Weeks

 Still no dramatic difference.  Oh well.

**************************

After my dropped blood sugar fiasco, I had a lovely lunch with Bleeding Tulip.  I don't think she recognizes it, but she's moved forward a lot in the last year.  She's been losing weight (looking good!), and has not only gone back to work, but was able to get a different job when the first one was, ahem, unpleasant.  In the last year, I've hardly been employed at all.  How she's managed to secure herself 2 jobs in this economy, that's pretty impressive!

When fighting the infertile fight, it's really difficult to acknowledge any life progress that isn't baby related.  So while she may not recognize that she's been moving forward in life, she has.

And again, I feel like a jerk.  The only thing I have to talk about is being pregnant and birthing plans, and blah blah blah.  All that stuff that I don't want anyone talking to me about when in the middle of the fertility fight.  And yet here I was, being that very person that infertiles want to avoid.  Sorry about that.

I was a bit overwhelmed with the shocking physical crash I was still kind of experiencing, and the fact that I'm so exhausted just walking 2 blocks to get cheesecake.  I was surprised by my own body failings and really preoccupied by them.

**************************

Wondering about the title of this post?  I'm getting to that.

**************************

I am proud of the fact that I did actually accomplish something yesterday.  After years of having free accounts at Bank of America, they've started charging me a $25 a month fee of some sort.  Guess what BofA?  I have 2 other bank accounts and simply don't need you!

But.....BofA had 2 things going for them that the other banks didn't have.  I had a business account there so on the rare occasion that someone writes a check out to the name of my business, I can cash the check, and they would also allow me to deposit checks made out to Alex which is how everyone knows me, but was not legally a part of my name until last year.

So I went to one of my other banks, and filled out all sorts of new paperwork.  I had to show them all sorts of identification and the court document acknowledging my name change last year, and write out signatures for both versions of my name.  Yay!  Now they will acknowledge that I'm Alex!  And just for fun, I opened a business account, even though I'm not going to be doing much business in the next year, so I can also deposit checks made out to my business name.  Woot!

This week, I go through every account that does an automatic deposit or withdrawal and point those to my other account, and then I close BofA for good.


**************************


Oh yeah!  Ok, really, I try not take what happens on forums as real life, but I've got to report on this.

Folks, the 4th grader in me that used to cry every day because she was unpopular and the other kids picked on her, she learned how to smile this week.

On the primary pregnancy forum that I visit, there are currently about 11,500 people there.  And they have recently begun elections to assign 4 new group owners (aka moderators) to the group.  A bunch of people expressed interest in the job (including myself), the owners of the website reviewed those people, and then came up with a list of nominees eligible for the job.  Well, I was weeded out.  No explanation, just that I was deemed to be not a good fit.  So I'm not nominated.

And to my absolute shock, people are voicing how much they disagree with this decision!  They are calling for people to vote for me even though I'm not on the nomination list because they want me as a group owner!  I'm getting private emails from people who are trying to contact the website owners for some sort of explanation as to why I'm not eligible.  There are threads happening about how much people wanted to vote for me and are just going to anyway.

Out of over 11k people, I'M FUCKING NOTICED!  And some of those people who noticed me, ACTUALLY LIKE ME!!!!  This is just incredible to me.  I'm someone that when I graduated high school, and they did a photo montage of every graduating senior, they forgot to add my picture.

Since this started, my face has been alternating between these two extremes:

  


**************************


Had my ultrasound and doctors appointment today.  I'll post pictures tomorrow, I haven't scanned stuff yet.

This appointment was meant to take up the hour between drinking the glucose crap and getting my blood drawn again, but due to massive amounts of puking up the crap, the second part of that test was cancelled, and I was just feeling like crap when I went in.

But the ultrasound went great!  Both are still evenly sized, and I'm starting to see specific body parts like a little rib cage, and hands full of fingers.  I think Baby B was sucking her(?) thumb.  She was also kind of buried in there and we still couldn't get a good look at her bits to confirm once and for all that she's a girl, but ya know, still about 80% sure from the last look we got a couple of weeks ago.

The hematoma is holding steady, potentially even shrinking.  So that's a good thing!  The kiddos are getting heavy enough that they are flattening it out.  It's now more of a thick string in there rather than a bubble.  Still trace amounts of bleeding, but overall it's diminishing.

Now that the girls are getting bigger, we had to get reacquainted with Wanda to properly check my cervix length.  Still at 4cm.  YES!!!  The book I'm reading about twins/multiples pregnancy says that if your cervix is 2cm or longer at your 20 week check up, that's an indicator that you're likely to go to term.  Since I don't think my cervix is going to cut in half over the next 2 weeks, I'm feeling really good about that!

Back when I first started having bleeding on a fairly regular basis, well over a month ago, I started carrying a clean pair of underwear in my purse in case I overbled a pantyliner.  While I was at it, I tossed in a pair of socks since I tend to wear non water proof shoes and I live in Seattle.

Oh by the way, this is my giant purse.  I can carry two 2 liters of soda in this thing without having to rearrange stuff to make room.  More pockets than I know what to do with.  So carrying around some extra clothing is no big deal.

So when I went to get dressed after my date with Wanda, I noticed that my underwear was damp.  Ewwwwww!!!  I must have had a little leakage while I was upstairs hurling my guts out.  And I'm not looking forward to putting them back on when it occurs to me, I have another pair in my purse!  Woot!  I pull out my clean fresh undies, get myself dressed, roll up my damp undies into a latex glove at the nurses station and I'm good as new!

And THAT pregnant ladies, is why you should carry around a clean pair of underwear in your purse!

Coming up on 17 weeks

I hit 17 weeks tomorrow.

I had a moment of click where it dawned on me that it's real that there are babies with me where ever I go.  I'm still fighting off that final click when this all becomes real.  I'm simply not ready to jump over that emotional cliff, but it's becoming a little harder to fight every day.  Did the official announcement on Facebook and that just feels like it's inviting disaster.

I did go back and read my blog from this point in my first pregnancy.  There are some very reassuring differences.

When I was approaching 16 weeks, I was complaining of incontinence and a persistent nagging cough I had developed.  I was talking about the doctor having me come in to test for a UTI and stuff to make sure the incontinence was baby based and not illness based.  This time, I'm still pretty leak free and I don't have any kind of cough.  So those first potential symptoms just aren't there this time.

A lot of times, I'm almost feeling like my crotch is pushing itself out, which of course totally freaks me out.  I'm running my finger across my crotch more often than I'd like to admit to make sure there's no sac trying to make its escape.  In reading other people complaining of this, it's pretty common and it's likely because a baby is lying low across the cervix putting pressure there.  In my case, we're actually hoping for that.  The subchorionic hematoma is located very near the cervix and we're kind of waiting for the babies to get heavy enough to sit on it, and put some pressure there to hopefully help stop the wound from bleeding anymore.

But the sensation is still rather terrifying given my history.  I keep having to remind myself that I was feeling contractions and trying push out a BM pretty darned hard for 2 or 3 hours before the sac began to emerge.  It didn't just randomly fall out of my body last time, and it's certainly not going to this time.

Ok, 17 week symptom break-down:

• Abdomen is still sore and generally heavy.  Feels like I've got a gallon of water swinging around in my belly.
• Still have a decent sense of smell but it doesn't seem as bad as it was before.
• Nose still stuffed up.
• Today is day 19 of consistent, but small amounts of dark brown bleeding.  Just fabulous.
• Still not sure I'm feeling movement.  I can tell that there's something going on, but then I'll feel the same gurgle elsewhere so it can't be baby.  Can't tell if I'm feeling my own pulse around the uterus, dinner moving along its digestion course, or babies twisting around.  Until I can be sure, I'm gonna say I don't think I feel any movement yet.
• Not sleeping real well.  Getting up to pee a lot, and just generally uncomfortable.
• I get tired really fast.  The few times I've gone out to the pottery studio, I get completely exhausted and have to give up somewhere around hour 2.
• I'm hungry every 2 hours.  
• Occasional heartburn and headaches.

In other news, we've learned that what K was suffering from 2 weeks ago was Salmonella poisoning!  OMG!  A few of our GP's patients all got it at the same time so various health departments are in contact with K trying to narrow down the source.  

We've determined that it can't be anything from our fridge because there's nothing that's been in there that I haven't eaten and I didn't get sick.  So that narrows it down to a fast food place he ate at without me, and potentially the buffet we went to.  Our plates were similar, but maybe he ate something that I didn't.  We're a bit freaked because we've been so careful about proper food prep, keeping raw meats separate from other foods, etc, and yet I still only narrowly escaped while he got hit.

And that's how things are going as I approach 17 weeks!

I think....

I've been feeling movement.

I don't want to make any bold declarations here because it's still really early and I'm not sure.  But they say that you can feel movement earlier during your second pregnancy, but I didn't know if I would qualify since I only got halfway through my first.  Then again, it was twins so maybe physically, in terms of uterine stretching, I got some extra credit.

For a few nights, especially when I lay down on my side, I've been feeling blurples in my stomach.  I've felt things like this before, but only once in a blue moon.  But this has been pretty consistently happening in the evenings for several days in a row, even though I'm eating differently every day.  If it was digestion blurples, it wouldn't happen so often, and it would be according to something I'm eating, right?  So by eating differently every day and still feeling the blurples......I dunno.  The movement tends to feel a little too high too.  But only by an inch or so, so it's hard to say.

Ok, so I'm not declaring official feeling of movement, but I'm recording this now so that if it turns out to be movement, I'll have a record of when it started.

Is it time for belly pics?  Have I gotten far enough along that there's something to compare rather than just having babies buried in fat?  Well, they're still buried in fat, but I think it's starting to shift a little bit.  Ok, here are my pics, 10 weeks and today at 15 weeks.

10 week twin belly pic

15 week twin belly pic

I did stuff today! Now I need a nap

Pregnancy status - 11w4d and all's well.  It's been 2 weeks since my last bleed, a new record.

Ok, seriously now, when I do I get some energy back?  When I say I can't do anything, I mean I can't do ANYTHING.  I'm just too friggin tired!

I slept through most of yesterday, went to bed at a decent hour, got a full nights sleep (though not as deeply as when not pregnant), and I haven't been asked to expend any energy of any kind.  So I should be fully prepared to actually get off my butt.

K spent a good deal of time cleaning the kitchen today.  We have a huge kitchen counter that tends to become the junk platform of the house. It's conveniently located near the front door so everything we walk in with ends up on that counter.  Groceries, toiletries that made it into the house but not yet into the bathroom, my purse, random things that we use on a daily basis and just set down there for lack of anywhere else to put it.  K did a fabulous job of clearing it, finding a place for all of that stuff to go and then actually wiping it down.

My job was to go through the pile of accumulated snacks that he put into a corner and throw out anything I won't actually end up eating.  So I did that, and extended my work to a kitchen cabinet that tends to end up packed with crap.  I weeded out everything that was past it's "best by" date (which was the vast majority of the stuff) and threw out anything that I tried for a snack but didn't end up liking.  That cabinet is practically empty now.

So in this burst of accomplishing something energy, I decided to glaze a few more test cups to go in my next kiln firing.  That basically means just standing at a sink, painting cups.

That's it guys.  That's all I've done.  On my feet for maybe 45 minutes to an hour.  And when I decided that I needed to sit down again, I had to eat something right away because I was almost shaking from feeling weak and like I had over exerted myself.  I can only guess that I hadn't eaten much protein yet in the day and it was that absence that I was feeling and kind of reeling from.  I've since had some leftover ham and cheesy potatoes from Christmas Eve dinner at my parents and am now feeling like my normal, fat, lazy, sitting self.  I keep intending to spend a few hours out in the pottery studio, and I keep just not doing it.  And that's a fun activity.

Ya know, I'm pretty lazy in real life as it is.  Honestly, I didn't think a person could get much lazier than me.  But this feeling of hardly being able to move from my seat and getting tired after functioning on my feet for 30 minutes is just obnoxious!  At least I've gotten enough energy that I'm capable of staying awake for a full day, so that's an improvement.  But wow, I could really use another energy boost in general, cuz being both this tired and yet awake for this many hours per day = boredom central!

Meet the monkeys!

I gots pictures!  I'll only post one because it's the best one and why force a bunch of mediocre blobbies in your faces.

Today I'm 8w6d and everything is looking good.  I graduate from the fertility clinic and move on to the high risk ob with an appointment one week from today.

While we can't say for sure that the bleeding is over, she couldn't find any clots that we could predict bleeding.  Does that make sense?  It still might happen, but we didn't see anything today showing that it will happen.  Ok, that sentence makes more sense.

Both babies are measuring just about right, the heart rates are between 155-160bpm which is perfect.  And the doctor saw them each wiggle (I didn't notice it).  While there are obviously no guarantees, things are looking as good as they can look at the moment.

On the symptom front, damn I'm a lucky bitch.  Pretty much done feeling queasy.  I sometimes feel a little bit of stretching in the abdomen which I love because it means they're growing, and I'm having some lower back ache from time to time, and I'm waking up constantly during the night.  But for the most part, yeah, I'm really lucky.

Ok, I partially wanted to get all this out so that people who don't want ultrasound pictures in their faces might have some text before the pictures show up on screen and I think that's enough.  So here we go!

Baby B is on the left and Baby A is on the right, and both are pretty much hanging upside down.  So we're back to calling them monkeys.

Gestational Diabetes part 3 - the testing results

Saw the doctors for my follow-up appointment today.  I've spent 5 days tracking all of my eating and stabbing myself 1 hour after eating anything to get blood glucose readings.

The results?

Things are actually pretty darned good.  Over the 5 days, I only had 3 instances where my readings were above the desired numbers.  The desired number for 1 hour after eating is anything below 130.  Well, one reading was 131 and another was 142.  So nothing astronomical, just kind of technical fouls that they had to call out.  Usually a bad reading goes into the range of 200 and something so my minor infractions were practically nothing.  And all of this with no diet change of any sort, just me eating whatever I felt like eating.

But one number was a little concerning.  I have to test as soon as I wake up.  Before eating, drinking, or really moving around.  We want this reading to be below 90.  Most of my readings were in the upper 80's with one reaching 92.  They should be in the 60's or 70's after going so long without eating.

So we're going to continue testing upon waking and then full days of testing every other day or so since it's likely that the numbers are going to creep higher as the pregnancy goes along.  And if my morning numbers don't improve by eating a small dose of protein right before bed, I'll need to go back on metformin.

So here's the good news of this situation, at least for me.  As I said before (did I say it before?  I forget), diet plans and structured eating are really emotional for me.  I fail.  Over and over again.

The numbers show that when I eat exactly what I want, when I want to - my numbers are perfectly fine.  Nothing to worry about.  My natural cravings are managing to keep things pretty even keeled without me having to think about it.

And the numbers show that the (currently very small) problem occurs when I have absolutely no control over what my body does - when I'm sleeping. 

So it's official.  It's strictly the hormones that are doing this and NOT anything I've done wrong, haven't done, done too much of, whatever.  Even if I were perfect in my eating from day 1, my hormonal makeup with 2 placentas made the gestational diabetes inevitable.  It's not my fault.  I've done nothing wrong.  I have numerical and doctoral proof.  Obviously this is a very important fact to me because I've been feeling REALLY guilty this week.

And looking over every other blood test they ran, they said I'm very healthy.  I've never had a doctor say that to me before!  I'm really healthy!

And they tell me I should probably eat some more carbs.  And temper it with a bit of protein.  Wow, that's another thing a doctor has never said to me.  Eat more carbs.  Ha!

I'm eating pretty well, but I'm not eating a whole lot according to my food log.  I'd just like mention that when you have to stab yourself 1 hour after eating, every time to you eat, it kind of makes you wonder if you really want to grab something from the fridge or not.  So I've probably not been eating as much as usual over the last week.

We do expect the problem to slowly increase as the placentas grow and the hormones get stronger.  But we're catching it really really early and we'll be keeping an eye on those numbers so we can slowly combat it as needed.

Symptoms Week 18

We're 18 weeks along and it's time for another symptom breakdown.  Here's what I'm currently experiencing:

- Lower abdomen is very sore.  It particularly hurts when going from sitting to standing and taking that first couple of steps.

- I'm not leaking as bad as I was but I'm still wearing a panty liner in case of a little surprise after a cough.

- I'm starting to get headaches.  Not the torturous kind, more of the "ugh, I'm gonna feel kinda unhappy for a while" kind.  I have yet to figure out if this is associated with something I can fix like low blood sugar or dehydration.  So far, whatever I eat or drink seems to have no effect.

- Nose is still full.

- Still have a strong sense of smell but it doesn't seem as obnoxious as it was before.  Perhaps it is and I'm just getting used to it.

- Having longer and more detailed dreams.  No, I'm not going to tell you about them.

- Sex is considering creeping back on the radar. 

- These are not my nipples.  I don't know where the hell they came from or who stuck them to the end of my boobs, but these obnoxious pellets that are attempting to reach out and shake hands with everyone aren't mine.

- I'm totally paranoid about falling.  Took a bath for the first time in years last night and made K check on me every 15 minutes so he could help me when I was ready to get out.  I don't think I'm any more apt to fall right now than before, I just really don't want to.

Gestational Diabetes

Guess what I have! 

Apparently this pregnancy was going too easy and my body decided to make it a little more difficult.  It figures.  Me and my body have been enemies for decades.

I can't say I'm surprised.  I've been on the diabetes watch list since I was 12.  I'm overweight, it runs in my family, and I tend to show symptoms all the time like thirst and wounds healing very very slowly.  I actually get tested quite often because doctors have a hard time believing I'm NOT diabetic but I guess my luck has run out on that pattern.

I really did do my best to prevent this.  I took Metformin prior to conceiving and into my 8th week to try to avoid this.  My horrible diet has been a million times improved since getting pregnant.  But I guess it wasn't enough.  I admit it, even though I logically know that it's not really my fault and that I really did do what I was supposed to do to prevent this, I'm feeling like a failure.

Did a glucose test the other day.  That consists of drinking a 10oz bottle of glucose water in the span of 5-10 minutes.  It tastes like flat, over sugared 7-Up.  It was so gross!  I nearly couldn't keep it down it was so disgusting.  You then get your blood drawn 1 hour after finishing the bottle so you have to note what time you finish and then get to the lab at the hospital.  And then all sorts of blood is taken out of your arm. 

Fun was had by all.  Usually this isn't done until late in your second trimester, but because of the increased odds of my having it, we tested massively early.

And my sugar numbers came back really high.  And my iron numbers came back slightly low.

So I'm starting on an iron supplement every other day.  My numbers there were only slightly below normal so it's not necessary every day, but every other day should push me into the normal range.

And next week I get to meet with a nutritionist and learn all about foods and probably get prescribed a very restrictive diet.  And I get to learn how to prick my fingers and test my blood sugar levels.

I'm predicting this will be very difficult for me.  I've been able to succeed at a lot of things in life, but living by an actual diet plan has never been one of them.  I've tried several times and I've never been able to do it.  And this time, I absolutely have to.  It's one thing to tolerate being fat as a result of my failure, but I won't subject my kids to my failure.

On the upside, I've got a husband who likes to cook and his doctor has told him to drop a few pounds.  So he'll be going to the nutritionist with me and plans to do whatever diet is prescribed with me.  And if he's going to do most of the food prep, it will make it easier for me to have him do the thinking and I'll eat what he puts in front of me.

And the effects that this can have on the kids so far haven't manifested so it's still totally probable that it won't affect them at all since we're catching it and will start managing it early.  One of the issues is high blood pressure but I've been in the perfect range from day one.  I actually tend to have low blood pressure so I've got a little bit of leeway there.  Another concern is that the babies will gain too much weight in utero resulting in gigantic babies.  So far they are textbook size for their age.  And being twins, they are likely going to be too small anyway so if this adds a smidge of weight to them, that's probably not a horrible thing.

I wanted a girl

And I'm getting 2!

Gotta tell ya, I'm completely shocked!  I could have sworn there was at least one boy in there.

We did an ultrasound a couple of days ago (everyone is healthy) and Twin A was definitely a girl.  We got the money shot on her right away.  But Twin B was really fussy and modest and just would not let us get a good crotch shot.  So while we weren't able to get confirmation that she has girl parts, we were able to see enough to see a lack of boy parts. 

There's still a slim chance that we'll be proven wrong at the next ultrasound, but we're pretty darned certain for now that we've got 2 girls!

This news put K into a wee bit of a panic.  He's now completely outnumbered and I think we both know what his position will be in the household - tightly wound around his daughters little fingers.

17 week belly photo

As a fat woman, the last thing I've wanted to do is post belly photos.  And since I started out fat, these pics are going to look like I'm 17 months, not 17 weeks.  Yes, I know, you don't have to tell me.

But my double decker tummy is starting to push out in the middle and is heading towards basketball shape so I figured I'd go ahead and get the trauma of a body picture over with.

So here's my profile, it all it's jammie'd glory.

Check out the leaf decals that seem to be sprouting out of my boob!  Awesome.

K might be comfortable starting to post our pictures, but the picture that included my face had a really funky expression and I'm just not making that picture public.  Sorry folks.  I swear I have a face, I'm just not thrilled with any photographic evidence of it that currently exists.

Childbirth Class

We went to our first birthing class tonight.  Yay!

At 15 weeks, mine was the youngest pregnancy in the room.  I thought that might be the case.  But the next class for multiples is in February and in the Seattle area, February can get really screwy with weather issues.  Since I'll be hitting my 7th month in March, and sometimes twins come horribly early, I wanted to make absolutely sure that I got through these classes before the actual birth.

So the teacher commented that I'm being really proactive and she loves that!  At which point K and I had to contain our laughter.  If you've read my "Mama drama" post, you'll remember that one of my bad mommy offenses mentioned was that I wasn't proactive enough in my childbirth planning and labor prep.  So an official pbbbbbttt! to the perpetrator of the mama drama.

It was a very talky talky class and a lot of videos.  The first video was very talky talky about how it's difficult to be pregnant and men being supportive of their women.  Good on them.  But not what I want to learn about.

They showed us a C-section.  ACK!!!  I couldn't watch that one.  The squick factor was just too much for me.  It think it's an empathy thing.  Even though I know she wasn't in any pain, the brain still can't get over that she's being cut into and there are gutsy things coming out with the babies (ok, I peeked) so I go all squick.  If I get a C-section, I have no intention of watching it.  Put up a little curtain and show me the babies once they're out!

And they showed a video of a natural birth.  The squick there wasn't nearly as bad.  It was edited to make it seem like it was the easiest thing in the world.  I think they may have edited out a few screams and other discomfort sounds.

Most of the questions were answered with "it varies so much with multiples that you'll have to ask your doctor for their preferences and about your particular situation.  But here are 5 different possible answers based on the most common variables."  So yeah, no matter how much we learn, unless we do a scheduled C-section and the babies decide to stay inside until that date, it's pretty much going to be played by ear.  The best they can do is kind of educate the various players who'll be playing.

There was some discussion about nutrition.  And I'm finding that my doctor is really chill compared to some of these other doctors.  They are being told to get x number of protein, etc etc. whereas I'm being told if I'm eating decently, it's all good.  Then again, many of them started getting these nutritional directives around 18 weeks so I might find that my doctor assigns some directives to me as well when I'm further along.

I'd say that my pre-pregnancy diet was about a 10 out of 100 on the quality scale.  Seriously, my nutrition sucked.  But I'd say that my pregnancy diet is about 80 out of 100 simply due to tastebud changes.  So that's one hell of an improvement.  I try to add another point or two every week.  Changing to decaf at Starbucks.  That added a point or two.  Tomorrow I'm going to try a protein bar for breakfast instead of a bagel.  That's a point or so.  So I'm getting better but if I go for perfect, I'll go nuts so we just won't stress about that.

Then the last 10 minutes were deep breathing and visualizing your babies hearing your voice, etc etc, while getting massaged by the hubbies.  I had trouble not giggling.  Seriously, I tried.  Really I did.  But I just can't do the visualization thing.  And the picture your babies in their nice, comfy, warm sack blah blah blah.  I understand and respect that some people find that kind of thing very moving and profound, but it just makes me roll my eyes and giggle.  I didn't do that in class though!  I played along like a good girl!

I've got no decent closing sentence.  So, I'm done writing now.

I want a girl

I know it's not politically correct to actually have a gender preference, but I do.  I want at least 1 girl.

My real hope is that I'm about to get one of each.  That's what I REALLY want. 

But if they are both boys, I'm going to have a little grieving to do.  If they're both girls, I'm not really certain it will upset me that much.

Maybe it's because boys in my family are notoriously busy as toddlers and the thought of trying to keep up with two of them terrifies me.

But yeah, I want a girl.  I'll love whoever shows up and I'm sure that once I meet whoever is coming, that's exactly who I'll want, but here in my pre-reality, guessing what I want, don't know yet state, I want a girl.

8 week checkup

K and I hadn't really started to plan for twins.  Mostly because we are very aware of vanishing twin syndrome and don't want to count our babies before they're born I guess.


Another weirdness I was going through was "are they still there?" syndrome.  After being tested for something every 48 hours during the IVF process, I went through doctor withdrawal.  2 weeks between appointments?  But, but, but......ok.  But since I'm not particularly sick or anything, I kind of felt like the babies just dissolved away and I couldn't wait for my next appointment to see if they were still there.

I guess that's somewhat logical since with VTS, one baby does just kind of dissolve away.  But yeah, irrational.

The 8 week checkup really cemented what's happening.  Just a little peek at one of them for all of you.

 

It's a creature inside me all right!  But human isn't the first description that comes to mind.

They were both around 18mm, 155 beats per minute.  They are both growing, and they are growing equally and equally healthy.

And this is when I saw the click in K.  For many men, the click doesn't get there until a baby actually arrives, but this was his click and I got to see it cross his face.  He suddenly realized that yes, we were having 2 babies, and yes, this is real!

But the real news was that we are over some hurdles and our odds of miscarriage have dropped significantly.  The average pregnancy has about a 20% chance of miscarriage (according to the various rumors that I've been able to find around the interwebs).  Our doctor says that we have dropped to the 1-2% chance of miscarriage and we have officially graduated from the fertility clinic and ready to start with standard prenatal care.  YAY!!!

Every few minutes we'll poke each other and hold up 2 fingers.  The recipient either smiles or whacks the finger shower depending on where we are on the fear to excitement scale at that particular moment.

Ok, I think we're pretty much caught up on all of the milestones and I can starting writing more of a long facebook post style rather than a novel.  I have an extended doctors appointment coming up just before the 11 week mark (next week) and I have a TON of questions for that doctor so that might yield another novel.  But for the time being, we're gonna get short and sweet!

Twin confirmation

While we were pretty much convinced that we had two babies, due to the hormone levels and stuff, we didn't really KNOW this until the 6 week check-up.

And let me tell you, there was no doubt whatsoever at that moment.

As they were putting the ultrasound wand in place, we very clearly saw 2 embryo sacks, even before it was properly positioned.  Absolutely no doubt about that.

Squeeeeee!!  Fear!!!!!!!!

They measured the heartbeats and they were both at 100 beats per minute.

Wait a minute, backup.  They've existed less than a month and they already have heartbeats?  Oh my lordy lordy! 

The fact that they both had heartbeats relieved some of my fear about a miscarriage.  Many pregnancies don't go to their first doctors visits until around week 10 and they come home devastated because there's no heartbeat.  Whatever happens in the next weeks, at one point, both of my babies had heartbeats which told me that they are at least starting out as viable.  That's very reassuring.

 

Also reassuring, they were almost perfectly even in size. 

Twin A was 3.40mm in size indicating an age of 6 weeks even.  Heartbeat rate of exactly 100bpm.

Twin B was 4.07mm in size indicating an age of 6 weeks and 1 day.  Heartbeat rate of 101.35bpm.

So I went home and started reading up on Vanishing Twin Syndrome.  We told my parents about this but didn't do the facebook announcements and stuff yet because I was still keeping my brain rational that VTS is very common and could definitely happen.  So just because there are 2 today, that doesn't guarantee that there will be 2 at delivery.

What this is about

Welcome to First Time Twins!

I started writing this blog when I was 9 weeks pregnant for the first time, with twins.  And I was terrified.  Unfortunately, my fears were founded and at 18weeks and 6days, I lost my girls.  I don't have a lot of details yet about what happened, but it was an infection that lead to PPROM.  I've opted to continue blogging my journey to become a parent, even though it's not going well right now.

Despite the setback I'm experiencing at the moment, I still believe there's a Chris and Charley in my future and I'm writing, in great length and detail, about my attempts to bring them into my home.


But for now, here's the basic introduction.
Hi!  I'm Alex, age 35, and I'll be the mama around here.  I am a videographer by career and potter by hobby.  My video life is known as MegaMouth Productions and I make a lot of those advertisement videos you see on web pages.  In my pottery life, I'm known as UgaBugaBowls and I make functional and beautiful wheel thrown mugs, bowls, and other round things.  Feel free to stop by that shop if you're looking for a gift for someone.  It's all unique and with twins coming, I could really use some more customers!

K, age 41, is my husband of 5 1/2 years and will be playing the role of daddy which is pretty good casting considering that's who he actually is.  In his day job, he's a retail manager for a large chain pet store.  I'll refer to it as Pet Place for privacy reasons.  By night, he turns into the super hero, Comic Actor Man!  He's had some fame in regional commercials and acts on a regular basis in local theaters. 

We are pragmatic, down to earth, and a bit boring.  A good time for us would be a great exchange of wit, and we tend to be sci-fi watching homebodies.  There will be geekery in this blog as well.

Some other pertinent characters -

The Girls - Chris and Charley (Christina and Charolotte).  They aren't with us anymore, but I'm hoping they'll be back in one form or another.  They are my kids and I guess the first pair of bodies they were trying on weren't to their liking so they are out there waiting for us to try to create something more suitable to their lives.  If we can't provide those bodies, we may try to find them via adoption or fostering.

PR, DR, and AR.  They were my best friend family until the Mama Drama post happened.  I thought they were going to be major players in this blog, but oh well!  PR was my best friend for 4 years, a sister really, and then she flipped a bitch switch that really threw me for a loop.

Various cats and extended family members will be introduced as needed.



So here we go with the blogging experience.  Just to warn you, I have no boundaries. I will talk about sex, bodily functions, emotional freak-outs, and whatever else comes to mind.

I'm hoping that there will be a lot of comments, even if an article is several years old.  There is no topic too personal that I won't answer you fully if you ask me something.  And if you have some knowledge about a written topic and I'm too far along to benefit from your knowledge or advice, I'm sure someone else will benefit from it so please write it!