Fat lady fashion show

Well, I had my first crying, non-provoked, purely hormonal emotional meltdown of this pregnancy.  The source? Clothing!  I hate clothes.  I hate shopping for clothes.  I hate that as a fat woman, no clothes ever fit me right, ever.  Even if they fit in the store, or last week, that doesn't mean they'll fit right today.

We were invited to a St Patty's Day party and for once, I actually was feeling fairly social.  I have a pair of gray pants that seem to be stretching right along with me, and they are kind of my go-to going out in public pants for this pregnancy.  As I was pulling them out trying to figure out what to wear to the party the next day, I found a spot of wax or something on them and they couldn't be worn until they went through the laundry.  So I started to panic.

I hadn't busted out my maternity pants from the last pregnancy yet so I pulled those out and while they fit, they are also too long.  I'm afraid I might trip.  Some of my jeans are ok if I fold them down and do the belly band, but it's uncomfortable and looks weird.  The only pants available were leggings, and in trying on tops, I had completely run out of tops that were big and flowy enough to cover my butt.  And I'm sorry, but if I'm wearing leggings, my butt needs to be covered.  I'm just not going to inflict skin tight clothing as the only barrier between my butt and the world on anyone.  That would be cruel.

So panic set in and I realized that it was official, I did not have enough actual clothing to leave the house.  Not that big a deal most days, I just wear jammies and jammie pants at home, but holy shit!  If I'm too big to leave the house now, what the fuck am I going to do over the next 3 months???  Almost everything I've tried to buy at some sort of reasonable price has had to be sent back because it didn't fit.

Full on melt down.  There was crying.  There was a husband sitting there like a deer in the headlights having no idea how to respond.  It was unpleasant.

Ok, so I did finally find something I could wear in public.  I found this top and a black sweater that was a bit longer than the top so it covered my butt.  It's actually kinda cute.  This is probably what I'll wear to nicer outings like my grandmothers 100th birthday at the end of the month.

Emily has also requested updated belly pics.  Well, K has been too busy to deal with belly pics and I haven't felt like climbing into that skin tight outfit I've been using.  So the fashion show pics will have to suffice.  I also wanted to get some pics of me with my hair like this because I've made an appointment to get rid of it on the 29th.

Good lord.  If I'm this big now, how inhumanly gigantic am I going to be in 3 months???

But one picture hardly makes for a fashion show now does it?  The rest of this post will be dedicated to solving the solution plaguing plus sized maternity shoppers everywhere.

Where can a plus sized woman find maternity clothes?  As long as you're a very casual dresser, the answer is Value Village.

After our Day With Baby Class (oh yeah, remind me to write about that at some point), we stopped by the Value Village near the hospital.  I expected to spend a total of 15 minutes there because stores like that usually have this smell that just reminds you that you're going ghetto.  But this one was actually pretty nice.  Didn't have that used icky smell at all.

So now I present to you, the crap I bought to simply cover my belly and ass for this pregnancy.  The intention isn't to look good, or cute, or to make a fashion statement, the intention is simply to cover myself so that I won't be arrested for public nudity if I need to leave the house.

Tshirt already owned. Sweater purchased to make most of my tshirts work with leggings.	Red yoga pants already owned. Huge black tshirt with white "undershirt" thingy.  Should last  through the pregnancy.	Gray nursing tank from jammie set. Red and white sweater makes it publicly ok and still gives me boob access for nursing.

I swore I'd never wear a maternity shirt that tucked under and hugged the belly.  Apparently I was wrong.

Black tank top dress.  I'm going to be hugely pregnant for the beginning of summer.  I'm hoping this will help  beat the heat.

Blue dress.  Leggings mean I don't have to shave my legs yet.

Oh wow, a whole week already?

Sorry guys, I'm not sure what's keeping me from posting.

Every day of this pregnancy dragged on endlessly until I passed that 19 week mark that I was so afraid of.  Ever since then, time has been flying by me.  I realized the other day that I'm a full 4 weeks longer into this pregnancy that I got into the last one.  It took so long for me to break even, now that I have, it's just flying forward at break neck speeds.

I'm at 23 weeks now.  I think it's official.  There's now no way out of this pregnancy other than to give birth.  Ack!  I'm really motivated to keep these kids in as long as possible if for no other reason than to put off that terrifying experience!  But we've made it.  If this all goes to hell tomorrow, the doctors will still try to save my girls.  Another week, and they'll have about a 50/50 chance of succeeding.  It only gets better from there.

I've spent a good deal of this week with doctors.  Apparently the issue with IVF babies is there's an elevated risk of heart defects.  So I spent Wednesday getting an ultrasound for over 2 hours.  UGH!  Ok, I realize that this sounds so wonderful, to get to watch your babies for 2 solid hours.  But seriously?  It gets old.  Especially when the technician is moving the wand around so fast that you're looking more at the camera movements than the babies movements.  Most of the appointment was about the hearts so even if I wanted to look at cute babies for 2 hours, 90 minutes of that time was spent just looking at hearts beating in extreme closeup.

I did get 2 decent pics though.  We got a good face profile, and when they were trying to measure the belly of one baby, the foot of the other baby kept getting in the frame so she took a picture of the foot too.

Extreme closeup of face profile.  The bump near the upper center is the nose pointing skyward.

Belly of one baby is the round dome, bottom of foot of the other baby is on top of it.

And here's where we get our very first "She has so-and-so's fill in the blank!"  I have mutant toes.  The big toe is big, but the rest don't really fall in line.  They are all kind of midgets.  They look like I was just extremely adept at stubbing my toes as a kid, which I was actually, and they just permanently remained stubbed.  Here ya go.  The left is especially mutantastic.  And yes, I blurred out the scale numbers because I've had enough comments about my size and I'm over it.  You people think I don't own a mirror?  Seriously, I'm aware of the fact that I'm fat.  You're not telling me anything I don't know.

Anyway, if you check out the bone structure of the foot in the ultrasound and compare it to my own toes, it looks like at least one baby is going to have at least one normal foot!  That would be daddies foot!

Before I went to this doctor, Dr. C said that they would likely say stuff that would be scary.  They sometimes try to poach patients by scaring them and then saying they can take care of the issue.  It's a classic marketing tactic that actually works quite well.  You introduce a problem, then you show off how you have the solution to that problem with a product or service that you can sell.  So I was warned to take what they say with a grain of salt.  And I think Dr. C gave them a bit of a heads up not to scare this particular patient because she has issues and can't handle being freaked out.  I think he did that because at the end of the appointment, they didn't tell me a whole lot of details and said that Dr. C wants all of the information consolidated with him so he'll go over the details with me at my next appointment.

Even so, here's what they told me -

They weren't able to get a couple of views that they want to get.  But, they were able to rule out anything major and anything they would have been able to look for in those other views would have been very minor anyway.  I was born with a heart murmur that cleared itself up so the little flaws (that they didn't even see) don't scare me.  Glad they ruled out the big ones!

They said that one baby was measuring a little small though.  About a 20% difference between the two.  I'm calling bullshit.  They were exactly the same size a week ago, just like they were 2 weeks before that, and all along since they existed.  And the one they claim was smaller was the one that's buried deeper so she's a little farther away from the ultrasound wand which might explain a slight appearance of being smaller.  I don't think that one would grow that significantly and leave the other that far behind over the course of a week.  And the doctor even said that the measurements have a 10% margin of error.  So if they measured one as 10% bigger than it is and the other as 10% smaller than it is, there's your 20% difference.  I'll have them check that next week when I'm back with my real doctor.

Yesterday was spent at the cardiologist to see what these little adrenaline rushes are.  I got to do an EKG and they checked my blood pressure half a dozen times.  When I talked to the doctor, he discussed a few heart monitor options.  But I'm not getting these attacks very often, certainly not enough to guarantee that a 24 hour monitor would catch one and there is some expense to wearing these machines.  Thanks to some BBC friends, I mentioned that one had experienced something similar due to her thyroid and that I was on synthroid, maybe I was being overdosed at this point or something?  So we opted to do bloodwork instead of the heart monitor since the bloodwork could indicate the source of the problem whereas the monitor would be more about showing him the symptom.  I also asked that my prolactin level be checked since I've had issues with that in the past.  The attacks feel like sudden stress, I know my prolactin elevates in times of stress, maybe I'm experiencing it backwards where my prolactin spikes and I then feel the stress?  I dunno.

But he called back today with the results.  My prolactin is through the roof - for a non pregnant person.  He was all freaked out about it at first because normal levels is 2-24 and mine was 121.  So then it dawned on me, duh!  Prolactin is what tells your body to produce milk!  It's probably elevated because I'm gonna need milk soon!  So he looked up normal levels for a pregnant woman and saw that normal is between 10-209.  So I'm right in the middle of that range.  But he's not an OB so he doesn't really know where it should fall.  He's forwarding the info to Dr. C so we can discuss it at my appointment next week.  But my thyroid is at ok levels, I'm slightly anemic so I'll probably be raising my iron intake.  But he saw no reason to move forward with the heart monitor.

I think this is one of those problems where you threaten to have someone qualified look at the problem, the problem gets scared and magically heals itself.  You know, like that sound your car makes until you threaten to take it to a mechanic.  Hopefully we've threatened my heart with enough doctors that it will just calm the fuck down on its own.

Day with baby class tomorrow.  All day learning just how ignorant I am about all this stuff.  Wheeee!!!!

The corner is turning

After our good news doctors appointment, K and I are thinking that we need to start accepting that we have to plan for these children and not just fantasize about them.

We talked last night and we're both pretty much in the same place.  We are being urged forward, but still holding ourselves back.  I think we're going to have to drag ourselves across that initial threshold of acceptance and once we get through that discomfort, we might be able to start enjoying the pregnancy a little bit.

So for the next 2 weeks, we're in dragging mode.  Kind of forcing ourselves to start doing stuff, even though we don't want to do it.  After that, we'll hit 24 weeks, we'll have kind of gone through the work of figuring out WHAT we need to do, and we're hoping that the emotional resistance will be broken down so we can start actually doing it.

Todays achievements - we solidified the names.  We knew we still liked Charlotte, but I wasn't really loving the name Christina anymore.  But K wants both of his girls back so he really wants to stick with Christina.  He rarely expresses an opinion so when he does, I generally go with it.  So we've officially decided that we're sticking with Charlotte and Christina.

We've also decided on middle names but I don't want identity thieves to use the info on this blog to use my girls names and eventual birth date to mess up their finances so I'll keep at least that to myself.

I've called my sister in law and she's sending me lists of what a new mom needs (in her experienced opinion) and what they'll be handing down.  K's parents have asked if they can buy us a double stroller and I'm perfectly happy to accept that as a gift.  That is one of those purchases that I could agonize over forever, trying to factor in every little detail from the size of our car trunk that it will have to fit in, to door size, to maneuverability, etc etc etc.  But if someone gives it to me as a gift, I can simply be grateful and if it's not the perfect choice, it won't bother me too much because I won't be kicking myself that I should have chosen something else.

The maternity clothes I bought have arrived, but only 1 shirt fits.  The rest will have to go back and I'll either get a refund or exchange them for larger sizes.

We were at Fred Meyer today and I got myself a short sleeved shirt that has a snap down front.  It fits me as I am at the moment, so I'm hoping it will fit me after I give birth.  Most of my wardrobe is tshirt style that is just one piece, so it won't really work for breastfeeding.  I'm keeping my eye out for shirts like this with easy boob access and picking them up here and there as I find them.  My mom is also good at sewing so I might go through my wardrobe and see what shirts can be sliced up the middle and given a zipper.

Next things to do - clean out the nursery and take stock of what we've already inherited.  I suspect our first furniture purchase will be a used dresser from somewhere so we can start putting clothes away.

Brown goo

Another trip to the doctor and another "everything's fine" diagnosis.

I was scheduled for my routine appointment on Monday but I started having some brown goo discharge.  There wasn't much of it, but it was different from the brown bleeding I'm accustomed to so I figured I should call it in.  Besides, Dr. Google kept saying things about mucous plugs and consult your real doctor.

I called early Friday morning and after a couple of hours of nurses consulting and calling me back to confirm what I was describing, they decided to have me come in that afternoon.  I texted K telling him that our Monday appointment was now that afternoon, but that it probably wasn't dire that he be there.

Even though I was pretty sure things would be routine, K shuffled his schedule all around so he could take me.  I asked him later why it's such a priority that he be at every appointment and his thinking is that if there's ever bad news, he doesn't want me to have to hear it alone.  I'm totally keeping him.

Anyway, no ultrasound video today because they were squeezing me in and I didn't want to push my luck.  But everything looks great.  Cervix is still measuring at 4.6 which is incredibly strong with twins at 22 weeks.  Babies were both active though not exactly doing cartwheels.  K got all grinny because Baby B was doing his signature dance move.  Unfortunately for the rest of us, he's a very white guy and his signature dance move looks something like this.

White Man Boogie

According to the doctor, everything is going as good as can be.  The brown goo isn't bleeding from the SCH - that's pretty much gone, but rather the cervix is likely a little irritated and so there's a smidge of blood mixing with cervical mucous.  Very common.

He did say that it's mostly after doing a little extra straining, or activity, or sex.  Of course, I've done none of these things.  I've stopped doing video work so I don't have to carry my camera equipment and most of my days are spent sitting on my ass, my only exercise being traveling to and fro from computer to fridge or bathroom.  So if my body is reacting as if I've been straining a little bit when I haven't, it helps me feel less guilty about removing all actual physical strain from my life.  Many twin moms are put on bedrest.  My doctor isn't a fan of bedrest, he feels it does more harm than good, so this whole pregnancy I'm existing somewhere between a self imposed bedrest and actually living like a normal person.  That basically boils down to being extremely lazy pretty much all the time.

I was smart this time and put a note in my phone about the things I wanted to ask the doctor about.  The headaches?  Take tylenol.  The heartburn?  Take prilosec.  The sudden heart races/pumping extra hard?  Ok, that one confused him a bit.  He displayed some concern and I'm going to make an appointment with a cardiologist next week to check that out.

Here's one I didn't know about - apparently there's some extra little risk in IVF pregnancies.  My brain seems to have blocked out what that risk is, but they are going to be sending me to Maternal Fetal Medicine for a series of ultrasounds between 22-24 weeks.  This will basically replace my usual 24 week appointment.  Whatever the risk is, it's very low, and MFM just wants to do a very comprehensive battery of tests and views and measurements to double check that all is well.  I told Dr. C that whatever they advise, or whatever extra medications etc they want to put me on, they'll need to go through him.  I hate having several different doctors recommending several different things so I really want all information and stuff filtering through one person.

Dr. C is predicting that I'll deliver around 34 weeks.  The average for twins is 34-37 weeks and that's a pretty healthy length of gestation.  I think he's telling me 34 because he doesn't want to be overly positive.  I'm kind of thinking 36.  Things are looking really good right now, and at the moment, there's no reason to anticipate premies.