Here Comes 2008!

It's 11:11pm on New Years Eve and I'm sitting here on the couch with Jefferson watching the Peach, I'm sorry, The Chik Fil-A Bowl. Exciting, huh? Ben has to work tonight, so I'm just hanging out at home. I'm fine with it, though. I'm too tired to have gone out tonight even if I did have something to do.

I went and spent some time today with my friend, Ticia, and her two month old son, Amani. Amani has the most awesome temperament. I was there for about two hours and he barely fussed at all the whole time I was there. He fussed once and Ticia told me to put him on my shoulder, so I did and within about 2 minutes he was asleep on my chest. He was so sweet. It made me anxious to meet my babies, but I can wait. Actually, I want to wait at least 26 weeks to meet my babies. I just hope we can make it that long.

A couple of girls from my message board had their twins this week- one had hers at 32 weeks 3 days and the other had hers at 31 weeks 1 day. I don't want my little ones born that early, but I'm already mentally preparing myself for the fact that it can happen that way. I'm also already mentally preparing myself for a c-section. I asked Ticia about it today because she had one and she said it wasn't too bad. She said she was sore for a few days, but other than that she said it wasn't bad. Actually, she said the worst part was that hers wasn't planned, so she labored for quite awhile before they decided to do a c-section since she wasn't dilating. And she was med-free until they decided to do the c-section...

So, I've decided what one of my New Years' resolutions is going to be. It's an odd one, though, not something most people would ever want to do, but I need to. My new years' resolution is to gain at least 30 pounds! That would put me at just about what Dr. Luke (the author of "When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets or Quads) says I should gain. Of course, I also hope that by the end of the year I'll have lost all of my baby weight, but we'll see if that actually happens.

Well, in 22 minutes it will be 2008. It's going to be an interesting year for us. It'll be an adventure! I just hope we handle it alright...

10 weeks

As of today I am 10 weeks pregnant. It's hard to believe that I'm already that far along, especially since I haven't gained much weight and I don't have much of a belly. I'm sure that will change soon enough, though.

I'm reading a book called "When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets or Quads." It's all about multiple pregnancies and the nutrition you need and weight gain and possible problems. It's really informative, but it's a lot to take in. According to the book I should be eating 3500 calories a day! That's insane! I don't know how I could ever eat that much! I'm eating as much as I can, though. The book also says that I should be drinking 8 16 ounce glasses of water each day. If I drink that much water I might as well just drink it in the bathroom because I'll be in there all the time anyway! I'm trying, though. I'm drinking as much as I can handle. But sometimes even water gives me indigestion, so I don't really want to drink it.

Ben and I went to see the movie "Juno" today. It's about a teenage girl who gets pregnant and decides to give the baby up for adoption rather than have an abortion. It was really good. It only made me, the hormonal pregnant mess that I am, cry once and that was when the baby was born. I think the whole emotion behind the baby being born just got to me. It's hard to believe that in 6 months or so I'll be giving birth to two babies!

We may go out tomorrow and look at baby stuff for the first time. We won't get anything, but at least we can get an idea of what is out there and what we may want to get for the babies...

Ugh, pregnancy hormones!

I'm heard about how pregnancy makes you hormonal, but I never realized how bad it would be. I can just be sitting here doing whatever and all of a sudden I feel like I'm going to cry. And sometimes I do cry- there's nothing I can do about it. Music also makes me tear up. It's nuts!

I was driving with Jefferson out to my parents' house the other day for my dad's birthday lunch and I was listening to Christmas music. At one point I was singing along to "Santa Claus (Pug) is Coming to Town" performed by Bruce Springsteen and I started to tear up. I don't know what's wrong with me. I guess it was just a combination of hormones and thinking about next Christmas when we'll have two little ones celebrating their first Christmas. That still seems so bizarre to me. I still can't get my head around the fact that I'm carrying twins- or really that I'm pregnant at all.

I don't feel pregnant. Other than being tired all the time and being nauseous ocassionally, I don't have any symptoms. I did throw up for the first time last night. I started feeling awful just before we were getting ready to eat dinner. Ben fixed me a plate of mashed potatoes, chicken and baked apples. I ate all of the potatoes and a little of the other stuff. Then I went and sat on the couch and ate some crackers because I knew I needed to eat something. I felt a little better after that, but then when I went up to get ready for bed I ended up throwing up everything I had eaten. Oh well. Hopefully it was just a one time thing, but who knows? I still have plenty of time to deal with morning sickness... From what I've read, it lasts longer with twin pregnancies. Fun fun fun.

1st OB Appointment

We had our first OB appointment on Wednesday, except it was with a mid-wife at my normal ob/gyn practice. Neither one of us got a good feeling from the appointment. I was told to be there 20 minutes early for the appointment, but then only had to sign one sheet of paper. Our appointment was at 2:50, but we didn't get called back until about 3:30 and that was just to get my blood pressure and weight taken. Then we were sent back to the waiting room. Before we went to the waiting room I asked to use the bathroom, so I went. Then a little later when we were taken back to a room I was told by the same girl I asked about using the bathroom, that they needed a urine sample. Gee, that would have been nice to know before I went to the bathroom...

Then we sat in the room for probably 20 minutes or so. The nurse gave me some paperwork to fill out (why I couldn't fill that out in the waiting room, I don't know.) and she did a TB test on me. But forgot to bring gauze for after the injection. She was really flighty and didn't seem to have any idea what she was doing.

Finally, the mid-wife came in and I'm not sure she even introduced herself. She looked at the results of my first 2 ultrasounds, which I had brought with me, and told us a little about how often we would have appointments. But she wasn't real clear about any of that. She asked if we had any questions, but neither of us could really think of any. We wanted someone to tell us what we have to do, not to have us ask questions. We've never done this before- and I would hope that they have.

The mid-wife said something about me coming back in two weeks and I mentioned that I have an appointment with a high risk OB in two weeks so she told me to come back there in 3 weeks. She doesn't know who will manage my care during this pregnancy. That will be decided by the high risk doctor. She also suggested a different high risk doctor for me to go to. We may try the new high risk doctor, but I want to talk to Colleen and/or Dr. Browne about it first. For now, though, I'm keeping my appointment on January 3rd with the high risk OB Dr. Browne recommended.

I got 5 vials of blood drawn and gave my urine sample, made my next appointment and then we were done. I think it was after 4 when we finally left, but not because we spent a lot of time with the mid-wife...

We were both really annoyed by the whole experience and we're thinking about finding a new OB. I tried to call Colleen yesterday to ask her about OB recommendations, but she's out of the office until next week. I'll try her again next week and see if I can get a good recommendation from her and also to ask about the high risk OB the mid-wife suggested.

I'm already annoyed by this whole process and I'm only 9 weeks pregnant. What am I going to be like when I'm 29 weeks pregnant? That reminds me, the mid-wife also told me not to expect to work past 28 weeks. I haven't broken that to Chris or John yet. I'm going to wait until I see the high risk OB and see what they have to say. Hopefully we'll get an ultrasound at that appointment so that we can see that the babies are doing alright. I'm a little anxious to see them again and see how much they've grown...

On a happier note- I called Beth and Mollie last night and told them the news. They're both very excited for us. I love calling people and giving them that news. It's such a fun phone call!

2nd Ultrasound

We had our second ultrasound on Tuesday. After we waited for about an hour in the waiting room they were finally ready for us. Dr. Browne had been in with another patient, so we had to wait. Jan (my favorite tech) kept coming out and letting us know what was going on.

Dr. Browne found the babies right away and their little hearts were beating away. One's heartrate was 142 and the other was 152. She said they looked good. She could not tell if there is a membrane between them, but it could still be too early for that. They're very close together, though, which I think concerned Dr. Browne a little. I posted on a multiples message board about not being able to see the membrane and a lot of those women said that they couldn't see theirs until somewhere around 14 or 16 weeks or even later and even then it was difficult to see.

She released us to my OB. We have our first OB appointment next Wednesday. She also referred us to a high risk OB, also known as a perinatologist or MFM (maternal fetal medicine). I made an appointment with them for January 3rd. They'll have a higher resolution ultrasound machine, so hopefully they'll be able to see the dividing membrane. They'll also be able to answer our questions and concerns about the membrane and everything else involved in this pregnancy.

It was sad leaving Shady Grove on Tuesday. We don't get to go back there for anything. I'm going to miss those women! I've seen them so much over the last few months it's just sad that I don't get to see them anymore. They did ask that we send pictures of the babies, though. I was actually almost in tears when we left, but I think that was a mixture of a little fear, sadness and the fact that I felt awful that day.

Here's a shot of the twins from Tuesday:

In this picture you can see the two separate babies, but the picture isn't real clear. Hopefully we'll get another ultrasound next week and get better pictures from that.

I haven't really had any pregnancy symptoms other then being exhausted all the time. It's like no matter how much I sleep, I'm still tired all the time. And I have occasional bouts of nausea, normally after I eat, which I think is odd. But so far it hasn't been bad at all, other than Monday night and Tuesday morning. Hopefully it'll stay that way. I sure hope I didn't just jinx myself...

Oh Dear God, it's TWINS!!!

I had my first ultrasound this morning at 6 weeks 2 days. At first the doctor said that it looked like there was just one because there was just one sac. She showed us the little heart beating away and then she started working on measurements. At which point she said, "Ooh, I see something else in there." That freaked me out, but then she clarified and said there were two babies in one sac. Then I really started to freak out! Apparently I had one egg fertilize and implant and split into two- identical twins. I'm already freaking out about being able to tell them apart. Ben and I are really excited, but freaked out at the same time. But as
Ben said- we're both over acheivers, so it makes sense that when we do get pregnant that egg/sperm combo had to be an overacheiver and split.

Dr. Browne was sure to point out that this has nothing to do with the fertility treatments we went through but is just something that happens sometimes. Identicals are no more common in fertility patients than in normal fertile people pregnancies.

I go back in next week and hopefully we'll see that they're in separate sacs- it was too early to tell today. I'm still in shock. Ben and I went to lunch after that appointment and I could barely eat, I was too freaked out. There are two living things inside of my body right now! I can't believe that. We talked a little bit about what we're freaked out about. Pretty much finances won that battle. How in the world are we going to pay for two kids? And where are we going to put them? Our house is not that big. We'll figure it all out, though, I know we will.

I talked to my parents a little while ago. They're both really excited about the twins. It's going to be interesting, that's for sure...

Here's a picture from today's ultrasound. As you can see, this is the shot where Dr. Browne actually labelled the babies so you can see where each one is.

Oh no- spotting!

I'm trying to remain calm, but I am freaked out a little bit. When I went to the bathroom before bed last night there was some dark blood on my panty liner and I had some brown spotting when I wiped. I'm stilling having brown spotting today, but it's all been brown, so I'm pretty sure everything is fine. I'll just feel a heck of a lot better if things go well at the ultrasound tomorrow. Ben didn't sleep last night because of the spotting. I think he's a little freaked out, too. But lots of women have spotting early in their pregnancies and everything is fine. Everything I've read this morning from the girls on he nest said that as long as it's not bright red blood then there's nothing to worry about. And this has definitely not been bright red blood.

My mom called this morning to see if I wanted to go shopping and when I told her I didn't think so, she asked why. So I told her about the spotting. She asked if I had called the doctor. I have not. I mean, I'm going in tomorrow, so I'll just wait until my appointment to talk to Dr. Browne. If it gets worse today or turns bright red, then I'll call, but I'm sure it won't get worse. I'm sure everything will be fine. I know it will.

I just went back and looked at an e-mail I sent Christi from the day I triggered for this IUI. I had two follicles on my left ovary- 1 at 22mm and 1 at 15mm. My right ovary had nothing over 10mm. Apparently it decided to take the month off, but that's okay because my left one did the work. I was just reading a post on the SaIF board about follicle size for IUIs. There are a couple of girls on there that had one big follicle and 15mm follicles before they triggered and are pregnant with multiples. That kind of freaks me out a little. I was thinking that there was a very, very slight chance of me having multiples, but I guess it's not as slight as I thought. I'm pretty sure it's still pretty slight, though. But we'll know for sure tomorrow.