18 Weeks

It's freezing and there's snow outside, so I'm taking pictures inside.  Probably from here on out.  Sorry.

My belly sure is growing fast these days!  I am feeling quite large, which I know is sad because the expanding has just begun.  I weigh the most I've ever weighed in my entire life right now, so take it easy on me, okay?  Today I decided it was time to pack away my clothes with structured waists and shirts that are getting too short.  I still have tons of non-maternity clothes that fit just fine though, and I can strangely still button up all but one pair of my jeans just fine.  I have my maternity clothes stored in the other bedroom until I actually need them.  It still freaks me out how my belly gets way bigger throughout the day, and then in the morning it's smaller again.  So weird.  (I take my belly pictures in the middle of the day, so it's kind of middle ground.)

A quick note about the nausea and vomiting: nausea is unchanged, and vomiting is back to it's once-weekly pattern.  How fun.

I'm starting to have some pain in the tailbone area.  My mom says that might mean I'm carrying in my back.  I told her with twins I'll probably be carrying them EVERYWHERE haha.

I bought my first baby clothes this week!  I got a set of onesies and then a set with a onesie, jacket, and pants.  I'm not planning on buying much, but I really wanted a few pieces that I knew I would absolutely love.  There are some really ugly baby clothes out there.  We also purchased some cloth diapers!  We bought a small stash so we can try them out and see if we like it.  They have great re-sell value, so even if we decide we hate it we should be able to recoup about what we spent.  We hope it will work out, because it will save us SO MUCH MONEY on diapers.  Really, the amount of money you need to spend on diapers for twins is INSANE, and we are looking for any good ways to save money that we can possibly find.

I'm feeling like it's time to start getting serious about all this baby stuff.  I have so much to plan and do, and I don't have as much time left as I would if there were only one baby.  Decorating and finding furniture for the nursery, choosing a childbirth class, figuring out insurance, thinking about my choices for delivery, deciding what baby stuff we'd like to buy, deciding on carseats (this one is so hard!), and so much more!

The babies are supposedly around 5 and a half inches each, not counting the legs.  Not sure why they don't include the legs, but whatever.  They yawn and hiccup, and maybe even suck their thumbs.  Awwwww.  They are so cute already.

17 Weeks, AKA 4 Months

This week I will be four months pregnant!  How cool is that?

I had my 16 week appointment last Tuesday, and I'm afraid we're not so sure on the gender of 'downstairs' baby anymore.  'Upstairs' baby has not changed on us though.  Twin ultrasounds are extremely confusing.  It is really hard to tell which baby you are looking at, and they were wiggling and flipping around so much!  I thought it was really funny how the doctor kept poking my belly to make them move the way he wanted them to.  He was actually surprised I hadn't felt them yet since they are so active.  I blame it on the fact that my stomach is always rumbling and churning, so I have no way of differentiating what is baby and what is just my stomach.  So I will now have to be patient and wait for my 20 week appointment to know both genders for sure.  Three more weeks.  Wish me luck!  I was pretty happy with what he had told me before, so I'm using this time to prepare myself so I won't feel too upset if it changes on me.

My doctor told me to take vitamin B6 since my nausea isn't going away on its own.  I think it is helping some.  I still have some pretty bad days, but on a good day I only feel sick for an hour or two out of the day.  Hopefully things will continue to get better.  I would really love to feel like a normal, mostly functional human being before I get too large. 

My babies are apparently replacing cartilage with bone this week, which I didn't even realize they were made of cartilage before.  So that's cool.  They're five inches long from the top of their heads to their bottoms!  Although 'upstairs' baby was actually measuring about a week ahead of 'downstairs' baby, so maybe that one's a little bigger.  Who knows. 

16 Weeks

My belly has definitely grown this week.  My mom swears it grew from when she saw me on Thursday until she saw me Saturday.  Yesterday I wore a flowy shirt since I think fitted shirts totally make me look pregnant now.  Or maybe just chubby, I dunno.

I've developed lovely pregnancy rhinitis which makes me sleep with my mouth open and wake up with a scratchy throat.  It's not that bad though.  What is frustrating is that, yes, the nausea is still sticking around.  I am so grateful that it has been almost two weeks since I last lost my lunch though.  So maybe things are looking up???  I am trying so hard to find some magic formula that will keep me feeling good, but I haven't found it yet.  I think I need to face the possibility that I will be one of the unlucky ladies that doesn't ever get over the nausea until they deliver.  It is not an easy thing to accept.  Blake may or may not have come home to me crying on the bathroom floor when I wanted to just throw up and get it over with but couldn't, and didn't think I could do this for five more months.  Pregnant women, are they crazy or what?

I had no idea how hard it would be to pick what stuff to buy for the babies.  I've spent so much time on it and feel like I've gotten nowhere.  I'm mostly tackling car seats and strollers, which are hard as it is, but adding twins into the mix makes it 1000x harder.  That and how our one car is a Prius and thus won't fit really big car seats and strollers.  I think once I get that figured out I will feel much better.

I have gathered up quite the stockpile of maternity clothes thanks to finding lots of extremely awesome sales.  I've got like six dresses or so for between $4-$9 each.  I found a pair of maternity jeans for $6.  And lots of other awesome steals too.  I haven't bought anything that I don't really love or is a basic.  I think I will need one more pair of maternity jeans, since the ones I got have a low panel, but I think they will work for quite a while.  All of my regular clothes are still fitting, but I'm sure that won't be true for long. 

My next prenatal appointment is TOMORROW!!!  I am so excited and nervous, because this is the week he can give us the 100% instead of 99% sure on the genders.  So I'll be announcing what flavors the babies are very, very soon!!!

Hello World! and 15 Week Update

Hello everyone and welcome to my weekly pregnancy update!  I've been keeping a little pregnancy journal of sorts since we found out we were expecting, and now I finally get to publish it.  If you missed our announcement, you can go see that here: http://blakeamanda.blogspot.com/2014/10/5th-anniversary-trip-to-california.html

So, here's all the big details:

Due date: April 27, 2015, but since it's twins, I will be delivering by 38 weeks instead of 40.  More than half of twins are born premature, so we are hoping to make it to late March through mid April.

When we found out we were pregnant: August 14th.  I was only 3 weeks 3 days pregnant, according to my due date.  You can read about that here: http://blakeamanda.blogspot.com/2014/11/im-pregnant.html

When we found out it was twins: At our 8 week appointment on September 16th.  You can read about that here: http://blakeamanda.blogspot.com/2014/11/september-22-9-weeks.html

Do we know the genders: Yes!  At our 12 week appointment our doctor gave us a 99% guarantee.  I trust him because he was able to tell my sister's gender at 12 weeks as well.  (Yes, I'm using the same doctor as my mom did with her last pregnancy.  Kinda weird, right?)  I will be putting up a post soon about our gender reveal party including a video!

Morning sickness:  Oh yes.  And at 15 weeks it is still not gone.  I am grateful that I haven't thrown up more than once a week though.  It's mostly been nausea.

Baby bump: While my stomach is definitely larger than it once was, it would not be apparent to people that don't know me well.  I have been taking weekly pictures (except weeks 6 & 7 when I was too sick to pull myself together for a picture) so you can see that progress.  As I am in the second trimester now, I expect my belly to start expanding rapidly any day now.

How I feel about all this: I feel so, so lucky to get to have twins!  Only about 1-3% of births are multiples.  I am so grateful that after a wait we are able to have this opportunity.  I like to say it's God's way of catching us up.  I am also very scared and unsure of my ability to survive a twin pregnancy and raise two babies at the same time!  I am doing my best to put my faith in God right now and trust in His judgement and that he will help us make it through.

What this means for Campbell Photography:  I was so grateful to be able to take my first trimester off of work.  I knew that I couldn't do my best work feeling the way I did.  I will be doing photography again throughout my second trimester, and we'll play things by ear for the third trimester.  After that, I will be having a longer-than-usual maternity leave due to there being two newborns instead of one.  For everyone who will support my business during my second (and maybe third) trimester, I thank you, and my unborn children thank you.  ;)

What this means for this blog: I will be posting a weekly update about the pregnancy, and probably backing off some on the other parts of my blog.  I will try to throw in something different every once in a while though.

How you can read my older weekly pregnancy updates: Click on the Twin Pregnancy tab at the top of the blog.  This will show you all posts I've published about the pregnancy.

If you have had twins or multiples recently and have some advice for me, I'd love to hear it!  It's so much harder to find information about twin pregnancy, gear, care, etc.

Okay, I think that's it.  If you have other questions, feel free to ask!  Now, onto my 15 week update.

My Halloween costume.  Mummy of two!

The babies are about 4 inches long each!  That seems so big.  How do they both fit in there?  

I am pretty bummed that I'm still dealing with morning sickness.  I guess you shouldn't pay attention to what normally happens since pregnancy is such a crazy thing to begin with.  Eating pretty much anything makes me feel awful.  Which is weird because it keeps switching between food=bad and food=good (when I had to keep food in my stomach to keep from getting sick.)

My favorite weekly pregnancy update I've read is for this week.  I have at least 5 different weekly updates I get on apps or emails.  I might be a little obsessed.  But this Pregnant Chicken one kills me (love the name Pregnant Chicken btw.) "...(the baby) moves away from light if you beam a flashlight on your belly (I like to think it makes a hissing noise while doing it.)"  That just puts the funniest visual in my head.