27 Weeks: Hello 3rd Trimester!

I am so happy to be writing another weekly post!  At my appointment a few days ago my doctor said that things appear to be about where they were last week, maybe even a tiny bit better, which is good news.  We just didn't want to see it get any worse.  (Side note, baby B has flipped over and is now head down too.  We'll see how long that lasts.)  He's having me keep up with the bed rest at least until I see the perinatologist this week and see what they say.  My doctor says I've got him worried but he's staying very optimistic and still has hope that we won't see any more changes for a long time.

I want to give a huge thank you to the people who have gone out of their way to bring us dinner or call me so I had someone to talk to or show their support in any way.  I have felt so loved, and am blown away by people's generosity.  Thank you thank you thank you!

So, I've survived my first week and a half on bedrest now.  I don't know how much longer they'll keep me on it, but I just try not to think about it.  I'm scared they'll keep me on it for the next two months but also scared they'll take me off too early and I'll end up having these babies too soon.  The unknowns of the future are ominous and it's best to focus on taking care of myself and the babies right now.  I feel like I am doing a really good job of keeping myself positive, all things considered.  I do my best to visualize staying pregnant until I'm full term and taking the babies home from the hospital with us!  I'm trying to not let myself get bored and to find something productive to do every day so it doesn't feel like I'm wasting all of my time.  I put on real clothes every day because it makes me feel less like I'm sick or something.  I only get up to shower or use the restroom, and keep most of my body horizontal on my side the rest of the time.  My body is sore and I feel like a total lazy bum, but it could definitely be worse!  Poor Blake has to get me all my food and water and try to keep the housework somewhat done.  And he hasn't even complained.  I'm a lucky girl.

I'm so glad these boys are so active.  I love feeling them move and knowing they're okay.  Even when they're doing weird things to my rib cage or my internal organs.  The coolest thing is when I can actually feel their body parts sticking out of my stomach!  The other day there was something like an elbow or knee sticking out, and then this morning I felt something huge.  It must have been a baby butt (or maybe a head if one of them flipped over again) because it was so big.  Blake got to feel it too. :)

It's so exciting to be in the third trimester now!  Every day makes a difference, and every week is a big milestone.  Come on babies, we can do this!  Full term!

26 Weeks: 6 Months

This week has worn on me a bit...

I wish I could say this week was better than last.  I went in for my appointment on Friday and things were looking worse, bad enough that my doctor decided to send me over to the hospital for monitoring and a round of steroid shots to develop the babies' lungs.  I made the poor lady at the front desk of Labor & Delivery cry when I arrived there scared and had a hard time remembering my due date.  We got the first shot done and my first ever IV put in (I am terrified of needles, btw) and spent a few hours on the monitor in triage.  My doctor decided they should keep me over night until my next dose 24 hours after the first one.  So, we got to enjoy a terrible night in a not very good hotel called the postpartum/antepartum ward.  In the morning, we did some more monitoring (the poor nurse stood there for 20 minutes chasing the babies around with the monitors, those boys will not hold still) and it was determined that I could go home after the steroid shot that afternoon, for which I am so grateful.  I will admit that I am missing the ability to tilt my bed with the press of a button though. After we got home from the hospital, my dad came over to help Blake give me a blessing.

So for now, my orders are to take it super, super easy.  Spend most of my time lying down, but being sure to get up enough that I'm not going to get blood clots.  Absolutely no going to the store or anything like that.  No housework.  Keep a close eye on my contractions to make sure they're not getting more frequent and make sure the babies are moving lots.  The babies are only about 2 lbs each right now, which is much too small to be born yet.  They are, however, a good size for how far along we are, considering it's twins and all, so I am glad that all the healthy food I have been eating (and some unhealthy too, I'm not perfect) and weight I've been gaining have been going to a good cause.  My doctor said his initial goal is to get us to 28-30 weeks for starters, so at least until we make it that far we are going the super careful route.  He's hoping to get us a good amount farther than that, but thinks my chances of reaching the full 38 are almost zero.  I'll be in to see him again this week, and hopefully we will see some improvement this time, or at least not any worse.

Laying down a lot is hard.  It wouldn't be so bad except it has unleashed hellfire in my throat, terrible terrible acid reflux/heartburn.  Sometimes it feels like someone shoved a knife down my throat.  I woke up in the middle of the night Saturday choking to death on acid, so I have built myself quite the nest in my bed so I'm not laying down flat, but sleeping that way isn't exactly fun.  Anything I put in my stomach calls up the angry demons and none of the remedies I have tried have worked.  I'll just do my best to eat as slowly as I can and stay as upright as possible while still keeping the babies' weight where it needs to be, because those seem to be the only things that make the slightest difference.

I am so grateful that the babies are developing and growing well.  That is the big bright spot among all of this.  Every movement I feel from them is reassuring.  I am doing my best to stay positive, keep my mind busy with other things, and not worry too much.  (I may not be doing so well at that at the moment.)  I feel like we're doing everything we can, and the rest is in God's hands.  Here's hoping that I will get to write lots more of these weekly updates, 10 more would be fantastic.  Every day they keep cooking makes a difference.  Stay in, babies!

25 Weeks

About two to three pounds of babies in there.  I think I'm in the 'cute belly' stage where it's obvious I'm pregnant but I don't look like I'm going to explode yet.  Haha.

Well, we sure had a crazy week.  We had a bit of a scare that resulted in a consultation with my OB after my anatomy scan (due to the tech seeing something that required his attention), a visit with a perinatologist (aka maternal-fetal medicine specialist or high-risk OB), a late night trip to the hospital, and another visit with my OB.  I guess this is a good reminder that they call twin pregnancies high risk for a reason.  I ended up having a (not fun) test done that, if you get a negative, means that there is almost no chance you will go into labor within the next two weeks, and luckily I did get a negative.  I am feeling so grateful and relieved right now.  My doctor is going to keep closer tabs on me from here on out to make sure we keep those babies in there.  I have three more appointments scheduled for the next three weeks, one with the perinatologist and two with my OB.  But he is optimistic and is very confident that everything will be just fine.  I am so glad we have such a great doctor, someone who is careful and watchful but also doesn't jump to conclusions and start intervening when there may be no real cause for alarm.  My appointment with him on Friday made me feel so much better after having a very stressful and scary few days.  He thinks it's entirely possible that we won't see any more changes until we're close to full term.  So for now we're going to watch and wait.

Having said that, let's go back to the beginning of the week, the big anatomy ultrasound.  This was definitely the coolest one to date.  I finally know approximately where my babies are, and can make a better guess about who I'm feeling (though I could be wrong because they are very close together.)  The ultrasound tech was really fun.  She named baby A 'Aragorn' and baby B 'Boromir' since we haven't really figured out name assignments quite yet.  Baby A has his head way down super low in my belly (hooray for A being head down!), and his legs up by my ribs towards the middle right side of my body.  Baby B's head is near baby A's feet, and he seems to like to put his feet up by his face sometimes and down low in my belly at other times.  The crazy thing is that even though they are in separate sacs, they can still touch each other.  The tech said to think of the layer of sac between them as cellophane.  We watched them kick each other and sometimes they would raise their arms to try to protect themselves.  They are beating up each other already!  Sibling rivalry!  I love the 4-D ultrasound they have because you can see so much better what the babies look like.  They are so adorable and actually look like little babies!  I'm so in awe of them and how cute they are.  And the good news is they are developing super well and have a good amount of fluid and their organs all look normal.  One of them is measuring right on with our due date and one is a few days ahead, just like they were before, which is fantastic.

My favorite picture of the day.  You can see my sweet baby's little nose, mouth, and chin, and his brother's foot kicking him right in the cheek.  I might have my hands full with these two.

You can see the whole head, facing to the left.  He has his mouth open and his hand near his mouth.  The tech said he might have been sucking his thumb right before this.  Awwww

So I guess in summary, I'm feeling very grateful right now. 

24 Weeks

I intended to wear my black maternity maxi dress, but when I put it on, it was so billowy and huge that it made me feel like a cow.  So, back to my non-maternity black maxi dress we go.  I'm thinking that the maternity one will fit me later when I'm bigger???  I'll pull it out in a month or so to re-assess.  Speaking of maternity, I'm mixing in a few pieces, but most of them are still just too big, which is ridiculous because I'm feeling pretty pregnant right now.

Out of curiosity, I decided to find out how to measure my fundal height so I knew how many weeks I'm measuring.  I don't know how accurate I was, but I did it a few times and got a measurement of about 29-31 weeks.  So what that means is that if I had one baby, I'd be this size at about 29-31 weeks instead of 24.  This is right around where I'm supposed to be with twins (about 6-8 weeks ahead), so I was happy to see that.

24 weeks is a big deal because it's known as the week of viability.  What that means is that at this point, if the babies were born they have about a 50% chance of surviving.  Every week from here on out raises their odds by about 10%.  This isn't something that would really be on my radar if I was having a low-risk pregnancy, but with twins it's definitely something to celebrate.  I want to keep these boys cooking as long as possible!

The bad stuff: The pelvic pain is really no fun at all.  Walking is difficult, flipping over in bed is terrible, stairs are hard (we've got lots of those in our house.)  I'm still exercising but some poses/moves I have to skip over entirely because it hurts too bad.  I'm kind of bummed I'm not seeing my doctor again until my 28 week appointment to make sure there's nothing else I can do.  I called in to the nurses and they just told me it's a normal thing and not to worry about it.  I'm struggling to find the balance between being active enough and not hurting myself.  Just going out for a couple hours worth of errands has become enough to leave me in tears at the end of the day from frustration and pain.  I am grateful that this isn't a problem that affects the babies at all though, and let's be honest, there's lots of things that leave me in tears these days.

I'm starting to try to visualize what life will be like with two newborns.  I feel so unprepared and honestly like it might just kill me.  I know it's ridiculous, but facing being a first-time mother of two little ones makes a person feel very inadequate.  I'm trying to think about baby cuddles and the cute little sounds they make instead, and remind myself that ALL I have to do is focus on getting their most basic needs taken care of and NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.  My house will be a disaster and we definitely won't cook anything and I'll never leave the house and I will look and feel terrible, but it DOESN'T MATTER.  Just think about laying around the house, snuggling two little babies.  That sounds nice.

Tomorrow is our big fancy anatomy scan.  They booked me for two slots because there's two babies, so I will be there a long time.  The babies move around so much and kick so hard (hard enough to move my arm or a book if it's resting on my belly), it will be fun to see what they're doing in there and finally know who is where.  I'm grateful the gestational diabetes test isn't until 28 weeks because I am nervous about that.  Can you tell I'm an anxious person? haha

My awesome cousins came over on New Year's Eve to spend the night and celebrate.  I spend lots of time alone and it gets lonely, so having company over was fantastic!  They were happy to just chill around the house since I'm not up for doing much, and they even made dinner and cleaned up all the dishes, all while making sure I was comfortable.  They are so sweet and it meant so much to me.