5/31/07

Well I had another growth scan on Tuesday. My dad came with me this time. My parents have decided that they don't like the idea of me going to my appointments alone anymore. I don't mind them coming to the growth scans though because those are the ones where they might potentially tell me to head to the hospital for emergency C-section. So anyways, the girls both look good. Baby B is now 5 lbs. (YIKES) and Baby A is 4 lbs. For a second they were a bit concerned about Baby A's leg growth from the last scan to this one because there wasn't much change, but then after graphing her leg growth overall they decided that they probably mis-measured last time. They both look like they have plenty of fluid, and Baby A's cord blood flow has actually improved so that's great! So everything looked good and healthy and normal. Yay! I still can't believe I'm carrying around 9 lbs of baby inside of me… no wonder I feel so uncomfortable!

5/25/07

Had another Dr's appt. yesterday and the babies are both doing just fine. They've turned and are no longer transverse, YAY!!!! Let me tell you, two babies going sideways is NOT COMFIE!!! So now Baby A is breech, and Baby B is head down. And even though their current position would still mean c-section for me I'm just happy that I'm more comfortable. And my guess would be they're more comfortable too.

Also the Dr. said that my cervix is long and closed, and I'm not having any Braxton hicks contractions, so therefore my body is handling the pregnancy very well and I'm looking good for carrying them the long haul. Only thing that would bring them early would be if Baby A slows down or stops growing. My next growth scan will be next week, so we'll see what they have to say then.

5/15/07

We had a bit of a scare yesterday. I went in for my regularly scheduled NST (non-stress test) and the nurse had a hard time finding Baby A's heartbeat. So they did a quickie ultrasound and found her all scrunched up down in the bottom of my uterus and Baby B was taking up all the rest of the space. But they did find Baby A's heartbeat and measured her amniotic fluid and her umbilical cord blood flow. They thought her blood flow was too high and her fluid was too low, so they sent me over to maternal fetal medicine that afternoon for a full growth scan. They also let me know that they would contact the Dr. on call and let her know what's going on and warn her that I might need an emergency c-section that day. Yikes!!! So I called my dad first because he's retired and I knew he'd be available to at least come and hang out with me until my appt. And then I got ahold of DJ and his boss let him get out of work so he came too. So the three of us went out to lunch to kill time before my appointment.

At maternal fetal medicine they did the full growth scan. There's actually some good news, Baby A is now in the 32nd percentile (she was in the 28th percentile 3 weeks ago) and according to their machines her fluid was just fine. Her umbilical cord flow rate is higher than they'd like to see, but not dangerous at this point. They are now both transverse, Baby B is at the top of my uterus and Baby A is at the bottom. They did think Baby A was in a tough position, but they didn't seem to think it was anything to be worried about. So no c-section for me yet. YAY! I was so worried they'd send me directly to the OR. I know it wouldn't be the end of the world to have them at this point, but it's certainly not ideal either. So we'll see what they say at my next appointment on Thursday. In the meantime DJ says my assignment for today is to pack a hospital bag.

5/1/07

I've decided that I'm done with my cooking days. I just can't be on my feet for that long anymore. My mom says she's going to cook up some freezer meals for me and if she does that should finish up to my goal of 60 meals.

The baby shower was really fun! We got lots of great stuff. My mom went overboard (as usual) and gave us 2 months of diaper service, 2 diaper pails (one for upstairs and one for downstairs), some disposables and wipes, and diaper rash ointment. And she let it slip that for my next shower (on Saturday) that she's going to give us the stroller and car seats. Woo hoo! Genette got me my diaper bag from my registry and completely filled it with all kinds of great stuff: nursing pads, nursing shawl, preemie outfits with hats and mitts, health care kit, pacifiers, etc. All kinds of stuff! Rita & Lindsey who had recently been on vacation in Hawaii gave us two little Hawaiian sun dresses that will fit perfect next year. I got a bunch of other cute outfits and money too. Plus my mom made me a sugar free blueberry cheesecake using splenda so I actually got to partake in desert! Yippie! It's amazing what they can make with splenda and how many products you can find that are sugar free or low sugar, makes me super glad I didn't have GD say 20 years ago.

I swear, my belly is SO HUGE, and it's just gonna get bigger. Yikes! Last week I measured 33 weeks! I seriously look like I'm about to give birth any day now except that I have 2 months to go. DJ swears that my belly grows overnight. I’ve grown out of all the clothes Karin loaned me, and I’m now wearing XL maternity t-shirts and L dress shirts.

4/28/07

Well I had a peri appt. on Thursday along with u/s. He said that they both look healthy and normal, except for the fact that Baby A is so much smaller than Baby B. But this time Baby A was up to 28th percentile, which is great! He said that if Baby A was a singleton we wouldn't even be talking about her health. Baby B is up to 64th percentile. He says I'm still at a low risk of pre-term labor, the only reason they'd be born early is if Baby A looks like she's in distress or stops growing the way she should. So that sounds promising and I'm really just not going to worry about it.

My first baby shower is tomorrow, I'm so excited! The next one will be next weekend at my house, so we're working on cleaning things up and putting stuff back in order after our whirlwind weekend last week.

DJ got to feel a really strong kick last night for the first time, so that was fun. Before he just felt sort of a bump which wasn't as exciting.

Pregnancy Journal 4/10/07

Well, my appt. was very interesting to say the least. It was about a two hour ultrasound and then after that another 30 min. or so with a parrinatologist (sp). Both the babies were wide awake and not making it easy to get certain measurements. In fact when we started the ultrasound baby B was transverse and by the end she was breech! So lots of movement going on which was fun to see. :) Didn't get many pictures though because it was strictly a medical ultrasound.

The Dr. was very detailed in explaining things to us. He said that there are three main things that Dr.'s worry about with twins. First, pre-term labor. He said that I'm at a very low risk for PTL because my cervix measures 4cm and usually they're happy to see 3cm so that's a huge positive! Second he said they worry about pre-eclampsia. My blood pressure is always great whenever I go in, and I told him that I'm simply just not going to have that problem. I've decided. :P He said, "Ok, we'll just mark that complication off the list then." And then thirdly the thing that they worry about is growth problems.

He said growth problems can be caused by three issues in fraternal twins. One is a virus, which he said is not an issue in my situation. If it was there would be other obvious problems with both babies and there isn't. Two is a chromosome abnormality. He said that in 95% of cases with chromosome problems there are also other visible defects in the baby, and he said that other than her size Baby A looks perfectly healthy so he said he'd be VERY surprised if that were the case here. Three is some sort of placenta problem. He said at this point he can't really tell if there is a problem with Baby A's placenta, but that as time goes on it would become more obvious if there was. He said it could just be that Baby A's placenta implanted in the uterus in a place where the circulation isn't as good. And he said that since the babies came from separate eggs that it could just be that the two babies inherited different genetics that play a roll in how big or small they will be.

He said the good news is that since my cervix is so long that we have plenty of time for Baby A to grow enough to be healthy. He said that at some point I may want to have an amino test to verify that there is no chromosome problem with Baby A, but at this point he said that was too risky. He said right now he only has one point of info, so he'd like me to come back and have another ultrasound there in 2-3 weeks to check on Baby A's growth.

Pregnancy Journal 4/9/07

We had an ultrasound on Monday that confirmed for sure that we are having two girls. So now we just have to nail down names! We’ve pretty much agreed upon Anya for a first name for one of them, and we were toying with Elsa for the other one but DJ nixed it. So now we’re back to the drawing board. I’d really like their middle names to be Jean & Lynn after our mom’s middle names. I think that’d be an awesome gift for our moms. But really we’re undecided, so we’ll see.

At our ultrasound they discovered that Baby A isn’t growing like she should. Last time she measured in the 11th percentile, and this time she measured in the 6th. So I have an appointment with maternal fetal medicine today to run more tests and find out what’s going on. They did say that all her systems look healthy. They measured the flow of the umbilical cord and it was the same for both babies, which is a good sign that they’re getting enough nutrition. And just to reassure me, she was moving around like crazy yesterday, probably more than I’ve ever felt her. So I’m actually feeling pretty positive about my appt. today.

It was a good Easter weekend for us. Great one even! :) We had Lee & Sabrina over on Saturday for a BBQ and had lots of fun even though it rained and we ended up watching a movie instead. Sabrina is throwing a shower for me, so she asked me lots of questions about what I wanted or what I liked/disliked. I pretty much gave her free reign to do what she wanted with a few exceptions (such as I really don't want everything to be pink). Lee & DJ moved all the exercise equipment downstairs to the garage, so that’s one more thing to check off our list of things we needed to do. And then DJ and I went to church Sat. night and the sermon was really good. :)

Then on Sun. morning we went to an Easter brunch with Mom & Dad, Aunt Darlene, and Suzy Wayne & Jalen. The food was good, and there was lots of good conversation. And when I got home I felt so energetic that I weeded nearly our entire yard! lol It was sunny and beautiful and I guess I just wanted to be out in it after the rain the previous day. Now I have all kinds of great ideas about what I want to plant this year. I may go buy some plants today if the mood takes me.