31 Weeks + Dr.'s Appointment #8

Nothing much new.

I had another doctor's appointment yesterday and everything is looking good. My blood pressure is still perfect, so I'm still able to work and coach basketball, which was music to my ears. I've been really nervous for each appointment since 2011 began because I don't want to be put on bed rest. I think I would go crazy! Plus, it's too soon to leave work. Almost all of my duties have been trained away, but we're super busy so I don't want to leave them just yet. Luckily, I don't have to yet!

Baby A (boy)'s heartrate was between 145 /150 bpm, and Baby B (girl)'s heart rate was between 150/155 bpm.

I'm now measuring 40 weeks. Yikes. I still have 7 more to go. Yikes. Actually, it's not really that bad. I don't feel big at all...to be honest, I even forget that I have an extra large belly sometimes.

The babies continue to move around like crazy. It's not a visible from the outside as it was a few weeks ago (I could actually see what looked like arms move across my stomach), but my stomach is definitely always moving. I've noticed that the boy (Baby A) has really increased his activity this past week. He woke me up a couple nights ago because he was moving around so much. I swear he was actually jumping in my pelvis. I sent him "go to sleep" thoughts, and he calmed down. It's been nice that he's been more active because I thought he might not have had enough room to move around. Now I know he does. Whenever he moves it causes me a little more discomfort/annoyance because of the tight quarters he's living in. A few times I've let out a little "oh!" due to the sudden feeling of him moving. The girl's favourite place to move around is right underneath my belly button. All I have to do is touch my belly button and I can feel her move around....and eventually push up under it. It's surprising that my belly button hasn't popped out at all.

I've really started to notice my increased body temperature. I'm used to being really cold during the winter, but now I never am. I'm so glad I'm not this pregnant in the middle of the summer because I don't think I could handle it. I start to go a little crazy even now because I feel like I can't breathe because it's so warm. It's gross. Luckily, it's not 24-7!

Total weight gain so far: 35lbs. Not bad.

My next ultrasound is on February 7th, doctor's appointment on February 9th, and then a fetal monitoring appointment on February 16th. I'm looking forward to seeing what that will be like.

I'll post an update with an updated picture again in a couple weeks.

29 Weeks + Dr.'s Appointment #7 + Ultrasound #6 Results

It's been busy since the last time I updated!

I went for my gestational diabetes screening/blood work and it came back fine! No diabetes for me...thank goodness! My iron was a little low, but it must not have been concerning as my doctor didn't mention anything today.

I had an ultrasound done at Surrey Memorial this past Friday, and that went really well. Baby B (the girl) is now head down as well! Hopefully they both stay head down so that I can deliver naturally.

The night before, I was laying on the couch when Jon came home and he asked what I had been doing, and I said "playing with the kids."

I explained that the girl's butt kept pushing up at my stomach, and I would push back at it and it would move over and push up. We did that for about 5 minutes. Now that I know she's head down, I realize that it was her head I was poking at! Oh well :)

Here are their two heads, side by side:

Here are the results/stats from the ultrasound:

DATA	BABY A	BABY B
Heart Rate	139	154
Lie/Position	Cephalic	Cephalic
Est. Fetal Weight	1254 g (2.75 lbs)	1380 g (3 lbs)
MEASUREMENTS
Head Circ.	269 mm	264 mm
BPD	75 mm	72 mm
Abdominal Circ.	219 mm	254 mm
Femur	51 mm	53 mm
Gestational Age	27 weeks + 5 days	28 weeks + 1 day

My mom's first comment when she saw that the girl was heavier than the boy was "what a little porker". hahaha. Reminds me of pictures of Jon as a toddler (he was skin & bones) and myself (I was a porker). According to my "What to Expect..." book for singletons at 28 week they should be 2.5 lbs, so when both babies were more than that I was definitely super-excited! Let's hope I can keep them inside for as long as possible!

I was nervous for my doctor's appointment today because I know that at any time they could put me on bed-rest, and I'm not ready to stop working/having a normal life yet. It was definitely not worth it to worry though! My blood pressure is still "very nice" and the doctor said that there was no need for me to make any changes to my working hours. Phew. She took my fundal measurement again this time, and I'm measuring between 36 and 37 weeks. And everyone tells me I'm small. Pshh. :)

My hunger level has definitely increased these past couple of weeks. I feel like I could eat ALL THE TIME. I feel like I am eating ALL THE TIME! It's nice getting special treatment now that I have to intake so many calories for the babies. I get the bigger portion of dinner if I want it, I get double the dessert if I want it. Yum. The only downside is having to force myself to eat even if nothing seems appealing.

The babies have also been kicking/elbowing/kneeing up a storm the past couple of weeks as well. It's simply amazing. The best time to see them "in action" is right when I climb into bed. As soon as I lay down and let my body relax, they start going crazy! My stomach looks like rolling hills, literally. You can actually see them push up against my stomach and move all over. Their favourite spot is right under my belly button (and yes, it's still an innie...barely there, but definitely not popping out...yet...). I don't get tired of feeling them kick. Annoyed at times, yes, when they are distracting me from work or if they are kicking at my ribs, but overall, I love it. I never thought it would be possible to grow so attached to it. How could you not? It's amazing.

Jon and I are getting excited now that the end is approaching. Yes, it's going to be a huge adjustment for us. But man, it's going to be great. The baby room is coming along. I had Jon hang up a couple shelves last night, so as soon as his tools are out of that room I can start moving things around a bit. Once we have it 'finalized'

then I'll post some pictures.

I can't believe we only have 9 weeks to go (max). CRAZY. Crazy good though :)

I don't think I have much else to 'report'. I start seeing my doctor every two weeks now, and ultrasounds will continue to be a monthly occurrence. Starting at around 33 weeks I will have to go to Surrey Memorial every week for about 30 minutes of fetal monitoring, where they strap two fetal monitors to my stomach and monitor the babies' activity. It's going to be busy! I'm definitely grateful for a job that is completely flexible for whatever appointments/basketball practices & games I have. I'm also grateful for the number of vacation/personal/sick days I've been saving over the past three years so that I don't have to worry about making up missed hours!

I'll end with a current picture of myself:

26 Weeks + Dr.'s Appointment #5/6 + Ultrasound Results

I'm sorry for the delay in updating...I haven't been able to motivate myself to type out an entry...and the longer I put it off the more I want to put it off. It's a vicious cycle.

Not a whole lot has happened the past few weeks (I feel I say that every time!). I'm already over 2/3 of the way which is crazy!

I had my last appointment with Dr. Wagner two weeks ago, and then my first appointment with Dr. Huckell a couple days later. Both said the exact same things:

1. Babies are growing well so far. Here are the results from the latest ultrasound:

DATA	BABY A	BABY B
Heart Rate	141	165
Lie/Position	Cephalic	Frank Breech
MEASUREMENTS
Head Circ.	215 mm	211 mm
BPD	63 mm	58 mm
Abdominal Circ.	191 mm	197 mm
Femur	40 mm	40 mm
Gestational Age	23 weeks + 5 days	23 weeks + 5 days

They will be closely monitoring their growth because as soon as (if) one starts growing more than the other then they will have to put me on bed rest. I've trained practically all of my senior duties away at work so I'm left with just the basics again, so if I leave all of a sudden it will be okay.

2. I need to do my glucose test between Christmas and New Year's. I'm not too concerned about that. I like sugary drinks :)

3. Because I have a negative Rh factor I'll have to have an injection at my next appointment. Not too concerned about this either...I'm pretty used to needles by now!

4. My blood pressure is (was) still perfect.

5. If the babies stay in a head down/head up position then it will be up to me if I want to give birth vaginally or via c-section. Dr. Huckell said that most women with head down/head up twins opt for a c-section because there is no guarantee that the head up baby can be flipped around once the head down baby is delivered. If they can't flip the baby, then I would still have to have a c-section (in addition to a vaginal birth for the first one). That's a tough decision! It will definitely require some thought and I'll have to ask her what she thinks the chance of flipping the second baby is.

Jon set up the cribs & glider chair the first weekend he was off of school...we had fun :) Here are some pictures:

He then tested the chair to see how it would work if (when!) we had two crying babies:

I have also been quite blessed in receiving a lot of baby clothes from family, so my Mom and I have spent a lot of time washing and sorting and folding. Baby clothes are so cute!

The girls at work surprised me with a baby shower two weeks ago as it was one of the last days that we were all in the office before Christmas holidays began. They wanted to make sure that they had a shower for me before I got put on bed rest. I got spoiled by them :)

I've started to feel light-headed every now and then, so I've starting trying to pay attention to when I'm eating so that I'm eating on a regular basis. Hoping that it's just a low blood sugar level or a low blood pressure level. Either way, it's something that I need to be careful with.

The babies are moving like crazy. Some nights I just lay on the couch or bed and watch my stomach bounce up and down all over. One day, one of the babies was kicking/punching my pelvis. It was a little annoying...but funny at the same time. There are times when they are moving around that I can sort of make out whether I'm feeling a head or a butt. It's pretty cool. Weird, but cool.

Here's my 26 week picture:

My next appointment isn't until January 13th, so I probably won't update before then. Enjoy your holidays!

Ultrasound #5

And it's confirmed...one boy and one girl! Pretty exciting.

The ultrasound went really well. I had it done at MedRay this time and was very impressed. The building/equipment looks really new and I had a really young female technician. I would definitely request to go there again!
I had only drunk about 600 mLs of water this time, and even then the technician said that I could go pee before we started if I wanted to. I was fine, so we proceeded. She had a really hard time getting the Baby A's head measurement (the boy, on my left side, head-down), so she asked me if I would go pee and then she would try again. Eventually she got it, but she did call the boy stubborn. My reply was, "I wish I could say that he gets that from his father...but it's likely more from me." lol. She said the girl was very cooperative. The girl, Baby B, is still on my right, head-up.
This was the first ultrasound where I nearly passed out a couple times. I guess the pressure of her pushing down on my stomach while I was laying on my back was a little much for my lungs now. She let me lay on my side after that so that was a huge relief.

And for those who are curious, Baby A (the boy's) heart rate was 141 bpm and Baby B (the girl's) heart rate was 165 bpm.

Here are a couple pictures...looks like they saved really small when I scanned them. I'll have to try to rescan them...enjoy looking at them with a magnifying glass for now! The top picture is looking directly at Baby A's face and the bottom picture is a side profile of Baby B's head.

22 Weeks

Not much has happened over the past two weeks...

Jon felt the babies kick on Friday, November 19. It's pretty neat to see his reaction. I put his hand on my stomach and then you can see his eyes light up when he feels them. My mom felt them a couple nights ago and kind of gave a little shriek when they kicked. It was pretty funny. I feel them all the time now, and they're slowly getting stronger and stronger.

My stomach continues to grow and grow and grow. Most nights it feels pretty tight. The stretching is less annoying if I'm sitting down because then my body isn't stretched out. I've gained about 20 pounds so far. It's crazy! I'm starting to notice that I can't be on my feet for as long as before because my shins start to get sore...I guess from carrying the extra weight. I definitely don't do any window-shopping anymore! I get what I need and then I'm gone!

One thing I should have done at the beginning of my pregnancy was take a picture of my belly button. The change in it is absolutely crazy! I never would have imagined it. I've always been quite proud of my belly button (LOL I bet no one has ever said that before!)...it was a nice and deep innie. Now, I call it an Asian belly button...it looks like a slit in my stomach...there's no way you can even attempt to find the bottom because it's all squished together. I'm hoping it stays that way and doesn't pop out. Probably wishful thinking!

Jon and I have now purchased all of the major essentials for the babies. I don't think we paid full-price for anything; they have all been on sale. We did struggle with the car seats. I didn't like a lot of the fabric patterns, and then the ones I originally purchased didn't even fit into the backseat of the Jetta! If we were both shorter than it would have been fine because we could have moved our seats forward, but being 'taller' and driving a standard there wasn't much room for movement. We returned them and actually found two that I ended up liking better and were $20 cheaper each...and they only require Jon to pull the driver's seat about an inch closer. I never would have thought that we would have space issues with the Jetta! I guess it should only be for the first year max until they outgrow the car seats.

Hmm...I think that's it. I haven't looked at the 22-week picture Jon took of me yesterday, but if it's good enough, I'll add it to this post.

Our next appointment is an ultrasound on December 7th and then an appointment with Dr. Wagner on December 10th so I'll update again after both of those are done.

One Year Ago

I was thinking of doing a "reflections of the past year" entry for new year's, but for Jon and I, it just seems much more appropriate to reflect over this past year. One year ago yesterday we met with Dr. Hitkari at Genesis Fertility Clinic for the first time...frustrated and confused over why we weren't getting pregnant. Many doctor's appointments, injections, blood tests, and ultrasounds later, here we are, over halfway done our first pregnancy. It's crazy. It feels like just yesterday when we began this journey. It's amazing what God can do in your life in the span of one year! We are definitely looking forward to this next year...one that will have brand new challenges for us to face...but at least we know we always have God to rely on!

We're keeping busy...the basketball season at the high school has started again so that keeps me busy for a couple afternoons a week. I'm hoping to be able to be around for the whole season! It's a great group of girls again which is exciting. And for you worriers out there...I'm not overdoing it. Jon only has two weeks left of this semester and then he has a month off. YAY! Although I'm sure the month will go by quickly and before we know it he will be back in school again. C'est la vie.

Anyways, my lunch break is over (I'm at work) so I should get going...don't want to be driving home in too much snow!

20 Weeks + Dr.'s Appointment #4 + Ultrasound Results

So I have to apologize in advance for this posting. Not because it's a day late, but because I can't get the formatting correct. I wanted to add a table to this post but Blogger doesn't have a feature that will allow me to do that (at least, not that I found), so I had to recall my Grade 10 computers class HTML coding and do it manually. And for some reason, I can't figure out why it's putting a HUGE gap between my writing and the table.

I have to admit that I wasn't 100% truthful about what all happened at my last ultrasound. I didn't lie, but I didn't tell you everything I knew. For those of you that don't know me really well, I am a curious, likes to know everything about everyone, kind of person. As the technician was performing the ultrasound last week, I was paying very close attention to every measurement he took and what he was typing into the computer. For the most part, it was all in codes and abbreviations I could not understand. However, there came a moment when he was taking the cutest butt shot of Baby B. And when I say cute, I mean cute. I don't think I've ever seen a cuter butt before lol. Anyways, he started to scan up and down, up and down, up and down. My thoughts were "oh man, he's totally checking for gender right now." Do you think I looked away? No. I figured he's been typing in code all along so far, why wouldn't he now? Especially since I know that they aren't allowed to release information about the gender to patients. As I was watching the computer screen the technician typed in the chromosomes of Baby B. Either they think that people aren't very smart, or they don't really care if their patients see what they are typing. Because I saw the first set of chromosomes, I had to watch him scan Baby A and enter in the chromosomes. I was hoping to confirm what I saw with Dr. Wagner at my appointment yesterday, but the ultrasound place didn't even give her that information. That was going to be my big news, telling you what I saw. I've been going back and forth trying to decide whether or not I still want to tell people what I think they are, and so that was the reason for the delay of this entry. My final decision is to tell everyone, BUT, keep in mind, this is NOT confirmed. Dr. Wagner is scheduling my next ultrasound at MedRay Imaging in Coquitlam because she's heard from patients that they are still releasing gender information. So...drum roll please...the gender(s) of the babies are...

BABY A = Boy

BABY B = Girl

We're pretty excited! Although, because we couldn't confirm it yesterday I find myself a little more hesitant to get excited.

There's nothing else really to share. I definitely feel them moving around more and more each day. It's pretty cool! Dr. Wagner took my fundal measurement and I measured 25 cm. If I were having a singleton than I would be measuring approximately 20 cm. She said I was doing good in weight gain, but would like to see my gain 5 to 6 more pounds in the next month. It's such a strange concept to stand on the weigh scale hoping to have gained weight lol.

Dr. Wagner is also going to refer me to Dr. Caitlin Huckell for the remainder of my pregnancy and for the delivery, but if she can't see me in the next month then Dr. Wagner will do my next appointment too.

I think that's it. I've included the results from my last ultrasound below. I know that they may not be of interest to most of you, but I'm using this blog to help me keep record of everything. The more I include in here, the less I have to remember! (I should note that I don't agree with the heart rates below. Baby A has always been lower than Baby B, so maybe the technician reversed them?) I'm also going to add the results from my previous ultrasound in the approriate post too, in case you're interested in seeing the change over 6 weeks.

Have a great weekend everyone!

DATA	BABY A	BABY B
Heart Rate	152	142
Lie/Position	Cephalic	Frank Breech
Placenta Position	Posterior	Right Lateral Wall
Est. Fetal Weight	288 g	321 g
FETAL ANATOMY
Heart	Normal	Normal
Stomach	Normal	Normal
Kidneys	Normal	Normal
Bladder	Normal	Normal
Spine	Normal	Normal
3 Vessel Cord	Normal	Normal
Diaphragm	Normal	Normal
MEASUREMENTS
Head Circ.	170 mm	169 mm
BPD	46.3 mm	45 mm
Abdominal Circ.	143 mm	144 mm
Femur	28.7 mm	32.7 mm
Cerebellum	19 mm	19 mm
Cisterna Magna	5.2 mm	5 mm
Lateral Ventricle	7.6 mm	8.9 mm
Gestational Age	19 weeks + 1 day	19 weeks + 3 days