15 Weeks

So I completely missed 14 weeks. Let's not dwell on the past or how bad I am at documenting my pregnancy....

As promised the worst picture in the world of my tummy (thanks a heap uninterested husband). I am going to glam it up for next time.

How Far Along: 15 Weeks and 2 days exactly

Size of babies: 4 inches long (roughly)they usually are about a week ahead of schedule and about the size of a navel orange

Gender: We still don't know. Last time Baby A played "Hey Mom, see my butt?" and refused to show anything else. Baby B had their legs locked together and bent back to hide their parts too.

Maternity Clothes: Yes. I am in LOVE with my maternity jeans. I not sure how I will ever give them up. I still wear some of my regular tops and jammie pants.

Weight gain: I think I am up 3 kg. Won't know for sure until later.

Movement: I haven't felt anything but pressure and stretching where they like to hang. Those don't count.

Sleep: Sleeping SUCKS! I toss and turn. My back and hips hurt and now my shoulders.

Symptoms: Headaches, Heartburn, Aches and Pains, Smelling EVERYTHING!...morning sickness hasn't gone away 100%. General pregnancy fun!!!

Cravings: No real cravings yet. It's still more of what I WON'T eat. We added apple juice to the list this week.

Best moments this week: My maternity clothes! I can't begin to express the love for sitting AND breathing. My mom starting to buy the BIG baby stuff like cribs and stroller. It's starting to feel more real.

Why do they call it Heartburn?

So yes, I continue to be the suckiest blogger ever. I am still waiting for the energy of the second trimester to show up. The throwing up has pretty much tapered off only to be replaced by HEARTBURN!!

Heartburn is not a new concept to me but pregnancy heartburn is a whole new world of pain. And the fun part is there isn't much you can take to make yourself feel better. I have tried "home remedies" like milk which work for 30 seconds and only seem to encourage the heartburn to burn my throat with revenge. I asked my friend who recently had a child what she took...Tums. We don't have them in Australia.

One night was particularly bad. We were sitting on the couch watching Mike and Molly. Suddenly, the burning pain came out of no where. It hurt so bad I turned into pregnant satan! I demanded Simon get off the couch and go find a pharmacy that was still open and get ANYTHING! It was that or I was going to literally cut my body parts out. He came back with Mylanta. I honestly was glad to have it but holy cow that stuff tastes nasty!!

Today we saw the doctor and he gave me a prescription for Zantac. Unfortunately, the mother of all heartburn is rearing it's ugly head right now and neither Zantac or Mylanta are doing anything. With that said I rather have heartburn for my lovely little babies than for no reason at all like before.

One Year

Wow I can't believe it's been a whole year. Sometimes it feels like it should be longer and I have been writing for years not just one year. Other times it feels like time has gone really quickly. Starting this blog has been an amazing coping mechanism for me as I travel this crazy path I find myself on.

Without a doubt I am the luckiest girl. Today I am 13 weeks pregnant. I would love put up a picture of my massive tummy but it's currently stuck on the camera. So for the very first time I get to do a weekly post!

How Far Along: 13 weeks- Last week of the first trimester- 1/3 DONE!

Size of babies: HUGE-7.25 cm long- about the size of a large peach

Gender: We don't know yet. Everyone keeps hoping it's one of each.

Maternity Clothes: Yes but no. I am clearly too fat to be in my regular pants. My maternity clothes are on there way in the mail but aren't here yet. So I had to go out and buy a couple things in a bigger size. It was very depressing.

Weight gain: NONE! I can't believe it.

Movement: No official moments yet. However, I feel lots of "stretching" where Baby A likes to hang out.

Sleep: Getting comfortable enough to fall asleep is my main problem if I don't pass out from exhaustion first. I have been only getting up once a night to go to the bathroom lately which is an improvement. Oddly, I get up about 4 am and lay awake for hours before I finally fall back asleep.

Symptoms: Headaches!!! Still trying to survive the all the live long day sickness.

Cravings: American food! I would pay about $1,000 to have my mom's chicken noodles.

Best moment this week: Getting to this week! Being able to start telling my close friends and extended family. Seeing the ultrasound last Tuesday.

Everyday Baby B is shufflin'

Today feels like the day we have been waiting for for LONGGGGGGG time now. I had my 12 week scan and NT test. We have pretty much been holding our breaths for this test. Nothing is official because it hasn't been matched with the blood test yet but the Dr who did the scan said everything looked really good and normal.

We took Simon's momma with us and I think she really enjoyed it. She is the last in the family and in her extended group of friends to be a grandma. She has been dying to tell but we haven't let her. She was soooo excited that while Simon took care of the bill she went outside to call Aunty Kath. I am still not ready to tell Facebook or lots of other people yet but I don't have a problem telling family anymore.

Who knew you could get such a kick out of watching your babies on a screen? Three adults were completely mesmerized for 50 minutes. We saw everything...including the kidneys. Baby B was his/her active self and the complete wrong way for measuring. Baby A was hanging out at the start with his/her little arms fold up behind it's head like it was in a hammock. Eventually A felt the need to get in on the baby party B was throwing. I really wonder if this "personality" trait will continue when they are born. OH and I almost forgot THEY ARE HUGE!!!! Apparently they are the right size but they are tall.

"Morning" sickness is kicking my ass. My current lists of food I no longer eat is extending to hot dogs today. Simon is getting much better about making sure I eat when I need to and eat decent food. And because I have always over shared...I now pee a little when I vomit. Sadly I can't do pelvic exercises because of preterm labour.

We finally feel good about the pregnancy. Oh yes a million trillion things can still go wrong and they might but we are going with the same positive attitude that we have had from the very beginning.

Simon is currently working on getting scan pictures up and pictures of my awesome fatness so I can start the "weekly" posts very soon.

Expectations

I have never been so excited to be 12 weeks pregnant! I realize having never been 12 weeks pregnant before this a bit of a stupid comment. But the fact is there were several times during this pregnancy that I thought we would never make it to 12 weeks or we wouldn't make it with both babies.

One thing I have realize is that my expectations of pregnancy are ridiculous. Well maybe ridiculous is not the right word. What I thought would happen and what is actually happening aren't lining up as nicely as I would have like.

Fortunately, I am slowly learning to let go of my expectations and go with the flow. Whatever I am going through is only for a finite period of time. This won't go on forever. Honestly, I don't mind if in the end I have 2 happy, healthy, take-home babies in October.

Despite the morning sickenss I am still trying to get as healthy as I can. Trying to remember to take the prenantal vitamins is another issue. I am planning to get into the swimming pool again as soon as my surgery wounds heal but not putting myself at risk for preterm labour. I know how important it is for me to take it easy on the weekends and at night because I am really determined to work until August.

Most important of all I AM going to do whatever it takes to keep my babies in until at least 36 weeks. What that might entail honestly scares the shit out of me! I am still afraid I am going to jinx myself. Somehow I constantly come across horrible stories of people losing their baby(ies) at 16-24 weeks along.

I will admit I am still afraid to buy anything (gender issues aside) or even open the door to their room. I was sooo excited to tell the world about them but now I keep feeling like we need to hold off. Somehow 20 weeks is looking really good right now. It won't happen but I will delay as long as possible.

So those are my random thoughts on pregnancy this morning while I lay wide awake watching the cat clean himself.

Two Things That Don't Match

Yeah, I am the suckest blogger ever!!! Do you all remember at the end of my last post that I was hoping for a stress free week? Well, apparently the universe need to put the smack down on those plans!

Let's rewind a week. We had an afternoon appointment the amazing Dr. Weston. Everything was wonderful and I graduated to monthly!!! appointments and he said we had the all clear to tell the world after my next scan. At 1 day shy of 11 weeks we were starting to feel good about it all.

Then at 1 am I woke up in pain. I thought I needed to pee and that maybe I just had some trapped gas. As a sufferer of IBS the pain wasn't all that unfamiliar expect for the location. I went to the bathroom...no relief. I walked around the house a little...no relief. I tried to lay back down but that just seem to make the whole situation angrier. At 4 am I had woken Simon up and we decided that work was simply not going to be a option. Pain aside I NEEDED sleep! I got up and changed my lessons plans to be friendly for another person, answered a few emails and called in sick. I thought perhaps it was easing up and I would be able to sleep. I crawled back in bed and began to cry. Now anyone with IBS or trapped gas will tell you you feel better after going to the toilet not worse. Clearly this was something else.

Panicked and scared we called Dr. Weston at 5 am. He wanted to see us that morning at 9 am when his office opened. He was sure I was going to be okay because I wasn't bleeding but just needed to be sure. Simon ended up calling his mum because he was scared and worried. Yes, he is a giant momma's boy but I completely understand. Wife is crying in pain while pregnant with twins...I would want backup too. The added bonus was she was able to drive us to the doctor's while I focused on not dying. We also figured out how to freak out an entire waiting room full of pregnant women.

Dr. Weston scanned the babies and they were fine (THANK GOD!!!!) but I needed to head to emergency because he didn't know if I had a urinary tract infection or if it was my appendix. Conveniently the hospital is immediately next store to the his office.

I won't bore you with all the details but we spent A LONG time in emergency. The pain would lessen and then get worse. They were very good about trying to keep me comfortable. The surgeon came to check me out and he too thought it was my appendix. WTF!!!!!!!! Insert major freak out here. Apparently, I was going to need surgery. There was no way around it. If it ruptured it would kill the babies and me. If we had the surgery there was a small risk of miscarriage. Dr. Cullen left to talk to Dr. Weston and that is the last we saw of anyone.

A couple hours later I was admitted to the hospital for surgery that night. I spent a couple of days recovering in the hospital and now I am home. I get to enjoy laying down and doing NOTHING. I can see this is going to be the theme of this pregnancy. I am completely okay with it. I can be still for 40 weeks if that means keeping my babies safe.

I also can not express in words how AMAZING Simon's family has been. I haven't been alone for a moment. Everyone is keeping me company, cleaning my house, keeping us fed and taking me to appointments.

We saw Dr. Weston again today and he is really happy with my recovery so far and how the babies are doing. I told him I was sorry we were being "those patients" but he seemed completely fine with it. Simon thinks it's probably nice to have something a little out of the ordinary.

We have discovered a few little funny things about our babies. One is always sleeping and the other is usually throwing a party in the womb. Generally it's baby B who is movin and groovin making it hard to measure or see the heartbeat. At the hospital it was baby A. They are also a little big for their "age". According to the book they were supposed to be about 1.6 inches and they were 2 inches. The ultrasound tech did assure me there were no horns and I wasn't gestating wildebeests.

So next week I will probably start documenting my MASSIVE girth in photos and have some scan photos to put up. I am sure the drama is not over with either.