One in a Million Uterus

37w, 3d - 3w, 2d

2011-01-21T14:31:00.000-08:00

Totally neglected this blog because I have been too busy with my two babies. Ended up in the hospital the evening after I posted last and gave birth on 12-29-10 at 34w, 1d. Babies spent some time in the NICU - 13 days for baby A and 18 days for baby B. Everyone is home now and details of the whole adventure are on my personal blog at http://becomingfamily.blogspot.com/. I probably won't be posting here anymore so if you are interested in what these two little guys (and my two big guys) are up to, head over to my other blog where I post a little more regularly.

33w, 5d

2010-12-26T15:17:00.000-08:00

I'm miserable. Not just your feeling huge and tired because you're pregnant miserable. I've been throwing up all day and have the runs. All classic signs of preterm labor, but also signs of withdrawal from percoset. I ran out of the good drugs yesterday. After being on them for over three weeks I would not be surprised if I had become somewhat addicted. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed it is labor. Would love to make it awhile longer but I have reached the point where I'm ready to make these kids fend for themselves (with the great NICU staff for support) just so I can get some relief. This momma isn't going to be able to be a very good momma if I just keep getting sicker.

Nurse visited today. My blood pressure was 140/90. She said that was high but not high enough to call the dr. Still has me paranoid. I still just have the two open wounds and the one is almost healed. I also still have that third spot that has a little pinhole that this nurse likes to squeeze the shit out of to get all the yellowish gook out of. She thought at first maybe my sickness was from some virus that has been going around but decided to rule it out since I don't have a fever.

Hopefully I can make it until my marathon of appointments tomorrow (u/s, dr appt, NST). Also hoping they decide tomorrow to keep me and get these babies out for whatever reason - growth issues, high blood pressure on my point, because my body is done being pregnant. DH installed the car seats today just in case and we are slowly getting a bag packed. Planning on taking the bag with us tomorrow. Although I said maybe the hospital bag is like an umbrella and we should leave it at home - it never rains when you remember your umbrella but always does when you forget it.

No more possible blood on the TP today. Maybe once there could have been. I've felt maybe two or three contractions today. Thinking we need to step up these contractions.

33w, 4d

2010-12-25T18:18:00.000-08:00

Yeah I'm lame. Christmas night and I'm blogging. Had my u/s Monday. One baby is still big, measuring at the 74th percentile. The other baby has dropped down to the 34th percentile. Had my dr appt on Thursday. Told me they were starting to be concerned. They sent me for a NST. I think I'm just going to take up residence at the hospital each Monday now. Starting this Monday and repeating every Monday I'll have an u/s, a NST, and a dr appt. They want to keep an eye on the growth and check out umbilical cord bloodflow to make sure the little baby is still better off inside or if I should deliver.

The open, infected part of my incision is healing well. However, a second infected area opened up earlier this week. At my appt on Thursday the dr snipped it open a little more with scissors to make sure it could drain properly. Good times. The nurse showed up today at my family's Christmas celebration. During the course of her packing my wound, I discovered another area that was draining that nasty yellowish liquid. It hasn't opened up yet but must just have enough of a hole to drain stuff. The nurse did a lot of squeezing and I thought I might pass out. Then we had Christmas dinner. After all that I didn't eat much.

There is some slight concern about my blood pressure. Not a problem yet but it has slowly been creeping up. My feet and ankles are incredibly swollen as well.

Just to make it all more fun, I'm pretty sure my mucous plug is slowly falling out. All day after I pee the TP is kinda brownish and mucousy. I told the nurse this and she said I'll probably deliver within 24 hours. I have heard of people not going into labor until weeks after they lose their mucous plug. She said with twins the extra baby weight applies pressure and labor is more immediate. I don't totally believe her. Haven't had any contractions. It does seem that the movement from the one baby is much lower than normal. My mom thought it looked like my belly dropped but I think she's wrong. I'm just glad I made it through Christmas.

32w, 5d

2010-12-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

Still hanging in here. Had a bit of a setback earlier this week. The pain just got too intense and nothing I had available was helping so I went back to the hospital before dawn on Tuesday morning. They admitted me and ran a million tests to try to figure out if there was something new going on that was causing the pain. Nothing was found so it was all chalked up to being poor pain management after surgery. I spent about 36 hours there total, which was plenty considering how ticked off at the nurses I was getting at the end. I had been put on the morphine pump again while I was there and then switched back to percoset. This time they sent me home with a ton of percoset. I had a bit of a meltdown while talking to one of the drs. I really really hate taking narcotics while I have these two little babies growing in me. The dr kept reassuring me that I NEED the drugs and it isn't going to have any lasting effect on the babies. I still hate it. Plus, I am just so tired of having to be away from my kids. I am sure it is bad for anyone but being that they were adopted and I missed so much of the beginning of their lives only to bring them into this situation where there mommy is sick and in the hospital all the time makes me feel like crap. Was also feeling pretty hopeless just about being in so much pain and so sick. I feel like I still have months to deal with this. No idea when the babies are coming of course but it seems like as soon as I am going to be really recovering from the surgery, I'll give birth and have to recover from that. My chances of a c-section are much higher now since I shouldn't be laboring if I'm not really recovered from the surgery yet. I'll find out for sure at my u/s tomorrow, but I am thinking these babies have moved dramatically and aren't even head down anymore. I was hoping for a vag birth, but didn't really care too much if it was going to have to turn into a c-section. Now I am just dreading a c-section because it is yet another surgery. I am sick of being sliced open.

I got the staples taken on early on Tuesday. Everything I read online said it didn't hurt, that it was just some pulling. The internet lies. It wasn't that painful but lots of stinging and certainly more than just a little pulling. The dr noted that a small part at the bottom of the incision was a little infected and didn't say anymore about it.

I woke up in the middle of the night Tuesday at the hospital to pee. I noticed there was blood on the TP. I called in the nurse thinking maybe it was some sort of start of labor since I haven't had any bleeding the whole pregnancy. I was actually pretty excited to be going into preterm labor because I am so sick of being pregnant. The nurse gave me a pad to put on and some of those fancy net underwear since I wasn't wearing underwear. I went to put that on and realized the blood and weird liquid were coming from the incision and had just rolled south instead of originating down there. Guess the floodgates of my slightly infected incision decided to open up. A dr came in to check it out and packed my wound with a packing strip and covered everything up. Since I have been home, I have had in-home nursing care coming daily to clean my incision and repack the wound. I asked the nurse today and she said it will probably be a few weeks until it is healed. The nurses were hoping to teach DH how to care for the wound so I wouldn't have to have the in-home care. DH tried to watch the one day but was pretty grossed out by it. I don't blame him. I can't even see it since it is in the area under my big pregnancy belly, but it still grosses me out.

Oh and as of Tuesday I was 1 cm dilated. I realize that could mean nothing and I could be like that for months, but it does give me this tiny little glimmer of hope that maybe someday down the line I will have these babies in my arms and not inside my broken body. They did an FFN test on me as well. It came back positive this time around. I also realize that a positive doesn't mean much. A negative is pretty reliable that you won't go into the labor in the next 1-2 weeks, but a positive doesn't mean you will. But once again, still gives me hope that it really is a possibility!

Babies are going crazy in my belly on a regular basis. They are kicking me and it hurts. DH got a chance to feel them again last night. He hasn't felt them too often because it seems he is never close to me when they start moving and I know if I get up to take my belly to him, the babies will stop. Right after he was feeling them move, the one little kiddo decided to stretch out or something and there was a foot clearing sticking out of my side. It freaked me out.

I had a couple very generous friends come over yesterday and help with things around here. One friend wrapped all my Christmas presents for me. The other assembled a crib. We have had so many people bringing us food that it is overwhelming my already emotional self. We even had a package from Omaha Steaks delivered from a friend who lives in Hawaii! I got some flowers and later this week someone is bringing over some groceries and taking my pup out for a walk since she hasn't gotten much exercise.

That is about it. I am finally getting to the point of recovery where each day I can honestly say I feel a little bit better than the day before. I am still taking 2 percoset every 4 hours but I think tomorrow after my u/s I'm going to try out 1.5 percoset every 4 hours and see how that goes. I just want to take it slow because I certainly do not want to end up back in the hospital again. DH and I are going to attempt to take the kids to the mall here in a bit to get their picture taken with Santa. My sister called to let me know that the mall has complimentary wheelchairs. I can't believe I have gotten to the point in my life that riding in a wheelchair sounds like the most amazing thing ever. Out with the strollers! In with the wheelchairs! This will be the first time I have been out of the house since Black Friday where I am not just going to the hospital.

31w, 2d

2010-12-09T15:04:00.001-08:00

I never do things the easy way. I just wish at this point I could have found an easier alternative to my latest drama.

I've been battling issues with my right ovary since the beginning of this pregnancy. If you recall, I spent my summer beach vacation in the Outer Banks Hospital writhing in pain caused by giant cysts on my ovary. The cysts were causing the ovary to attempt to turn on itself and cut off it's own blood supply. Things seemed to stabilize though and the ovary troubles appeared to be a thing of the past. Until a few weeks ago. The pain came back. I quickly learned that as soon as I felt the pain, if I were to lay in a particular position it would subside within 30-45 minutes. It wasn't ideal since I never knew when the pain would arrive and if it would be feasible to stop what I was doing dead in my tracks. But I got by.

Then along came the pain again last Thursday. I laid down. It went away. Within 30 minutes it was back and nothing I did would stop it. DH took me to the hospital. I dreaded going because, well, who looks forward to the hospital? But also because I have been there for the same reason multiple times and all it resulted in was me laying on a very uncomfortable table for hours on end in pain while virtually nothing was being done. Apparently I just wasn't screaming loud enough in the past because this time I got so much attention that the doctors wouldn't leave me alone. Unlike past pain issues with my ovary, this time around tests showed that my ovary was successful at twisting around enough to cut off the blood supply completely. By 1 am Friday morning I was having emergency surgery.

No one is all that fond of performing surgery on a pregnant woman. I certainly was not fond of being the patient in this scenario. I must have asked every question in the book pertaining to the risks of these babies of mine. The doctors assured me they were going to take every precaution. Normally the surgery would be laproscopic but that wasn't going to be an option with this big old pregnant belly of mine. I would have to go under anesthesia but they would keep me under as short of time as possible. (This meant I was awake during most of the surgery prep and they woke me up while I was still in the OR getting cleaned up after surgery.) The babies were monitored immediately after surgery. I was given steroid shots to help develop the babies' lungs in case they did need to be delivered and was given medication to stop labor just in case it started. The second I realized I was gaining consciousness while still laying there in the OR I shouted out, "Are my babies okay?"

Yes. The babies are fine. Almost a week after surgery and they are still fine. I'm now over 31 weeks pregnant with two very active babies. The big goal in twin pregnancies is to make it to 34 weeks. One surgeon said with all the stress, she would be surprised if I made it much longer than that. I told her she better prepare herself to be surprised then.

My ovary didn't have a very positive experience through all of this. The surgeons were hoping to untwist the ovary and allow the blood flow to return. The ovary had twisted on itself multiple times and after all the untwisting, no blood supply was returning. Bye bye ovary. I'm glad I don't have to worry about having anymore pain caused by that thing.

Babies might be doing great but I am downright miserable. My incision is about 12 inches long extending from a few inches above my belly button straight down, all held together by a shiny row of staples. I'm in a lot of pain. I would really love to get off of the pain meds they have me on but delaying a dose for just 15 minutes is excruciating. I've also had to deal with lots of minor post-surgery effects. My intestines stopped working for a few days after surgery. Things are better but eating is still not going that great. My lungs were threatening to collapse at one point. I am breathing better now with just a little wheezing. I am also retaining about 15lbs of water from all the IV fluids they gave me. Most if it is in my one leg making it very uncomfortable, difficult to walk, and makes me feel as though I have elephantiasis. I am home though. I missed my boys so much.

Happy Holidays to me!

30w

2010-11-30T16:12:00.001-08:00

Wow. Up to thirty weeks now! I feel like I am on the home stretch. You would think it would get old at some point when I make it just one more week, but it never does. After a year of thinking I would never get pregnant, followed by all those years coming to term with the fact that I would never get pregnant, followed by surgeries and shots and u/s and endless trips into the city to try to get pregnant, most days I still can't believe I am not just pregnant, but so close to possibly giving birth to perfectly healthy twins with all the cards stacked against me.

Doing good. Still no signs of preterm labor which is awesome and crazy at the same time. I spend most of my time conflicted. I am so done with being pregnant and so ready to get these kids out and maybe be able to walk down a flight of stairs and not need a nap afterward, but also want to keep these babies growing in my belly for just a bit longer to make sure they are good and strong when they meet the world. As my dr said yesterday, I have spent most of this pregnancy worrying about whether the babies will survive, and now I am at the point where I am worrying about whether I will survive.

Had a pretty useless appointment yesterday. The dr said she wasn't concerned about the growth of the babies, Baby B in particular. Baby B is still average for growth and because both babies have their own placenta, it isn't like they are fighting over the nutrients in one placenta to see who gets the most. We talked briefly about giving birth. Looks like I am on track currently for a vaginal birth. The only downside to that is that there will be no access to my giant ovary that way to do anything about it at that time, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed that it cooperates after birth and returns to a normal size. Dr said as long as the bigger baby is head down and born first, there is no concern about the position of the smaller baby since the way will have been paved and they can even reach in and grab the smaller baby by the ankles and pull him out if need be. Sounds fun. And hell yes I will be getting an epidural.

After my appt yesterday I headed to the NICU for a tour. As much as I worried and cried about it last appt just thinking of my babies being there, I was almost perfectly fine. Might have teared up once. But I was also feeling pretty confident at that point that the time I spent at the NICU for the tour would be the only time I spend there. Mostly I couldn't get over just how HUGE the place was. It is the only level 3 NICU in the area (that I know of) and the hospital is pretty much known to be "the place" to give birth around the city. There are 48 rooms in the NICU, in addition to a 15 bed open area for babies that are closer to heading home. I didn't really see any babies, just maybe a leg here or there, since the nurse couldn't take me into any of the rooms for privacy reasons. I was good with that. The whole place was just so calm and relaxing that I almost wanted to be there. Almost. In the waiting room outside the unit, there was a big banner that was put together during a recent NICU reunion. There were hand prints with names and ages of kids that were once babies in the NICU there. Also written in the hand prints were the birth weights. It was very reassuring to see that most of the birth weights of the babies that were there, survived, and thrived were lower than the estimated birth weights of my babies currently.

29w, 4d

2010-11-27T14:00:00.000-08:00

I'm tired all the time. My back hurts. My hands swell up and go down. My feet are swollen all the time. These babies have given up sleep and have decided to kick me all the time instead to the point of it really hurting. I'm hungry but nothing sounds good. I'm thirsty but tired of drinking. I have to pee every 10 minutes. I pee every 10 minutes but that doesn't stop me from peeing myself multiple times a day. My boobs are huge and stuff keeps coming out of them. I bought some breast pads to keep from leaking all over the place when my milk comes in but wasn't expecting to need them now. I have no idea where I put said breast pads. My pelvis hurts. One of the most painful things I have ever experienced happens each time I try to roll over. Ain't pregnancy grand?

My kids were nice enough to give me a cold this week. Colds suck. Colds really really suck when you are knocked up and can't take anything. I was up about every 20-45 minutes the first night the cold hit me.

DH and I signed up for a breastfeeding class at the local hospital (not the one I will be delivering at). It is a two week thing and our first class was early this week. I've been reading a lot on the subject but mostly took the class so someone else could tell DH about all the benefits of breastfeeding and what he can do to support it. We did have a conversation about the subject that involved me telling him that this was something I really wanted to do and listed several reasons why. I thought he should know all this so when the going gets tough and all I want to do is quit, he can remind me of all the reasons to keep going. I try not to make too much of a spectacle of myself but it ended coming up in the class that I am expecting twins. I had the joy of everyone staring at me while I tried to balance two freaky looking baby dolls on top of my giant belly while the two babies in the belly kicked furiously at the creepy plastic dolls.

I had a growth u/s on Wednesday. I took DS1 with me who was completely uninterested. Baby A was estimated to be 3lbs 5oz and Baby B was estimated to be 2lbs 12oz. This put Baby A at the 78th percentile and Baby B at the 48th percentile. First of all, I think it is just insane that any child of mine would even be average in size since I am so short and DH doesn't really have height on his side. The tech said that the difference in size between the babies was fine but I am interested to see what my dr has to say at my appointment on Monday. Three weeks ago Baby A was in the 76th percentile so that hasn't really changed much. Baby B was in the 59th percentile three weeks ago. No idea what this will bring but I won't be the least bit surprised if they start getting concerned about IUGR (inter uterine growth restriction) and poor little Baby B's growth being stunted by Baby A taking over all the room. In my completely uneducated mind, this probably means that if this trend continues over the next couple weeks (Baby B dropping on the growth chart), they might decide to take the babies early just to give Baby B some room to grow. I am really not too concerned about this. It will likely be weeks before the growth becomes and issue. Since I am already almost 30 weeks (and the magical number for twin births is 34 weeks) things will probably be fine, maybe just some NICU time for feeders/growers. If it wasn't clear already, I am really not a fan of this being pregnant thing currently (or ever really) so in a way it it nice to see that maybe, possibly, there is an end in the future.

There really hasn't been much mention of my UU with my medical people for the past few months. Of course we are all aware that it could cause issues still, particularly preterm labor, but my twin pregnancy has been pretty much normal up until this point despite the shape of my uterus. The tech that did my last growth scan commented that that both babies are on the right, which is pretty much how they have been. (I have a right UU.) Baby A is head down toward the center of my hips and his feet are in my right rib cage. Baby B is underneath Baby A with his head down on my right hip bone and his feet up toward my sternum more toward my left ribs (he is oblique, so kinda of crisscrossed in my belly). Oddly, my belly looks symmetrical but it is is easy to tell when touching it that the left side is pretty squishy where the right side is filled with baby parts.

A cousin asked me at Thanksgiving dinner about when I thought I would give birth. I said I am hoping the week after Christmas. That way we can get Christmas out of the way and not have to worry about Christmas + premature babies, and we would make it to the magical 34 week point, and we would be able to cash in on our tax refund this year instead of having to wait until next year. As weird as the world is, I am totally expecting to give birth on December 29th, which would be the anniversary of the surgery to remove my rudimentary horn and the pregnancy that was within it.

28w, 2d

2010-11-18T14:26:00.000-08:00

28 weeks!!! This is probably the most excited I have been about a pregnancy milestone! I just didn't have it in me to post on the actual day I turned 28 weeks. I am slowly recovering from the ovary issue from last week. I still have trouble laying on my right side which is the size my cystic ovary is on. I was in some serious pain just from my back muscles being fatigued for the past several days. Finally yesterday and today I have been able to spend some time on the couch. Actually feeling pretty good today, well, as good as good gets right now. Back is still sore somewhat but I managed to do two loads of laundry today, cook dinner, and pick up around the house for 15 minutes. Oh, and stalk ebay. I have been doing a lot of stalking ebay lately. In the past couple days I have become the owner of 3 cloth diapers, two breathable crib bumpers, a wet bag for diapers, and a twin nursing pillow. Most excited about the nursing pillow. Those things are expensive! I ended up winning the auction for the one on ebay today saving myself $37 from buying one new.

Guess that's it for now.

27w, 5d

2010-11-14T10:45:00.000-08:00

Just a couple notes. While I was at the hospital the other day, it was noted that based on the weight estimates of these babies that was done at my u/s a little over a week ago, they are in the 75th percentile and 59th percentile. It shocked me that they were so different as far as percentage goes when they were only 3oz different, but then I realized that there isn't a huge variation in size of babies at this point so it makes sense.

I guess that was my only note. We were going to go shopping today for a freezer to store all these extra meals that people are going to bring me (hint, hint) and for breast milk and just because our current freezer is overflowing. Getting myself together to leave the house was more than I could handle. I ended up not feeling so great so no new freezer for us today.

27w, 4d

2010-11-13T17:41:00.000-08:00

I decided maybe Thursday that the horrible pain I have been feeling was certainly the cause of that stupid multi cystic ovary of mine. I discovered that most of the time I could avoid the worst of the pain overtaking me if I was able to lay down immediately upon feeling the pain begin to worsen from its normal dull annoying ache into something that puts me down for the count and makes me refrain from screaming only in the hopes that my children won't be completely scarred for life. In theory, this laying down when I feel the pain coming on thing isn't a big deal. Doesn't work out so good when I do have two small kids that sometimes I do have to take care of because no one else is here to do it and I am rather certain one of my children has ADHD and can't be trusted not to be under complete watch at all times.

My mom rather screwed me over in her ability to watch my kids on Friday without much warning. I did have about 2 hours in the morning where both kids were gone and I could feel the pain worsening and just stuck to my bed. I was going to wait until Monday to call my dr if things didn't get better, but I was just plain sick of having to lay in bed because of pain that I would think could be controlled. So I decided to call my dr. Of course by the time I called, the pain was pretty much gone and hasn't returned since. Really all I wanted to know was if there was something that could be done at this point (draining the cysts on the ovary, surgery, high doses of narcotics that my babies could become addicted to, magical spells, etc.) so I could just concentrate on growing babies from here on out. I had a question. I don't think I plan on having any more questions ever again.

Instead of answering my question, my dr office decided I needed to come in. I really am going to attempt to keep this short because the entire day was ridiculously long and filled with incompetent people and I could rant about the day for hours and hours. I drove myself into the city because, as I mentioned before, I was not in pain anymore. I tried to play it up like I was in pain while in the dr office because I wanted people to take me seriously and answer my damn question. Two hours were spent in the dr office and no one answered my question but instead started to freak out that I had torsion of my ovary (it twisted on itself and the blood supply was cut off and it was dying, since the pain I described was pretty much exactly what would be expected of that). So instead of telling me if they could fix my ovary or even cut the damn thing out, they decided to send me up to u/s. Oh, they also thought maybe it could be appendicitis which I knew it wasn't because this is my damn body and I have experienced this pain before and it had nothing to do with my appendix but no one was listening to a word I was saying. Damn drs and their liability fears.

The u/s unit there sucks. It is not uncommon to sit there for 2 hours. I got up there around 5 o'clock and people leaving from their appts were saying that they were scheduled to be seen at 2:00. I considered just going home. Then the lady registering people called someone who signed in after I did and I politely asked if I should have been next and she flipped out on me and told me I was wrong, that I wasn't next and I just need to get out of the way and sit down. So I did. I might have cried a little. It had nothing to do with the lady being a complete bitch to me and accusing me of being wrong when she was, it was just that I felt it was so stupid that I was even there. It didn't help that she told the lady who she took before me that they were about 2 hours behind. Finally I got called and was told that it wouldn't be long of a wait for me since I was an emergency. Apparently when there is an emergency and one of your body parts might be quickly dieing while you sit in a giant medical facility, this means you only have to wait 45 minutes to be seen. Grr... and I was going to try to make this short.

U/S showed both babies were doing just fine, head down, not that I have any idea why they spent so much time checking out the babies when they weren't part of the problem at all. My ovary measured at about 11.5 cm across, which I think at its largest was around 16.5 cm, so this was good. There are lots of cysts, but two really big ones that were almost 5 cm each. Lots of good blood flow in that there ovary too. (I swear I could become a u/s tech with little to no training at this point since I have had so many of the things.) Then a dr came in to take a look. She said she still couldn't rule out the fact that my ovary might be partially twisted and therefore still have blood flow but not be in a good position and getting ready to die. Also, she wasn't going to check out my appendix because they only do ob/gyn type u/s there and I would have to go to radiology for my appendix to be looked at. She called a dr from my practice who was on call in triage of the birthing center and they decided that I should go up to triage immediately. Yay!

I was hungry so I went and got a sandwich instead.

Then I went to triage. The registering nurse asked me why I was there and I said I really didn't know. I explained everything to her and she just looked at her form dumbfounded and said, "I have no idea what to even write here." It was about 7:00 when I got changed into a lovely hospital gown and settled into the most uncomfortable "bed" ever created. A nurse came in and worked forever attempting to get fetal heart rate monitors on my babies and ended up really unsuccessful. I waited. I am usually not overly patient but I act patiently when I know there is really nothing I can do but wait. Not last night. After an hour and a half I buzzed the nurse and asked if my dr was going to see me soon. She said she would be there shortly and she actually was. It was a resident and I really liked her. She finally answered my question. They try to avoid draining ovarian cysts just on the off chance that the ovary could be cancerous (which she had absolutely no reason to think mine was) and having the cysts burst and release cancerous material into the rest of my body would be a bad thing. They can do laproscopic surgery but unless it is really needed at this point, they prefer to put that off until after the pregnancy so they aren't dealing with the risk of operating on a pregnant woman. (Personally, I would rather take the risk of surgery now than wait until 3 months after I give birth like she suggested to have surgery to remove the cysts and/or ovary. Can you even imagine? Two young kids plus 3 month old twins and I am recovering from surgery? No thank you.) I think I understood that they they could take a look at the ovary if I have a c-section and maybe do something about it at that point. Then the dr did an exam, one of the most painful exams I have ever had, just to make sure that none of the pain I was experiencing was a result of preterm labor. My cervix is still closed and nothing else indicated that I am in preterm labor. They took some blood. I was told it would be about 30-45 minutes until those results were back.

An hour and a half later I buzzed the nurse again and asked if there was any news on my test results. She said as soon as one of the drs finished with a delivery, they would be in. So, two drs came in shortly after that. Nothing indicated an infection or anything else that might point towards appendicitis or really anything causing the pain other than the ovary. They preferred to keep me overnight but I made it very clear to them that I thought it was ridiculous that I was there in the first place and would not be staying. Unlike earlier in the day when I was trying to make sure they all understood the amount of pain I was in, I said over and over again how I wasn't in pain AT ALL because I was tired of them paying attention to me. The dr said that she couldn't let me go in good conscious until she was able to get a good fetal heart rate reading for 20 minutes. It took about 30 minutes of lots of fiddling around and some sort of handheld u/s device to finally get the monitors on right to pick up the heart rates. I was laying flat on my back, a position that just doesn't work for me, and was instructed not to move. If it meant getting the hell out of there, I was going to make it work. I stared at the monitor reading. A couple times the monitor stopped picking up anything and I started to panic and fiddled with the monitor myself until it picked something up. After 30 minutes I buzzed the nurse. "Any chance I could get out of here yet?" Someone came in and disconnected me. I got my discharge papers. I discovered the protocol for getting out of the hospital after hours. I got home at 1:30am.

I slept in today.

I also managed to smack myself in the head with a chaise lounge today. I'm awesome like that.

26w, 6d

2010-11-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling like ass. Complete and total ass. It started the night after the hospital tour. I woke up in the middle of the night with the most awful back pain. It was really bad. I threw my back out twice in my life and that hurt like hell, but at least the shooting killer pain only really showed up when I moved. This was that horrible pain but constant and no position would relieve it. I considered waking up DH when it first happened because I was convinced it had to be labor related. After about an hour it did start to subside. However, I have been dealing with that crap on and off since then. It comes on pretty sudden and I am done. My whole body is unable to function. I get nauseous, weak, and feel like death. The only thing I have found to help is if I get on all fours and put my chest on my yoga ball for about 30 minutes. Then I am back to pretty much normal for several hours. I had plans to visit a friend today that I had to cancel due to this pain. I ended up calling my dr just because I was so paranoid that it was all pre-term labor related and not just simple back pain. The nurse and dr discussed it and decided that it didn't sound labor related, just unfortunate pain from having a huge ovary still, two babies, and uterus that is positioned mainly off to one side.

All this pain did have me pretty convinced that this pregnancy might not last too much longer. Part of me isn't too upset about that. I am not a fan of being pregnant. September was actually pretty good. I felt pretty good. I wasn't worried every second of losing these babies. I certainly wasn't in this much pain. But, other than September, every other part of being pregnant has sucked. I hung out with my friend Google for a bit tonight. The original object was to convince myself that if I don't last too much longer, these little babies will be okay. Instead I came across pictures and information about premature babies that convinced me that I can put up with this pain and annoyance and sickness and hatred of being pregnant longer because it will all be worth it to have bigger, stronger, healthier babies.

26w, 4d

2010-11-06T16:17:00.001-07:00

Busy with baby stuff the past two days. Yesterday I had an appointment with MFM. It was the most worthless appointment I have ever had. I'm up 4lbs in the past two weeks, putting me at +25lbs total. Finally getting to a good weight for twin babies. My blood pressure was good. My aim at peeing in a cup sucked. The doctor (someone I hadn't seen before) asked if I had any questions. I asked a couple things. She seemed highly unconcerned. There was basically no exam. There was no wheeling in of the u/s machine to check heartbeats. Instead she just checked with the doppler, saying that at this point the babies are big enough that is should be easy to find both. Baby A clocked in at 135 bpm, which is the lowest it has ever been. Baby B clocked in at 148 bpm, which is the highest it has been since the babies were just little specs. This is the first time the heartrates weren't within 2-3 beats of each other. She measured my belly, pretty much just for shits and giggles (although she used some other phrase and didn't say "shits and giggles"). I am measuring 29 weeks. She said that from here on out I will start growing a lot faster than a mom with a singleton.

I asked if it would be possible for me to get a tour sometime of the NICU at the hospital. Then I suddenly realized, I might not be able to handle it. I teared up just asking the question. Then again I had tears in my eyes while the lady that does the scheduling was making phone calls to figure things out. Just the thought of seeing all those teeny tiny babies hooked up to machines and knowing that there is a big chance that my two teeny tiny babies have a huge chance of being in there. I cried the whole way home. Like, I want to see. I want to be familiar with the place so I can just be in shock of MY kids being in there and not be in shock of the whole NICU. I just don't know if I can bring myself to go through with the tour. As of now, it is scheduled for the Monday after Thanksgiving when I will be at the hospital anyway for my next appointment, unless something big is going on in the NICU and they aren't able to fit me. I am feeling better today about the visit. It is just that I know how fortunate I am in life. I have made some really really bad decisions and have had some really crappy things happen to me, but at the same time, things still seem to have turned out great. I've been lucky more times than I can count. We've gone through the adoption process twice and each time it was hell, yet still nearly flawless as far as adoptions go. I got screwed over in life with this UU, but here I am pregnant with twins at 26 weeks and I haven't experienced half the problems that other women with UUs have experienced or half the problems other moms expecting twins have experienced. I just keep waiting for my luck to run out, to be that mom with tiny little twins in the NICU, holding my breath every day that they will just make it to the next day.

Today DH and I took the tour of the maternity area of the hospital. One of the first places we were shown was where the NICU was located. I stood there just outside the doors of all those tiny, sick babies, and I was okay with it. There were a lot of things on the tour that weren't all that helpful. I already knew where triage was. Been there. Done that. Already knew all about how to register when you come in to be sent to triage. We got to check out a labor/delivery/recovery room. Not sure how helpful that was since we were also told that twin mommas deliver in the OR even if they are having a vaginal birth. Plus half of the stuff the guide told us I just kept thinking, yeah it all sounds great if you give birth to ONE HEALTHY baby, but who the hell knows how it will all go down if I am in there with preemie twins. I feel like I am nice and prepared for a normal pregnancy and birth, but those are things I will never get to experience.

25w, 3d

2010-10-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

My totally awesome and spectacular friends held a little shower for me last night. It was great and kind of embarrassing. I've just always had the belief that you get a shower for your first kid and that is it. They felt the need to do something small (there were only 9 of us) since this was a special circumstance. I might have two kids already but I sure don't have a lick of the things needed for a baby younger than 7 months yet, and certainly not for TWO babies under 7 months old. It was a great evening of just being with my friends. Being sent home with a bunch of presents was certainly a bonus!

I was up early this morning for an u/s I had scheduled. I was able to get in at one of the satellite imaging centers for the hospital which worked out great. It wasn't as far of a drive. There were far less people in the waiting room and the people there were far less scary. The u/s tech was very nice and wasn't in a huge hurry. I only waited 15 minutes for my appointment as opposed to the 2 hours I often wait. I didn't have to pay for parking. The list of pros just goes on and on.

The important thing, everything looked great. Baby A was once again being incredibly active. I hope he gets it out of his system now and is ready to do lots of sleeping once he arrives. Measurements were done of the heads, bellies, and femurs. The tech commented that these babies have long legs. Makes me wonder who these babies belong to. Certainly not me since I have short little stumps for legs and certainly not my husband who only has a couple inches on me. The tech did an estimate of their weights and came up with Baby A at 1lb 14oz and Baby B at 1lb 11oz. At 25 weeks they are supposed to be around a pound and a half so it is looking like they are still right on schedule.

After my appointment, I decided to stop at Babies R Us (BRU) since it was right across the street and I don't have a chance too often to get there. I was not aware until I arrived that today was their grand opening for their "new" store which is now a Babies R Us/Toys R Us hybrid. It was a nuthouse in there, mostly because there had to be at least 75 employees working there. I couldn't even look at an item for more than a minute because during that span of time, literally three employees would come up to me and ask if I needed help. My main objective of being there was to hopefully purchase a belly support belt to help my back pain. Mission accomplished. Have to say, this support thing is AWESOME. I saw some complaints online about the support belts being bulky and it is not something you can really wear out and about. Sure, there are a few little creases under my shirt that can be noticed but screw it, I could care less. I'm all about comfort these days and have been fine for weeks of just letting it all hang out and not giving a shit what anyone's opinion of my wacky body is. While walking the aisles of the store, I figured I would do some price comparison between stuff that I had wanted at Target and things I found on amazon.com. Pretty much everything was cheaper according to the websites at those stores than what was at BRU. I did end up going home with two new car seats though. BRU offers a 10% multiples discount on items of $50 or more if you purchase two at the same time, you just have to ask for it at the register. Although the car seats were slightly higher priced at BRU than what was listed on Target website, I had already checked out our local Target and saw they didn't carry them in the store. After the multiples discount, there wasn't much of a price difference anyway. So good news. Babies can now come home after they are born.

25w, 1d

2010-10-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

What a crazy week. My aunt died. Along with all the normal stress involved with a family death, I also had to deal with not having my mom available to help me out with the kids most days this week. Even though I have pretty much let them watch non-stop tv while I lay on the couch, that doesn't stop their need for me to get them to school and back, feed them, wipe their bums, and break up stupid quarrels. I'm exhausted and it is only Wednesday. I'm starting to really regret the fact that I offered for about 15 relatives to come over here in a couple hours for dinner.

What I really wanted to write about though was the dream I had last night. It took me the longest time after I got pregnant to start dreaming that I was actually having two babies. All my dreams involved one baby that was usually a girl. Finally, two dreams this week that I had twin boys. The first one involved me attempting to breastfeed them both at the same time and my mom and sister sitting around watching me juggle babies and no one helping me. Last night I had a dream I gave birth to these little boys. It was an odd dream. DH was in the room along with some weirdo man that was supposed to be his dad but certainly wasn't. Also present were two fictitious friends of DH that were complete stoners and kept talking about pot during the whole birth process. I gave birth to the babies and was able to see them briefly laying on the table between my legs, and then they were taken away. A nurse came back later and said I could see them in about an hour, that they had to go to the NICU. They were both doing great and would be fine, but one needed a little help getting enough oxygen and they both were showing irregular movement in their feet. I have no idea how far along in my pregnancy I was in my dream but apparently they were premature since the nurse said they weighed 3lbs 3oz and the other baby weighed 3lbs 13oz.

I woke up happy with my 3lb babies. It probably sounds crazy to most people that having 3lb babies would be good news, and I certainly am hoping that they are twice that size when they make their appearance. Considering how many cards I have stacked against me in this journey, the fact that in my dream these babies came out generally healthy and over 3lbs actually far outweighs any expectation I had at the beginning of this pregnancy.

24w, 2d

2010-10-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

Had another appointment today. I was supposed to see Jim Carey but, thankfully, he was running behind schedule so another dr, The Blue Lady, took me. (She seriously looked blue last time I saw her although this time she was certainly more person colored.) I much prefer The Blue Lady over Jim Carey. So, here are the stats. I have gained 21 lbs total, 4 lbs in the past two weeks. Babies heartrates look good. Both are head down, not that it matters much at this point. There was a manual cervix check (which The Blue Lady was far superior at performing than was Jim Carey). It was closed and at least 3 cm long. I have a growth u/s scheduled for next week and another appointment back at MFM in 2 weeks.

Other than that, I have been in severe pain. My back is done. It isn't even my lower back. Between my shoulders hates me. Can I have my back amputated? I have fantasies about seeing a chiropractor. I still haven't decided for sure if I am going to call. Not that I don't want to feel better. It is just that I know chiropractic care is not a short term fix. So, by the time things could really be helping my back, I could be done with this pregnancy thing. But mainly, that is just one more appointment I am going to have to go to, probably weekly. I'm tired of waiting rooms and dr's and would so much rather just be able to spend time with my kids, even if it is time laying in bed because I am in so much pain. And on that, I am outta here. It hurts way too much to be in any sort of position that allows me to type.

24w

2010-10-19T17:41:00.000-07:00

I made it!!!! I can hardly believe that here I am at this HUGE milestone of 24 weeks. These babies suddenly have a fighting chance to make it in a world outside my womb.

Of course then I got to thinking, that means only 16 more weeks until my official due date. That is 4 months. I highly doubt I will make it to 40 weeks and I highly doubt my dr office would even let me go much past 38, but that is still a potential of 4 more months of feeling progressively worse than I do now. Not that I want to have these babies prematurely by any means, but things have just got ridiculous lately. I had some bad pelvic pain before... but it just keeps getting worse! And my back! Sitting on my couch is no longer an option. Since Saturday, I have found that I can kinda make it a bit in our glider, maybe two hours a day. I no longer sit at a dining chair while I eat. Nope, I sit on an exercise ball. Most of the day is spent laying in my bed because that is the only position where every single muscle of my back is screaming out in the agony of constant fatigue and spasm.

At least I have an awesomely sympathetic 4 year old who likes to share his favorite stuffed bear with me to make me feel better and, when I actually do attempt to leave the house, he points out every bench or seat he sees and tells me, "Mommy, you can sit there and rest."

23w, 2d

2010-10-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

Tuesday I was officially 23 weeks. Tuesday was also my first trip to the labor and delivery (L&D) triage. It was like a right of passage almost! Pretty much all UU girls do it. Many several times. The dr there even told me to plan to come back often. It was incredibly boring and frustrating and I could probably type up thousands of words on my trip there, but I will try to stick to the important details.

Tuesday I got up with some minor stomach cramps. Figured I had to poop. Took care of that, and the cramps hung around. My lower back was also hurting, but I have lower back issues as it is and had been hanging out on a couch in pretty much the same position for a few days. The abdominal pain was seriously minor, but it was there. That combined with Dr. Jim Carey telling me last week that he felt that my cervix was softened and shortened... well, I decided I would rather make a trip to my dr and inconvenience everyone in my life for no reason, than not go and there end up being a reason.

I called and the dr office suggested instead of coming in there, to head to L&D instead. Both in the same building, but they figured L&D would be better able to monitor me longer. My poor dad got the job of driving me there. Anything at all remotely related to being female or me having a body that needs any sort of attention in any way, is most certainly not my dad's thing. So we went. I went back and stripped down and got hooked up to a monitor to check contractions. Then I had a nurse go get my dad. Someone to ask me questions and there was a whole slew of questions about the pregnancy in my rudimentary horn and the removal, something my parents don't know about. My dad was sitting right there. I doubt he was really listening or understanding things like "ectopic" and "rudimentary horn". I don't see him saying anything to my mom. Honestly at this point, I don't care. I know it wouldn't break her heart to know about the loss at this point. ANYWAYS, back to important details...

They did an u/s to find the heartbeats. (Dad hung around for that.) They checked my cervix. (Dad made a beeline for the waiting room at that point.) They gave me fluids. They took some blood. They checked my urine. Monitor showed I was having very minor contractions every 3-5 minutes for awhile, then they stopped, then they came back, then they stopped for the remainder of the time I was there. They did an u/s to check my cervix. You know how my dr last week said my cervix was shortening last week? WRONG! It was holding long and closed at 3.3 cm, which is pretty much where it has been for every check. Another manual check of my cervix was done before they kicked me out. They said my cervix might have been softening a bit, but it could just be normal for my cervix. All my test results came back fine. No UTI. Nothing to indicate I had some sort of infection. They did an FFN test and it came back negative. So out the door I went.

I actually left feeling way better emotionally than I have been feeling for the past several days. Everything at this point is pointing towards these babies cooking for awhile longer. The last dr I talked to even said to just take it easy Tuesday night but after that I could resume regular activity. I'm still trying to take it easy and do as little as possible. Unfortunately, that doing nothing much else than laying on the couch has resulted in me having severe all over back pain that caused me to spend most of the evening in bed.

And that is all for now. Guess that I should add that I haven't felt any movement on my left side where Baby B is for the past two days. Now I get to be paranoid about that.

22w, 5d

2010-10-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

Been taking it as easy as I can, which was been much simpler over the weekend when DH is here than it was on Friday. Even when my mom is here, I still feel like I am doing most of the things. All the pain I had across the top of my belly is gone and I am fairly certain it was just indigestion. I am still feeling pretty constant pinching in my cervix, but it is better when I am laying down. Not sure I have had any more Braxton Hicks contractions. Sometimes I am just not sure. With these two babies moving around all the time, sometimes they start pushing and tightening up my belly and I can't really tell if it is just babies moving or a contraction.

On to the dream I had a few nights ago. I had a similar dream while adopting DS2. I don't try to find meaning in every dream I have (I have always been a heavy dreamer, it isn't just a pregnancy thing) but sometimes I just know there is more to the dream than weirdness going on in my subconscious. This was one of those dreams.

I was in a three story building (representing the 3 trimesters) that had a huge winding staircase that went up a center concourse area. There was some sort of disaster going on and the only way to get through it was up this treacherous staircase. I did just fine getting up to the second story (second trimester) but then there were issues. The steps were out up to the third floor. There was a big group of people trying to get up to the top floor but we all had to wait. I had to take a number because we could only go one at a time. The rescue workers (doctors?) were inflating a temporary emergency staircase that we were going to have to climb. I was scared and nervous and found myself talking to this guy I knew from grade school who is currently in prison for murder. He put me at ease and helped me relax while I waited for my turn to make a go for the third floor. (Guess I was finding support from unlikely sources.) Finally it was my turn. The temporary stairs I was to climb didn't work very well and it was more like I had to climb up this big squishy rope. There were no harnesses and it was a LONG way down. I just closed my eyes as tight as I could and tried to use every part of my body and every piece of information I ever learned about climbing to move up. I reached the top of the temporary stairs only to realize they didn't reach all the way to the third floor. There were more rescue workers (doctors) above. They lowered down a harness that I had to put on in order to hoist me up. (Still, doing everything I can to help myself, I have to put total faith in the doctors to get me all the way there.) Most importantly, I made it! I was safe and I made it. Then I ran down some stairs in another part of the building to try to escape the building for good and there was chocolate and popcorn waiting as a reward.

So there it is. According to my dream I do make it all the way, or at least pretty darn close. There are going to be hurdles. It is going to take all the strength and knowledge that I have. It is going to be insanely scary. I am going to have to rely on the help of a whole team of people. But I am going to make it. And maybe my subconscious thinks I plan on naming my kids Chocolate and Popcorn.

22w, 2d

2010-10-07T05:44:00.000-07:00

So, started writing something this morning and ended up just deleting it all after events from the days transpired. I've been having this pinching feeling since Tuesday evening that seems to be coming from my cervix but who really knows. It had me a bit concerned and lost a little sleep over it. I didn't bother to call my dr though because I had an appointment scheduled for tomorrow. Then today I woke up with some weird soreness that stretched from my right side up over the top of my big belly (I noticed a few days ago that my feet are no longer visible when I just look down) to above my belly button. It was really quite painful, particularly when I moved or even touched my belly. My mom said she was unavailble to help out today which didn't make things any better. I ended up calling her this morning and let her know that I was going to call my dr and would she be able to help out and cancel her plans if I had to go in. I felt completely awful physcially at that point, and felt awful for having to inconvenience her yet again. So there was crying on my part. I dropped my kid off at school and started telling one of the mom friends I have there about how I have been feeling. She put me a little more at ease and told me that she had the pinching cervix thing too. The belly pain wasn't that much of a concern to me. I figured it probably was just heartburn since I forgot to take my Zantac last night, although it did hurt a ton. Then I was off to take my other kid to his speech therapist. My mom called to see how I was doing and I told her I was going to call the dr in a few minutes and would get back to her. She assured me that it wouldn't be a problem for her to come over and watch my kids and that she even got my dad up so he could drive me to the city if I needed him to. Called the dr. Then waited for about 30 minutes for a call back. I was hoping just for some reassurance, and maybe to tell me to take it easy and come in to my appointment tomorrow. Instead I was told to come in this afternoon for an appointment instead. So, called my mom to see if she could watch my kids. She didn't answer. Called her every 5 minutes for about an hour and still nothing. I called my sister to see if maybe she was getting off work early today and could watch my kids. She didn't answer. Called my husband to see if he could come home early. He didn't answer. I think it was around that time that I started crying again. DH sent me a txt saying he was in a meeting so I was at least able to tell him breifly what was going on. He said he could help if I needed him too. After an hour of trying to get a hold of my mom, and about 2 minutes before I was ready to just have DH come home early, my mom finally called back. Good thing it wasn't a big emergency!

Anyway, went to my dr. The first thing the dr wanted to know when he came in the room is if I have been having any signs of preterm labor. (Jim Carey was my dr again today.) So I told him about all that has been going on, and mentioned as well that I have started to have a few Braxton Hicks contractions. He did an u/s and both babies were head down this time, good heart rates, and definitely still boys. He couldn't really figure out where the belly pain was coming from since it seemed to be above my uterus. I got some blood work done to check liver function and a u/s is scheduled to check my gallbladder but I don't know if I am going to keep the appointment. I am still convinced it is indegestion so if I feel better I am not going to torture myself with fasting for 10 hours for an u/s. The transabdominal u/s didn't show anything too weird with my cervix, no funneling or anything like that. He suggested doing a manual check of the cervix to check for softening. I said to go for it, just for peace of mind. Yeah, that HURT! From what he could feel, no dilation but my cervix is about 2 inches long. (Anything under 2 isn't good, so I am on the verge of not being good.) Also, my cervix does seem to be softening which isn't really that great. Normally he would have me come back in 4 weeks but I am going back in 2 instead just in case. He said if I have 4 or more Braxton Hicks an hour over 2 hours to call to come in and be monitored. (I haven't had any today.) No sex (not that I have had any for a couple months). He said I should be fine showering and preparing things to eat and hanging out with my kids, but I shouldn't do doing any chores involved with taking care of a 3 and 4 year old. I am not sure exactly what that last part means. Then I got a flu shot.

And my cervix is really hurting now! Ouch.

I had this dream last night that was terrifying and inspiring all at the same time. I was going to write about it but maybe I will save that until another time since this is already so long.

22w

2010-10-05T17:38:00.001-07:00

22 weeks down! And lots more to go, I hope. Mostly. I mean, I really want to cook these babies for a few more months but this being pregnant thing is sure hard on my body. Parts of me are sore that I never knew could get sore. I sit down for too long and my back hurts. I stand up too long and my back hurts. I managed to make it over a week without puking but then that came to an abrupt halt the other day. Some days I feel pretty good. Most days I still feel pretty crappy. I am starving but can only eat a few bites. I am tired of eating and nothing sounds good. Anytime I try to sit down and relax, these little guys think it is party time and start kicking and punching me. At least I have lots to complain about, and for a person that loves to complain, that is a great bonus!

Nothing much new. I spent all day Saturday walking around a museum. Thought I did pretty good and felt pretty good. Then I had this "hangover" thing going on for the next two days where I was too exhausted to move or function even on a rudimentary level. Tomorrow I am headed out in the cold and rain to go on a field trip with DS1. I was debating whether to go or not but I guess I am going now. The field trip involves a hayride... hopefully a not very bumpy one.

I was on a pregnancy message board today and someone posted a picture of their baby bump at 26 weeks to show off. The girl in the photo was pregnant with a singleton. My belly is bigger than hers.

I was at a store the other day and the cashier was obviously pregnant. She was sitting in a chair at her register and spent the entire time I saw her rubbing her rounded belly. I thought of asking her how far along she was or some other question so we could bond over the fact that we were both pregnant. Then I remembered my personal rule to never ask someone if they are pregnant unless I am 100% sure. But I was 100% sure so almost asked again. Then I realized that I would end up having to say something about how I was pregnant with twins and wasn't sure how to say that and have it not sound like I was bragging or rubbing it in, which is most certainly not what I wanted to do. So I said nothing.

I was talking to one of my kid's classmates moms at preschool pick up the other day. I've seen her around but apart from exchanging hellos, never spoke to her. She asked me when I was due. I rattled off my typical answer without thinking. "Officially I'm due on February 8th but it will probably be around Christmas time since it is twins." She was clearly shocked as she exclaimed, "Twins! Wow!" I almost busted up laughing. I just assumed at this point that everyone who I have might have ever had contact with in the past few months knew I was having twins.

Holy crap I am having twins...

21w, 1d

2010-09-29T15:24:00.001-07:00

Something happened to my belly today. It is huge and shaped really different than it has been. How did this happen? I think it might have doubled in size over the past 24 hours. If it keeps this up, it is going to need its own zip code by the end of the week.

Feeling far more mentally stable after my near breakdown two days ago. I was so out of it I failed to mention a couple things I intended to. If only my memory was working properly enough to remember those things...

I ran into a woman from my old neighborhood at the used kids' items sale I went to last night. I haven't seen her for a year and really never knew her all that well apart from small chats when we would pass each other in the neighborhood. She took one look at me, pointed at my belly and exclaimed, "What's this!?!?" I was actually pretty excited that someone I don't see often knew right away that I was pregnant and not thought that I had just gotten fat since they saw me last! The sale I was at was hosted by the Moms of Multiples group in that area so of course everyone working the sale had twins (or multiples of some sort). As soon as I told the old neighbor I was pregnant with twins, another twin mom decided she should join the conversation and be super friendly. Or annoying. However you want to look at it. This strange woman who I had never met asked me, "Are they natural?" I have heard other twin moms complaining of this question. I knew exactly what she meant but also really wanted to respond with something super snarky but seriously, what business is it of anyone's how I conceived these kids?? I really wanted to say something like, "They are human beings. Isn't that natural?" Instead I ignored her and went back to talking to the old neighbor who I actually know. But, this strange lady was relentless and asked the question again. I felt like she was judging me. Like maybe she felt that if my twins weren't conceived by sex alone then I wasn't a "real" twin mom or something. In the end I managed to dodge the question by half lying. By then the strange woman had heard the old neighbor and I talking about how my other two kids were adopted and the old neighbor said she assumed I couldn't have biological children. I ended up saying something like we weren't doing anything to prevent getting pregnant for a couple years and then decided to actually try and now I'm pregnant with twins.

I can't remember anything else I was going to mention the last post but forgot.

DS1 is kinda excited about these two new brothers. He has been talking about them every couple of days unprompted. He is the one I am more worried about after they come because he is so competitive for attention (or anything really) and has made it clear in the past that he is perfectly happy with the one brother he has. However, he seems to like to break the news to people that he is getting two new brothers. Last week when I had the 1 hour glucose test done I said I was going to the doctor. He asked me if I was going to find out if the babies were big enough yet "so the doctor could take them out". DS2 doesn't really talk about the babies. He might join in the conversation when we are already talking about it but he is notorious for living in his own little pretend world that only affects the here and now and his life. He LOVES babies though so I know he will love playing with them and being around them once they are here. I did overhear him today telling a lady I know with a baby how he was going to get two new babies. Glad to know that he actually is somewhat "getting" it even if he doesn't mention it often.

And just to pat myself on my back today, the battery in my car died today leaving me and DS2 stranded. I didn't stress at all. I knew stressing was not going to fix my car but more importantly, it was not going to help me entertain DS2 while we waited to be rescued nor would it make my health situation any good. So, I just handled it. Car is all better now and I am all kinds of awesome for being done freaking out about things... for the moment.

20w, 6d

2010-09-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

What a week. Nothing really major to report apart from my insane mind. There was one day at some point that I felt really crampy and my lower back was hurting and I was convinced I was going into preterm labor. I drank a ton of water which seemed to help a little. Then the next day I was fine. Had another incident where I knew I was doing more than I should and suddenly had this horrible uterine pain which I imagine is kinda like what a mild contraction would be. Yeah, that freaked me out. I sat down, chugged some water, and was perfectly fine.

There was one point late last week where suddenly I just became overwhelmed with excitement about being pregnant and having babies in our house and really what a wonderful thing this all is. That lasted about 5 minutes.

Then it was back to feeling like crap, physically and emotionally.

Physically, I am really starting to feel the wear on my body. I can't bend over anymore. Certain things I used to be able to reach or stretch to accomplish aren't happening. Getting in and out of my car is getting difficult. I find when I wash my hands, I stand sideways at the sink because having to lean over my belly to reach my short arms to the faucet just doesn't work so well. Sleeping sucks even more than it did. I can't really sleep fully on my side anymore because my belly sticks out on the sides just enough. So I sleep on my side, but kinda tipped a little backwards. For weeks now I haven't been able to figure out how to roll over without waking up, sitting up, repositioning my entire body, and laying back down.

Emotionally, I am just insane. I find myself thinking, "Yeah, that would be a great idea," only to realize two minutes later that only a truly crazy person would think that thing would be normal. Such crazy thoughts that I can't even bring myself to post them on here. I had a dream last night that I was visiting my babies in the NICU. They were in separate rooms and, like all my dreams about my babies, both babies were girls. I had just visited the one baby and then moved on over to see the second one. A minute later a nurse came in and told me the first baby died. Her name was Hannah. I couldn't believe it since I was just in there and she was fine. I know none of this even makes sense since I am not having two girls and most certainly neither of these boys will be named Hannah and it was just a dream and not real life. But why am I dreaming this stuff?? It just seems there have been way too many stories in the news about babies not making it. I was reading an article yesterday about amazing stories of survival and one of the stories in the article was about twins born at 26 weeks and even though one died, the other lived. Who the hell decided that was a great story of survival and would be inspirational?? Couldn't they have featured a set of twins that involved both living?? Then a few minutes ago I was checking out posts on a message board for moms of multiples. I try to avoid any posts that, based on the subject lines, might have bad news inside. Even though I didn't read the actual post, it was evident from the subject that the woman had given birth to her twin girls and both died. I just don't want to hear that shit. Should I just avoid the internet for the rest of this pregnancy? I am considering it.

No clue why I am freaking out so much suddenly. Or I didn't. I think I figured it out. Only 3 more weeks (and 1 day) until I reach the very minimum length of gestation for viability. After all the sickness and everything it took to even get to this point, it only makes sense that I would be justifiably freaked out that I made it this far but won't be able to go the distance. A friend reminded me that I have already made it 21 weeks... what is 3 more? I have done 3 weeks 7 times already, of course I can do another 3 weeks. Sure it is kinda faulty math but I am going to try my hardest to think it makes complete and total sense.

Also going on, I got some stuff. Baby stuff that is. There was a huge used baby gear sale I went to this weekend and picked up some things - a play yard, a few outfits. I wasn't going to do or buy anything until I hit that 24 week point, but it wasn't like I could postpone the sale. It was this weekend and that was that. Plus I read on a message board that the general consensus was that around 24-28 weeks, you really start slowing down when you are knocked up with twins. That was when I was going to step it up. I visited with some friends yesterday. Talk about awesome people. I went home with the back of my vehicle loaded up with hand me down clothes and the promise of many many more to come. (One of the friends is due with her son in 3 weeks and said she is giving her stuff to me when she is done with it.) I was pretty freaked out about not having anything for these little guys to wear and now I am thinking I will have more than any kid could ever need.

I think my husband is afraid of my belly. Probably not. Most likely I am just insane and have weird insane thoughts all the time. Just seems like he avoids my belly. Not that I want strangers rubbing my belly all the time or anything, but I think it would be normal for DH to touch it, even accidentally. But it seems like he avoids it, avoids looking at it, or getting too close. I told him when he came home from work today that he was allowed to touch my belly. So he poked it with his index finger. Maybe he is just as much freaked out by this whole pregnancy and extra babies thing as I am.

I could really use a beer. Guess I will settle for ice cream.

20w, 1d

2010-09-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

Went in for my 1 hr glucose test today. Normally the test is done around 28 weeks. The risk of GD (gestational diabetes) is higher in multiple pregnancy so my dr office likes to have it checked sooner so it can begin to be controlled sooner and result in (hopefully) less issues. No clue what the results are and no clue when I will find out. Probably not until my next appointment unless there was an issue.

Didn't really know what to expect. I have heard about the test. Basically heard you drink a sugary drink and then an hour later you get your blood drawn. That pretty much sums it up. The drink was orange, kinda like that concentrate orange drink you get from McDonald's only maybe they didn't add quite enough water to dilute it. It wasn't so bad for the first half of the cup. After that, well, I was just glad I took my anti-nausea drugs earlier today. Although I am doing much better with sweet/sour things, too much is still an issue for me. During the first trimester, anything sweet would lead me to puking. I couldn't even eat fruit. Glad that issue is much better or else I never would have made it an hour with that stuff in my stomach.

So I sat for an hour. I took my headphones and listened to some music while I worked on the second of the two baby sweaters I am knitting. I had a bit of a sugar high at first and felt kinda sickish. Then it was getting close to my normal veg on the couch time and the sugar was probably dropping off a bit and I thought I could use a nap. They stole some of my blood and I was outta there.

While they were draining my blood, I thought that it has really been a long time since I have had to give up some of my blood. Like... 2 months? Apart from any infertility treatments, I had only had blood drawn a handful of times. During my injectable/IUI cycles, it jumped up to nearly daily. But, there I was again. Hopefully that is the end of my GD testing.

20w

2010-09-21T17:22:00.001-07:00

It never fails. Tuesday comes around and I find myself thinking I can't believe I made it another week. Never thought I would make it to 12 weeks and then one Tuesday, I did. Then another Tuesday I hit 15 weeks and thought that was just unbelievable. But seriously, 20 weeks?? Can I actually be 20 weeks into this adventure?? Why yes I am.

Now excuse me for the hodgepodge of a disorganized mess for the rest of this.

Talked to a friend (mom of one of my kids' preschool classmates) last week. A friend of hers was waiting to find out if she was pregnant. Said friend, D, is 40 and has been trying for over 2 years. Needless to say, D was pretty stressed out waiting to find out if this would be the month or not. D was driving my friend rather crazy with all her wondering and worrying. Glad to report, this woman D is pregnant! And I also have a new friend on FB as I volunteered to answer some questions and tell her about my own experience which was somewhat similar in the fact that we went to the same group of drs. Glad to find myself on the supportive end of things at this point instead of on the freaking out and wondering and waiting end.

Ran into the mother of a girl I knew growing up. (Was never much of a fan of the girl or her mother actually.) My mom knows this woman so I have to joy of finding out all kinds of things about this girl that I never particularly liked via my mom, things like how this girl has twin daughters, which really has nothing to do with why I am even bringing up running into this lady. So the lady asked about my kids and I told her I was pregnant with twins, you know, since I have the joy of knowing that her kid had twins and I could care less about. This lady did the whole, "Oh wow! I never would have guessed!" I am at the point now where that is just insulting. I get that people do have bellies as big as mine at this point and they aren't pregnant. I also get that I am not one of those 6 ft tall, 135 lb people (you know who I am talking about) who gets a nice round belly that is obviously a pg belly. I am short and "compact" and have never had a flat stomach in my life. But seriously, don't you dare look at me and act all surprised that I am pg. THERE ARE TWO BABIES IN THERE, NOT REPEAT FAST FOOD LUNCHES! Did I mention there was some reason why I never really liked this lady in the first place?

I was reading on a message board for multiples about how between 24-28 weeks, things start getting pretty rough for twin mommas. The uterus at that point is pretty much stretched to what it would be for a 40 week singleton pregnancy. Preterm labor chances take off. People complained about being sooo uncomfortable because they were getting so huge. So that gives me about 4 weeks of this not feeling nearly as crappy as I was feeling. I really didn't want to start doing too much baby prep prior to 24 weeks just because I am still paranoid. Guess we will see how that 24-28 weeks thing goes and how much I can get done.

I think I might have seen a baby move ever so slightly on the outside this evening. Or maybe not. Someone did decide that my ribcage was a nice place for their head for a bit today. So far not really a big deal. It is more like pressure than being seriously uncomfortable. Plus, there is still some room in there so I just have to change position and they move anyway. Enjoying that because I have this feeling it won't last.

Also, got pretty tired of peeing myself every time I would sneeze today. Good times.

19w, 3d

2010-09-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the "big" u/s. DH took the afternoon off work to go along. It is the first time he has been able to go to an appointment with me. And it was LONG. I am thinking I must have been laying there on the u/s table for over 2 hours. A lot of it was boring - just waiting for the tech to point something out. I was looking forward to being told I had to lay pretty much flat on my back since I have been told mostly to avoid that situation. I did need to take a couple breaks since the baby weight on my aorta was apparently cutting off my blood supply and making me feel no very good at all. In the end, all their body parts were accounted for and all the measurements were within normal range.

Two boys. Crazy. I really wasn't feeling it one way or another what gender they would be, but DH and I both figured their had to be at least one girl in there. I'm never right with these things though. She checked Baby A first and I could see the picture between the legs kind of zooming in and out and I just blurted out, "Uh oh." Before she was ready to say anything, I saw a penis sticking out. It was a good 45 minutes until she was ready to check Baby B. I figured that one would have to be a boy. I never saw Baby B's penis but she did announce it was a boy. DH said he certainly saw a penis sticking out.

DH and I went to dinner afterward. Partly because we don't go out often and my parents were going to be taking our kids out to eat last night. Partly because we ate out at a particularly restaurant the day we got matched with both our boys during the adoption process and decided on names for them there. Mostly on the ride to the restaurant and the ride from there to home we came up for reasons why two boys would be way better than any other combination for these twins. I think it was mainly an exercise to convince ourselves that this was a good thing. I didn't have my mind set on any particular gender. I thought two girls would be nice to even things out a bit. Plus, I haven't parented a girl yet and would like to experience that and experience the mother-daughter relationship from the mother's point of view. But really, two boys in our boy heavy household are a much better fit. I am way more into dump trucks and bulldozers than I am into princesses and pretty clothes. I grew up a tomboy and haven't really changed. I think I "get" boys way better than I "get" girls. I pretty much avoided too many friendships with girls up until a few years ago because I just couldn't stand the pettiness of it all.

We did have an official naming ceremony at the restaurant. It was actually pretty easy to come up with two names. We have been through our likes and dislikes of boy names twice already. We were both armed with a list of names we liked, lists that ended up being pretty short. I think I had 10 names and DH had 8. There were several names neither of us bothered to put on the list because we put them on our lists the last two times and the other person shot them down. After sharing our lists, we ended up with a shortened combined list of five names we could both live with. It was quickly decided that one of those would be a middle name. Down to four names, debated and talked a bit and changed our minds and thought and narrowed it down to two names and picked another middle name. Nothing is set in stone yet. Maybe we will change our minds 100 more times before these babies arrive. What are the names? Well, you will just have to wait until these boys come into the outside world to find out.

Then we came home and I threw up. What a great end to a great day.

19w, 2d

2010-09-16T18:07:00.000-07:00

Two healthy boys!

19w

2010-09-14T14:08:00.000-07:00

Woot! Five more weeks to viability! And only two more days until my BIG u/s.

Nothing much going on. Just being uncomfortable in my body. I'm so used to trying to cover up my belly and keep anything that might be sticking out, sticking in. Right now I am chillin' in my pj pants and my poor belly is hanging over the top and sticking out of my (non-maternity) shirt. I am not feeling that great in how my body feels. I think I look okay, but just don't feel like it feels right... if that makes any sense.

People I know tell me all the time how good I look. I am not really sure what that means. I don't feel great, mostly still trying not to throw up and trying to find energy. Do I normally not look great? Are they saying it because I don't look too big yet? How big am I supposed to look? Most concerning, why do people only tell pregnant women that they look great all the time? Why don't people tell non-pregnant people randomly and often that they look great? I think I might start a new trend of just complimenting people how they look all the time.

I started taking Zantac as recommended by Dr. Jim Carrey. The good news is that I haven't had any heartburn since I started taking it. My heartburn would always flare up close to lunch and get to the point that if I didn't take some Zofran, I would end up throwing up stomach acid. Same thing at night. I was hoping that getting rid of the heartburn would get rid of the last of my nausea. No such luck, which is the bad news.

18w, 3d

2010-09-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

Cervical check today. All was good! Last time, three weeks ago, my cervix measured at 3.1 cm. Today it was 3.4-3.5 cm. The dr, who looked oddly like Jim Carrey with blond hair, applied pressure to the top of my uterus to simulate heavier babies and/or a minor contraction and my cervix measurement only went down to 3.3 cm. So, no shortening, no softening, no funneling, and no dilating. Sweet.

The word on the messed up uterus boards is that I should be having cervical length checks every week or two. However, after talking to Dr. Jim Carrey, I decided I am done. Based on the weight of my uterus and it's contents, I have already surpassed the danger zone since I am carrying twins.

In other details of the appointment, I have gained 7 lbs in the past 3 weeks (9 lbs total) which still puts me a bit behind where I should be but finally gaining. My blood pressure was 90/60 which is normally about what it is. The dr estimated my uterus to be measuring at about 24-26 weeks. I have a prescription to have my 1 hr glucose test done in the next couple weeks, something they want me to do earlier than in a normal pregnancy since with a multiple pregnancy, the chances of having gestational diabetes increases. Baby A had a heart rate of 149 and Baby B had a heart rate of 146. Baby A is still hanging out head down and Baby B is still hanging out head up. Jim Carrey wanted to know if I wanted to know the genders. Not sure if he was checking them out or could even tell but I blurted out, "Not right now!"

Dr. Carrey seemed impressed with my body's ability to do totally bizarre things, like half a uterus with a pregnancy in the non-communicating horn followed by a twin pregnancy. He said that there is limited information out there about unicornuate uteruses to begin with but very few data points involving UU's carrying twins. Have to say that I am pretty impressed with my body and all the things it has been able to accomplish.

And less that 6 more weeks until viability!

18w, 2d

2010-09-09T16:22:00.001-07:00

I guess I can pretty safely say that I am halfway there. Full term with twins is considered to be about 36 weeks and I am over 18 now. Never thought I would see this day, and definitely never thought I would see this day with twins. Holy shit I am having twins.

Tomorrow I go in for a cervical length check. I suppose the best way to describe my feelings over this right now is just anxious. I'm not necessarily worried. It will be what it is and there is nothing I can do about it but follow my dr's orders. I've been far more active these past couple weeks than I have been since the beginning of this pregnancy and because it was on the shorter than average length 3 weeks ago, I wouldn't be surprised if there was shortening. I invited my mom out to lunch today because I thought that there is a possibility that I could go in tomorrow and they could tell me to come home and stay and bed and there will be no more lunches out for me. If that is what happens, then it happens. Worrying isn't going to change that and it certainly won't do me any good.

I ran into a lady I kinda sorta know while we were out at lunch. I met her through a playgroup I used to go to. We are friends on FB and she is friends with people I know, but that is about as close as we are. I ran into her once at my RE's office. After that meeting, she sent me a message on FB and told me that she had had surgery due to Asherman's Syndrome. I never really talked uteruses with her before since I don't really know her. Anyway, saw her today and she congratulated me and said I was looking good and asked how I was. She brought up how she has all kinds of issues with her own reproductive organs, what with the Asherman's and then mentioned that she had a uterine abnormality. I exclaimed, "Me too! What do you have!?!?" I hope she wasn't all weirded out my enthusiasm over her messed up uterus but it just doesn't happen all that often that you find someone who is broken similarly to how you are broken. Turns out she has a bicornuate/septate uterus. The dr's told her it was pretty much a miracle that she was able to carry her daughter (who is now 2) with her septum in tact. I'd say!

So here I am, 18 weeks along. I feel babies moving often. (It is becoming a familiar and calming feeling to feel them move, and getting less creepy.) Friends and family tell me all the time that everything is going to work out, that maybe I will have these babies a little early but lots of people have their babies early and the babies do just fine. Mostly I have just been waiting for the bottom to drop out up until now. Never thought I would get pregnant. Never thought both of the twins would stick around. Never thought I would make it out of the first trimester. Never thought I would make it this far at all. Now I am really believing it. I am really believing all the things friends and family say. Which is totally absurd because what do they know about my body, my babies, and my uterus? In a way it is more terrifying than ever. Up until now, I was prepared for something to suddenly go drastically wrong. Now I am not. Now I am convinced that things will work out just fine, which means it will be a huge slap in the face if suddenly things go drastically wrong. Mostly I just think that things can't go wrong at this point. I have seen these babies countless times on u/s and there has never been a problem with them. I can feel them and I know they are there and growing and alive and REAL people. How could anything stop them from coming into this world healthy?

17w, 4d

2010-09-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

Still hanging in there. I've been feeling much better which just means I have been doing more and it turns out it is way more than I should. I do stuff and I am excited to be an active participant in society again, and then shortly afterward I am completely exhausted and feel really sick. My legs have been sore these past few days which I think is most likely from standing and walking on occasion since that is something I haven't been doing a lot of.

Both kids started preschool this week. I know most of the moms somewhat by now in DS1's class since he went last year as well. During the orientation this week I got to tell several of them I haven't seen since May my news. One mom asked if we used fertility drugs. I know I am supposed to feel offended by that question. Really, who has the guts to ask that? Well, I am finding out the answer to that. I know it is somewhat rude to ask and I know I don't have to answer, but these aren't strangers asking (so far) so I just said yes. Then DS1's teacher, who I have known since I was a preteen, also asked if we used fertility drugs. I guess the right answer would be something like, "That's personal." But saying that is pretty much like saying yes anyway. Maybe next time I'll do the, "Why do you ask?" But that seems silly because it is obvious why they ask. First of all, twins aren't that uncommon but far more common when it comes to fertility treatments. The big red flag for us though is the fact that we have two adopted sons. Not that all families who adopt do it because they have fertility issues, but a lot do.

I got the vast majority of my Christmas shopping done this week too. Wasn't too hard since I have been adding to a list when things come to mind over the past couple months. One store and an hour later, pretty much everything I was planning to get for my kids has been gotten. Figured I better get a start on things since I have no idea how much longer I will be able to head out to stores or be a mom of only two kid. I got into a conversation with a chatty cashier as I was checking out. Came up that I have two boys at home and I am pregnant with twins. She said, "It would be nice if they were two girls. Then you could be done." I said, "I don't care what gender they are. I'm done after this anyway!" Still never got why people somehow just assume that the only way to have a complete family is to have at least one kid of each gender. To each his own. One and done! Two and through! As for me, four and NO MORE!

The belly is definitely growing and I am already starting to get uncomfortable. My entire body hurts. As I mentioned, the legs are sore. My shoulders and neck are sore from only being able to sit/lay in certain positions. My pelvis is still sore. My lower back hurts. I should probably take this opportunity to complain far more than I am actually doing.

In big news, these babies are moving! For over a week now I figured I was feeling them but they were little movements that could have been babies or could have been something else. On Wednesday I went to bed and certainly what I was feeling moving around in there was like nothing I had ever felt before. Some people say it is amazing to feel those babies in you. I think it is down right creepy. There are people inside me! I am conflicted because I want to tell them to stop (not that I think for a second these kids are going to actually listen to their mother) but on the other hand, as long as they are moving I know that is a good sign.

DS1 has a cold. Which of course means I will get it because I get every illness that my kids bring into the house. Doesn't help that I was just holding and rocking him while he coughed and sneezed and threw up mucus all over me. Should be fun to get to experience my first cold during pregnancy that I can pretty much do nothing about but suffer. At least I have a netti pot now!

16w, 5d

2010-08-29T07:36:00.000-07:00

Haven't written much because I don't really have much to say. I've been a bad pregnant person. I have had some cramping and pain which I am fairly sure is just another UTI and I haven't done anything about it. But, it could be something else. Which could be worse since I haven't done anything about it. It is Sunday now so I guess I will call tomorrow. Then I have to figure out how to fit peeing in a cup into my schedule. I know. I know. My body and these babies should be the top priority. Sad to say, but this lifestyle is getting old. I have spent this entire summer doing nothing but gestating. I am finally starting to get a little energy and I don't want to have to use it to try to fit in peeing in cups.

Life gets hectic this week. Kids start to preschool on Wednesday. Not sure how I am going to handle this. It means two trips every day to the school and back. My mom said she will help out of course, but I am not really sure how that is going to work since I still have to get the kids up and moving in the morning and they are only there for a couple hours before having to head back anyway. Would it be worth it for her to watch one kid while the other one is at school? Not so much really. I am sure it will all work out somehow.

Might be feeling the babies. Might not. I feel something sometimes but it could be gas or just in my head. I am still undecided if it could be babies or not.

Had a dream last night that I went to some sort of surprise party where I walked in and everything was pink because the party was announce that both babies are girls. Hopefully will find out the genders in a couple more weeks.

15w, 6d

2010-08-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

It is my due date. Or it was for that one short stint that I managed to get pregnant in my rudimentary horn back in December. I almost forgot that today was the day. I am sure if I hadn't gotten pregnant again today would have been a horrible day instead of a day pretty much like any other. Not that I will ever forget about that poor little embryo that never got a chance to grow, but the pain of that time not so long ago sure has faded. Everything happened so quickly, from finding out I was pregnant until the surgery was done, that I never got a chance to really think of myself as even being pregnant or begin to have hopes and dreams for that baby.

Here I am nearly 16 weeks pregnant and for the first time today I feel like I am actually pregnant. Up until this point I have just felt sick. I felt that maybe my belly was changing shape a bit but still mostly convinced that it was all a result of my giant ovary. Now I really feel that my belly could actually pass for being pregnant and not just fat. I am getting aches and pains in my groin, tailbone, and pelvis (which my dr said are perfectly normal). They are pains that I never felt before and actually FEEL like they are caused by being pregnancy instead of just aches and pains of life. On Saturday I am almost certain I felt a baby move. I have felt all kinds of pinches and twinges that could be my digestive track or babies but I have no idea which, but probably just my digestive track. However on Saturday I was resting on the couch and felt something that certainly felt like a little arm or leg pressing on the inside of my belly. I haven't felt it since but I still feel pregnant.

The only thing I have no clue about this time around is what gender these two little people could be. I am somewhat secretly hoping they are girls just because it would even things out a little around here. But I don't feel any sort of instinctual feeling one way or another. That little embryo that we lost, I nicknamed her Emily the Embryo because I just knew that baby was going to be a girl. Instead it is someone I never got the chance to meet, but without that loss, I also never would have had a chance to grow these two little people in me now.

15w, 5d

2010-08-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

I took the plunge and did it. I bought something for these babies! It was a start. I am now the owner of two (used) bouncy/vibrating seats that I paid a grand total of $18 for. It felt really good to get something! Then immediately after I put the seats in my car, I felt like I was going to throw up and/or pass out and didn't feel so great anymore. If nothing else, my two boys had a good time putting stuffed animals in the seats and pretending they were babies that needed to be fed and rocked.

Oh, got a comment I wasn't expecting while I was at the yard sale. The yard sale was given by several moms I know and, thanks to facebook, they all know I'm pregnant with twins. Some man was there, who apparently knows who I am but I suck at remembering people so I don't know who he was, maybe one of the ladies' father. So it was mentioned that I was pregnant with twins and this man asked, "Do twins run in your family?" I tend to be overly honest and tell people stuff that is probably not really appropriate which is why I had to bite my tongue and not say that there are no twins in my family but these were conceived through infertility drugs which explains it. I was good though and just said, "Nope! I get to be the first one of my family to enjoy this experience!"

Then after much lying on the couch, it was off to the cloth diaper orientation. It was a lot of good information but most of it I had read on the internet during all this time I have been spending on the couch lately. I think I did figure out just what kind of diapers I plan on using.

So, I was feeling good about babies yesterday, feeling confident and happy emotionally even though my body was more tired than I think I have ever been in my entire life. Now, not feeling so excited and optimistic. I feel crampy which I am almost certain is gas. But any sort of discomfort down there just sends my head right into a place where all I can think is that this pregnancy isn't going to last. Doesn't help that I accidentally read something about a person with a UU who lost her baby just before viability. I still have a long way to go until I get to 24 weeks which is pretty much the very minimum of viability.

I always thought that I was meant to be a mom. I always figured that I would get pregnant and be a glowing happy pregnant person, loving every second of expecting a child and life as a mom. That so has not happened to me. Of course I never just "got pregnant". And not a bit of this pregnancy thing has had me glowing. Instead I am sick and worried and anxious and just wishing there was some way I could find out now how it is all going to work out. Oh yeah, I LOVE surprises... normally. Good ones of course. I don't want any sort of surprises though at this point but it seems that for the next few months, that is all I'll have.

15w, 3d

2010-08-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

Another day down in this pregnancy stuff. Thought maybe the barfing got better yet and then I completely lost my lunch yesterday and my breakfast this morning. I'll still take that over throwing up 10 times a day.

Had an appointment today. First up was an u/s that was mainly to monitor changes in my massive ovary. I can't remember the exact measurement (maybe 14.5 cm across?) but it appears to be decreasing slowly in size. I asked if the tech could check to see if it was possible to determine the gender of these little people. She seemed less than enthusiastic, saying only that she could go over the general area but basically she wasn't going to tell me anything. I totally get that it is still pretty early. I was rather disappointed, not so much that we couldn't determine the gender, but that the tech barely tried. She basically waved the wand over and was like, "Yeah, see, they are kinda stacked up in there and their legs are together, oh and this one has its ankles crossed." The end. She could at least tried to poke them and prod them one little nudge.

The other purpose of the u/s was to check my cervical length,, which was done because I suggested it at my last appointment. The tech was having difficulties so the doctor that was hanging out in the u/s area had to come check it out. My cervix measured at 3.1 cm which is pretty good. I think 3.5 is really what they were looking for but really anything over 2 is good.

Then off to my appointment with MFM. I wasn't overly impressed with the dr that I saw today. I didn't really have much to say or many questions, and he didn't really have much to say either. He said that there was nothing going on now that was indicative that labor was going to start prior to 32 weeks. Yeah, I guess that was nice to hear but I also felt it was a big line of bullshit. Sure there might be nothing NOW that would indicate labor starting early but something could still happen at the drop of a hat without warning and he seemed to be completely overlooking that fact. I brought up that the last two dr's I saw talked about doing another cervical check at 18 weeks. He felt that was unnecessary and another one really didn't need to be done until around 22-24 weeks. Unfortunately for him, I have done way too much reading on this and know that incompetent cervixes typically show dilation between 14-24 weeks. He said he would be happy to schedule me for another cervical measurement around 18 weeks if I really wanted one. I said I did and I have my appointment scheduled for that. At least it was easy to get what I wanted.

I also have my "big" anatomy scan u/s scheduled for Sept 16. No one better be crossing their legs that day. DH should be able to go with me to that appointment. There is a small chance the appointment could change because apparently they have to schedule me for two back to back appointments since each twin will have its own anatomy scan done, thus doubling the time.

Still feeling in denial and rather unconnected to these babies. One of the reasons I was really hoping to learn the genders was so maybe I could start feeling more connected and start thinking more about my son(s) and/or daughter(s) than just "these babies". It is still feeling a lot like the whole adoption process did. Sure I am sick and stuff, but these babies are more of an idea and a dream than actually living things that are here with me. All the through the adoption process all I could do was wait and see what was going to happen and that is pretty much how it is now too. I have seen pictures and people assure me that these babies are really there, but maybe I just have to hold them in my arms first to really believe it.

Busy day tomorrow. Going to a yard sale in the morning that is supposed to have a lot of kid/baby stuff. I am going to do my best to buy something for these babies kicking around in my belly. I haven't been able to bring myself to purchase anything yet. In the afternoon I am off to a cloth diapering orientation to learn all about cloth diapers since that is something I am hoping to do at some point with these these babies.

15w

2010-08-17T16:13:00.001-07:00

What an insanely craptastic day. Not really sure how any of it has anything to do with me being pregnant apart from the short stint I spent crying on the couch thinking how completely awful things were with two kids today (and my mom to "help"), so how the hell am I going to do it with four kids???

Was reading Dr. Luke's book When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads and it was discussing how a person is likely to go through the typical stages of grief when hit with the news. So far it seems I have mostly been stuck in "denial". Not even sure I have the energy to write about all the ways I am facing denial about this situation every day. I'll try bullet points:

- started out in the first trimester as I stuck with the whole notion that the vanishing twin thing was a huge possibility and therefore refused to get too attached to the idea of twins because one could just disappear

- haven't purchased a single thing for these babies because who knows if I will make it to a viable stage in my pregnancy (which could either be viewed as denial that I will have two more babies or acceptance as the fact that things could go really wrong). DS1 even saw a totally cute gender neutral outfit yesterday in a newborn size that I had a coupon for and could have gotten for free and I still couldn't bring myself to put it in my cart.

- pretty much refuse to buy maternity clothes thinking that either I won't be pregnant much longer or I will be on bedrest and not really need special clothes. The only maternity clothes I have are ones my mom bought me.

- even though I have seen them on u/s many times, most times I still don't think there are two babies inside me, or even one for that matter

- I have never spent any time just sitting around rubbing my belly and thinking or talking to these babies or really referring to them as anything other than "the babies" to give me any sort of connection to them

- mostly don't even think about having babies in the future and just think about how crappy I feel or other ways that this pregnancy has affected me, me, me

- still convinced that this belly I seem to be getting is really just my normal fat belly that is being pushed out from a giant cyst-covered ovary

- think sometimes that this pregnancy just won't last and other times I think that I am going to be completely "lucky" and these babies are going to be born big and strong with no NICU time whatsoever, but still find myself reading all about NICU babies and micro-preemies

So yeah, I guess I have some serious mental issues.

I am getting a belly, maybe. My mom bought me a pair of maternity shorts in July that were just massive around the waist. Eventually I decided to start wearing them anyway because I thought maybe if I wore maternity clothes, I would at least feel a little pregnant and not just fat. I would just wear them with my Bella Band. The waist was so huge on the shorts that the Bella Band would cause the elastic waist area to bunch up. Two days after this exact situation (waist bunching up under the Bella Band of said shorts) I put on the shorts and they fit perfectly fine around the waist. I had a dream last night that I told someone that my belly was obviously not that big because my boobs still stick out further than my belly, which they do. So yeah, I'm just fat.

I guess that is it for now. I have another u/s on Friday which is mainly to check my giant ovary. I hear there is a possibility that the gender can be determined this early but I don't know how willing the tech will be to check it out for me. I don't want to find out the genders when DH isn't there so maybe if it can be determined I'll have the tech write it down so we can read it later and find out together. Not that I think it really matters. It isn't like I am ready to run out and start buying baby clothes when I am still in complete denial about what could happen in the next few weeks/months.

14w, 2d

2010-08-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

I went to a short play yesterday with my kids and my mom. It was an hour long, geared towards kids, and all I did was sit. Then we went out to lunch afterward. You wouldn't think that was a big deal but it all did me. I just can't do things anymore. I spent the night on the couch and just felt so awful and tired all day today. I seriously don't know what I would do without my mom's help, but at the moment I am starting to doubt how much she is really helping out.

I get that she is busy. She has been helping with my kids pretty much every day. On top of that, she helps with my sister's two kids. On Tuesday she had to leave around lunch time to go get my niece from cheer leading practice. That left me to make lunch and entertain my kids alone for a couple hours before their nap. Okay fine. It was hot out and I plopped them down with a movie while I rested on the couch. Then without any warning, she did the same thing today. Just up and left before lunch. I felt like complete ass today. It is so hot it isn't like I can DO anything with my kids. It is too hot for me to take them outside. I can't even come up with the energy to play games or otherwise entertain them. So, back to watching a movie again today. Even when she is watching them, it isn't like I really get to rest like I would like to. I thought I would have a chance to lay on the couch while my mom had the kids downstairs. Then DS1 had to come up to poop and I had to get up to help him wipe. Then back on the couch for a few minutes until I had to pee. Then back o the couch for a few minutes until I had to get up to barf. My mom called me today to let me know that tomorrow she won't have to watch my niece and nephew. Good, a day to finally sit and relax. That was until she let me know that she has lunch plans which means another day of me having to get lunch together for my kids and figuring out some way to distract them enough not to kill each other.

I feel like I just better not say anything either. At this point, it isn't like I am under any sort of medical restrictions that require me to lay on the couch all the time. I am just trying to listen to my body and my body says to lay on the couch and do nothing. Not really in the mood to tick my mom off and get her mad at me and then up really needing her if I am on bed rest.

Speaking of bed and resting... night night.

14w

2010-08-10T14:53:00.003-07:00

Made it to 14 weeks, which means my chance of miscarry at this point is extremely low. Somehow I still don't feel anymore confident that this pregnancy is going to result in two living, breathing babies. Maybe I read too much online about women who, with perfectly normal uteruses, lose their babies around 18 weeks. Maybe I would be better off not knowing all that I know about my poor unicornuate uterus. Which, when I think about it, is really not a whole lot. I know about unicornuate uteruses in general and that some are capable of acting completely normal but the vast majority of them do have issues carrying a SINGLE baby to term. But, I don't know anything about my unicornuate uterus. Sometimes I think of myself as a really lucky person. I am not even sure I really believe in luck, and yet I know I have had some. I have done some seriously stupid things in my life, made some of the worst decisions a person could make. Although I do have a few scars, the outcome of some of those horrible decisions somehow turned out perfectly fine. Even through all these years of uterine issues, I have had luck. I never had a miscarriage. I ended up with two wonderful sons. While practically everyone else I spoke to going through the adoption process at the same time we did had to jump through hurdle after hurdle, and disaster after disaster, both our kids came home rather quickly and 100% healthy. Even when I did end up getting pregnant in my rudimentary horn and had that great fiasco, as horrible as it was, it was also even a miracle that something like that could happen! So here's to one more shot at beating the odds.

I started making a good attempt yesterday at trying to eat all the servings of foods from all the different food groups as recommended in When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads. I ate all day long and stuffed myself to the max and still came up substantially short. Today I gave it another go and although I have done better so far, I only have about another hour and a half to attempt to eat more food than I usually eat during the course of an entire day.

I haven't been out much so I haven't really seen my neighbors lately. I ran into the woman who lives on my street. (There are only 2 houses on my street.) I told her that we were expecting twins. I didn't know before, but she said she has an identical twin sister. The next house closest to us houses three children, two of which are twins. Now we are expecting our twins. Three twins in three houses? What are the odds?

14w

2010-08-10T14:53:00.002-07:00

13w, 6d

2010-08-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

Had an appointment with MFM on Friday. First up was an u/s. Apart from the long wait, it was a good time. Never thought I would say that about a medical test! Baby A was chillin' and scratching his/her head. Then s/he started sticking out his/her tongue which was totally the cutest thing ever. Hard to believe we could see that tiny detail on a baby that is only the size of a peach. Baby B was much more active this time than s/he was last time. S/he kept flipping from side to side making it nearly impossible for the tech to get a heart rate on him/her. Both of their heart rates dropped from around 160 bpm two weeks ago down to 140 bpm this time around. Both babies measured slightly ahead of schedule as they have been doing. My right ovary increased from 14 to 16 cm across. It is supposed to be shrinking by now but instead it grew about 2 cm in the past two weeks. I was sent on my way with an u/s report in hand to go down to MFM. Of course I read the report along the way. There wasn't really anything interesting on it. It did note that I currently have placenta previa as Baby A's placenta is covering my cervix but since there are no symptoms that this is likely not a problem. My dr at MFM never even mentioned it. From what I remember of others having placenta previa is that the placenta can move out of the way as the pregnancy progressing. Also, since I am already pretty much counting on a c-section, it won't be any surprise if down the line the placenta over my cervix is just one more reason I can't deliver vaginally.

At the MFM office, instead of having a specific dr that treats your throughout the pregnancy, you get rotated around and pretty much see whoever is there on the day of your appointment. So, different dr this time than last time I was in there - a very nice woman. There was no exam or anything, just talking. I had a few questions (and finally got drugs for my UTI) mainly about cervix checks. Just trying to be an advocate for myself, which I am not always that great at being. The dr wants me to come back in 2 weeks to have the ovary checked out just because it is not shrinking yet but did say that the course of action is likely to remain wait and see what happens and essentially do nothing since it is not causing me any problems. Cervix checks will be done at 18, 21, and 24 weeks. I asked if it would make sense to do a baseline cervix check while I am getting my u/s in two weeks. She said that yes, that actually would probably be a good idea. High five to myself for being awesome and advocating for myself successfully! She did say that they like to do baseline cervix checks no earlier than 16 weeks for an accurate reading and I will be just short of that so it could be a little off, but better than nothing. So far my pregnancy weight gain is -1 lbs. I lost 6 lbs back when I was really sick and in the hospital so I guess I am slowing gaining it back. My anatomy scan will be scheduled for sometime when I am around 18 weeks along at which time we want to find out the genders.

Had a very busy weekend, at least busy compared to my normal schedule that involves laying on the couch and showering. Doing my best to rest up today.

Been reading When You're Expecting Twins, Triplet, or Quads by Dr. Luke as recommended to me from various sources. Although I don't like how some of it is written, it is very informative. Much of what I read so far is focused on altering your diet to make the best possible growing environment for multiple pregnancies. The research Dr. Luke has done shows the best way for a woman pregnant with multiples to gain weight is to gain quickly in the beginning. For one reason, gestation of multiples is typically shorter than the normal 40 weeks so you have less time to gain weight. Also, the babies take up more room faster so eating a lot and gaining weight later in the pregnancy is more difficult than with a singleton. Plus, and I found this fascinating, twins, triplets, and quads tend to grow faster and develop more quickly than singletons, likely because they are usually born earlier so the babies are compensating for the potential early arrival to the outside world and needing to survive on their own. (However, multiples also tend to slow their rate of birth much earlier than singletons also contributing to the need for mom to have provide all that extra nourishment early on when they are still growing most rapidly.)

According to my BMI and my weeks gestation, apparently I should gain 18 lbs by tomorrow. Yeah, I lost 1 lb so far. I'm not to worried about it. I am trying to follow some of the guidelines about how many servings of each of the food groups the book suggests because I know my diet hasn't been all that varied. I still have trouble stomaching some foods (for awhile there I couldn't eat a single bite of fruit) but that is getting better so it should be a little easier. That is if I stuff myself and eat constantly to try to fit all this nourishment in.

I've been loosely coming up with a plan for the next few months. Long ago I set some goal weeks that I want to get to. First up was 12 weeks. Managed that. Next up is 14 weeks, so just one more day to go. I am still holding back on purchasing anything we need for these babies just because we still have so long to go until I will feel at all confident that these babies are going to be a long term part of our lives. Once I hit the 24 week point, I will start to feel a little better about that, but that won't be until the middle of October. October is going to be my month to do everything. Christmas shopping will be done. Then the last two weeks of the month will be spent getting what we need for these babies. Come November I want to be able to just have an open schedule to be able to handle whatever comes to us - early babies, bedrest, etc. Still hoping to make it until 2011 with these babies inside and one of my tactics to accomplish that is to be able to do as much resting and relaxing as possible in those last couple months.

13w, 2d

2010-08-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

My poor bladder. Seriously, this should not even be worth going into but here I am writing about it because it is just so stupid and annoying. Rewind about 3 weeks ago. I suddenly was feeling way worse than normal. I just stayed in bed all day on Saturday, felt awful but a different kind of awful, and was far more tired than I had been. I thought, hey, maybe I have a UTI since last time I got diagnosed with one (around 6 weeks pregnant) I didn't have the normal painful peeing symptoms but just felt plain old sick. Unfortunately it was Sunday by the time I could call my OB (who I was currently still seeing). They called in a prescription for an antibiotic since it was Sunday and they couldn't really have me tested to see if I actually had one. I thought that was really convenient and awesome and very easily taken care of. Started taking the antibiotic right away and after four doses it was very evident that it was not going to help since I would throw up about 15 minutes after I took it every time. So called back and the OB office called me a different antibiotic. Remember back when I have hives for several days? I figured it was probably from taking so many antibiotics from that first UTI I was diagnosed with. Sure enough, the new antibiotic I was prescribed was the same one that I think gave me hives. Thankfully, other than some itching right after I took the first two doses, all was well.

The OB mailed me a prescription to have my urine tested one week after I finished the antibiotic to see if it all cleared up. I was to go to the medical center in the building where their office is located which also happens to be the same lab that 98% of the people in my town are supposed to go to for any testing they need done. All I had to do was pee in a cup. I waited for 30 minutes to register at which point I was finally able to go pee in a cup. Ridiculous. That was Tuesday and finally today, Thursday, the OB called me back with the results.

I do have a UTI still. (Which was no surprise at this point since I peed every 10 minutes yesterday and today I have been having cramps in my bladder.) However, since I decided to go to MFM and not use my OB, the OB wouldn't call me in a prescription. Instead, they were going to send my pee results to MFM. At least that is what they said they would do this morning. They never sent them. I called MFM twice today to check and MFM called my OB twice today to get the results and still nothing. So, I still have a UTI and no one will treat me for it. Thankfully it is a bearable one or else I'd be heading up to the local clinic to go pee in a cup, get my results five minutes later, and walk out the door with a prescription in hand in less than 30 minutes.

I will be going to MFM tomorrow anyway though. U/S first followed by my second appointment at MFM. Followed by me walking out of there with a prescription for an antibiotic that hopefully doesn't make me throw up constantly and heading straight for the pharmacy.

13w

2010-08-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

Woot! 13 weeks down!!

Which means the morning sickness is supposed to end, right? The anti-vomiting strike my body was partaking in ended last night with the reappearance of a glass of water and at least some of my prenatal vitamin. Then another glass of water made a quick reappearance this morning. I managed to make it all day yesterday with no Zofran and no headache. Today I was back on the sauce and popped a Zofran this morning and another 8 hours later. Suffering from killer headaches all day too.

I watched a vaginal birth video on BabyCenter a few minutes ago. Glad to report that my stretched out va-jay-jay has no intentions of being broadcast on the internet ever. Also made me glad that a c-section is likely in our future because that just didn't look fun. Not that having someone slice a giant hole in my belly will be fun but at least I have more experience with that.

My mom suggested I take a Lamaze class (or something of the sort) today. I don't really know what I am going to do. A friend of our family who lives right down the street from me teaches Lamaze. I get that the breathing exercises can be a great relaxation technique for anything, but just don't know if it will be worth our time and money to do it.

Just want to say too, I'm not against a vaginal birth. Before I found out about my UU I thought there was almost no way I would even consider a c-section. But then reality hit. Just got to do what is best for the baby, and in my case, babies. It is highly unlikely that with two of these little things in me and a messed up uterus that everything would align correctly to make a vaginal delivery a really safe option.

Had to go pee in a cup today. (I did awesome! No drips!) The lady at the registration desk had a photo of what appeared to be twins on her desk. I asked. They were her granddaughters. She said she also gave birth to twins. Of course back then they didn't do all these tests that they do now so she didn't even know she was having twins until the second one started to be born. I like having the ability to plan and overthink and worry and hypothesize about these two babies this whole pregnancy.

12w, 5d

2010-08-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

Got back my first trimester screening results on Friday. No increased chance of a child with down syndrome.

Been feeling a lot better. Mostly. Haven't thrown up since Wednesday. I should note that all this throwing up that has been going on is when I have been on 8mg of Zofran. (A lot of doctors only prescribe the 4mg stuff.) Been slowly thinking about working my way off the pills as they cause headaches and I have been miserable with headaches lately. I intended to take my normal two doses today (once in the morning, another 8 hours later) but I am pretty sure that I forgot the second dose and have been okay. Otherwise, feeling really crappy today. Haven't really left my couch. Yesterday I felt awesome and maybe did more than I should have.

Sex! Indulged last night for the first time since the first week of June. Poor DH. Just have been too sick in the evening to put out and the evening is pretty much the only opportunity we have. It was rather uncomfortable. Guess the va-jay-jay is out of practice or something. Kinda sore but not exactly... just uncomfortable. Then DH decided he needed to lay on top of me and squish me. I've been over sensitive about things pushing or touching my uterus area so that was not fun at all. Wonder if I can go another two months before putting out again...

Pooping sucks. I never realized how much I enjoyed pooping. Been taking colace daily that some dr along the way prescribed to me. I would hate to even think what my colon would be like if I didn't have that. I was drinking cherry juice which was helping tremendously. However, for the past several weeks anything remotely sweet and/or sour would lead to definite vomiting so the cherry juice was out. I might be able to give that a try again here in a couple weeks. Picked up some fiber supplements which have helped a bit in the past two days. I just miss the days of nature calling and two minutes later I'm off doing whatever it was I was doing.

Began phase 1 (of 6,423) of having new babies in the house. DS2 is still in a crib. Yeah, the kid is 3.5 and still in a crib. He just can't be trusted and we are fortunate enough that he doesn't try to climb out. We converted the crib to a toddler bed months ago and gave it a try and, well, yeah, that didn't work out. Since then the crib has been turned so that the open side is pushed against the wall. We pretty much gutted his room yesterday and it is currently as child safe as humanly possible. (Closet door has two forms of locks on it, nothing but some books and soft toys, outlets are covered with solid plastic plates because we can't even trust him with the best of the outlet covers.) We've let him nap the past two days with his bed pulled away from the wall so he could climb in and out. Don't think he has left his bed yet. We will see how this goes and eventually get him out of the crib completely and into the real toddler bed we have, making the crib available for a baby. (We have a second crib as well. Guess that is one advantage of having two kids that are so close in age - already have two of a lot of things.) The big challenge will come when it is time to attempt to get both of my boys to share a room. A little concerned that DS1 will feel intruded upon. Mostly concerned that DS2, who sleeps far less than DS1, will keep DS1 up. Would like to get both kids settled into one room prior to babies coming home so that no one feels like they are being pushed out.

Began struggling with the fact that we still have a way to go... but do we? I HATE to wait until the last minute to do thing and notoriously prepare WAY ahead of time. But, can't really do that in this situation. Still have it in my mind every minute of every day that this could all end with no babies. That makes me hesitate to get excited at times, but most certainly keeps me from doing anything. At least not anything permanent. I ordered two books about twins online and as soon as I confirmed my purchase, I wondered if it was worth the money I spent on the books. Am I going to need them? Friends of mine are having a big joint yard sale in two weeks and I can't wait to go look for bargains... but should I really buy anything? I keep telling myself to wait until 24 weeks, which is minimum viability, but the over planner in me is freaking out because that could leave me with no time whatsoever to prepare. What if they are super early? What if I go on bedrest and can't shop for anything that we will need? What if they are born and still don't make it and I already bought a bunch of stuff?

I wonder if there is ever going to come a time when I can enjoy this all.

12w, 2d

2010-07-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

Life is different. Or at least it was but I sure that now that I am posting something about it, it will go back just the way it was. I was really hoping that I would wake up at 12w pg and suddenly the morning sickness would be gone. I knew it was just a fantasy but one I was willing to keep hoping for. Tuesday hit and I was 12 weeks on the dot. I threw up 6 times on Tuesday. I did notice however that despite the barfing, not once was it puke-your-guts-out barfing. Also, I felt okay the majority of the day. Not great, but okay. Normally I have been feeling okay for a couple hours of the day and like complete crap the rest of the day. Then along came yesterday. I took the kids to a park to meet some friends. We spent several hours there and I was feeling okay up until the very end where I started feeling really tired and really hot. I threw up (in a trash bag) about 30 seconds after I got into the car to leave. Thew up again when I got home. Then a third time before bed. But once again, no puke-your-guts-out barfing. Plus, I laid down to take a nap like I have been doing for the past 3 or more weeks daily and realized, I didn't really need a nap. I was feeling so good I even went to my kid's soccer practice in the evening. As for today, even better yet! So far. Number of barfs: 0. ZERO! I can hardly believe it. I did two loads of laundry today, went to two stores (with the kids and my mom since I don't think I am quite ready to take the kids out alone yet), skipped napping, and helped rescue a lost lovey who was playing a great game of hide-and-seek. Now if I could just get rid of this headache. Have to say now that I typed all this out, I am really feeling the need to puke. Betting it is going to be a puke-your-guts-out kinda ordeal too just so I don't start getting cocky.

I called today and made an appointment with the peri (high risk dr) again. I tried to explain to my husband and my mom both why I felt it was better to go back than to see my OB. I know my argument sounded weak (not that I really needed an argument since they are both fine with what I decide but I needed to talk it out) but really it comes down to me knowing in my gut that it is the best thing for these babies. I am pretty much expecting that these babies will spend some time in the NICU which means they will be sent off to the hospital in the city where the peri is anyway. If anything goes wrong with me or the delivery or the babies, we will be right there in the best possible place to be. I am not at all excited still about the fact that I will be so far from home and it will be difficult for my family to visit, but like I said, chances are pretty high that the babies and me would end up there anyway. Most of my friends live near the hospital up there and they will keep me company too... right? Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that I don't go into labor in the middle of a winter storm during rush hour traffic.

I still have some loose ends to deal with involving changing. Haven't canceled my appointment with my OB that is scheduled yet. Also need to get my first trimester screening results which were sent to my OB. Oh and I have a follow up urine test to take care of next week after a round of antibiotics prescribed by my OB for a UTI that I suspected I had last week but ended up being such a stressful ordeal I never got around to blogging about it.

Was checking out askmoxie today and someone wrote in about dealing with sleep deprivation caused by her 10.5 month old twins and the neediness of her almost 5 year old daughter. After reading some of the comments from readers, I think I better just plan on having a nightmarish 2011. Everyone said that the first year with twins is Hell. Just complete Hell. And most of those people didn't even have other kids they were trying to deal with at the same time. Another consensus was that almost 5 year old kids are clingy, whiny, and incredibly needy. Want to take a guess at how old my son who tends to be more clingy and incredibly needy will be when these babies are due. Yep. Almost 5.

Maybe barfing many times a day isn't looking so bad after all...

12w

2010-07-27T06:11:00.000-07:00

I made it! I decided to set little goals for this pregnancy and my first one was 12 weeks. I have read that most miscarriages happen before 12 weeks so here I am. Next goal is 14 weeks because at that point the chance of miscarriage goes down even more. In honor of making it this far, I decided to just tell everyone. That task was pretty easy. I just posted it in my status in facebook and within 10 minutes, I think everyone I have ever known now knows the news. In part I am glad everyone knows so I don't feel like I have to keep making excuses for why I never go anywhere anymore and really suck at answering emails. But of course this also means that if something goes wrong, I have the whole world to inform.

I called my OB yesterday to find out when I could stop using my progesterone suppositories. My RE said my OB would tell me when to stop using them and it would be around 12 weeks. My OB said I could stop using them now. So, last night was the last night of that. I am hoping that maybe there is a chance that without that extra dose of progesterone in my body, life will hand me a little less sickness. Plus, I am now 12 weeks. Keeping my fingers crossed that magically that will cure me of this illness.

I am seriously considering going back to the high risk dr for my prenatal care. I'm just so paranoid about the possibility of incompetent cervix. I know my OB said that she would make sure my cervix was measured during all my u/s but I am just not sure that is enough to make me feel confident staying with her. She said specifically that she didn't think there was any correlation between having a UU and having incompetent cervix. I don't agree with that. As I mentioned before too, I am probably going to end up at the hospital in the city anyway. They will send me there if I go early or there are any complications or the babies have to spend any time in NICU. Maybe I should just plan on going there. I have an appointment with my OB next Friday so I guess I will see how that goes before I make a decision.

11w, 3d

2010-07-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

Off to get my first trimester genetic screening today. It was insane! Firstly because as I was waiting to get called back, a woman was escorted in by two police officers. The woman was in handcuffs that were attached to a chain around her waist. I knew that whatever happened, I was probably not having as bad of a day as she was.

I had to wait a long time since I got there early. Not sure if any fertile people will "get it" but I finally felt like I was in "the club". The area I was in just did u/s for pregnant women so all the patients who walked in were in different stages of pregnancy. Including me. I was actually one of the pregnant people.

I had kinda forgotten that I was worried about the vanishing twin thing while I sat there until my friend sent me a txt to let me know she was thinking about me today. Thankfully that didn't send me off in a tizzy of worry. Most of my worry was just to prepare myself in case there was bad news. In my heart I knew everything would be okay. Or maybe in my stomach I knew it because as much as I am throwing up I figured there still had to be two rascals in there adding to the distress.

The u/s tech was really great and nice to talk to. She found two babies right away and I breathed a small sigh of relief. It was the first time I had seen them that they actually looked like babies. It was also the first time I really felt a great connection to these babies in me. Guess it was just hard to fall in love with a little nondescript blob that made a noise like a heartbeat. But these were babies! There were heads with eye spots, noses, mouths, and what looked like it could be ears. They both had two little arms with fingered hands and two legs with toed feet.

I asked some questions and learned that the standard is to label the baby closest to the cervix as Baby A and the one further away as Baby B, so A and B should stay the same. Once they get bigger, and particularly if they are different genders, the position to the cervix won't matter quite as much because it will be pretty determined where each of them is generally located.

Baby A was pretty excited about life! The tech was laughing and kept saying things like, "How cute!" and "Isn't that adorable!" The arms were waving all over the place and the legs were kicking up a storm. Baby A kept arching its back making it bounce all over the place. The tech said she needed it to stay still for 5 seconds to get a heartrate and she was having a lot of trouble getting that to happen.

Baby B was happily snoozing, or at least chillin'. We got a quick view of Baby B's entire little hand at one point with all the little fingers which was really neat. Baby B decided it didn't want to move much at all which made it a little more difficult for the tech to get one of the measurements that she needed.

All worked out. Heartrates were 160 and 161 bpm. We could see both babies had two hemispheres in their brains, two arms, two legs, and were measuring on schedule for their number of weeks gestation. She checked out my kidneys (I have two of them) and ovaries. My left ovary looks good but my right one is measuring 14 cm, which is a half cm more than it was measuring when I was hospitalized. This sucker better start shrinking soon! It is supposed to start going down here soon, at the end of the first trimester. I'm not in pain so I guess it isn't that big of a deal.

I walked out of there happier about this pregnancy than I have been since I got a positive blood test. Pretty much everything after that has sucked: shock of having twins, illness, UTI, hospital stays, pain, sickness, and more sickness. I also walked out of there with 7 u/s pictures. Then I had to go have bloodwork done which wasn't so much fun.

The u/s tech said that at this point my uterus is stretched so that it looks like a normal uterus. This is the closest to a normal uterus I have ever had! Of course this is no indication of how my uterus is going to behave in the next couple months.

A couple more days and I am going to tell everyone in the world I'm pregnant with twins. Can't wait to get it over with.

11w, 1d

2010-07-21T16:38:00.000-07:00

Just a couple things on my mind.

Had the worst evening ever last night. Ended up going to bed super early just because I figured the only way to stop puking was to sleep. Mostly my puking is more like gagging until I spit up. Every once in awhile it gets more like puking my guts out. My guts were puked out repeatedly last night. Tired of hearing about my puking? Yeah, I am tired of doing it.

Have to laugh every time I get an email from BabyCenter talking about how important it is to exercise during pregnancy. I would LOVE to be able to exercise right now, and I generally hate exercising. I would also LOVE to be able to do lots of other exciting things like laundry and cleaning my house and taking care of my children. Even being able to poop normally at this point would be nice. Been taking prescription colace daily and still it ends up being a really long, drawn out event, often with little success.

I am attempting a day mostly without help tomorrow. Going to the park with a friend in the morning. DH is going out in the evening. My parents are taking me and the kids out to eat for dinner so that is good and helpful. Although I am not sure I am going to go to dinner. I might just send the kids. Projectile vomiting in the middle of a restaurant isn't my idea of a good evening.

Two more days until my next u/s. Babies are supposed to be about the size of large limes at this point. Mostly just want to make sure both of them are there and growing at the same rate. I feel less pregnant in the past few days than I have in the past few weeks. I can't exactly explain what I mean by that. Maybe I just feel sick is all. Normally when I lay on my side I can feel my uterus kinda getting in the way. I haven't really noticed that the past few days.

My hair is falling out. I have a lot of long hair that generally sheds rather rapidly but this is insane. Apparently it is normal too. I'm not fearing that I will go bald or anything by the end of this pregnancy. It is just annoying.

I ate a hot dog yesterday. I know they aren't total taboo while pregnant but I have been trying to avoid them. I just really really wanted one simply because I couldn't/shouldn't have one. So I cooked one up really well to kill any bad stuff and gobbled it up in a few bites. It was highly unsatisfying. The thing I want to eat most is one of those cheap, cold Italian subs that you get from fundraisers. Once again, never care to eat those but really want one just because I am not supposed to eat deli meat. In general, I am just sick of eating. Nothing ever sounds good. I end up eating all the time because after two bites of something I have had enough of it. Five minutes later I am hungry again but then nothing sounds good again and I am tired of eating the same things all the time. Then I have to plan out when I eat what and imagine how it is going to be if it comes back up and whether it is worth the risk. Heartburn happens often so I have pretty much ruled out a bunch of food on account of its ability to make me miserable in that sense. Even when I do think of something that would be tasty or I might be kinda craving, it is something odd that we don't have on hand and of course I am too sick to just pack up a car full of kids and run out to the store to pick up something like fudgecicles just because I really want one.

Sex would be nice at this point too. That hasn't happened since the beginning of June. I have no doctor's restriction on it but the only time DH can fit sex into our schedule is in the evening, and that is the time I feel worst. A couple weeks ago all I could think about was sex and how we could fit it in. I think my libido finally gave up getting worked up knowing it just isn't going to happen.

I love water. I usually drink water with dinner and sometimes with lunch. Unless I have just been exercising though, I mostly am not a fan of just drinking water for the heck of it. Water is all I want. It has to have lots of ice in it. Cold cold water. Yumm...

I'm having an excess saliva issue. Apparently this is normal too. I feel like I just ate something sour all the time and my saliva glands are going crazy to try to flush it out. Sometimes the excess saliva is what triggers me to throw up. Sometimes I run to the bathroom thinking I might throw up and feel a lot better if I just spit in the toilet a bunch. Drinking cold cold water helps this a bit because it means all the liquid in my mouth is heading down my throat for a second instead of just sitting there being annoying.

Apart from talking about loving water, I know I sound like all I do is bitch all the time. I really don't. I don't actually bitch much at all, apart from telling my husband and mom maybe once a day how tired I am of being sick. I guess I just save up all my bitching and do it on my blog so I don't have to do it in real life.

10w, 6d

2010-07-19T17:40:00.001-07:00

Hey. Me again. Back to complain some more about how every minute of being pregnant sucks ass. I find it hard to believe that people would ever choose to do this more than once. That sure is some dedication to avoiding the extinction of the human race that I don't have.

Went to another concert, at a bar this time. It was hell. Way worse than standing outside for 5 hour straight. The place was insanely crowded. I did manage to sneak in early and grab a seat off to the side so I didn't have to stand. Never would have made it standing. It was hotter than hell and filled with smoke. Yeah, real great place for me to be hanging out.

Then I spent a couple days thinking that maybe, just maybe, I was on the upswing of this whole morning sickness that lasts 24 hours a day thing. I went to dinner with some friends (where I couldn't manage to eat a thing but really felt okay too). I took the kids to the park, with the help of my mom. I even washed our sheets which was something that hadn't been done in such a long time that I am not even about to admit how long. Now that I have realized that I more or less have an unlimited supply of Zofran, I haven't been hesitant to take it. Unfortunately, the Zofran has now decided to be hesitant in actually preventing me from puking my guts out randomly.

So yeah, the puking has really picked up. My puking in the past was generally just stuff coming up and me not really retching. I puked, I rinsed, I went on with my day. Now it is losing entire meals and gagging and retching until my body is most certainly sure that every last ounce of food product has been emptied from my stomach and my eyes have nearly popped from my head. Good times. Did I mention how awesome being pregnant is??

Did have dinner with a couple friends a few days ago. I had planned to tell them I was knocked up and planned to leave out the fact that our family would go from 4 to 6 members. I was doing good. Told them pretty much as soon as I sat at the table. Then just before we were ready to leave the one girl asked that since we did fertility treatments, what the chances were of having more than one. I said 100%. Then I felt kinda bad I didn't just tell them to begin with but they understood. After talking with these ladies, I started questioning whether it was really a great idea to drop my high risk dr. The main thing is that if anything goes wrong or I go into labor early, I am just going to be shipped off to the hospital in the city anyway. I should just probably plan on being there. If I am going to be there anyway, wouldn't it make more sense to have a doctor that actually was affiliated with the place? Then again, I am still really concerned about having to drive to the city in labor during rush hour traffic in a snow storm. Probably just be easier to go to the local hospital and have them load me into an ambulance and get me there. For now I am sticking with my regular OB but keeping an open mind.

Finally caught up with all my girls that I am closest to on Sunday and spilled the beans to them. So glad about that on so many levels. One girl is already planning on cooking dinner for my family next week. Also loved the shocked expressions of everyone. Mostly though, that is the last time I am going to explain myself. Everyone else in this world announces they are adding a family member to their families and everyone says congrats and moves on. This is the third time we have made this announcement and each time it has come with some grand explanation as to why we decided to go this route and how it all happened. I most certainly don't mind explaining all this to my close friends, but why should I have to explain at all? No one else ever gets asked how their child was conceived, or better yet, why they decided to conceive a child instead of adopt one. So, my plan is to not explain anymore. I am not sure how this is going to work out. In part it will help because here really soon I will give my mom the green light to tell everyone and she can decide to explain or not to explain and I won't have to. As for all the people who are bound to ask me questions that I don't feel I should have to answer, I'm sure I'll figure something out. Guess that is one more advantage of the internet and facebook. I can just tell everyone online and dodge questions without having to do so while staring them in the eye.

Only 8 more days until I hit the magical 12 week mark. People keep telling me that is when the morning sickness gets better. It better damn well get better.

10w

2010-07-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

Survived the concert with flying colors. All it took was lots of hydration, planning ahead, and Zofran. I was able to score a great "seat" about 100 feet from the stage but in the end decided to abandon it and the insane amount of people in such close proximity. In the end, I did much better than a friend of mine who ended up so dehydrated he took a trip to the ER after the show.

Been avoiding blogging because all I would be doing is complaining about how crappy I feel. I throw up often and just feel sick all the time. Although I did manage that concert, that was four days ago and I haven't felt well enough to leave the house since. Been paranoid a lot about having a twin "vanish". I know there aren't supposed to be any signs, but I keep feeling pain/burning in my uterus and I am convinced it is because something is going wrong. It has taken me several weeks to come to terms with the fact that I am pregnant with two and I am just not ready to have to get used to being pregnant with just one.

Made the mistake of watching a couple videos on BabyCenter about babies in the NICU. Now I am crying. I figured even with just one baby, my baby would likely end up there. Now I have two fighting over a limited amount of space so I am certain we will be spending lots of time there. I've got all these questions in my head, mainly just "how can I do it?" I know it is stupid to even ask myself that. I have asked myself that question countless times in my life and the answer is just the same. You just do it. When you think you can't possibly have the strength to deal with something, you find you have more strength than you ever knew.

I made an appointment for next Friday for first trimester Downs Syndrome Screening. The only reason I want the screening done is for another u/s. I need to know if there were any major changes in health or number of fetuses hanging out in this uterus of mine.

My mom has still been coming over every day to help with the kids. I'm a huge control freak which of course means that I like to know and control my kids' schedule. I've had to let go of that. My mom comes and goes with my kids and sometimes I don't even know where my kids are and rarely know when they will be back. I normally do my best to make healthy choices when it comes to my kids. My mom almost always gives them lunch which is typically pizza or fast food or some mystery meal that they eat outside of my house. I've even given up a lot of control over my own life. I usually find myself eating fast food maybe once a year. I have eaten twice in the last week because it is just easier to eat whatever my mom shows up with than to try to make something on my own. I haven't been to the grocery store in over a month. DH does all the shopping. I have gotten up the energy to cook dinner last night but even then, I have been picking things that are easy to cook without sacrificing too much nutritional value. I have good intentions each day to try to have some sort of normalcy. Then I try to do laundry and find that halfway through a load I am bowing to the porcelain god. I try to play with my kids but then they just start jumping on me and I fear for my uterus. I try to water the garden and I get lightheaded. So, I mostly spend my days thinking how soon this sickness will end and maybe I will get an inkling of my life back for a couple months before I end up on bedrest or learning to be the parent of more kids. My mom purchased me two maternity t-shirts today which I don't need yet. I'm more worried about having pants and shorts that fit. So far my normal clothes have fit but I see an end to that soon. Still waiting for my Bella Band to show up. Mostly I am living in denial about the fact that my entire body (and life) is changing and I am going to need a new wardrobe. I didn't need a new wardrobe with my first two kids.

I've turned out to be far different pregnant person than I thought I would be. I think mostly because I already have two kids. I've never taken care of a newborn before, but I have taken care of two babies. I figured I would be crazy about making to do lists and learning everything I possibly could about pregnancy and baby care. Yeah, not so much. Part of me refuses to do much because I know I am in quite a non-normal pregnancy. Even if I make it through this awful first trimester, that doesn't mean it is going to lead to us having another child or two in this family. I hate to think that way but I am trying to be realistic too.

Taking these babies to their second concert tomorrow. This one is just in a bar though and not a giant stadium filled with drunk people. I'm not nearly as concerned about surviving this show.

9w, 3d

2010-07-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

I got my body pillow delivered and have slept with it two nights now. Super comfortable... except... I guess it is a bit more fluffy than I need. I am just not used to sleeping with a pillow between my legs to begin with and I think my poor legs are forced to be a bit further apart than natural. Now my butt muscles hurt. It is like I have been doing exercises to firm my butt but really all I have been doing is sleeping... which is actually pretty awesome!

I've been plagued with killer headaches. I read something the other day that headaches are common at this point in pregnancy. Now I am not feeling so hot, feel like puking all the time, and my head is about to explode. Good times. I LOVE being pregnant. I've popped a few Tylenol in the past couples days. It kinda took the edge off today but there was no beating that headache I had yesterday.

Today was my first official OB appointment. I used to see this ob/gyn when I was 18-23 years old or so but haven't seen her in the past 8 or so years. She is great and has a wonderful bedside manner. She was also really easy to talk to. I voiced my concerns about incompetent cervix and she told me that she wasn't really concerned. Yeah, easy for her to say. However, she did say that I will receive some additional monitoring because of the twin thing and she will just make sure that my cervix is measured during all my u/s. We talked a little about birth. She said that if everything is fine of course she would be good with me doing a vaginal birth but I can pretty much expect a c-section since my uterus is strangely shaped increasing my chances of breech babies and the fact that there are two of them in there. I always really wanted to attempt a vaginal birth (with lots of drugs) just so I could get the full having a baby experience. After being diagnosed with a UU, I came to realize that my chances of getting to have a vaginal birth were greatly reduced. Since becoming pregnant with twins, I have pretty much given up on the thought and am perfectly fine with them cutting these kids out and me avoiding labor pains all together. Right now I will only be upset if I don't get to be conscious during the birth of my kids. I missed the birth of my first two so I would really like to be there this time.

Anyway, back to the appointment. She did a quick exam and some test for bacteria that is normal in adults but could be harmful for the babies. She said she could definitely tell there was something going on in my uterus. She said that just by the looks of my cervix, it looked perfectly normal, appeared to have good blood flow, and was centered instead of being pushed off to the side like my uterus is. She figured she would give listening for heartbeats a try with the doppler. Said there was a chance she could hear them but likely wouldn't be able to hear them until around 12 weeks. She found my heart beat rather quickly and noted that it was really strong so hopefully that meant good blood supply to my uterus. She was able to locate at least one of the baby's heartbeats. There was a bit of an echo which could have either been just an echo or else the other baby's heartbeat. She gave me this huge excited smile. I smiled back. I guess I was supposed to be overwhelmed with the miracle of life within me but since I have seen and heard the heartbeats before, I guess I just wasn't that fascinated. Or maybe my head was just pounding with so much pain at the moment I couldn't think of much else.

Got our first bill from my hospital stay while on vacation. The original cost of service was over $10,000. Insurance covered most of that. Still, what an expensive vacation!

Tomorrow is the big concert day that I am hoping I survive. I am far more nervous about going to the concert than I am excited about it at this point.

9w

2010-07-06T18:45:00.001-07:00

This being sick thing is getting old. I figured I am on about my 4th week of being totally incapable of doing anything. My mom has been here every day while DH is working. It is getting old. I feel like I don't do anything with my kids, but at the same time, I just can't do anything with my kids. I can hang for maybe an hour but then I just have to lay down because I either feel like I might die of sickness or I am ready to puke or I have a huge headache or a combination of all of the above. Most of my interaction with my kids today involved yelling at them for all their bad habits that they have picked up from being under the supervision of my mom who lets them get away with murder (or at least disrespectful attitudes, laziness, and constant whining).

Sleeping sucks. I nap most days but managed to go today without. I don't know if it is the naps or feeling sick or heartburn or all of the above, but I just can't stay asleep all night. I'm up peeing or needing a drink or being uncomfortable or just laying there wide awake at 4 am for no real reason.

I'm tired of eating. I can't eat large meals so I end up snacking all day. It is pretty much the only reason I get off the couch - because I am hungry yet again. Nothing ever sounds good to eat but usually everything tastes pretty good.

Been having a heatwave around here so going outside really hasn't even been an option. I managed to spend several hours outside on the Fourth of July only to feel like death by 9:30 and resort to throwing up salsa. Really, if you think there is a chance you might vomit, don't eat salsa.

Throwing up has pretty much become a daily occurrence. Now it seems to happen while I am searching through my purse for my Zofran. Throwing up really isn't that bad. I can deal with it. It is the feeling so awful all day long that I am done with. And in those moments when I think maybe it is all in my head and really I am not even pregnant, throwing up is actually kind of reassuring. Guess that makes me some sort of sicko.

The hives are gone! I itched for three days straight and then they just started disappearing.

I have an appointment with my OB on Friday. I got spoiled with all that time I spent in the hospital and all those u/s I had. I want another one! I'm pretty freaked out about the whole vanishing twin possibility. Whatever happens, happens, and I can deal with that. I just want to KNOW that it happened. I don't want to have to go another month thinking we are having two and then have an u/s and find out there is only one in there. That would just be a mean trick. I've dealt with too much crap during these nine weeks to welcome in any more mean tricks.

A bunch more people know I am pregnant. My mom misunderstood something I said and told three of her friends - the three with the biggest mouths. My brother-in-law said that now pretty much the entire tri-state area knows. I probably would be mad at her but I just don't care. My normal personality is rather explosive so maybe all these excess hormones are making me mellow. More likely, I am just too busy keeping my head above water and not drowning in sickness to sweat the small stuff. My mom only told these people that I was pregnant, and not that at the last check there were two things in there.

I made my first pregnancy related purchases. I ordered a body pillow and figured while I was ordering things, I would pick up one of those Bella Band things too. I am in definite need of the pillow. No need for the Bella Band yet.

I'm having issues with getting my progesterone suppositories refilled. They were supposed to be here today. They are not. Not sure if the new pharmacy that we have to use with DH's new insurance with his new job ever got the prescription. I know I should get on top of that but it is hard enough for me to get a shower everyday.

I can't believe I made it to 10:00 with no nap today. Off to try to sleep.

8w, 3d

2010-07-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

Still here. Still feeling pretty worthless. I set a goal for myself the last two days and today to cook dinner and to do a load of laundry. Today was the first day I accomplished both goals. I was able to cook dinner the past two days but laundry was a distant dream. Got both things done today. It was a successful day!

Turns out these babies hate bananas. Ate one yesterday morning for breakfast and shortly after, I got a refund. Had one today around lunch time and got the same result. I guess I am off bananas.

I have been struck down with a horrible case of hives. I was thinking that it was from the antibiotic I was taking for my UTI. I wasn't really sure when I was supposed to stop taking it because I wasn't taking my own pills while I was in the hospital but I know there were several occasions that they gave me some while there. I figured it couldn't hurt to keep taking the ones I had. Then I got the hives. I get hives when I take penicillin and amoxicillin so it seemed like a likely candidate. I have never experienced hives like this before. They cover me. My scalp itches like crazy. Both arms are covered from shoulder to finger tip. My hands swelled up so badly that I couldn't make fists and no longer am wearing my wedding rings. My entire torso has become nothing but different sizes of solid red welts that continue down my thighs. Today the hives finally showed up on my lower legs and feet. I spent all day Wednesday itching like mad and taking Benedryl that helped mildly. Yesterday I decided to look up hives and pregnancy online. Apparently about 1% of pregnant people get hives as a result of changing hormones and it is more common in twin pregnancies. Lucky me always gets to fall into the 1% of everything. The website I saw yesterday said some doctors prescribe Claritin, but usually not in the first trimester. I had been taking Claritin for allergies prior to becoming pregnant. My RE said I could continue to take it but decided to stop anyway. I went back on the Claritin yesterday. Not sure if it was the drug or just the course the hives were taking, but I was mostly non-itchy yesterday. The hives came back at night time. I itched all through the night, took a Claritin this morning, and had relief for the most part again. The website I saw said that the hives aren't a concern and in most women they go away within 4 weeks of delivery. Wow, so I only have to wait until then? Although more likely I will fall into the 1% of women who have hives during pregnancy and then end up never getting rid of them for life.

Today was the first day in weeks I haven't spent some time thinking I was so sick that surely I was near death. I had a few pretty bad moments but nothing compared to what I have been feeling. It gives me hope that maybe an end is in sight, even if the end is weeks away. As for now I am just hoping that next Saturday is a good day. I have been looking forward to attending an outdoor concert with lots of screaming/drunk people at least 10 years younger than me. Having morning sickness was never part of the plan. A couple days ago the forecast for the concert was 92 degrees and humid. Yeah, not sure I could do that. I looked today and now it says high of 79 and chance of thunderstorms. I can do cooler weather and rain. I hope. Or else I'll end up being that 1% of people who gets struck my lightening.

8w... again

2010-06-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

So I am 8 weeks today, not yesterday. My brain has reached the point of not working.

Had my appointment with the nurse from my OB office. Long story short, they pretty much seem to be able to do everything that the high risk dr was saying he was going to do. Their office is 10 minutes away. High risk dr is 45 minutes away (minus traffic and weather). Just didn't get any sort of warm and fuzzy feeling from the high risk office either. I decided to ditch the high risk dr. I figure if something goes wrong, I can always switch back.

Only concern is that in the short meeting I had with the nurse (who asked one of the doctors at the practice who is not my dr for some further insight on what the office could handle) I didn't feel that they are going to be as concerned with regular checks of my cervical length as I would like them to be. My plan is to press for more cervical checks and if there is no response, back to the high risk dr. Guess I can't really see why they would tell me no, I cannot have these tests to give me piece of mind that aren't invasive or harmful to my baby and I am paying for. Oops, I mean my babies. See, brain isn't working. Totally forgot there are two in there.

As for my health, stronger today. At my best I did a load of laundry. At my worst, I laid on the couch and wished I wasn't pregnant because it sucks so bad and am I just so tired of being sick. My mom was around most of the day to help with the kids. She is going to stop by tomorrow too for a bit just in case. Wonder how long I can milk getting this help...

8w

2010-06-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

Wow, can't believe I made it to the 8 week mark. For the most part, I have been in denial about this pregnancy. It just seemed like something I had to endure and that would be that. It hadn't really sunk in that this could somehow work and we could actually have two tiny little babies as a result. In the last two days I've come to realize that all this hell I have been through might somehow lead to two new members of this family. It is like I am finally not just this sick person, but I am someone who is sick because she is pregnant, just like every other pregnant person out there. At the moment, I am not feeling so positive about this leading to real live babies though. I know it is possible but at the same time, it seems so nearly impossible with my little half uterus and two babies fighting it out for space in there and no prior experience with my UU attempting this baby growing feat before.

I had an appointment today with the high risk OB group at the hospital in the city. Can't say I was really impressed. They told me a lot of things I already know, but did do a good job of not really scaring me. Of course he brought up concerns about babies running out of space or one baby far outgrowing the other. Also talked a little about preterm labor being likely just because I am carrying twins and even more likely with my UU. He mentioned that a "vanishing twin" is probably way more common than we realize so just to be aware of that. We talked about incompetent cervix a bit. From what I have heard on my messed up uterus boards, the girls there recommend having the cervix checked by u/s every 1-2 weeks from 14-24 weeks, or something like that. He will check it at 18 weeks, 21 weeks, and 24 weeks. They are able to do all my prenatal care and my delivery... at the hospital in the city. I am just really not wanting to have to deliver there. I know it is the place to be if there is a problem but there are also so many cons. Plus, if I deliver at my home hospital (or start having preterm labor or other complications) they will probably just transfer me to the hospital in the city if they can't handle it. The doctor there pretty much said that it isn't like they can really do much of anything other than monitor me and take precautions if things start looking bad. He said the only test to know how a uterus will handle being pregnant is to actually be pregnant and see what happens. It just seems like my OB can probably do just as good of a job monitoring me and telling me what precautions I need to take if I need to take them.

I have an appointment with the nurse at my OB office tomorrow and an appointment with the actual OB next week. I guess I'm gonna see what they have to offer. I might just decide that appointments with the high risk dr in the city aren't going to really be worth the hassle.

My appointment was early and I got back here around 9:30. I went to bed for a few hours and then just felt way too sick to get out of bed until about 1:15. I tried reading but couldn't even stand to hold a paper and try to concentrate on it. I popped a couple Zofran today because I got tired of near barfing.

The kids are starting to show the effects of me not being around. DS2, who is prone to bizarre behavior, has been doing something really odd that I don't feel like getting into. I am pretty sure it is some strange manifestation of how a three year old handles stress. We had a little talk today and he just broke down crying and sobbing on my shoulder. Thankfully I was feeling a little better at that point so I was able to just sit and hold him for awhile which I know is something he really needed. His whole life and routine and pretty much caretakers have completely changed recently. DS1 is handling things a little better, apart from being pretty whiny. He has always been mature beyond his years (in most situations). He likes to take care of me and has been more helpful than usual cleaning things up without being asked and just doing things for me while I rest. I am feeling guilty already about all the sacrifices my two little boys will have to make in their lives if this pregnancy really does result in babies. I told DH today that as soon as these babies get old enough to be able to leave them, I think we need to arrange to do some sort of big kid outing, no babies allowed.

I do have to say, I am so grateful for all the people around me. Never did I expect so much kindness. Maybe hoped for it, but never thought that so many people would be coming to my rescue. My mom has watched, fed, cared for my kids endless hours in the past three weeks, to the point that I really haven't even had to ask her to help, she just tells me that she is showing up and taking care of everything. My dad, who is getting up there in years and is getting a bit feeble himself, drove me to my appointment today (and one two weeks ago) and just sat around and waited (and by waited I mean he took a really sound nap on the couch in the hospital lobby). And my ILs. FIL arranging to freakin' fly me out of vacation! Insane. MIL and FIL staying with us all weekend, mowing my lawn, doing laundry and dishes... Of course DH has been awesome, shipping me off in an airplane and driving 13 hours with two kids and a dog in the car. Plus, the daily things he does which is pretty much everything that gets done around here. Little things even like my blind friend B who came to visit me at the hospital and made me take a walk and forget for two minutes how crazy my life has become. I've even got a friend stepping up to the plate and is bringing me dinner one night this week. It does kinda sucks that it has taken all this stuff for me to realize how good people can be. I think I need to work on that.

7w, 5d

2010-06-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

I have emerged from the near dead. The super short version is that I have OHSS (ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome) and the babies are perfectly fine, measuring a couple days ahead of schedule. And the long version, which will definitely be a good story to tell these kids in a couple years, is below. Highlights include visiting three different hospitals in the matter of 14 hours, riding in an airplane, and being transported by ambulance.

Tuesday (June 22) - On vacation. Woke up feeling fine. Around 9:00 I started feeling this incredible pain in my lower right side. Thought maybe I was miscarrying but then thought from what I have heard that is more of a cramping thing and this was certainly way worse than any cramping, more localized, and more burning. Whatever it was I knew it wasn't right. My parents were on vacation with us so we left the kids with them and DH took me to the hospital. (I threw up right before we left.) Pain escalated at the hospital into the worse pain I have ever experienced in my life. They took me immediately, stuck in an IV, and gave me Demerol. A few minutes later I screamed out that their drugs sucked. They gave me morphine. I felt a mild bit of relief for about 2 minutes and then the pain returned. They took some blood. They sent me to get an u/s. I laid on the table and screamed during the entire u/s from the pain I was in. I stopped screaming long enough to hear that they were listening for heartbeats and found them. I told the tech to stop, that I needed more drugs. They told me they were giving me delotid, which I guess is the best of the best. Said it would give me a head rush so don't get scared. I felt the head rush and a few minutes later felt complete relief. Vacation hospital was tiny and only two OBs there, only one on call at a time. Dr. Oprah* was around so he was going to stop in to see me. All the nurses raved about what a great guy he was. The pain came back. I screamed bloody murder some more. DH kept opening the door to my room so everyone could hear me and help me. More delotid. Pain went away. Dr. Oprah came in. He told me he didn't want to give me anymore narcotics because it was bad for the babies. At some point I said I didn't care about the babies currently because I was in so much pain and didn't want to die from that. Dr. Oprah said I had OHSS and he was going to send me home with percocet. Ovaries are supposed to be about 1.5 cm x 3.5 cm. My left ovary was slightly enlarged but my right ovary measured 7.5 cm x 13.5 cm. There was concern that my ovary could turn on itself and cut off blood supply so that was checked (and turned out okay) during pretty much every u/s I had in the fast 5 days. I told Dr. Oprah he was crazy for wanting to send me home because the pain was so intense there was no way I could go home. He went off to write the prescription to give me for home and the pain came back. I screamed for awhile. I threw up because it hurt so bad. Dr. Oprah decided he would admit me for the night. DH went home and my mom came to see me. She got to business calling everyone she knew in the medical community (she is personal friends with one of the OBs in my town) and all my doctors from back home and in the city where my RE is. The doctor on call from my RE said that narcotics were fine for me since the only concern is that the babies will get addicted but since it was so early in the pregnancy that wasn't even a concern. Started getting the idea that Dr. Oprah was insane. Had several pain episodes throughout that day that resulted in me screaming in pain, nurses giving me Zofran and delotid through my IV, me throwing up right after the delotid, and the pain eventually easing.

Wednesday (June 23) - The other OB was on duty, Dr. Wire*. He turned into a saint, particularly the more I saw Dr. Oprah. He told me that my blood work the day before showed my kidney function was only at 80% and that right there was enough info to admit me to get that straightened out. Not only was I dehydrated, but my sodium was low so even if they just pumped me full of liquids, since my sodium was out of whack the dehydration problem wouldn't be fixed. Also, was still suffering from the UTI I was diagnosed with last week. (Had problems peeing all day Tuesday.) For eight hours he doubled the rate at which whatever was in my IV bag was dripping into me. They gave me Zofran through my IV. I had several more pain episodes that were treated with Delotid. I threw up everything I ate or drank, but somehow I did feel better than I did Tuesday. Whole family stopped in for about 5 minutes (both parents, kids) and I threw up the moment they walked in the door. DS1 was fascinated with the contents of my barf bucket. I think it was at some point during this day that I told DH that whether this pregnancy worked out or not, I was done. No way am I trying this again.

Thursday (June 24) - Saw Dr. Wire again in the morning. Things seemed to be going better with pain, having less frequent episodes of screaming --> Delotid --> puking --> relief. He wasn't going to let me leave though until I could function like a human and do human things like eat food and drink water. Managed to do a little of both. By evening, felt a lot better. Dr. Oprah came on call. He called the nurses and told them to send me home without even seeing me or talking to me. This was 6 at night. Was he just sitting around waiting to be put on call so he could send me home? Nurse came in and took out my IV. I had taken a walk around the halls a few minutes before that and had to come back because my pain was starting to increase. No more than 5 minutes after the IV was out, the pain hit me and I was screaming in pain again. Dr. Oprah had also ordered no more IV drugs. They gave me Percocet, which I promptly threw up. They called Dr. Oprah who gave the go ahead to give me another IV and more Delotid. The pain had gotten so bad through all this, about 15 minutes after the Delotid I screamed at the nurse wondering if they had actually even given me anything because I was still in horrendous pain. Relief did come. About 20 minutes after that I was feeling better and DH went back to the beach house to send my mom over for a bit. As soon as he left a nurse came in to tell me that they just talked to Dr. Oprah and he said to send me home. My response was something along the lines of, "Are you fucking serious?" I'm telling you, this man was insane. A nurse aid came in to help me get dressed and someone took out my IV. I told her as soon as she started moving me the pain would come back and I would be screaming. She said, "Scream then if you need to scream." WTF?? Did she really just say that? Real easy to say when you're not the one in pain. I got my clothes changed. I called my mom. She told me not to leave that hospital. She called my RE. The RE on call called me and told me to tell Dr. Oprah to call her. By now it was 10 o'clock and still Dr. Oprah was saying that I should go home. Who in the world discharges patients at 10 at night? Actually, I think those were the exact words of my RE. Dr. Oprah talked with my RE and decided to let me stay, but said that they were not giving me another IV, only two percocet and an Ambien and sending me to bed. (I wonder if I should have taken Ambien while pregnant...) Also, they sent me for another u/s. DH got to go with me for the first time and heard the heartbeats for the first time. U/S showed that overall my ovary had gotten slightly smaller but the biggest of the cysts had actually grown. Since they were pretty much deciding not to treat me anymore, I told DH that if I got struck with pain again, to check me out and then take me downstairs to the emergency room where at least I would get assigned to a different dr temporarily enough so they could give me good drugs. (The next closest hospital was 1.5 hours away.) Went to bed with my percocet and Ambien. Woke up to pee and was completely confused, wondering if my pillow was properly shaped like a Japanese home and if the nurses were getting enough vitamin E. Drugs are awesome. Barely remember the situation, but woke up again in the middle of the night screaming in pain. Nurses couldn't really do much since Dr. Oprah gave the orders of no more pain medicine AT ALL. One nurse commented that my screaming was going to scare the little boy in the next room. Like I could help it. DH yelled down the hall at the nurses at some point, "Quit worrying about sending her home and get her something for the pain!" Dr. Oprah was called and he allowed them to give me a shot of Delotid in my butt. Went back to sleep.

Friday (June 25) - Dr. Oprah was on duty. I hate him. A plan had been placed to get me sent back home from vacation ASAP so I was happy to be leaving that hospital and that dumb dr. I begged Dr. Oprah to give me something that would actually work for the pain orally, just enough for a couple hours to get me home. He reluctantly gave me a prescription for 5 Oxycontin pills. DH went to refill the prescription and go home and sent my mom in to visit. I had another pain episode. It was the first one my mom witnessed. I screamed and thrashed around and threw up. They had just given me percocet. Dr. Oprah of course refused to give me more Delotid. They gave me Oxycontin. I worked really hard at concentrating on my breathing and talking myself through it and eventually all the drugs set in and the pain subsided. Didn't know it during the time but apparently while I was flipping out over pain, my mom started having an anxiety attack and almost threw up herself. I heard the nurses asking if my mom was okay. They were trying to kick me out of the hospital at that point but I told them I was staying until my evacuation plan started. They said they weren't going to treat me at all after that, that I could stay there but was pretty much on my own if I didn't feel well. Yeah, great establishment they were running. DH gave me some percocet and then we got the hell out of there. Went to a neighboring island where there is a small airport. Sat in the car for about an hour and waited. Finally FIL (father-in-law) showed up in a plane being flown by his complete weirdo of a friend, D. Somehow it all worked out. D runs his own airplane sales business so he can pretty much take time off whenever. FIL just returned from a church mission trip and had taken the extra day off to recover before heading back to work on Monday so he was available. I've only ridden in a small plane once. FIL and DH both fly so it was all no big deal for them. Add in the fact that I was going to be in the air for 3 hours with FIL and some weird man I never met and there was a big possibility I could be overtaken by pain suddenly so extreme that I could start screaming and throwing up while several thousand feet above the earth... yeah, wasn't looking forward to this at all. The plane was SMALL too. It was a four seater but squishing a fourth person in there would have been insane. For the entire three hours I just kept thinking that it was so much better than 11+ hours in a car. I did my best to sleep. Kept my eyes closed just about every second so I could take my head off to some other place. About halfway through the flight I opened my eyes long enough to realize that this plane was REALLY small, I was really high up, it was rather claustrophobic, I could be struck with pain at any minute, and I could completely flip out and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do. Popped another percocet. Eyes shut again. Back to my happy place. We landed at the small airport in my town. MIL (mother-in-law) was waiting for us there. D flew off and MIL and FIL took me back to my house. Oh, and I still hadn't showered through all of this. It had been since Monday afternoon that I showered. Came home and laid in bed, thought I would rest a bit before I showered. Pain started coming again. I took two percocet. I laid back down and waited for them to kick in. Nothing was happening. Started thinking about the immediate future of me screaming in pain and throwing up and poor MIL and FIL being there to witness it all. Told MIL that I wanted to go to the hospital. Thankfully the percocet did work somewhat so I was able to direct them on how to get there since they don't live around here. Went back to the ER. The nurse dude back there had a tough time trying to figure out where to put an IV in since I had been so poked up. They called in the dr on call from my OB office. Despite the fact that both me and my mom had told the dr's at the vacation hospital to check my appendix just in case that was the real problem, no one decided to check it until the dr at my local hospital suggested it. They needed to do a CT Scan, the problem being that it was going to expose me to a large amount of radiation (like 10 x-rays worth). All dr's agreed that checking out my appendix was worth the risk to the babies. I wasn't completely down with it but didn't want to die of a burst appendix either. I gave them the go ahead. Shortly after, the dr said there would be a hold up because the radiologist refused to do the test on a pregnant lady so there had to be a meeting of dr's so everyone could plead their case before moving forward. I am sure it was midnight by then so on to Saturday.

Saturday (June 26) - After the dr's met, they decided not to do the CT Scan. Instead they were going to do an u/s and see if they could find the appendix there. Then they might have to follow that up with an MRI. Off to the most horrible u/s I ever experienced. I think that the appendix would show up hard on the u/s if it was screwed up. Whatever the reason, the tech had to push extremely hard with her little u/s paddle thing all over my belly and side. It was rather uncomfortable, made extremely uncomfortable anytime she pushed over top of that giant ovary of mine. After about an hour of pushing, she was speaking with the dr on the phone. Said she never did find the appendix but everything she found was moving (I guess an appendix in bad shape wouldn't move) and she was rather certain the pain was from my ovary since I clearly showed that I was in pain every time she came near it. That was enough for the dr to rule out appendicitis. The on call dr from my OB came back in my ER room and told me that he felt the best thing to do was send me to the hospital in the city where my RE is located since no one here has experience with OHSS. There is no stimulating of ovaries in this county, so no real knowledge of what to do when they get hyperstimulated. It would be a little bit before they arranged transportation. FIL went out to the car to get some sleep. MIL hung out with me and fell asleep in the chair. I tried to rest but it just wasn't happening. Finally around 4:30 am, two ambulance people showed up. They were scary people. MIL had said that she would just go back to my house with FIL so they could get rested and I could go in the ambulance alone and they would see me sometime in the morning at the other hospital. I wasn't crazy about riding alone with these two weird people but just went along with it. They strapped me to a gurney and loaded me into an ambulance. I started laughing to myself because the entire day was just so messed up. Stupid vacation hospital. Scary airplane ride. Off to my third hospital in 14 hours. And now I was being loaded into an ambulance?!?! It was like a movie because it obviously couldn't be my actual life. Then I got to enjoy the 45 minute ride to the other hospital while the driver (who had a slicked back mullet and huge mustache) blared his really awful country music. Finally at 5:30 am I was in my new hospital room and so ready to sleep. I slept for maybe 4 hours and kept getting interrupted by nurses and a doctor from my RE's office. The RE dr told me they were going to avoid giving me anymore fluids because I could start retaining fluids in other parts of my body and I seemed hydrated. Basically she told me to spend my day resting, trying to eat and drink as much as possible, and to take at least 3 walks. I ordered a high protein breakfast and ate a ton, probably because it was the first real meal I had had in five days. (Someone from the half a uterus message board I am on said their dr suggested a high protein diet if you have OHSS, and also heard it is good for cooking twins longer.) MIL and FIL showed up and then I promptly left for an u/s. Between waiting for the u/s tech and the actual u/s, it took over 2 hours. The tech couldn't figure out which was my right and which was my left ovary since my right was so large it squished into the left and made them look like one giant ovary. A dr had to come in and figure it out. Both babies looked fine. Heartbeats were fine, clocking in at 160 and 167. I got new pictures. Back at the room I was in pain and really sleepy. Got something for pain eventually but I think it was several hours later. I took a walk with MIL at some point. FIL and MIL went off to the cafeteria to get something to eat and let me rest. I slept and then they woke me up when they came back. I was a bit irritated over that, didn't feel well, was tired, and was kinda tired of feeling like I had to entertain my IL's. They said something about maybe going back to my house and I was too nice and didn't tell them to leave. They left anyway. Eventually I started feeling really good and FINALLY took my first shower in about a week. Heavenly. In the evening I tried to eat dinner but didn't do quite as good with that. I talked to my sister. My blind friend B came to visit me which was really nice. He took me on another walk. I noticed that my belly is getting quite big which is totally from my giant ovaries and not from being pregnant. Then I went to bed and slept for over 11 hours. Amazing. All during this DH, the kids, and my parents left vacation and made the super long drive home. They got home after 9 though so it wasn't like they were going to get a chance to visit me.

Sunday (June 27) - Two dr's from my RE visited me this morning. They said it was time to send me home. They prescribed me some different pain for meds since the one dr wasn't keen on giving percocet to a pregnant chick. DH came to the hospital and helped get me ready to go. I got home around noonish. DS2 was excited to see me and gave me a huge hug. DS1 cried when DH told him to hug me. Most excited was my pup who clung to my leg the moment I walked in and was just bursting with love that I came back. As soon as I sat on the couch, she jumped up on my lap. I am thinking a 65 lb dog on my lap is not good for recovery. Spent the day napping, eating, and trying not to lay down too much because I am paranoid about blood clots in my legs. I threw up this afternoon but it was somehow a welcome thing because I knew it was completely related to the fact that I am pregnant and have morning sickness and nothing else. Dr orders are to not do much of anything, but try not to stay in bed either to avoid blood clots. Best of all, I haven't taken a lick of pain meds today!

*names have been changed

7w, 1d

2010-06-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

Survived the long car trip to the beach. Unfortunately, I'm now spending my vacation at the hospital being treated for ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Dealt with the worst pain of my life yesterday, pain that morphine wouldn't even touch. The dr that treated me yesterday was a bit of an idiot too. As of yesterday, Thing 1 and Thing 2 were fine.

6w, 3d

2010-06-18T11:58:00.001-07:00

Nothing but good news!!

I am feeling WAY better. Now I just have what is probably typical morning sickness - starting to gag as soon as I get hungry or think about food, tired all the time, just poop out and feel sickish if I do much. I am looking forward to vacation and I'm even ready to get up at 3am to start traveling.

Yesterday I had some more blood work as a follow up to my high white blood cell count. Haven't heard back the results of that. Also had to give a urine sample. Not sure why. Wasn't the most pleasant thing to have to do in a public bathroom stall with two little curious boys who ask LOTS of questions very loudly.

Managed to drive myself to my u/s appointment at my RE's office in the city too. I had a super nice u/s tech. I was hoping we could see the heartbeats but really wasn't expecting it. There they were! Two little flutters. Wow. Just amazing. I can't believe I have three hearts beating in me. Of course she had to zoom in and point and I mostly had to take her word that the tiny little changes in grainy black and white I was seeing were hearts beating. Then she said, "Now we are going to listen to the heartbeats." What?!?! You can actually hear those tiny little things beat?!?!? And I did! I teared up a little. Blaming that on pregnancy hormones of course. Baby A had a heart rate of 126 and she didn't tell me what Baby B's was and I forgot to ask. Bad mom. She said everything is measuring right on schedule.

So, I am released from my RE. I guess they figure once they see a heartbeat, things are planning on sticking around for a bit. The nurse gave me some cookies with a note attached congratulating me on my pregnancy. The cookies didn't survive the car ride home. Nomnomnom.

I called my brother on the way home and gave him the news. He didn't have much to say but I figured so much.

Just been trying to get things packed for vacation which is rather difficult. My body keeps telling me to take a break after a short time of getting things together but my mind knows that if we are going to be leaving remotely on time I have to pack. I've been listening to my body for once though.

6w, 1d

2010-06-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

Good news all around! First of all, my computer problem ended up not being fatal so that is good. Also, now more pregnant than I have ever been.

Back to my appointment yesterday. The PA said I didn't appear to be that dehydrated. She could prescribe me anti-nausea meds and if that didn't help to call in on Thursday and she would arrange for me to go to the hospital to get pumped full of fluids. Or if I really wanted to go to the hospital yesterday and get pumped full of fluids that was fine with her too. I opted for the meds, Zofran. From what I have read online, most drs won't prescribe it unless you can't even keep down water but I was really happy that I didn't have to suffer quite so much first. I had been suffering enough. I also had some blood work done to make sure that it wasn't a viral or bacterial infection.

I took my first dose of Zofran yesterday evening. Thirty minutes later I ate my entire dinner which was incredible (in part because DH cooked it and I didn't have to). Then my sister stopped by with her kids and I went out in the yard with her and watered the garden and hung out with her in the heat. I also told her the news. I said, "The good news is that my illness isn't contagious. It is just morning sickness." She chuckled. Then looked at me and said, "Wait, are you serious??" We talked for a minute or so more at which point I told her it was twins. She shrieked and DH looked up from where he was in the yard and just smiled, because he knew what I told her. I still have to tell my brother (who has no desire to have kids) and DH has to tell his sister who is currently on her honeymoon.

I felt mostly good today. I did end up crashing after lunch. I ate more today than I have in the last three days combined. I even woke up this morning and didn't feel like death. My mom was still here to help with the kids but she isn't planning to be here much tomorrow, just long enough for me to go to my u/s in the afternoon. I showered today and did two loads of laundry. I went to my kid's soccer practice and took a little nap on the bench which would have been embarrassing had I not just been so exhausted.

Also really good news, I got a call from the PA I saw yesterday. My blood work showed an elevated white blood cell count. Good news? Absolutely! This means that I am actually sick with something in addition to morning sickness. Thank goodness because whatever intestinal bug I have will go away a lot sooner than morning sickness will. I do have to go in again for blood work tomorrow to investigate my high white blood cell count a bit more to make sure it isn't anything bacterial (thus treatable) or something major. I am thinking it isn't going to be a problem and now all I have to deal with is being insanely tired and randomly gagging. Looking forward to vacation again!

6w

2010-06-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

(My computer just completely stopped working and I can't finish this on my phone. So... To be continued.)

If I make it through today, I'll be more pregnant than I ever was before. I had my rudimentary horn and the pregnancy within it removed at 6 weeks last time around. The only good thing I can say about that pregnancy compared to this one is that I sure felt a hell of a lot better that time around.

Haven't really been out of bed since Sunday. But, back to Sunday. Don't really remember where I left off though.

I was at the IL's and kept getting this horrible pain in my side. I don't think it was my uterus. Thought for awhile that maybe it was my appendix. Maybe I ended up with cysts on my ovaries from the meds and they were bursting? I have no clue. All I could do was lay in the bed we were using and hope I didnt die until the pain passed. Then it came back. I thought I might throw up. I thought maybe if I just pooped... Nothing. I called my RE and they told me that if it happened again to go to the ER but I could come in on Monday (yesterday) for an u/s just to check things out and for peace of mind.

At one point I was feeling better so I went to hang out with everyone. MIL asked me about how I was feeling and wanted to know if it was the same kind of ill feeling she was feeling. And the door of opportunity opened. I said, "No, I think it is more a result of this little project that DH and I had planned for her now that the wedding was over." She was thoroughly confused so I said something like, "You know, planning for a new grandchild." She exclaimed in excitement and asked if we were adopting from the same country where we adopted our sons. I said, "Nooo..." She asked where from then. I said as I looked down at my belly, "From me!" She was all excited and smiled from ear to ear. I didnt really look at FIL but I am sure he was much more reserved in his reaction. Then DH chimed in with, "Only problem is, one just wasn't enough." To say she was shocked was an understatement. I think she accused us of trying to kill her since she was just getting over the fact that the wedding was over and now this! She said, "Well, how? I mean, I don't want to know details or anything but I didn't think this was possible. We told them we had some help and that was enough information for them.

I thought I was feeling better. By the time we got home from the IL's I was near death. I went right to bed and pretty much haven't been out of bed since. The plan was to wait to say anything to my parents until we were on vacation this coming weekend. However, it was clear early morning yesterday that I was going to be in no shape to take care of my kids. I called my mom who, unfortunately, was taking care of my sister's kids this week. She was able to work things out so she could be here around 9. I somehow managed to get my kids up, get them breakfast (while I layed on the floor next to the dining room table with my pillow, blanket, and barf bucket), and get them dressed. We watched cartoons until my mom got here.

I started trying to tell my mom what was going on but I just started crying because I felt so awful. This pregnancy thing the last couple days has not been a joyous occasioon at all. In fact yesterday there were several times when I was wishing I wasn't pregnant, that anything would be easier than dealing with this. It is like having the flu but way worse because at least with the flu you know it will end in a couple days. I still have weeks and maybe months to go with this. The main thought going through my head all day yestrday was, "This is not how this is supposed to be." I really had my doubts that I would even get pregnant. I was certainly not supposed to get pregnant with twins in my little half uterus. I am not naive enough to think that I wouldnt suffer from some morning sickness, but I never thought that it would be debilitating. So yeah, I was sitting there crying instead of telling my mom the wonderful news and DS1 was getting pretty worried about what was going on. So, I took my mom into my room.

I told her that I am knocked up with twins. She said, "I knew!" Well, she claims she knew that I was knocked up or at least something was up but not about the twins part. She said she was suspicious that something was up that day she was poking at my belly a couple weeks ago. Mostly she was worried though. I told her that the risk for me is the same as the risk for any other pregnant woman. It is just the risk for the babes that is increased. So, we will work that and hope everything works out because that is all we can do. (My mom told my dad last night. He reacted by picking up his newspaper and adjusting himself in his chair a little bit.)

I stayed in bed all day yesterday. I was making a mental list of people that I could call on to take care of my kids because I couldn't do it. My mom said not to worry about it that she will work it out. I am sure she would and complain about it the entire time. I was also dreading vacation and trying to figure out a way that could even work. We leave on Saturday. I couldnt even get out of bed. How the hell was I going to survive a car trip for 9+ hours with two kids and a dog? Plus, I usually do the majority of the driving and there was no way I could drive. Not sure if DH could even do that much driving.

Last night I made a list of things that needed to be done this week for DH. I felt horrible doing that but there was just no way I could do anything. DH asked if I could take Dramamine. I couldn't find anything conclusive on the internet so I decided to call today to find out. I thought I was feeling a little better but then 10:00 hit and I was dead to the world.

I woke up around 6 this morning so much sicker than I have been. I tried to eat a cracker and I couldnt get a single Saltine down. I managed a couple sips of water. I gagged into my bedside trashcan multiple times. DH was totally awesome and got breakfast ready for the kids so when I got them up all I had to do was put it on the table for them. The smell of toast from the other side of the house almost made me barf. I managed to go back to sleep for about 45 minutes and felt so much better when I got up.

My mom showed up around nine and I headed back to bed. I felt good enough to actually hold my phone and mess around on that. Yesterday all I could do was lay there and hope I didnt die. I called my OB and left a message about the Dramamine. They called back and said that they could prescribe something but since they havent seen me yet I would need to come in. They made me an appointment for this afternoon. I heart my new OB. From what I read on the internet, most OB's won't prescribe anything unless you are so sick that you can't keep down water.

My dad drove me to the appointment. I thought I could probably make it myself but then decided since I havent eaten for three days that maybe it wasnt such a good idea. My appointment was just with a PA. She didnt know what a unicornuate uterus was. I wasnt surprised.

5w, 6d

2010-06-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

(I wrote this yesterday but I am too sick to finish it.)

I might be rocking this being pregnant thing but I sure feel like ass.

Friday we were headed up to the IL's two hours away for DH's sister (my SIL's) wedding rehersal. I had been having waves of feeling fine mixed with waves of needing to lay on the couch because I wasn't feeling so hot. About an hour before we left I had to go to the bathroom NOW. This was a vast change from the past several weeks where I have been really wanting to go to the bathroom but things really weren't moving so great. Figures, right before I had to be in the car for 2 hours, I would get the runs. I ate a huge helping of applesauce and did fine the rest of the evening.

Wedding was Saturday and I was pretty nervous that I wouldn't be feeling so hot all day. I did my best to just lay around as much as I could. All was going well until I sat down with my dinner at the reception. I thought I was going to throw up at any second. All I really wanted to do was just lay down for a minute but that just wasnt going to happen. I told DH that I was insanely sick and if I went off running, I would be in the bathroom. If I was there too long, send help. Then as quickly as it came, it went. I went on to eat all my dinner which was rather cold by then but still delicious.

We were stuck at the wedding reception really late getting things cleaned up. Finally got home and I collasped into bed. I couldn't get to sleep at all. Finally got to sleep at which point DS2 started crying because he was way overtired and just wouldn't suck it up and fall asleep. Got back to sleep again. Woke up again to this really bad pain in my right side, far off to the side and maybe kinda in my back. It was the middle of the night and I was out of it as it was. Did some farting and that seemed to help. Went back to sleep again.

Got up this morning with DS1 and was having breakfast when I started to feel that side pain coming back again. I went to the bathroom and pooped but that didn't help. I got severely nausceous and hot and just miserable. I ended up going to get DH and told him I needed to lay down. He got up with DS2 and went to take care of the kids. (We were staying at IL's house.) I rolled around in misery and made plans of where I would puke if I needed to

5w, 2d

2010-06-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

I am totally going to rock this pregnancy. I decided today that that is just going to be how it is. Yesterday I was pretty down. Just feeling like life handed me this next huge hurdle which surely would crush me. Figured there was just no way. I would end up devastated and crushed and with no babies. You know what? I just might. But I'm not going down whining and feeling sorry for the hand I have been dealt.

I got to thinking yesterday about what I have in my life. I got it pretty good. I have a great husband, two awesome kids that just bleed awesomeness because that is how they roll, and some amazing friends. Maybe this whole being pregnant with twins is going to end up not so great. But that isn't going to change the fact that I have a great husband, awesome kids, and amazing friends. All those great things in my life I had a few weeks ago will still be there. I will have lost something, but definitely not everything. I will still have all the things that make my life tick as it is today. In addition, I'll know just what my body is capable of. Maybe it won't be capable of what I hope it will be, but I will know.

So yep, I'm going to rock this pregnancy. I might have some down days. I might feel like complete crap emotionally and physically at some points. But those things happen in life if you get pregnant or not.

I was thinking back to the Me I was in high school. I was a mess, but I was awesome. I worked my butt off every second of every day to do the best that I could. Even things that I knew in my heart were hopeless, I didn't give up. I beat that dead horse. I don't know what happened. (Actually, now that I think about it I know exactly what happened and it sickens me that I let it affect me still to this day.) At some point in there I just got scared. I was so scared of failing. Mostly scared of ever taking chances. There is so much I missed because I just didn't think I could do it so I didn't try. I didn't want to fail and be embarrassed or have to admit that I just wasn't as good as I wanted to be, so I just didn't try. It has really been a pathetic way to live.

Guess what. I tried. I tried to get pregnant and dammit, it worked! It worked a little better than I expected even! I'm tired of being whiny. I am tired of being scared of life. I am tired of being afraid to take chances and afraid to fail and afraid of what other people are going to think of me if I do fail. I was thinking how I just don't even want to tell people I am pregnant, and most certainly not tell them that it is with twins. I don't want to have to turn around later and tell them that it didn't work out either. I just want to hide my belly for the next 9 months. Well, screw that! I'm pregnant! I'm having twins! This is fucking exciting!! I can't wait to see the shock and joy on people's faces when I tell them the news! There are lots of risks but I am facing them all head on and doing everything in my power to succeed in the parts that I have control over! And if it doesn't work out, I am not going to be embarrassed or ashamed or scared of the looks from other people. I'm going to suck it up and deal with it like every other hardship I have faced. I'm going to grieve and I am going to go on in life with all the things I have been blessed with. I'm awesome like that. Deal with it.

[This change in attitude was due in part - and only a small part because I am really not about to give that much credit to him and I was feeling much better prior to telling him anyway - my blind guy friend B who now knows the details.]

[Also, probably won't be posting the next couple days as I will be out of town for a wedding. When I post again, it will be about how we told my in-laws the news and how excited and shocked they were. Oh, and I'll be sure to post too about how I am just rocking this pregnant thing.]

5w, 1d

2010-06-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

DH has been informed. All went as well as it could I suppose. He didn't get home from work until after 10. He sat down on the couch to tell me about what he was up to all day. I interrupted him and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Do you want a beer?
Him: What did you break?
Me: Do you want a beer?
Him: How many kids are in there?
Me: Do you want a beer?

He got his beer and I urged him to tell me about his day. He said he didn't think he could then, that he really only had one thing on his mind. But he went on anyway. Then he said it was my turn to talk. I said I had a present for him. I held up one big stuffed bear. He started laughing because he knew why I bought it. Then I said, "Only problem is, this bear comes with a friend," and I held up the second bear. "Oh no." Then he went on to say, "If I knew that was going to happen, I would have shot half my load outside the cup." This is the story I get to tell our children.

We talked a bit. DH voiced his concern that with two of them in there it causes the risk of losing both. I definitely agree with him but I am not concerned enough about it to pursue some other option. The conversation didn't last too long since I was so tired.

Felt completely awful today from the moment I woke up until about 3:00. Finally feeling better but now I am just so tired. I was depressed most of the day. Probably a combination of shock, hormones, and just not feeling well at all. Once I started feeling better and could act more human, my spirits definitely were raised.

I called the high risk doctor office today. I have an appointment with them on the 28th, the Monday after we get back from vacation. I almost busted up laughing when the lady asked for the reason for the appointment and I said, "I have a unicornuate uterus and am carrying twins." I don't know which part of that statement is more bizarre.

I've been trying to decide what to do about my OB. I really really love my current ob/gyn. However, he is located near my old house an hour away and doesn't deliver at any hospitals near here. The hospital to go to if there are issues is the one where my RE is located, but that is still 45 minutes away if there is absolutely no traffic. My current ob/gyn is not affiliated with that hospital. Since I am due in the dead of winter, that was just one more factor to consider with trying to travel to a hospital to deliver. In the end I decided to give a call to the first ob/gyn I ever saw when I was 18 because she had such a wonderful bedside manner. She is affiliated with the hospital that is 10 minutes from me, a hospital I have faith in and I know provides a lot of individual care. I will meet with a nurse from her office on the 29th, day after my high risk appointment, to exchange health information and have some blood work done. Then the following week I will have an appointment with the OB.

Hopefully my mom doesn't have much going on for the next 9 months because it is looking like I will be needing her help watching the kids for lots of upcoming appointments.

I saw my friend J tonight and got to tell her that everything was good, times two. She was really excited. When she got pregnant with her son, she was initially pregnant with twins. She ended up miscarrying one of them but she did have some good information about carrying twins in the first trimester.

Off to get some rest.

5w

2010-06-08T17:35:00.001-07:00

I suck at counting and realized today that I was a week ahead of myself. I changed all my subject headings so I am where I am supposed to be, on the first day of week 5 today. And what a day.

It was u/s day. I think I would have lost sleep over it last night if I hadn't been so tired. I'm not really big on praying but I've tossed a few words to the man above this week. There were a couple times today when I kept asking Him to just give me some good news about my body because I could sure use it.

The kids and I did some errands and I tried to keep myself distracted. I did find myself just being generally angry today. Angry at the world mostly. Part of me didn't even want to go to the u/s. I wanted to live in bliss of knowing nothing. While getting lunch ready I was on the verge of an anxiety attack thinking that my whole world could just come crashing down in a few hours. I started to think about all the girls on infertility message boards I have read about who have had miscarriage after miscarriage, second trimester losses, and just horrible things happen, and yet they still go on and they still keep trying.

My mom showed up to watch the kids. I am really running out of excuses to have to leave. Today's excuse was that I was going to the dermatologist to get a wart removed from my foot. So crazy I knew there was no way she would question it. The parking garage was packed and I ended up parking in a no parking zone. I figured it was a day to be daring and that was about as daring as I could handle.

I started IM'ing a friend who knows what is going on with my body while I was in the waiting room. That really helped calm my nerves. She made me laugh out loud and other people were staring at me funny. That made it even more funny. At last it was my turn to go back and I was relieved to find that I was not dealing with the evil "bad news" u/s tech. It was a new tech who I knew would give me news of a new adventure.

I laid there while she did her thing with the dildo cam. I kept taking deep breaths. I figured one little prayer asking for strength to handle whatever news she had to give me was probably a good idea. I was glad to notice that she seemed to be spending most of her time checking out the right/good side and only did a little sweep of the rest of my abdomen, unlike last time when the tech was clearly spending a lot of time on the rudimentary horn side. After what seemed like hours but was probably more like 10-15 minutes, she asked if I had anyone with me to bring back. Nope. Then she turned the screen so I could see. She said, "This part that we are looking at is inside the uterus and I actually see two gestational sacs."

She then went on to show me two almost identical dark circles with a little yolk sac inside each. I'm not really sure what else went on because I pretty much went into a state of shock.

I always knew this could be a possibility but never thought for real that it could actually happen. I even thought it would be great to have two. DH and I decided right after we got married that we should have four kids, two biological and two adopted. The plan got shifted around and changed a good bit and we have mostly just been talking about three being the number with no talk of anything after that. Definite advantage to having two bio kids would be to even everything out. Got these two kids now that are pretty close in age and now instead of having that younger, not adopted kid, who is like a third wheel, everyone will be partnered up.

Let me tell you though, when you look up and see a little picture of two little beings growing inside you, there is no thinking things through. It was exciting and horrifying all at the same time. I had so many things running through my head. Wow, so great to have that nice even family. Holy shit how is my inexperienced UU going to deal with two babies? My poor boys are in for the shock of their lifetime. My husband is going to shit and probably be pretty pissed off that his boys could swim so well. I think I might throw up and it isn't morning sickness.

But there they were. Two little beans growing IN my uterus, right where they were supposed to be. No random gestational sac attached to some weird part of my body that was not the inside of my uterus. No devastating news that the pregnancy was in my only fallopian tube. Everything was right where it was supposed to be, even if it was maybe just a little extra.

I went into the bathroom to change and cried. Tears of relief that everything was okay. Tears of shock because... well, WTF?? Tears of joy because I made it through that first u/s.

I had to wait to talk to a nurse after that. I went back to IMing my friend and sent several text messages to another friend. I pretty much said the same thing to both of them, about how I survived the u/s and the embryos looked great. And no that was not a typo. I did say embryos. Anything after that was pretty much a blur. What in the world was happening?? This obviously couldn't be for real.

I waited forever before I got called back to talk to a nurse. It was a nurse I had met before and really liked her. She congratulated me and talked a little about how they will see me again next Thursday and continue to see me until they see heartbeats, which could be as soon as next Thursday. She assured me that everything looked amazing. I had great HSG numbers for carrying two so it seemed just from that, that everything was going well. Both gestational sacs where right on schedule. My due date is February 8 like I thought, but it will probably be January since I have twins. TWINS?!?!? What the hell?? That doesn't even make sense. I can't have twins! That is just insane.

I talked to my friend I had been IMing breifly on the phone in the lobby before I left. I am not sure I even made any sense. The world was just not making any sense to me. She said she can watch my kids next week during my appointment so I don't have to come up with another wart to be removed. On the way home I tossed a few more words up to the big man above, something along the lines of, "You think you are sooooo funny, don't you?"

I went off to Toy's R Us from there. Back when we were matched with our kids for the adoptions, the day we were matched we got them a stuffed animal. I figured it would be an interesting way to break the news to DH. (Yes, I told two of my female friends before DH.) I picked up two big stuffed bears that I figured I would put on our bed. When DH came home from work and went in there to change, he would see them. I am not even sure if he remembered that today was my u/s. While I was waiting in line to get the bears, I was standing behind a very pregnant lady and her friend who had a small baby in a carrier. The lady with the baby received a phone call while in line and started exclaiming, "Awwww! It's a girl! 6 lbs!!" It was way too much of a baby overload.

Back home to try to act all normal around my mom. We started talking about vacation and she was asking me what kind of wine we should get. Umm... none? I am not sure I really answered her. Then she wanted to know if I was going to dye my hair before the wedding we are going to this weekend. Umm... no? Once again, off to change the subject.

Checked my email to discover that DH was stuck at work until late, really late, with no idea when he would be home. I spent the whole evening with the kids but in some other world, mostly being really depressed. I don't really ever have much to say to DH. Not that that is bad, just the way it is. We love each other and love spending time together and doing stuff together, but as for having deep conversations, just really isn't us. Finally had something I wanted to talk to him about and I have absolutely no idea how he is going to take it and I don't even know when I will get to talk to him about it. It is after 9 now and he is still at work. The later he is, the worse this conversation is going to go. The last thing I am sure he wants to hear at the end of a very long day is, "Hey! I know you really don't want to have twins but you are going to have them!"

Twins. What the hell??

Okay, DH is going to home in like 15 minutes. Guess I have to get ready to rock his world, but not necessarily in a good way.

4w, 6d

2010-06-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the big day. At least it is one of them. I keep forgetting that my u/s is tomorrow. Maybe I am in denial. Maybe I would rather live in a world where I don't know what is going on with my body.

Felt good most of the time today. I got a lot more done over the weekend and felt less tired, perhaps because I was doing things instead of sitting on my butt. Apart from feeling fine most of the time, I had a few moments when I most certainly did not feel fine at all. I was feeling a bit off this morning and opted to tuck a plastic bag into my purse before I went grocery shopping just in case. I made a mad dash out of the bakery department or else I might have had to use it. Just way too many smells of bread, garlic, donuts, pastries, and deli meat meshed together.

There was another incident this afternoon, also smell related. I was much closer to throwing up that time, in the kitchen sink. We haven't mentioned anything about a possible sibling to the kids yet, so when DS1 was wondering what was wrong, I just told him I was kind of sick and might throw up. A few minutes later he told me, "I know what you need!" He ran back into the kitchen and came back with a dish towel. "This make you feel better." I asked him what I was supposed to do with it. He said, "You put water on it. It make you feel better." I told him I didn't understand. I wasn't sure how that was going to make me feel better. He said, "Gimme that." I gave it back to him. "You don't need this." Then he put it back in the drawer in the kitchen.

I had a bit of pregnancy brain recently too. Pregnancy brain - you know when all your energy is going towards making a baby which causes your brain to shut down. Yesterday I couldn't remember for the life of me what hand sanitizer was called. Today I got out of the car to go grocery shopping and realized that the car was still running. The kicker was this afternoon. The kids were napping and I decided to sit on the couch and go through my mail while I ate a banana. I got the mail and I recall breaking the banana off the bunch of bananas. However, once I got to the couch, I only had my mail and had no clue what happened to the banana. I went to track it down. I found it in the trash can, peel still on. I have no recollection of putting it in the trash can. It was all intact so I just took it out, peeled it, and ate it. I told DH this story this evening and he said, "Let me get this right. Any sort of smell makes you want to throw up but eating food out of the trash can is perfectly fine?"

4w, 5d

2010-06-06T16:32:00.000-07:00

I'm kinda tired. Either that or I am just lazy. I am thinking I am tired though. Sitting on the porch watching the kids play was just too much for me this evening so I brought one of the chaise lounge chairs up so I could lay down and watch. DH, being the fine upstanding guy that he is, has already announced that every time I complain he is going to remind me that this is what I worked for over a year to have. I told him I wasn't complaining, just stating the fact that I was tired, and now I have the ability to nap all the time guilt free.

Been so lethargic this weekend. Sadly, I am already tired of being tired. There are things I want to do, things that have to be done, and I just can't get up and do them. Then I end up depressed that I am sitting around on my butt and not positively adding to the world.

Turns out I suck at either following directions or else the due date predictor I used was dumb. My due date is February 8, so 2 weeks sooner than I thought. This of course means this kid will come early just in time to fall into the giant cluster of family birthdays around the holidays.

On the day that we were matched with our sons through adoption (knew that these kids far away would be our sons, but we still had months before we could bring them home), DH and I bought these stuffed animals for them. We were in a toy store today and I was really tempted to pick up a stuffed animal for this baby. I decided I better hold off, wait until the u/s just to make sure. I am feeling good about it though. Maybe because I feel so different this time around than I did last time. Last time around, I didn't even know I was pregnant until 5w, 5d (which is today). I recall having a headache for 3 days straight and feeling a little lazy for a day or two but that was it. Maybe it is all just a blur because all I can really remember is how it ended. On my side this time too is that this absolutely can not be a rudimentary horn pregnancy since I no longer have a rudimentary horn. Even my chances of a tubal pregnancy are cut in half since I am down to one tube. Trying my best to look at the positives but can't get out of my mind all the things that can go wrong. Every time I have a cramp I am sure I miscarrying. Already in my mind I am thinking of goals to reach. First up is to make it to the u/s on Tuesday. Then on to see the heartbeat. Then through the first trimester. It seems silly to think of them as "goals". It isn't like it is anything I have any control over. Other than being good to my body, the rest is up to nature or God or fate or whatever it is I believe in at the moment.

If all goes well at the u/s, I think we are going to tell DH's parents next Sunday. I am sure we will tell my parents shortly after that but I don't know when. We are going on vacation with them in two weeks and I am not sure if we should tell them while we are on vacation or before we go. Telling them while we are there is going to increase the chances of non-stop conversation for a week long from my mother about a new grandchild. Then again, if we are on vacation, she will be cut off from the rest of the world and far less likely to spill the beans.

4w, 3d

2010-06-04T11:27:00.001-07:00

Making a pregnant chick get up at 5 am and get herself and two kids to the city for blood work is just plain evil. Haven't been sleeping that great. Mostly because I have to pee a lot but also because in the evenings, my belly is just uncomfortable. It feels weird to be on my side.

I was so tired by the time I got home, I fell asleep on the couch while the kids were in a tv coma. Never did that before. It was just long enough to make me functional until the kids' naptime.

My numbers are good! They were 400 on Wednesday and they were looking for them to double. Today they were 1100. So, more than doubled but not so much that it is freaking me out for no real reason. My first pregnancy u/s is scheduled for Tuesday. DH said he could either go with me or at least watch the kids since all my appointments have been early morning. Unfortunately, they schedule their pregnancy u/s differently. My appointment is at 2 and he won't be able to go or watch the kids. So, made up a lie to my mom about a dermatologist appointment and she is watching the kids. Although no official plans have been made, I am thinking we will probably be telling our parents soon as long as everything works out with the u/s. The nurse who called about the blood work results and to schedule the u/s said that this u/s is mainly to make sure that the pregnancy is in the uterus. Yeah, way to put a girl at ease. All I need right now is an ectopic pregnancy.

Understandably, I am completely dreading this u/s. That first u/s last time around was where I went from blissfully ignorant pregnant chick to all hell just broke out in my freakish anatomy. It is hard not to think that come Tuesday, any happiness I have about what is going on in my belly won't vanish in an instant.

4w, 2d

2010-06-03T16:51:00.000-07:00

The newest developments include:

- feel back to mostly normal, although more tired than usual
- stuffing my face with Chinese food from the food court at the mall made me not feel so good
- RE's office called to say that my RE recommends I have a consult with a maternal fetal medicine group in the hospital which is good because I was hoping to be able to do this the easy way but bad that there is any sort of risk that things could be trouble
- temporary name for this thing growing inside me is Emerson the Embryo, subject to change with or without warning
- one Chinese gender predictor says my kid is a boy and another says a girl
- my mom made sure to tell me a story today about sitting next to a woman on the subway and telling this stranger how she wishes her daughter (me) would have another kid, which makes me want to wear super baggy clothes and attempt to cover up my belly for the next 8 months just to spite her

4w, 1d

2010-06-02T16:10:00.000-07:00

I am now officially pregnant. In the words of the nurse at my RE's office, "You are most certainly pregnant." Got my blood drawn this morning, obviously. I was a bit anxious about getting the results, mostly because I needed to know if I was going to be feeling really stupid for thinking I was pregnant when I was not. Then when the nurse called I had to pretend to be all shocked and excited about pregnant when I really knew that I was.

I have to go back on Friday to have more blood work to see if my hcg level doubled. Today it was 400. At this stage in the game, they usually looking for a hcg level around 100. So of course I did exactly what I knew I shouldn't and got on to google to see what I could find about high hcg levels. Apparently a high hcg level can mean absolutely nothing. Or can mean a pregnancy with multiples. Or it can mean a molar pregnancy which is a bad thing that happens in 1 out of every 1,000 pregnancies and doesn't result in a baby and I am not going to explain anymore about that. If you happened to come across my blog because you googled something about high levels of hcg during pregnancy, just step away from the search engines... now.

Probably next week I'll have an u/s if everything looks fine with my bloodwork on Friday. I will be released from my RE once they can see a heartbeat, probably around 6-7 weeks. There is no plans for me to see my RE again. I asked about getting referred to a peri since I'm likely considered high risk. The nurse said that she would ask my RE about it and get back to me by Friday if he recommended it. After everything I have read about UU's and pregnancy, no matter what he says I am going to try to track down a peri as long as everything ends up fine with my u/s. I would rather be over treated than not treated enough.

I'm already making a list of things to do in my head, even though I know there is no point in doing anything until after I see how the u/s goes. First on the list is finding a new ob. I really love my ob but he is over an hour away and doesn't deliver at any hospital anywhere near me. I already feel bad about potentially leaving him but it just doesn't make sense to stay.

I felt pretty much normal today, which was way better than I was feeling the past few days. My uterus area is still a little tender and my stomach muscles feel like I have been doing sit-ups. That is about it though.

I emailed DH to tell him I was pregnant. I figured the rest of this process has been anti-climatic, should probably keep with it!

Cycle 4, 14 dpIUI

2010-06-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

I guess I am now unofficially pregnant. It must have been in the middle of the night last night when I thought maybe I would go ahead and POAS. Sure, I knew there was still a tiny minor chance of a false positive and yeah the pregnancy test I was going to use expired more than 3 years ago... but what was the point of having that thing just laying around if I wasn't going to pee on it?

"They" say you are supposed to take them first thing in the morning when your pee is most concentrated. That was another issue. I have been peeing pretty much every 2 hours during the night. I woke up at 2:30 and figured if I could make it until 6:30 when I was going to get up, then it might be worth it to give it a try. I woke up a little before 6:30 and had to pee soooo bad. DH was in the bathroom getting ready for work. Any other day I would have just found my way to the other bathroom but my pregnancy test was in the bathroom he was in. I rolled around in pain for a bit and finally he came out and I went in. I peed. I watched the little line of pee moving up the pee stick. I was pretty sure it was negative. Then I actually waited a minute and sure enough, obvious BFP. It was amazingly anti-climatic.

Yesterday at some random point I told DH, "I guess you should know that I am pretty sure I am pregnant." He said something like, "Okay." Then we went back to what we were doing. This morning I told him I took the super expired test and it was positive so I guess I am pregnant, maybe. He said, "Yay. Maybe." Then he gave me a kiss and left for work. We are such exciting people. Or more like we know that until a healthy baby pops out of my body and into this world, we should probably not get too excited.

I felt the worst I have felt last night and most of today. I was trying to get to sleep last night and my uterus was burning. The fetal position was pretty much the only one I could handle. Today everything from the bottom of my ribcage to the top of my thighs was crampy and achy and horribly uncomfortable. While out running errands this afternoon with the kids it would not have surprised me if I would have just collapsed. Is it possible to overdo it this early? While my kids nap in the afternoon, I typically get caught up on some things around the house. Today I laid on the couch covered up in a blanket, eating Jolly Ranchers (which I hear is supposed to help the uneasy stomach thing), and stared at my laptop. I have felt pretty great since then. My uterus area is still a bit sore if one of the kids push on it or I bend over, but I think I might venture out to walk the dog here shortly.

Oh, and I called and made an appointment to have my blood pregnancy test done tomorrow. The kids and I will be up and out of here by 6 am to find out if I am officially pregnant.

Just as a disclaimer, I am happy I am pregnant. Shocked too since I really thought that those follicles wouldn't grow big enough. (Still there is a chance that I am not pregnant in my uterus, or that the follicles from the wrong side were able to freakishly make their way to the right side.) Even though I would much rather be pregnant than not be, I still keep thinking of all these upcoming things I am going to miss out on. There are two outdoor concerts I'm going to in July where there will be not a sip of beer taken. Not that I like to get smashed or anything, but tailgating and laughing at stupid people followed by listening to great music under the stars just won't be the same. I figured we would take the kids to two amusement parks this summer. Not sure if there is much point to that since DH doesn't really ride much and I won't be able to ride with the kids much. Vacation is just 3 weeks away, which will be an entire week spent with my parents. I have a feeling that the beans will be spilled by then but if not, my mom will definitely realize something is up when I am sick, dead tired, and not drinking at all. Then there is the drive to and from vacation that I usually do while DH entertains the kids/sleeps. Probably not going to happen since I will be so exhausted, yet who in the world can sleep with two loud kids in the back of the car? No more running. No more looking forward the 5k I was hoping to do with my friends in September. Girls' weekend next spring will be out since I'll have a baby stuck to my boob. I am sure I could keep going. I suppose it is good that I am thinking this far in advance because it must mean that I am optimistic that I will make it that far.

And yet, I am not really supposed to complain! I am supposed to be so joyous that I am unofficially pregnant! Yippie! Go half uterus!

I had a dream last night that I told someone I was pregnant and then 2 seconds later I was holding a newborn baby girl that looked exactly like I did when I was a newborn.

While out doing errands I noticed at the counter of the one store was a collection jar to donate to March of Dimes. Hell yea I am putting money in there! I practically cleaned out my purse to stuff that thing full of karma!

Cycle 4, 13 dpIUI

2010-05-31T17:01:00.001-07:00

I guess this makes me unofficially late. Unofficially because my RE won't consider me late until 15 dpIUI even though AF always shows up for me between early afternoon on 12 dpIUI and the morning of 13 dpIUI. Here it is evening of 13 dpIUI and no AF. At this point I am fairly certain that I am pregnant even though no scientific test has told me that. I base it on the fact that this is only the second time in the past 10 years that I have been late and the first time was because I was pregnant. Also based on how I have been feeling for the past week. I thought about taking a pregnancy test tomorrow morning but considering how much I have been peeing lately, I don't think there is any possible way to capture some concentrated urine.

I was still waiting last night for AF to show up any minute in my sleep. I had a dream that AF did show up and I was devastated. I couldn't believe that I was as sad as I was. I woke up and was really sad because I thought it was all true. Then I realized that when I discovered that AF had arrived, a friend's son was in the bathroom with me and that just didn't make any sense. Then I realized it was a dream and went to pee just in case. No AF.

I'm so tired of peeing. Friday night I got up 4 times to pee. Saturday, only twice. Last night was twice as well. Sometimes I can make it an hour or two during the day and not have to pee but usually it is more like every 30 minutes, and that isn't because I am gorging myself on liquids today just to check the TP. I know, I shouldn't be complaining. I should be bouncing off the walls with excitement that it seems this is actually happening. Instead I mostly feel numb and maybe even a little depressed. Crazy, right? Hear me out.

Being late is just the first step to a VERY long road of "if's" and "hopefully's". Next up is blood work to find out if I am pregnant and if I am not, wow am I going to feel dumb. If I am, it will be two more days and back for more blood work to see if my numbers doubled like they were supposed to. If that is good, then it will in for an u/s to find out if the little embryo implanted in the right place. (What if it is ectopic? What if something completely bizarre happens and the embryo implanted outside of my uterus which is extremely rare but extremely bizarre and rare things have been known to happen to me?) Also get to find out if there is more than one. Then since I have never really been pregnant before, at least not in a functioning uterus or for more than 6 weeks, I have to wait to see if I am one of those people who are prone to miscarriages. Then it is on to find out if my UU will be nice and stretchy and hopefully avoid preterm labor. Hopefully my uterus also stretches nicely to avoid intrauterine growth restriction (IUAG). What if I get put on bedrest and have to figure out how to take care of myself and my unborn child as well as two young kids? If I am fortunate to make it to full term or close to it, I have to hope that the baby isn't breech which will be somewhat likely. Then what the heck am I going to do with a baby? What if my two kids don't adjust well? What if I don't adjust well? What if my new kid ends up being all whiny and stubborn like me or has bad eyesight and an anxiety disorder like my husband? What if my kid decides to someday drink a bunch of beer and drive a car???

So yes, this is the very beginning of something that I really wanted. It isn't like all of these questions and worries just popped into my head. They have been going through my head for the past 4 years since I have known about my UU. These questions and worries are one of the reasons we decided not to give this getting pregnant thing a try sooner. I have thought it through. I have run every scenario through my head over and over again. I've also done a decent job of ignoring all these fears and thinking that we will just cross that bridge when we get to it... part of me thinking we might never get to it because I might never end up being late and possibly being pregnant but now here I am and it sucks. If only taking things one day at a time was possible.

Went to a picnic at my parents' house this evening. I am hoping my mom thought nothing of me passing up various alcohol options she was pushing on me. At one point my mom started patting my stomach and I thought, "How the hell could she know when I don't even know for sure??" Then she started talking about how I am getting pretty squishy around the middle and need to start doing some exercises. Yeah, I have that mom, the one who loves to point out any flaw I have. So then I started patting my mom, who probably weighs more than twice what I do, on her stomach and telling her she better start doing some exercises too. What I really wanted to say was something about how I was sure that my flabby stomach would be nice and firm about 6 months from now, much bigger, but also nice and firm. However, I am not a total moron or idiot so I said no such thing that might give away anything, if there even is something to give away.

Cycle 4, 12 dpIUI

2010-05-30T16:30:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, like most days, I went back and forth between thinking there is no way I am pregnant and there is no way I am not pregnant. There were times during the day when I felt perfectly normal. Those were usually the times when I was completely sure I wasn't pregnant. Then there were times when I felt like utter shit, rundown, queasy, bloated and I would think that there was no way I could be feeling that way and not be pregnant.

I kept thinking that tomorrow was the day that AF watch would begin. Then I started thinking about past cycles which led me to looking up and over-analyzing every cycle in the past 6 months on FF. Around noon today I realized that AF watch begins today. During about 90% of my cycles, AF shows up in mid afternoon 12 days after I ovulate. On rare occasions it will hold off and I will wake up on the morning of 13 days after I ovulate to discover AF has arrived. I recall once recently that AF showed up around dinner time 12 dpo. Realizing around noon today that at some point in the next 24 hours I would find out if AF was late or not made me become quite crazy.

We had a picnic to go to today. Good, something to distract me from what was to come. We left right after I discovered today was the beginning of AF watch. I felt so crampy suddenly and my back was really aching for the entire hour drive there. So for the entire hour I figured I would arrive at the picnic and discover AF had arrived. Got there. Peed. Nothing. We were at the picnic for three hours. I drank water and lemonade and a coke and really anything I could get my hands on the whole time just so I would have to pee and I could check the TP. Lots of peeing and no AF. There was also a trampoline that I really really wanted to jump on with my kids but I decided maybe that wasn't a good idea.

Had another hour drive back home. About 45 minutes of that was spent with thoughts running through my head over whether I was pregnant or not. The other 15 minutes was spent hoping I could make it the rest of the way home without peeing my pants.

Still no AF! I guess that makes me 90% late. Doing my best not to get my hopes up because I don't want to be crushed. It is getting hard not to get my hopes up after how I've been feeling all week and the fact that right now I still have a sore throat and I feel like vomiting. I most certainly will be excited if I make it through tomorrow with no AF, but I still will be cautiously optimistic until after I get through 14 dpIUI with no AF.

Cycle 4, 10 dpIUI

2010-05-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

Feeling far less obsessive over every twinge and cramp and maybe kinda sore throat feeling I felt today. Maybe because I am feeling pretty much all over not so good today. The day started off good and has gone down hill. At some point this morning I noticed that my rudimentary horn (that no longer exists) side was hurting. That really isn't all that unusual this time of the month, even since I had surgery to remove it. I guess I must still have nerves there that think they should be feeling something. I get sharp pains that cause pain to run down the inside of my leg. It was worse today than normal though. Shortly after that I was running errands and got such a horrible cramp that I thought I was going to have to make a mad bolt to a bathroom with a case of the runs. That wasn't the case. Since dinner I have been feeling really awful in my stomach/uterus/intestinal area. I don't really know what part of me even hurts. It is kinda like I have heartburn or maybe I am going to have to use the bathroom but it could be cramps, but I don't think it is cramps. My back is starting to ache a lot too.

Have been having issues being interested in food pretty much since the IUI too. I get hungry but don't have a clue what I want to eat and nothing sounds good.

I realized last night that the progesterone suppositories that I have been using were expired. I guess I can't read. I thought it said they expired on 5/26/10. However, it said that they expired on 4/26/10. Those things don't have much of a shelf life at all so even though they were just a month expired, that was probably a lot. I have a second batch of the stuff though so I started using the unexpired stuff last night.

Ten days post ovulation is when the masses tell me that HPT can start to pick up the pregnancy hormone. As I said, I'm not planning on testing. Forgot to mention one of the big reasons why. The HSG trigger shot makes pregnancy tests come out positive even if you aren't pregnant. Who wants to get a false positive? I actually heard of someone who takes HPT every day from when they do the trigger shot until they finally get a negative so they know when the hormone is out of their body. Then they starting the tests over again waiting to get a positive that would indicate her body making the hormone herself from being pregnant. Even my RE won't do a pregnancy test until 16 days after the trigger shot (so 14 days after your IUI) because even blood pregnancy tests can result in a false positive from the trigger shot.

Oh, and my throat is definitely hurting now.

Cycle 4, 9 dpIUI

2010-05-27T13:01:00.001-07:00

Just trying to remember that next week at this time I will definitely know for sure what is going on with my body. Yeah yeah, I could be one of those people that starts testing daily, but I'm not. For one thing, pregnancy test are expensive. There are cheap ones but no one around here sells them and I don't think I would have the time to order any cheap ones anyway. Plus, I just can't bring myself to get all excited to see two lines and then not. Last time I was pregnant I took a pregnancy test at 14 dpIUI and only saw one line. AF is due to show up next Tuesday, but sometimes I am a day early so maybe even Monday. Actually, Monday is probably more likely. My RE said that I can come in on Wednesday for bloodwork. I would have to call on Tuesday to make the appointment for Wednesday though. I know if I call Tuesday before I am officially late, I would jinx it and AF would show up right after I got off the phone. So I am waiting until Wednesday to call when I would be officially late. If I am late at all.

I am highly emotional today. Sitting here watching a guy and his dog on tv and bawling my eyes out. I have a thing for dogs as it is, but this is just crazy. A few minutes ago I was crying over people getting new furniture on tv. Maybe it is all these hormones I am on. Maybe it is ones that my body is producing. Maybe...

Finally felt a little bloated last night after I posted so I was excited about that. Feeling mildly bloated today. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Is it just me or is time moving more slowly than normal lately?

Cycle 4, 8 dpIUI

2010-05-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

What a depressing day. In part because I am so tired, but mostly because I feel fine. Maybe not totally fine, but way better than I have the past few days. No cramps. No bloat. My stomach felt a little off but I think that was just from being so tired. Still got those sore nipples! If I really think about it I might be able to convince myself that my throat is ever so slightly sore which I have heard somewhere is a pregnancy sign. Just hoping I feel like ass again tomorrow!

Cycle 4, 7 dpIUI

2010-05-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

Same shit, different day. Figured I would blog about it though so I can quit privately obsessing and publicly obsess as well. Still have those sore nipples. I keep making the mistake of thinking, hmm... wonder if they are still sore. Then I give them a little pinch and WOWZERS, yep still sore. Been insanely bloated all day. Was merely mildly bloated yesterday. My back isn't really sore at this point. I think that could be a good sign because I think usually about a week before AF shows up is when my back typically gets sore.

On any given cycle, I usually feel a bit crampy and bloated for a day or two about a week before AF shows up. Then it disappears for a few days and either shows up a day or two before AF or on day 1 of AF. For a couple hours this afternoon I was feeling really awful, like a pretty gnarly first day of AF which is my worst feeling day of the month.

I go from thinking there is no way that I am pregnant this month, which is usually when I am feeling pretty much normal, to feeling like I just have to be pregnant this month. Mostly I keep thinking I better be pregnant this month because if I am feeling like such complete crap for no reason, I'm going to be pretty pissed off.

I have reached the point that I just want to know. Yes or no. Don't really care too much one way or the other. Just want to know.

Cycle 4, 6 dpIUI

2010-05-24T16:39:00.001-07:00

Six days down. Which just means that 6 days of mild obsession is over and there are likely 8 more of increasingly obsessive days to go.

I felt more normal today which sucked. Who would have thought that I would be enjoying feeling like I was going to throw up a lot? Last night after I blogged I started feeling super crappy. It was exciting. Then this morning - nothing. By afternoon I was getting bloated and felt a bit gassy. Was starting to get a weirdness in my stomach but then I ate dinner and felt fine afterward so I guess I was just hungry.

Was talking to a friend that is in the know of my situation today. She asked how I was feeling or if I was feeling anything. I went on to tell her all the things that I have been feeling and how I probably feel most of them during a normal cycle and just don't notice it. Then I mentioned the sore nipples. She has been pregnant twice and said for her, she had sore nipples "right out of the gate". I am holding on to these sore nipples for hope!

In a bit of a weird place emotionally. Sometimes I feel like all this yuckiness with my body means I HAVE to be pregnant and I will just be floored if I am not. Then I think back to the fact that I don't really feel that my follicles were big enough to mature and then I think there is no way I could possibly be pregnant and I will be floored if I am pregnant.

In the back seat of our car, the kids keep a pile of toys in the middle of the back seat between their car seats so they can grab/fight over stuff as we travel along. While we were getting int he car and inspecting this pile of toys I said, "What are you going to do when you have a baby brother or sister sitting there and you have no room for your pile of toys?" It was the first time that DS1 didn't instantly say that he didn't want a brother or sister and DS2 mimic what his older brother said just because that is what he does. Instead DS1 said, "I want a brother AND a sister." I can't even come up with any response to that.

Cycle 4, 5 dpIUI

2010-05-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Been keeping busy. Haven't been doing it on purpose, just how I like my life, but it sure helps pass the time and keep me from obsessing. At least obsessing too much.

The pregnancy nachos were yummy. The beer was delicious. Hanging out with my friend and laughing too hard was awesome. I had a little wave of nausea on the way there and I got kind of excited, even though I knew it was ridiculous. Still at this point any sort of "signs" are surely a result of taking the drugs. Then again, on my cycle #2 that got converted to timed intercourse and did not result in me getting pregnant, I had no signs. Felt a bit nauseous yesterday and today. Today I had periods where I should have been hungry but the thought of eating just was completely undesirable. After my first IUI when I got knocked up briefly, I did have a few "signs". So here they are. Here are my "signs" which are probably drug induced but who knows.

- sore nipples since 2 dpIUI
- a bit bloated yesterday and today
- constipated
- crampy lower back pain today
- mildly nauseous
- peeing 2-3 times during the night (usually I pee 0-1 times a night)

I finished off my pineapple/pineapple core/pomegranate juice today. I had purchased some pomegranate juice that was a super sweet (probably low in juice content) raspberry pomegranate juice. It was really yummy. I also got some pure pomegranate juice. It is not nearly as appealing, but because of how expensive it was, that stuff is going to be drank. The nausea started about the same time as the pomegranate juice switch occurred. I haven't ruled out completely that the two aren't related but I don't think they are.

Cycle 4, 3 dpIUI

2010-05-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

Having pregnancy nachos tonight! No, this is not some other tip, trick, or old wives tale to get pregnant.

It all started a few years ago back in our old house. We had my BFF and her DH over for dinner. We ate roast beef and drank some wine. BFF had gone off BC recently and was charting in hopes to get an idea of how her body worked. They were going to give it another month or two before they started trying and I am pretty sure the actual plan was to somewhat avoid getting pregnant at the time. Two weeks later, BFF ended up with a positive pregnancy test. Her chart showed that she likely got pregnant the night her and her man had dinner at my place. DH and I determined that it was the roast beef that was magical and made her pregnant. BFF claimed it was more likely the decent quantity of wine we consumed that night that led to her being a bit frisky when she got home. Although BFF had a point, we still stuck to our idea that it was the roast beef.

That was until it happened again. Another couple came over. They told us all about their big plans to quit their jobs, move to Hawaii, and finish up college degrees over there. They just had a few more things to arrange and within months they would be off. Almost 3 years later, they still haven't haven't left. Hard to get up and go when they suddenly realized they had a baby on the way. Did a little math and, yep, they were at our house right around conception date. We did not have roast beef that night. There was wine. We didn't even think that maybe our house and our dinner was to blame until it happened a third time.

Another couple came over for dinner. I realize this is all sounding like a coincidence but understand, we don't have people over for dinner often. In fact, apart from family, we have only ever had these three couples over for dinner. Couple number three was about a month away from getting married. From my understanding, the woman was even on birth control at the time, or at least they were using some sort of birth control method. We had dinner. We had wine. A month later we went to the wedding. DH was talking to the groom at the wedding and the groom said that they were planning on having kids, but wanted to wait a few years. At the end of the evening I overheard the bride saying she didn't feel well and was rather nauseous. Off they went on their honeymoon where apparently the bride kept feeling nauseous. Found out she had gotten pregnant about a month before they got married, right around the time they were at our house.

Since we have moved into our new house the only people we have had for dinner was my brother and his girlfriend. They have no plans to ever have children. We warned them what might happen. We made sure not to drink a drop of wine with dinner. They escaped unscathed by the pregnancy bug. Maybe it was the missing wine. Maybe the blessing/curse only applied to our old house.

Anyway, back to the nachos. A couple days after my first IUI, actually 3 days after, my BFF had a birthday party. There was pizza. There were nachos. There was beer. BFF's DH joked with me that night that they should have ordered the roast beef nachos, that maybe if they purchased some roast beef for me then I would end up pregnant. Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant. Had to have been the nachos and the one beer I drank that did it. Which is why I am meeting up with BFF tonight for nachos and a beer. Watch out uterus! Here comes that zygote that is ready to implant!

Cycle 4, 2 dpIUI

2010-05-20T17:19:00.000-07:00

Two down, and 12 more to go until this 2ww is over! My strategy is to say as busy as possible in order to make this time fly. Succeeded today and actually forgot several times that we were hoping to have a baby. I am sure as the clock ticks down, no amount of keeping busy will keep me from over analyzing my body.

During my research yesterday to figure out what I was supposed to be doing with a pineapple core, I read that pomegranate juice is supposed to help things too. I've had it before and I actually like the extreme flavor. So, picked some up while I was at the store today. For lunch I had a super fertility drink. I threw my 1/5 of the pineapple (including core) into the food processor with some pomegranate juice and whipped myself up a yummy drink.

Went to a farmer's market today with my kids and my mom. There was a wine booth there. It was calling me. I took a look at the bottles and was trying to figure out which one I should purchase, crack open this weekend, and consume in its entirety. Crap. Really trying to avoid drinking in excess right now. I told my mom that we have a bunch of wine at home so I would pass it up this week. In two weeks though, if AF rears her ugly head, that is the first booth I am hitting up at the farmer's market.

I noticed tonight that my nipples are a bit sore. My nipples rarely ever get sore. Good sign? Maybe but this is only 2 dpIUI so it isn't like my body really has any idea what is going on in there. Most likely a result of the meds. Speaking of, I have read before that people who used the progesterone suppositories were zapped of energy. Never experienced that before but damn am I tired today for no apparent reason. Also a little constipated. I usually get that way a couple days before AF shows up, but never this early. Once again, not that that could possibly mean anything at this point.

Cycle 4, 1 dpIUI

2010-05-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

Just had the IUI and already I have started the obsession phase that I swore I wouldn't partake in but knew I would anyway. After I posted yesterday I thought some more and decided that no, I am most certainly not going to get pregnant this month. I woke up this morning pretty sad knowing it was one more shot down the drain. More time and money that will all be for nothing but sadness and disappointment. I just don't see how my two follicles on my right (good) side could have grown big enough. On Saturday, three days before my IUI, they were only at 12 and 11. All the big ones that were boosting up my E2 levels had to have been on my left (useless) side.

First IUI cycle, I had 3 follicles on my good size, and they were 12, 11, and 11 three days before my IUI. Did they get fertilized and implant? Nope. Probably because I had some nice bigger ones on the useless side. They got completely passed up by the sperm and those bastard swimmers instead swam across my abdomen and took up residence with the nice big, mature eggs over in the rudimentary horn. So, I actually had a better chance of getting it right the first time around with more follicles and it didn't work. Yeah, yeah, it only takes one. But I don't think I really had even one.

The one thing I have going for me is that I am down to one tube. If sperm can swim across my abdomen, eggs can float across there too. So there is a very slim chance that I could have ovulated on the tubeless side and that egg could have still found its way into my uterus. There is a slim chance of having a UU and I managed that. There is a slim chance of getting pregnant in your rudimentary horn and I managed that. So who knows, maybe I managed this slim chance.

Talked with my friend J this evening that knows about this whole journey. Nothing really changed my line of thinking but it was nice to talk to someone face to face and I came away from the conversation feeling a little less sad. No more confident, but not as sad, so that was good.

That's what's been going on mentally.

Physically, I started the progesterone suppositories last night. I set a reminder on my phone and thank goodness I did because I was all cuddled up in bed and ready for sleep when my phone reminded me. Felt normal mostly today. Felt really crappy yesterday until about 1:00 when I started feeling more normal. Then this evening I started getting some weird pains. They are probably completely normal things but they are there so I obsess over them. Some pressure on my right side where my uterus is. Maybe a small pain or two that runs down my leg (which I know is related to my uterus). Now nothing. Did it mean something? Did it mean nothing? Does it just mean that I am crazy?

I remember hearing something about pineapple core and implantation. I was getting groceries today. We have been eating a lot of pineapple anyway so I figured I would pick one up and figure out what I was supposed to do with it. I guess you are supposed to slice it into 5 pieces, including the core, and eat it over the course of five days beginning with the day of your IUI. Obviously missed yesterday but figured whatever, I'll start today. Can't hurt anything and I love pineapple. I threw 1/5 of the pineapple including the core into the food processor with some OJ and mixed myself up a tasty beverage.

So, that is where I am physically.

Found out a few days ago that this complete self-centered bitch of a girl that was friends with a friend of mine and I before said girl turned completely self-centered and bitchy is pregnant. I told my friend, who has also had no luck in ever getting pregnant in the past 4 years, about this. My friend cursed karma and then stated that this girl couldn't possibly keep a houseplant alive and she thinks she can handle this? Funny and true. As for me, I just don't have the energy to ask why me and why not her. It is what it is. Glad it was me because I have the two most amazing little boys in my life because of it. Although, I would be nice if it could stop being me now too.

Cycle 4, IUI

2010-05-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

The waiting begins.

The IUI is done! DH did his part and at some point along the road I passed him as he headed to work and I headed to the RE. I arranged to get there really early because it just made sense for me to sit and wait at the RE than to sit and wait in rush hour traffic and then just worry that I wasn't going to get there in time. Mom was taking care of the kids and thought I was just having a test done to make sure all was still well after the surgeries. I was getting pretty excited as I walked into the building and my right (good) ovary started getting really sore. Go righty! Maybe I was just imagining it though since my right ovary was really sore prior to my last IUI and still didn't get pregnant on that side.

After ironing out a billing issue, it was time to head back. The nurse that assisted me was really nice. She asked lots of questions and I ended up telling her just about my entire uterine history from the past 6 months. I think I was feeling particularly chatty with my mixture of excitement and anxiety.

The only holdup was that DH's "sample" was not prepared as quickly as it should have been. My appointment was at 8:30 and they like to try to time the IUI as close to 36 hours after the trigger shot. They didn't do the IUI until 9, but I am sure that is fine. Right? RIGHT?? The nurse finally came in with DH's seed and I had to check and double check and sign that yes, the names matched and I wasn't getting knocked up by some other patient. I asked her if she happened to know what the sperm count was because they told me last time. They said last time that anything over 10 million was considered good. DH's was 11.9 million last time which I thought was good until I started seeing on a message forum that other DH's had counts were at like 30, 50, and even 80 mil. DH's count has always been on the low side of normal. I was kinda worried this time around because it has been so long since his count had been checked out and after that issue with the white blood cells in his semen... I just didn't know how things were going to change over time. The nurse said his count this time was 48 million! That is four times what it was last time and last time those crazy sperm were able to make the long journey over to my rudimentary horn.

Finally the doctor came in. I was expecting some cramping but there was none. I actually didn't even know she had pushed the plunger to inject the "sample" into my uterus. Then she was like, "All done!" I hung out laying flat on the table for about 20 minutes and then I was on my way.

It all just seems too good to be true. Two follicles on the correct side. DH's great sperm count. All the soreness in the right ovary. Last IUI cycle I felt that there was no way it was going to work. In a way, I guess I was right because it all was a disaster. This time around I feel like it has to work. Just hoping that doesn't mean that I'll be completely surprised again when AF shows up. I am still mostly convinced that all my good follicles were on the left (tubeless) side and that the ones on the right just didn't grow and mature enough.

I almost got myself into a fit of giggles as I was headed out to the parking garage. I was on an elevator with a really pregnant woman thinking that could be me in 9 months. Then I thought how funny it would be to point to her belly and say something like, "I see you're pregnant. Me too. Just got pregnant a few minutes ago."

Cycle 4, CD 10

2010-05-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

You know you have been sucked really far into this infertility treatment when you start having dreams about running around an industrial complex in the middle of the night with a giant (like 12 inches long, an inch and a half wide) test tube filled with your husband's semen. Then when you become under attack from evil men, you think, I can't spill any of this semen! It is more valuable than gold! I did realize at the last minute of this dream that my best defense against the bad guys was to throw the huge amount of my husband's semen I was carrying into the eyes of the men attacking me.

I started feeling pretty crappy/crampy by last evening, a feeling that would come and go. The nurse yesterday told me to do the trigger at 8:30 last night. I have now decided that she should be known as Evil Nurse because each time she calls me, she gives me no information. Turns out last conversation we had, she neglected to give me information that I really needed. The first IUI I did, I had specific instructions from the lovely nurse who called to give myself the Novarel shot in my stomach and exactly how to mix the diluent with the powder, etc. Evil Nurse simply said to give myself the shot at 8:30. Okay fine. I didn't think anything of it since I have given myself this shot twice before, once for the IUI cycle and once for the timed intercourse cycle. Now that I think about it, the nurse who gave me the instructions for the timed intercourse cycle didn't really give me any information about giving myself the Novarel shot.

Around 8:00 I decided to take the Novarel out of the fridge to warm up a bit. I noticed that the box said the shot was intramuscular only. Umm... a shot into my stomach isn't intramuscular. Decided to get onto the website that my RE referred me to and watch the instruction video on how I was supposed to give myself this shot. I watched the most ridiculous video where this guy gives his woman a shot in her ass. The woman smiles adoringly the entire time and the man tells his woman at the end, "All done, Sweety!" My point being, this shot did not go in my butt last time. I dug out the paperwork that my RE gave me about a year ago describing all the medication and saw that although some HCG shots are given in the belly, Novarel should be given in the butt. What to do... what to do... I figured since I didn't get any instructions, I would use the default instructions, and take it in the ass. That is if I could get DH to give it to me in the ass.

With five minutes to spare, I asked DH with fingers crossed if he could possibly give me my trigger shot and not pass out. Then he had the joy of watching the lovely video of the smiling happy people giving and receiving butt injections. He spent a couple minutes pushing on my butt trying to figure out where to stick the needle when it was time so the medication would go into my muscle. Not really sure what health care professional decided that butts are the place to go when you want to hit muscle. Maybe some butts. I have some cushion back there. No idea if muscle was actually penetrated.

Then it came time to mix the diluent with the powder. Umm... how much diluent do I need? No one told me. I was almost positive the nurse the first time said to use 1 cc so I went with that, although DH said I should probably watch the video about mixing to find out. Whatever. Used 1 cc. I like to live dangerously like that. Injection went fine. DH didn't pass out which was a bonus. Then spent the rest of the evening worrying about whether the injection was done right or not. Went and watched the mixing video which said, "Your doctor will tell you how much diluent to use for your injection." Ah, yeah... that didn't happen.

Felt mildly under the weather today. A bit nauseous at times, really tired, and just blah. My ass really hurts too. Has gotten worse as the day has gone on. Not nearly as bad as my stomach did the first time I used the Novarel that involved me getting a huge, burning welt. Starting to feel a lot of soreness in my ovary area. Mainly in my left (useless) side. I am trying not to over think what that means too much but mostly I just feel like crying because it probably means my left ovary is all ripe and ready to go and Mr. Righty (the only side that matters) has puttered out and my body will fail me once again.

Hopefully I don't get myself too worked up and can't get to sleep tonight. Got to get up at 5:15 tomorrow to start the day. Think of me at 8:30 tomorrow while some woman is getting me pregnant! ...I hope.

Cycle 4, CD 9

2010-05-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

Made a run to the city for blood work today. Find blood work only appointments rather annoying. Such a long way to go just so they can steal a little of my blood. It takes me longer to get from my car to the RE office than it does for them to stick me with a needle and get me out of there.

E2 was at 1270 (nearly double what it was yesterday). Progesterone was 1.5.

In the words of the nurse, I am done. Tonight is the trigger shot! The IUI will be on Tuesday morning. I was able to get the earliest possible appointment so DH shouldn't have any problem getting to his new new job. DH goes in to get his part done at 6:30 am Tuesday and then I go in at 8:30 to have some woman I never met attempt to get me pregnant. (Having a doctor do the IUI that I have never met. My RE is in surgery on Tuesday. This will also be a different doctor from my last IUI.) Already have my mom set up to babysit the kids. I told her last week that I had to have a test done at some point this week, that my cycle would determine exactly when the test would be. Yep, more lies, but only little ones and truly it is for the good of everyone.

Feeling a bit crappy today. Not awful, but not quite normal either. Bloated, slightly crampy. My ovaries are feeling a big bloated too, particularly the left (useless) one. Experiencing the really annoying massive amounts of CM (cervical mucus) that apparently is normal with injectable cycles.

I started running a few weeks ago. Doing the Couch to 5K program. I'm a bit concerned how this is going to interfere with trying to get pregnant this month. Should I continue? I don't want to stop and have to start all over again if it doesn't work. I should have ran last night but decided to put it off tonight. Not sure if I will run tonight now though because I am supposed to trigger around the same time that I would be running. I remember there being some sort of suggestion after my first IUI about avoiding getting overheated but I don't remember how long I was supposed to avoid that. I'm thinking I'll just take a couple days off from running, let my ankle that I screwed up from running heal, and then get back into it. At least for two more weeks when I find out I am pregnant. :)

I'm feeling really really excited about this at this point! That is dangerous.

Cycle 4, CD 8

2010-05-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

Going to the RE and not having to worry about kids and husbands and getting places afterward is so easy.

Was in and out of there and almost out of the city before my actual appointment time. I got there early and there was no one there so I went right back. The bad luck u/s tech was the only one in.

The nurse who called me this afternoon wasn't all that informative. I had to pry information from her and after I got a chance to think about it, I'm wondering if she was just confused or if whatever doctor reviewed my test results is confused as well. I am hoping she is the only confused one.

I have 5 follicles that are on their way to maturing, which is great. Mrs. Nurse Woman said that was actually too great because I don't want to end up with too many mature follicles (and end up with high order multiples). Thus, the doctor wants me to reduce my dose of gonal-f from 150 down to 75. I told her I only had one good side though and she was confused, didn't have a clue that I have a completely fucked up uterus and asked me what was wrong with the other side. In an attempt not to completely confuse her with details, I said I don't have a tube on the left. It took a lot of prying but she finally told me that my right ovary has two nice looking follicles (one at 12, and one at 11). That would leave my left side with three but she didn't tell me anything more about that side and I didn't ask. So much for Ms. Righty being super cooperative and ever so slightly in the lead. Not that having two growing and potentially good follicles isn't bad, but in my opinion, more would be better. Not that I want to get pregnant with quintuplets by any means, but there is a big difference between a normal person with an entire uterus and two tubes having five follicles and an abnormal person with half a uterus and only one tube having five follicles, when only two of the follicles have a chance of making it into the uterus. I am just hoping that the nurse was confused and didn't realize I only had one good side. Hopefully the doctor realized I only have one good side and he was happy with two good follicles on the one side. Now I am just nervous that the doctor didn't read my chart thoroughly and is cutting me back on gonal-f and shouldn't be.

Some more prying later I was able to learn that my E2 is 655 and my progesterone is 0.8.

Go back tomorrow for just blood work.

Maybe someday I'll get around to revealing all my issues with my parents and exactly why I need to keep this from my mom. I've typed enough already though. For now, just know I am doing it out of love. In part to save my own sanity from my mom asking me too many questions and wanting to know every single day if I am pregnant yet or not and what our next step is and why we can't financially afford to do this indefinitely and her telling me how she is going to sell all of her stuff to pay for our infertility treatments (seriously, she would tell me this) and then I would have to argue with her constantly about how she shouldn't sell all her stuff because we are done with infertility treatments and how she is the only one that is upset about all this and she has completely forgotten that I am okay with it and it is my body and my little family and DH and I are the ones that get to decide what we do not her. Mostly because if I told my mom and it doesn't work out, I am not sure she could handle the letdown of not having another grandchild. So yeah, mostly not telling her out of love.

Cycle 4, CD 6

2010-05-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

Game on! Another whirlwind day (that isn't over yet) all caused by my dysfunctional uterus. Even did my best to run another car off the road again this morning just to make it as much like my last appointment day as possible. Whole family went once again to my RE this morning so I could have my bloodwork and u/s.

Had my favorite u/s tech today. As usual, I mentioned my UU which led to me saying that I had the horn removed after getting pregnant in there. Funny how easy that was to just bring up nonchalantly. I don't really feel at this point that any of that ever happened to me. It is just something I say, not something I am effected by. If that makes any sense. Ms. Fantastic U/S Tech couldn't find my left (tubeless) ovary. Eventually she located it "way out there". Based on the angle most of the u/s techs use to check out that ovary, I have kinda suspected it was way out there. It is a pretty common thing to have ovaries in bizarre location with a UU.

My favorite nurse called this afternoon with the results and next step. E2 is at 265 (should be at 200-600 per mature follicle) so this is good for day 6. Progesterone is at 0.3 (anything over 5 usually indicates ovulation but doctors usually look for >15 for medicated cycles). My lining is 7mm. No one ever mentioned my lining before. Nurse said that at time of insemination they like to see something around 8-11mm so 7 is just fine for this point in my cycle. Continuing on 150 ius of gonal-f and I go back Saturday for bloodwork and u/s.

As for the ovaries, looking good. I have a 10 on both ovaries. The right (good) ovary has 15 follicles that are less than 10 and the left (tubeless) ovary has 12-14 follicles less than 10. I think this is the first time that Mr. Righty has ever been in the lead!! This makes me far more positive than I want to be. Yeah yeah, I know I am supposed to be thinking positive. It is just in my nature to try not to get my hopes up too high because than it just hurts way more if you are let down. Damn these soaring high hopes.

I'm hoping it is just the drugs, but I sure have been feeling quite bitchy toward DH lately. I know part of it is the stress of doing all this, a stress that I feel is completely on my shoulders and he hasn't really been doing his part to ease that. Add in the fact that he starts a new job next week just in time for him to likely have to go in to do his part in all of this. I talked with my favorite nurse a bit this afternoon about what time he will be able to come in to produce his specimen. (I giggle every time I think about men doing this.) She said that they will do everything they can to schedule around his schedule. Appointments start at 6:30. Patients involved in IVF have first priority though. DH said he really needs to have an appointment at 7 or earlier. Keeping fingers crossed...

Cycle 4, CD 3

2010-05-10T16:48:00.001-07:00

5:00 am - Get up.
5:30 am - DH gets up.
5:50 am - Get the kids up.
6:00 am - Leave the house to head to my appointment.
7:02 am - Arrive at RE's office. (Hooray for minimal traffic!)
7:12 am - Blood draw.
7:15 am - Return to waiting room to find DH and the kids. DH had got them dressed in the car in the parking garage while I went up to my appointment using the clothes I had packed up last night in a backpack. They are all eating breakfast, which I had also got all packed up last night.
7:25 am - Head back for u/s. Stomach turns because it is the u/s tech who always ends up giving me bad news like how I am pregnant in my rudimentary horn or my ovaries are covered with cysts.
7:44 am - Leave RE's office.
7:55 am - Drop DH off at work.
7:58 am - Run some very pissed off guy off the road because I was in the wrong lane. Oops.
8:20 am - Stop at a bagel shop and get the kids some muffins to kill a few minutes.
9:02 am - Arrive at DS1's doctor's office for his check up. DS1 had to get a shot and both of us ended up crying about it.
9:54 am - Leave DS1's doctor's office with a clean bill of health.
10:12 am - Arrive home and give kids the rest of their muffins they didn't have time to finish in the bagel shop.
10:32 am - Turn on some cartoons and sit motionless on the couch while completely exhausted while the pup stares at me willing me to move and play with her. The pup is unsuccessful.
11:33 am - Prepare lunch.
12:02 pm - Serve lunch.
12:45 pm - Push kids on the swings until my arms get too tired to continue.
1:26 pm - RE's office called. Everything looks good to go for this cycle! Instructed to Start on a dose of 150 ius this evening. (Every other time they had me start at half that dose, 75 ius.) I go back on Thursday which will mean Thursday will pretty much be a repeat of today except that instead of taking DS1 to a dr appointment, I have to take him to school.
2:00 pm - Put DS2 down for nap.
2:20 pm - Put DS1 down for nap.
2:21 pm - Lay down for my own nap.
3:30 pm - Wake up.
4:00 pm - Get two severely grumpy kids up from their nap that didn't want to get up at all.
4:15 pm - Leave to pick up DH from work since I took him to work today and can only take the subway halfway home.
5:17 pm - Get back home.
5:19 pm - Realize I have no idea what we are going to have for dinner. Come up with something.
5:27 pm - Realize I never took my vitamins today. Pop my prenatal, allergy meds, vitamin D, baby aspirin, and fish oil pills.
6:31 pm - Inject myself with 150 ius of Gonal-F while my two kids watch, something I never let them do before. Likely won't let them watch again since DS1 almost started crying.

Cycle 4 , CD 1

2010-05-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

Guess it is a go again. Seems weird to be calling this cycle 4. Cycle 1 was way back in December which got me pregnant but resulted in a disaster. Cycle 2 all my follicles but one (or was it two?) were on my tubeless side so we converted that to a timed intercourse cycle which I knew wasn't going to work, and it didn't. What was supposed to be cycle 3 ended up being canceled since I had a bunch of cysts. Had to take some time off since I was out of town and at last we have made it to trying again. But of course not without insane amounts of stress.

I have meds leftover so I didn't have to purchase those. One good thing I got going for me. Then DH had to go off and get himself a new job. He starts a week from Monday, right in time for my IUI. All I can really do at this point is keep my fingers crossed that this won't be a conflict. The hours are supposed to be somewhat flexible and he should be able to start as late as 10 am. Not sure how flexible this job will be before he gets settled though.

His old job was located about 10 minutes from my RE. This was rather convenient so on those early mornings when I had to go in for a vaginal u/s and I couldn't really take the kids in the room with me, he was able to go with me and then I could just drop him off at work afterward. He new job is over an hour from my RE, without traffic. (RE is in the city about 35 miles north and his new job is about 30 miles south of our house.) I have no clue what we are going to do now. The logical thing would be to tell my mom what we are up to and I am sure she would be more than willing to watch her grandkids in the hope to get more grandkids. But if you knew my mom, telling her what we are up to really isn't all that logical at all.

Another hurdle, we have new insurance now. Old insurance covered meds somewhat. For three vials of Gonal-F (each lasts an entire cycle), the HCG trigger shot, and the progesterone suppositories, it costs a little over $100. I am not sure what the cost is without coverage but I am thinking it is closer to $700 for some reason. I went ahead and ordered more meds (to be delivered next week) on the old insurance just in case I might need them. I would rather be out the $100 than need the meds next cycle and be struggling to figure out how to pay for them. Our current insurance now covers some costs involved with infertility. New insurance doesn't. On the cycle that ended up being converted to timed intercourse, we ended up having to pay about $500 instead of about $3000. So, if my ovaries don't cooperate so we can't use our ARC package that is pre-paid, that will be a big chunk of money to come up with.

So, here it is back to CD1. I was initially excited this morning when I realized we could give this all another shot. As much as I want to be optimistic, I just am not. I keep thinking that surely something else will go wrong this time. Maybe another cycle with all my follicles on the wrong side. Maybe it will be something new like actually getting pregnant and then having a miscarriage. Or maybe we will do all the drugs and the IUI and not get pregnant at all. I haven't done the math, but next month might be out for trying if this month doesn't happen (out of town wedding and out of town for another week on vacation). I guess I should just attempt to take it all one day at a time. Easier said than done.

Birthcontrol

2010-04-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

I was reading something where women were giving other women encouraging words about how to deal with the infertility. I never even made it through all the encouraging words because, frankly, I have heard them all before. Plus, I am not really at a low point right now in this whole journey so I don't need much encouragement. Someone did bring up the fact that most people going through infertility spent/wasted a lot of time and energy and money on birth control when all this time, we probably never needed it. So, about that...

I recall as a teenager standing in another room of the house and hearing my parents argue about some boy I was seeing. I can't remember any of the conversation except for my mom saying the words "until she ends up with a baby in her arms". The gist of the conversation was something about how I was probably going to end up pregnant. Back then I was horrified. Mainly couldn't believe my parents were discussing my (non-existent) sex life with each other. Also, I wouldn't end up pregnant. Getting pregnant from sex was really the last thing I thought about. It was probably just some sort of naive teenager thing going on in my brain and not that I innately knew back then that I was infertile. It was getting some sort of disease that scared me. STDs seemed like something far worse than getting pregnant, even as a teenager. In the end, I broke up with the loser guy they thought would put a baby in my arms and ended up dating a really great guy who my parents actually liked by the time I was eighteen. Then it was off to the ob/gyn to get on birth control.

I had one pregnancy "scare" in high school and another in college. Looking back now I think this is hilarious. My period was about a week late both times. (Turned out once was because I wasn't eating right and the second time because I had totally screwed up taking my pill on time.) I took pregnancy tests and everything. (Had the most humiliating time buying the pregnancy test when I was in high school but that is another story.) Those were about the only two weeks of my entire life that I thought I might be pregnant. To think I even bothered to worry about getting knocked up while I was using birth control. Ha!

In the long run, I suppose I am glad I didn't know then what I know now about my body. I was irresponsible enough back in college that I don't think it would have been a good idea to erase the fear of getting pregnant from my brain.

DH's family is super religious and pretty much cut him off when they found out that we were going to be cohabitating for a few months before we got married. I am sure that really contributed to the fact that even though he knew I was on birth control, he was certain to always bring the condoms each time we knocked boots before we got married. Certainly he would have been disowned had his parents known we were getting busy prior to being hitched. We had made big plans to shed the condom wearing once we were married. The week before we got married I got a UTI and had to go on antibiotics. I debated whether or not I should mention to DH that antibiotics could interfere with my birth control. I figured I better start my marriage off by being honest. I went to him crying and told him that he probably would want to wear a condom on our honeymoon (at least during sex on our honeymoon, wasn't going to make him wear one the ENTIRE honeymoon :) ) so I wouldn't get pregnant. LOL!! What an idiot I am.

I was on birth control for the first 10 months of our marriage. Went off two months before our first anniversary so we could officially start trying at that point. Spent 11 months off of birth control, 9 of which I was trying to get pregnant. Then I got diagnosed with a UU. I went back on birth control at that point so my ob/gyn could run some tests to get a better idea what was going on in there without the chance that I would get pregnant before I was fully diagnosed. We decided the day that I was diagnosed that we were going to adopt for sure, since that was something we had wanted to do down the line anyway. I stayed on birth control for 2 years while we adopted our two boys just in case there was some sort of tiny minor chance I could get pregnant since adopting while pregnant was definitely not something we wanted to risk. A month after DS2 came home, I ran out of birth control and haven't been back on it since. Two and a half years later, still no baby in my arms.

Five Years

2010-04-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

This weekend DH and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary. Or should I say, we "celebrated", since all we did was trade cards, look at our wedding photos, and take a roll in the hay. Somehow that all seemed perfectly fine for us. We still love each other. We are still in love. I would still choose to marry him again.

This weekend also marked our 5 year anniversary for trying to "make" a baby. If someone would have told me 5 years ago how many crazy turns my life would be now, I wouldn't have believed them. Not that my life is crazy, but just not what I would have expected.

For our 1 year anniversary, DH and I took a cruise to celebrate. I had gone off birth control in February and started charting. We decided to start trying at our one year anniversary. I was secretly hoping that I would end up pregnant during those two months from when I went of birth control and our official start trying month. Obviously didn't happen. I went on that cruise armed with my thermometer and a OPK. We had sex every other day. (I only know this now because yesterday I went back and looked at my chart from that month.) I ovulated 3 days after our anniversary. All the stars were aligning. Just before we left, my cousin made a comment that everyone she knows that went on a cruise came back pregnant.

We all know how this story went. I didn't end up pregnant. We went on trying. I was disappointed. It was the first time in my life that I tried really hard at something and came out failing miserably. Then I proceeded to continue failing month after month. I was at such a low point when I was diagnosed with my UU that I was almost relieved. Shocked, absolutely, but also relieved to know that there had been nothing I could have done differently.

More to say on all this, but that post on this but as my crazy life is, I have two little boys that I must tend to now...

Counting Down?

2010-04-22T11:39:00.001-07:00

Thinking I should probably start counting down to my next cycle when the plan is to do another round of injectables and IUI. Just wish it was more of a science so I would know what number of days I should be starting with. I'm going to go with 19 more days. That gives me 5 days until I ovulate (if I happen to ovulate on CD17 which is somewhat common, although not last month) and my LP is 14 days (but sometimes 13).

Don't really know how I feel about this upcoming cycle. You would think after all this time "off" that I would be really excited. There are things I am certainly not looking forward to. Mostly I am not looking forward to all the appointments, the early mornings running to the city, the being stabbed for blood work all the time, the stabbing myself with needles, and the waiting to see if any of it was worth it. Add in the fear of me actually getting pregnant and having to worry every single day whether or not my uterus is going to be a hospitable place to grow a baby, and I start to wonder why I even want to do this.

In the end, the answer is still the same: I want to know what it is like to be pregnant and give birth and raise a baby from a newborn. I want a third child, sooner rather than later would be nice. Adoption is not calling me right now at all. I go through moments thinking that we will have a third child some time, be it through me getting pregnant or adoption. Other times I think that this just has to work because despite having two incredibly positive adoption experiences, I am not up for trying it a third time.

All in all, I am glad I have this feeling right now of almost indifference over whether it works or not. Don't get me wrong, I WANT it to work. I want to get pregnant and have a full term (or near full term) baby. The past few months though, after my whole pregnancy in the rudimentary horn ordeal, I was feeling so desperate like it HAD to happen or I just wouldn't be complete. That is not something I enjoyed feeling. I am reaching for something that I have no idea if it will work and the thought that I would be destroyed if it didn't... yeah, just a bad thought to have. These days I am happy with my boys. Happy with life. Happy about the things that I have the opportunity to do in the next couple years if there is no third child. If this all does work, what a fantastic bonus that will be!

Couple other thoughts. Yesterday I got another bill in the mail for the surgery to remove my rudimentary horn. Seriously, they couldn't have figured out sooner that I still owed $300? Just when you think all of this is behind you and a thing of the past, in the mail comes a bill from the hospital just screaming out to remind you of what horrible luck you have had.

Still can't say I am completely recovered from the surgery. Life has gone on as normal. I do everything I did before. Then I cough or sneeze or breathe in too deep and I get some stabbing soreness in my side where the larger of the incisions was. Just enough to remind me of what I have been through.

DS1 has a spring school program coming up next week. I remembered today that months ago at his winter/Christmas one, I was feeling like crap. I had a headache and was hormonal and just dragging. I had just found out that I was pregnant. It was my last "good" day of being pregnant since the day after that program I found out that instead of expecting a baby, I should be expecting to have near emergency surgery. I ran into a girl at the program that I knew in college. She was pregnant and if I recall she said she was due in March. I really wanted to say something about how I was pregnant too just so I could be in that "club" for once, but knew better than to bring it up so early on. I'll probably see this girl again next week at the spring school program. In her arms will be her new little baby. As for me, I'll be even farther away from having a baby than I was four months ago.

One Down, One to Go

2010-04-11T11:14:00.001-07:00

After a slightly longer than usual cycle, AF showed up yesterday. Finally got done with that stupid cycle I had to skip from the cysts on my ovaries. Since I'll be out of town next weekend, we figured we better just skip this cycle instead of risk screwing things up since I wouldn't be able to be monitored for three days in a row. Guess I'll give it about two weeks and then order all my meds again so we can start this insanity over again.

Still Waiting

2010-04-07T08:18:00.001-07:00

No AF yet. FF took the liberty to changing my ovulation day from CD12 to CD 21. Talk about indecision! I am undecided on whether I ovulated on CD17 or CD21. Either way, I don't care. Maybe next month when I am waiting for my cycle to start so we can start trying again, each and every day that I have to wait I will care about. Now I am just tired of wearing a pantyliner just in case.

Poor DH hasn't gotten lucky for a little while now. I just have had no desire to have sex. I have had a sore throat and life in general has just been so hectic. All I want to do at the end of the day is sit on the couch. I decided last night that I would put out. Then my computer went crazy so I made DH fix it instead of get some. Poor guy.

I'm Late... But Not Really

2010-04-03T05:32:00.000-07:00

According to FF, AF is late. AF is never late. However, FF has been known to be wrong too. At first I was buying it, completely on board with when FF claimed I ovulated. Even though I knew the chances of me actually getting pregnant from some old fashioned sex was nearly impossible, it was looking like we had perfectly timed intercourse. FF says I ovulated on CD12 and today is 15dpo. I never ovulate that early. Plus I was sick around that time which probably elevated my temps. AF always shows up the afternoon of 13dpo.

Turns out I am smarter than online charting software. Looks to me like I actually ovulated on CD17, which is pretty typical. Guess I still have a couple days to wait for AF, which will certainly show up since there was no sex anywhere near CD17.

If I did actually ovulate on CD12, that would have made it possible for us to do another round of injectables/IUI this month. I was somewhat fretting over what to do, whether we should give it a go and risk not being in town when I needed to go for my IUI. Oddly, I am relieved that it looks like there is not a chance of trying this month. It takes a load off of stressing about it.

Wow, that was a lot of rambling.

Weirdness

2010-03-29T04:14:00.001-07:00

Been feeling this weird pain. It isn't overly painful pain. Just weirdness. More of a burning and maybe a little pressure from time to time. Mostly can feel it when I go from a sitting position to a standing position. It is pretty low, like maybe two inches or so from my hip bone, very localized. I am thinking it is some sort of new kind of cramping I am getting pre-AF with my newly designed insides post-rudimentary horn removal.

I have heard people complaining about ovary pain during a cycle that was canceled due to cysts on the ovaries. I have no clue when in the cycle that pain usually comes. Towards the beginning of this cycle, I could feel a little lower back tenderness but I constantly have lower back pain so I have no idea if that was related to messed up ovaries or messed up back. This weird burning stuff I am feeling lately is definitely not ovaries because this weirdness is in my front, not in the back where I usually feel my ovaries.

I think AF is coming this week. Fertility Friend (FF) doesn't seem to have a clue when or if I ovulated. It changed the day I ovulated twice and now has decided that I haven't ovulated at all. I am not surprised really. My chart is crazy and it doesn't help that I was sick around the time I usually ovulate and had this one really crazy, off the charts temperature. Based on the last date that FF suggested I ovulated, AF should show up by Friday. If that is the case, I would actually be in town to try in April. It would be cutting it close though. Plus, I'll need to hurry up and order my meds and keep my fingers crossed that AF actually shows up and that nothing goes crazy this cycle that would delay the IUI which would then interfere with when I am going to be out of town. In conclusion, way too many "ifs" and "maybes" so I'm just planning on sticking with the original plan to wait until May.

Who knows, maybe I'm pregnant! Ha! I don't know why I do this to myself every month. I always keep my mind open to the possibility that there could be some miracle in my uterus. After three years of no birth control and one year of doing everything possible to perfectly time sex, you would think that I would be completely over thinking I could get pregnant the normal way. Somehow I always remember, there is always a chance. Not that I am ever the least bit surprised or let down when AF shows up anymore.

The Club

2010-03-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

I saw a girl I was friends with in high school posted on facebook that she is now pregnant. I gave her my congrats and that was that. Later I noticed another high school friend of mine, who is also currently pregnant, commented "Welcome to the club!" Not that I have ever been a big joiner of clubs, but it really seems like this whole pregnant thing is a "club". Not a very exclusive one at that, but one that I just can't seem to get invited to join.

This having given birth club just gets old. Everyone that I am surrounded by is in this club. They always seem to talk about it to. Get a group of moms together and sooner or later the conversation turns to how they felt during pregnancy, how long they were in labor, birth stories, and breastfeeding. Want to hear my birth story? The day DS1 was born, I had coffee with a friend and found out 6 weeks later that he had been born. I have absolutely no idea what I was doing the day DS2 was born and another 6 weeks went by before I knew about him too. I never had morning sickness. I never had pregnancy brain. I never had my water break. I never breastfed (although I have had lots and lots of dreams about breastfeeding my kids). I have never been in The Club.

I never say anything either. I do like to hear the stories my friends have to tell. I like to absorb the information in hopes that maybe some day it may be of use to me. I also secretly know that the story about how my kids came to me is way more complex, original, and fascinating than any of their stories. I am just saying it gets old. Sometimes I just want to yell out, "Seriously! Are we talking about THIS again?!?! Since the beginning of time people have given birth and you still think your story is sooooo amazing that we all want to hear about it??" Of course, if I ever give birth, everyone is going to hear the story over and over again and like it, dammit.

I am just waiting it out though. Someday all my friends will be done with their childbearing days and the conversation will shift away from constantly rehashing their tales. Conversation will certainly turn towards life with school aged kids. I can be part of the Mom to School Aged Kid Club. Who knows, maybe I'll some day even be a part of the other club too.

Broken Parts

2010-03-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

I had annual ob/gyn appointment today. My dr asked me how I have been and then I had to give him the whole story about having surgery and getting pregnant in my rudimentary horn and then needing to have surgery again. He was pretty much floored. Said that he has never heard of that happening to anyone with my condition (although my other dr said that he has seen it at least twice before and I have heard about it happening) and said that I was just royally fucked up and probably needed to go in a medical journal. He might have worded it a little different but the message was the same. Oddly, I feel totally cool about all this. Special even! I always strive to be an individual and maybe even a little different. It would be nice if what is so special about me isn't hidden in my abdomen and needs to be explained with lots of medical jargon and drawings.

Which takes me back to my guitar that broke. When I called the guitar store that was repairing it to see if my guitar was fixed, the guy asked me what kind of guitar I had. When I told him he responded with, "OhhhHHHhhhh... The one with the broken neck!" I am not only famous for my royally fucked up uterus, I am famous for a royally fucked up guitar too!

Shakin' the Funk

2010-03-23T10:18:00.001-07:00

Feeling much less in a funk than I have been. Still sucks that I am currently not working toward anything, but not really anything I can do about it. I was really sick over the weekend. Couldn't get out of bed. Thought I was going to die. My body ached just from having to lay in bed so long. Made me really hope that if I do end up pregnant that I never have to face bed rest. I don't think I could handle bed rest.

Somehow, though I felt like I was facing death, I think I might have ovulated and managed to have sex at the right time. Not that we were trying to plan that. Not that I think that perfectly timed sex would ever lead to a baby. Oddly, I still manage to hold on to just a simmer or realization that there could be a miracle. Not really sure if I really ovulated though. I was charting just so I would have a heads up on where I am in my cycle. Fertility Friend said I ovulated on Friday, then changed its mind today and now thinks I didn't ovulate. I don't care enough to try to over analyze it.

Found out that a friend is pregnant. Another friend told me just so I wouldn't be blindsided by the information. I am so far passed feeling bad about my fertility situation because others don't have to face it. Never really got feeling bad for myself because other people have it easier. Doesn't keep me from wondering if someday I might not have it so hard.

Another Day

2010-03-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Another day. I have never been one to wait around for my life to happen. I make a plan and I make it happen. And then I consider family planning and making anything happen is just a huge joke. I can't even begin to add up the years I have spent now just waiting for babies. Waiting to get pregnant. Waiting to bring my baby home from the far away land he was born. Waiting to bring another baby home from a far away land. Waiting to see if I will be one of those people that all the other people talk about who adopt and then end up getting pregnant. Waiting to see the RE. Waiting for test results. Waiting to have surgery. Waiting to start a cycle. Waiting to wait some more. I hate wishing time away but that is where I am now.

I feel like I have PMS, which can't be since I am barely into this cycle of waiting it out. I yelled at my kid today (the kid that I never need to raise my voice to because he always just gets it) in the bathroom at his preschool where I am sure all the other moms heard me. I could cry at any minute. Maybe it is because of my cousin. Maybe it is because of this fantastically emotional book I just finished reading. I thought maybe it could be because of all this fertility junk. I got out the u/s picture I have of the pregnancy that I had in my rudimentary horn. I felt nothing, like that picture was not even me. Maybe if there was something in that picture to actually see other than a dark spot that was supposed to some day grow into a baby. I lost count months ago how many weeks along I would have been. I can't even remember now when I was supposed to do due. August was it? It seems a lifetime ago that I had to go through that, yet I am still going through it. Physical scars haven't faded a bit. Still trying to figure out if I am still holding on to emotional scars.

I know I'll have a third child at this point. Could two be enough? Probably. But then I will just morn for the rest of my life for never having kept going to see what it would be like to have number three. Maybe, if the waiting ever ends, I'll never end up pregnant. That should be enough, to say I tried and it didn't work out. But I know it won't be. I know I'll still have regrets if we don't try to adopt again. I'll keep looking back wondering about that third child that I just didn't work quite hard enough to bring into my life. I just wish I knew God's plan, or even had a real plan of my own. Just some idea so I know just what I am waiting for.

Bad Day

2010-03-15T16:20:00.000-07:00

I'm having a bad day. I am just feeling like my whole life is on hold because of my stupid uterus. I think of the things I want to do and the plans I have, and none of it seems possible until I know what is going to happen with my body. And right now, nothing is happening with my body. I am waiting.

DH and I decided that it would be pointless for me to look into getting a job right now. What with early morning RE visits, and juggling the kids' schedules, and possible bed rest if I were to get pregnant - just don't know how it would work. Now I have two months where I am doing nothing, not working towards any goal of either getting pregnant or making my family more financially stable.

Also would love to go back to school. My plan was to go back in the fall of 2012. By then DS1 will be in kindergarten all day and DS2 will be in preschool 3 days a week. It should only take a year for me to get my second degree. Only who knows. Then I could have a third child, or finally be pregnant, or decide that two is enough, or that we want to adopt again. I can't plan for next week, let alone two years from now.

Then during a day like today when I am down on myself and it is raining and the kids are horrid, does it really matter? On a day like today, all I want to do is forget working towards #3 at all and instead head off to work and have someone else watch my kids for a while.

Not sure if it is attributing to my mood today or not, but my cousin died on Friday. She has had health problems forever but nothing that ever seemed like she would just wind up found dead in her house one day. I never knew her that well. She lived about 8 hours away. I can remember her visiting here maybe 3 times, and all three times we just had an amazing time. She was just so much fun. She had one of the hardest lives of anyone I ever knew, and yet she was the most positive person I ever met. No matter the circumstances (she lost one leg and the foot of her other leg over the past 5 years, which was really the least of the hardships she has faced), she always had encouraging words and the most infectious good attitude. Today was her funeral and I didn't go. Although it would have been difficult to arrange for me to go, I could have. Instead I sat at home with the most negative attitude and felt sorry for myself over things that I know are really quite trivial in the big picture.

Last Night

2010-03-12T17:28:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night that I gave a lap dance to Sidney Crosby and then had a poisonous frog crawling up my arm. What does that have to do with my journey to become a mom of three? Nothing. I just needed to tell someone about my dream.

The Stuff I Got

2010-03-11T19:04:00.000-08:00

I got my meds delivered today, the ones that I won't get to use for months. Good news, they won't expire by the time I might possibly need them.

I got some very minor left ovary pain which I am attributing to the cysts.

I got a bill for my last cycle that was converted to time intercourse. I figured I would have to pay out of pocket for it which was around $2500 for the ultrasounds, bloodwork, and "monitoring fee". Then I found out my insurance covered it. But, of course that only means that my insurance covered part of it. Still ended up having to pay about $500 which sucks, but sucks far less than $2500.

I got out my thermometer and started charting again. Figure it will do me good to know when I ovulate just in case this cycle is crazy and there is a chance that we can try again next month and I won't be out of town during the monitoring time.