12w, 5d

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.

11w, 3d

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.