Almost ready

Now that the house is under contract and through the BINSR period, the next thing to focus on is the birth of our little guy #2 (who still doesn’t have a name)….  I went in for my routine BPP (biophysical profile) last Thursday and they gave me a few 3D images of him!  It was the first 3D ultrasound I’d had with any of my kids so I was pretty excited about it.  He passed his BPP just fine, as he always has, thank God.

Today I had my NST and my OB appointment.  He had a few decels on the NST so they told me I’d have to go to the hospital for another NST and BPP to make sure everything was okay…  Grrr…  I told Mark as soon as I saw the decel on the print out for the NST that I would have to go to the hospital, and I was right.  I didn’t freak out this time though, like I did last time.  I was prepared for it.

I saw midwife Ingrid today and last time I saw a different midwife, she didn’t want to check me because she didn’t want to “disturb” anything, so I had assumed Ingrid would say the same thing.  Wrong.  She wanted to check me and then before she did that she asked me if I wanted her to strip my membranes while she was checking me.  I had this done with Abbie and remember it being not too bad, but when Dr Colwell checked me last week, it hurt, so I was nervous this time.  We decided to go ahead and do that, and it didn’t exactly tickle, but it wasn’t too bad either.  Just a lot of pressure and a little bit of pulling/pain.  It would be really nice if I could go into labor by myself without being induced but I’m not holding my breath.  And I was still at 3cm and she said I MIGHT be at a –1, and she’d say I’m more 50-60% effaced, so I’m apparently going backwards in progress…

Today the hospital visit took FOREVER.  I got there around 1:30 and didn’t leave until almost 6pm.  He passed the NST fine and also the BPP but it took a while to get called back and also for the doctors to review them after they were done.  He had the same decels on the hospital NST but they said they were normal movement decels and not anything to worry about.  Apparently for them to worry about them they have to drop over 15bpm for at least 15 beats and his weren’t doing either of those.  It would just dip a little bit after he had an accel before it reached his norm.  I had my favorite ultrasound tech this visit too and asked her if she saw any calcification on my placenta and she said she only saw a little bit which was normal at this stage in my pregnancy and that was reassuring as well.

I am nervous about having this little guy.  At my growth scan on Thursday he measured 7lbs5oz (at 37weeks4day) so that was a little reassuring.  Much better than the 9lb12oz they told me Ben was at 38weeks.  Even if they’re over a lb off he’ll still be smaller than Ben was and Ben came out pretty easily.  I know my OB wants to break my water to kick off labor and that makes me a little nervous.  They did that when I was having Abbie, and it did kick off labor pretty well, but 10+ hours of laboring and I was only 1cm more dilated and then had to be put on pitocin (and got an epidural) and had her like 8+ hrs after that.  With Ben, I got all checked in and got induced with pitocin and less than 6 hours later with 15 seconds of pushing he was here.  So part of me just wants to do the pitocin again since that was by far my easier birth experience, but it was also my 2nd birth experience which is typically easier than your first.  I talked to one of the nurses at the hospital today and she said that it’s more common for them to break waters to induce if you’re already dilated so they’d probably do that and then use pitocin later if needed.  She also said since my OB wants me here at 1am and probably doesn’t come on call until 7am, that if they start off with pitocin right away, I might not make it until my OB gets there since it worked so well last time.

Pretty much I just want the birth over with and all the “unknowns” of this birth to be behind me.  I’m done with having GD too and I’m tired of having a few friends basically keep telling me it’s not a huge deal having GD and I just need to deal with it because things could be a lot worse.  Yes, I realize things could be worse, but I’ve struggled with GD and I don’t do well with diets or with having the same foods I’ve had before and have them give me completely different blood sugars.  If it weren’t for GD I’d stay pregnant a few more weeks with no problem.  I’m fine with baby boy being inside.  I’m tired of dealing with GD, and because of that, I want this pregnancy over.  It’s crazy to think that this time next week I’ll hopefully be holding my brand new little boy!  I’m excited to be a family of 5!!

BUMPDATE: 36.5 weeks

 

How Far Along? 36.5 weeks

Size of Baby? I’m not sure, but he feels big…

Maternity Clothes? My maternity clothes are starting not to fit..

Weight Gain? I’ve been losing weight these past few weeks.  I think I’m around 14-15lbs up now.

Stretch Marks/belly button? No change.  I have them.  They’re not going away.  Hopefully I won’t get too many more.

Baby’s Sex? Still a boy.  Still don’t have a name picked out which still annoys me.

Sleep? These past few nights I’ve actually slept almost all the way through the night.  I wake up around 5-6am sometimes to pee and then go back to bed until 8:30-9am.  Yes, I’m lucky Ben lets me sleep that long and Mark takes Abbie to school…

Food Cravings? To just eat normally.  We ate at Smashburger the other day and I had 5 teaspoon fulls of a chocolate oreo milkshake which made my blood sugar spike big time.  It was around 160 at 2 hrs.  (Supposed to be under 120…)  Speaking of my sugars, they’re a bit all over the place.  My after dinner numbers have consistently been higher lately – in the 140’s – 170’s.  I’m currently taking 3.75mg. of Glyburide before breakfast and before dinner.  Sometimes by after breakfast numbers have been a little high too (130-140’s).  They’re all supposed to be under 120 after 2 hrs.  Things that I can eat sometimes that give me decent numbers make them high the next time I eat them, so I’m not sure how to deal with it.  A lot of it is that I don’t have the energy to make food – specifically cooking proteins – right now.  All I know is that someone better bring me a chocolate oreo milkshake, or Cold Stone’s Chocolate Devotion, and a fountain Pepsi in the hospital.  I’m over this diet.

Best Moment This Week? He passed the NST and BPP’s these past 2 weeks fine.

What I am loving? Being out of the hospital…. Landed myself in the hospital for 3 nights with yet ANOTHER kidney infection just before 35 weeks.  I’m not sure how I keep getting these, but it wasn’t fun.  I went in on a Thursday night because I had a slight temp and some back/ flank pain, so I went to triage and they said I had another infection.  Thursday night I got worse and had a temp up to 103 and kept getting chills and then sweating and that kept up for all of Friday.  Friday night I finally got rid of my fever for good (like around 4am), but I had to be 24 hrs fever free before they’d let me out so I didn’t get out until Sunday afternoon around 1pm (Easter Sunday).  I was prepared to spend the night in the hospital this time, but not 3 nights, but I know I wouldn’t have been able to rest like I did in the hospital if I was home around the kids.  Now I’m on a low dose antibiotic until I deliver to prevent me from having another one.

Movement? Yep… he moves all the time.  And sometimes it hurts because he’s kicking and stretching or something.  He’s running out of room in there for sure. 

What I’m looking forward to: Having him.  And being able to eat whatever I want and being able to move without being in pain.  T-17 days…. at the most.

Other Updates…  Dr Colwell checked me at my 36 week appt and I was 3cm dilated, 80% effaced and he was at –1.  We were supposed to go to CA to check out our new base/area and she told me not to go, so we cancelled the trip.  I’ve been having some decent contractions.  They don’t hurt, but they make it hard to breathe.  I’ve had a few back contractions also, which is a first.  Today I had a contraction that was both front and back, for the first time.  I am really hoping that I have him next week.  I’m going to start walking more, which typically gives me pretty good contractions, so hopefully it’ll be enough to kick of labor.  I’m having more pelvic pain also so I feel like he’s dropped even more.  Cooking dinner is a pretty big chore now and I have to sit down a few times, at least, when I’m cooking to catch a breather.  All this while keeping our house clean for showings… Not sure life will be much easier with a newborn though, but at least my mom will be here to help next Thursday!!

Bumpdate: 34 weeks

How Far Along? 34 weeks

Size of Baby? At my growth scan last week, he was measuring in the 60 percentile -  about a week ahead – and was roughly 5.5lbs

Maternity Clothes? Of course, although all of my tank tops aren’t maternity – they’re just stretchy and I live in them now.

Weight Gain? Around 16lbs still.  I haven’t really gained any weight in the last few weeks thanks to this great diet…

Stretch Marks/belly button? No change.  I have them.  They’re not going away.  Hopefully I won’t get too many more.

Baby’s Sex? Still a boy.  Still don’t have a name picked out which still annoys me.

Sleep? Sleep is getting harder for me now.  I was thinking that I wouldn’t have issues this pregnancy.  I was wrong.  I have to pee at least once or twice and I wake up multiple times a night because my hips hurt so bad and then I have to try to roll over in bed and rearrange my pillows without getting shooting crotch pains.  It’s fun.  And I’m hotter than hell most of the time too.  And when I do get up to pee I have to wait for my hips to clunk into place before I feel stable enough to walk.  Fun times!

Food Cravings? Yes, a zillion things.  That’s what a restricted diet does to you – makes you crave everything you can’t/shouldn’t have.

Best Moment This Week? Him passing the NST in 20 mins and me not having to sit there for 40 mins hooked to the machine and then having to go to the hospital for another 2 hours to be monitored there…  What a pain!

What I am loving? Feeling him move a lot.  And he gets the hiccups quite frequently.  And he already has hair according to the ultrasound tech!

Movement? Yep… he moves all the time.  And sometimes it hurts because he’s kicking and stretching or something.  He’s running out of room in there for sure.

What I’m looking forward to: Having him.  And being able to eat whatever I want again and not have to worry about spiking my blood sugar or testing 4 times a day or taking meds for it.  5 weeks or less to go!

Other Updates…  His room is all ready for him, although he probably won’t use it before we leave.  With all the commotion with getting our assignment and having to get the house ready to list and figuring all that stuff out, having a baby is about the last thing on my mind, which is a little scary since he’ll be here in less than 5 weeks!  My OB won’t let me go past 39 weeks due to my diabetes so it’ll be here before I know it!!  I’m excited to meet him though!

Bumpdate: 28 weeks

 

 

How Far Along? 28 weeks

Size of Baby? About the size of an eggplant

Maternity Clothes? Yup, still wearing them..  This question is irrelevant until I’m like 8 weeks post partum now because I can guarantee I’ll be wearing maternity clothes until at least then.

Weight Gain? Around 16lbs.

Stretch Marks/belly button? No change.  I have them.  They’re not going away.  Hopefully I won’t get too many more.

Baby’s Sex? Still a boy.  Still don’t have a name picked out which still annoys me.

Sleep? I tend to sleep pretty well right now – probably because I’ve been so busy that I crash when I go to bed.  Sometimes I get up to pee around 1-2am and sometimes I make it until 6-7am before I wake up.  However, whenever I do wake up, I’m roasting and have to kick off all my covers.  Still have pain, but it’s manageable.

Food Cravings? I still crave fattening food.  I need to start eating more healthy. 

Best Moment This Week? Hearing his heart beat again at my appointment last week, and feeling him move a bunch.

What I am loving? Nothing specific, I just like being pregnant in general.  Sure it has it’s not so fun aspects, but in general, I really like it. 

Movement? I’ve been feeling him more and more on the top of my belly and on the sides.  He moves quite a bit now.  When I get really busy sometimes I don’t notice him move much, but typically as soon as I focus on him, I feel him move quite a bit.  A lot of times I wake up and I’m kind of on my belly/side and he’s kicking away, kind of like he’s telling me to get off of him.  And if I wake up and don’t feel him kick then I worry and don’t fall asleep until I feel him again.

What I’m looking forward to: Having him.  And having the damn 3 hr glucose test behind me so I can quit worrying about it…  And starting to get his room/clothes together. 

Other Updates…I had my 1 hr glucose test this last week.  I was dreading it because I knew I got 139 at my last one around 28 weeks and this office’s cut off was 140.  So I figured it would be close.  I got 141….  Grrrr…  I’m really annoyed and frustrated and now I have to go take the 3 hour one and spend 3.5 hours at the dr’s office and pay for childcare and find the time to do that.  So I can’t even take it again until Friday, which is over 8 days from when I took my 1 hr one.  I’m too busy to deal with this stuff, and if I do end up having GD, that’s REALLY going to put a wrench into things.  I already have to start going to the OB every 2 weeks from now until 36 weeks and then it’s every week.  If I have to start going in for growth scans and fluid checks and NST’s all the time, I just don’t know how I’m going to fit all of that into my busy work schedule right now.  Not to mention taking Ben to all of those sounds like a special version of hell.  It stresses me out but I would put money on me flunking the 3 hr glucose test also.  I know this baby will be worth it but I just don’t have the time, ambition or desire to deal with sticking to a diabetes diet right now.  It was HELL for the 2 weeks I had to deal with it during Ben’s pregnancy, let alone doing it for 3 months.  Ugh.

My unexpected hospital stay

 

This past Friday was quite exciting for me – and I use that term loosely.  I hinted in my 24 week bumpdate that I was having issues with a possibly UTI.  All last weekend I felt like I had to pee constantly, even when I knew I didn’t.  It wasn’t painful really, it was just annoying.  However, I was having right flank pain all the way down my right side, but I had thought that I pulled a muscle lifting a 40lb bag of dog food last Friday.  Monday I went to the OB and they tested my urine and said it was fine and she checked me and baby boy was so low she couldn’t even get a good feel of my cervix without pushing him up out of the way.  So I figured that’s why I had to pee constantly because he was on my bladder.  After she pushed him up my constant feeling of having to pee went away, but my pain in my side didn’t.  She thought that was muscle related also.

Fast forward to Thursday evening – I had a listing appointment that I went to and felt fine, but when I got home, I immediately fell asleep on the couch and even though I was sitting on a heating pad trying to get my back to not hurt and covered up with a blanket and sitting right next to Mark, I was cold.  I started getting chills and I took my temp.  My mouth one said like 99.5 and my ear one said 101.8.  I didn’t really feel like I had a temp, I just had the chills.  I took 2 Tylenol PM’s and slept really well.

Friday morning I got up to pee around 7am and had the chills pretty badly again, so I took my temp.  Again, mouth one was around 99.3 and ear one was 102 and 103.8.  ??  I knew something wasn’t quite right but I was fairly certain I didn’t have a 103+ degree temp.  When I got up I got really flushed and felt my face get red and hot so I called my OB who said to get to the ER asap.  I wasn’t all that worried so I took my time packing a bag of things to keep me entertained since I figured going to the ER would take a least a few hours and gave my BIL a few instructions for Ben, since thankfully he was here to watch Ben for me.  I thought I’d be back in a few hours.  I hadn’t eaten breakfast so I stopped at Starbucks on my way to grab a hot chocolate and a croissant. 

I called Mark to let him know I was headed to the ER at my doctors orders and he said he’d meet me at the hospital in a little bit.  When I hung up with him my professional worrying got the best of me.  I started getting the thoughts about what if this is something serious?  I didn’t give Ben a big enough hug goodbye.  I didn’t tell my kids I loved them enough.  What if baby boy had to be delivered because it was something serious?  I’m a pro at worrying and it was no different on Friday.

I walk into the ER around 10am carrying my purse, bag of stuff to do and my hot cocoa.  I felt kind of ridiculous to be honest.  They checked me in and then took my temp (no temp) and blood pressure (normal), but my heart rate was up around 125bpm.  (My normal is between 80-100bpm.  Pregnant normal is under 110bpm.)  They checked my urine and it came back showing I did have some sort of UTI or kidney infection and I was also dehydrated.  (Not surprising since I’d only had a few sips of hot cocoa at this point.)  At this point, Mark was there with me and they said they needed to put in an IV, take some blood and give me a dose of strong antibiotics and fluids to help with dehydration.  Mark left around 1:30pm to get a pork shoulder at Costco (we were having 40 people over for dinner the next day) and pick Abbie up from school and shortly after he left, the nurse came in and said that my WBC’s (white blood cells) were high.  They were around 15.5 and the normal range was 5-10.  She told me my OB wanted to keep me overnight.  I was SHOCKED.  I seriously didn’t think it was anything that serious.  I thought they’d give me antibiotics to take home and I’d be on my way in a few hours – it wasn’t even on my radar to spend the night.  We had a babysitter lined up for 5pm that night and I had a massage scheduled for the next morning.  I tried to get them to let me go home, but my OB was pretty adamant that I had to stay.  Basically they explained to me that it I either had the beginning of a kidney infection or a blood infection, which can progress pretty quickly and reach the lungs or the baby and has been known to kill pregnant women and/or the baby.  Yikes.

So I called Mark to bring me a bag of stuff and settled in for the night.  It was kind of a weird experience.  I didn’t like being there by myself with my family at all home, but it was sort of relaxing to be able to sit in bed all day and watch TV and have them bring me whatever food I ordered.  My back started to hurt quite a bit and they gave me Percocet, which is a great drug!  That took care of the pain quickly.  My family came to visit me and it was nice to have them around for a bit.  Ben wanted to get up on the bed with me and play with his cars.  Abbie was a bit more hesitant and she had TONS of questions about my IV and the medicine and the baby, and if the baby was coming out and when I was coming home.  When it was time for them to leave, Abbie completely broke down, which absolutely broke my heart.  She cried a lot and I cried too.  Mark laughed at us and Alex (my BIL) chased after Ben who was heading down the hall already.  We were a mess.  Mark said it took Abbie a good 20 mins to finally calm down after they left.  She didn’t want to leave me in the hospital at all.  After that whole ordeal I was a bit more emotional.

I really wanted to take a shower and that turned into an ordeal because they didn’t put a heplock on the IV, so I had to be connected to the bag the whole time.  They taped a bag around my arm to try to keep it dry and protected and I tried to keep it out of the water as best I could.  Luckily my friend Alana showed up after I got out of the shower and she was able to help me get the bags from the IV through my clothes so the wires wouldn’t be going through my shirt.  Kind of a pain, but oh well.  And Alana brought me a flower and a bag of popcorn which was so sweet.  I cried when I saw the popcorn.  HAHA!  The flower was very nice too but she knows how I like popcorn and that meant a lot to me.

I got kinda bored that night, but I slept pretty well.  My IV started beeping at one point so I let the nurses know and got up to pee and asked for more Percocet and then slept until my OB woke me up around 8:30am.  They came and drew more blood around 9:45am to check my WBC’s.  Around noon they got the results and they were down around 11.8 so they were okay with giving me one more IV dose of antibiotics and sending me home.  I ordered lunch while we waited for the antibiotics to go in the IV and Mark came to help me carry all my junk to the car and we were out of the hospital by 1pm the next day.  Two days later my flank pain was completely gone.  Guess it wasn’t a pulled muscle after all…

I learned my lesson for sure with this whole ordeal.  Luckily it wasn’t all that serious, but it very easily could have been if I hadn’t gone to the ER then.  I never did have a fever, which is relatively common with kidney/blood infections, but I knew something wasn’t right.  I just didn’t have a clue that it would warrant an overnight stay in the hospital.

Oddly enough, it made me really excited to have my baby at that hospital.  Everyone was very nice and I was comfortable and well taken care of and the food was pretty good.  I wish his birth was a lot closer than 4 months away.  It also made me really want to get my BSN (nursing degree), but that’s a whole other blog post for another day.  Bottom line is I’m fine and baby is fine and next time I won’t be so cavalier about things like that!

Bumpdate: 24 weeks

 

How Far Along? 24 weeks

Size of Baby? About a foot long and around a pound and a half

Maternity Clothes? I just bought a bunch more.  It’s odd to me that clothes (specifically pants) I found comfortable last pregnancy aren’t comfortable this pregnancy.  I only had one pair of jeans that I really liked and Motherhood Maternity was having a 40% off clearance sale so I bought 2 more pairs, along with another pair of corduroys, a maxi skirt and a dress.  Should be set to go to NYC at the end of February now.

Weight Gain? Around 13lbs.  I wish it was less.

Stretch Marks/belly button? No change.  I have them.  They’re not going away.  Hopefully I won’t get too many more.

Baby’s Sex? Still a boy.  Still don’t have a name picked out which still annoys me.

Sleep? Sometimes.  It’s definitely getting a little more difficult.  I try to put a pillow between my legs to help keep my hips aligned, but it doesn’t help a ton.  My hip that I’m laying on starts to hurt after a while so then I have to roll over, which is a a challenge.  And usually I get up to pee when I wake up to roll over and that hurts like heck to walk to the bathroom from the bed.  Usually somewhere between my bed and the toilet my hips do this huge “clunk” that I can definitely feel and sometimes hear, and then I feel better.  The joys of pregnancy.  He’ll be worth it.

Food Cravings? Still no new cravings.  Nothing sounds good lately.  I don’t feel like I’m eating healthy enough and then I don’t know what to eat so I just don’t eat, which causes headaches.  I’ve been trying to eat more salads, but salads just don’t fill me up and so I get a headache almost every time I eat one, unless I eat a bunch of stuff with a salad.  I hope to God I don’t have diabetes this time around.

Best Moment This Week? Hearing his heart beat again.  I’d been a little worried because I hadn’t been feeling him much, but he was doing well and moving a ton when she was listening for his heart beat with the Doppler.  A close second would be finding out that the GD (gestational diabetes) cut off for the clinic I go to now is 140.  Long story short, my last OB in the States had a cut off of 140 also.  I tested at 139, so when I moved back to Italy at 33 weeks, they said that I hadn’t passed because their cut off was 130.  So they tested me 2 more times until I failed it at 37 weeks.  So knowing this clinic has the 140 cut off for GD gives me a little bit of hope that I could pass it.

What I am loving? The fact that Mark and Abbie have felt him move.  Abbie was pretty darn excited.

Movement? Yep, he moves quite a bit now.  Last week he started moving a ton and now I feel him all the time, mostly way down low, but sometimes up high also.

What I’m looking forward to: Him moving up a little.  Apparently he’s dropped a bit since my 20 week update and he’s directly on my bladder, which makes me feel like I have to pee ALL the time.  As in like 3-4 times an hour.  It is SO annoying.  I will take the shooting back/hip/pelvic pains any day over the constant feeling that I have to pee.  It’s horrible.  So I hope he rises soon so he gets off my bladder some.

Other Updates…Not really.  I feel pretty good, despite my back/hip pain and the having to pee constantly.  I’m excited to meet this little dude.

Bumpdate: 20 weeks

 

   

How Far Along? 20 weeks

Size of Baby? 10” head to heel, about the size of a banana

Maternity Clothes? Yes.  I LOVE my pregnancy leggings with the stretchy band that goes over my belly.  However, I need more longer shirts/tunic because I get really self conscious if I wear leggings with anything that doesn’t cover my butt.

Weight Gain? Almost 10lbs now.  Yay.

Stretch Marks/belly button? No change.  I have them.  They’re not going away.  Hopefully I won’t get too many more.

Baby’s Sex? He’s a boy!  I had a good feeling in previous weeks that he was a boy, but I was still hoping like crazy that he was a girl.  The deal was is this baby was a girl, we could talk about being done.  If it was a boy, we’re definitely trying for one more (so I can have 1 girl and 3 boys, of course).  Either way, I’m still excited.  I hadn’t been feeling him much so when we saw the heartbeat and that he was doing well, I was so relieved I didn’t really care what she said it was.

Sleep? I’m getting more pelvic pain when I try to roll over, but overall, I can sleep pretty well.

Food Cravings?No new cravings really.  Usually nothing sounds good, which is annoying.

Best Moment This Week? Finding out the sex last week, and that he is doing well.  It’s a relief for sure.

What I am loving? Going through all of Ben’s old clothes to see what I have and what I need.  If this baby had been a girl, I would have been set on clothes because Abbie was born in May also.  However, Ben was born in December and this baby will be born in May, so they’ll be almost exact opposite seasons for the first year or so.  But… I love to shop for baby clothes so I’ve been having fun picking up things I find here or there on sale.

Movement? Finally I’ve been feeling him more often, which is a relief.  I found out at our ultrasound that I have an anterior placenta (the placenta is almost exactly in front) so it’s thickness blocks me from feeling his kicks very often.  I do feel him up high though, and on the sides sometimes when I’m laying on my side.  And when I have to pee I can feel him bouncing on my bladder, but not usually in the front.  And it’s not been hard enough yet than Mark could feel it either.  Hopefully soon!

What I’m looking forward to: Mark and Abbie being able to feel him move also.  Abbie asks all the time when she’ll be able to feel him move.  We’re going to paint the nursery this week too, and I’m excited about that.  It was one of the last rooms left in our house to paint.

Other Updates… I feel like I’m carrying this baby higher than my other two.  It’s already a little hard to breathe at times because I feel like he’s up in my ribs, which I don’t remember with the others.  Makes me a little nervous because we still have a LONG way to go.

 

The pictures below were a few of the outtakes from our gender announcement photos.  In the one on the left I told Abbie to act upset, which she didn’t want to at all.  She didn’t understand why I wanted her to act upset, so I asked her to do it for just a few and then she could cheer in the others.  Realistically, Abbie is most excited about this baby and she is very happy it’s a boy, which is interesting.  She’s been asking for a baby sister for YEARS – like since been was born – and the last month or so, she’s said she wants another baby brother.  I asked her before we went in to the gender ultrasound (both kids were with us) what she wanted the baby to be and she said boy right away.  I asked her why she wanted a boy since she already had a little brother and she said she wanted two little brothers.  Mark said she did her happy dance when the ultrasound tech told us it was a boy and she’s constantly talked about what we’ll name him and she picks out toys of hers that she wants to wrap and give to the baby when it gets here.  So the picture on the right is a better representation of how they actually feel.

Bumpdate: week 16

How Far Along? 16 weeks

Size of Baby? 4.5 inches long, 3.5oz, about the size of an avocado

Maternity Clothes? Yes, I am definitely digging them out.  Some of my stretchier jeans I can still wear unless I’m going to be sitting for a while and then it’s really uncomfortable.  I mostly wear maxi skirts or leggings or maternity pants.

Weight Gain? about 2.5 lbs

Stretch Marks/belly button? I don’t know.  My entire abdomen is basically one big stretch mark so I have no clue if they’re new or old or in between.

Baby’s Sex? Still no clue, which is a bit annoying.  I knew Ben was a boy, but this time I’m just not sure.  I’m getting headaches (did with Abbie, didn’t with Ben), but I don’t know if they’re hormonal or stress/tension related.  I’ve been pretty emotional which makes me think maybe girl, but that could just be wishful thinking.

Sleep? Still good.  I’m getting some minor back/pelvic pain, but not enough to wake me up yet.  I’ve still be somewhat tired so that could be why I sleep like a log.

Food Cravings? Chicken – BBQ chicken pizza, which I don’t think I’ve ever ordered before this pregnancy.  Chicken avocado sandwiches (usually I prefer burgers).  I used to love having ice cream or pop corn before bed and I don’t really want either of those now.  I usually have cereal.  Just odd.

Best Moment This Week? Seeing baby A on ultrasound at our last appointment.  It’s little legs were crossed.

What I am loving? All of Abbie’s questions and comments about the baby and how it’s going to get here and what we’ll do with it and how I am feeling and when she’ll be able to feel it move.

Movement? I’ve felt some weird stuff that I’m still not exactly sure what is.  But very occasionally I can feel the baby move.  I’m excited for it to be more regular.

What I’m looking forward to: Dec 15th when we get to have the big ultrasound!!

Other Updates… At my OB appointment last week my doctor said, “You knew you’d lost the baby when you came in, didn’t you?”  She said that that was amazing that I had that intuition and that she could tell by my voice that I knew.  I found that interesting.  Oh, and baby B is still in there, but about the size of baby A’s head right now.  Kind of odd.

16 week ultrasound – I honestly have no clue what that is except for the round looking thing on the left is it’s head with maybe it’s little hand right in front of it’s face.  ??  Either that or I’m growing an alien.

Taking it all in

The next day Mark and I went in for an ultrasound to confirm that baby B wasn’t alive.  I knew it wasn’t, but I still felt like I was going to throw up as I was waiting to be called back.  I’m glad Mark was able to leave work to come with me.  His co-workers were understanding and they all hurried to finish building the schedule so Mark could leave to get to our appointment.  The u/s tech asked me why we were there for a scan, I think mainly to know if we actually knew why, not because she needed to know.  She confirmed that baby B didn’t have a heartbeat and after that anticipation of hear it again was over, I was okay.

I think the hardest thing for me to get over was the fact that we weren’t having twins anymore.  It was difficult to change my mindset from 2 to 1 and I think that’s what I was mostly upset over.  At 10 weeks pregnant, I wasn’t super attached to the babies yet, more the idea of having twins.  Yes, it totally sucked losing baby B and I was/am sad, but I’m not one of those that dwells on it for weeks/months/years and I just trust God’s plan with it all I guess.  I figure that baby B wasn’t completely healthy and I would much rather lose a baby at 10 weeks pregnant than like my parents did and lose one when they’re 10 months old.

The next week I had the nuchal translucency ultrasound to scan for downs syndrome and other chromosomal disorders and baby A was still doing well and moving around like crazy again so that was reassuring.  Not reassuring enough for me to make this pregnancy blog/ FB official yet, but it was still reassuring.

Telling Abbie about baby #3

We told the kids about baby #3 Friday afternoon.  We sat Abbie down (while Ben wandered around near us) and showed her a picture of our most recent ultrasound.  We asked her what she thought it was a picture of and she said she thought it was a baby raccoon.  Haha!  Once she grasped the concept that it was a human baby, she was very excited.  The first thing she said was that we were going to have THREE kids, and the next thing she said was that she wanted to help feed it and she would "hold it like this and then feed it like this".  That was funny because I had just told Mark the day before that he was going to have competition for feeding the baby because Abbie LOVES babies.  Abbie is such a little mama and she tends to gravitate towards babies.  A few of my friends have babies and Abbie always tries to play with them and get them to smile or laugh.  She's very gentle and it's sweet to watch her with them.  It will be interesting to see how she deals with a baby that never leaves.  Hopefully it'll be better when she's 6 years old vs when she was 2.5 when Ben was born.  That wasn't the most fun I've ever had, but she's much more mature now so I think it'll be good.  We're going to involve her as much as we can throughout my pregnancy so she feels a sense of connection to the baby once it arrives.

She calls this her little mommy outfit.  She is DEFINITELY a little momma.

I was at Hobby Lobby with the kids a few hours after we told them and Abbie was still bouncing off the walls.  She kept saying "I can't believe you're going to have THREE kids!  That's going to be so much work!"  Why a 5 year old is thinking about how much work 3 kids will be is beyond me, but Abbie has always been wise beyond her years.  She asked me who was going to be there when the baby comes out and I said probably just daddy will be there.  She asked where her and Ben will be and I told her probably at home with grammy and she wanted to know why they couldn't be there.  Luckily she didn't press the issue too much.

Abbie frequently will put her hands on my belly and ask when she’ll get to feel it move.  She’s full of lots of questions about everything and anything.  I’m so excited to see her interact with baby #3.  She can be a great big sister when she wants to be.

Bumpdate: week 11

I haven’t done these before, that I remember, so I thought I’d do them every few weeks to keep track of this pregnancy.  I don’t really remember what was going on in my other pregnancies when I was however many weeks along so maybe if I’m lucky enough to get pregnant again, these will help me remember.

Pics below are taken at 8 weeks, 10 weeks and 12 weeks.  (Excuse the disaster of a bathroom.  We are remodeling it and as you can see, making great progress…..)

How Far Along? 11 weeks

Size of Baby? 1.5 inches long, about the size of a fig

Maternity Clothes? No, not yet, but I'm definitely wearing my stretchier pants now or my ones that were a little bit to begin with.

Weight Gain? about a pound

Stretch Marks/belly button? No new ones anyway...  I still have plenty left over from A and B

Baby’s Sex? No clue, although on my NT ultrasound this week I could have sworn I saw a weiner.  The u/s tech said it was way too early to make any sort of call on that.

Sleep? Good!  Get up about once or twice to pee, but I'm finally feeling that I can function without a 3+ hour nap every day.

Food Cravings? Still no cravings really, more like aversions.  Usually nothing sounds very good to eat.

Best Moment This Week? The u/s tech telling me that she was having a really hard time finding what she was looking for, which was a good thing because if there are problems it is enlarged.

What I am loving? Seeing Abbie's excitement when we told her we were having another baby.

Movement? I've been feeling movement since around 9 weeks - probably because there were/are 2 of them so they are taking more room in my belly and this is my 3rd pregnancy, so I know what I'm feeling.  I'm definitely still feeling baby A occasionally.  Just little flutters though.

What I’m looking forward to: Being able to have Mark, Abbie and Ben feel the baby move from the outside.

Other Updates… We told the kids yesterday about baby A.  It was really cute.  I'll write a separate post about that.

The irony…

I've been feeling particularly anxious about this pregnancy with the twins.  It's not at all like me to want to withhold exciting news like this from my friends, but I have been a little hesitant to tell people that I'm pregnant with twins, for fear that something happens to one of them.

Last night was a squadron coffee.  Some of the girls I'm closer to in the squadron already knew I was pregnant with twins.  I told a few more people, and then had a few people that I didn't tell approach me about it, so I know the news is traveling fast.  Which is fine, I don't really care, but it made me anxious.  The squadron commanders wife wanted to announce that I was pregnant with twins to everyone and I asked her not to because I wasn't ready for that.  A few people that knew I was pregnant asked me how things are going and I had to say that I don't really know.  I know things were great at 7.5 weeks but now it's 3 weeks later and this early in the first trimester, you really don't know.  I haven't had any cramping or bleeding, so that's a good sign, but not a guarantee that everything is fine.  

A few of the girls told me to call my doctor and just ask for an extra ultrasound if I was worried about it.  So this morning I finally got enough guts to call my doctor and ask for an ultrasound before my scheduled appointment next week.  I felt like an idiot asking her but she humored me and said come on in.

She found baby A right away.  Baby A was very clear and showed up great on the ultrasound.  You could see it's little arms and legs flailing all over the place and it's heart rate was a strong 176bpm.  She mentioned something about both sacs still looking good and then she looked for baby B.  And she looked... and looked... and looked.  You could see a very faint outline occasionally of something, but it was nothing like baby A.  She kept saying she couldn't get a clear view of baby B.  She looked for the heart beat once, but couldn't find it.  After about 5-10 mins she said she wanted to try a vaginal u/s to see if she could see it better, but I had a full bladder so she couldn't see anything that way.  So she went back to prodding around on my stomach and then finally said that from what she could tell baby B stopped growing at 8w4d and she couldn't find a heartbeat.  But then she went on to say she never really got a clear shot of it and that the portable machine she was using isn't the most accurate or reliable so she wanted me to go get a second scan to confirm what she thought.

So it's been a rough day, to say the least.  The thing that is mostly throwing me for a loop is that I basically knew where both of the twins were before she even did the scan.  I swear I can feel the little baby movement flutters occasionally, and they were both right where I've been feeling them.  And I've felt baby B in the last few weeks, which doesn't match up if it stopped growing at 8w4d.  Maybe I'm hallucinating and I'm not actually feeling them.  Maybe baby A is somehow moving so much that it's making baby B move.  Maybe baby B stopped growing a lot later than she thought and she just couldn't get a good enough view of it to make an accurate estimate.  I don't know what it is, but this definitely sucks.  I go back and forth between not wanting to get my hopes up that the conclusion was wrong because I don't want to be that disappointed all over again, to wanting to hold out hope that it was wrong and that both babies are still okay.  It's kind of a fine line that I've jumped over many times in the past few hours.

My next ultrasound is tomorrow morning.  I am putting Ben in daycare for a few hours (he was with me today, running his toy car all over the table as I was laying there getting the ultrasound done) and I think Mark will be able to go with me this time.  

And the irony of it all is today is October 15th - Infant and pregnancy loss awareness/remembrance day.

From the beginning

I have other blog posts saved describing later on in my pregnancy, but for some reason, I never wrote about the first part.

 

So starting from the beginning, Mark and I started trying for baby #3 around August 2013.  In November 2013, my cycles went a little nuts and jumped from the normal 28ish days to 45+ days, without any real explanation.  I went to the doctor a few times, and they said it was probably due to stress and I just needed to relax.  I thought that maybe it was the stress of having Emily live with us or the stress of getting my real estate license, or some sort of combination of the two and figured it would go back to normal in a few months, but it didn’t.  I started taking my basil temp every morning and tracking it and started using OPK’s daily, and I just wasn’t seeing any significant change in my temp or a positive OPK (ovulation predictor kit).  We went through months and months of this and I was getting a little more frustrated every month because I couldn’t tell if I was actually ovulating or not.

Finally in June they did some testing on me and everything looked fine.  They gave me progesterone one month to try to “reset” everything and that didn’t necessarily work, but it did give me the cycle from hell if that counts.  My OB said she wanted to wait a few more months before giving me a fertility drug, but I told her I didn’t want to wait a few more months.  By this time it had been a year and I wasn’t getting positives on anything and I wanted to take the next step.  So they prescribed 100mg of Clomid, and said I wouldn’t get migraines from it, which was a total and complete lie because I had a migraine for about a week straight after taking that stuff.  However, it worked.  Even though that month I STILL never got a rise in temp or a positive OPK, I did get a positive pregnancy test, and we were so excited.

I was going to test on my birthday, which is when I should have started, but decided that that would make it a crappy birthday if it was negative.  So I tested 6 days early and I didn’t get just a faint line that I was hoping for, I got a VERY positive positive.  The test line was a lot darker than the control line, even though I was testing early, and that was my first clue that this wasn’t like my other pregnancies.

I knew that our odds of having multiples went up by 8-10% with taking Clomid, and add to the fact that I am a natural twin and I am over 30 years old, all of those combined made our odds fairly good.  I have always wanted twins and I just had a feeling that this pregnancy was twins.  I took an online test the night before our first appointment and it had 15 questions and I think like 12 of them we answered yes to, all indicating that it could be twins.  So when we had our appointment the next day, neither Mark nor I were too shocked when we saw two sacks and two heartbeats.  We were SO excited, and a little terrified, but more excited than anything.  I think you start running through scenarios in your head immediately when you find out news that you’re having twins – like are you going to sleep at all for the first few months and how do you breastfeed twins when it’s hard enough with one newborn – but despite all of that, we were so excited.  She told us told they were di/di twins, which I think stands for diamniotic and dichorionic, so they had they’re own sacks and own supplies and weren’t sharing anything, which was the safest kind of twins to have.

Still, even with this info, I was terrified to make it public knowledge.  I didn’t even want to tell his parents.  This was new for me because with our other two, we told everyone and anyone pretty much right away, but that just didn’t feel right to me this time, and I’m glad we didn’t.