Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Update

We had an appointment with Dr. Smith yesterday, and things are looking good! We're moving right along. The NST went well...as far as the babies go, they still have good, strong, reactive heart rates. I don't know what it is with me and the NST, but there is always something! This time they tried to enter Megan's information onto my forms...sigh. Only a little while left, right? Everything looks good with the babies, and our plan is to have a BPP on Thursday with Dr. Kates, and if everything still looks good we will stick to our next appointment on Monday and schedule a date for a C-section! Things are getting exciting!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Cravings :)

Yesterday Scott and I had a free afternoon, and I decided we should go to Costco! I needed stamps for my thank you notes, and Scott said we didn't need to go that far for stamps. I confessed that I really wanted to go because I wanted a hot dog :) So off to Costco we went! As we were checking out, Scott looked at what we were buying: muffins, spinach dip, and broccoli. He said, "I thought we were getting stamps?!?" I laughed and told him don't worry, I won't be pregnant for much longer! But I have had a great day today, with a muffin for breakfast and spinach dip for lunch! And I got my hot dog yesterday. Life is good!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

35 weeks today!


35 weeks today, and I am huge! I am pretty sure I get bigger every day, I should really start measuring around my waist. I think I haven't yet because I'm scared to see the result!! We had an ultrasound this morning, and the babies are getting bigger! Baby A weighs 5 lbs 3 oz and Baby B weighs 5 lbs 5 oz! I can't believe I have 10 1/2 lbs of baby in me! Actually, I can :) Most likely just a few more weeks and we will finally get to meet these little ones! Next appointment is on Monday, with Dr. Smith, so we will know more then about when they are coming, etc. They are still in the breech/transverse positions, and now Baby B is bigger than Baby A, so we are 90% sure it will be a C-section. Like I said, we'll know more on Monday.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

33 week pictures

So I know that today is actually 34 weeks, but I never posted these last week so I'll do them today and then add the 34 week ones tomorrow. A pretty normal week, including the now-routine THREE nurses to get TWO heartbeats on the NST...yes Julianne they have had to use the buzzer but she doesn't respond to it! I think she's stubborn :) I have another appointment tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have some updates! And my goal is to post slide shows of the baby showers...I now have three to do!

Someday our house will be finished and there will be no more baby stuff in boxes in the living room...sigh. Although I guess the baby stuff will still be everywhere :)

Watching my brother open presents on his 18th birthday...and yes, I am as tired as I look here...times about a million!!!


A new-found talent :)

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

10 things about my morning...

1. I had an appointment with Dr. Kates.
2. Scott was running behind so I had to go by myself...at least for awhile.
3. Scott went to the wrong doctor's office...
4. It took a LONG time to get the bio-physical profile done (usually only takes about 10-15 min.)
4. The babies weren't moving very much (or at all for Baby A) so I had to drink lots of Tang.
5. Tang is yucky.
6. I still had to roll from side to side to get her to move.
7. Dr. Kates was concerned so he sent me to the hospital for a non-stress test.
8. You get to lay in a real bed that is comfortable and has a pillow when you have a non-stress test at the hospital!
9. The nurse at the hospital is WAY better at finding heart beats than the nurse at the doctor's office.
10. It took almost an hour to get enough movement from Baby A to make the nurse happy...Baby B was jumping all over the place by this point :) However, she was impressed that I wasn't have ANY contractions at all...apparently by this time usually twin patients are contracting more than I am. And she didn't make me drink any Tang. I'll take it ;)

No worries, though...babies are fine, I am fine...Scott didn't get to work until lunchtime, so I'm sure he's fine-although probably a little stressed :) I get to spend my afternoon napping, so I think I'm definitely in for a great rest of my day! Maybe one of these days I'll get to have an appointment that is uneventful :)

Saturday, September 6, 2008

32 weeks!

Whew! I feel like I'm getting bigger by the minute! 32 weeks is a big milestone, at least according to Dr. Smith...if the babies were born now, they would have to spend some time in the NICU but would definitely be okay! We're hoping to make it 4 more weeks to 36 and get nice, chubby 6 pound babies! All the appointments this week went well--Baby B's varix hasn't grown and there is no sign of a clot, so that is good news. No signs of pre-term labor, and that's great news! Both babies are transverse (laying sideways), for the second week in a row...it's looking more and more like it will have to be a C-section. As long as they're healthy, we don't care!

Here you can see some progress--two car seats and less baby stuff in the living room! Yay!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Non-stress? Not really!

Today was my first non-stress test. A pretty simple 20 minute test where they put a contraction monitor on your belly, as well as heart rate monitors for each of the babies. I was supposed to press a button when I felt the babies move, and it records their heart rates at that time or something like that. That's how it's supposed to go. What really happened is this:

They were about half an hour late calling me back--I'm used to waiting when I go to the doctor's office, so I wasn't concerned--but when the nurse came and got me she apologized for the wait and explained that they had just had a set of twins that weren't cooperating with the test so it took a little longer. I think it was a sign! Today was not a good day for twins and non-stress tests!

I got in the chair and they laid me back and strapped the contraction monitor on. Right on top of Baby B, actually, but I figure they know what they are doing so I don't say anything. The cute little nurse then proceeds to try to find Baby A's heart beat. She can't. She moves it around and around and is now trying to find ANY heart beat. She can't. I'm not worried, seeing as how the babies are moving and all...she asks me how they are positioned and I tell her exactly where they are. 10 more minutes, still no heart beats. She leaves to go find another nurse. Nurse #2 walks in and takes the monitor...she moves it around and around, still no heart beats. Lots of comments on how much the babies must be moving and how I'm just not far enough along for this to be easy, it should get better the next few weeks, etc. She FINALLY finds Baby A's heart beat, way down low, by pressing the monitor in really REALLY HARD. I'm supposed to hold it there because we lose the heart beat if it isn't pressed in so far. She then starts pressing really hard and moving the second monitor all over to try to get Baby B's heart beat. She finally finds it way over on the left side, and kind of down in the middle.

Let me stop here and explain that there are no babies on the left side of my belly. Baby B is really high and laying sideways, and Baby A is breech, sitting and leaning to the right. So there are no babies over on the left side. But I digress.

They watch these heart beats for a few minutes, and I'm thinking that they must be monitoring Baby A twice, because they sound exactly the same, and the second reading (supposedly Baby B) is really light, and they keep losing it. Lots more comments about how he is just moving too much to find a steady reading. Finally the first nurse decides she is going to take the readout to Dr. Smith and see what he has to say. (Note: I am not supposed to see Dr. Smith today.) She comes back, and sure enough, it's the same heart beat twice. I ask if I can get up for a minute, because I am about to faint from laying on my back so long and having them dig into my stomach. I lay back down, and we start over. Baby A, right away. Baby B, not so much. I AGAIN tell the nurse exactly how high Baby B is...and again, she can't find a heart beat because she is looking low and to the left. After about 10 minutes of this, they decide to go GET Dr. Smith, and have him bring in the ultrasound. It takes him approximately 32 seconds to come in with the machine, find the baby on the ultrasound, and put the heart rate monitor EXACTLY WHERE I HAD BEEN POINTING. He says we have lots of good readings for Baby A, so we can take that monitor off (yay!) and just watch B for 20 minutes. Nurse #2 leaves.

We finally got all the readings, and once they found Baby B's heart beat, it was good and strong and he was doing lots of moving. Dr. Smith came back in a few minutes later just to make sure everything was going okay, so we ended up seeing him I think 3 times when we weren't supposed to see him at all. No wonder the doctors there are always so busy! We also got to talk to the original nurse, who was now the only one in there with us. It was really neat to get to talk with her--she has been through lots of the same infertility problems that we have, and she actually has boy-girl twins herself! They were adopted, and they got them at 10 weeks old. She also has an older son whom they were able to adopt right after he was born--they took him home from the hospital! Her family even attended the same church that we do a few years ago. It was nice and refreshing to realize that the people that work there are real people too. Plus we got lots of good twin tips!

So all in all, everything turned out okay--the babies are healthy, and that's all that really matters. Hopefully next week our 20-minute test won't take 2 1/2 hours!!!