an unscheduled visit to the doc...

well, since y'all like pictures so much, here's another for you:

fun, huh? the story goes like this. you remember my headaches. and my shoulder-aches. well, a little over a week ago I started noticing that the pain was shifting from my shoulders to my back. I filed this away mentally, but didn't think too much of it. then my shoulder-aches were pretty much gone and the pain was just on the left side and just in my upper back (not the lower back that's supposed to be preg related) and I thought, oh dear, what if that's my left lung? but no other symptoms. on Friday I confessed my concerns to blake and he said, "I know, I can tell" which was a bummer because I was still going for denial. Then Saturday and Sunday the bubbles started which is clearly a lung sign for me. So on Monday I emailed Dr. Madsen, my pulmonologist (lung doc) and said, I don't want to do anything yet, just wanted to give you an update. She emailed back and said, "go to urgent care. I'm telling my staff to call all your numbers we have on file and make sure you go." poo.

that was around 4:30, so blake (who was feeling less sick and was going to meet me at work to go to merry go round and look at cribs) met me instead to go to urgent care. okay, actually we were bad. merry go round is RIGHT across the street from the hospital, so we swung in for 15 minutes first because I knew they'd be closed by the time we got out of "urgent" care.

I'll spare you the 2+ hour play by play but the summary was good. they called dr madsen and looked at my chart and took my stats. they decided to believe me that my lung was collapsed w/o taking any xrays and also believed me that it was small (if it were larger they could have heard it and if it were really bad my O2 stats would have dropped) so they just sent me home w/ a couple of hours worth of home oxygen and said that Apria (the O2 company) would set me up at home.

blake and I went home, had dinner, watched a movie, but by 10:00 no Apria. Whatever, we went to bed and called this morning. Apparently they came at 9:00 last night but must have just knocked and not rang the doorbell or called my cell so we didn't hear them. anyways, the guy did show up at around 2:30 today so now we're all set up.

that's the story! doc said I could keep yoga-ing and everything else and to just be on the oxygen and let them know how it goes (better, worse, same) and we'll go from there. it's all a big pain, but hey, it reinforces why we went this baby-making route and it reinforces that mom and I will drive to CA instead of fly.

and in the good-times category I did get to have both gorgonzola honey bites (pasteurized!!) and a brookie... and take a few brookies home... and yes, a brookie is a brownie with a cookie inside. in this case a choc chip sea-salt cookie. so really, life isn't all that bad. :)

another father/baby song

Today I heard this song and I was like AH! another sweet husband/father song. and the end of verse three is particularly applicable! I would post a youtube link, but the peter paul and mary version on youtube skips the third verse so that's no good at all. so here are the lyrics.

When I was a young man and never been kissed
I got to thinking it over what I had missed.
I got me a girl, I kissed her and then
Oh lord, I kissed her again.

Chorus:Oh, kisses sweeter than wine,
Oh, kisses sweeter than wine

I asked her to marry and be my sweet wife,
And we would be so happy the rest of our lives.
I begged and I pleaded like a natural man,
And then, oh lord, she gave me her hand.
(chorus)

I worked mighty hard and so did my wife,
Workin' hand in hand to make a good life.
With corn in the field and wheat in the bins,
I was, oh lord, the father of twins.
(chorus)

Our children they numbered just about four,
They all had sweethearts knockin' at the door.
They all got married and they didn't hesitate;
I was, oh lord, the grandmother of eight.(chorus)

Now that we're old, and ready to go,
We get to thinkin' what happened a long time ago.
We had a lot of kids, trouble and pain,
But, oh lord, we'd do it again.
(chorus)

isn't that sweet? aw...

18 weeks

well, here we are. 18 weeks, half of 36 weeks. I've decided to not count it as half way until 20 weeks, but still... just considering the idea of being half way done is crazy.

this week's baby stats and facts:
- 5.5 inches (pickle sized). I am waiting for them to be 6 inches long so I can say I have a foot of baby in me. :)
- 6 oz
- ears are facing forward
- ossification (hardening of the bones) is beginning
- smell, taste, sight, hearing are all developing

me:
- still in the "wait, was that baby movement?" phase. I'll let you know when I feel them for sure.
- I'm supposed to have lower blood pressure and feel more dizzy as my body tries to keep it up. the feeling dizzy part is definitely true for me. I am hydrated however. today I drank at least 64 oz of water and then stopped counting.
- I now own a smelly microwavable neck pillow, weird back massage thing mom gave me, two mouth guards, herbal tea... lots of anti-head-and-shoulder-ache things. the winner is the weird back thing mom gave me. it does not feel "good" but it really seems to do the trick. so, I'm not headache-free, but I'm much happier (thanks mom).

and, after several requests, here it is - a prego pic. :)

birth of multiples

No, I did not give birth last night. but blake and I did attend our first childbirth class. (and, on a side note to match my cousin's prego dreams post: my recurring prego dream is that I give birth super super easily, like I barely even notice it, but that there are FOUR babies and they're super, super, small - thus the easy birth I guess. they're all fine in my dream but I'm like, oh my, FOUR of them.)


anyways, the saga of attending child birth classes goes like this:

- we look up all local baby-related classes at the local hospitals (group health, overlake, evergreen, etc). everything from traditional education classes to yoga to happiest baby on the block, the whole deal.
- make ourselves a nice little spreadsheet w/ class name, location, dates, cost, and our ranking of how much we want to go to this class.
- one class gets an A+, it's the class to go to - overlake's birth of multiples class. the problem, it's 5 weeks, all on tuesday evenings. tuesdays are not only the night I tutor, they're the night blake has class. tuesdays are the only night that we're not free.
- I go to the EMOMs group, which says that UW hospital also has a multiples class, and it's even better than Overlake's apparently. AWESOME!! we have a night of happiness and then we look up the class. it's also on tuesdays. seriously? couldn't they coordinate w/ overlake and offer different dates? but, the advantage is that while overlake's classes are a series, UW's classes are a series of 6 classes, OR you can cherry pick the one's you're interested in for $40/class.
- so, blake's between quarters right now and I cancelled my tutees for just one night and we went to Class #3 - birth of multiples last night.

it was fun. once again, like the emoms meeting, it was weird but good to not be the freaky person with twins but instead to see other (much larger) bellies around the table. there were of course, personalities - one girl is set on a natural birth, no epidural or anything. which is admirable, but the instructor kept trying to tell her that with twins that just doesn't happen. they like to put an epidural in so that if they have to rush you into a c-section you're ready to go. otherwise they'll knock you all the way out because an epidural will take too long and going all the way under is more dangerous. one of the prego moms works as an anesthesiologist and she had a lot of interesting things to add too.
other interesting things we learned:

• 37 weeks is full term for twins, 50% of twins are born by 36 weeks. which is crazy crazy because tomorrow I will be at 18 weeks - as in possibly half way.
• 5% of twins are viable at 23 weeks, but you really want to get to 28 weeks becasue the % increases drastically each week from there.
• the doc will call the babies baby A and baby B. baby A is always the one closest to the exit :) this means that they might switch names though if they move around a lot! I suppose that's one small reason to hope for girl/boy because then you'll always know which is which, even if they switch spots.
• if Baby A is vertex (ie head down) you prob get to try for a vaginal birth unless baby B is much much larger than baby A or a few other funky scenarios. with twins, baby A is vertex 81% of the time, versus 95% of the time for singletons.
• if Baby A is breech (upside down) or transverse (sideways) there's no room to try and turn it and delivering that way is too risky. (as in: if baby A is breech and you try to deliver, its chin can get caught on baby B's chin and their necks pull against each other. yikes)
• after lots more talk about reasons you would end up with a c-section (60+% of twins are c-section) we heard about how really, you want a natural birth for both mom and babies so you really should try for one (but you also have to be ready for a c-section 'cuz you prob won't have a choice).
• all twins are delivered in an operating room. you might labor elsewhere, but when you're ready to go, it's a party in the operating room. blake gets to come unless they put me all the way under (which shouldn't happen unless there's a crisis which is why they'll kick him out at that point). there were about 16 people in our class and she had us stand up to represent the crowd in the operating room. "you're the mom, you're the dad, you're mom's doc, you're Baby A's doc, you're Baby B's doc, you're mom's nurse, you're the anesthesiologist..." there are more than 10 people for a normal twin birth and if you're pre-37 weeks, well then there were 20+ people involved.
• okay, there was lots more, but really, it's not blog appropriate! I'm glad we know about it in case any of it comes to pass, we'll be a little more prepared, but I don't plan to dwell on many of the what-ifs!

the instructor really, really strongly recommended that we come back and take the "preventing preterm labor" class but as we were walking out we decided the scheduling just couldn't work (it's also on a tuesday). so we went back and asked her if there was one pointer from the class she could give us, or if she could email us the power point or something, and she said, "how about I just give you the whole class, really quick, right now?" so we stayed until 10pm, but we now know all about preterm labor too! including the knowledge that I will prob start feeling contractions really soon (like 20 weeks), but that's normal with twins and not to be worried unless... insert handout here. what to do, what to count, when to call... and she gave us other handouts from other twin moms - which products they liked, etc etc.

okay friends, that is all for now. I am tired of blogging and this is all relevant to me, so I'm thinking you're pretty tired of reading it all. I shall go hydrate (helps prevent pre-term labor) and then maybe a nice nap...

triathlon

yay! we did a triathlon. me (and the babies), blake, brianne, jackie, dave, heidi... we are all awesome. and, it went really well I'd say. :)

we were a little rushed getting our stuff set up so we hopped in the pool 3 minutes before our wave started. I did a little practise lap and i'm so glad I did! all my books say you need more warm-up when you're prego and after just that one lap I was pooped! but, I caught my breath and when the buzzer went off I started... and went 11 laps w/ no prob. of course other people did more laps (dave is the swimmer in our group and he did 18) but I was quite pleased with my 11 laps in 15 minutes.

then it was off to the bikes. most triathlons give you a time for your swim, a time for T1 - the time it takes you to exit the swim, get to your bike, change gear, and start biking, then a time for your bike, T2, and for your run. In this one it was swim, T1 & bike, T2 & run. so I took a nice leisurely time in T1, dried my feet... and eventually hopped on my bike. biking was definitely the hardest as I had not trained one little bit. but my largest complaint came from my butt which protested sitting on a bike seat that long... the rest was okay. :) I did about 5 miles which is again not really freaking awesome, but much better than wimping out :)

lastly, the run. or, in my case, the walk. my doc said I could only do the triathlon if I kept my exertion to the point where I could carry on a conversation while exercising. So, my friend brianne was SUPER nice and walked the run with me. took us about 50 minutes for T2 and the 2.8 mile walk which was faster than I'd estimated. of course we finished last of the group (blake ran it in 22 mins which is awesome since it included T2) but that was just fine.

then we all went out to mexican food together and when we got home a little before 7 blake and I went to the grocery store and bought some ben and jerry's (best flavor ever: everything but the) which we consumed while watching an episode of the office and then heading off to bed.

overall, not a bad event. I won't be doing any more triathlons this year/season, but the trifreaks group that put this event on said they might do another indoor one in oct/nov and I think that would be fun to do. again with the goal of completion not speed, but isn't it cool that I've done a triathlon while pregnant? I think so. and it would be cool to say I did another after the babies are born. even if I do it really, really slow.

--note: I was going to include pictures, but we forgot to take them at the race. I have some blurry ones of dinner but I can't find the camera right now... so no pictures again, sorry.

week 17 appointment

The summary of my doctor's appt yesterday is: LAME! but, as I promised I'd blog about it, here goes:


Bad news (more accurately titled "things I didn't want to hear"):

• me: I have a headache every morning. can I do something or take something other than tylenol? doc: suck it up, this is just the beginning.
• me: my allergies are getting pretty bad. if I can't take claratin is there something else I can take? doc: suck it up, this is just the beginning.
• me: what if my knees lock when I'm pregnant and I can't get them unlocked? should I avoid certain knee positions or tell the urgent care doc anything specific? just tell them you're pregnant, they'll figure something out.
• me: my shoulders/upper back are tense every afternoon. is it my posture? can I do some stretch or exercise? doc: sounds like you have tension headaches and it's traveling down to your shoulders. are you over stressed? you seem like an over stressed person to me. just relax.
• me: well, can we see them? doc: no, you can't see them every appt, you'll have to wait until your next appt before you get another ultrasound.

neutral news:

• nurse: just so you know, you've gained a lot of weight since your last visit. the doc will prob want to talk to you about that. doc: eh, it's fine, you're having twins, it's not too much. (note: I've gained about 12 lbs since the beginning - according to my books 7-13 lbs is appropriate at this stage so I'm just on the high end, not over the range)
• later, doc: your belly is measuring big for your weeks. so probably all your weight is going there.

good news:

• me: can I see a dietitian (ie will you refer me to one for free) so that I can make sure I'm eating appropriately? doc: sure. (note: the only protein I'm getting is chicken and soy, I'm getting enough according to the books, but I want to know if I should taken an iron supplement, etc)
• heard two heartbeats, so they're both still in there and beating away.

so now you see why my appt was lame. no ultrasound, no cures for my pregnancy maladies, essentially nothing. the doc did recommend I get one of those smelly microwavable neck things so I ordered one from amazon and it's on its way. hopefully that will help something but... hrumpf. that's what I say. hrumpf.

week 17

sorry for the lack of posting lately. I promise two posts in the next week - friday we have our 17 week appt and on sunday we're doing a triathlon! what, you say? fear not though, it's the easiest / make-what-you-will-of-it triathlon I've ever done (or heard of). instead of an outdoor swim in a crazy cold lake, it's indoor in a pool and instead of being distance based, the swim and bike are timing based. as in, swim for 15 minutes and you get credit for how many laps you swam instead of how long does it take you to swim half a mile type of a thing. and the bike is poolside, on a trainer - which is good because my doc nixed biking because of the leaning over (which you don't have to do while on a trainer) and becasue of potential crashes (which can't happen on a trainer either). then there's the run, or in my case walk. it is distance based but it's only 2.8 miles so it may take me awhile, but I'm doing it gosh darn it. blake, heidi (blake's mom), brianne and jackie (remember them from my wedding, they were my bridesmaids) and jackie's fiance dave will also be competing. I'm sure they'll be going farther than me in the given time, but it will be fun to do together regardless. so I'll post about that too and that will make 3 whole posts in a week. :)

but for now, here's my standard weekly post for week 17 (tomorrow)...
- 5 inches, size of a baked potato or turnip
- 4 oz
- the babies are working on their sucking and swallowing reflexes
- fingernails and toenails are starting to grow
- skeleton is changing from soft cartilage to bone
- starting to develop sweat glands

movement... possibly. I think maybe I can feel them move. hard to say for sure, but a couple nights in a row as I've been lying down I've felt what I first though was my pulse. but... why would I be feeling my pulse right below my belly button? perhaps this is the butterfly/flutter feeling others describe? so I'm not sure, but since it's happened more than once I'm excited to think that soon I'll feel more!

happy st patty's day!

16 weeks

Ta da! This is what the babies look like this week:

I love multiple-of-four weeks because then I get another one of these pictures (image courtesy of http://www.babycenter.com/). they're getting so big! At our 6 week ultrasound you could just see two sacks - you could barely see the babies and the sacks had plenty of room between them. At first glance at 12 weeks I thought the sacks had joined because they were pushing up against one another (but turns out there was a line between them which the doc said looked "very nice"). but there was still room for each baby in its sack. I'm thinking when we go in next week we'll see something more like above - where the babies are taking up most of the room in their little sacks. crazy.

So what are the stats this week?
- 4.5 inches, the size of an avocado
- 3.5 ounces
- I still haven't felt movement, but am hoping I will soon!
- the babies are working on their facial expressions; squinting, yawning, grimacing, etc
- skin is currently see-through, but as they fatten up it will become opaque.
- hearts are pumping 25 quarts of blood each day.

:D

week 15

tomorrow is week 15. 3/8 of a full term pregnancy.

here's what the little ones are up to this week:
- almost 4 inches! (remember that envelope? it's a closer estimate now, or one website says that's the size of a kit-kat bar)
- almost 2 ounces. that would be almost doubled from last week. crazy crazy.
- another website mentions movement this week! last night as we were going to bed I felt something. I'm going to say it was likely not baby movement, but hey... it could have been!
- the babies have little necks. or, as one website says, "Baby's head is now resting on his well-formed neck instead of directly on his shoulders like Igor." good, good.
- eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair are beginning to grow this week
- the babies can sense light! blake doesn't believe this, but that's what one website says. their eyes are still sealed shut, but apparently they can sense light (just like when you were happily sleeping and then somebody turns the light I'm thinking). impressive that they can sense light through their eyelids and through all of me!

speaking of all of me, this morning's post-breakfast (and breakfast was a post-brand cereal in fact) weight is up 7.5 lbs from pre-pregnancy. I've made myself a nice excel spreadsheet (because I like things like that) with min and max weight gains proposed by a combination of books and websites and it shows that at 15 weeks I should be between 6.3 and 11.1 lbs gained (those are numbers for twins). so that's good and on-track.

as far as whether I'm showing, the answer is mostly yes to people who know me, no to people on the street / in the grocery store, etc. maternity pants are more comfy than regular jeans now, and in order to find a shirt long enough to cover the top of the maternity pants, I've been wearing maternity tops. but that's more of a length issue than a large-tummy issue.

so that's life this week! next doc appt is at 17 weeks, on march 19. I'm pretty sure we won't know gender until 20 weeks, but I'm mildly hopeful that we'll find out at 17 weeks!

more "stuff"/gear research

Remember that stroller? I almost bought it on Friday for $75? Well, Blake and I woke up early on Sunday and went back to the sale and... we now own it! Upsides: we only paid $37.50 for it because all items that were unsold at the end of the day Saturday were marked half off for Sunday. Downsides: in reality, it's not in the best shape. It's missing the basket, has some stickers on it, and has been well loved. But, I read on one of the multiples chatboards (that I now read) that a lot of the moms have 3+ twin strollers for different purposes, plus single strollers for when the kids aren't together. So, if we're about to have multiple strollers, then they can't all go around costing $400. which is what this stroller retails for. So yay for 90% off!


two funny stroller stories (I figure part of the point of this blog is for your entertainment purposes, so I wouldn't want to disappoint!):
1) after we were done examining the stroller at the sale and had decided to buy it, I told blake he should wheel it to the checkout line. So he whirlled it around and... smack! right into another stroller w/ a kid in it! LOL! it was not a hard smack, I don't think the kid even noticed. I was busy laughing rudely when I looked up at the parents who were not thinking it was quite as funny. but seriously, it was funny. we are going to have some adventures learning to be wider and less mobile than we're used to.
2) so we bought it and took it out to the car. the wonderful, wonderful prius that we love. opened the trunk. alright, move the pillows into the back seat. okay, and the camp chair. and the yoga mat. now the trunk is empty. put it in. try it this way. wheels down? wheels up? if we fold down the seat... no, wait, can't fold down the seat if you're planning to have two car seats in the car... so eventually we got it to fit. but there is only one way that puppy is fitting and we were laughing pretty hard as we found ourselves once again envisioning a future life wherein there's a double stroller in the trunk, two car seats in the back and who knows where the diaper bag will fit... pretty funny.



our other major accomplishment for the weekend was deciding on some IKEA baby furniture. well, it's really adult furniture, but one of my books (Baby Bargains) said to look for baby furniture anywhere other than places that had "baby" in the name. and it's so true. furniture I'd found previously was either $500 for a dresser or $200 but of terrible quality according to reviews. but wait, ikea furniture is of good enough quality to be throughout our house, and a dresser is a dresser... so we now have a line of ikea furniture that we like that ranges from $80-$120 for the pieces we like. So that's awesome.

we're also starting to narrow into a carseat that we like. so lots of decision-making progress. I'll just pat myself on the back right now. well done team.


alrighty, that's all for now. happy march everyone.