Dreams and False Alarms

10 weeks, and all is well!

They look like real babies! They were dancing around (especially Stardust, the dancer), Ziggy didn't want to be disturbed, and just waved his little arms to get us to stop bothering him!
Such bliss to have live healthy babies!

Bra advice needed: the girls grew over the weekend. Yeesh. Do I just get a bigger regular bra, or do I go marternity bra?

9 weeks, 1 day, and I finally nearly barfed

So. Yesterday morning I had my usual piece of toast and 2 peaches (2 was treat!), and then, I thought, a hour and half later, I'd have another mini meal. At 10:30, visions of cheese burgers began dancing through my head. I really wanted a cheese burger. It was 11am. Well, I decided to be efficient and clear out a few tasks and phone calls, and then, well, I wasn't quite so hungry, so I decided I do a little more. I still really wanted a cheese burger.  Then I got a call from my dad, he wanted help with frequent flyer miles, so I thought "I'll go over there, grab a little snack, and then get something to eat before my 1pm meeting." No snacks to be had at Dad's house, and I'd left my snack bag at home (bad bad bad!) I solved my dad's problem, and as I was walking out of his house, the gag hit me. I held it back, but DAMN, it was hard. I ran home and ate 2 cheese sticks and a yogurt, and headed out for a meeting. I was still feeling gaggy, but not quite so bad. I ate something at the meeting which tided me over, but I got myself to an appropriate cheese burger outlet and chowed down, and DAMN, I felt a TON better .  The moral of the story is this: if the babies say they want a cheese burger at 11 am, you get them a cheese burger at 11am! I think I really needed a whack of protein. Sadly, I think pork is icky (now) and chicken isn't too far behind. But beef is my friend.  Lucky for me we have a  lot of burger places that serve high quality beef around here, so I can eat them without too much worry!

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Last night was my las PIO (progesterone in oil) shot. HOLY MOTHER! I looked forward to it all day, or something like that. Geeze. I guess with twins they can sometimes wean you earlier because you've got so much more circulating?  Seemed fishy to me, but hey,they're the doctors. I'm on Endometrin for another week, last one on the 27th. 

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We finally made some inroads on planning our vacation. We bought one leg of our plane tickets (gives us more flexibility in terms of seeing friends in Hawaii), and we booked a place to stay for 6 nights, and the rest of the time is still in the works. I am  SOOOO excited! I really wish I had a kindle. For me, vacation is about reading novel after novel, and that is kind of a problem when you have to lug all of your books with you! I know lots of places have book exchanges, but still, I want to choose a few of them!

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Recently on Facebook, a friend was reporting on her twins sleeping later one morning, and in the exchange, either she or her husband said that their strongest advice is to read a lot about sleep training before the babies come, or you'll be desperate and behind the curve when you really need to do sleep training!  My little nerdy heart swelled with excitement yesterday when I came across this book: Bedtiming! It's not about how, but rather when and why 'when' to attempt sleep training with your child. I love a good cognitive and developmental approach to a situation. Also, Moxie likes it, so that is practically the good housekeeping seal of approval!

Mostly, what is so exciting about this book is that it ushers me back into the realm of people who are going to have children to sleep train, and in terms of trains, this is platform I've been waiting to get picked up from for too damn long.

Two healthy heartbeats!

Whew! Both babies are healthy with nice strong heartbeats! Baby B is better positioned for pictures, so baby A is getting short shrift in terms of glamour shots, but enough to get the measurements and the heartbeat. Clearly, baby B takes after me: always posing for the camera, and baby A is more camera shy, like daddy! See, genetics aren't required for resemblance talk.

 

5 hours to go!

I woke up at 4 to pee, and decided to take my thyroid meds so I could have yogurt or milk by 8 am, and then I got back in bed and starting thinking. Not my usual anxious flipping out DBT's but, well....excited. Like going to Disneyland excited, going to the lake excited; excited!

Of course, ye old dread is there too, nipping at my excitement like some dark shadowy figure saying "well, maybe you lost one, or both, or their heartbeats will be slow." But then, I hit the accelerator, and leave dread in the dust for a while. It seems to me the dread is much more pro-forma than before, and that is a nice respite from the last 4 years (4 YEARS! SHIT!) of nearly constant negativity and loss.

I hope we get good news today, and a large part of me imagines we will, but I won't truly relax until I see those little hearts beating away, and get good measurements on their little crowns to rumps!

In other news, Husband and I are planning a beach vacation, location to be determined. We'd love to go to Barbados (they have a NICU!) or Curacao, but we have to go in late August or early September, and that is not so great hurricane avoidance wise. But Hawaii is not so great budget wise. It's doable, but to stay in a place where we are by the actual water, and not in a condo or in a high rise hotel, is WAY out of our price range.

I bought a bikini top yesterday. I know. Crazy. But here is what I am thinking: My enormous bosom (34 G for those of you keeping score at home) doesn't seem to fit in conventional maternity tankini's or even conventional tankini's. Most of the suits are made for much larger back and much smaller cups. XL's swim on me and don't contain the girls. So I went to a bra shop dedicated to pretty bras for busty girls and got a great bikini top, and then ordered a coordinating string bikini bottom from VC. The one that went with the suit was WAY TOO tiny, so I went with my old standby.  At the moment, I can't say as though I really feel as if the bod is bikini ready, but I also really hate swimming in a 1 piece, especially in the ocean; it feels like taking a bath with you clothes on! The shop owner, herself 7 months pregnant assured me that I'd be happiest in a bikini. I need to start Pilates as soon as the doc lets me, for back strength and left arm issues (can't really lay on that side.), so that will help to smooth out anything that can be smoothed, and then I'll wear a cover up the rest of the time.  

Alrighty! Off to feed the wee beasties, and straighten up for the housekeeper.  I'll update from my phone. Keep those thoughts and prayers a 'comin!

Progesterone level is good!

I finally hunted down my nurse, and my estrogen is over 2k, and progesterone is 37! Best to be over 30, so I'm just gonna relax for the next 22 hours!

Feeling a little less N-V-T-S (nuts) today **Updated

Damn. Yesterday REALLY sucked.

Thanks so much for all of your validation, although I managed to not demand any ultrasounds!

I think there is a part of me that wants to know, and another that doesn't. Probably some correlation between POASers and Non-POASers and how likely they are to demand an ultrasound?

Around 10 am I had a full on attack of the blechys and then it just didn't abate until about 6 (and that was partial retreat).

My nurse said she'd keep an eye for my lab results--pleasepleaseplease let them be good.

If I am continuing to be pregnant, I am going to need to get some new shirts ASAP. I am busting out of my shirts, anything with a v-neck looks scandalous. I am a busty gal, but more on the tear drop shaped end of the spectrum, so this new found cleavage is shocking. Also, it may just be a gas baby, but there is a seriously obvious rounded aspect to my belly, and my form fitting t-shirts aren't feeling so attractive. I think once I'm really showing, I'll be fine with it, but at this point, I just look pudgy.

I'll update if I hear from my nurse today.

***UPDATE: Hmm. Not sure what to think. My nurse emailed and said I could decrease my estrogen, and that they want me to repeat the progesterone next week. And then she said "Have a good night!"...Not sure what to think. I'm going to try to just not think about it too much until tomorrow morning, when I will hunt down SOME nurse and get some answers!

Anxiety, DBT's and 8 weeks 0 days, and wish for a womb with a view **updated

Ugh.

Yesterday, at 7 weeks 6 days I got a BAD attack of the DBT's (dead baby thoughts). And they persisted all through the night (one in which I got up to pee 4 times), and then I called my husband, who is having his own attack of DBT's while on the road for business. We agreed I'd call the office and see if any appointments had come up available, and the office, which opens at 7, had their night message on until 7:35!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Finally, finally the lovely attendant answered (the one who hunted down a doctor for me the day of the beta), and informed that that alas, all our doctors appointments were booked, all week. Ugh. She said she'd keep an eye out, and if anyone cancelled she'd call. I hope she really does, but I know she's got to have a lot of anxious infertile women calling her wanted some shred of special treatment. Oy.

So why? Why DBT's now? Call it trauma, call it what you will, but 7-9 weeks have not been kind to us in general.  With Sparky, we must have lost him quite early in week 7 because even though we had the D&C the day after we found out he'd died, they couldn't grow a culture to determine why we'd miscarried (as such, his sex is pure speculation). And with Fishy, we made it through the 8 week ultrasound, and even had another u/s the next day with our OB, and his little heart was in there thumping away, and then blamo, the next week, he'd died (we chose not to know the sex, but we assume he was male as most triploidy's are). 

And I felt like utter crap on Saturday, and then a bit better on Sunday (though tired, and I slept 9 hours and could have slept more), and then yesterday, my nausea was pretty mild, although I did take a nap in the afternoon. Ugh. I just want a womb with a view. Tom and Katie, I was wrong. I get it. Even if it is medically suspect to have an ultrasound machine, sign me up.

So I'm stuck here in limbo. Waiting for Friday, which is the day before my husbands long awaited 40th birthday party, and dear god I hope I'm still pregnant with two babies when Friday rolls around.

Shit.

**Update:

I really considered the advice to just get someone, somewhere to give me an ultrasound, but I decided to just wait until Friday.  I don't want bad news from anyone by my doctor. We call her Dr Calm for a reason. And I'm having a trauma reaction--doesn't mean the feelings aren't real, or that I'm bonkers, but that it is heightening my anxiety.  I decided to go get my progesterone and estrogen levels checked. When we lost Fishy, he was alive on the u/s, but the next day they told us my levels were low (very low, 9 or 10 I think). I figure if the levels are low, they'll make room for me, and if they are good to high, then I'll make myself calm down a little.  Feel free to keep the reassurance coming!

7 weeks and change

Sorry for the silence! Basically, if I were to post every day like Sprogblogger, you'd get a catalog of what I ate, and how crappy I felt afterwards, even though I HAD to eat!

So here is the scoop:

-No pink spotting, just wee amounts of the brown--it's almost like not spotting at all!

-I feel pretty good in the am, nausea is much more easily controlled by food at that point of the day, but come 1 or 2 pm, then I am at the mercy of the cravings vs the nausea.  It's oddly reassuring, although each morning I'm a bit worried that this is the day I'm going to feel fine and get freaked out. And yes, I know, sickness doesn't = healthy babies, but it is awfully reassuring.

-Even though I am eating in a very healthy way (mostly fruit, bran muffins, cereal, fruit, cheese, toast with peanut butter, etc etc etc), I am busting out of my pants. I was a bit puffed from the depression, and then the high estrogen BCP's and Lupron, and now I have the perma-bloat belly which doesn't fit into my few remaining fat pants...I've been brave and bought a few maternity transition type things (Bella band is not comfy--short waisted, makes me more uncomfortable!) but one pair of pants needs hemming, and I don't want to repeat the miscarriage miscommunication with my dry cleaner, so I need to go to a different one to get them hemmed, and pants that I wore last week, and then washed, are too tight. I've tried going up a size, but that doesn't work either. The pants are too big in the legs and hips, and maybe fit on the belly. Ugh. After next week's ultrasound, if we get the good news, I'm getting some pants, and a bathing suit because we are going to Hawaii! 

-Finally after all these fertility treatments, we have enough miles to fly the good seats (in coach) to Hawaii, and we are going ASAP.

-In very brave news, we decided to change OB/GYN's.  I started going to a large local practice when I moved here, and for the most part, it's been fine. My doctor, who was really responsive and wonderful left to start his own practice, and it was just easier to stay on with his old partners. The doctors are great, all of them, but the office is a mess. It took 3 days, and two calls to get an appointment, and that was just too much of a pain. And lingering in the background was some disappointment in my doctor because she never acknowledged my miscarriage last winter. She had seen us, and I did inform the office (who were pretty cold about it), and maybe my expectations are too high, but yeesh, even our vet clinic has an institutionalized process for acknowledging pet loss!  So I hunted down my old doc, checked him out on various parent websites, and decided to go back to him. He delivers all his own babies (except if he's on vacation, or two go at once?), and that was reassuring to us. We wanted to know who was going to deliver. He's a high risk OB, and handles twin pregnancies. Two surgeon's wrote on a parent website that they chose him for his skill in c-sections, so that seemed good.  

Now all we have to do is pass our 8 week ultrasound with nice high heartbeats, and viola! No, I know there will be a LOT of worries along the way, I didn't get a personality transplant along with my donor gametes, but I feel so much more confident of this pregnancy than my other two.

Off to nibble, moan and enjoy the heck out of every second of it!