Catch up

I haven't blogged in a while, so now that I'm confined to a recliner for a half hour I thought I'd try to catch up a bit.

20 weeks came at the beginning of January and they did the full anatomy scan on the babies, measuring and looking at all sorts of stuff. They of course confirmed two girls! During this visit they realized that Baby A only has a 2VC - two vessel umbilical cord (when it should be a three vessel cord). Dr Beal set me up to see Dr Blake again (whom I had seen before some weeks back). Dr Blake is a Perinatologist (aka high risk baby doctor) who used to be in the same group as Dr Beal but now has her own group two floors down.
Our appointment on January 31st:
Baby A (2VC) measured 1lb 11oz, and Baby B measured 1lb 6oz! So basically baby A said "I don't need no stinking 3rd Vessel!"
At our next appointment with Dr Blake, Baby B was still smaller, she was in the 12th percentile, while Baby A was in the 44th percentile. Dr Blake was still not concerned but just continued to say we'll monitor her, and she may hit a growth spurt, and they hit those growth spurts at different times.
By our appointment on March 15th, Baby B had hit a growth spurt and was in the 20th percentile, and Baby A in the 45th percentile. They were 3lbs 8oz and 3lbs 3oz accordingly. They were pleased, and we were too!


Back tracking a bit, on January 30th at 24 weeks I went for my glucose test. I had heard all kinda of horror stories about how bad the orange drink tastes but honestly it wasn't that bad. Wait an hour. Draw your blood. You're done. Sylvia my nurse called me a few days later to tell me that I had failed the test and would need to go for the three hour test. The three hour test was basically the same thing I had to drink the orange stuff, wait an hour, they would draw blood, wait an hour, draw blood, wait an hour, draw blood. It was pretty boring sitting in the waiting room I had my iPad and a book to keep me entertained. Low and behold I failed that test too, so I have gestational diabetes. They set me up with a dietitian and a nurse that specialized in gestational diabetes. They put me on a fairly regimented diet. It is a mixture of proteins, "good" carbs, and fats. It really was not a HUGE change to my diet, just no more splurges, haha. However, I learned I was eating the wrong things at the wrong time of the day. For example now I avoid milk or fruit for breakfast. I typically eat two pieces of whole wheat toast with butter/margarine and two eggs, in case you're wondering. I miss cereal!!! :-/ I also have to check my blood sugar 4 times a day. Overall I think having gestational diabetes has helped me to not gain an excessive amount of weight, because I very rarely "cheat".


Since mid February (26 weeks) I've been going to see one of the doctors every week. On one hand it has been nice to check in on the babies, on the other hand that's a lot of trips to the doctor and sitting and waiting. In mid-March (30 weeks) they started going what are called biophysical profiles (BPP's). This test is done with the ultrasound machine. Basically the ultrasound tech checks each baby for four things: body movement, muscle tone (babies flexing arms/legs/etc.), amniotic fluid levels, and practicing breathing. The last one seems to take the longest for the tech to see. The babies practice breathing by literally breathing in the fluids, very weird! Sometimes, the babies are slow to show off this talent, so they have to get this little buzzer device to wake them up a bit. They've passed their BPP's every time but sometimes it just takes a while to see everything because they're so crammed in there. Now back to why I'm stuck in a chair for 30 minutes (from the opening of my post), today in addition to the BPP they wanted to put me on a contraction monitor. So I had to sit there about half an hour, it should have only been 20 minutes but the tech forgot to turn on the recorder.... sigh. Oh well it was a comfy recliner :) I had one contraction in the 20 minutes I was recorded. This didn't seem alarming.


Overall I'm doing well at 32 weeks. Still working, and no restrictions. Just swelling quite a bit which is uncomfortable so I usually go straight home to the recliner and prop my feet way up. At work I'm getting all the questions like: "you're still here?!" "Have they talked about bed rest?" "When are you going to stop working?" along with the usual "when are you due?" and similar questions. I also tend to hear "you look great for having twins" or "you look small for twins" quite a bit, I guess I'm supposed to look like a pufferfish at this point ;)


If you're still reading this, bless you... Sorry for the long blog and babbling, I really hope to keep up with this more often. It's wishful thinking anyway!

Happy Easter! He is Risen!