Sunday, March 15, 2009

We now return to our regularly scheduled appointments...

We had 3 unscheduled appts this week - one with the gastro-intestinal specialist, one for blood work and yet a third for an ultrasound- just not of the babies. The pain below J's ribcage has not gone away and the Pep.cid AC Max Strength that our dr put her on isn't helping. (Side note - J has a high tolerance for pain - she once had major dental work done without novicane because she was in her tww.) For a little at home relief, we tried to put heat on the pain but that didn't work; J finds more relief with ice. Either way it is difficult treat because the area of pain is so close to Baby B along with J's ribcage. Our dr referred us to a specialist to make sure it wasn't J's kidneys or gallbladder or some other internal issue. Wednesday we went to the specialist where we should mention that we were the only people who didn't walk in with a cane. The dr said he didn't want to do much invasive testing because of the pregnancy so he started J with blood work and an ultrasound. Of course, they didn't have a ultrasound machine in the office and because of our insurance we had to go to a different place for the blood work. After the appointment, we made our way to the other clinic for J to give blood and then we made the ultrasound appt for the next morning (which was at the hospital). We are going to be able to drive to the hospital blindfolded when J goes into labor we are there so often. ;) In the waiting room for the ultrasound, we were again the youngest people by a good 50 years. They took an ultrasound of J's stomach, kidneys, gallbladder, liver and aorta. Still not sure why the aorta, but we're not the drs. We got a call Friday morning from the specialist saying that the ultrasound and blood work all came back normal. That's a relief, but we still don't know what the pain is. We are now assuming it is ligament/muscle stretching or maybe even something slightly torn as J's belly has grown insanely over the past 4 weeks. She looks at least 7 months pregnant (with a singleton) and we are only in our 5th month! We have our regularly scheduled appointment with our ob tomorrow afternoon so we'll see what she says about J's pain. She's also going to do the first cervix check which will be an indicator of whether J is at risk for preterm labor or not. YIKES! BE LONG, THICK AND CLOSED CERVIX!!

A few other pregnancy symptoms have begun in the past week or so. J's begun to leak very small amounts from her breasts. Nothing noticable, but J knows. Also, J can't believe how heavy her belly is. We wonder why we never hear pregnant people speak of this! Her balance is definitely off these days - M has had to save the day a few times so J didn't topple over ;) J's appetite has been good, but nothing exceptionally crazy like we thought it would be. And as for sleep, J is up every morning from approx 5am - 7am like clockwork. Luckily she works from home most of the time so that she can fall back to sleep for another hour or so at 7. Unfortunately, sometimes she accidentally wakes M up during this time, which leaves a very tired girl heading to work at 8. Our dr said that J would probably not be able to travel after 20 weeks due to discomfort more than anything else. At the time we were about 14 weeks and couldn't really comprehend what she meant but now that we are over 21 weeks and J did travel down to DC this week, we know where she was coming from. Between the early train ride down followed by 2 fully packed long days in the office and the late ride back, J was SPENT! Not to mentioned the pain under her ribs hurt her 10 fold because of all the extra movement and bags she has to carry on these trips. We think her traveling days are definitely numbered at this point.

In exciting news - M felt the babies kick for the first time yesterday!!! Actually, she felt them kick a LOT in the past 2 days - they must have been getting their workouts in. :) It is really awesome that we both get to share this pregnancy experience together! J definitely thinks the kicks are getting harder and feel more like kicks then butterflies in her stomach.

On Friday, we received a package from a really good friend. When we opened it, inside were two ADORABLE little baby girl onesies! It wasn't until then that we realized that we had not bought any gender specific baby clothes yet. These onesies were tiny and pink with ruffles on the sleeves and were definitely 100% Baby Girl! We preceeded to go on a bit of a shopping spree this weekend. Our nursery closet is now filled with adorable baby girl clothes. (We love Tar.get!) Let's hope tomorrow's appointment doesn't throw us for another gender surprise! (We'll hold onto the receipts for a while just in case) :)

Our respective sisters are each planning a baby shower, one in Scranton and one in DC. Last weekend we registered and were surprised at how exhausting it is! So much research, so many choices...! Between the 3 stores we registered at (we had to find stores that were in each location of our showers/family) we think we finally got everything we will need. Now we wait just a few short months for our daughters to arrive! (oh, and we need to set up the nursery too!)

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Oh boy... Or should we say GIRL?

We had our 20 week anatomy scan yesterday. It was so nice to spend almost an hour and a half looking at our babies! They meticulously measured and analyzed every bone and organ in their little bodies and we were told that everything looked absolutely perfect! Baby A’s estimated weight is 11 ounces, is approximately 10 inches long and is measuring 20 weeks and 1 day! PERFECT! Baby B’s estimated weight is 13 ounces, is also approximately 10 inches long and is measuring 20 weeks and 3 days! YAY! The specialist asked if we wanted to know the sexes and we said, we were already told it is one boy and one girl but yes, please verify :) Well good thing she did because our little BOY is not a little BOY afterall! She is 100% WOMAN! Errr well Baby girl! There was DEFINITELY NO male package in between those legs! Perhaps it was part umbilical cord or that the female parts were still swollen (as they are when they are very small) but it was crystal clear to all of us yesterday – we are DEFINITELY having TWIN GIRLS! BRING ON THE PINK! The ultrasound pictures we got (albeit about 100 of them) don’t even almost do justice to the amazing images we saw on the screen. We’ll try to post one or two of the better ones in the next few days.

For the past week, J had been feeling a strange, yet strong, burning feeling right below the center of her ribcage. It didn’t feel like heartburn to her, as she also has that lovely symptom. So after about 5 days of this pain, we decided to call our dr. Of course, it had snowed 6 inches the night before and the office was closed so they paged our dr. J told her about the burning and she thought it might be acid reflux, which is intensified with multiples. J again said, well it doesn’t feel like it because it doesn’t go up my esophagus or anything, it feels like acid is right under my skin. She told us to go to the hospital and she’d have them run some tests. We didn’t have to go to the ER, just to an outpatient type of maternity area, much like where our specialist is located. We were the only ones there so check in was easy and quick. They first checked the babies heartbeats and they were perfectly beating in the 150 bpm range. They put a contractions monitor on J’s belly while they ran through a list of questions and took lots of blood. The resident on duty, in speaking with our dr as well, thought it was just acid reflux and gave J some nasty tasting medicine to see if it helped at all while we waited for the blood work results. J did actually feel some relief from the pain. Two hours later and a shift change later, another resident came in and told us the blood work all came back normal and just to take Tum.s every 2 hours or so. She did mention that J's hemoglobin came back low, 9, and asked if J was on iron supplements. We said, yes and the resident said our dr will probably up the dose to prescription Ferra.let. We looked at her saying, that’s what J’s been on for over a month! Sheesh. J eats red meat every other night as it is, is taking the strongest prescription iron supplements out there and is STILL anemic?! Anyway, J decided to eat a very very bland diet for a few days to see if the acid subsides some along with taking Tum.s several times a day. J isn’t sure how well it’s working but we are both assuming that her stomach must be pretty raw at this point from the days before J started to take anything for it. We hope in a few more days, she’ll have full relief of this pain and just have the old run of the mill pregnancy heartburn.

Now that we know exactly where Baby A and Baby B are situated, we now blame Baby B for all the rib pain J’s been having. She is situated right under J’s ribcage, head on the left side, legs on the right. Not so oddly enough, the rib pain is on the right side. Do we have a soccer player on our hands?

In other news, J looks like she swallowed a basketball. Her belly just protrudes straight out in front of her. M still thinks it is the most adorable baby belly ever but J just looks in the mirror and laughs at it. J has been thin her whole life so it is weird to see this thing sticking out of the front of her! M continues to talk to our girls several times a day (and apologizes for calling Baby B a boy for the past week) and rubs lotion on the growing belly every night! No stretch marks yet! ;)

In our last blog, we mentioned that we had 2 very heavy boxes delivered to our place – one changing table and one toybox. J guesses that M had eaten her Wheat.ies this past weekend because she dragged each box down the stairs, down the walkway to our car and then proceeded to get them into the trunk. J’s really not sure how she did it but was very happy to see M sliding the last box in as she approached the car. Once we got to the store, a man with a cart from the store help retrieved them. All in all, easy return. Now we just need to find a changer that matches our cribs! (Side note for Strawberry – the crib we got is the Bonavita Lifestyle Peyton crib - x 2 of course).

All in all, this pregnancy seems to be flying by as we are 20 weeks today! That means only 18 to go if the girls stay put! M’s sister is in the throws of planning our baby shower – so I guess the next thing we have to do is REGISTER! YAY!