Well, I guess the MFM that I saw last week was unclear about me not being on bedrest because I AM! I finished off work last week and then had my first visit on Saturday from the "Antepartum Care at Home" nurses (they will visit twice a week and call every day) and I am DEFINITELY on bedrest. I have to keep a record of baby movements, vaginal discharge and contractions and report it to them each day. At 28 weeks I will get once weekly non-stress tests at home too. CRAZY! Sheesh, I was really hoping to avoid being a high-risk pregnancy but I guess my body has other plans. I tend to get about 2-4 contractions an hour...which on their own, isn't the issue...it's the fact that I'm having cervical changes as well that's the issue. I have my next ultrasound and cervical measurement next Thursday (the 4th). I am SO hoping that it has stayed the same or even gotten better now that I am reclining or laying down all day! I am trying to keep myself occupied with books, movies and Netflix and so far it's working but I'm sure I will start to get bored soon...and this is only day 4 of bedrest! So...if anyone has suggestions of good movies, TV shows or books, let me know!
This brings me to the topic of single-embryo transfer, which had always been our plan until we only got 2 embryos and had to transfer on Day 2. I guess I am a PERFECT example of what they are trying to avoid by doing SET's. My clinic is pretty strict about transferring only one at a time for people who are "good prognosis" (young, no history of multiple failed cycles etc) unless they think there is a good chance you won't get pregnant at all if they transfer just one (like in our situation). I fully believe in doing SETs to decrease multiple-births related to fertility treatments (kind of hilarious, considering my current situation). When I worked on a pediatric ward I saw many many formerly premature babies in with pneumonia, influenza, feeding issues, cerebral palsy etc. And we know that twins are at much higher risk of being premature. I know this is controversial, and its not like I am regretting my twins (I am so incredibly in love with these babies, please don't get me wrong!) but a singleton pregnancy would have been much lower risk. Just food for thought. Its hard though, to make the decision to transfer only one when there is so much money involved. You want to give yourself the best chance when you are laying down that kind of cash! However, there are studies that give almost equal pregnancy rates with one good-looking blastocyst transferred as compared to 2 or 3 transferred but with a non-existent multiples rate. Still, it's a hard sell! I think the solution is better funding for IF treatments. In Canada, only one province (Quebec) funds IVF and they have decreased their multiple-birth rate dramatically (therefore saving the healthcare system millions of dollars in preemie-care). They will pay for 3 IVF cycles as long as only one embryo is transferred in people under 35 and only 2 in people over 35. Paying for these cycles, and therefore avoiding a bunch of premature multiples saves them TONS of money! I wish all the provinces here would get a clue and follow in Quebec's footsteps! I'm no economist but it just makes sense! Our healthcare system is very different from the States so I am speaking from a purely Canadian perspective. Anyone else have opinions about this?
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
26 Weeks (and damn you cervix!)
So...just got back from an ultrasound with a Maternal-Fetal Medicine doctor...and it looks like my cervix is not cooperating! I got to have a date with the dildo cam and it showed lowest measurement of 1.8cm (bad!) and highest 2.5cm (OK but not great). The doctor wants me off work as of Friday. The babies look great so they aren't the concern, it's just my stupid body of course. We even got 3D pictures of them. They are SO cute! I just need my body to cooperate so they can be bigger and stronger before we officially meet them! The MFM doesn't want me on bedrest, he just wants me taking it easy and relaxing as much as possible. He'll see me again in 2 weeks and in the meantime a nurse will be coming to the house (not sure how often) to do non-stress tests and keep an eye on me. If I start to feel any strong contractions, I'm supposed to call his office immediately. I actually know a girl who this exact thing happened to her with her twins and she delivered them at 38 weeks so I'm trying not to panic, I just hope I follow in her footsteps! Please send some "long and closed" vibes to my cervix! It NEEDS to behave! We are NOT ready to meet these babies yet!
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Almost 24 weeks!
Not a lot going on around here! Hard to believe that on Tuesday I will be 24 weeks! That is a huge milestone in any pregnancy since it is considered "viability". Although, according to the OB I saw two weeks ago at the hospital, 23 week babies are able to be saved now. Amazing! I had my first official OB appointment on Wednesday (up until now, I've just been seeing midwives) and really really like my OB. Unfortunately at the hospital I'll be delivering at, it is a bit of a crap-shoot as to which OB will attend your delivery. Some are amazing and others, not so much. (T works with all of them and there are some he wouldn't let touch me with a ten-foot-pole he says, so hopefully they won't be on-call when the time comes!) We'll just have to hope and pray that if I do end up being able to deliver vaginally, that a good OB is on-call. I am becoming more and more used to the idea that there is a pretty good chance I'll need a c-section though, which is huge for me since I used to be (before infertility messed up the trust I have in my body), very pro natural birth. If the presenting twin is breech (or both are), I'll need a c-section for sure. Not ideal but hey, at this point, it's all about getting them here safely and healthy! Maybe they'll listen to my lectures and stay head-down like they were at the last ultrasound. Time will tell!
T is making amazing progress with the cribs (I'll get a picture up at some point). They look great! Also, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are planning a shower for me on April 7th. So close! Crazy to think that I will be having a baby shower! I honestly still don't believe I am getting babies out of all this! I don't think I will believe it 100% until they are in my arms! One cool thing is that they are moving SO much lately. When one of them kicks hard, you can see my tummy jump and yesterday I even saw one moving under my skin! Kinda freaky! Anyways, hope everyone has a great week!
T is making amazing progress with the cribs (I'll get a picture up at some point). They look great! Also, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are planning a shower for me on April 7th. So close! Crazy to think that I will be having a baby shower! I honestly still don't believe I am getting babies out of all this! I don't think I will believe it 100% until they are in my arms! One cool thing is that they are moving SO much lately. When one of them kicks hard, you can see my tummy jump and yesterday I even saw one moving under my skin! Kinda freaky! Anyways, hope everyone has a great week!
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
22 weeks and some drama...
I've made it to 22 weeks! Yay! We even bought carseats on the weekend because they were on sale. But alas, things cannot go smoothly for long with me. Last night I started to feel more and more Braxton-Hicks contractions and by this morning just felt miserable. Really crampy and an upset stomach. I went to work but basically did nothing because I had no energy. At lunch I finally called my midwife's office and they sent me straight to the hospital for potential pre-term labor. UGH! I spent 4 hours there getting bloodwork, urine tests and a vaginal exam. They don't think that the babies are in any imminent danger of being born but that I must be very careful to monitor my symptoms. The OB that I saw today said that if my cervix is any shorter at my next ultrasound (in 2 weeks) then she wants me to go off work. CRAZY! I'll only be 24 weeks! Of course I'll do it because I will do ANYTHING to ensure these babies have the best chance but I was not expecting to be off work that soon. So...say and little prayer for me and the babies if you think of it! I want them to cook for MUCH longer!
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Anatomy Scan
The ultrasound went well yesterday. Both babies are growing and doing what they are supposed to! It was so amazing to see them interacting a bit...at one point Baby B was sitting on Baby A's face making it very hard to get a profile picture of Baby A! Typical siblings, fighting already! The tech anticipates that I will have ultrasounds about every 4 weeks now but we'll see what my midwife and OB say. We managed not to find out the genders! It was really tempting though but we stayed strong!
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
20 Weeks!
I'm "half-way" through my pregnancy...although there is no way that I will go until 40 weeks so I'm definitely more than half-way! My anatomy scan is tomorrow which I am SO looking forward to! I can't wait to see them again! Like I said in an earlier post, we aren't going to find out the genders but I'm sure it will be VERY tempting once we are there in that ultrasound room!
The other day I thought I was having Braxton-Hicks contractions which kind of freaked me out. I paged my midwife who reassured me that they can start a lot earlier in twin pregnancies but to keep a close eye out for other signs of preterm labor. Ugh. That gave me a few rough days when I was sure that every twinge was the start of labor! Now that I've had this "contraction" feeling for a few days, I'm actually thinking that it is the babies shifting around, it seems like only part of my stomach gets hard so I don't think that would happen with a contraction. I am definitely feeling them move a lot more now. The other day in church, one of them was doing somersaults! What a cool feeling! I think he/she liked the music!
Work has been VERY stressful lately which is hard...I just can't wait to go on mat leave! One year off! Hurray for Canada! Sorry to all my American readers! I am an RN but I don't work in a hospital. I work in a public health office where we do immunizations, communicable-disease follow-up (TB etc), breastfeeding support, answer random questions, go and do health presentations in schools etc. Our upper management recently decided that we don't work enough evenings and weekends to "meet the needs of the community" so they are going to totally screw with our schedules! It is so frustrating because they never even did any kind of study or anything to see if people would use our services more on the weekends and evenings! With their new "improved" schedule they are proposing, we will be working more than quadruple the number of evenings and weekends we do now. UGH! That's going to make child-care very difficult once I come back to work because T is a nurse as well and works shifts. Why these "manager" people make decisions without actually talking to us or our clients, I will never know. It's making work a very unhappy place right now! STRESSFUL!
Well, since I am typing this at work I better go...I'll let you know how my scan goes tomorrow!
The other day I thought I was having Braxton-Hicks contractions which kind of freaked me out. I paged my midwife who reassured me that they can start a lot earlier in twin pregnancies but to keep a close eye out for other signs of preterm labor. Ugh. That gave me a few rough days when I was sure that every twinge was the start of labor! Now that I've had this "contraction" feeling for a few days, I'm actually thinking that it is the babies shifting around, it seems like only part of my stomach gets hard so I don't think that would happen with a contraction. I am definitely feeling them move a lot more now. The other day in church, one of them was doing somersaults! What a cool feeling! I think he/she liked the music!
Work has been VERY stressful lately which is hard...I just can't wait to go on mat leave! One year off! Hurray for Canada! Sorry to all my American readers! I am an RN but I don't work in a hospital. I work in a public health office where we do immunizations, communicable-disease follow-up (TB etc), breastfeeding support, answer random questions, go and do health presentations in schools etc. Our upper management recently decided that we don't work enough evenings and weekends to "meet the needs of the community" so they are going to totally screw with our schedules! It is so frustrating because they never even did any kind of study or anything to see if people would use our services more on the weekends and evenings! With their new "improved" schedule they are proposing, we will be working more than quadruple the number of evenings and weekends we do now. UGH! That's going to make child-care very difficult once I come back to work because T is a nurse as well and works shifts. Why these "manager" people make decisions without actually talking to us or our clients, I will never know. It's making work a very unhappy place right now! STRESSFUL!
Well, since I am typing this at work I better go...I'll let you know how my scan goes tomorrow!
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
19 weeks!
Crazy hard to believe...but I'm 19 weeks today! T and I got home last night from a long weekend in Portland and he even convinced me that buying 2 crib mattresses was a good idea! I have 2 crib mattresses in my garage! Now he is going to get started on the cribs. The style I like is called "Oeuf Classic" and looks like this...
Nice and simple and modern. It retails for $970 (gasp!) but with T making it will be like $100! I'm very lucky to have a handy husband! (Insert joke here, those of you with sick minds!!)
In not-so-fun news, I have been dealing with excruciating back pain over the last 2 weeks. Sitting is agony for me, I can only get comfortable laying flat or standing which is difficult since I spend quite a bit of my work day at my desk making phone calls. It doesn't seem like typical "pregnancy-related" back pain because it is more upper-back on my left side. Even as I write this, I am squirming in pain. UGH! I have no idea what I did to it. I've had 3 massages since it started and nothing seems to help. So weird. And, of course, I can't take any pain meds! That being said, of course I'd suffer through this pain for the rest of the pregnancy if it meant having 2 healthy babies at the end...it just makes everyday life kind of miserable.
The main reason we went down to Portland (besides the fact that it is an awesome city) was to look at a few travel trailers for our property in Washington. Since we bought this property last year we have just camped in our tent when we've gone down there but with two babies on the way, I figured we would barely use it at all this summer if it meant tenting with babies. It can get quite cold and wet at night since it is right on the ocean and for just the two of us, we can deal, but I would not feel comfortable with the babies there. That being said, we are YEARS away from being able to build a home on it (like 10 years, I'm thinking) so buying a trailer to park there just makes sense. We ended up finding one in Portland and T will go pick it up and tow it to our place in Westport, Washington in 2 weeks! So excited to decorate it (it has some pretty hideous upholstery and light fixtures that need to be swapped out!) and have an easy get-away once the babies are here! Going there this summer will be very different than last summer when we could both be out surfing or go for endless walks on the beach. Baby-carriers are a definite must for us since we LOVE walking on the beach! I'm guessing I won't be surfing this year but me and the babies can cheer Daddy (that made me tear up, writing that word) on from the shore.
Since learning we had to do IVF, I've been participating in an infertility forum that has been a huge support to me. A girl I met on there who did IVF (her 2nd round, after a horrible experience with her 1st IVF including a long hospitalization for OHSS and an ectopic) a few weeks after me and got pregnant, just found out that her baby has a 1 in 6 chance of Down Syndrome. Ugh. She is booked for an amnio today. I'm not sure what they are going to do if the amnio comes back positive (she told me that they aren't going to make any decisions until they get the results) but it is going to be really really hard for me to understand if she chooses to terminate the pregnancy. You see, I have grown up surrounded by amazing people who HAPPEN to have Down Syndrome because my mom works with them in the school system. I have also worked with these kids extensively in my career both at the hospital and now in the community. Obviously parenting a child with special-needs is challenging (I've heard that parenting ANY child is challenging...) but to end a pregnancy based on this is hard for me to understand. Of course, she may choose not to terminate the pregnancy and then I'd love to hook her up with some of the families my mom works with (this woman and I live very close to each other and attended the same IF clinic). Those of you who pray, will you pray for her as she and her husband find out the official news in the next few days and decide what to do? Positive thoughts also welcome!
Well, another random post but I feel like something has clicked and I can write again. Hope you all are having a good start to your week!
In not-so-fun news, I have been dealing with excruciating back pain over the last 2 weeks. Sitting is agony for me, I can only get comfortable laying flat or standing which is difficult since I spend quite a bit of my work day at my desk making phone calls. It doesn't seem like typical "pregnancy-related" back pain because it is more upper-back on my left side. Even as I write this, I am squirming in pain. UGH! I have no idea what I did to it. I've had 3 massages since it started and nothing seems to help. So weird. And, of course, I can't take any pain meds! That being said, of course I'd suffer through this pain for the rest of the pregnancy if it meant having 2 healthy babies at the end...it just makes everyday life kind of miserable.
The main reason we went down to Portland (besides the fact that it is an awesome city) was to look at a few travel trailers for our property in Washington. Since we bought this property last year we have just camped in our tent when we've gone down there but with two babies on the way, I figured we would barely use it at all this summer if it meant tenting with babies. It can get quite cold and wet at night since it is right on the ocean and for just the two of us, we can deal, but I would not feel comfortable with the babies there. That being said, we are YEARS away from being able to build a home on it (like 10 years, I'm thinking) so buying a trailer to park there just makes sense. We ended up finding one in Portland and T will go pick it up and tow it to our place in Westport, Washington in 2 weeks! So excited to decorate it (it has some pretty hideous upholstery and light fixtures that need to be swapped out!) and have an easy get-away once the babies are here! Going there this summer will be very different than last summer when we could both be out surfing or go for endless walks on the beach. Baby-carriers are a definite must for us since we LOVE walking on the beach! I'm guessing I won't be surfing this year but me and the babies can cheer Daddy (that made me tear up, writing that word) on from the shore.
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| Last year's set-up... |
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| Beautiful beach out front...ready for sand castles! |
Since learning we had to do IVF, I've been participating in an infertility forum that has been a huge support to me. A girl I met on there who did IVF (her 2nd round, after a horrible experience with her 1st IVF including a long hospitalization for OHSS and an ectopic) a few weeks after me and got pregnant, just found out that her baby has a 1 in 6 chance of Down Syndrome. Ugh. She is booked for an amnio today. I'm not sure what they are going to do if the amnio comes back positive (she told me that they aren't going to make any decisions until they get the results) but it is going to be really really hard for me to understand if she chooses to terminate the pregnancy. You see, I have grown up surrounded by amazing people who HAPPEN to have Down Syndrome because my mom works with them in the school system. I have also worked with these kids extensively in my career both at the hospital and now in the community. Obviously parenting a child with special-needs is challenging (I've heard that parenting ANY child is challenging...) but to end a pregnancy based on this is hard for me to understand. Of course, she may choose not to terminate the pregnancy and then I'd love to hook her up with some of the families my mom works with (this woman and I live very close to each other and attended the same IF clinic). Those of you who pray, will you pray for her as she and her husband find out the official news in the next few days and decide what to do? Positive thoughts also welcome!
Well, another random post but I feel like something has clicked and I can write again. Hope you all are having a good start to your week!
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