Archive for the ‘Second Trimester’ Category

It’s been an interesting few weeks, as the weekend before last Julie started having contractions. Week 16 and contracting? Not normal.

She knows how to listen to her body so she sat down immediately and gave herself some down time, but they started happening WHILE she was laying down too, so we thought it wise to contact our doctors and see what they thought.

A few phone calls later we had some appointments and tests lined up with our OB group and the high risk doctors we see in tandem. We visited the high risk OB first and did a cervix measurement and were told that the cervix was in fact, nice and long and that when we returned in a few weeks they would document, again, the length.

So from now on, every time we see the high risk OB there will be a cervix measurement involved.

After they had taken that measurement and assured us that everything looked fine, Julie was given a high five for paying attenion to the situation and bringing it to the attention of the doctor groups we visit. Way to go Julie! You know A BOATLOAD  about how you are supposed to feel. Most men I know would ignore it and keep on mowing like me.

***NOT THAT I MAKE MY PREGNANT WIFE MOW THE GRASS, although a little more help with digging trenches and the moat that I am constructing around our house would be appreciated. I’m not saying she’s lazy, but those two kids in her bell bell are a bad influence. What is this? SUMMER CAMP?

After she left the high risk OB she headed up to the OB group that will be participating in catching the twins as they come squirting out in 2010 for a urinalysis. They wanted to check her levels against her previous tests and check for any signs of infections that could be causing the contractions.

Nada. Nothing. Her pee was perfect.

I tell her this all the time now: “Julie, your urine is top notch, be proud of yourself.”

So now we’re cutting short our attendance at parties and elevated stress situations to hopefully reduce the number of these contractions, but it sucks that she is feeling them so early. We might have to cancel the tag team co-ed wrestling tourament we entered because of this.

We were going as “The Belly Bumpers”.

Oh well.

Below is some imagery I think you should show your husbands, since women all know their gps coordinates for each of their female parts better than guys know where the remote is.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Pregnant? Read this advice (guardian.co.uk)
• How Safe Is Bleeding In Pregnancy When Theres A Heart Beat And Cervix Is Closed? (parenting-success.com)

So we’ve crossed the first trimester threshold. The morning sickness has retreated a little bit. The appetite has returned a fair amount. YET.

Wifey can still hurl with the best of em, but she isn’t as timid or fearful about things that could potentially make her sick as she was just a month ago. I still find humor in almost every aspect of her pregnancy because nothing is a small problem, everything is the end of the world, even if it’s right there on the page in front of me as being a normal part of a twin pregnancy.

Round ligament pain, mucus, sore back, nausea, headache, irritibility, you name it, she is still trudging uphill through 8 feet of snow barefoot through it all.

She still has hang ups on things that could potentially make her gag, and I’ve come to appreciate the newer ones and some of the classics.

Here is our first SECOND TRIMESTER list of WHAT WIFEY HATES PT. III!

1. ANYONE’s breath, still
2. Our garage. 
3. Fresh cut grass
4. Cheap motorcycle exhaust
5. MSG, Aspartame & High Fructose Corn Syrup, still. (Read about MSG here!!)
6. The smell of Pasta Pickups “these smell like dog food”
7. Dogfood – we dont have a dog, but if we did, its food would make Jules gag
8. Word combinations to be published later. (this is classic I assure you)

Never a dull moment. But at least when she’s popped she can look back and laugh (or hit me that I’ve documented it) and hopefully tell a few other freaky deeky preggo broads that it’s ok to be a complete freak as far as smells are concerned.

photo credit: Lord Jim

On Thursday, wifey, myself and “the unborn duo” headed to Delnor Hospital’s SAFEKEEPING High Risk OB. We met them during our last pregnancy after a scare with Julie and some bleeding around 24 weeks where the ER doctors determined her to be classified as high risk just to be on the safe side.

The first few times we visited we were extremely impressed with the staff, and over the course of the final trimester we enjoyed our time there, getting to hear our lil dude and see him on a reglar basis.

Costly? Yes. But who cares about money when you’re looking your unborn kiddo in the face and saying what up long before many other people get the chance to.

Of course, having twins puts her in the high risk category but we were told because the first one was high risk, the second one is most likely high risk as well, so we are doubly high risk this time around.

The goal for this visit was to get the NT test taken care of. The Nuchal Scan is done with ultrasound to screen for higher risks of Down syndrome. Because our last pregnancy only included one ultrasound at 20 weeks to determine the sex, we hadn’t experienced the test first hand, and this time we got to see it done twice.

The ultrasound technician, who was a ninja-ess in our opinion, was quick to point out the 4 arms, 4 legs, 20 toes, 20 fingers, 2 heads, 2 torsos, 2 stomachs, 2 healthy beating hearts, 2 bladders, 2 nasal cavites, and then we got to the ‘nuchal translucency’ party.

She zoomed in on each neck and measured the amount of fluid behind the necks of the twins. Both measurements were the same and in the safe category, so for now, things are looking good!

We’ve learned that our twins each have their own placenta, one anterior and one posterior and fused together in the middle. We were also able to see that the subchorionic hematoma and any and all cysts have disappeared.

Well, what else can we look at in there?
Surely we can’t find out the sex at this stage can we?

“I’ve had great luck the past few years with determining the sexes at this age, let’s give it a shot.”

The ninja ultrasound technician then started snooping around the pelvic areas of each sack and informed us that with practice she is able to pretty accurately determine the sexes based on the angle of the pelvic bone or something to that effect.

She then introduced us to our daughter, Baby A, Leah (spelling to be determined later) and our son, Baby B, let’s call him SuperDuperSquishyFace for now because we are in the midst of a battle for supremacy as far as boys names are concerned.

We’re having a matching set.

Salt & Pepper
Bread & Butter
Brandon & Brenda Walsh
Milli & Vanilli
Cream & Sugar
Venus & Mars
Awesomina & Awesoman

I could go on for pages, and I just might!

We have a permanent grin on our faces. We cannot wait to meet the pair.