25 weeks and a deadline

Today marks 25 weeks gestation for Lincoln and Cooper! According to many parenting and pregnancy websites this is when the boys start to pack on the fat and they are learning a sense of equilibrium. If you like to measure your babies by vegetables then you're looking at a couple little cauliflowers in there. My weight gain is on track and the babies are also ahead of the curve. Today's measurements have them at roughly 1 pound 12 ounces each! I was feeling stretched to the limit yesterday so knowing how much weight they have gained in only a week feels a little reassuring that what I was feeling is legit. It also confirms what I keep hearing about being bigger every time people see me. That would be insulting if I wasn't pregnant with twins but not as insulting as my 5 year old telling me I looked like a fat monster the other day. To be fair, I was making a crazy angry face and she's very uncomfortable with my changing body.

My appointment today was with my OB so I was able to ask her some more questions about my delivery options. One major goal of mine is to have realistic expectations about my chances for VBAC versus ceasarean birth. I have heard from other women in my area that other doctors will schedule a c-section at a certain point in a twin pregnancy. There are concerns about the placenta breaking down after a certain point causing intra-uterine growth restriction for one or both babies and basically becoming a situation of diminishing returns. Dr. B has made notes for my OB regarding her suggestions for delivery and between that and my OB we have a plan. I will receive steroid shots at 35 weeks in order to help the babies lungs develop a little faster than they otherwise would. If I haven't gone into spontaneous labor by 37 weeks and both boys are in a good position then we'll attempt a gentle induction. So the best guess for the birth of these boys is between April 6th and the 20th.

April is all of a sudden a very busy month for us! We already have two birthdays to celebrate that month and are looking at adding two more. The funny thing is that we worked on timing this pregnancy to avoid the time around Thanksgiving and Christmas because we have two birthdays around then and didn't want to jam them all together. It looks like that planning didn't work out so well!

There's one other thing I wanted to touch on. I have been a huge fan of the nonprofit Every Mother Counts for several years and was reminded of it the other day by a podcast I've been listening to as I prepare to birth these babes. I feel a large amount of anxiety about the prospect of a c-section but I am so so lucky to be living in a country where I have easy access to medical care. Where I can complain about the fact that I have to drive almost an hour to have the privilege to attempt a vaginal birth. Even knowing how lucky I am, I recognize that the US is one of 13 countries with a rising maternal mortality rate. We rank 60th in the world in maternal health. Around the globe 303,000 women die every year as a result of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. I encourage you to check out the website and learn a little about what they do and why I have supported them over the years. They usually have an awesome assortments of gifts around Mother's Day that go towards their goals around the world while giving your mama something nice.

I hope you're having a great week out there in the world! One of the kids asked Amazon's Alexa yesterday how many more days until spring and I believe the answer was 54. Since Michael and I are currently suffering from colds I have been dreaming of sunlight and pool days so that number was a little discouraging.

Boring ole 24 week update

I'm sorry this update has taken awhile, life gets in my way sometimes. We've been busy with Girl Scout stuff, a mom's night out, a car in the shop, general family stuff and unfortunately no longer sleeping. I have some major pregnancy congestion happening at night and I was able to take medicine to get some good sleep for almost a week but that's as long as I'm allowed to take it so I'm back to waking up feeling hungover every morning. A nose strip helped a little last night but I am tempted to move the recliner into our bedroom to sleep upright to combat the congestion as well as the heartburn that gets kicked up here and there.

I'm doing a lot of complaining! Let's get to the good stuff. The boys are once again as healthy as we could possibly dream. They are each measuring a whopping 1 lb 6 oz as of Wednesday morning which is a fantastic size for twins. Their fluid is once again looking very symmetrical with both measuring a little over 5 cm and Cooper actually having the higher amount. All their blood flows look great. The only new bit of info we gleaned was that Lincoln has a small calcification on his liver (liver? I'm pretty sure it's liver) that apparently they had noted in the previous scan but wasn't mentioned to us before and was only mentioned by the tech in an offhand comment. She said that it didn't look any bigger which was exactly what they wanted. So I guess that's great too.

During the whole appointment the babies were moving around like wild things as usual. At the beginning Lincoln was transverse at the top with Cooper in the center forming a T shape. Then for a time Lincoln's legs were draped over Cooper's abdomen making it very difficult to get certain measurements and numbers. Then Lincoln was pretty much sitting on Cooper's head. And they ended the visit side by side with Cooper head down on my right and Lincoln head up on my left. Lincoln's insistence on being positioned poorly is making me more and more certain that I'll be facing a c-section when the time comes to welcome these kids to dry land.

I often have to stop myself to take a moment to remember how very thankful I am that I even have the energy to worry about trivial things like how I'm feeling physically and the method of delivery I'm facing. My boys are healthy and each day they keep cooking is a blessing to us. Life is physically getting harder and I'm experiencing more pain and discomfort than I normally would at this point in my previous pregnancies. My back hurts and my pelvis feels like it's broken at all times and now I have nerve pain causing a zappy ouchieness in my butt when I walk more than a few yards. The aforementioned congestion, heartburn, and lack of sleep are no fun. But really, all of that is so minor and temporary. I'm not going to stop complaining about it but deep down I really do feel so lucky to be able to complain about the everyday twin pregnancy type stuff.

This photo is a side by side of my fourth pregnancy at 24 weeks and my fifth at 24 weeks. I think the boys have positioned themselves so that I don't really look that much bigger but I know those white shorts wouldn't fit because Cooper's fat head is down so low that even half my maternity pants don't fit these days. My new motto is 'pants are b.s.' and my goal is to wear them as little as possible. Honestly, that goal isn't really new and was one of the motivating factors in our cross country move to a warmer climate. Give me shorts and swim suits at all times and I'll be happy.

One last fun note before I sign off for the night and retire to my nose strip and pillow fort. For all women who have ever been this pregnant, yes that baby is punching you in the cervix. We got to witness Cooper take two direct jabs at my cervix while she was measuring it's length (all good, cervix of steel, Hi dad! awkward) and it's the first time I've actually seen one my fetuses do that. I have felt it oh so many times but feel a little vindicated now that I know that that is exactly what the little stinker was doing. We also got to watch Cooper suffering from a severe case of the hiccups, which served him right and was pretty adorable. We couldn't remember if we have ever seen any of the other kids with hiccups in utero but we're pretty sure we did witness it with Miss A via ultrasound because that fetus had the hiccups 7 or 8 times a DAY for months! She also had the hiccups as a baby at least twice a day for months, during which time I'm pretty sure her motto was 'hiccups are b.s.'

 What's bugging you lately my friends? What minor annoyance in your life gets thrown in the b.s. pile these days?

22 weeks of joy

Today I am 22 weeks pregnant on paper. Technically it was Tuesday but it's easier for me to just go by what my paperwork says. When I went to my second OB appointment to measure the size of the one fetus we thought was in there, he measured right on track with what I knew was the right date but my OB agreed to stick with the date that their standard calculator gave in order to give me a couple extra days at the end before induction became an issue. Ahhahahahahaha! I'm still hoping this is something I have to worry about down the road but it's really not likely and it's nowhere near the biggest of my concerns.

 Look at Lincoln's little face! He knows how ridiculous I was to worry about such things, but then again he knew all along that there were two brothers in there. I won't minimize the legitimate concerns I had about carrying past my due date and facing uneccesary interventions. I firmly believe that birth matters and should happen in a way that respects the mother at all times. My history with childbirth is varied and complex and I have ALL the feelings about birth but I'm finding, yet again, that I need to embrace the scary and unknown and accept that things are most likely not going to go the way I would like.

My appointment this week went really well. Cooper's fluid was lower at around 4.56 cm and I don't know if that's just a matter of positioning or a different ultrasound tech or normal ebb and flow. Dr B said that their fluid still looked very symmetrical, their blood flows were wonderful, and she was comfortable not seeing me for two weeks. It's exciting to be at a place where she is comfortable with that but I'm struggling a little with waiting that long. It has only been a few days and I'm already super paranoid that something is going to go terribly wrong. I have every confidence in my doctors but can't help but worry at all times. 

22 weeks finds me trying to accept how close we are to 24 weeks. My OB told me last week that because 24 weeks is considered viability it is the point where any turn for the worse becomes a question of if the boys are better out than in. We have no reason to suspect that things will take another turn for the worse but the thought that we could have such early babies is just insane to me. I've been doing a little research on NICU experiences so that I can at least know a little bit what to expect if that is in our future. I've also been trying to mention to the girls that their brothers might come early and might be sick and might have to stay in the hospital for awhile. I don't want to scare them but I also feel like it is important for them to understand why things might be very different this time than when each of them were born and came home. Many NICUs don't allow anyone under 16 or so to visit and I could see that being very difficult on older siblings. So I'm trying to walk the line between preparing them for the maybes and making them worry more than they need to about their brothers. I have been watching prices on car seats and ordered some from my Amazon registry yesterday that I chose specifically because they are safe from 4 lbs up. Many carseats aren't made for smaller babies and knowing that they may be early left me searching for something that could bring them home as early as possible. I'm sure that when those seats arrive it's going to feel way too real that there will be actual babies in them in a few months!

 The picture above isn't the most adorable ever but it's one of those wondrous things about a twin pregnancy. That's just a jumble of arms and legs from both babies. During this scan in the early morning Lincoln was transverse on the top of my belly and Cooper was breech at the bottom. I went to see my OB a couple hours later and she saw them in a completely different position. I'm not sure at what point they'll get too squished to do so much moving but I'd love it if they could just both get head down now and stay that way until the end! I'm not very hopeful that I'm going to avoid a c-section but in a perfect world these babies will both be head down when spontaneous labor begins at 37 weeks and they will just slide right out in a few short hours.

I'm pretty sure these boys are going to be the most adorable sons ever born. Their little noses are just so perfect. My next appointment will be just before 24 weeks and they'll measure growth again. We'll be hoping for nice fat babies once again and beautiful numbers for fluid and dopplers. I'm definitely feeling large and unwieldy lately. Any attempts at physical activity have me stopping halfway through to spend the rest of the day laying down. Cleaning my bathroom brought on hours of lower back pain/tightness and a couple worrisome contractions. Vaccuming the living room once again left my pelvis screaming for mercy. I suffer from SPD during my pregnancies and thankfully haven't had too many episodes this go 'round but my pelvis is sure to let me know when I'm moving too much. Mike's mom has offered to pay for a cleaning service as a Christmas gift and the search hasn't gone well so far but the last few days have me very ready to take advantage of this amazing gift and not be responsible for any more vaccuuming or mopping! I'm off to make a list of phone numbers.

I hope this weeks finds you all well and warm and happy. I've been very touched to see comments from friends and family and know how many of you are thinking of our boys and loving them from near and far. Hi Aunts and Uncles and cousins!