Eleven Days After Giving Birth...

I look a lot less pregnant

4 Days After Giving Birth

And I still looked pregnant

4 Days Post Baby (this photo was taken on 10/12/09)

28 Weeks

Babies are around 2.5lbs each.

Viability

24 weeks on July 4th at the Jersey Shore. 50% chance of survival if they were born then.

Glamour Shot

I haven't posted at all, between travelling on vacation and generalized fatigue I just couldn't do it. But there I was last night and Chris grabbed my iPhone and took this photo of me. Sexy thing, ain't I (Chris says what makes the image is the sandwich perched on my belly and the generally dispeptic look on my face. Baby A was banging on my lower left hand side as if it were a drum).

In the meantime we saw the doctor today, everything still looks good. They have brains and kidneys and spines and they still have penises. They're both running large. Baby A is 15oz and B is 13oz.

Size Doesn't Matter

My friend Caryn took some photos of me last weekend at her house. I'm beginning to show.

Officially in the Second Trimester

As of yesterday. And I already look about 4.5 months pregnant. I have stopped just looking fat and started looking pregnant. I'll post a photo when I get one from my friend Caryn.

Bigger? Fatter? Or Just Relaxing The Stomach Muscles?

I can no longer fit my pants.

They were uncomfortable but buttonable a week and a half ago. I started to jerry-rig them last week (hair elastics through button holes and paperclips and safety-pins to hold things together). I tried to put on a pair of fairly loose pants this morning and no dice. I can't button them. I have four pairs of pants I can wear right now, two of which are work appropriate. I have one skirt and one dress that fit as well.

I have to go shopping for maternity clothes.

And yet I don't want to until we have the triple-screen on Wednesday when we do a whole lot of blood work and measure the backs of the necks and all sorts of other good stuff.

So I will wander through the office is dirty maternity pants for the next three days (actually, I have a thing to go to tomorrow and, therefore have to wear the dress) hoping that all turns out well on Wednesday.

I am so completely worried that things won't be okay. I am also scared that everything stopped growing and I just don't know it yet.

The Longest Mile

So the OB has me coming back on April 8, which means that I will have gone for 16 days without an ultrasound. Normal pregnant ladies only go once a month, so going once every two weeks is both annoying because I keep having to go to the doctor and annoying because I was getting to see the progression of the embryos, from tiny little gestational sacs to actual squirmy things with limbs and spines and brains. But I have seem them every week:

4 weeks 5 days -- Sacs
5 weeks 5 days -- heartbeats
6 weeks 5 days -- development
7 weeks 5 days -- limbs
8 weeks 5 days -- they look human
9 weeks 2 days -- OB visit with the squirmy.

Which means tomorrow, 10 weeks and 2 days, will make it the longest I have every waited to see what was happening because I won't see anything then.

Anyway I keep nattering at Chris about the fact that I am worried. I'm not sleeping as much as I was. I have been eating a little more normally (smaller amounts, less often). I would feel more comfortable if I knew that everything was okay in there. But there is no way for me to know anything until April 8th.

I think I might die of frustration by then

My Doctor Changed My Due Date

I had figured that it would be October 22 whereas my new OB has determined that it is actually October 24, 2009 (which would have been my Grandmother Libby's 93 birthday). The thing that sucks about this is that if I had my old due date, I would be ten weeks pregnant today, whereas instead I am only 9 weeks and 5 days. It also means that I can't tell people for another two days after I thought (April 18 as opposed to April 16).

On the other hand, it means that my doctor saw the heartbeats when I was 5 weeks and 5 days pregnant so suck on that. It also means that my embryos (because they don't count as fetuses until Saturday) are measuring a couple days big.

They're All Wiggly!

They both wiggled their torsos, their butts, their little legs and arms.

They seem happy and healthy. We probably won't know anything else until April 8 when we have our next appointment.

They Kicked Me Out

The reproductive endocrinologist doesn't want to see me anymore. I have officially been treated and streeted.

Gossamer the embryo (it's not a fetus until next week) is measuring 4.46 cm with a heartbeat of 176 beats per minute.

Sweetums is measuring 4.32 cm with a heartbeat of 171 beats per minute.

First OB appointment is Monday.

I Have Foolishly Put Tickers On This Blog.

Which means I will now jinx everything and miscarry tomorrow.

I'm exhausted, my back is sore, I have to pee (again!), and I am wearing maternity clothing for the first time (thank you Angela!) and I am hungry and afraid that if I eat anything I will be sick.

I have crackers but I don't want them.

But that's okay with me.

Except for the jinx part. I've been jinxed enough.

If I Were Having Identical Twins

They'd be DupliKate and BiforKate!

And I am having twins because we saw the heartbeats. Both of them.

But they're fraternal.

One Heir, One Spare

Yes, that's right. Twins.

So, the 5 week ultrasound looked good. Two little bean like things. I'll have HCG & Progesterone numbers later today, but the Reproductive Endocrinologist thinks it's looking good.

UPDATED:

HCG -- 4,984
Progesterone 40+

WackJob...

So, I've been obsessing.

As you may recall, I've done this twice before, both times we miscarried.

The first miscarriage we went in for the 6 week ultrasound at week 7 (Christmas was the week before and we were in D.C. for the holiday) and discovered that there was no heartbeat and that the fetus had likely died at about 5.5 weeks given the size.

The second miscarriage we went into our six week ultrasound and saw a heartbeat. At the time I thought that the doctor doing the ultrasound was not as positive as I would have thought and I felt like something was up. When we did a seven week ultrasound the fetus had only grown another millimeter and we were told that even though there was a heartbeat and a fetal pole, the fetus would likely die. By the eighth week it was dead.

But I have always been sure that the doctor knew at six weeks that there was something wrong and didn't tell me. As it turns out, I was right.

I have a five week ultrasound scheduled for Thursday. Knowing that, and knowing what I wouldn't see (heartbeat, fetal pole, etc.) I was curious to know what I would see. So I went to the all powerful, all knowing Internets. Where I found this article on five week ultrasounds.

And here is the passage I found interesting.

in the fifth week of gestation: a circular chorionic sac, typically 5-8 mm wide.

When I had the second pregnancy, the one which allowed us to see the heartbeat the chrionic sac was 4.3MM wide at six weeks. He did know something was wrong and he didn't tell me.

Having read this I am now totally paranoid that the fetus inside of me will be tiny. That we won't be able to see it. That there is something terribly, terribly wrong.

I was really happy when they told me to no longer come in for HCG tests because I was doing so well, but now I have this awful feeling that things aren't rising properly. I don't feel particularly pregnant (as opposed to the last two times). I'm a little more fatigued, but not to the extent I was. There's the hunger issue, but I'm not peeing as much as I did the first two times.

And I know I have to calm the fuck down. But I am not sure I can.

What The Heck Am I Putting In My Body?

Breakfast -- Toast with butter, 2 slices (7:30am)
Early lunch -- Leftover Mac n' Cheese (11:30pm)
Snack -- can of stringbeans (3:00pm)
Another snack -- Cookies, six of them (3:30pm)

UPDATED:
Dinner is going to be really late so Chris made me a snack:
Pre-dinner snack -- Nan bread with swiss cheese and procuitto melted on top (1/2, Chris ate the other half) (6:30pm)
Dinner -- Pulled pork sandwich on a kaiser roll with cole slaw and a pickle (9:30pm)

So Hungry

I normally eat two meals a day.

I skip breakfast because I'm never hungry for breakfast.

I have an early lunch.

I eat a late dinner.

I'm chubby because I eat more than I need.

In the past two weeks I have been eating the most rediculous amount of food. I had toast this morning at 9am. If I had done that two weeks ago I wouldn't start feeling hungry again until about 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

Today I'm so hungry I am about to gnaw off my own arm.

Should I get the spicy chicken sandwich downstairs or the burger down the block?

St. Valentine's Day WTF

I had to get my levels tested again today. For reference:

Pregnancy One: First bHCG -- 65, Second bHCG -- 118, Third bHCG -- 176.
Pregnancy Two: First bHCG -- 63.6, Second bHCG -- 190 (four days later -- so it was the equivalent of the Third bHCG in pregnancy one).

Pregnancy Three: First bHCG -- slightly under 200, Second bHCG -- 460.

They've told me not to bother coming in until next Thursday when they're going to do an ultrasound in order to determine what the hell I've got in there.

Officially Official

I have a bHCG level of slightly under 200. Previous bHCG levels at this point were 65 and 63.

I'm really really pregnant.

More info to follow as it comes in.