Trimester goodies

 It's funny how the "symptoms" that people/doctors/books/articles discuss per each trimester of pregnancy occur almost exactly on cue. For example:

First trimester:

- Extreme fatigue: check

- Nausea: check

I could barely keep awake for longer than 2 hours at a time before knocking out wherever I was. Luckily I wasn't working so most of the time I managed to make it to my bed or the couch by the time I passed out. Working during this time would not have been good - I would never have been able to meet any deadlines. And the nausea? Forget about it. The only things I could fathom eating was bread (just a plain dinner roll or plain baguette) and fruit smoothies from Jamba Juice. Both symptoms began around the 4th week of pregnancy (which is basically when I was pregnant enough for my body to register that I was expecting) and lasted throughout the entire trimester. 'It should end by the time your second trimester begins,' "they" say. And sure enough... when week 13 rolled around... gone! Well, some food smells still made me want to hurl, but for the most part, I was able to eat normally again - well, normally if at that point I hadn't been put on the diabetic diet.

Second trimester:

- Don't recall if there were any specific "symptoms" at this time, but overall, more energy, more appetite, slowly starting to show - just a bit... what else? I don't know. Second trimester wasn't so bad.

Third trimester:

- Return of the extreme fatigue: check

- Leg cramps: check

- Lots of kicking: check and check

Other things that come with the pregnancy territory such as indigestion and varicose/spider veins, etc. also strangely enough started making its' appearance pretty much the day I hit third trimester. Strange or coincidence?

The day of the baby shower hosted by my former boss was the first day of my third trimester. The next morning, I woke up with indigestion - and thankfully, just indigestion and not all of the heartburn that I had been hearing about because I do have a history of GERD and a lot of acid reflux and heartburn problems. A few more times that week, I would get indigestion/upset stomach. I've gone through nearly half a bottle of Tums since then, and I am so thankful that so far, the Tums is doing the trick since I can't take my prescription Pepcid I was so used to taking prior. Now the question at the time was: is the indigestion a "symptom" of pregnancy or did I just eat something not so pleasing during the baby shower?

Often times when I wake up in the morning, I stretch my legs out and point my toes as far as they will point, however the problem with this is, it would trigger my calf muscles to want to cramp up. I've had a handful of calf cramps in the past, nothing too big or painful, that was easily cured by correcting my stretch. However the other morning, my calf cramped up so severely, I lay there going "Ow! ow! ow!" before I was able to move my leg to place my feet against the wall to help correct the stretch (my regular method wasn't working). The cramp immediately dissipated (yay!) and I got up and went on with my day. Yesterday as I was sitting there, I noticed that the calf still had kind of an ache to it, so I started rubbing my leg. I pulled my pant leg up to reveal my so-pale-it-has-a-blue-tint-to-it-because-it-hasn't-seen-the-light-of-day-since-the-previous-decade leg and calf. I started massaging my calf when I noticed the vein running behind it. It was a pretty prominent vein. Very prominent... so prominent it looked like it was starting to protrude out a bit... OMG A VARICOSE VEIN! It definitely wasn't there before the leg cramp, no it wasn't.

So obviously there are a lot of things on your body you expect to occur during pregnancy, and most of the things I don't really mind because well, it kind of comes with the territory. Stretch marks, skin tags, larger/darker/more moles, sun spots and skin discoloration, rashes... eh, I just go with the flow and let it do its' thing (within reason, of course). But VARICOSE VEINS? Ugh ugh ugh! So far I've only spotted that one, and it's not so bad - still questionable whether I would consider it a varicose or not, but hopefully if I treat it well, it will completely disappear once the babies arrive.

*crosses fingers*

What's your fear?

 So prior to being pregnant, I had never, ever had a dream involving babies - particularly of my own. Except for one dream once... wait, twice... but we won't go there because I wouldn't be able to explain the baby daddy.

Anyway, so since being pregnant for real, I've had several baby dreams starting in second trimester. One involved one of the babies being born way prematurely in a grocery store in an Alien/Superman kind of way (the baby kind of burst through my belly and flew over my head, fist first... it was kind of weird, I woke up screaming, "OH MY GAWD!").

After that, the dreams had the babies already being born, except I FORGET that they have been born and at the end of the day do I realize, OMG! My babies! And they're these teeny, tiny little things just lying around watching me, and I freak out because I don't remember the last time they were fed (considering that I remember about the babies at the end of the day...). As I mosey along in my gestation, the same "when did I last feed my babies???" dreams still occur, except the babies get bigger per dream. Which is a good sign, I suppose.

So I guess what my subconscious is trying to ask me is... are the babies getting enough nutrition? Or maybe I'm just worried about being able to feed two babies? Who knows. But people have been doing this since the dawn of time (and look at all those teenage mom shows!), so I mean, I can't really mess up THAT bad, right? :)

Last night I had a dream that I was being prepped for labor and delivery. After awhile, I thought to myself, why am I being prepped already? I'm not due for another month... and then I'm brought baby shower gifts and one of the gifts is from Sarah Jessica Parker and I was like, WHOA! So I open it... and it's her new fragrance (I don't know if she actually has fragrances out there, but in my dream she does). Can't really explain that one...

Rounding out the bases...

 I have officially made it to third trimester!

Thursday, April 21, 2011 (28 weeks, 5 days)

I had been having some indigestion lately, starting Monday morning. I don't know if it had anything to do with the foods from Sunday's baby shower or if it came with the third trimester symptoms (and if it comes with the symptoms, how punctual) because I haven't had indigestion at all since being pregnant and other things that I commonly got beforehand that I won't mention, but *knocks on wood* anyway.

So had a visit with the high-risk OB today. As I was starting my third trimester, before meeting with the actual doctor, the imaging person went through a series of ultrasound measurements (lengthier than regular visits, but way shorter than the official ultrasound/sonogram appointments with radiology), including checking my cervix. Which... on screen kind of looked like a wide grin (kind of creepy, but that's what it reminded me of LOL). So far, so good.

The babies are also developing pretty much on schedule. Baby A was measuring at about 27 weeks old and at 2 lbs 2 oz, while Baby B was measuring at about 27 weeks 5 days old and at 2 lbs 8 oz (isn't it amazing how much can be determined through technology? I cannot imagine living in times before ultrasounds - and when I say times before ultrasound, for some reason I always picture the Wild West days). So size wise, they're about a week smaller than they should be, but a week isn't so bad, considering there are TWO of them in my belly! I think the typical length of a 28-week old is about 14-1/2 inches long. And I've got TWO!

Although I read recently on Yahoo! News about this couple who wanted a second child and had trouble so had in-vitro done and then two embryos took... and each split! So instead of that second child, they ended up with two sets of identical twins - two identical girls and two identical boys! I think I'll just take these two, thanks.

So after the appointment, I went down to the lab for more bloodwork to be done (everything seemed fine, however my red blood cell percentage still seemed a little bit on the low side despite my mostly meat diet and iron supplements... but I haven't received a call/email from the doctor yet, so I'm probably okay).

And now my latest homework is to do the kick counts... which is kind of hard even though they do kick a whole lot. The kicking has become visible to the naked eye (sometimes being a big thump thump jutting out of my belly, and occasionally the funny belly ripple), but now I've got to determine who's doing which kicking - is that A or B? Eh. We'll see.

Oh yes, on a side note... I had originally thought that wouldn't it be great if the babies were born under the astrological sign of Gemini? Seeing as how the girls are twins? I figured, they could each take one side of the Gemini sign. That is, until my former boss (also a Gemini) commented that it'll be like having FOUR personalities. GREAT! Maybe I'll try to hold them off until they enter the sign of Cancer. But anyway, I didn't really think much about it until I then found out that my former boss, not only a Gemini, was born, under the Lunar Zodiac, in the year of the Rabbit...!!! :\

Suddenly I'm not so excited about my girls being born in the year of the Rabbit... as Gemini...

Baby Shower for... me?

 I like planning showers and attending other people's showers, but to have one thrown for me? A little awkward - especially the part where everyone gathers around and watches you unwrap gifts.

Verbally: "How cute!"

Mentally: "What the heck...???"

Anyway, despite those moments, it was a pleasure/honor to have been thrown a baby shower by my former boss and former co-workers (though I haven't been employed there for about 10 months)... and... it was at my former boss's house too - which I had never been to before (and neither had most of the other attendees).

The sugar-free spread: chicken and peppers and onion kabobs, mixed green salad, beef phyllo pastries and cheese phyllo pastries. It was all delicious and went quite well together. The potted plants in the center rear were the favors. And then there was dessert (ice cream and cream puffs) for the attendees. I declined and opted for a diet Dr. Pepper.

Prepping my gift-unwrapping game face. Was I the only one sweating in that house? It was really, really warm. REALLY warm. Do people not believe in opening windows or if not windows, providing comfortable AC temps?

Group photo. The two boys in attendance were sons of two of my former co-workers. They were great to watch.

All-in-all, it was a very pleasant Sunday afternoon. :)

*photos courtesy of Karina

One more to add to the list...

 So a month has passed since my last baby post... a month already??? A lot has happened since then. I've packed, moved, unpacked (kind of) and settled into our new digs in Tustin. It's nice, and though I've gone by to see my mom a few times and to keep her fridge stocked and house clean and though I still had some requests to do work for them, it's been relatively peace free. Except for the puppy. Will post more about that later. Oh, and I wish I would get the nesting urge already! Or the pile of boxes in the corner will miraculously unpack themselves. Maybe I should hope for the latter.

Monday, March 21, 2011 (24 weeks, 2 days)

The first Monday after our move. This was a visit to the high-risk OB... what went down during that appointment? Well, appointments usually go in this order: first they go through my diabetes log (I have to keep a log of all of my glucose levels and what I ate) and then in the high-risk appointments, she then does the ultrasound... measures a couple of key things with the babies like their skull circumference and stuff - nothing as detailed as the scheduled ultrasound/sonogram with the x-ray lab people (which takes roughly 45 minutes per baby). Cute shot of the day was the two of them both breeched (head up, butt down) looking like they were facing and talking to each other. And oh yeah - both are definitely girls.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011 (26 weeks, 3 days)

Visit with the regular OB today. Visits with the regular OB are generally a bit more boring than the high-risk OB (because the high-risk OB always has the ultrasound machine so there are visuals whereas the regular OB just listens for the heartbeat with a hand-held machine), so the hubster decided to just go with me to the high-risk appointments from now on (since all appointments are every 2 weeks, that was a lot of time he was missing from work). Good thing too, because my appointment was for 8:50am and I got there, checked in, met with the nurse who took my vitals (weight, bp, checked the protein in my urine, asked me about what medications I'm currently taking, etc.) and by 9:10am, was issued into a room. Where I sat for awhile, and then got tired so I laid down. And then adjusted because my lower back started hurting. And then adjusted again. Eventually I think I just rolled over to my side and fell asleep - complete with dreams and all.

There wasn't a clock in the room so I don't know what time the doctor actually came in or how long I was asleep for, but she had an ultrasound machine with her (not as high tech as the high-risk ones) just to see where the babies are to know where to locate their hearts. So after reviewing my glucose levels, she checked the babies' locations on the ultrasound machine (Baby A was breeched - again with head up butt down, and Baby B was transverse... head to the right, butt to the left... made me think of a T-Bone steak hehe), and then turned it off and used the hand-held thing to listen for their heartbeats: both still good. And then again, she stressed the importance of knowing the signs of pre-term labor.

I am looking forward to the babies staying in until at least 36 weeks!

After the appointment, I left, looked at the clock and saw that it was now 10:15am. I went back down to the lab because I was previously asked to take another blood test. By the time I left Kaiser, it was 11.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 (26 weeks, 4 days)

Got an email from the doc regarding my blood test. All was fine except it appears that I am "a little bit anemic"... I know it's totally common, but had assumed it was one thing that I could probably scrape by without getting because of how much meat I've been eating (due to the gestational diabetes thing). But I'll let it pass, considering it's just "a little bit anemic" and well, you know, I amcarrying two babies. So now I have also started taking an iron supplement in addition to the prenatal, the DHA supplement, the baby aspirin and the insulin. I'm not complaining - it just becomes a hassle sometimes but in all honesty, I think it's a totally fair trade if it means having TWO healthy babies at once.

Speaking of which... it's starting to feel a little cramped in there. Pushing up against my bladder, pushing up against my lungs, demanding my heart pump even harder... but despite the moments of uncomfortableness, for the most part, it's not so bad. Everything is pretty gradual, I suppose to not freak out the mother and mother's body. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, it feels like nothing has changed. And then I move and the babies move and push up against my bladder and it's like, okay, I hear you. But the whole bladder thing - it's not the same feeling as really, really needing to go to the bathroom and you start doing the dance; it's more like, it feels really uncomfortable in there... maybe if I go to the bathroom it will relieve the pressure and provide a bit more space.

And of course they are more active now. I don't do the kick counting sessions because, well... how do I tell who is doing the kicking/punching since they are both constantly moving around and changing positions? I do feel that Baby B is the more active one though - most of the kicking and punching occur on the left side. But it's nice that they are active though; it kind of gives me peace of mind feeling them be alive. Hubster loves it too - sometimes he'll try to play with them: they kick, he taps back and waits for them to kick again at which point he'll tap back again. It's kind of amazing... LIFE growing inside of you.

And then I see commercials of Teen Mom or 16 and Pregnant (are those two different shows???) and get a little PO'ed. Why are there so many of these shows? It almost seems like they're glorifying these girls half my age who get knocked up out of ignorance and stupidity and then despite the struggles, making them "celebrities"... *shakes head*