25 weeks + other stuff

wow this post is late! sorry to whomever reads and has been waiting... last week was kind of uneventful 'cept for a few things.

i spent most of the week actually IN bed because the twins seemed to be putting a lot more pressure than usual on my cervix. every time i sat up to eat or got up to go to the bathroom i felt our little lincoln bearing down on my cervical opening. it felt like he was just going to pop right out if he pushed any harder. our poor little guy must be so scrunched up and uncomfortable in there! i could also feel our little reagan shuffling around more than usual. at times it felt like she was kicking her brother too. she's the one sitting on top right now, so she's got a lot less pressure on her.

sometime in the middle of the week, mark was laying on my belly during his "daddy and babies time." i was just watching and trying to hear what he was talking to them about that day. sometimes i can hear him talking to them, sometimes i can't and just fall asleep while they have their bonding time. while i was sitting there watching him rub my belly and talking to them, i could feel lincoln squirming around a lot. all of a sudden, lincoln headbutted the spot where mark was laying his head really hard and strong. so strong that mark jumped up onto the other side of the bed! we laughed for a good 10 minutes about it. i laughed so much that i needed to pee really badly afterwards! haha! now, every since then, mark's been scared to lay on my belly and just chooses to lay on my lap to talk to them. 

so the next morning, we had our weekly appointment with GWMFM. if you read from last week, i was quite unhappy about our last sonographer. in the middle of this past week, mark had emailed dr. matia about the experience and the horrible attitude of the sonographer. the head sonographer emailed mark back to assure us that we would no longer have that person as our sonographer and would make it a point to assign us sonographers that i have already seen and had good experiences with. it was a great sigh of relief and weight off my shoulders.

as we waited to be called in, that bad sonographer popped out to get another patient. talk about awkward. i was assuming she was reprimanded or something prior to our visit that day. she seemed to give me a bad look when she saw that i was there in the waiting room. you'd have thought that she'd learn and be nicer after getting her ass chewed out for how she treated a patient, but i guess people with bad attitudes like her just always have bad attitudes no matter what. if that's the truth, that's just plain sad on her part.

so, we got called back, the sonographer did her usual scans and then dr. manely, another GWMFM doctor, did her check up stuff. after dr. manely checked things out, a nurse came in to administer a steroid shot to me. it was to help the lung development of the twins. it's commonly given to multiples in utero. then, i had to come back 24 hours later to get the second dose. the shot hurt, but i knew it's what had to be done to keep the babies growing and healthy.

i'll try not to be late with this week's update! have a great weekend everyone!

24 weeks + mother's day 0.5 + an inappropriate sonographer

so this was a pretty okay week. we started sunday going to our friends' daughter's 1 year birthday party at a restaurant. i, of course, had to be wheeled around and stay in my seat once we got to our table. though i was glad to have seen everyone, it sucked that i couldn't walk around to talk to as many people as i wanted to.

later that night, i was touched and happy to have celebrated my "first" Mother's day. i didn't think it really counted cause the twins aren't born yet. but, my families (mine and mark's) all thought it counted. they sent me cards and gave me small but very meaningful gifts. i was so touched and felt so loved that i cried... a lot. because of the bed rest, we decided to just order food and eat and celebrate with mark's family here at our house. it was nice and simple and quiet. the best part was our nephew greeting us all a happy mother's day!

mid-week, mark and i had lunch with a friend of ours that's also pregnant with her first, a boy. we got to swap some pregnancy stories here and there. then we got to stories about what her husband is and isn't doing to help her during her pregnancy. let's just say, i'm ever so blessed and thankful for mark and all that he has done for us and for me especially to make this pregnancy go as smoothly and stress-free as possible.

thursday, we had another appointment with dr. matia - i have to see her every week now. i thought everything was going to be pretty routine - check my cervix length, check the babies, check out. well it wasn't. we waited in the waiting room and got called in by a sonographer that we hadn't seen before. she seemed okay at first. then she was just plain rude and mean and had the crappiest bedside manner i had ever experienced. she mentioned several times as to how hungry she was and how it's lunch time for her. because of this, she rushed through all the scanning and this irritated the living hell out of me. i understand that she was hungry, but that doesn't give her the right to rush through a patient's appointment and scans. she has a job to do and if she can't do it right, she needs to get someone else to do it. she commented about how it was nice that my feet and ankles weren't swollen like most other pregnant women and i said it's probably because of the compression socks that i had been wearing. she asked where i had gotten the idea and i said i googled it and then asked my obgyn about it to make sure. she responded with something along the lines of "you shouldn't google things to get medical advice." did she not hear about the part where i asked my obgyn if it was okay? ugh!

later, when the scanning was over, she again commented on how i have no stretch marks on my belly yet and how nice that must be. i again said that i googled something about stretch marks and she snapped at me and told me, "you need to stop googling things and ask your doctor with the medical degree!" it took a hell of a lot of restraint for me to not get up and punch her. i was so extremely mad! after entering whatever she had to on the report she just up and left me with all the now-cold sonogram gel all over my belly and cold vaginal ultrasound gel (for the cervix check) all over my vagina and didn't even bother to hand me any papertowels to wipe any of it off or put my underwear back on. it wasn't until 10 minutes later when dr. matia walked in that i was given papertowels to take it all off and put my underwear back on. unfortunately, i was so concerned with the results of the sonograms that i forgot to tell dr. matia how upset i had gotten with that horrible sonographer. i fully plan to make sure that she will never ever do any of my examinations ever again.

anyways... the twins and i are all doing okay. my cervix hadn't gotten shorter and the twins were doing well. reagan is finally catching up to lincoln's weight and they are measuring at good sizes. there is still the concern about lincoln's little heart, but dr. matia said his heartbeat is nice and strong and well within the normal range. thank you God.

other than all those things, the rest of the week was nice and uneventful. i stayed in bed for the rest of the weekend while the twins went crazy in my uterus and mark worked on one of our cars.

hope everyone else's week was less chaotic than ours!

23 weeks + a wheelchair + the tiny humans

another week, another finding. let's start from the beginning...

so we went to finally get a wheelchair and a handicap placard so i could get around more but still be resting. it has taken some getting used to maneuvering around and i have noticed so much. so many stores and other places of business are not handicap compliant or their handicap compliant equipment are either insufficient, broken or non-existent. i'm thinking i need to do something about this. perhaps write to these places of business that we've encountered or write to the better business bureau about it. i'm also learning how completely rude and lazy non-handicapped people are.

we went to a restaurant where they have parking designated specifically for expectant mothers. we saw it and were about to park there when this guy coming from oncoming traffic signaled before us. we let him have it only to see him and his wife get out of the car and the woman was waaaay too old to be pregnant!! i was livid! had i not already felt physically drained at the time, i would have said some very choice words to them. and wouldn't you know it, they got out of the car and practically ran into the restaurant as to not be seen how rude they truly are! some people!

anyways... the rest of the week seemed to be pretty uneventful till my appointment with dr. matia came on thursday. along with our sonogram, they brought in a pediatric cardiologist to look at the babies' hearts. reagan was looking fine, but lincoln was a bit concerning. apparently, there is a blood vessel that leads to his heart at the moment that isn't open wide enough. though his heartbeat is okay, they fear that the blood vessel might close too soon and that will stop the bloodflow to his heart. it hurts me so much that i can do nothing to stop these things from happening to my little man. all i can do is pray the God takes care of him in the ways i can't right now.

after lincoln's problem came mine. my cervix was shortening more. it was at 2.19 inches or so the last time and now it's around 1.97 inches. so i have to really be careful of the times i'm on my feet. so, i'm practically confined to the bed or a chair unless i realllllly have to be up. i know it's what needs to be done, but i'm getting restless and anxious as my due date is getting closer. there is just so much i want done before they arrive but i have no freedom, or energy for that matter, to do any of it!

i hope things get better sooner than later. meanwhile, here are a few pictures from the twins' last sonogram...

lincoln

lincoln

reagan

reagan

22 weeks + Morse code + the boss + party of 4

so we were hoping for a pretty uneventful week seeing as i was still on bed rest. i was hoping this would be a fairly boring update. i was hoping i'd just lay in bed or sit at my desk all week with not a thing to really report. the twins had a different plan.

for the most part, the week had started off well and uneventful. i just sat or laid around the house just resting and making sure that the twins were as comfortable as could be. on thursday, i had an appointment i couldn't get out of and we really needed to get errands run and so mark and i ventured out to get things done - well, mark got things done, i sat in the car almost the whole time. i needed to get out of the house and get some fresh air and a change of scenery. it wasn't too spectacular, but it was well appreciated.

the next day, i got up and went downstairs to do some work in my office (at home of course) and spent most of the day in there. mark spent the day smoking our dinner for the night, so he was in and out of the house all day tending to that. the day seemed pretty uneventful until around 4 pm. i was just finishing up a project i had been working on for the twins' room when i started feeling this weird pulsating in my vaginal area. i thought it was just one of the twins moving around and he/she got a little too low. so i readjusted my sitting position to see if that would help. it didn't. this went on for almost half and hour. so i told mark and he suggested that i just go lay down for a bit and see if it would help. it helped for about 10-15 minutes but then started back up again. it was the weirdest feeling and it worried the hell out of me.

after laying there for about a half hour or so, i told mark that i needed to call the doctor to see what was going on. i was scared that they were already trying to make their debut and that possibly the Cerclage stitches had ripped or something to that extent. so i called the doctor's office and just my luck, they were closed for the weekend. so i had to call the emergency line and get a hold of the on-call doctor. i had to leave a message for him to get back to me. i swear that was the longest 10 minutes of my life.

so he called back and i explained to him the situation. he couldn't figure out what could be causing the weird pulsating so he suggested that we go in to see him. being that the office was closed for the day, he was at Shady Grove Hospital and we would have to go there to get things checked out. so, i waddled outside to tell mark what the doctor said. he got worried about 2 things: 1. the babies and i might be in danger. and 2. the meat he was smoking wasn't done yet and he'd have to leave it burning while we went to get checked out. he knew what the priority was, but we were both worried of burning the house down with the smoker still running while we were away. so, mark moved the smoker further away from the house and we prayed the house wouldn't burn down in our absence.

so, we headed out to the hospital. prior to getting to the hospital, mark asked me what the pulsating feeling felt like. so, i tapped his arm in a nonrhythmic pattern just like how it was feeling. he said, "so it's like Morse code?" YES! EXACTLY LIKE THAT!

so we got to the hospital and waited in the labor & delivery ward. we sat there watching women and their spouses come in and out; some were in full on labor and some were just in that "i'm pretty sure it's almost time; my water broke" mode. we sat next to a couple who were about to have their second child and her water had broken just before they got to the hospital. super nice couple who helped me to calm down while we talked. i wish i could tell you that the pulsating had stopped or subsided while we were waiting, but it didn't. i had to shift several times to alleviate the intensity of it all. at one point in our conversation, the woman asked how it was feeling and i told her just what mark described it as, Morse code. we all laughed and her husband said that maybe it's one of them trying to communicate with me already.

after a while, they took her and her husband in to get things rolling and we all wished each other luck. a few minutes later, the nurse came out and took us back to a bed. a nurse came in and did some preliminary checks of vitals, etc. again, i had to describe the feeling and again had to say Morse code. she laughed with us. the doctor came in not too long after. they checked the heartbeats of the babies as well as mine. everything looked normal. the doctor did a pelvic exam and checked the Cerclage stitches - all good. stitches were still in place properly. we stayed a little while longer to monitor the babies' heartbeats and to make sure i wasn't having any contractions. all good. so, the doctor said it's probably just the pressure and weight of the babies combined with them being extremely squirmy and active. also, they're getting bigger and i'm feeling their movements more prominently now as opposed to the little flutters i felt before. so, they sent us home and told me to seriously take it easy and to adhere to the bed rest. they were still pretty squirmy through the night and as a result, none of us got much sleep that night.

oh, and the house didn't burn down!!

saturday morning, we all awoke groggy and tired. mark made us some breakfast and then we followed with a long and much needed nap. when we woke up to eat lunch, the squirming started again and i took it as a sign that it was time for us to eat. mark fixed us some lunch of leftovers and we settled into bed to watch tv and eat our lunch. it turned out that it was Kentucky Derby day so we spent the day in and out of naps watching the races on tv till the big race started. one horse was named Danza, named after the tv star Tony Danza from the former hit show "Who's The Boss". i used to love watching that show when we were younger. mark and i joked about who the boss was in the house and he said it was me. that's when a little human in my belly squirmed and i said "i think when Reagan is born, she'll be the boss." we laughed and it seemed like she kicked in agreement.

later on that night, after dinner, i sat in mark's lap and he put his hands on my belly like he often does. this time was different. as we were talking and his hands were on my belly, he finally felt the babies move. it was a pretty spectacular moment for all of us. we were all finally feeling like a family. our little family of four. Yuen, party of 4.