First time in labor - week 32

At week 32 I went for a routine baby stress test. I have to say that by this point I was not really into research as I had been through so many terrrible possible outcomes with doctors etc. I had decided that by this point I was ready and that i was excited. All I looked into was that this was a non invasive test as I would have to do it every week until the birth. Turns out they just put a heart monitor on each baby.

They find the heart beat with a circular pad and leave it on your belly while they measure the heart rate. I find it amazing that they could find each baby.Once again I had comments on 'how active' my babies were.Anyway, they also happened to see on this test that I was in labor! I didn't feel anything. They sent me for a scan and my cervix was short, so I got sent straight to hospital. Luckily J was with me for that scan.

Once in hospital I was put in my room and strapped to more monitors. The little round plastic pads for monitoring the babies' hearts and one for contractions. This started to get sore after a few hours as the skin was so thin by this stage. I was also given a painful shot (1 of 2) of steroids (for the babies lungs incase they had to be delivered early), had a ton of blood drawn, and had the most awful shot of a drug called Terbutaline which was for stopping labor. This shot felt like 50 cups of coffee (and I don't drink coffee). I was shaking violently and felt like my heart was going to explode. But it worked as over the next 2 days my contractions stopped. I was realeased from hospital 3 days later on the Sunday.

This is when I realized how much my husbands support meant to me as I was pretty stuck. He stayed on a camp bed next to me the whole time and helped me get in and out of bed. I was soooo huge I could hardly do this anymore, specially with wires attached!

I was told that I had to be on bedrest at home. Just get up to shower, eat and minimal stuff.
I remember trying to go for a short walk downstairs to a cafe and that was a task and a half. It took me ages to get there and I had to carry my belly :) At the time I just didn't even think about how bad I was. I just thought it was all part of being pregnant and didn't think about discomfort or problems.

The picture below was taken 3 weeks earlier. I was much much bigger by week 32.I didn't take any photos as the occasion never arose :)

Scans, scans and more scans!

So it turns out that identical twins are considered 'high risk pregnancy'. This is because of all kinds of weird and wonderful (not all so wonderful) medical reasons. The babies share the same placenta and therefore share the same blood, food, oxygen etc. This is unlike fraternal twins who have their own placenta and live in seperate sacks :)

My first appointment with the twin specialist was a bit of a downer. You find out you're having twins, get over the shock and realize how special this is and then there's the appointment.
Yes, this is to let you know that there are many possible things that could go wrong...twin to twin transfusion syndrom, one baby not getting enough food, the other getting too much, one dying = both die, all kinds of genetic problems, premature birth, birth defects etc etc etc.  They don't like you to get too excited incase something does go wrong. However, once you leave the office and you go back to the awesomeness of your situation you kind of realize that you have little say in the way things turn out...I certainly never plannned on twins. So I decided that apart from looking after myself and following the advise of the experts, the rest was up to fate and nothing I could do about, so no point in worrying.

And so the bi-weekly scans began. 2 scans a month to measure the babies and another 2 scans a month to check their vitals and my cervix! The great thing was that I was getting to know my babies before they were even born.

Happy Hours...what do you do when it's still a secret?!

SO what do you do when you have a work happy hour (which you always attend) and you've just found out you're pregnant but it's too soon to tell work?

Do you:
a)You grab the waitress and try to explain and have a code word for a non alcoholic option?
b)Wisper some juice concoction order to the waitress when nobody is watching and pretend it's alcoholic?
c)Order a non alcoholic drink, make up the usual "I'm on antibiotics" excuse (even though you don't look sick and risk people imagining all kinds of weird and exotic illnesses or getting suspicious).

I went for option 'b'...which was harder than it sounds as there were so many people at my table. Got away with it though. The one downer....all that sugar made me feel ill (I later found my only friend out there was ginger beer...not too sweet, not too plain)!

I did use the work HH excuse as a new excuse the following day when I went out with friends to a bar. "Yes, it's detox day as last night was a BIG HH!"

No sickness?!...I'm so annoying, I know!

I know this will be so annoying to anyone suffering, but I didn't get any 'morning sickness' at any point in my pregnancy. Lots of people told me that it was because I was having a boy (turns out I was having twin girls which is supposed to make the sickness worse). I did have a few nights were I was off food but I count myself very lucky!

I did have to nap for half an hour each day after work, but I wasn't falling asleep at my desk or anything like that. Eating well makes a big difference I think.

What's that other thing?

9 weeks pregnant:

So time to go to the OBGYN, which by the way I had to find as well as a doctor as I was still only registered with my doctor back in England. After a quick recommendation headed off to see my new OBGYN with J, my hubby.

As I walked into the doctors building which was located next to the maternity hospital, I suddenl became very aware of the large amount of large women! I had never seen so many pregnant women, so many babies and toddler and so many strollers!!!! I was a little scared and I have no idea why. I think maybe because they all looked like mothers and I felt like a kid :)

So after the normal chit chat and congratulations with the doctor we went to have a scan. J came with me. It was all very surreal. So the doctor did her thing and on the screen a grainy black and white image came up of who knows what. I looked and J looked and the doc looked...she had to point out where the baby was. Sure enough I could see something beating within a little blob on the screen...it was the heart. This was by far the most exciting moment of my life (or so I thought). I was done, happy, ready to have the first photo of the baby preinted and go home to talk about it all. The J said to the doc "but what's that above the baby" the doc was alredy looking at it too....closer look and she said "it looks like there're two!"
"Two?" I said "Two what"She took a closer look and said...."yes, it's twins!"

What follows is a vague recollection of what happened, because from this point on I was in denial, shock and a sense of out of body.

I refused to accept what she was telling me explaining that it was impossible as there are no twins in my family. She took a closer look and said..."It looks like they are monochromatic twins ie: identical twins, because they seem to share one sack with a thin membrane seperating them."
But there are NO twins in my family, it can't be"...this continued until J pointed to the screen and said "yes there are two look."  It was at that point that i realised it was true and shock set in..."OMG"
I don't remember much of what the doctor said as I trully was in shock. The only thing I remember her saying is "it's a good thing, but it changes everyhting in terms of your pregnancy...you'll have to go and see the twin specialist"

What went through my head? A million things from double car seats to double cribs, how do you hold 2 babies and the fact that I had only ever held a baby about 3 times in y life for 5 minutes and never taken care of one EVER....now there were going to be 2. I was more worried for the babies than for myself :)

J & I left the hospital and called home to inform everyone of the news.....ofcourse for everyone it was amazing, totally unexpected news (but they weren't the ones that were going to be pregnant with them)
As we sat down to tell everyone over lunch I started to realise how trully amazing this was and how special it would be.

Don't trust the test!

One minute we were postponing the baby thing...the next a quick change of plan and then back to "maybe later". I decided to take a pregnancy test.... just in case. On the Monday I took one of those fancy "5 days before your period" tests only to get a negative result. I decided I would go out that weekend with friends as my husband was away in London working. Luckily I decided to retake the test on the Saturday...again, just in case. It was POSITIVE! No partying for me after all. Now I had to wait a whole week for my husband to come home so I could tell him. I didn't want to tell him over the phone, and I also didn't feel like I could tell anyone else until he knew.....so I was a single parent for a whole week.

It was hard as I was so excited...I wanted someone to share it with me. A few days later I went to the doctor to confirm the pregnancy and she was the first person to congratulate me. It made it more real to hear it out loud.

I had a call from my husband telling me he may stay another weekend to catch up with family. I said I needed him back and insisted he return (which everyone I'm sure thought was totally unreasonable and out of carachter). He came back thinking there was something wrong, and was so happy when I told him the great, unexpected news. He didn't waste any time in calling all the family to share the news.

Everyone was super shocked....probably because we never discussed the subject of when we would have kids with anyone (even ourselves much). It was much better this way. You don't want the pressure of people knowing you're trying and asking every 5 minutes...plus nothing beats a nice suprise :)

We DIDN'T expect this to happen instantly, much less what was to come.