17w1d

Yesterday we made it to 17 weeks. I am feeling pretty good, and have gained a little weight back now that I am able to keep things down for the most part. I'm still occasionally throwing up in the morning, but nothing like it was before. I ordered a snoogle yesterday also, because while I'm sleeping ok right now, I know that soon it will be a problem for me and I want to be prepared.

I got dressed for work yesterday and the black pants that I put on have two buttons at the waist. I could only do up one of the buttons, the lower one just wouldn't do up. I guess I'm starting to get a baby pooch. I was oddly excited by this.

At work, I decided to look into the amount of money I'll be getting on unemployment while I'm off on maternity leave. Our gov't will pay up to a maximum of 55% of your salary or a certain dollar amount. Well, I'll be making 36% of my salary which really sucks. I put a whole budget together and sent it to H. to review. We ended up getting into a major fight last night about money and how there's so much pressure on him because he makes so much more money than me. And, how I haven't done anything to help our situation e.g., by finishing my degree earlier or getting a higher paying job. He had valid points, but we've gone over this stuff so many times and we are where we are that to me there's no point in re-hashing what got us here. It's having to make a plan to go forward that we need to focus on. The truth is I should have changed jobs, but the job I'm in has so demoralized me that I just don't feel suitable for anything. I have looked and looked for jobs that I think will suit my schools - either I don't feel qualified enough or the jobs just don't appeal to me. There are weeks and months that I have spent my work day trolling job sites and then there are weeks and months that I just bury my head in the sand. I also think that through all of it I was so focussed on getting pregnant that I just didn't think about the financial side of things once we have a baby. Today we're not arguing, but I also don't think we've settled anything.

When I went to bed last night I was not a happy person. I laid on our bed and thought about what had been said and worried myself silly about how bills are going to be paid etc and then I felt the most amazing thing. The babe was moving and I could feel her! It only happened for about 30 seconds and then it was gone, but it was the most weird and wonderful thing to have felt. She reminded me that regardless of what happens, she's going to be in our world. We'll just have to work it out. It's amazing to feel myself falling in love with this little girl. I already feel like I'm her Mom even if she's just in my belly at the moment. I talk to her and rub my baby pooch and tell her everything's going to be alright. And, it will be.

16w4days

Well I finally did it; I went out and bought 3 little precious sleepers for the babe. They are so cute and tiny. One is pink and white striped with an embroidered bunny on it, one is yellow and green with elephants all over it and the third is a white velour-ish sleeper with teddy bears and bunnies on it and the feet have little teddy bear faces on them. So cute!

My friend at work also said that it looks like I’m starting to show. I hope so. I can’t wait to have a big round belly. I have total belly envy. Everywhere I go I see pregnant women with these big round perfect bellies and I cannot wait to have one. I have to duck my head so that I stop myself from staring. It used to be that seeing pregnant women just hurt too much and I would duck my head to avoid having to think about the thing I wanted most in the world.

I’ll be 17 weeks on Thursday and my next appointment is on August 4th. I’ll be able to get another peek at this little girl of mine. I can’t wait!

Over the weekend we went to my brother's cottage, it was a good time. It's a nice cottage and it's older with a lot of room for improvement. The shoreline isn't ideal, but the water was warm and dogs seems to have a good time chasing sticks and swimming. The only thing is that I didn't sleep very well while I was there and now I'm paying the price. I'm just exhausted. Maybe the babe is going through a growth spurt and that's adding to the exhaustion. Next weekend we're going to my cousin's new home for a bbq and a swim. Seems like we've been pretty spoiled and busy lately with all of our visiting. I just love the summer!

15W5D

The cottage was so relaxing, just what we needed and we really did have a great time.
The waterfront was beautiful and you could just wade straight in. The dogs enjoyed it too.



On Friday, we were in the cottage and had just finished eating dinner so I thought I'd put the dogs out (it was around 7pm). Something told me to check out the window before I put them out and that's when I saw the bear. It was on the next cottage's backyard and making it's way towards our cottage. The pictures that follow were taken from our bedroom window.





He was just a little bear, maybe 1 or 2 years old, but still very intimidating.

We got back from the cottage on Sunday, and then back to work yesterday. I also had a follow up u/s to see how our babe is doing. Heart beat was strong, everything was where it's supposed to be. I am now a low-risk healthy singleton pregnancy. Woohoo. And, the best news was that we found out the gender. it's a girl! One of these days I'll get H. to scan one of the u/s pictures so I can share her with you.

I am so happy and thankful that we were finally given some good news. I go back in 2 weeks for the official anatomy scan.

Cottage-bound

I made it to 14 weeks on Thursday and am still having pretty bad nausea and vomiting, which I'm taking as a good sign that things are ok with this pregnancy. H and I are off with the puppies for a week or so. We've rented a cottage which looks spectacular; I am itching to get on the road - we leave tomorrow. So, of course we're runnning around tying up all of our loose ends and buying supplies in order to get out of here on time tomorrow. Thankfully, my aunt is going to stay at our place for the week, taking in the mail and watering plants etc so that we don't have to worry about anything while we're gone.

I may check in while we're away if we happen to go to the internet café, if not have a wonderful week.

One Healthy Baby

We had our appointment today. We met Dr. W and she was amazing, incredibly kind and empathetic. The appointment started with an u/s to see what was going on inside there. Well, Dr. W. said that she saw early onset TTTS with the twins. One was moving all over the place while the other was barely moving. This one was stuck in place with very little amnio fluid and a very small sac. She said that based on the u/s that she would recommend reduction.

We went forward with the procedure which was done with great care and compassion. It took about 50 minutes to be completed. At the end we were able to see our healthy baby happily floating around, scrathing its head and waving to us. We got a picture of the baby facing the u/s wand and it looks like it's waving at us. Very cute.

It's been a very long day full of tears and emotion. H and I are now looking forward to our due date and keeping the hope of bringing home a healthy baby in our hearts.

13W4D - Sitting in Limbo

H. and I have made the heart-wrenching decision to reduce the twins from this pregnancy. It's been incredibly difficult and now we are just waiting to find out when the procedure will take place. We called the doctor to let him know of our decision last Tuesday and we still have not heard back from him. There was a stat holiday last Thursday and the clinic was closed from Thursday through the weekend, so I guess it is expecting a lot to think they would have called us back more quickly. It's just that with the decision made, we need to move forward. The basic reasons for making the decision came down to my health (there are very high risks of preclampsia for me), and to the health of the pregnancy. This gives us the best chance of having a healthy baby at the end of everything.

There are no guarantees anywhere with this decision, but we're hoping that we've made the best decision with all of the information that has been provided to us (as well as through our own research).

Please do not leave comments about how you know of a woman in a similar situation and her babies survived or thrived. I am happy that she had a successful outcome, but she is an exception not the norm. It's like saying to an infertile person that you know someone who as soon as they stopped actively TTC'ing that they got pregnant. Again that is the exception, most infertile women don't get that lucky.

I left another voice mail with my doctor's office last night. I am hoping that they'll call me back today to let me know what's going on. H. and I are on vacation next week and will not be available. They have told us that the longer we wait to do the procedure the higher the chance of losing the whole pregnancy. I don't understand what is taking them so long to organize things. I hate dealing with the medical profession.

We have had to change the way that we communicate with each other about the pregnancy. We tend to talk about the babies e.g., "the babies are really hungry today" or "the babies are making me so sick". Now we have to change our way of talking to talk about "the baby". It's a tough transition to make.

As to the pregnancy, I'm still pretty sick, but not all the time like it was before. I still throw up at least once a day although there are days now that I'm fine. My belly is protruding more now and it's a lot more round. I haven't gained any weight yet and all of my clothes still fit. Guess that has a lot to do with how over-weight I was before getting pregnant.

I'm very scared about going through with the procedure and the impact it could have on us - like losing the entire pregnancy. I'm tired and I wish that after the struggle we went through to get here that we could have had an uneventful pregnancy. I think that until the baby is born, healthy, with all the necessary bits and is crying in my arms that I'll be waiting for the other shoe to drop. There is no innocence allowed for me, I'm not allowed to go through anything naively expecting it all to work out.

Edited to Add: I got a call from my high risk OB, I have an appointment tomorrow at 2pm to meet with the doctor who will be performing the procedure. Depending on how the appointment goes, the procedure may be performed tomorrow as well.