22 weeks 3days (w/ belly shots)

This has been a better week. My leg still hurts on and off but seems better over all. I haven't experienced any more cramping although I do sometimes get a painful tightening in my uterus at times. I sit down when that happened and it goes away. I had a Doctors appt today and both babies look good. I feel lots of kicking in there now especially when I sit or lay down after eating. I still feel much more kicking on my left side than the right but that may be b/c baby A is in a transverse position. For those of you that have been on or are on blood thinners, I'm finding mine to be more difficult to administer. I was told my Lovenox shots have to be in my belly- around the belly button and now that I'm getting stretched out I have very little skin to pinch for the shot so they hurt more. It also makes J and I nervous that we'll hit one of the babies since they kick all around my belly button. I suppose I have muscle and fat layers so that would be impossible?

My parents came down to visit and cleaned my entire house.... I was able to skip all the ironing, cooking and cleaning for a week! How nice... They plan to visit again in a few weeks and will paint the nursery for me then...yes I'm spoiled! Truth to be told I wish I could do more but I really have to limit all activities which is frustrating at times. In the end it will be more than worth it. J and I have been shopping more since I'm worried about how long I'll be able to get around. I don't want to wait until the end and risk partial or full bed rest. We went ahead and bought out double stroller and car seats (plus seat protectors, sun shades, and mirrors so we can see them when they're rear facing). So my SUV is completely ready once we hook it all up. We are pretty set on clothing and other small essentials- baby grooming, baby bathtub, burp cloths, blankets, crib sheets... we've even stocked up on diapers. I believe we have 1500 diapers stacked up in the closet right now. That should last us ...ummmm, maybe 6 weeks :-) I went ahead and registered at babies-r-us and included everything I could think of so that it's recorded in case I can't finish up my shopping myself. We plan to pick up the crib, (we're buying one new one and one is being given to us), crib mattresses and crib bedding in a few weeks. I'll be ordering my diaper bags on-line soon- I've picked out two I want and I found a really cute nursing cover-up that I plan to order.

I also decided to get pre-registered at the hospital since it's a hospital in another town. My doctor (who's also out of town) will only deliver there and I plan on traveling there from now on if I have any more complications. I went to the local hospital for my last few incidents and they won't discuss my case with an out of town doctor. They'll share info with him on what happened but won't let him make any decisions about my care. So- hopefully 45 mins won't be too much of a distance now on. When we registered they gave us an hour long tour of the labor and delivery unit. We got lucky since it was a slow day. I felt comforted knowing more about where I'll be and how they handle certain things. The nurse answered all of my questions and it was like Fort Knox in there w/ security so my babies should be completely safe from strangers.

And now...my current belly shots. I get stopped everywhere I go now with people wanting to know when I'm due. So I guess it's pretty obvious.

Hanging in there...21 weeks 4 days

I haven't posted in a while. It's been a long and scary week.

I had some cramping last week that came on when I was out shopping. It felt like menstrual cramps and I immediately headed home to put my feet up. When I called the doctor they said to come in to the ER unless it went away pretty quickly. The cramping lasted 45 minutes and then stopped. So I was ordered to stay off my feet for 24 hours and to call if it came back, otherwise everything was probably fine and I just over did it. Basically this was my body telling me that I needed to modify even daily activities.

After taking it easy and feeling much better since the cramping went away J and I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean at the movie theaters on Sunday. When we got home my lower left leg started to hurt (throb & ache) and go numb. I pretty much couldn't put any weight on it. It didn't get better overnight. In fact it worsened and started to swell a little. I once again called my doctor and he said to go straight to the Labor and Delivery b/c it could be a blood clot and those can be life threatening. After assessing the situation, they took me straight to the ER for monitoring and to have both an abdominal u/s and deep vein u/s on my leg. Once there I had a horrible experience w/ misplaced paperwork, miscommunication and waiting when the intake doctor from Labor and Delivery wanted me seen ASAP in the ER. While waiting I went to the restroom and saw red blood on my panties. Hysteria followed along w/ me running back up to Labor & Delivery. They were shocked and upset that I was still waiting over 3 hours later when they sent paperwork to the ER saying to admit me right away. I was then admitted into a room at Labor and Delivery, where they did an abdominal u/s, a vaginal exam that showed the blood was coming from hemmroids not vaginally, checked my vitals and they made the tech come to me to do the deep vein u/s on my leg. There was no evidence of a blood clot (thank god) but they think it may be sciatic nerve pain. This was actually good news b/c all I wanted to hear was that there wasn't a blood clot. I really would have been surprised if it had been that since I'm on Lovenox injections and daily baby aspirin. But- my doctor didn't want to take any chances. My discharge instructions now are to take it easy- modified normal activities. They also suggested I wear support hose since I'm already having problems w/ my back and issues w/ leg pain. I'm hobbling around right now with pretty bad pain in my left leg. It may be b/c I've now put on 17 pounds on my small frame. I'm 5'6" and started this pregnancy out at 115lbs so I can really feel the weight already affecting me.

Starting next week I go in for an u/s and office visit every Monday. Some of these will be checkups w/ a quick peek on the u/s, others to measure my cervix and then a full u/s every month to check growth on the babies. My first cervix check is at 23 weeks so I'm anxious to hear that I'm nice and long and closed up tight. At the hospital both babies looked great... Baby A is transverse and Baby b is breech.


On a positive and happy note. We have picked out our names......

Matthew Alan & Andrew Patrick

The name Alan/Allen runs in both of our families (names of both of our fathers) and Patrick is in honor of J's Mom "Patricia" that passed away when he was a teenager.

Happy Birthday

...to me and J since we were born on the same day.... It's actually a belated B-day since our Birthdays were on June 2nd. We celebrated yesterday by going to the Zoo and then to a nice meal out. My cravings for new "heavy and unhealthy" foods just amazes me. These boys must like red meat and be big eaters since their mother has never been either. Typically pre-pregnancy I might have ordered a grilled chicken sandwich or fish w/ salad on the side. Yesterday I ordered a warm gooey artichoke dip for an appetizer, a side salad that was filled w/ feta cheese, dried cranberries, candies walnuts, etc. to start out w/ and then I had a half rack of ribs, french fries and garlic mashed potatoes for dinner. Ribs were the only thing on the menu that sounded good and you couldn't have paid me to eat ribs pre-pregnancy. A few hours later after that huge meal where I swore I wouldn't eat again for the rest of the day b/c I was so stuffed I made J take me to Baskin Robbins so I could get a scoop of chocolate mint chip ice cream. I have a feeling I'll have no trouble putting on the recommended 45 pounds now that my appetite has kicked in. Hopefully it won't all pour on in a month though :-)

We have the boys names down to a short list. We know one of the names for sure and the other is between two so I'll announce them when we're decided. We've been looking at cribs and all of the other stuff we need but haven't made any purchases yet. For some reason I've been putting it off (wanting to make sure everything w/ the pregnancy was going the way it should) and we have our house for sale so I don't really want to start decorating the nursery until we find out if we're moving or not. The housing market in California is slow... there are a ton of houses on the market right now so it's definitely a buyers market (will be so nice to be on that side of things). It's a pain in the ass to have your house up for sale. I'm constantly cleaning for someone that may come by. We had one person make an appt that never showed after I rushed around to make the house perfect. We plan to keep the house on the market two more months and then we'll take it off so we can get serious about the nursery and settling "nesting" in before the babies arrive. It would be so nice to move close to where J works (about an hour away) though so keep your fingers crossed for us.

Also- the results to my AFP triple screen came back negative (whatever that means) which I was told is good. I passed my glucose testing w/ flying colors and my thyroid is behaving for now. So I just need to eat, take it easy, put my feet up as much as possible and let these baby boys grow.