The rest of the visit

• Everything looks wonderful with the boys.  The doctors still have my due date as 12/27 (instead of 12/27) so that would mean that Baby A is measuring a couple of days ahead and Baby B is measuring right on time.  Baby A weighs approximately 9 ounces and Baby B weighs approximately 8 ounces.  :-)


• My cervix looks really good.  They said anything over 3 is good and mine is measuring "well over 4". 


• I saw a midwife for this visit and will see her a lot during the rest of the pregnancy.  She was wonderful and answered all of my (and Mr. W's) questions. 


• My fundal height is 29 cm.  It amused me to watch the midwife take the measurement.  She laid the tape down, moved it up a little, moved it up a little more, moved it up a little more, then said "Oh.  29 cm.  You don't look that big!  You must have a lot of room in there."  I'm not growing outwards quite as much as I"m growing upwards at the moment.  Which completely explains why I feel the little buggers' feet right below my ribcage at the moment. 


• They're being nice and using my lowest pregnancy weight as my starting weight.  (My lowest documented weight is 153 lbs, 9 lbs down from my starting weight.  Mr. W and I are sure that I lost more weight than that since I wasn't weighed again for 7 1/2 weeks.)  This still means that I'm behind on weight gain, though.  The practice did a study (based on someone else's study) and found that mother's of twins that gain 40 - 50 lbs have the healthiest pregnancies with the healthiest babies.  By 24 weeks I should have gained a total of 24 lbs.  At this last appointment, right over 18 weeks, I had only gained 8 1/2 lbs.  I have been asked to do my best to gain around 2 lbs a week for a little while.  This is a really hard thing for me right now due to my continuing nausea and also due to history of anorexia.  The thought of purposely gaining weight is just daunting.  I'm supposed to try protein shakes, smoothies with protein powder added in, and carnation instant breakfast with fruit and stuff added in.  She said my fairly high carb diet is OK, but that I've really got to try and get more protein in.  I think I'm going to buy a scale to help me keep track.


• I've been told that I'm not really on any restrictions per se, but they don't want me doing any more walking than I normally do throughout the day.  There goes my idea of going on walks with Mr. W if the nausea would ever calm down.  (Getting even slightly heated up makes the nausea much worse.)  I've also been told that I'm not allowed to vaccuum.  Something about the repetitive motion or something.  She told me to rest during the day (suuuureeee...my job would love that).  I explained that I usually come home from work and plant my ass on the couch because I'm wiped out.  She said that was fine.


• I got them to test my iron level to see if I need the supplements that they gave me.  I haven't been taking them because of the issues with my stomach and intestines and would like to continue not taking them unless they're necessary.  The midwife said she agreed and that if the test said I was fine then I didn't need to concern myself.  She seemed a little curious as to why I was on them in the first place since my original blood work was completely normal.  She also said they'd test me later on in the pregnancy, also.


• I'll be going in every two weeks with ultrasounds to check growth every 4 weeks.  At my next ultrasound they'll also do a more detailed heart scan on both of the boys since they'll be able to see better.

I'm really beginning to get excited!  I know that is probably hard to understand for a lot of people (that I haven't been really excited until now), but as miserably sick as I've been for so long...it gets really hard.  I have found myself sobbing on more than one occasion due to the nausea and vomiting.  But with furniture arriving, and the house getting finished, and seeing my boys on the screen...even the nausea can't take away those joys.  :-)