10 weeks, 3 days

I had another appointment yesterday and met Dr. Nelson. She was the only doctor in the practice that I hadn't met. She was very nice and I like her just as much as the others. It was a fairly simple visit. She asked me a few questions and then listened for the heartbeats again (she, too, warned me that it's still early). We found one of them. it was 160-170 beats per minute. Dr. Nelson said that one twin will often hid behind the other when it's this early and didn't seem to think too much of it. Hopefully we'll get to hear both heartbeats on December 18, which is my next appointment. I'll be 13 weeks and 1 day by then!

I love my doctor's office!

I just had an appointment with the Nurse Practitioner at Magnolia OB/GYN and what I thought was going to be very boring turned out to be so productive!

I told her about my miserable Sunday (I threw up 6 times on Sunday... it was horrible) so she gave me a prescription for Zofran with the promise that it will change my life. I can't wait to get this one filled!

After we took care of that she said "Now you're very early but do you want to see if we can maybe hear a heartbeat or two?" From all of the reading I've been doing I know that doctor's don't normally even try this until about 12 weeks or so (and I'm only 9 weeks now) so I told her I understood that I was early, I promised I would not get upset if we couldn't hear heartbeats and said let's do it!

She pulled out her little thing that listens to that sort of thing and, it took her a minute, but we did get to hear one of the little hearts beating! It was about 180 beats per minute, which she said was good. The other little peanut was hiding behind my pelvic bone and she couldn't get to it but it was so incredible to hear that one! It is so much cooler to hear the heartbeat than to just see it on the ultrasound!

I have another appointment on November 29 so maybe the other one will come out of hiding by then!

My First Panic Attack

I woke up bleeding this morning at 2:00 AM. I woke Dave up and asked him to get me my phone so I could call my on-call doctor. While he was getting my phone, I experienced a wave of heat followed by a wave of cold. I took my temperature and it was normal. I seriously thought I was going to pass out! I can only guess it was a panic attack at seeing so much blood where there should be none!

So I called my doctor, they told me to go to the emergency room. I needed to lay down a minute before going so Dave started the car and helped me get dressed and off to Conway Medical Center we went at 2:00 in the morning. When we got there the bleeding had stopped. They put us in a room and the doctor came in. He ordered a urinalysis and some blood work. The nurse appeared to take my blood and had trouble finding my vein in my left arm so she proceeded to "dig around in there" (her words, not mine) until I got all hot and flushed again. Blood doesn't normally make me nauseous and getting blood drawn doesn't normally bother me but when you have someone "digging around" in your arm with a needle, you tend to want to pass out! Finally she realized that it wasn't working and tried the other arm. Thankfully she found the vein with the first stick and got the 3 vials of blood that she needed (this is in addition to the 6 larger vials I gave my doctor's office on Thursday).

A LOT later, after the lab results came back (about an hour and a half or so) the doctor reappeared with a portable ultrasound machine and, THANK GOD, was able to find both heartbeats. Then he did a pelvic exam and sent me home with instructions to stay on bed rest until I could follow up with my regular doctor. He was even nice enough to print out my lab results so my doctor wouldn't have to hunt them down.

Dave was a huge help during this ordeal taking care of insurance forms, etc while the nurses asked me tons of questions. We got home at 5:00 AM, had a bowl of cereal and went back to bed.

This morning I called the doctor's office at 8:30 when they opened and told them of our little excursion in the middle of the night and they told me to come in at 11:30 which is when the on-call doctor would be back from the hospital.

I gave them the printout of the lab work, the doctor did yet another pelvic exam and sent me home with instructions to stay off my feet for the rest of the day. She said it was likely that the ultrasound they did on Friday irritated my cervix (it was a transvaginal ultrasound) which caused the bleeding. I told her that I knew things like that could cause spotting but this was WAY beyond spotting. She said that with twins, the blood flow is increased and many things are amplified.

So here I sit on the couch, after a nice long nap, trying to not do anything at all until I am able to go back to work tomorrow. Let's hope we don't have any more nights like that!

Heartbeats!

Dave and I went to the doctor's office today for an ultrasound. The primary purpose was to determine viability. I, of course, was excited and nervous all at once. I had been reading (something I shouldn't do so much of, apparently) and came across something on Vanishing Twin Syndrome where twins are detected early but one fails to develop and never becomes a baby.... well, we saw 2 tiny fluttering heartbeats today and that made me feel so much better! I've also read that once you have heartbeats, the chance of miscarriage drops to 3% which is great!

It's also amazing how much they've grown in the 2 weeks since my last ultrasound! Last time all we could see were the sacs.... now those sacs are much larger and have babies!

Cracker Buddy

When the whole morning sickness thing started, just about everybody I talked to would tell me to eat a few saltine crackers before I even got out of bed... what a great tip!

What makes it even greater is that I have a cracker buddy every single morning. I know all of you are thinking that Dave eats my crackers with me (which is the first thing I would think because Dave usually has to have a little bit of everything that I have) but you're wrong! Every morning I reach for the saltines and as soon as the plastic wrapper makes a crinkling sound, Sammy comes running and hops up on the bed! Who would have thought that the cat would LOVE saltines! I usually eat 3 or 4 crackers, saving the last, tiny corner of each cracker for the cat. It puts a smile on my face each morning, no matter how bad I feel!

And the symptoms begin...

Morning sickness hit me last Thursday. I was 5 weeks, 3 days pregnant and the smell of cat food made me throw up in the kitchen sink. I had no idea it would come on so suddenly! Prior to smelling cat food I didn't have any nausea at all!

So I started taking Dramamine, which is on my list of approved medications. That helped for about a week and I started thinking "I can handle this! Just take a Dramamine and all is well!"

Boy was I wrong! While the Dramamine worked for a while, yesterday the Dramamine came back up and I was miserable all day long!.... time for a new plan. This new plan is way more involved than taking a small pill in the morning...

Last night I took a whole Unisom tablet and 25mg of vitamin B-6. This morning I took 1/2 Unisom tablet and 50mg of B-6 along with eating a few saltine crackers and drinking a little bit of Coke (thanks to April for the Coke tip) before I even got out of bed. I also took my time getting up and, while I was about 20 minutes late for work this morning, I've felt fine all day!

I don't know how long this "magic" combination will help with the sickness but I hope it's until the morning sickness goes away completely!.... just in case, I do still have a pot (lined with a plastic grocery bag) and saltines on the passenger seat of my car!

Telling My Parents

A couple of days after we told Dave's parents we went to my parent's house for lunch. It was Sunday, October 28, 2007 and they were completely baffled as to why I was bringing wrapped gifts for no reason. I told them that I saw something they would like and thought it would be fun to wrap them.

Of course, the very first thing we did was open the presents! I insisted on it!....But first I made sure that my mom had her glasses handy! They opened their boxes. Inside mom's box was a onesie that said "That's it! I'm going to Grandma's!" and inside my dad's box was a onesie that said "When Mommy & Daddy say no... ask Grandpa!".... I think my mom was too stunned to say anything at first but a BIG grin spread across her face. It took my dad a second to catch on and then he said "Kristy! You're having a baby!"

Then I did the same thing as with Dave's parents.... told my mom to remove the tissue from her box.... she put on her glasses and I pointed out what the ultrasound said and, again, the excitement started all over again!

It was great to sit down for lunch and talk about the babies over yummy lasagna!

Telling Dave's Parents

Now that we know we're having twins I'm finding it impossible to keep it a secret! So we scrapped our plan to tell all the parents together...

On October 26, 2007 we shared the news with Dave's parents. We shipped a package to their house in PA. Inside the package were two wrapped presents with bows. One said "Mom" and the other said "Dad". Dave called them before they received the package to tell them it was coming. He said it was something for their trip down here (they'll come to Myrtle Beach on November 10) and they are to call us before they open the package so we can explain it.

I tracked the package and saw that it arrived on the afternoon of Friday, October 26. I was so excited and anxious for them to open it but when I got home from work at 6:00 Dave wasn't there. He had to work late and didn't get home until about 8:30... by that time his parents were out to dinner! By now I am absolutely DYING for them to get home and open our package. Dave finally called them around 10:30 to see when they would be home.... around 11:00 they finally made it home and called us.

They opened their presents. Inside mom's box was a onesie that said "gaga for golf!" and inside dad's box was a onesie that said "Don't look at me... that smell is coming from Grandpa!".... they knew immediately and were SO happy and excited! After the excitement calmed down a bit we told Mom to remove her tissue and look in the bottom of the box.

I taped the ultrasound pic that said "Guess What... Twins" to the bottom of the box! She saw the ultrasound pic but they had to find glasses to read what it said.... when they finally saw that it was twins the excitement started all over again! It was such a great night and so much fun to be able to finally share the news!