The Week in Review

I am 10w1 day today and this is the furthest I've ever made it. Every week is another milestone...well, every day is another milestone really.



The nausea has continued to come with a fierceness some days but then it's not so bad other days. It's hard to know what kind of day it's going to be - I can wake up feeling just fine and by the time I make it downstairs to eat breakfast, I will have a full on nausea attack making every single bite very hard. Did you know how big an apple can grow to when your stomach is rolling?! Of course, I have my trusty side kick with me (Daisy) who is more than willing to eat the scraps! Meat is still a no-go for the most part unless it is hidden very well under piles of breading or a bun. Gluten free is right out the window. I've also been having talks with the two little ones, asking them to please tell me what they want to eat because I'm just trying to feed the two of them. Last night, they got me out of bed at 10pm because my stomach started to rumble since I skipped my 9pm snack in favour of going to bed early. It was a clear message - eat a snack now or we're going to wake you up at 4am to go eat!!!



We had an ultrasound on Friday and we got to see the babies again which was a relief. We haven't seen them since our last u/s at 7 weeks and I do wonder if they're both still there and doing okay, especially since my nutrition isn't that great some days. One baby measured exactly 10 weeks with a hb of 164 and the other one was at 9w6d with a hb of 175. Both normal. Both there. Both doing okay. The u/s tech had a hard time getting a good look at one of the babies because they were moving around and "playing" according to her - how cool is that? They're already moving around and playing with each other! I hope that this means they're going to be the best of friends. I felt very much like Rachael on Friends when she was looking at an u/s picture of Emma and couldn't see the baby...I was pointing at the picture, asking if I was looking at the head and the u/s tech said "No, that's the bum. This is the head"! Same thing with the other baby lol. So without further ado, here are our babies' first picture:







I cut my hair too for donation to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, the charitable program that makes wigs for women who suffer from cancer. This is the second time I've done it and I've been growing my hair for a year and finally just barely had the 8" required, so I chopped it all off. I haven't felt like a contributing member of society for the last 7 years to be honest with you admist all this IF business and by doing this, I feel like I am contributing back to society in a small way. Anyone can do it - no special skills required. You just have to be willing to care for your hair while it grows. My hair is now so short (she cut the ponytails and my first thought was "OMG I look like a boy") but my DH was so sweet and told me that my hair now looks like Rihanna's. Mine is definitely not as cool as her hair but it was totally sweet of DH to tell me that.

And speaking of DH, can I just say how awesome he has been since I have gotten pregnant? He is the best, most awesome guy and he has treated me like nothing short of a queen. Some examples of why he is such a great guy and why he is going to make such a great Dad:

1. I have not picked up dog poop for 5 weeks
2. He has completely taken over cooking and making meals
3. He will often make me two or three things at meal times to try and tempt my palate and won't cringe when I turn down option after option
4. He packs my lunch every day when I go to work
5. He's taken over cleaning the house and anything chemical related so I don't get exposed - this even translated to him removing the nail polish on my toes because he didn't want me to be touching the nail polish remover :)
6. He carries anything heavy for me...well, really, he will carry anything for me, even my purse
7. He's always there to give me a hug, rub my back and tell me that everything is going to be okay, especially when I'm not feeling that great
8. He drives me everywhere I need to go to make sure I am not getting too tired

I could go on, but he is just the most wonderful man and we are so very lucky to have him in our lives. Thanks honey - you're the BEST!!

Speaking of how wonderful my DH is, I am going to leave you all with a funny story of something that happened this past week. I was watching re-runs of one of my favourite shows, How I Met Your Mother, and the last 5 minutes of the episode I was watching reduced me to tears. Not just tears mind you...the sobbing, hands on my face kind of crying that my DH hear from upstairs. He came flying down the stairs, pulled up a chair right next to mine and asked me what was wrong and why I was crying so hard. I just pointed to the TV screen and managed to choke out "Lilly....and Marshall....." He took one look at the TV and burst out laughing - I laughed too because I knew how ridiculous it was that I was crying over the episode but then I started crying again. Hormones eh? [For those of you HIMYM fans, it is the episode where Marshall isn't going to meet Lilly at the airport but then decides to in the end and brings along a marching band that plays "Auld Lang Syne" so they can re-do New Year's even properly - once the first few notes of the song started playing I was blubbering away!]

I have my first u/s with my new OB on Sept 8th so we'll be looking forward to seeing the babies then.

Morning Sickness - 1; Me - 0

**Warning: this post talks alot about nausea, morning sickness and vomiting so if you have a strong gag reflex or are not feeling so great yourself, you may want to skip it!**


Wednesday this week I lost my battle with morning sickness and I threw up for the first time. I've been saying all along that I've felt fine and that I just have a strong gag reflex but this week, that gagging has turned into full on nausea. I haven't been able to eat dinner for the past few days as my nausea seems to be the worst at night. I've also found that my stomach seems to have shrunk to the size of an orange and I can eat only about half as much as I could in the past. Frequent small meals has turned into a continual stream of food all day, eaten one tiny bite at a time as that is all I can manage without getting even more naseated.


I absolutely cannot stomach meat - I had some beautiful roasted pork tenderloin and as soon as I put the bite into my mouth, I felt my stomach clench and all the contents in my stomach started to rise up from the very bottom and go all the way up to the base of my throat. Needless to say, I did not swallow that bite or anything for a while thereafter!


I am finding that the strangest foods are sitting well with me and my favourite foods are not. I am a total meat eater and this meat aversion is weird to say the least. I don't particularly like fish (all those tiny bones) but that seems to sit well with me so this is one of the only proteins I can get down aside from lactose free dairy and soy.


I have weaned further of my meds so I am actually feeling a bit better today so I'm hoping that my hormones are staying high but not crazy high like they were last week. It will be interesting to see what the levels come back at today. I am still grateful for the nausea though and I am by no means complaining - it's confirmation that there is something going on down there.

I've lost a few pounds from my inability to eat and not eating any meat so I'm down about 4lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm reading Dr. Luke's book and by this point, she's saying that I should have gained about 9lbs - HA! Fat chance of that happening when I can't even keep down my breakfast! It's such a shift in mind set too - we're so conditioned into thinking about eating low calorie, low fat, low carb foods and now all of a sudden it's the exact opposite. It's okay to drink the higher fat milk and eat the full fat cheese!

At the height of my nausea 2 nights ago after the AM barfing incident, I was so hungry but extremely nauseated that I was getting sooo frustrated. This was also the night of the pork tenderloin that I spit out. I literally put my hands over my face and cried from sheer frustration. [Can someone say HORMONES?] My DH and I talked about it what to eat again and we decided to go with a gluten light kind of diet and I would get to chew on a few soda crackers on nights like that. Perhaps even a few dry pieces of bread to help with the nausea. I have long suspected that I do not have celiac nor a sensitivity to wheat but after avoiding it for so long, I was really hesitant to out and out eat gluten. Our goal was to hang on until at least the end of the 1st trimester but I just couldn't do it.


No spotting or bleeding this week - yay!


Our continued quest to find an OB has finally resulted in a referral. I'm just waiting to hear back about when our first appointment is going to be. I couldn't get into the high risk practice at the hospital in Toronto and was referred to their low-risk practice instead. I'm okay with that because if anything happens, at least we are at a hospital that has neo-natal intensive care facilities and they do have an entire team of specialists that we can be referred to if required. A funny aside - my first RE here has been super nice to me and I couldn't figure out why...until her receptionist called and asked if I had chosen an OB yet and if we were going to use her!! Ahhh...it all makes sense now, why she has continued to let me use her clinic for b/w and u/s and has agreed to fax the results to CCRM. Luckily, we have valid reasons for wanting to go downtown but it was very enlightening to realize why she was being so nice!


I think we're still in a bit of disbelief about what is going on. We haven't had an u/s in 2 weeks so I have started to wonder what's going on down there. We're going to rent a doppler but will likely wait a little while longer. Only 3 more weeks to go until we're out of the 1st trimester and hopefully we can begin to breathe a little easier. Until then, no rash, no spotting...everything is good!

Bleeding has stopped!

The spotting/bleeding finally stopped on Wednesday this week. Phew! However, that doesn't stop me from checking every time I go to the bathroom. I have been so careful not to twist or lift anything heavy. I still had some spotting last weekend and on Tuesday, I went into my old clinic to get some b/w done and begged and pleaded for a second u/s. We saw the babies again and they were measuring right where they should have been - 7w3d so everything is looking good so far. I still have not gotten an u/s picture but I figured that they made a special accomodation to get me in for an u/s and I'm not even a patient there anymore so I'll take the u/s and get the picture later.


Did you know that you're not supposed to do acupuncture in the 1st trimester? I told my nurse I was continuing to do acupuncture and she asked me to stop b/c it could exacerbate the bleeding! I didn't know that - I figured it was good pre so it must be good post too so that the kiddos are getting enough nutrients and everything else they need from me. My issue is blood stagnation as well so I figure it can't be a bad thing to keep everything moving. My TCM is very careful in that she doesn't do any abdominal points and she is not stimulating me at all...just keeping the channels open and everything moving. I'm still going to go, but maybe every 2 weeks instead of once a week.


In terms of how I'm feeling, I am 8w1d today and my body is still figuring things out. I'm not nauseated but I have an extremely sensitive gag reflex. Food is sitting a bit high with me. Smells are bothering me a lot. I guess there's not a lot of room down there where my stomach used to be and my uterus is pushing everything around. I feel like my food sits around lung level, between the bottom of my lungs and the base of my throat. Week 6 saw me completely unable to eat meat. Even the thought of putting meat into my mouth was enough to make me gag. That is so strange for me because I am a complete meat eater but it completely turns me off right now.


Week 7 saw the gagging abate a tiny bit but it's still there. We were walking through the grocery store yesterday and I swung a little too close to the fresh meat counter and promptly gagged so I had to scuttled away quickly to hide in the pharmaceutical section. I know it's important to eat protein but I've had to look to other non-meat sources. I actually was able to get a little meat down yesterday but I had to hide it under a layer of vegetables and condiments. I actually broke out into a Joey Tribbiani "meat sweat" and my face was covered in fine prespiration when I was done but I got it down and I feel better for having had the protein. I dislike the whey protein shakes because they always upset my stomach (I think whey is a form of dairy and I'm lactose intolerant) so I've been drinking my lactose free milk, eating my lactose free yogurt and chowing down on the tofu.

My DH is so cute when I have one of my little gagging spells. He says that it's the twins' way of saying hello and has even gone as far as to say in a very high falsetto "Hi Mommy!" when I start gagging, coughing and turning green. I have to laugh when he does it! I don't mind the gagging, honestly - it confirms that there is still something going on down there so every gag is a little reassurance in my books!


I'm still searching for an OB/GYN who specializes in high risk pregnancies. The first one my family doctor referred me to was highly recommended but she wouldn't see me until 20 weeks which I think is way too far into the pregnancy, especially since there is more than one involved here. She is also not affiliated with a hospital that has a neo-natal intensive care unit since the hospital is not downtown Toronto, so we ended up rejecting that referral. The second doctor we were recommended to actually got more lousy reviews than good reviews so we nixed her as well. The third doctor we tried was full and not accepting any more patients. So, we are now trying to get in with the guru of all high risk pregnancies here in Toronto but I haven't heard yet if he will take us or not. We shall see but I need to find someone soon so we can do the 10-11 week check. Who knew that finding an OB would be this hard?

I've been sleeping A LOT lately too. I'm a 7 hours a night kind of girl and even if I napped in the past, I would feel terrible for the rest of the day and then only sleep a little at night. In comparison, for the past few days, I've been napping for about 3 hours in the afternoon and then heading to bed by 8pm to sleep until 7am the next morning. Crazy! I know they say that the exertion your body is going through is akin to climbing a very, very tall mountain but I have never slept so much in my life! I also get tired very easily so a quick trip to the grocery store is all I can handle...no more running multiple errands in one shot.

It's so interesting to watch all of these changes and to be aware of them as we progress along. My body is definitely changing. We've also started to wean off the meds (yay!) and my E2 is still >2000 and my P4 is >50 so things are looking good. No bleeding, weaning off the meds, hungry and tired most of the time...it's all good!