Coming up on 16 Weeks!!

This Saturday I will be 16 weeks along and I still have a hard time believing that I am actually pregnant. I don't look that different and I am constantly turning sideways in front of a mirror to check my profile and then flattening my shirt against my stomach area to see how big the bump is. My DH keeps reassuring me that there is definitely a bump but really, if you didn't know, there isn't much to see at this point. I think I'm just looking a little chunky around the middle but that's it.


I'm still taking the Diclectin. I asked my OB how I would know when to stop and was told that I should continue taking it for a few weeks and be symptom free before I even think about starting to wean off of it. It's interesting - a lot of the people that I've told that I have terrible nausea are pretty judgemental about the medication. I get asked really silly questions like "Are you sure it's safe?" or "Is it really necessary to take that?". Duh - no, I'm not sure it's safe and I got it in a back alley somewhere rather than through a doctor's prescription. Of course, ideally I would not be taking any medication at all but there comes a point where you have to decide what's best. There I was, 3 1/2 months pregnant, getting more nauseated with each passing day and getting to the point where even liquids were coming back up and I was -5lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight...I have to get some nutrition to the kids somehow.


A lot of people assume that a twin pregnancy is exactly the same as a singleton pregnancy except you end up with 2 babies instead of 1 - not true. I was given a stern talking to by my OB when I met him - we are at increased risk for pre-term labour, gestational diabetes, hypertension and a whole host of other pregnancy issues. I am even more concerned about putting on weight and eating properly because I am likely not going to see the full 40 week gestation period so time is very precious. Studies have shown that putting on weight in the first 1/2 of your pregnancy influences how much you put on in the 2nd half of your pregnancy and it also affects the final birth weight of your babies. I will ideally carry until 37 weeks but who knows if I'll even make it to that point and how I'll be feeling. Hope for the best and a nice long gestation period but I have to be realistic too. So, I'm trying to eat healthy, eat constantly and drink tons of water too in the hope that it will help.


I'm pretty excited to be winding down work in another 4 weeks. I was off this week but will go back next week for the remainder of October. I was looking at our Employment Insurance ("EI") benefits (this is a government program in Canada that, among other things, provides for maternity leave benefits. We are all required to pay into this and the deductions are taken off each pay) and whether I would qualify or not and I am so close to getting benefits. Basically, I have to have worked 600 insurable hours in the 52 weeks prior to the start of my leave in order for me to qualify for benefits. I am estimating that I will have worked about 500 hours at the end of my contract so I would only need another 15 days of work. So close yet so far! Either I try to find another contract or see if they'll extend my contract at the company I'm with right now. We'll have to see what happens. It would just stink if I didn't qualify after having paid into this fund for over 15 years!


I finally finished a course I've been taking over the last year which was a huge weight off my shoulders. It's a self-study course, one that I chose to take because to maintain my accounting designation, I have to do a certain number of professional development hours every year. I wrote the exam on Tuesday (open book, multiple choice) and failed the first time (boo!) but then wrote it again right away and passed the second time! Yay! No more studying!


Other than that, I'm feeling much better these days and eating normally. The medication has really helped me to function more normally. I have an appointment tomorrow with my OB's dietician and I've been faithfully writing down everything that I've been eating since Monday. My OB refers everyone expecting twins to see the dietician since I apparently have "very specific dietary needs" in his words. It will be interesting to hear what the dietician has to say about my eating habits. Two weeks ago she would have had a LOT to say about what I was eating (essentially, nothing!).


To Sherry, who posted a while back with a question about why I went gluten free...here's why I did it. I do not have any symptoms of having celiac disease...I've always eaten bread and flour and have had no adverse effects that I knew of. At the time, I was about 5 years into this whole IF journey, frustrated with conventional medicine and decided to try to deal with it "naturally" in addition to cycling. I attended a mind-body fertility course and part of the program included some guest speakers. One speaker was a naturopath and one of the things she suggested was to go gluten free because even though you may not have any signs or symptoms of suffering from celiac disease, you may still have it. How frustrating is that?? I thought to myself, "well, I've tried everything else...what would it hurt to do this as well??" so I did go gluten free just to see. I don't know if it made a difference or not but I was not only gluten free but dairy free and sugar free as much as possible. The whole approach was to try to maintain a balanced sugar level in your blood stream, or so the thought process went. I have to say though that I started eating gluten again after getting pregnant because the nausea was so bad all I wanted were soda crackers. I hope that answers your question.

That's it for me for now...I'll let you all know what the dietician said about my eating habits after tomorrow!

Update Slacking

Yes, I have been slacking lately. Put it down to nausea, tiredness and work. Not complaining - those are just the facts. To post a very quick update, I'm going to post in bullet points to make it faster. Here goes.

• we came out of the closet to our family and some friends! The reaction of my MIL was absolutely fantastic and made up for my disappointment over the reaction from my own parents. She said that no matter what, she would be here to help us and that if she had to, she would hire someone to help at her restaurant while she took care of us. Nothing is going to stop her from coming!! She's the best. My own sister started screaming in excitement when I told her that we were expecting - I wasn't quite sure how she was going to react as I know she is quietly struggling with secondary IF herself and I know how hard "announcements" can be.
• worked like crazy last week - I normally work in an office 15 minutes from my home as I am not crazy about commuting but last week I had to drive out to a smaller city which meant a 3 hour round trip each day for 3 days in a row.
• commuting 3 hours/day for 3 days triggered an extreme nausea attack on my birthday (boo!) so I spent it leaned over a toilet
• broke down and started taking the anti-nausea drug called Diclectin. This drug is only available in Canada and is made up of a combination of vitamin B6 and something else which is essentially an antihistamine. I threw up my first dose but have been able to keep subsequent doses down so I am slowly beginning to feel better. Side effects are dizziness and tiredness.
• I wanted so much to control my nausea through more natural means but I am not putting on weight still and am at -5lbs to my pre-pregnancy weight which is starting to worry me. So, I started taking the medication. The thing too about Diclectin is that you have to take it continuously in order for it to be effective so it's not as if you can just pop a pill here and there as required.
• shopped for the very first time in a maternity store - yikes!! What an experience that was!! We have substantially less selection here in Canada, the main store being Thyme Maternity and their stuff, while nice, is pretty pricey considering you're going to wear it for a few months. Still, I enjoyed the experience although I don't look yet like I belong. They had a specially shaped pillow you could put into your maternity pants so you could see how they would fit when you're bigger and WOW was it ever strange to see what I will look like in a few months!! However, it helped me to have a visual picture of what I will look like as I have never been able to picture that before in my mind.
• started planning purchases for the babies - we're looking into strollers, rocking chairs and car seats and my DH is looking into getting a snow blower. We have to start car shopping too and will likely get out test driving this weekend
• still worry about telling people although I am not over 14 weeks along. Still scared about m/c
• had some weird spotting - a dark yellow, light caramel colour, definitely not red. Not sure if this is from the bleed we had during weeks 5-7 but will mention to the doctor tomorrow
• had what I think are round ligament pains - these are like menstrual cramps and are caused by the stretching of your uterus and the ligaments that hold it in place. Mine were dull and achy in nature and lasted for several hours at a time accompanied by low back pain. Did it worry me - you betcha it did! They're gone today but it was bothering me Friday and Saturday for most of each day off and on.

That's it for now - a quickie!

The Post About My Parents

Last weekend, we went over to my parents' house for dinner and to finally tell them our big news. They were pretty surprised to say the least but happy over the news. What has been bothering me is this - my parents have booked a trip and will be away from Feb 28th to March 21st. My singleton due date is March 21st but with twins, I could very easily deliver anytime in the month leading up to my due date. My parents will be away for the last three weeks before my due date which means that there is a very strong possibility that they will not be here for their birth.

Early on in our IF journey, we chose not to tell any of our parents about our decisions concerning our treatment. They all knew that we were having trouble - we were among the first to get married and years later, no children even though we have always said that we wanted kids. I also didn't want to suffer judgement from my Mom about the treatment choices we were making - she never would have agreed with the drugs that I ended up taking, the injections and definitely not the amount of money we've spent. She is of the mind set that fertility drugs = cancer but I have always said that she was never faced with the situation that I have been faced with. They know we've been to see doctors and every kind of practitioner under the sun but they don't know all of the gory details. They don't know we've done 6 IUIs. They don't know we've done 6 IVFs and they definitely don't know the real reason why we've made 4 trips to Denver in the last 12 months.


What they do know is that we have always wanted kids. I for one have always said waaaay back when I was young and naive and thought that you could simply choose to have the number of children you wanted, that I wanted to have 5 children. Yep - 5. Everyone else was saying things like 2 or 3 but I wanted 5. My parents also know that we have been trying for 7 years and last year we miscarried. They know this has been a very bumpy road for us and something not easily achieved. They know that this is something I have dreamed about since I was a little girl and that this means the world to me. I have never wanted a high powered career...but I have always wanted kids. They know this.


What upsets me is that knowing what they know, they are still choosing to go on this trip. To me, this is kind of one of those once in a lifetime events that you assume your parents are going to be at. Kind of like your wedding y'know? I thought that when I finally gave birth, they would be there, at the hospital with us to celebrate this event...but instead, they're going to be thousands of miles away. This trip on the other hand is one that runs many times every year and they would have the opportunity to go another time if they cancelled this time. We don't have a big family, just my sister and I and our two kids will be grandchildren #2 and #3 for them so it's not as if they have lots of grandchildren being born all the time. I just can't get rid of this feeling of being let down.


I've contemplated saying something to my parents but the thing is that I think my Mom would want to cancel the trip but my Dad would still want to go and this would cause a big rift between them. They both seem to have accepted that they can't get the $ back for the airfare so they've no choice but to go. I understand that this is not an insignificant amount of money to lose and I don't mean to sound flippant about it but I was still hoping that somehow they would rearrange things so that they would be here.

I should also mention that my sister, when she had her son, she specifically requested that no family visit her in the first month. They live 4 hours drive away from me and my parents so it's not like we could just drop in so we all respected her wishes and stayed away. My Mom just assumed that I would want the same thing but the difference is that my parents and I live just 5 minutes apart from one another and with two kids, I want all the help I can get!!


I am trying to accept that I cannot make choices for other people and I cannot control other peoples' actions and I need to keep focussed on what is important to us. My DH and I will celebrate this event ourselves and my BFF has already told me that nothing is going to stop her from coming to see me in the hospital. My in laws will probably come down ASAP so it will probably be okay that my parents are not there so we stagger the grandparents visits. It just makes me sad that my parents are not going to be there.

The other thing that happened when we told my parents is that my Mom keeps on trying to reassure herself that we didn't take fertility drugs. A little background information here. My Mom is a strong believer in natural remedies. About 15-20 years ago, my Dad was diagnosed with a very bad heart murmur caused by a leaky valve. His cardiologist told him that the murmur was so loud it was listening to the engine of a locomotive train. My Dad was told that eventually, he would have to have open heart surgery to repair the damage and this completely freaked out my Mom. She spent a lot of time researching and talking to people, trying to find another way to deal with this rather than having to resort to surgery. Through supplementation with something called Barley Green and an assortment of other herbal remedies, two years after his diagnosis, my Dad's cardiologist said that he could barely hear the murmur. No more leaky valve if you can believe it. Since then, my Mom believes very firmly that anything can be fixed with the right diet, exercise and supplements.


As soon as we told my parents that we were having twins, the first question out of her mouth was "Did you take fertility drugs? Because you know that always results in more than one". This really seems to matter to her. She has asked us a few times if we did or not and I always reply the same way, that yes, we had help but it's hard to say what the magic combination was in the end because we have tried everything. I am not ashamed that we did IVF but I do not want others to judge our choices. I have asked my Mom in the past to keep things to herself but she still talks about my issues with her friends under the guise that she is asking for a daughter of a "friend" of hers. Yeah, right - like her friends can't figure out that she's asking for her own daughter who has been married for 9 years and still has no kids. This is nobody else's business but ours. Is it too much to ask that the focus be put onto what is important here? We're having two babies! My parents are going to have two more beautiful grandchildren! Isn't that enough?

So, that is what has been weighing on my mind of late. I know that my DH and I are so excited about the kids and we are really looking forward to their birth in 2010. If they're born before Feb 14th, they'll be born in the Year of the Ox just like me! If they're born after Feb 14th, they'll be born in the year of the Tiger. We will celebrate and we are enjoy everying single second. Focus on what's important right?

Graduation Day & The Big Reveal

I've been slacking I admit. I owe a few big updates so here goes.

Last Friday, I officially graduated from CCRM. I had my blood drawn for the very last time at my local clinic (the very first IF clinic I ever went to 6 long years ago), gave out Thank You cards and gifts to the nurses who had helped me along the way and then waited for the last phone call from my nurse at CCRM. My Estrogen was still off the charts and my progesterone was still way higher than it needed to be. My nurse and I spoke, she congratulated us and I said some very heartfelt "thank yous" to her. Last few times I was in Denver, I had written her a few cards and given her a few gifts since I knew I would not have the opportunity to pass something along to her in person at a later date.

I think in today's world, there are so many instances where people hear about the bad rather than the good and I wanted to make sure that I took the time to thank all the people who helped us along the way. The nurses at CCRM, the nurses at MFC, my TCM doctor and acupuncturist, the drugstore that offers a program for IVF patients that sells the meds without a markup, my family doctor who wrote out all of my scripts from CCRM without a word, my hypnotherapist, my therapist, the TCM doctor in Denver who did my acupuncture while I was cycling...there are so many people who helped us along the way and made Graduation Day possible. There are many who have refused to help us along the way but there were enough people who agreed to help us that made today possible.

And of course, there are all of you, my tangible yet intangible support system of fellow bloggers, fellow IVFers, fellow IFs, fellow CCRMers. There has been so much that I have learned from all of you and your combined insights have prompted me to ask better questions and to demand better treatment. I am so grateful to have found you all and all of your comments, support and words of encouragement have picked me up on some of my darkest days and spoke to my heart when it felt like most people around me couldn't hear me. If I haven't said this before, I am so thankful for all of you and I would hug you all and shower you with the gratitutde in my heart if I could. I only hope that I offer the same support to others that you all have given to me. YOU made a difference to me and for that I say a very sincere and heart felt "THANKS!!".

This coming Saturday, I will be 12 weeks. We are three days away from making it past the scary first trimester. I have to admit that everytime I go to the washroom, I check my underwear to make sure that I am still pregnant. Of course, there is the constant presence of the morning sickness to serve as a reminder that hormones are still high so logically speaking, something must still be going on down there to be generating all of those hormones right?

This past week, we finally started telling people the news. We started with my parents as they are leaving on Friday on a trip for 3 weeks and I just couldn't wait until they got back to tell them. I hope that I will be showing by that point and putting on some decent weight so it would have been a real shock to them to come home to a pregnant me. My parents were pretty surprised when we told them - after all, we have been married the longest and are the only ones without children. I think they had given up on us ever making "the announcement". More to talk about here with this reveal (there's a strong chance they will not be here for the birth and a lot of prying questions about how we got pregnant) but I'll save that for another post.

My second reveal was to my boss and her boss at work. We have a busy time coming up and there was a request for me to be out at an offsite location over an hour away for 8:30am which was not going to happen given my intense morning sickness. It was so strange to tell people - in a good way of course - but kind of scary since I am not yet technically out of the first trimester. I had to tell them so we could make other arrangements. I guess this gets easier and easier and it will once I begin to really show. Right now I'm just a little chubby :).

Symptom wise, I'm hoping that the nausea will disappear on Saturday right at the 12 week mark but just in case it doesn't, I am going to the doctor's tomorrow to get a prescription for the Zofran. I've had some pretty rough days but then I've had some okay days as well. I have a little paunch going on that is pretty small in the morning and then grows to a decent size by the end of the day but nothing too noticeable yet. I think because my uterus is tipped backwards, when I eat during the day, it pushes the uterus out. I have a disappearing/reappearing belly! I'm still at a net loss of 4 pounds and I really need to start putting on the weight. I am nauseated every morning, my sense of smell is really acute (poor DH has had to eat dinner by himself many nights) and by dinnertime, I am nauseated again or have no appetite. Meat still needs to be hidden so I can eat it. However, all these symptoms are good things because it confirms that something is still going on.

Three more days and counting!

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!