Preparing My Furbaby

As many of you know, I am a dog lover and my furbaby Daisy has been a light in my life during these very long and trying 7 years it took to get to this point. She never judged me for not wanting to be social and was always willing to curl up for a good snuggle. On days where I had personal pity parties and would just lie on the floor crying, she would let me go for a few minutes and then start barking at me to get up and not feel so sorry for myself - after all, I had my wonderful DH and her right?

My DH and I have been talking a lot about how we are going to help her to adjust to the new situation. I know she will come to love our two little girls but there will be an adjustment period and we want to help her through that as much as we can. Once she discovers that they will share food with her, she will be their devoted slave forever.

Actually, we started getting her ready as soon as we got her as a puppy. We constantly touched her paws, grabbed her fur and pulled her tail, all gently of course but we did it just the same to make sure that we desensitized her to the sensation just in case a small child did it to her one day. She's very tolerant of us and she just looks at us like we're crazy and she's doing us a favour by "letting" us have our way. Have I mentioned that she is the best dog ever?

We are also looking into buying a 2nd family car, most likely an SUV and we want to do it in advance of the birth so that we can get her used to sitting in the back - the very back...you know, the hatch back part of the SUV. Right now, she sits behind us and stretches out across the bench - she's never had to share the space so why would she start now? We don't want her to associate being demoted to the back area with the kids so we need to do this far in advance and reward her so she associates good things with sitting so far back there. She was pretty funny the first time we put her in the back of my parents' SUV - she kept on poking her head over the back seats, a little confused, looking at us as if to say "Mommy - why am I so far away? How on earth are you going to feed me cookies from all the way up there?"

We also found this great website which sells a 12 minute soundtrack of all the sounds a baby makes from laughing to screaming. Check it out:

The news article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/and-baby-makes-four/article1270252/

The website where you can get the soundtrack: http://www.dogmeetbaby.com/

My DH was pretty funny and remarked that Daisy wasn't going to be the only one who needed to listen to this recording to become used to the sounds a baby would make!! It will do our family a world of good!

Many people have offered to take Daisy off our hands since they assume that we will be too busy with the girls but there is no way that we would give her up. She is a part of our family just like I am, my DH is and our two little girls.

We will all have to adjust but we are doing everything we can to make that adjustment easier. In my eyes, it is no different than asking a first born child to adjust to the idea of siblings. At first, they will be wary and maybe a little jealous of one another but they will soon become friends. We will still get her outside for her daily walks, run around with her and spend time being silly with her just like we are now. We need to make sure that we praise her when the babies are around (again, positive association with the two new screaming bundles) and make sure that we don't ignore her needs. We have an awesome dog walker who loves Daisy as much as we do and she has already volunteered to help us when the babies arrive so that will also ease the transition.

If anyone else has any good tips on how to make the adjustment, I would love to hear them!

Feelings of Disbelief Still Invade My Thoughts

I can't help it. I am still in disbelief that this actually happening for us. I am over 17 weeks along now and every day I still wonder if I will see blood on my underwear or have a late term loss. I've read the stories and so have many of you - people have lost their twins in the 2nd trimester so it's not exactly improbable. Things are just more complicated when there are two floating around inside. Do these thoughts and feelings ever go away?



I still try hard to support my IVF buddies who are still fighting in the trenches and I keep up with their stories because I want to know how they're doing and how they're holding up. My heart aches with every valley they hit and it lifts when they reach the peaks. Keeping up with their stories and reading the boards at IVFC reminds me how lucky we are to have these kids are and how deeply and truly grateful I am for them...but I also can't help but reflect how fragile our situation can be.



Everyone keeps asking whether or not we've started shopping and I keep saying no...it seems too early to start yet really, we only have about 4.5 months to go so we really should start picking things up. I have also told my family and friends that I do not want a baby shower. There's that disbelief again. Chinese tradition is that we wait until the baby is 1 month old and then we have a big party to introduce the baby to society. Now I'm not usually that traditional, but in this case, it doesn't seem to be a bad thing to wait until they're actually here. Again, it's that feeling of not wanting to count chickens (or babies) until they're hatched (born).



When I'm shopping for maternity clothes, I catch myself asking about return policies and thinking about if I could still wear certain items even if I weren't pregnant - what is wrong with me?? IVF robs us of so many things and I can't help but think about the "what if". It sure would be nice to float along on a sea of pregnancy hormones, blissfully ignorant of the things that could go wrong, secure in the knowledge that you could get pregnant "just like that" again if you had to.


Part of me wonders if this is somehow connected to my early childhood learnings, that life is just darn hard. Maybe I'm making this pregnancy out to be hard for no reason...I've often wondered if my need to make this hard is tied to my inability to give up the nausea. I seem to cling to the nausea, not wanting to give it up as it provides constant reassurance that there is something going on down there. Maybe I'll be able to give it up when I really start showing.

Anyhoo...enough heavy stuff.



In terms of how I'm feeling, the medication has virtually eliminated my nausea. I still stuggle to eat meat (to which everyone keeps reminding me how vegetarians give birth to healthy children all the time) and I do get occasional twinges of nausea here and there but I am doing a lot better than I was. My lower abdomen is really firm too - I tenderly press a little here and there and wonder when I will feel an aswering push from the other side. It's still a little early to feel movement but I am waiting for that day when I can feel what is going on inside.



I may not be putting on too much weight but I am certainly retaining water and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. How do I know about the retaining water thing? Simple - I've had to grease my ring finger every day to get my engagement/wedding rings on and off. My hands feel kind of swollen in the mornings too and my shoes have begun to get a little tight. I figure I will eventually have to stop wearing my rings but I just love them and not wearing them is really strange for me. A small sacrifice to make though.



Feeling full is a completely different sensation too. My stomach has migrated north and when I feel full now, it's a feeling of being stretched tight across the lower ribcage area rather than deep in the abdomen.



I've been negotiating to extend my contract by a month or two just to make sure I have enough hours to qualify for maternity leave benefits. I think they may have some work for me but I haven't gotten the details nor have I gotten the official word. It's hopeful though that I will be able to get the mat leave benefits so that's good. I break into a sweat thinking about how our expenses will be changing with the coming of the twins so any money is a good thing.



Finally, I leave you with a photo of the sweetest things. My friend, L, stopped over on her way to London, UK and gave the babies their first gift. I'm okay that it's before they're actually here and she specifically asked me if it would be okay (and yes, I did squash the feeling of disbelief that accompanied the question) . I don't see her that often and it is so sweet of her to want to give us something so I thought "why not?" Maybe this will make it a little more real for us. It was just too sweet and yes, they're handmade and soft as buttercream frosting:

The pink one (and yes, that's a teeny tiny bow on top of the hat!):

The purple one (the hat is laid flat so you can check out the bow!):

Thanks L - this is what my babies will be wearing for the 1 month party!

Sue - This Post is For YOU!

I wanted to make sure I answered your question about the weight gain and I have to clarify that I am referencing a book written by Dr. Barbara Luke and her research pertains to twins, triplets & quad pregnancies. I should have been more clear when I wrote my prior post so I apologize for any confusion or worry I may have caused you - not my intention at all.

Anyway, here goes with what she says pertaining to multiple gestations. She says that the pattern of weight gain matters and that weight gain up to 28 weeks has the greatest influence on growth rate. I guess her research on twin pregnancies has shown her that weight gain before 28 weeks is correlated to weight gain after 28 weeks - the more you put on prior to 28 weeks the more you can put on after 28 weeks, or so I understand it. She also makes the point that the babies takes up more and more room as the pregnancy progresses so your stomach is squished leaving less room for food. Also, she thinks that the increased appetite at the beginning is to facilitate fat stores that will also help to provide nutrition to the babies later on when you can't eat as much.

Reference: "When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets or Quads" by Dr. Bar.ba.ra Lu.k.e & Ta.mar.a Eb.er.lei.n, copyright 2004, HarperCollins, pg 59-60.

That being said though, I have to take what she says with a grain of salt. I was so sick in the 1st trimester and unable to eat...her weight gain goal for someone like me (first pregnancy, from IVF, twins) at the 16 week point is something like 30 lbs!!! BTW, I just noticed another chart on page 60 where she says that the optimal weight gain for a singleton pregnancy by the 20 week mark is 12 lbs - you've gained 10 so you're really close!

Anyway, that's what I was talking about in my other post. Sorry again for any worry!

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!