17 weeks and 2 days and truckin' along

Today marks 17 weeks and 2 days. It's not a significant mile marker to most, but to be several weeks free of complications is an amazing thing for all of us at this point. I have the same complaints, I'm so tired beyond belief that it actually brought me to tears yesterday. I'll blame it on hormones because I know that's most of it :) I am ALMOST at peace with the fact that I will most likely rely on even just 4 oz. of coffee every single day just to survive and have even the slightest grip on my sanity. Right now, it's totally worth it.

Memorial Day weekend was a much needed long weekend without the kids and quality time spent with my family. Sunday was my birthday (my last one, I'm going to stay 29 forever. Actually, I take that back, it was my 5th time turning 25, so I'm going to be 25 forever, okay?) I have this fear of getting older. I don't know why, but when I think of aging, I get panicked and feel depressed. Terry is 43 and he talks freely about his age and doesn't seem to have a care in the world about it. I wish I could feel that same way. I know it's a normal thing (well, aging is, but so is not wanting to age), but I try not to think about it. I never know what to ask for for my birthday and my family finally gave up and started finding cute things that they knew I would like but wouldn't necessarily buy for myself (shoes, garden ornaments, etc.) and money from my parents so I will actually buy something for myself. I'm a very frugal person. I don't shop for myself, I don't ask for gifts because I feel like I have everything I could ever want (except for a house to call our own, that's coming soon I think!). So, I feel blessed! Saturday Terry had the entire day planned out for us. He surprised me with a trip to the horse races, which was awesome because I've mentioned about a dozen times over the past 3 years that "I'm GOING to the horse races at least once this year!" We hadn't made it over the past few years, so it was really sweet that he planned this for us. Mini-doughnuts are an absolute must-have if I go somewhere that serves them (fresh), so we indulged in a bag of mini-doughnuts and cheered for our horses. After the races we went to our favorite wing restaurant and had our tasty chicken wings. It was a great day!

Sunday we went to my parents' for dinner and spent the afternoon hanging out, just lounging around and talking. My favorite time is time spent with my family and I cherish every moment of it. Monday morning T&Y started calling in the morning and I finally sent them a message and told them I was still in bed and staying put until I felt like getting up. I felt bad, but we were exhausted and took advantage of not having our kids to get up for! The rest of the day was spent mattress and house shopping. One of those is much more fun than the other, I'll give you three guesses :)

So, now onto that dreaded word again...."exhausted". I struggle with extreme fatigue/lethargy/exhaustion on a daily basis and it's usually around the same time, I've noticed. It usually causes me to feel very out of breath, almost like I'm going to pass out, nauseous, and desperate. I'm no stranger to fatigue, I've been dealing with chronic fatigue for years and I will admit that this is definitely the worst it's ever been, but it's obvious as to why. During my last OB appointment, I asked if it was OK for me to start taking SOMETHING...ANYTHING...to help. I was thinking Vitamin D and Iron. My OB thought that was a great idea and to add Vitamin C to help with the iron absorption. Now, I'm going to be brutally honest here, so skip forward if you would rather not hear the nitty gritty of what pregnancy brings to some women..I'm not usually one to talk about this next subject although it doesn't bother me to hear about others'. I am not a "regular" person, bathroom-wise, to begin with. I never have been. I "go" once every 5 days on average and it hasn't bothered me until surrogacy. With the medications, dehydration, hormones, bloating,etc., it can make things a LOT worse in that area. And there you have it.....my very first hemorrhoid. I have never had one before. Mine isn't big (my OB barely even noticed it), but it's there and, although I can't feel it and it isn't bothersome physically for the most part, I think about it ALLLLL the time and am quite obsessive with my witchhazel and cotton balls, if ya know what I mean. So when the mention of Iron came into play, I also mentioned that I heard it could make those things worse. Now enter, stool softeners. To help with my irregularity (which, remember, didn't bother me until just this past year) I have tried my hand at gentle laxitives from straight ex-lax to milk of magnesia and also fiber tablets. I've been told by people who have used these things that "oh yeah, I take double the dose and am able to go right away and feel amazing afterwards, cleans me right out!" Um, they never mentioned that they were laxative junkies. Which is so not true for me. I take HALF the dose and nothing happens for 12 or so hours and then BAM, I'm in so much discomfort and stomach pain that I can't sleep nor can I function or feel OK during the day. I never know when it's going to kick in, and half the time it doesn't do anything but cause massive pain. Fail. 

One more fun topic of pregnancy, boobage leakage. I didn't experience any leakage of breastmilk with Kaleb until I was at least 8 months pregnant, and it wasn't so much that I was leaking as it was that I could get some breastmilk if I squeezed my breast/nipple hard enough (I don't even know why I even got to the point of squeezing my boob or nipple, don't ask). So imagine my astonishment when I started leaking breastmilk about one month ago, and it only gets more and more frequent with every day. I "let down" several times in an hour, but it's not much more than the feeling and some slight leakage. It really doesn't bother me, except that I want to know that it is not some sort of indicator that I might go into very pre-term labor. Aside from feeling like I should be breastfeeding a newborn already, I'm looking at the upside and feeling confident that I will have NO problems pumping breastmilk for the twins when they are born. I didn't have any issues with Kaleb, but I know it can be different with each pregnancy.
 
During my last OB appointment, they drew my 2nd round of blood for the last part of the Nuchal Translucency test (remember, that's the 1st trimester test preformed to detect abnormalities). I am not worried about those results, but I know T&Y worry, so it will be good to have the results soon. I don't want them to worry. He also listened to the heartbeats, but admitted that it is hard to tell whether he is detecting the same twin twice or two different heartbeats. By what others have told me, I was expecting him to measure my uterus that day, but he didn't. Some days I feel like I'm pretty big, and other days I feel the opposite. I think it seriously depends on whatever I eat, because I tend to get a "food baby" easily, anyways, which makes me look like I'm pregnant when I'm not.

My next appointment is the BIG appointment! When I went to schedule it, my OB instructed me to return in 4 weeks but the receptionist informed me that he would be out of the clinic that week, so I either needed to come in the week before (which would put me at 19 weeks 5 days) or the week after. Can you guess which one I picked?! Again, I'll give you 3 guesses :) We are impatient people, us surrogates and intended parents, I'm tellin' ya! June 14th will be a very exciting day for us. I am going to steal the idea of another surrogate and have the ultrasound tech. put the sexes of each baby into envelopes. When I return from my appointment and get to work, I plan to Skype with T&Y and we can open the envelopes together :)

Today I received, from T&Y, some awesome pregnancy belly oil for the prevention of stretch marks. That was such an awesome gift! I haven't mentioned a thing about the fact that I already obsessively apply oily lotion that I made myself, at least twice per day. How the heck do they know me this well?! I can't wait to use it tonight! They are so sweet!

On to another few weeks of boring-ness, and I'll take it! 

 

 

 

14 weeks and growing strong

I'm happy to begin this post by saying that we've had, yet another, uneventful week! I never thought I'd be so happy to have most of my boring life back :)

I received a message from my OB a few days after our first Nuchal Translucency test that everything looked normal, yay! There are two parts to this test, the first was an ultrasound and blood work, the second part will be follow-up blood work at my next appointment. I will also have the quad screening blood work preformed at my next appointment. The quad screening is similar to the Nuchal screening, whereas they both detect chromosomal abnormalities in the fetuses.

My nausea seems to have completely disappeared, which is pretty scary because now I find myself craving junk food and it's so hard not to cave into those desires, ESPECIALLY when the smell of fresh doughnuts is the ONLY thing I can smell when I walk into Cub foods to get something "healthy" for lunch. Damn you Cub foods, I am sticking to my guns, but you make it SO hard some days! I don't know how long I'll make it. Today I gave in to banana Laffy Taffy and a bottle of squirt. I saw a woman drinking a can of squirt and was determined to do the same.

I have terrible acid reflux at night and I can only imagine it has to do with having the extra added pressure on my already very sensitive and squished stomach. I've resorted to taking Pepcid AC, which, according to my "safe during pregnancy" fact sheet that I so often resort to, is ok. And....it works WONDERS! It gives me cotton mouth, but it also eliminates about 2 times out of the 6 times I seem to have to get up to pee at night. Bonus!

The worst symptom of all, which I'm sure almost every pregnant woman can empathize with, is E-H-A-U-S-T-I-O-N. I have very low blood pressure to begin with, and I continue to make nurses question their reading. There are some days when I manage to get through a day feeling tired, but a manageable tired and with little to no help from half cup of coffee. Other days, I'm not so lucky. Some days I seriously wonder "what the hell is HAPPENING to me?!", I can barely even make it through a shower at that point. Blinking my eye-lids wears me out. BUT, I still can't complain. I am moving along nicely, we're healthy, I'm not bleeding, I have no other complaints and am so happy as things are really starting to get underway.

For the past couple of weeks, I had been promising T & Y a "belly pic". But when it came down to it, I felt ridiculous taking one because there was nothing to show for it. I waited until today, at exactly 14 weeks, to take my first ones. I realize that most people might not think so, but I feel like I am already HUGE at such an early point in the pregnancy. I kept chalking it up to being bloated and the fact that I've never been a "regular" person, if ya know what I mean, and I'm especially not regular now (sorry if TMI). I didn't begin to have even the slightest "bump" until I was about 6 months pregnant with Kaleb. I know, I was quite a bit younger and it was my first, but still. I'm excited to have this little bump, but also very scared about the strong chances that I will get to be pretty big. I carried very low as well, I think because I have such a long torso, more on that later. So I hope these babies will take full advantage of the extra freakish space I have and stretch out up-and-down before they start to stretch outwards :). A pregnant woman can dream, can't she?!

I learned the brighter side of getting bigger. Three words, maternity clothes shopping! In the beginning of this journey, I poo pooed buying maternity clothes because I was lucky enough to wear my normal clothes throughout my pregnancy with Kaleb and I was NOT about to let a moo-moo maternity outfit cramp my style at this point. No siree, not this girl. Saturday I finally took the plunge and looked for maternity clothing. I figured I'd just look for some jeans, because the little bump that I do have, is sitting pretty low and makes wearing jeans, pretty uncomfortable. Insert my love of yoga pants. I could wear them all the time. But yoga pants don't fly at work, not even on "casual-day". Target's maternity jeans were not impressive, but their clearance rack was :) I found a few springy shirts and went into the fitting room. This should be noted in history, ALL items fit and were purchased......this NEVER happens. I couldn't believe it. All this time, I've left stores feeling defeated and depressed because shirts don't fit my abnormally long-ass torso and ape-like arms. I joke about how my "tank tops" are really "normal peoples' dresses", but I'm dead serious, I really DO wear tank tops that are meant to be dresses! Buying bigger shirts just makes them baggier, not longer, and I'm slender. So I wear colored long tank-tops (dresses for most people) under every shirt that I wear. It turns out that some maternity shirts, the "non-tentish style ones", fit awkward shaped people like me, perfectly! Halleluiah! I was on such a happy-high from this revelation that I went to JcPenney's after Target, but quickly noted that they do NOT have a maternity section. I found plenty of longer tops that will suffice and bought a larger size of cute capris in case spring/summer does decide to visit Minnesota, afterall. I also bought two colorful tube tops to use as "belly-bands", just like I did with my own pregnancy. On to Old Navy......oh Old Navy, where do I begin? Their clearance section makes my head spin every time I go there. When I shop, just in general, I'm extremely indecisive and most store employees probably assume I'm staking out the store by the way I pace and pick things up, put them back, pick them up, put them back, etc. I spent a LOT of time going through Old Navy's clearance racks and they were having a massive sale, which would make most people happy, but nervous-nelly, buyers remorse ridden, return-aholics such as myself, can't take the pressure of having so many deals just waiting to be taken. Although they did not have a maternity section, they certainly DID have several maternity items that had been returned from their online store and I jumped at the 50% discount. I bought some maternity jeans that look less maternity-ish, so I was happy with that and I found several very colorful tank-tops that are long and fitted, to hopefully add some serious style to my spring and summer months as I get bigger. I will not lie, I receive a "maternity clothing allowance" from my intended parents (this is very standard and means that I get reimbursed for a certain amount of maternity clothing), and it turned what used to be a nightmare of an experience, into a fun one for once. I'm very appreciative. It should also be noted that, aside from Kaleb's clothes, I shop for clothes about once every 2-3 years for myself, if even. I still wear clothes that I've had for over 7-8+ years. So I'm joking about being stylish, because I'm not, and the point that I am not a shopaholic...well maybe now I am, should also be noted. I just felt the need to share my awesome Saturday :)