Almost 25 weeks

Today marks 24 weeks 3 days and we're still chugging along. I had my regular OB appointment last week and an ultrasound yesterday to keep tabs on the twins' growth. At my regular OB appointment I mentioned to my OB that I started having some sciatic and back pain and had still not seen much, if any, relief from the severe fatigue/weakness/exhaustion that I feel every day. In fact, my exhaustion has become quite unbearable for most of every day now. My blood pressure was 84/54, which I understand is low for most people and can be a major contributor to lack of energy and lethargy, but mine has always been that low and hasn't ever given me this many issues. My OB said he'd check my hemoglobin next visit, along with my glucose intolerance test. I wasn't thrilled about waiting another 4 weeks to find out whether or not I'm anemic, but I figured I didn't really have a choice. Fast forward to today, we're 3 days into the work week and I've contemplated going home from work every single morning (don't even get me started on the mental process it takes just to get to work every morning) because I just can't handle it. It's even hard to breathe. I sent my OB a message basically begging him to send me to the lab and VIOLA, I go tomorrow evening. This is one of those rare occasions where I really HOPE they FIND something, so they can FIX it :) At 24 weeks my uterus was measuring 28 cm, which is about 28 weeks. Although it's very normal to measure 4 weeks ahead during a twin pregnancy, it doesn't chase away the panicky feeling of "just how big are we going to get?!" I think about it a lot.

I've gained 9 lbs. so far, and that doesn't go without a lot of hard work and resistance. I resist VERY strong urges to eat sweets ALL the time. I still indulge occasionally, mostly on the weekends. But I don't have the energy to get much exercise, so I try my best to eat as healthy as I can to make up for part of my lack of activity. Back to the indulging on certain occasions, last weekend was one of those occasions. Kaleb and I went with a friend of mine and her little girl to a city festival with lots of fun things for the kids and lots of junk food. I was totally focused on getting my mini-doughnuts fix. I L-O-V-E mini doughnuts, as long as they're "done right" and fresh. They were well worth the wait and SO delicious :) The kids visited the petting zoo and we walked around quite a bit. It was a fun day for us.

Tuesday I had an ultrasound at the perinatologist (this will continue throughout the pregnancy to check on the babies' growth and will become more and more frequent as we move along). I was very anxious to find out the positions of the babies because as much as I can guess, you just never know until you get them on camera. As I guessed, Baby A is head down (yay!) and Baby B is breech. Baby B is harder to tell because I feel movement from her all over the place and I couldn't really tell whether she was breech or head down, or transverse. I'm just happy that Baby A is being cooperative, although I know that things can and will most likely change a few times over the next few weeks. Both babies are doing very well. Baby A is estimated to be 1 lb. 13 oz. and Baby B is estimated to be 1 lb. 10 oz. They are in the 75th and 60th percentile for their sizes, which is what would be expected for a singleton. The perinatologist assured me that they expect to see them "drop off the chart" and get down to about the 30th percentile eventually and that I will most likely not be giving birth to twins that are 8.5 lbs. each. I'm going to hold her to that! I know these babies are big and I'm happy that they are still growing so well, but it's scary to think about how much room they will take up as they get even bigger, while I already feel pretty stretched out. If I didn't say this in my last post, I am definitely bigger now than I was when I gave birth to Kaleb. T & Y have re-assured me that they were not monstrous in size when they were born, and their egg donor is "petite" (I didn't think so, but T & Y are very tall, so average is petite to them). We just won't know until these babies make their appearance.

I will go back for the infamous glucose intolerance test, or "sugar test" as T & Y refer to it, in another 3 weeks. I don't remember it being so bad when I was pregnant with Kaleb. I remember the sugary drink wasn't the most appetizing, but it didn't make me sick, either. I don't recall feeling any effects from all the sugar, either. But after reading about all these other ladies' experiences with the glucose testing, I feel like I should expect a totally different experience than what I had. Maybe the fact that I'm older now, carrying twins, and really not used to sugar, will really throw me for a loop that day. I could stand to have whatever energy it might give me, even if only for 30 seconds. I just hope it doesn't make me feel "off" the rest of the day. Maybe having the appointment at 8:30am isn't such a good idea?? I don't really think I'll have issues with gestational diabetes, but it's been mentioned, due to Baby A's size, that it very well could be, although I'm not showing any other signs of it. I have a feeling I'll pass. I just hope it's the 1 hour test that I pass and that I don't have to go through the shenanigans of the 3 hour test.

22 weeks...........................

23 weeks 1 day......................

24 weeks...............................