12 Weeks & Counting

Today was the day!

Yesterday was my 12 week mark, and today I had a follow-up appointment to make sure that things were still on track. I suppose my lack of symptoms (other than the gut, but I digress) just made me paranoid that something terrible would go wrong between 8 and 12 weeks, so I refused to let anyone know other than a few good friends and family. Sometimes I think the family would've rather not known, because it was much harder for them to keep the secret than me! Mom occasionally laid the guilt trip on me that it was "sooooo hard" to hide it when some of our mutual facebook friends would pick up on the clues, but I wouldn't budge. Maybe I'm a hypochondriac, or maybe just superstitious, but knowing that there were two potential risks in there was too much for me to handle.

So anyway, I was in and out this morning in a jiffy. First things first, the nurse checked for heartbeats with the doppler. Since Nathan and I had such a hard time with it a few weeks ago, I held my breath! She started really low, and when we couldn't hear anything but my own heartbeat, she inched her way up more and more. Shockingly, they were far higher than the nurse expected, but since my uterus is apparently much larger than a single pregnancy this wasn't so shocking to her. I was ecstatic... it was a perfect explanation for the gut! Haha! We recorded both the heartbeats with my cell phone so that Nathan can listen to them later, but she used her best "guestimate" to tell me the rates. Both were really high, one in the 160's, the other in the 170's. As I keep playing the recordings, though, they sound exactly the same to me. We'll see what Dr. Sims has to say about that later! After all that was taken care of, one of the doctors in the practice came in to see me for a minute. He was great, and just explained what would happen in the next few weeks. He checked my cervix, said things looked "nice and thick" - whatever that means - and scheduled my NT scan for Friday with the MFM doctor (Maternal Fetal Medicine). He specializes in high-risk pregnancies, so I'll get to know him pretty well since he's the one who'll monitor my frequent ultrasounds from now on.

OH! I almost forgot the best part of the appointment! Prior to all the heartbeat fun, I got on the dreaded apparatus called the SCALE. The wonderful, beautiful, sweet, smart, perfect nurse started me out in the low 120's and simply refused to push that thing much further. I adore her!! :) I swiftly assisted, however, and told her that she might want to slide that guy ALL the way down. She looked at me and said, "No! You don't look big enough to weigh much more than this!" Again, she is my favorite person today (could remain that way for weeks, maybe).

That's about it. I'll update with pictures on Friday after we have the next big ultrasound. Although I'm happy that the nurse thinks we heard two heartbeats, I'm still a little on edge at this point. Pray for us and for Friday's appointment... I need confirmation that both "A" and "B" are lookin' good!

Fun at Lake Bowen!

The weather has finally turned a corner here in South Carolina, and I'm afraid that it's only getting hotter from here. Just last week I was wrapped up in a huge sweater and jeans watching Nathan's softball game, and this weekend we were sweatin' it out on the lake. Lounging on the boat is hard work, you know. After the quick (but exhausting) trip I took to Dallas, it was just what the doctor ordered.

Speaking of Dallas, I have learned a valuable lesson in traveling moving forward. The days of carrying on baggage are O-V-E-R. I don't care if I'm going for less than 24 hours or not, I will walk my behind to the baggage claim and hope that my one outfit made it in safety. I won't bore you with the details of my trip, but let's just say after switching terminals in Atlanta FOUR TIMES because they kept changing our gate, then sitting on the tarmac for TWO hours because we couldn't leave without our COKES & PEANUTS (seriously), landing in Dallas was about the best thing that ever happened to me. The rest of my time in the big D was all relative. Lots of running around, lots of "entertaining" people, and more irritating airport behavior just reinforced my opinion that I'm going to fly as "light" as humanly possible from now on. From the books I'm reading about multiples, it's taboo to fly after 24 weeks... so only 3 more months of this nonsense and I'm firmly rooted to the Carolinas for a while.

So back to our weekend on Lake Bowen.... ahhhhhhhhhh. It was nice to just sit back and relax for a while. Nathan, Connor and I headed up on Saturday and spent the entire day on the boat, then became so obsessed with eating seafood (after smelling the fumes from the fish camp while on the boat) that we considered swimming to the restaurant to place an order. We did make it back to the house and ordered in the conventional way, and let me tell you, it was some of the best shrimp & flounder I've had in a long time. Have I mentioned how much I love food yet? :)

Unfortunately, Nathan had to go to work all day on Sunday, then was on call until noon Monday, so Connor and I had to pull lake duty without him the next day. The temperature was somewhere around 90, so we cruised around the lake all day with Mom, Roger, Papa, Kaye, and Aunt Cynthia. So much fun!! I can hardly wait to do the same thing ALL SUMMER LONG. We cooked hot dogs & hamburgers later, all while my poor husband was delivering babies at Spartanburg Regional. (Are you shedding a tear for Nathan yet?) You really don't have to... see the picture below and you'll know he did enjoy himself quite a bit!

2nd Appointment... Boring!

I'm pretty disappointed right now.

I have been waiting on April 15th (even though it IS tax day and all) because I assumed that since we had such an exciting appointment last time, this one would be that much better! Wrong. I thought they'd at least check for heartbeats, since at this point I'm still not "feeling" anything other than my pants getting way too tight! Oh well, apparently that will have to wait until April 29th. All we did today was discuss medical history, do bloodwork, and go over the financials of this whole process. Such fun! I am very thankful that my insurance covers a lot, but it's still going to cost us about $2,500 when everything is said and done. According to the billing person I met with, this is "nothing" compared to what the majority of women she talks with incur. Thank God for my wonderful accountant (aka, Roger Jolly, Financial Savior) and his good news yesterday... we should get enough of a tax refund this year to more than cover these costs. Woohoo!! We've been praying that the lord would help us make good decisions moving forward, and would help us figure out how to be most prepared for these impending arrivals next fall. I've stressed over just about everything you can possibly think of, but I've decided that God's plan is bigger than mine and he wouldn't have put us in a situation we weren't capable of handling. Obviously, prayers work and we're going to keep them up!

On another positive note, I was not weighed again! This was thrilling, trust me. I mentioned to the nurse that my mid-section was starting to resemble a sausage roll (as in, zero waist), but she laughed it off and said that my fluid retention was probably incredibly high right now. I'm adjusting to seeing the scale creep up, but I still aspire to be one of those girls who is "all stomach." Ha! I'm attempting to eat moderately healthy, but sometimes the only thing that sounds good is a freezer pop (and this is usually after a big dinner, around 9pm). Luckily, you can buy about 100 of them for a few bucks. I've had to ration the amount that I put in the freezer at once, since my other new obsession (Aldi) has a tremendous amount of really good frozen food.

Anyway, enough with the food talk. Nathan is going to try and borrow a doppler from the clinic at Spartanburg Regional (lucky for us, he's got his OB-GYN rotation this month) so we can try to find heartbeats on our own. This should be a very fun activity! The downfall will be if we simply have no idea what we're doing, and can't find one or both of them. I'll try to think positively from now until then, either way :) Also, if I can muster up the courage to physically document my sausage belly, I'll take a picture so you all can view it as well (clothed, of course... not brave enough for the full-on yet). Nathan still insists he can hardly tell a difference (bless his heart), but I just know people around the office are beginning to think I've gotten too comfortable with married life :) In 2 more weeks, I shall redeem myself and spill the beans.

With bones and cartilage starting to form and vital organs beginning to function, baby is making major progress. Body length will almost double in the next three weeks, and arm joints are now working. (Soon, legs will too.)