Progesterone Oil

Since Rhiannon and Konnor were born at 32 weeks with contractions and hospital bed rest starting at 29weeks, I have a very high chance of having these twins early as well.  So my OB wanted to put me on Makena.  It is a new medication given in weekly shots during the 16th and 36th weeks of pregnancy, to prevent preterm labor.  Its not meant for multiple pregnancies but is sometimes given anyways.  And it always takes the insurance companies forever to approve it.  And of course my insurance is taking even longer.  My OB thinks it is important that I get started on it so he prescribed progesterone oil until I get Makena.  They are basically the same thing.  Yesterday (17wk2days), was my first shot.  I had to go to my OB's office to have a nurse give it to me.  Since it's an oil they have to inject it very very slowly.  It burned really bad when they were doing it but after I was like "Okay, it's fine now".  But before walking out the door it started hurting really bad again.  It continued to hurt all day - and still hurts.  A nice 3-4in diameter around it got really big and hard as a rock.  My entire arm, especially my elbow, hurt like someone pulled on my arm.  Today its not as hard or as big, but its still there.  It is really going to suck getting this done every Thursday.  Hopefully I get the Makena soon and it doesn't hurt as bad.  Either way it will be completely worth it if it works at all.  If it prolongs my pregnancy resulting in little to no hospital bed rest for me, and little to no NICU time for the babies, I will be extremely excited.

One thing that was really nice though was as soon as I got home I could feel the baby on my right kick me, good and hard too.  I have felt them before but not for a while now.  Then late last night the baby on the left was moving a lot!

High Risk Appt & OB Appt

I had two appointments yesterday.  First one was with my high risk doctor.  It ended up taking about two hours because they were so backed up.  So they ended up doing a faster ultrasound then they already do (which is way to fast as it is).  The ultrasound showed my cervix was a good length. At the end the tech says "do you want to know sex" - "yes please".  While looking at a side view of just one of the babies Baby B/my right side) she goes "They look like girls".  She didn't even have a view of the private area, the whole time she didn't have a view at all.  So basically, Brian and I left there going "Okay" but not taking her word for it at all.  Also when she first put the ultrasound wand on my tummy, but was busy with other stuff, there was a butt showed of the baby on the right of the screen (so my left - usually Baby A) and I'm pretty sure I saw a penis. I don't care at all if they are girls or boys (was wishing for fraternal girl/boy twins again, but that's not happening if they are identical) but I have been having a gut feeling they are girls.  Brian really wants them to be boys (well one of them at least).

My second appointment was with my OB.  He said he was very glad I went to the ER (even though it didn't actually help any).  He checked and said my cervix was completely closed which is really good.  He was upset that my insurance company still hasn't approved my prescription for the Makena P17 progesterone shots - it has been over a month.  I am 16 weeks today which is when I am suppose to start taking them.  So for now he gave me a prescription for a progesterone oil, which should be easier for me to get.  Found out my OB is moving in two months, so I have to find a new OB.  I am really upset about that because he is so easy to talk to and ask questions, all that kind of stuff.  I am considering going to the doctor that delivered Rhiannon and Konnor.  He was the on-call doctor at the children's hospital I got transferred too.  Every week I was have one of two doctors.  One I didn't like at all, but the one that I liked a lot was the one there that week when the kids were born.  The only probably is his office is 1-1:30hrs away.  But if I end up delivering early it will be down there anyways... and I will pretty much only see him once a month until then anyways.  My OB doesn't want me to start going to another doctor until I get on the progesterone shots first.  Anyways, he asked if we found out sex yet.  We just told him no, they haven't been able to get a good view.  So he took a look.  This time the baby on my right was Baby A and it's a boy!!  We could see it, even though he doesn't zoom in as close as the other place tries too.  He tried to get a view of Baby B/left side but no luck.  Brian and I liked that he tried to get a view of both even though they appear to be identical.

With this confusion of girls.. no boys.. etc.  We are hoping to go to see my cousin on Thursday.  She is studying to be an ultrasound tech and has an externship with my high risk doctor but at a farther location.  We can go to her school which is near the children's hospital 1+ hour away.  But I am going nuts not knowing what they are.  My cousin will be able to take as much time as she needs to get a good view and will get us some pictures (since we don't have any girl/boy pictures yet).

Haircut

It was a nightmare to cute Konnor's hair last night.  He has only had three (maybe four) haircuts so he isn't use to them.  Which I understand, I get how it could be scary for a 3yr old.  At first he was all about getting it cut.  Then he started freaking out.  He told Brian that he would get let us cut it if Brian cut his too.  Brian wasn't in need of a haircut but just long enough that he could cut it.  So he did.  The kids even helped, so they wouldn't be so scared.  It was cute.  But Konnor still refused to let us cut his hair.  After hours he finally let us do it.  But he didn't like it so we didn't get to cut it like I like it.  And we cut it way too short.

Before

After

ER Visit

Yesterday I went to the ER with contractions.  At first I wasn't that sure if I was having contractions or not.  Every once in a while my tummy just feel funny.  I knew it wasn't the babies moving because that feels completely different, and it didn't feel tight or anything.  But every time it would happen I would feel slightly nauseous.  I debated on what to do for many hours before I realized I would rather go in for no reason then stay home and something happen.

After I got there I could tell for sure I was having a few contractions.  ER doctor was great and tried to help because he has twins boys that were born premature, his wife starting having contractions at 23weeks.  In the end they didn't actually help me out at all.  They would never put me on a monitor to see/time my contractions.  The doctor kept trying to talk Labor and Delivery into taking me, at least to get monitored, but they wouldn't because I wasn't at 20weeks.  They said my blood pressure was fine but my pulse was kind of high so they put in an IV.  It didn't help though, just sitting in a chair my pulse went as high as 118bpm.

I did have an ultrasound and the tech was awesome! She let me watch the screen the whole time and described everything that was going on, even though they are not suppose to let you see or tell you anything. First off my cervix looked fine on the ultrasound, the babies heartbeats were good, etc.  During the ultrasound the babies switched positions.  Well, not exactly, they moved up and out, changing which one is considered Baby A and Baby B (it goes in order starting with whom ever is closest to the cervix).  The tech tried to find out the sex of the babies for me but she couldn't get a good view.  Good thing too because Brian would have been upset if I found out and he wasn't there.  She also  printed out a picture of each baby for us.  She probably could have got into trouble if someone found out.  She was so sweet.  She was in shock the whole time when she found out I'm having a second set of twins.  After finding out that both set were conceived natural, while on the pill actually, and that I had the first set vaginally (hoping for another vaginal twin delivery) she said "Oh my God, you are my hero!!" hahaha.  Anyways, best news from the ultrasound... the partial placental abruption is completely healed!!  I told the tech about it so she would know that I already knew about it, but she said she didn't see anything wrong with the placenta at all.

I already have an appointment tomorrow with my high risk doctor in the morning and one with my OB in the afternoon.  So we will see what they say also.  For today I am just trying to stay off me feet by laying on the couch and Brian is waiting on me.  I am scared the contractions will get worse and they won't/can't do anything to stop them.  I was worried about the being born around 32 weeks like last time (I have made a personal goal of 35 weeks this time) but now I'm afraid of losing them.

#2

Konnor went #2 in the potty today!  He went twice actually.  Today was his third (and fourth) time going in the toilet in a row!  I am so happy about it.  He was the hardest one to get to go pee in the potty and now he is the first to go poop.   The first time he went was at my mother-in-laws house while I was out shopping with my mom.  Apparently he simply said he had to go and wanted to sit on the potty like if he had did it lots of time before.  The second time was on Easter at my moms house.  He started throwing a fit wanting a potty seat put on the toilet, but we didn't bring one.  I argued with him that he already went pee on the potty, while I held him up so he wouldn't fall in, earlier that day.  Finally he agreed to for me to hold him and he actually went poop.  I didn't know that is what he had to do, and that's why he wanted the seat - he likes to kick everyone out of the room when he goes poop, even when he goes in his pants.  I am so happy and proud of him.  He is so proud and excited too, it is so cute.  Now we just need to get Rhiannon to start going too.

Easter Weekend 2012

On Saturday we had my parents, Brian's mom, my sister, and her boyfriend and kids over to dye eggs. This was the first time my kids ever dyed Easter eggs.  They did such a good job too.  Konnor was so careful with the eggs and would pat them dry with a paper towel after.  It was very cute.  He kept dying all his eggs blue and Rhiannon kept dying all of hers pink - it was funny.  We had to keep talking them into using other colors.

On Easter Sunday, we went to my mom's house.  We did the egg hunt first while it was still nice and warm outside.  Last year it was really cold and windy which is how the weather has been lately, so we were scared it would get cold after a while.  But the weather stayed nice and only got a little chill after it got dark.  My nephew, Kody, is six years old so he got more eggs by far of course.  Rhiannon and Konnor got almost exactly the same.  Each of them found a golden egg (plastic) that had money in it.  Oh and 100 eggs were hidden, 99 were found, haha.

After that we had dinner.  I am so glad my apatite is back, for the most part at least.  Then the kids were able to get their Easter baskets from my mom.  They loved them of course.

Here are some other photos we took.

Shopping with Mom

Today I had a girls day out with my mom.  She paid to get my hair cut.  It was my first haircut I have got since about a month after the kids were born.  It was really long, dry, and plain now it's shoulder length with bangs.. looks much better!

Before:

 

After (not styled and still wet):

     

Then we drove down the hill and eat at T.G.I.Fridays which was so good.  Baby back ribs!  After that we went to Destination Maternity.  They closed the Motherhood store at the mall and no other stores carry maternity clothes near us.  I have been wearing maternity pants for a few weeks already but they are combination of my old ones and my sisters old ones.  My sister is bigger than I am so they didn't fit right, and even my old ones were too big because at the time all I could find were size small.  I am only 5'2" and 110lb (pre-pregnancy) - with no butt haha - so they are shaggy on me.  This store was great!  I was able to find extra small pants.  They fit me well and don't make me feel fat... makes me feel pregnant - which is good.  Got lots of good shirts as well.  Everything was a confidence booster for me at this stage but most of all I loved hanging out with my mom.  Getting out of the house, away from the kids, spending time with Mom... it was all so great.  Hope we get to do it again soon.