24 week Scan

I was really worried about this ultrasound, mainly because at the 20 scan our little girl was measuring 6 days behind in development, which I was told is not a big deal at 20 weeks. But you can’t help but worry.

Plus the girl does not move as much as the little boy, which just adds to the stress and worry. As it turns out there was nothing to worry about. My little girl is definitely a little girl, no penis present. She is still measuring 6 days behind in development but has grown, which is the most important thing. Her weight is approximately 651 grams which is a good size, considering her development

Our little boy is still definitely a little boy, and is spot on for development for the dates. His is the one that is closest to my cervix and like to play havoc with my bladder. His weight is approximately 731 grams which is spot on.

The placenta’s are now fused and are nice and high, above my belly button, the babies are diagonally across my belly now, the boy at the bottom and the girl on the top.

No photo's this time around but that is ok as I now feel more relaxed and I’m glad that there are more scans this pregnancy. I have another one at 28 weeks and then at 32 weeks.

Reality

I just went through all the babies clothes that I kept from Jordy, I had been really wanting to do this since I found out that I was pregnant.


The exercise though has really got me thinking that perhaps I have my head in the clouds a little. Also my dear friend lent me some of her daughters babies clothes, some of them I bought for her when her daughter was born at 35 weeks. Premie clothes whilst are so cute they are really tiny.

It all put things into perspective for me and something that I didn't really think about, I think that I have to realise that my babies will be small, perhaps even smaller than Jordy. He was 51 cm and 2.7kg (5.9lb) small for 37 weeks.



So now that I've gone through some of the babies clothes, I kind of know what I need to buy and I know how hard it was to find premie clothes and small sizes.

Talking to Tim about it, also helped me refocus my pending reality and accept that I will have small babies.

Preparation

I feel a different need of preparation this time around.

Clothes we have and I’m sure that we will receive a lot. Furniture we also have, as Jordy has moved into a “big bed” the cot is free. I plan to have both in the one cot initially and then separate them at a later stage (when they can roll around). Plus the thought of buying another cot right now, even a second hand one is not on my list of priorities.

We do have an issue with car seats and are in the process of determining what to do. I have a small 4WD which has been ideal with Jordy, his car seat is in the middle at the back. Tim has a medium size 4WD and having 2 4WD has given us the freedom to anywhere and each of the cars. They are not Toorak tractors as both have been off road many times.

The logical solution is to have all 3 car seats in the back of Tim’s car and then he would use mine to drive to where he parks his truck. But there is no guarantee that all the car seats will fit in the back. This issue has been playing on our minds for a while now and we are both happy to exchange cars, but the thought of putting three kids into the Medium sized 4WD does my head in, as I need to use the step to climb in myself.

I’m feeling almost desperate to be prepared mentally for our new little babies. There is things that I know for sure and we have already discussed the adjustments that will need to be made.

For example, we know that we will be sleep deprived, and we have already discussed how we are going to go about feeding the babies at night. Tim will most likely do the late night feed and I will do both the midnight and early morning feeds.

We learnt with Jordan that even though Tim really wants to help with the feeding he physically, mentally and emotionally can not handle having a broken sleep and his reaction is frustration and anger. So to avoid this we have agreed that it is not worth the stress.

Jordy will continue to go to child car but I will reduce the days from 3 to 2 and on those days I plan to be by myself with the twins. On the days where Jordy is at home we plan to have my mother stay one to two nights to also help. But this has not been explored fully.

So I know that we will be sleep deprived and have worked out strategies to cope. I also know that money will be tight, and I’ve started buying formula and nappies in advance. I’m also tyring to pay for bills and our mortgage before hand.

I recently bought a Book on Twins, from pregnancy to birth and beyond. The best thing that I could’ve bought, I’ve always felt that knowledge is power and with everything in life I’ve always wanted to know as much information as possible in order to make an educated decision if the situation is needed.

But what I don’t know is what it will be like to have premie babies, how will I cope if I have to leave one or both in the hospital? What things do I need to be aware of with premie babies.

But my main concern is how will I cope…so in order for me to combat this I decided to make a appointment with the counsellor that I saw with the PND after Jordan was born. I feel this overwhelming need to discuss strategies before hand so that I will be able to cope if the situation arises.

Plus I also feel that if I know what the worst thing that can happen is and have prepared myself as much as possible. Then anything else will be easier to handle.

Gone is my fear of how Jordan will cope and wether or not he will still feel as loved, because I really think that my little boy will be able to handle it. Tim and I have discussed how important it is that Jordan have alone time with each of us with out the babies.

My main concern these days is simply keeping these babies inside for as long as possible!

At least 13 more weeks, my little ones…ok Mummy is asking for at least 13 more weeks.

Jordan's Antics

This post like most of my posts has been rolling around in my head for a while, it is just hard to find the time to put hands on keyboard. But I’m itching to get this post out and put to bed as I don’t want to forget some of the precious moments we are having with Jordy.

To say that he brings joy and happiness to our lives is an understatement. If he doesn’t wake us in the morning and is still sleeping, I find myself looking forward to seeing his smile in the mornings and creeping into his room just in case he wakes up. I’ve also gone in there and deliberately woken him up.

He is a very happy little boy, that is starting to push his independence with everything and I mean everything. No is his favourite word and it is good to know that this is very normal. We haven’t had any of the full on throw yourself on the floor tantrums, but we do get the marching on the spot whining kind, but we just seem to be able to ignore this behaviour or distract him.

Most recently Jordy has been known to kick us out of his play area. One of us will try to sit down and play with him and if he doesn’t like what you are doing, he will simply point to a chair and say “Mummy csucs (meaning sit).” He has even known to tell my Mum to go and sit over there.

We spent a lot of time going to display homes around our area looking for our new house. Jordan really loved walking through the houses, he would mimic what we were saying which was so cute. But the one thing that I don’t want to forget is the uncanny nack of my son always doing a poo in these display homes. Why don’t I want to forget, well mainly if it only occurred once then it would mean anything.

It didn’t matter if we went before of after his nap, he would get to the one of the houses that we all really liked and decide to do his poo right there and then. Needless to say I learnt to start taking extra nappies and wipes with us when we went to have a look at display homes or go through the walkthrough.

Jordan is talking so much these days, there was a time that I was worried about his speech development. The best present that Jordan ever received for his birthday was wall posters for his room. There are 4 posters of the alphabet, colours, number and times. We rotate them around the room and it is Tim’s nightly ritual to point at the pictures and say the words. Now Jordan can say each word himself without Daddy needing to prompt him.

I love, love, love, how much he is talking. There is still baby babble sometimes but mostly you can understand what he is trying to say. I love that I could be anywhere in the house and I will hear “Mummy, whatchadoing” or “Mummy where are you” and I really think that he enjoys my reply of “Yes Jordy”.

Pregnancy comparisons

I can’t believe that I’m already 22 weeks as this pregnancy is going really fast. I’m asked all the time “What is it like carrying twins” and “How different is this pregnancy compared to Jordan”, hence the theme of this post.

First 3 months

I suffered a lot of nausea with Jordan and was home quite a lot in the first months. This time around, I was able to figure out that as soon as I was awake then I needed to eat. I couldn’t wait until after I had a shower or roll around in bed, as soon as I started thinking then I needed to jump out of bed and shove something in my mouth.

There were a lot of hits and misses, I distinctly remember talking to my mother (she looks after Jordan on Mondays) when I ran to the toilet and threw my entire breakfast up, all because I had a shower before I had eaten and the babies were not happy. Since then I have not been able to Cocco Pops.

In the mornings it seemed that I need to eat every two hours, like clock work, if there was not something in my mouth after two hours then bam a wave of nausea.

Second trimester

I have similar food aversions now compared with Jordy, can’t stand the smell of garlic at all. Even the taste has sent me running to the toilet. I have thrown up a lot more with these too than with Jordy. If the babies didn’t like my lunch then out it would all come.

I started feeling them kick earlier than I did with Jordy, which is a really nice feeling and now that I know where the babies are located, I feel a lot more connected.

With Jordan he would kick all over the place, and was mainly horizontal for a lot of the pregnancy and I kind of always knew where his head was. I don’t think that these will move around any more and are pretty much where they are going to be until they are born.

My little boy is on the left hand side and his head is closer to my cervix. Very active little boy, lots of big movements and because I’m sleeping more on my left side he is kicking a lot a night.

My (yet to be confirmed) little girl is on my right side also with her head down. Before we knew the sex we had already named her the “shy one” as she was a bit hard to see on the earlier scans. She is the one that is causing me at times to worry a little as there is not as much movement as her brother.

There are times when they are both awake like now, happy letting me know that all is ok in there and then there are times with one is awake and one is asleep.

Sleep

This is one of the main differences with this pregnancy compared with Jordan. No matter what stage of the pregnancy I was in with Jordan I was in bed at 7pm sharp every single night and on the weekends it was not uncommon for me to have a cat nap in the afternoon. With these two I don’t feel the need to go to sleep so early, which is weird as I would’ve thought that I would be more tired.

Even though I don’t feel the need to sleep, I have slowed right down and I get physically tired requiring me to sit and rest. If I don’t rest then I suffer from abdominal cramping.

Cramping

With the decision to sell our house and build another one, I started to de-clutter our house and even though I had help from my Mum and Tim. I was put on bed rest for the next 3 days as I was constantly cramping.

I never felt this type of cramping before with Jordan, its almost like period pain but not contractions. Hard to explain, but you know when you haven’t exercised for a while and the next day you are achy and have muscle spasm, it is like this but near my ovaries.

I have to be really careful how much I do, walking from work to the train station which is not even a block, but is up a hill. Causes me some discomfort so I now catch a tram for two stops. Pushing a shopping trolley is now out of the question, not only is my tummy too big but it causes cramping.

With Jordan I would be able to cover the distance of my local shopping centre twice over, now I can only manage one level on a good day.

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m complaining, because really it has not affected me that much. I’ve just had to make some small adjustments to the way I go about things.

Honestly I’m desperate to keep these babies inside me for as long as I can. When we booked into the hospital the midwife indicated that I would be lucky to make it to 36 weeks. Jordan was born at 37 weeks and was a good size, my aims is 36 weeks and like a mantra I keep on saying to myself, “Just make it to 36 weeks, 36 weeks is all I ask”.

The reason the midwife seem to think that I would be lucky is because of the cramping I’m experiencing when I’ve done the smallest amount of exercise. Even rolling in bed has become a fine art, because if I don’t do it right I cramping right up. Not a nice feeling at 3am!

Latest of Jordan

Introducing.....

My little girl



My little boy

The scan went great and we are all doing really well. The little boy is about a day behind in development, which does not concern me.

The girl however did not really want to co-operate on the day and we are only 85% sure of her gender, but I have another scan in a few weeks time. Our little girl is about 6 days behind in development and whilst I've been told that this is quite normal I am a little worried, well who wouldn't be?