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!