21 week update

We had another boring ultrasound today. Fluid levels were 5.5cm and 5.9cm which is perfect! No signs of TTTS. My Peri also looked at the girls hearts because twins are more suseptible to heart problems. He said that their hearts are some of the most perfect hearts he has seen on twins. Yay! I'm honestly not to worried about the girls having health problems and I'm almost out of the extreme danger zone for severe TTTS, I read that most severe TTTS will show up before 20 weeks, after that TTTS is usually milder until I reach 34 weeks. I will be completely out of the woods for TTTS once the twins are born so I won't be able to breath easy until d-day, but it's nice to have biweekly ultrasounds and I can relax in two week increments. My next ultrasound on July 1st will be another anatomy scan, those are usually more interesting and I want to know if the twins are still growing on track.

I've had a little bump in the pregnancy this week. Friday I started spotting and I have been spotting everyday since. It's not very much, but it was still enough to get me concerned. Bloody show is one of the signs of labor and I'm overly cautious about preterm labor. I panicked and left work early to lay down. I had Jared say a prayer as I was driving home because I was started to get overly worried and I needed to calm down. After that I felt better. I saw my doctor and he said my cervix is high, firm and closed. It's just my bodies way of telling me to slow down. I thought I was slowing down, but I'm finally starting to get some energy back so I have been doing a lot more then I was before 20 weeks. Doctor also said that I may need to start thinking about leaving work earlier than what we initially thought, so basically closer to the 28 week mark instead of the 32 week mark. I'm wondering how that will work with me being home all day and still having Mason here. Sounds very exhausting, and honestly staying home all day for 8 weeks before the twins arrive also sounds very boring. I guess I'm going to just have to get used to seeing blood this pregnancy, never something a pregnant woman wants to have to get used to.

I've been stocking up on baby items. It makes the pregnancy go by faster and keeps me calm. These girls are going to be very well dressed because I have to shop a LOT just to keep my nerves calm.

My newborn lot. 

That is all strictly newborn and preemie clothes. I try to tell myself I'm done buying newborn clothes, but who am I kidding, I'm going to buy more newborn clothes. I found this great store called Once Upon a Child. I can't believe I didn't know how awesome this store was before I had Mason. I love to get lost in that store for awhile and just forget about everything for and pretend like I have a normal pregnancy.We went to Buy Buy Baby to start a registry, I got so overwelmed. I need so much for these twins that I didn't even think about, and looking at the prices was shocking. With every item that I registered for I had to register for double the amount. I'm so glad that it's garage sale season because I don't have to register for very many big items, but those small items are starting to add up.

Only 3 more weeks to go until viability!!!!!

20 Week Milestone! And our "eviction" time.

This week I hit another small milestone. I will officially not miscarry these twins. I can now go to labor and delivery with any complications and they will take me seriously and not call it a "threatened miscarriage". Good grief I'm so tired of having the diagnosis of "threatened miscarriage" this pregnancy!

I had my first real pregnancy related breakdown this weekend. I had a huge craving for an apple fritter with ice cream. Well I couldn't find one with ice cream but I did find a plain apple fritter. I got in line to buy it and Jared told me that the line was too long and we will get something later. I was angry but my anger was manageable because I asked if we could go get donuts later and he said yes. Problem solved right? Nope. We drove home donutless, then we went out to eat and drove home again without a donut. When I realized we wouldn't be getting a donut on the way home I lost it! I cried for two hours about this stupid donut. Jared came over and asked what was wrong and I tried to come up with all these great explanations of why I was crying, but it was all lies, so I finally said "I want a donut and you didn't get me one". Poor guy, he tried not to laugh and did a great job looking like he felt sorry for me, but the situation of me crying over food was probably very hilarious. With me being pregnant with twin girls I think I did pretty good making it 20 weeks without crying,especially with the stress of this high risk pregnancy, but the donut was just too much. Don't mess with a girl and her donut!!!!! :)

I saw my doctor today and got some big news, these babies probably won't be October babies. My doctor told me that he feels like there is no reason to leave the twins in past 36 weeks and so he wants to schedule a csection at 36 weeks, but he thinks that they will be here between 35 and 36 weeks due to me going into labor on my own. He told me that he will let me vbac if I go into labor, but he won't induce, he wants an automatic csection at 36 weeks and I'm very happy with this decision. I didn't want to be induced with a twin vbac and I feel like a csection is much safer for the babies than pitocin given their single placenta. As I have mentioned before, with a single placenta the benefits of getting the babies out as soon as possible far outweigh the risks of an early delivery. Fraternal twins or didi twins should be allowed to deliver at full term, and those are the twins you see most often since they make of 75% of all twins conceived. So 36 weeks is September 30th. There is a big chance that we will go a few days past 36 weeks because Centerpoint has a mandatory NICU time before 36 weeks so I don't want to do a csection before September 30th unless there is a way for me to get around that stupid NICU rule.

I have had a lot of cramping lately, but I guess that is normal stretching. It sure is annoying though. I never know what's normal and what's dangerous. I had an ultrasound last Monday and they checked my cervical length to make sure the cramping wasn't causing me to thin out. With pressure my cervical length was 3.8cm so that's awesome! The babies fluid levels were 5.0cm and 4.5cm and they are measuring at 19 weeks and 19 weeks 4 days. I don't like that one baby is measuring 4 days ahead, but the other one is still measuring exactly on target so I guess one twin just had a growth spurt. We had my anatomy scan that day as well and my mfm said that as of right now he sees nothing wrong developmentally with the twins. We get anatomy scans every 4 weeks and regular fluid scans every other week. I love that these babies are so well monitored, it makes me feel so much more relaxed about everything. This week will be a little hard because I don't get another scan until next Monday and I am interested in seeing what the fluid levels are doing. I can't get it out of my head that one twin is measuring ahead so I will feel so much better when I know for sure that the larger twin isn't starting to get extra blood. I talked to a man from the Fetal Health Foundation about the growth of the twins and he said that it sounds like the mfm just made an error in one of the measurements because the scan showed them both weighing 9oz.

20 weeks

Babies are the size of bananas

I had someone at Carters tell me I don't look big enough to be 20 weeks with twins. Is she trying to kill me?! I don't know how big people expect me to be, but I have just started the growth phase of pregnancy. If I were any bigger I would be in BIG trouble later on.

God's Got This

I was driving back from lunch today and noticed that the car in front of me had a bumper sticker that said "God's Got This". How true is that?! We always say "You can do it. You've got this. Go _____(insert name)", but what about those times that we don't have it? The times that we can't do it, the times that we are completely out of control of our situation? God's got that. He can do it. Go God!

A little background on me, I'm a text book pessimist. I always look at a situation and think the worst. I google the worst and dwell on that. You wouldn't know it by my attitude towards this pregnancy though. How am I optimistic about this pregnancy? Yeah, that's not me, it's God. Megan Norman is not an optimistic person. The moment I saw all that blood 10 weeks ago I should have been hysterical in the bathroom and thinking all was lost, but I know that in that moment God took over in every aspect of this pregnancy, including my attitude. The "Footprints in the Sand" poem has become the story of my life lately. I feel God carrying me through this pregnancy.  I saw that blood and had only 30 seconds of panic before an incredible peace flooded me and that peace has been with me ever since. The only time I lose that peace is when I let my mind take over. I was talking to my mother in law and my mom Sunday and both of them admitted to me that they didn't think I would make it this far in my pregnancy due to a rough start. It startled me a little because seriously thinking I would lose the pregnancy was never one of my fears. I don't think God let me think that. I knew I was very close, but I was extremely calm about the whole thing. I asked Jared yesterday if he ever felt like we would lose the babies and he admitted that the thought only entered his head for a few initial minutes in the hospital the first time I bled but after that he was confident that we would take these babies home. I still don't understand how both of us can be so calm when we are facing such a high risk pregnancy, but we are and I know it's because of prayer.

I do get scared a lot, and my mind starts to think of all the bad things that can happen. When that happens a song will ALWAYS start playing in my head.

"Oh how praying rests the weary
Prayer will change the night to day.
So when life gets dark and dreary,
Don't forget to pray".

God has been trying to tell me over and over to not worry, just pray. And whenever that happens I stop whatever I'm doing and say a prayer and it always calms me down. My biggest fear right now is that my water will break. I try to not focus on that, but the thought is in the back of my head and sometimes my fear tries to become the focus of my thoughts. I have no control over my water, there is no way to prevent it from breaking and there is no way to save the babies at this point if it does break. That thought scares me to death, but I have been able to keep that thought at the back of my mind by praying every time I think about it. Today was a particularly hard day at work and the thought kept creeping up on me, so I talked to God a lot today. That's all I can do in a situation that I have no control over.

Yes I am the mother of twins, yes I am sore and miserable, yes I am amazing for carrying around two babies inside me if I do say so myself.  :) But I don't have this, and I can't do this. God can and he is.

Go God!!