19w5d

How Far Along: 19w5d

Milestones: Your baby is the size of a mango.  He is about 6 inches long and weighs about 8.5 ounces.

Total Weight Gain:  12.2 lbs

Maternity Clothes:  I am in all maternity pants and some maternity shirts (mainly for work).  I still fit into my sweatshirts but I have had to start wearing Kara's t-shirts.  I'm sure she loves that I am stretching out all her shirts.

Sleep:  It has actually been much better this week.  I think I have the pillow set-up all arranged to my liking now.  And that helps a ton.  I am sleeping with two pillows under my head.  One pillow under my belly.  The pregnancy wedge pillow between my knees and a regular pillow between my lower legs and ankles.  And then I have a pillow behind my back.  It is quite the set-up but it seems to work for me.  The only problem ... Kara has no room in bed!

Best Moment of the Week:  I think I am feeling the babies kick.  (I'm about 75% certain.)  I will feel several "jabs" in a row at random moments of time.  And the jabs vary side to side so I can actually tell if the kicking is coming from Baby A and Baby B.  There is no better feeling.  I always try to talk to the boys when I feel them moving around.  It makes me feel closer to them.  I can't wait for Kara to be able to feel kicks from the outside of my belly.

Sex:  Boys! (without a doubt)

Food Cravings:  Not so much.  I am back to being able to eat the foods I loved pre-pregnancy.  This means ice cream has made a return appearance in our freezer.  Otherwise I'm not really craving a whole lot.  I do like to eat though!

Food Aversions:  No

Symptoms:  Oh ... Braxton Hicks contractions how I love you.  Not really.  The braxton hicks contractions were in full force this weekend.  I was getting braxton hicks contractions every 5 or 10 minutes if I was up on my feet.  If I was sitting down, the braxton hicks contractions would reduce to about 3 or 4 an hour.  If I was laying down in bed, I could get the braxton hicks contractions to reduce to only 1 or 2 an hour.  But as soon as I stood back up they would come rather consistently.  I tried not to panic.  But really I failed miserably.  I debated back and forth about sending a message to the on-call OB but I decided against it because I could get them to almost stop when I was in bed.  Plus they were not painful.  Just annoying.  I decided to call the OB yesterday just to let her know about the events over the weekend.  She had told me to give her a call if I was experiencing more than 5 braxton hicks contractions an hour.  I also had some very minor spotting yesterday morning so I knew it was time to give the OB a call.  The OB asked that I come in for an appointment yesterday afternoon.  The OB did a couple of different things.  They initially checked my urine because I guess a UTI can cause a large number of braxton hicks contractions.  My urine came back all clear.  My blood pressure was actually great (for me) at 116/68.  I met with the OB who indicated that she believes braxton hicks contractions are going to be a normal for me until these babies are born.  The OB reiterated that because I am so petite I am going to feel aches and pains more than the normal person.  I am only 19 weeks pregnant (though the boys are measuring between 20 weeks and 21 weeks) and the babies are already running out of room.  The OB wanted to make certain that I knew that this wasn't going to be easy.  I know.  However, because I am having so many braxton hicks contractions the OB wanted to establish what my "normal" would be for this pregnancy.  The OB listened to the heartbeats with the fetal doppler.  Both of the boys were moving around a ton but she managed to locate both heartbeats.  You could hear the boys swishing around.  It was neat.  The OB also checked my cervix to make certain there was no active bleeding.  There was not.  But let me just tell you ... not fun.  I then went over to get another u/s to measure the length of my cervix.  The OB indicated that my cervix was measuring at 3.4 cm at the MFM appointment last week (it was measuring 4.0 cm at 14 weeks).  The OB indicated this was totally normal.  Yesterday my cervix length was measuring between 3.0 cm and 3.2 cm.  The OB said that this was just fine as the length can vary moment to moment and it can also vary depending upon the u/s machine.  So taking everything into consideration I have been told not to worry (yeah.  right.).  The OB told me to give her a call if I am experiencing more than 6 or 7 braxton hicks an hour that do not reduce in number when I lay down.  Otherwise, I just need to take it as easy as possible and we will continue to monitor the situation.  I have my next OB appointment next week and the OB indicated that she wanted me to keep that appointment.  Not a problem.  I need to mention again how much I like this OB office.  The entire staff is wonderful and I feel so comfortable around my OB.  I am learning to trust her which is very important during a pregnancy.  Especially a higher risk pregnancy.  She said to me yesterday, "Mary.  I am invested in this pregnancy.  I promise.  I am treating it exactly as I would treat it if it was me pregnant with twins."  This provided me with great reassurance.

Upcoming Events:  We have an OB appointment on February 7th and a MFM appointment on February 21st.

Please continue to send all the positive vibes you can muster in our direction.  I am growing more and more attached to these boys each day and that scares me so much.  We need to go about 8 more weeks before I will feel as if I can breath just a bit.

Please keep growing little ones (and stay in my belly).

Mary