First Day of School... For Real This Time

I'm so exhausted! Today was my first day with the kiddies and I'm definitely feeling it! I was fine throughout the day and even on my way home, but once I got home I was done. I guess my body isn't used to not being able to sit and put my feet up whenever I want. Just gotta get back in the swing of things, I guess.

All in all, it was a pretty good day. The kids were well-behaved and cute. When I told my first period class that I was pregnant they all clapped for me. Precious little things. It was hilarious because I just kept thinking "if they only knew!".  I felt so much better being at school than I did last year. It was so challenging for me to be there mentally when I was constantly somewhere else.

After school, I had to go get some lab work done for my new doctor. As I was leaving, I said to the babies, "you guys have no idea how much blood and urine have been taken from my body and no idea how many needles have been in me and how many appointments I've been to". Then I started to cry because I remembered that it's been just about a year now since I made the phone call to the fertility clinic. I rubbed my belly and told the babies they were worth all of it. We're very lucky to be where we are one year later... two happy people anxiously awaiting the arrival of two little sweeties!

17.5 Weeks-What NO Pregnant Woman Wants to See

Yesterday was the first day of school with the kiddos. We also had Open House in the evening. I woke up and wanted to jump right into the shower so I could find something to wear during the day and evening and pack enough snacks so the twins would be happy all day. When I opened my eyes at about 6:10 or so, I had to get up pretty quickly because I had the urge to go to the bathroom really bad. I noticed that I barely made it because my dark gray pj pants were a little wet (yay pregnancy!).  While urinating I felt a clump of something come out. I remember thinking something like, “wow I must have a lot of cervical mucus going on this week”. As I wiped, however, I saw something that NO pregnant woman wants to see throughout her pregnancy: blood. Once I could comprehend what it was, I noticed that it was blood on my pants. I immediately shot up and looked into the toilet: more blood and what looked to be a large clot. Panic set in and instinctually I reached into the toilet to see if what came out of me was actually a clot. I know it’s disgusting, but when something like that happens, being gross is the LAST thing on your mind. It was a clot and everything around me was bright red. It seemed as though the whole bathroom was bright red. As I scrubbed my hands in the sink, I looked in the mirror and began crying and shaking. This was, without a doubt, one of the scariest moments of my life.

Dennis was still sleeping, not yet up for work, so I came in and tried to calmly tell him that I was bleeding. He sprung out of bed and tried to calm me down a little. He found the doctor’s number (I was completely useless… I don’t even remember what I was doing while he was talking to the on-call service). An on-call doctor called back within minutes and wanted to talk to me. She said my ob wouldn’t be in until after noon, so I had to go to the emergency room. Reassuringly, she told me that it sounded like everything was okay because I didn’t have any pain and it wasn’t continuous bleeding. This helped a little, but my heart was still pounding out of my chest and I couldn’t stop shaking.

On the way to the hospital, all I could think about was how if we lost one of them, I would never feel complete again. They weren’t just “the Sheppard twins” anymore… these were our BABIES. Then, the thought crossed my mind that something could be wrong with both of them and I was almost sick. What would we do? How would I keep going? Would we try again? The worst of the worst thoughts were taking over my brain.

Minutes after checking into the emergency room, the nurse took me into a room to ask questions about my health background and why I was there. This didn’t take long and she sent me back to my seat in the waiting room. As we were sitting there, to my surprise, my mom walked in. I’m not sure why I was surprised at all… she’s been there for everything I ever needed her for. She sat with us and told us everything would be okay and before we knew it, I was called back to a room.  On the way to the room, the woman leading me there said, “oh twins! How exciting! I was supposed to be a twin, but my mom lost it halfway through the pregnancy”. Thanks, bitch!

I won’t go into every single detail, but I will tell you, that I had a very uncomfortable exam. As a result of that exam, I had to get catheterized for the day and was told I needed an ultrasound. The doctor could only find one strong heartbeat. She said that she truly believed it was because the other one wouldn’t stay still, but only hearing one heartbeat was terrifying.

Up to the ultrasound room we went. I’ll cut to the chase, both of them were there. Both of our sweet babies were squirming around and looking as adorable as ever. Both of their heartbeats were just fine. I finally was able to relax a little. The ultrasound tech said she really wasn’t looking at them, though, and that she needed to look at the placentas and my uterus to figure out why I had bled. By this time, it seemed that the bleeding had ceased.

After the ultrasound, back to the er we went only to discover that the tech didn’t do everything she was supposed to do. Back up we went. At this point, I also told my mom to go home. We had gotten there before 7 and it was already almost 11. We knew the babies were okay so there was no sense in staying in misery since Dennis was there with me.  After I’d been wheeled to the ultrasound room for the second time, the tech told us the ultrasound was going to take an hour and a half. While getting the ultrasound I thought was going to jump out of my skin. I was hot and nervous,  my hips, back, and butt hurt like you wouldn’t believe since I’d been flat like that for so long, they were doing construction right outside the room so the drilling was drilling through my brain and that catheter is NOT comfortable. The time seemed to be standing still and (seriously) just when I thought I was going to become a crazy patient and jump out of the bed and start screaming, she was finished.

Back down to er. We waited… and waited… and waited. By the time we got back down, the er had become packed. Hours later, the nurse came in (after Dennis had to go flag her down) to FINALLY take out the catheter. At least I could get up and move around now. Then, the doctor came in and told us everything appeared to be fine and he didn’t know what caused the bleeding. So, almost eight hours in the hospital and still no idea what happened. The important thing was that the babies were fine. Thank God.

Before receiving my discharge papers, the doctor told me I could not go back to work this week. I was quite surprised and my brain started freaking out. I didn’t have anything ready for someone else to come in and do the first few days of school! How could a teacher miss the first 3 days of school??? This is where my awesome coworkers/friends come in. I’m so lucky to work with such wonderful people. The staff at Veterans Memorial will never know how much I’ve appreciated EVERYTHING they’ve done for me over the past year. From the favors, the texts, messages, phone calls, cards, gifts, covering for me, listening to me, and just being there for me… I will never be able to thank them enough. I hope they all know that I wouldn’t hesitate to do the same for them.

Thank you, also, to my husband, mom, sister, and family and friends that have helped me get over every bump in the road… no matter how big or small those bumps happen to be.

Today is a new day. No blood today. I go back to the doctor for a follow up tomorrow. Hopefully, he’ll tell me that everything is fine and I can return to work on Monday.

The comfort and happiness I feel knowing that my babies are safe is indescribable. All I want to do for the rest of my life is make sure they are happy and healthy. How can I love two people (so much!) that I’ve never met? It’s unbelievable and amazing.

Back to School

Back to work tomorrow! I’m not really sure how I feel about all of this. By the end of August, as much as I hate to admit it, I’m pretty much ready to go back to school. Not having a routine in the summer is awesome, but starts to get a little old. So, usually I’m ready to get in the classroom and teach. This year is obviously quite different. Last night was a rough sleeping night again (up from 1-4 and waking up every other hour that I did sleep) so it made for a crappy day. I’ve just felt out of it all day and very lethargic. Imagining having one of those nights and then having to wake up and go to work for the day scares me quite a bit.

We’ve got the non-sleeping thing going on and now the hormones have really kicked into high gear. I have been crying A TON lately. God bless my husband because I honestly don’t know how he doesn’t either laugh in my face or scream at me for being ridiculous. Today, I cried because the battery in my Kindle died. I mean really bawled my eyes out.  As I was crying hysterically about the Kindle, my husband simply got the charger and plugged it in. I would’ve wanted to kick my ass. It was ridiculous.

Feeling the twinkies move around more and more is awesome. Every now and then I feel more of a jab or a kick other than just a flutter. It’s so exciting. Tonight I’m going to try going to sleep counting my blessings… maybe I’ll fall asleep easier.

Sleep and Advice

I just have to share this exciting news: I slept for 5 hours straight last night!!! It was incredible! I have not been sleeping at all lately. Some nights my hips hurt, some nights my back hurts, some nights I have a headache and for some strange reason, on the nights I feel fine I still don't sleep. On the nights I feel fine, I'm usually awake between 2-5. Like, wide awake. When people ask me how I'm feeling I usually say that I'm feeling pretty good. If they seem like they want a little more info, I usually tell them I'm just having trouble sleeping. I really wish people would PLEASE STOP telling me "just wait until the babies are here". Duh.

It's become evident that some people think that because I've never had a baby before, I must be a complete idiot and need ALL of their advice. I don't mind advice, in fact, it's welcomed! I'm going to need a lot of help. However, I am not an idiot. I know I'll need a lot of diapers, thanks. I know that I won't be leaving the house for months, thanks. I know that I will not be sleeping, thanks. Oh yeah, and I definitely know that I'm having twins and I need to prepare. I'm not trying to sound like a bitch. I'm not trying to scare people off from giving me advice. Sometimes current moms tend to act like they are better than those without children because they've been through it before. Yes, you know more than me and I would love advice on what I need help with, but please stop acting like first time moms or people who aren't pregnant are complete morons that desperately need your training. It's condescending.

Everyday I'm getting more excited to meet these little sweeties. I also feel more pregnant everyday! Still no weight gain (which is awesome!) and we're at 16.5 weeks now! Don't be in too much awe, I was overweight to begin with so I've been working to lose weight to balance everything out. Not by intense cardio or starving myself... just by trying to stay active and eating better. So far it's been working, however, within the past week or so my appetite that had been suppressed for a while has come back. The good thing is that school is starting back up in just a few days and I'll be back in a routine. That should help with the appetite because I'll just have smaller, healthier things throughout the school day.

Anyway, no doctors for another few weeks and no ultrasound for another month. We can't wait!!!

Yin Yang-15.5 weeks!

We officially made the switch. We went to my new OB’s office yesterday. I couldn’t have been more pleased with my new doctor. This practice is much smaller than my old one—the old one had gotten up to 6 doctors that I would be required to see. This one only has two doctors and a nurse practitioner (who will only do check ups, not delivery). When I was led to the room the nurse was very sweet and asked a ton of weird, random medical questions. Then she took my blood pressure. First read, left arm=160/90… great. Then she waited a minute and used my right arm and it was 128/80. So… we were all good. I don’t know what the heck goes on in my body when I have to get that damn blood pressure taken.

The doctor came in and right away I was at ease. My previous doctor was always so anxious and excited that it was hard to relax around him. I found this to be the opposite with the new doc. He spent so much time with me and tried to answer all of my questions before I could even ask them. Then he left plenty of time for me to ask what I had left. It was really nice to have a discussion about the pregnancy. He did tell me that only about 1/3 of women who are pregnant with mulitples will deliver vaginally. I will most likely be having a c-section since they will only allow me to deliver vaginally if both of the babies are head down. He explained that bed rest shouldn’t be necessary unless I go into preterm labor, but at 28 weeks I’m going to need to stop doing anything “extra” and focus on just doing what I “need” to do. I suppose I “need” to work… :-)

Near the end of the appointment he said he wanted to hear the babies’ heartbeats. I asked him if someone could go get my husband from the waiting room since I knew Dennis would want to hear them for the first time, as well. Once Dennis was in the room, the doctor juiced me up for the Doppler  and began exploring for the heartbeats. Nothing. The search continued and still nothing. I started to get a little worried, but the doctor reassured me that everything was fine, the babies were just moving around a lot. He decided to send me for an ultrasound just to be sure.

Off we went to another doctor’s office. I will be getting ultrasounds every 4 weeks and at a different office because the pregnancy is considered high risk. The ultra sound tech was super nice and very excited for us. She took time with each baby—letting us hear the heartbeats (162 beats per minute for both of them!), showing us how big they are (5 and 6 ounces), and taking individual and single pictures. They are quite squirmy so the pictures aren’t perfect, but you can definitely tell that they are babies! Baby A has a great profile picture. Dennis couldn’t get over the fact that we could see the nose! He said, “that nose is killing me”. It nearly made my heart melt. The tech describe them to be in yin yang position. It almost looks like Baby B is grabbing Baby A’s leg. I really think Baby B is a boy and A is a girl… we’ll have to wait another five and a half months to find out, though!

All in all, it was a pretty incredible experience. I can’t believe those babies, those heartbeats, those noses are growing inside of me. Infertility sucked, but I’d do everything again in a heartbeat just to see those sweet babies on an ultrasound screen.