Apple pie and custard

After our maternity clothes shopping expedition, we went to a coffee shop where I ordered apple crumble and ice-cream – ate all the ice-cream but only two bites of the apple pie because it wasn’t warmed to my satisfaction (very fussy) and didn’t want to make a fuss because we'd met up with some friends of ours.

The plan was to take it home, make custard and enjoy it as God intended apple pie to be enjoyed.

Well, last night I couldn’t find the apple pie ANYwhere so I left D a note on the kettle “where is my apple pie? Did you bring it in from the car?”

Now through all his morning getting ready routine, I slept like a baby, but the minute he said, “I checked the car and the apple pie isn’t there” I jumped awake.

What does that tell you about the importance of food in my life???

Scary!

The good news is I found it on a wicker set of drawers I have just inside my front door.

I cracked

I have been soooo determined to not buy any maternity clothes until the end of this month.

Why?

I really don't know - maybe because then I'd be half way through?

Also, remember I still don't feel 100% pregnant until I see the pictures - scary!

However, when I put on my comfortable casual pants and had to wear a belly band because the two buttons on the top would not close, I thought, "that's it". I actually can't do this - I'm uncomfortable.

So off we went to the mall, first to Woolworths where I selected jeans and a black pair of pants.

Once I fitted on those maternity jeans, I was like "where have you been my whole life?"

They are SOOOOO comfortable" only thing is I look REALLY, really pregnant.

So got both of those and then went to Edgars where I got another pair of black pants (nobody had any other colours) and a maternity top.

My word! It goes against everything I'm feeling to actually SHOP for pregnant clothes.

And this is the weird thing - in both stores, the fitting rooms were literally on the other side of the floor.

I told both sales assistants, "how can you put the maternity section so far away from the fitting rooms? It's crazy. Pregnant women pee all the time and get tired. I just don't get it"

Of course they both gave me that weird half-smile like I'm crazy.

But really, does nobody think???

So there we go - maternity jeans.

I wore them to work on Friday and of course, everyone was "oh my word, you're HUGE". Gee thanks.

I just say, "they're big babies"

Now let me take my HUGE self off to bed and rest these big babies :)

Dream boards

Can you see the picture stuck on my wardrobe, next to my head?

That's my dream board. Some people also call them vision boards. The name doesn't matter much; it's the concept that's important.

I teach goals and goal-setting and when I do workshops, because there's more time than at just a talk, I usually let the participants work on their dream boards for about 30 minutes.

Well, at one particular workshop I did for a church group, they were all busy with theirs so I decided to make one of my own.

I already had a general one and one specifically for my business, so I thought, "what don't I have in my life?"

Of course that was a baby.

We'd been "trying" for about a year and three months, and I was still at the stage where you think, I'm sure it's going to happen soon.

In other words, firmly rooted in denial.

So I made this dream board.

There's a pic of twins, a newborn baby, a pregnant woman (who looks a bit like me) because I knew I wanted to be pregnant and a 2 - 3 year old.

I laminated it and put it on my wardrobe and it's been there for nearly 3 years now (since around May 2006).

Every morning when we did my IVF injections in bed I'd look at that picture to keep me focussed on my goal, and not on the physical pain of the injections (I'm a big baby!).

And then I forgot about it, through the three positive betas, and the early scans.

I only realised a little over a month ago that my dream's come true. Well, we're 50% there.

So I took my dream board with me to our infertility support group to share with the ladies :)

I'm not coming from a place of being all-knowing because I'm don't know everything, but I do know that keeping your goals in front of you on a daily basis helps you focus on the outcome and not on the process.

I know with me, it really helped to always just think about my dark-haired baby because I knew the how would work out somehow.

And so ends our goal-setting lesson for today :) Hope this helped someone out there.

I think I'm going to make another dream board with healthy, happy twins to keep me focussed on the next stage :)

Falling

Edited to add scan pics



On Tuesday evening I fell down the stairs while leaving work.

I was looking where I was going as I normally do and the next thing I knew I was falling.

But something amazing happened.

I grabbed onto the railing with all my might (not much since I have very little upper body strength) so while my left leg still swung into the railing and I still hurt myself, it was 20% of what it could be.

This is amazing because normally I'm useless with my arms and this time they actually worked and quickly enough.

My leg is a bit bruised (not much) but no bleeding or pain in the baby area.

Fortunately, I had my scheduled appt yesterday and the babies are both fine.

In fact, more than fine.

They are already big babies. Can’t blame them because I always said I want big babies... (girls, be careful what you wish for :))

The one was 172g and the other 163g, and my colleague’s wife who’s also 16 weeks pregnant has a baby who is 130g (normal weight).

He says they’ll grow as singleton babies until 22 – 24 weeks, and then slow down a bit.

That means I’m going to be as big as a HOUSE!

Now the genders...

The one is definitely a boy (twin B) and the other ...we’re not 100% sure but it could be a girl. Twin A would not show us the goods so we’ll have another look next time (15 April).

Emotions

I've cried exactly twice since the night of my last egg retrieval.

The first time was at 11 weeks exactly because I'd stopped feeling tired, stopped peeing so much and of course, that meant that something had happened to the babies and they were dead inside.

I know I'm crazy!

If only I used my imagination for more worthwhile things.....

Of course, that day when I got home from work, my Baby Centre email was waiting for me and it said something like "your symptoms should start easing off because the baby is basically done developing all its major organs".

Wow - relief!

(I don't know if that's really something I just felt but I'd swear I just felt a small movement, like a bubble, from the bottom baby, baby A)

The second time was last week when I was going to my exercise class.

I got hopelessly lost getting there, was 10 minutes late, but still enjoyed the class. Then afterwards, I got even more lost because it was dark, I'd never driven there before and my map book was out of date so it didn't show me all the streets!

In Johannesburg, drivers are very impatient.

There were a number of cars driving right up behind my car and of course I was going 50 - 60km, squinting at the street signs in the dark, trying to figure out exactly where I was.

I couldn't see a thing, it was a single, long, winding street with absolutely no landmarks whatsoever. Eventually I prayed and what do you know, there was a petrol station.

I pulled in, put some petrol in my car and asked for directions. They didn't know how to explain to me where to go so I just pulled off in the general direction they pointed out to me and started crying.

Actually crying is too mild a word. I was SOBBING, imagining all the bad things that could happen to me. What if some crazy person pushed my car off the road, and did unthinkable things to the 3 of us?

As an aside, I'm really not a fearful person in the least so I think this is baby-induced. I suddenly get that it's not just me anymore; there are two little babies inside of me, depending on ME!

Anyway, eventually I saw a sign pointing to a hospital kind-of in my house's general direction so I took the turn, followed my nose and eventually got home.

The drive home should have taken about 10 minutes. It took me 35 minutes!

When I got home, I pulled into the driveway and just sat there, emotionally drained. D came outside and I got out of the car and he hugged me and I just started crying again.

And of course, I could tell I was scaring him because I wasn't talking and he was trying not to panic but remember, this is NOT me!

Eventually I told him the story. The crazy thing is I STILL don't know how to get there or back. So here's our solution...I'll take one class close to my work and one there every week. BUT he'll drop me off, go to his gym, and then come collect me again until I feel confident enough to drive there by myself.

He also went to buy me an updated map book so I feel much better now.

My boss asked me (when he overheard me telling this story) why I don't just get a GPS system.

Well, hello! I'm cheap frugal! I don't believe in paying R5000 when I can pay R100 for a map book. Plus I believe that people who use GPS are simply lazy to read a map book :)

So far so good!

Tomorrow (hopefully, if the babies are good) we'll get to see their sex!

Finally, some symptoms

My hubby reminded me this evening of how when I was very newly pregnant, I used to say to the babies, "come on, you guys need to grow nice and big" and now I am gigantic!

At least they listened and are well-behaved children :)

Anyway, looks like because the first trimester symptoms bypassed me (except for the extreme fatigue), I've got some second trimester symptoms:

constipation
I've never been totally regular so I've always eaten lots of fruit, bran-type cereals and lately, a mug of green tea every evening, to help things along. In addition to my 2L (at least) water daily.

Well, that hasn't been working so well. And it seems like it's gotten worse over the last couple of weeks.

Last week it was so painful I bled (sorry, tmi) and so this went on the shopping list...

That's right - prunes and prune juice!

In my pre-pregnant days, 3 prunes a day would do the trick but I've heard that prune juice is much more potent so we'll see....

All I know is I've been very diligent since the bleeding to eat 3 fruits a day (apples and grapes) and get all my roughage in, and it's been better.

headaches
Seems like nearly every day now I seem to have a headache. These are a bit weird though because they only happen when I move.

If I sit still at my desk, I wouldn't even know about them. The minute I get up and move, I feel the pain. When I stand at the kitchen counter chopping vegetables or whatnot, there's nothing.

Don't worry - I have it on my list to talk to the doctor about although "What to Expect" says headaches are normal and I also checked with my colleague if his wife had headaches, and she has the same thing going on.

heartburn
I didn't even know what heartburn was because I'd never had it before so one evening I felt a mild burn and asked my hubby to tell me what it felt like.

Well, what do you know? Apparently I have some heartburn.

Really, it's hardly anything and I only get it maybe once every 2 - 3 days. There was a lady in the infertility support group who used to drink Gaviscon constantly because of her heartburn. I'm nowhere near that, thank God.

I'm trying to isolate the foods that trigger this - I think it may be the spicier food because on Sunday evening last week, I had wholewheat toast with melrose cheese spread and chilli chutney (it is a LOVELY combination - I've eaten it like this since I was about 15 years old) and I had some heartburn.

I am soooo not complaining - in fact, the crazy part of me feels glad that I feel SOMETHING going on.

Only 3 more days til the 16-week scan.............

14 weeks

Well, it's like the babies were just waiting for us to announce them because this belly's just exploded.

These are at 14 weeks (last Wed) and are NOTHING compared to this week's pics!

I don't know if I told you but I'm really lazy in the mornings so I crawl out of bed and let my husband take some pics in my pajamas.

I saw some GORGEOUS pics of my friend's 8-week pregnant twin belly and now I'm feeling bad that I didn't make more of an effort.

I'm just so impatient.

So this particular morning he happened to still be at home when I was ready and I indulged him while he took some pics in "real clothes".

My husband is obsessed with this belly

Seriously, any chance he gets he snaps away - most of them I delete :) but I do keep one or two from each "session".

I actually like the lying down ones better because gravity takes care of the other fat :)

13 weeks & telling the whole world

There's absolutely no hiding it now. So we had to make sure we told every single one of our friends just in case they heard it from someone else.

I wish I had a nice, neat round bump instead of this flab, but you know what, anything is good because my babies are in there.

We finally told our parents, sisters and DH's uncle last week after the 12-week scan. And then started telling the friends who didn't know about the infertility.

The wife of the guy who sits behind me is pregnant exactly the same as I am - that is actually really freaky so I'm glad these ones will be born earlier. We have the same due date - 2 Sept - and every Wed when I get to work, I say, "Morning B, 13 weeks today" :)

We decided to announce our good news at our next team meeting but then they cancelled it so we decided to simply send an email. Yes, it's less personal but we are all so very rarely in the office all at the same time that it made sense to do it like this.

So last week, we painstakingly drafted an email and I sent it first.

Huge jubilation from those who were in the office. One lady burst into happy tears, came to hug me and nearly made me cry!

Then... about 20 minutes later, he replied to all and said something like..."guys, I also have a confession... " and announced their news.

Some more happiness and laughing...

It was actually great because both of us don't like a big fuss so because it was a joint announcement, it took the pressure off us.

And we did it at the end of the day (my idea so I could dodge all the questions).

Everyone's reaction was great except for the real Big Boss who felt it his duty to scare me with horror stories of how twins would mess up my life, etc, etc. Grrrr.

I just smiled sweetly (well, for me!) and said, "well, we're very happy and we feel that God's given us a double blessing"





P.S. I realise this is late - Wed will be 14 weeks!