Well, I made it to 18w. Three weeks post rupture, and still no sign of anything sinister happening. Still getting kicked, still peeing a thousand times a day, still spewing. And I made it through week three with only one visitor, two if you count Pete who arrived this morning, and is currently at the shops procuring lunch for me while Inigo and Mark are off having adventures.
Yes, I know, more boob propaganda. But hey, I have time on my hands…
I went to the hospital today, and saw another registrar. Fortunately, I also saw the first doctor I had seen there, who I really like. She is the senior fellow, and is specialising in high risk pregnancies. She (Roshini) has taken a special interest in my case, and apparently I will be able to see her at each weekly visit, rather than a different resident each week. This is great news – I will be able to have a single point of contact, and it’s someone I both trust and like, and who has a sense of humour!
So I am still healthy, still have normal blood pressure, normal pee, normal blood. Still pregnant (still spewing, though much lees), and still have two little heartbeats banging away. Oh, and I have lost 7kg since I booked in a couple of months ago.
If I owe you an email, you can expect it in the next couple of days, I am slowly catching up 
As I enter my third week of bed rest, I am reduced to recording the adventures of other people. Mark took Inigo to the park yesterday, and sent me this picture.
And today they went to visit our friends Richard and Miriam, who welcomed baby Anastasia on Wednesday. Richard and Mark have put an extra car seat in the vintage Jaguar, and have taken Oscar and Inigo to the zoo.
I hope they have fun, and take lots of pictures for me to enjoy vicariously.
Apparently, I have a genetic mutation that makes my blood prone to clots. Factor V Leiden, for which I am heterozygous for (which is less scary than homozygous), could have been the cause of the issues I had with Inigo’s birth, but it probably wouldn’t have anything to do with what is happening now. If this pregnancy continues though, I will probably need to be on blood thinners at some point.
I found this out, because my gorgeous midwives at Hornsby hospital suggested that I get tested for it because of the state of Inigo’s placenta. I asked my OB to test for it, and then today he rang and asked me why he had decided to test for it. And then he told me I’m a mutant.
It explains a lot.
As for my hospital visit yesterday, it took nearly 5 hours to pee in a jar, visit the vampires (give blood), have my blood pressure taken 80/120, have a long conversation with the high risk OB, and then a visit with the Midwife that co-ordinates the high risk patients. She wanted to know if we wanted to see a social worker to talk about how horrible this experience is. Um, no, I don’t think so. Frankly, if we were all cheery and full of coping, I’d suggest a padded cell, but I can’t see the social worker being able to make a huge amount of difference. This is an awful situation, it is NORMAL to feel awful. We’re doing well considering.
I’ve been told that I will have to go to the hospital twice a week, every Monday and Thursday, where I will have to pee in a jar, visit the vampires, have my blood pressure taken, and then wait around until a doctor has time to see me. I will be spending a great deal of time at the hospital, and a great deal of money in the car park ($8 in coins needed each time!).
So I am loving my iPad right now, and looking forward to getting a sim card so I can have internets in the waiting room…
And this is why I love my husband – the care package he came home with on the weekend. A new top of the line iPad, the new Kylie album, the new Scissor Sisters album, and some plastic cheese (no, I wouldn’t normally eat this shit, it’s a pregnancy thing).
Iggy was helping Mark put some Greens flyers in letterboxes today.
After spending a few hours at the hospital, talking to midwives and doctors about how to proceed, which drugs I could and could not be given because of my previous c/s, and how long we could wait before I went into labour naturally, I was given a blood test (to check for infection), and sent over to ultrasound to make sure there was no heartbeat.
Well, there was a heartbeat. Two, in fact. Both babies are alive and well, with healthy little heartbeats, and measuring big for gestational age. No amniotic fluid, but alive.
We have decided to proceed with the pregnancy, I will remain on bedrest, and switch my care to the high risk clinic at Westmead. If these babies are born alive, it is very likely they will come early, and they will need a neo-natal intensive care ward, so Westmead is the most obvious choice, despite the bus shelter atmosphere of the waiting room.
And if we make it to 20-ish weeks, I’ll be booked in as an in patient to continue my bed rest in less comfortable surroundings, but closer to a NICU.
So sorry for the drama, but you can imagine that Mark and I have been all over the place emotionally today.
Were on our way to Westmead hospital to find out what happens next. Hopefully I will go into labour soon, and then open the gin.
Mark took this video a few months ago, but rest assured, he is still cute.
Both babies have lost almost all amniotic fluid. Chance of survival is less than 1%. More waiting. Not much hope.
The ob thinks the amniotic sac around one of the babies has ruptured, and I will probably miscarry both babies soon. As of a few hours ago, there were still two heartbeats, but we havent been given much reason to hope.
A friend sent me to this blog post, a mum who is just thrilled and amazed to be a mum of twins.
I’m getting there.
Dear universe,
The twin news wasn’t welcome. It was scary, and, frankly, you could have chosen someone more, well, motherly. I know lots of people that like children, and want more of them, and would be really, really awesome parents. But no, you picked me. So I’ll have to deal with it, and I will even try to be gracious about it.
Especially in light of todays news.
Mark has just accepted an new job, with a $13k pay rise. And an iPad.
Thank you.
Mushroom Soup is a great thing to cook with Inigo, it doesn’t matter if the slicing isn’t perfect, and it keeps him occupied for ages – and he gets to say he cooked dinner!
Just in case you’re wondering, the knife is a serrated “steak” knife, not terribly sharp, and apart from trying to slice his hand open at the end of the clip, he really was very good with it!
Thanks to Simone Andrew for the link. Apologies Andrew, apparently gestating twins has destroyed my brain.
It looks like we won’t be able to fit three baby seats in our current car (which we love and don’t want to replace). And even if we can physically fit them in, the tether straps all go across the boot, so getting a pram into the car is going to be impossible.
So it looks like we’re in the market for a second hand people mover. Hopefully it will seat at least five, preferably more (in case we ever need to give someone a lift), have at least three anchor points for car seats, have a manual transmission, power steering, air conditioning, less than 100,000 on the clock, and not be brown. Oh, and it needs to be reliable, cheap to run, and cost almost nothing (which is what we currently have budgeted for a new car).
Yes, we’re depressed.
But this is a gig I really should have been at.
The Scissor Sisters, featuring our very own Kylie Minogue.
For a start, let me complain about how freaking much this cost. $390 in Wahroonga, for a scan that is bulk billed (ie. free) in Penrith. That is the basic difference between the leafy North Shore, and Bogan central. Well, call me a bogan, but I resent being sniffed at by a receptionist in pearls and paying a million dollars for the privilege.
Right, so now I have that mundane detail out of the way, now I can moan about the actual scan. There is an issue with how twin 2 is lying, and the sonographer just couldn’t get a decent look at all the details they are supposed to check at the 12 week scan.
There are a couple of slight irregularities – twin 1 has only one artery in the umbillical cord (it should have two), and twin two has less amniotic fluid than twin one. That, and the fact that they can’t check the blood flow in the liver, etc, and they think I should do another scan in 3-4 weeks to rule out any problems.
It all sounds very reasonable and not scary when you put it like that, but being on the other end of the phone when hearing the news wasn’t a happy feeling, and I am still feeling pretty scared now. I’ll see the OB tomorrow to talk about it, but basically, I have three weeks to wait to find out if there is a reason to worry, or if everything is normal.
I keep hoping that the boring and mundane stage of this pregnancy will kick in soon, but I suppose that is too much to ask for?
1. Why didn’t Courtney get a welcome home party after her elimination? Everyone else is shown going home, and then there is a little recap about what they have been doing since they left the competition. Thanks Dad for pointing that out.
2. Yesterday I went with a friend for her 12 week scan, and apart from 10 minutes of violent purging as soon as I woke up, I was pretty much ok all day, just on one Zofran,and one Restavit. So I thought things were looking up.
3. Until this morning. And that is all I’ll say about that.
4. Today, dad gave Inigo a branch with four pine cones on it. Inigo is into counting things at the moment and he counted each pinecone, and came up with four as the total. It’s happened before, but he seems to be getting more consistent with his counting. Clever chicken.
5. Tomorrow is my 12 week scan. Not enormously stressed about it, but a little bit worried. I’m still bleeding, and have had some cramping. It’s a good thing I feel so sick, it keeps me feeling pregnant!
6. As some canny readers have noticed, I was on the tele on Tuesday night. Channel 10 have this clever idea about interviewing the residents of Abbot St, Sydney (a Labor seat) and Gillard St in Melbourne (a Liberal seat). So they knocked on my door last week, and I dragged myself away from the vomitarium for long enough to give them a few pithy comments about my socialist ideals. It’s an ongoing series they are doing, so you might catch me again. And I promise to make an effort to look less scraggy next time.
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