How is it possible that I’m already more than halfway through this pregnancy?! It doesn’t feel like that long ago we found out there was an extra baby taking up space in my uterus, explaining why I was already showing at 8 weeks pregnant. At 21 weeks along, I only have 17 weeks left to go… if I make it that far.
Part of the reason I wanted to start this blog is that I am an avid researcher. If I have an important decision to make, or an event coming up, I am sure to fall into a black hole of internet opinions and get stuck in there for days. When I was pregnant with Luna I spent months glued to my laptop, reading birth stories, looking for registry suggestions, and copying hospital bag checklists and birth plan templates. I had 4 different pregnancy apps on my phone that I checked daily, and Adam and I looked forward to watching a new “What to Expect” video each week. When I found out I was pregnant in July the only disappointment I had was that I’d already done all the research. We had an infant carseat, two strollers, a Bumbo, a crib, and enough gender neutral baby pyjamas to get us started. We already knew we’d bed-share at some point, that I’d breastfeed as long as I could, and that we’d use baby led weaning when the time came. We knew which daycare waiting list we’d apply for, and how I’d manage going back to work with a baby in tow. There was nothing to look up! The only topic I had to learn more about was the VBAC (vaginal birth after C-section) I wanted to have, and I’d pretty much exhausted all those resources after a couple of weeks. Then… ta-da! Twins! For my next trick I’d be giving birth to two babies instead of one, and I thought, amazing! Finally something new to read about and obsess over!! Except there’s not all that much to read about having twins. Most sites and apps have some info about multiples, but it’s sparing and you can tell that the majority of it wasn’t written by anyone who’s actually experienced it. There’s a lot of “you’ll probably have a few extra Dr visits”, “you’ll have to gain a bit more weight and you may be a bit more uncomfortable”, “your pregnancy symptoms may be a little more severe”, and my personal favourite: an article called “How having twins is actually easier than having one baby!” Bahahhahaha. Go home, internet, you’re drunk.
So I wanted to start documenting. The pregnancy, the birth, infancy, balancing a kindergartener’s needs on top of two new babies, all of it. What I’ve found most helpful are people’s first hand accounts (especially those who already had one or more pregnancies to compare it to) and I won’t be holding back on the details, so if reading the words ‘vaginal birth’, ‘cervix’, or ‘breastmilk’ make you uncomfortable, or you’re not up for an honest account of the good, the bad, and the ugly of motherhood then this may not be the blog for you. Which, I mean you probably figured out by now, but fair warning and all that.
I didn’t keep track of much during my last pregnancy, and it was 4 years ago so some of the details are a bit fuzzy, but there are already some definite differences between this time and last
Last time: I had the standard pregnancy nausea for the first 14 weeks or so, but it was more like all day car sickness that could usually be kept at bay with a pocketful of Ritz crackers, and (for some reason) frozen mango. I lost 10lbs in the 1st trimester. This time: The ‘morning sickness’ hit around 9 weeks and had me throwing up several times a day until 16 weeks. My usual snacks and ginger tea did nothing to help. Somehow my weight stayed put though.
Last time: I had three ultrasounds by the halfway point; the first two at 5 and 7 weeks because I was spotting and cramping, which thankfully was because of a large ovarian cyst and not anything pregnancy related. The third was the standard 19 week anatomy scan to check out all the internal organs, spine, etc, and to look for any birth defects. This time: I’ve had five ultrasounds already; one just to confirm that all was well at 8 weeks (and also when we got the whole ‘two baby combo package’ news), one at 10 weeks to check on a sub-chorionic hematoma on baby B’s placenta (a small bleed that usually resolves on it’s own and is pretty common, especially with twins), one at 14 weeks to give us the odds of the babies having Downs Syndrome or a life threatening genetic condition like a Trisomy (when there are three sets of a chromosome present instead of the normal two), another at 16 weeks because I was having stomach pain so bad that I thought it could be my appendix (diagnosis: making space for two babies to grow in your abdomen when you’re only 5ft. tall is fucking painful), and then of course the 19 week anatomy scan.
Last time: I was exhausted of course, especially in the first trimester, but since it was just me and Adam I could really just sleep whenever I wanted and when I wasn’t at work I was either in bed or on the couch with my trusty crackers and bowl of frozen mango. This time: Even though Adam is doing at least 90% of everything around the house, and I’ve already cut back a bit at work I am SO tired. Like, fall-asleep-on-the-hardwood-floor-while-doing-a-craft tired. That’s getting a bit better now that I’m in the second trimester, but I do get winded really easily and I find myself out of breath several times a day.
Last time: I worked full time until 36 weeks, and I only stopped then because it was the start of a new session and it didn’t make sense for me to take on a bunch of classes that someone else would have to take over when I had the baby. This time: I’ll work full time between my three jobs until Christmas break, and then I’ll be cutting 10.5 hours out of my gymnastics schedule. It’s already getting hard to work with the toddler groups I coach, especially lifting them, and by Saturday afternoon I’m usually in a lot of pain. I’ll be totally done working at the end of January when I hit 31 weeks, and I won’t lie, I’m counting down the days.
TLDR: Growing two babies instead of one is no joke. I’m lucky to be having a complication-free pregnancy so far, but even then it’s so much freaking harder than I could have expected.
From Three to Five 