A 30-Something Week Update

It's time for another "me" update...

Well my ticker says I am at 34 weeks, but my nurse said I am at 31.5 weeks - so I am somewhere in the 30's with a due date of mid-November. You pick the week...
Last night I bought myself a last-minute ticket to see the Broadway touring production of "Hair" and Baby A was "singing and dancing" the entire three hours! Could it be that Baby A is a reincarnated "flower child"? Clearly I am now going to have to buy the soundtrack!

To stop working was definitely one of the best decisions I've ever made! If you are like me and are in agony over letting go of work vs. taking care of yourself during your pregnancy, I hope you will do the same. I promise you won't regret it!

While I feel like we won the Power Ball Lottery by being pregnant with twins and do not mean to complain, this pregnancy has taken a bigger toll on my physical energy than I ever imagined. I am still battling nausea most days and just walking the pups down the block requires effort I rarely have anymore. I am still sleeping at night, but having the flexibility to take a several-hour long nap in the afternoon is an activity I need and relish right now!


I set very small goals for myself each day, like running an errand, meeting a friend for lunch, doing a load of laundry, or going to the doctor. Sometimes these goals get done, and sometimes they don't. Either way, it's ok...right now I know I need to take each day as it comes, and there's always tomorrow.

Our current small project is to select a pediatrician. So far, we met with a woman who was a pediatric nurse for many years. She has two grown children of her own and liked what she was doing so much that she decided to go back and get her MD. This impressed me. We appreciated that her practice is close to our home, they have a Saturday am walk-in-clinic and they don't schedule healthy kids at the same time as sick children. Just to be sure we are making the right decision, we are planning to interview at least two more.
So far, things are going excellent. I am still seeing the nurse once-a-week and still haven't had any contractions (at least not that I recognized as contractions).  I was up .5 lb between this week and last week - so my total weight gain so far is 25.5 lbs - below average for twins. I am still within the normal range - so my nurse is ok with my progress.

Within the last few days, the kicks have gotten stronger again - to the point where I can sometimes tell the difference between which baby is kicking. Baby A (which is lower in my abdomen) is definitely more active than Baby B.

I received two more great pieces of news this week - I passed my most recent Lovenox challenge and glucose tolerance tests!


Lovenox is a daily blood thinner I take that helped me to carry this pregnancy in the first place. Each month, they test me to verify my body is processing the drug correctly. Very soon, I will be switching to another blood thinner called Heparin - because the Heparin is easier to reverse when I do go into labor. If I were to go into labor today, they would try to delay it as long as possible to give my body some time to express the Lovenox.
For those of you not familiar with the glucose tolerance test (often called "GTT"), when a woman is pregnant she is still producing insulin, but the insulin and blood sugar no longer know how to "play nice in the sandbox", so the woman has to watch her sugar intake like a hawk.

Since I am at a higher risk for diabetes (my Dad has type I and I started this pregnancy with a few - ok more than a few - extra pounds), I convinced my nurse to do a 30 week GTT. They wanted my blood sugar to be below 130 and last week mine came back at 135. Consequently, I had to do a three-hour test on Monday.


The three hour test involves fasting overnight, taking a baseline blood draw, drinking a beverage that is multiple times sweeter than Coke, and taking my blood at three-hour intervals. If I failed two of the four blood tests, I would have been on a severely restricted diet. Fortunately, I passed all four!!!
Based on these results, my nurse thinks that if I don't start having contractions and the Twinks stay put, I will deliver the week of November 14 and probably not on 11/11/11. That's ok - the longer they stay inside the better (and the faster they will sleep through the night).

Before closing, I'd like to give an extra special shout out to my nephew, who recently sent us a library of all his favorite books! It was such a surprise to open the boxes and see all the books that "Grandma C" has been telling us about like "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus", "Goodnight Moon" and "Spoon" who goes to visit his "Aunt Sliver" every Saturday! We know the Twinkies are going to love these stories too!