Belly Picture Time!

I think I grew! Here's a comparison between my 28 week picture and my 30 week picture (30 weeks is on the right).



Now let's compare my 30 week picture from this pregnancy to several pictures from the twins' pregnancy. I can only fit two pictures per line, so each one will have the one from the twins on the left and my most recent, 30 week pic on the right. The first line is 26 weeks with the twins, then 28 weeks, then 30 weeks.





I think I look like somewhere between 26 and 28 weeks with the twins, but my fundal height was only about 31cm at my last midwife appointment (not even close to where it was when I was 28 weeks with the twins). Either way, the belly and baby are growing well. :-)

Final Ultrasound

I made it! We had our last ultrasound today and everything looks perfect. The baby is measuring exactly 3 lbs, which is about 5 days behind schedule. My cervix is also fantastic, still measuring over 3.5cm. WOO HOO!!!! My cervix is officially competent. Here's our final ultrasound picture...it's a profile shot.  You can see her nose around the middle of the screen with her lips just below.  And her hand is to the left of that.

Keep Forgetting to Post

Yes, it's been over a week since my last post. I'm sorry but life just sort of gets away from you. In any case, things over here are interesting as always. :-)

I had a midterm exam in Human Growth and Development which was a complete nightmare / joke. First of all, the exam questions were repetitive, so you kept second guessing yourself. Second of all, many of the questions had multiple plausible answers, so if you guessed wrong, that stinks for you. Also, several questions were about material that was not covered in our book nor was it discussed in detail in class...so there was no way we could have known about it. Then, once I got my exam back all corrected, the professor had marked several questions wrong that were clearly correct.

For example, do any of you know how many days after ovulation a blastocyst implants into the uterus? Probably most of you (former) infertiles and many fertiles know that this happens 7-10 days post ovulation. It says so point blank in my Anatomy and Physiology textbook, and it's more ambiguous in my Human Growth and Development text (saying that it starts around 5 days and could go until 16 days after ovulation). The possible answers for this question on the test were a) 2-6 days; b) 8-12 days; c) 10-14 days; d) 12-16 days. Who can tell me first what is wrong with these answers? THEY OVERLAP! Plus the fact that, according to our text book, b, c and d could all technically be considered correct. According to every single RE, OB/Gyn and infertility expert out there - and my A&P text book, answer b is the "best" answer. The prof marked it wrong and insisted c was the answer...and refused to give me credit.

Here's another example. What is the baby called right after it implants into the uterus? An embryo, of course. I got marked wrong for that even though my Human Growth text book says so VERBATIM... The prof says it's something called a "cytoblast" (which I've never even heard of and isn't in my text book). He wouldn't give me credit for that one even though the text book he assigned says I'm right. (By the way, a cytoblast is the nucleus of a cell...and has nothing whatsoever to do with this question.)

On another question which seemed to me to have two plausible answers, he couldn't give me a good reason (any reason at all really) why my answer was incorrect.

These are just some of my "favorites". I'm planning to have a meeting with the dean next week and some of my classmates may come with me as well, since the vast majority of people failed the exam (I didn't) in all of his 3 classes. Seriously, when almost all of your students fail an exam I don't think it's because the students are all slacking off...

The twins are doing great. Chana has actually put together a few two/three word sentences! One was "No, mine". hehehe The other was "pick me up". She also asks specifically for her sippy cup (saying "cup cup cup cup" and going to the fridge). Also cool was the other day when after a bath I asked Shmuel if he had brushed her hair. He said no, and I turned around to see her running her fingers through her hair. She knew exactly what I was talking about!!! Dovid's language skills aren't even close, but they are getting better. I've heard that boys can take longer than girls for these things, so I'm not too worried.

Both twins can go up stairs really well now, and early intervention is beginning to teach them how to go back down. They're going to have their follow-up assessment in a few weeks, so we'll see if they still qualify. I'm almost positive that Dovid will qualify for speech, and both will probably qualify for self care (feeding, toileting).

That's all for now! I have another cervix check tomorrow, and then that's it. If that ultrasound comes back all good, then my cervix will officially be labeled "competent". Woo!! The baby moves a lot, which is so reassuring, and I'm definitely getting bigger. I'll have another belly picture taken on Thursday as I will be crossing the line over to 30 weeks!!! That means I'm about 3/4 of the way finished with this pregnancy. How insane. It's gone by super fast, and I can't believe that I'll have this baby in less than 3 months and could be as soon as 2 months from now. ACK!!! :-)

Finally, a Belly Pic!

This won't be a long belly update post, since I have waaaaay too much to do today.

We have 22 weeks on the left and 28 weeks on the right.



As you can see, my belly hasn't changed all that much--if at all. My 28 week belly pic with the twins is gigantic, and much bigger than I look now... Hopefully I'll remember to take another one for you guys when I hit 30 weeks. :-)

Pregnancy Updates

I know what you all really want... You really want to see pictures of Baby #3, right? Ok, well she finally gave us a decent profile shot at today's ultrasound, so here you go!

Now for the updates. The ultrasound went very well! Her heart rate is 150bpm, which is normal and the same as always. The baby is growing, but still measuring just about a week behind. The good thing is that she's actually picking up days, so she's really measuring less than a week behind now. Yay! My cervix is still awesome at around 3.25cm. This means that we'll have one more ultrasound in two weeks, and if my cervix and the baby both look good then, we don't get any more ultrasounds. (At least not unless they want to do one for another reason in the coming weeks.)

I had my 1 hour gestational diabetes test and passed with flying colors. Woo hoo!!! They like to see results under 140 mg/dl, but under 130 mg/dl is even better. My level? 115 mg/dl!!! Go me! And the orange drink really wasn't all that bad. They also tested me for anemia. My hemoglobin is 10.6 g/dL, and my hematocrit is 32.5%. Both levels are slightly lower than they were at the end of August, but still not so bad. I could probably make them better by actually remembering to take my prenatal vitamin... :-)

The twins are saying more words, so I really need to update their word pages. They're also climbing stairs now!!! (They can only go up so far, but that's awesome because it means we don't have to carry them up stairs.) Very exciting!!

Hello Again

Hi all! So sorry I've completely neglected you for the past few weeks, but with the Jewish holidays all falling on Thursday and Friday, it's been very hectic. Things here are doing well, though. We've all had colds this past week, which was not fun, but noses are slowly becoming unstuffed and tissue usage has gone down significantly. :-)

The twins are saying new words almost every day, and I'm making pages specifically to document what things they're saying and when they started (sort of). Here are the links to them for your viewing pleasure:

Chana's Word Page
Dovid's Word Page

Dovid is also now climbing all over everything: on the musical table, into a child's shopping cart, onto adult chairs, up stairs, etc. Chana is still terrified of stairs and won't climb up. *sigh*

Baby #3 is also doing well, growing and squirming around. At our last ultrasound (Wednesday) she was measuring still about a week behind schedule and around 1 1/2 lbs. My cervix is still hanging in at around 3.5 cm! But this is where I start to get nervous, because the twins were each just under a pound when my cervix started opening the last time. So if something bad is going to happen with my cervix, it's going to probably happen now. This next ultrasound (in a week and a half) will be the most important yet. After that, it should be smooooth sailing until delivery IY"H.

I totally missed the 25 week update on chances of complications, but here is the one for 26 weeks:

Survival: 75% (way up from 40% two weeks ago)
Respiratory Distress Syndrome: 93%
Intraventricular Hemorrhage: 30%
Sepsis: 30%
Necrotizing Enterocolitis: 11%
Intact, long-term survival: 60% (waaaay up from 5% two weeks ago)

Now don't forget, for both of the survival statistics that's the percentage that will survive. For the other complications it's the percentage that will NOT have that particular complication.

So everything is looking good!!