Baby Kicks

Last night the hubby finally felt one of the babies kick! (We think it was Baby A...) I was reclining on the bed watching "The Biggest Loser" and Shmuel was doing a live CE course online so he can renew his pharmacy license. I could feel her doing laps around my uterus, so I grabbed his hand and put it on my belly. She kicked him right away and he looked at me all surprised as if I was keeping an alien in there. lol She kicked a few more times before I let his hand go back to taking notes. :-)

I have my next cervix check & prenatal appointment tomorrow (back to back) and hopefully everything will look great. I'm going to ask them if I can have a copy of the picture from last week when my cervix was hanging open just so I can show all of you bloggy readers what a cervix is not supposed to look like at 20 weeks. :-) (And hopefully I'll get a copy of what it looks like now to show the difference) Wish me luck!

Funny Story

I have the most amusing husband on the planet. This past Shabbos (Sabbath) some of our friends made food for us so he wouldn't have to cook on Friday. He picked up some dishes from a friend and they told him that it was chicken, kugel, and some gefilte fish. Now for some background on heating food for Shabbos. Because of certain restrictions on Shabbos, we use a blech over our burners so that we can put food on and take food off of the stove. The blech is basically a piece of metal that sits over the burners and gets warm when one or more of the burners is on underneath. Ok, so the hubby gets home with the food and puts all of the dishes on the blech (besides the fish) without checking inside first. Fast forward to dinner... We take the foil off of one of the dishes and there are cut vegetables inside (cucumbers, red & green peppers, tomatoes, carrots, etc) and there is steam rising from the dish. I look at my hubby and say, "was this supposed to be heated or eaten as a salad?" He looks at the veggies and then answers, "probably a salad." Whoops!! Luckily veggies are ok to be eaten steaming hot and then they were just as good the next day straight out of the fridge. :-) I guess he learned to always look under the foil at what you're heating up before you heat it. hehehe

Belly Pic etc.

Yep...I lied and put the pic up on Friday. I had some extra time before Shabbos (the Sabbath) started, so I figured I'd get it out of the way. Enjoy!

My hubby went shopping tonight and got me a breakfast-in-bed tray that I'm using for my laptop and can also use to eat on. It's AWESOME and cost less than $15. Go Bed, Bath & Beyond for being reasonable. And we had one of their 20% off coupons too, so it made it even sweeter.

Some friends of mine in the community came to visit me during Shabbos. It was actually at their house that my hubby and I first met. Our 3rd anniversary of meeting was Thanksgiving weekend, and we have a tradition now to go to this family's house for Shabbos dinner as close to Thanksgiving as we can make it. We had planned to go this week, but since I can't make the walk, we had to cancel. They made food for us and my hubby picked it up so we could have it that night. Then the mom and one of the daughters came to see me during the day today to see how I was and just hang out for a little while. It was great!

My friend Melanie will probably come over on Tuesday to cut up the pumpkin that my mom brought for Thanksgiving. (Mom actually dressed it to look like a turkey for a centerpiece...) Melanie and I plan to gut the pumpkin and roast the seeds. It should be an awesome time. If we have extra time afterwards we may even get to play some Heroes...now that would rock!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

I was released from the hospital this morning--YAY! So now I'm home and resting. My bed is sooo comfy and my snoogle body pillow can fold into interesting shapes so I can get comfy in many different reclining positions. My hubby brought in the TV and my laptop, so I won't have to leave the bed too much. I'm allowed to get up to go to the bathroom and I'll have to get my own food when my hubby is at work, so I'm not totally immobile. The doc is even letting me go to my scheduled Infant CPR & First Aid classes this month. I'll have to see what to do about the other various and sundry things I have scheduled (such as a baby shower for a friend...). Basically, as long as I've rested all day and will be sitting down during wherever I'm going (and I won't be gone for more than a few hours) the doctors are ok with it--for now. But no going to work, no shopping trips, no cooking, no cleaning, no going out for Shabbos, etc.

A few other tidbits:

#1) I thought I was going to have gained 10lbs while at the hospital because of the fatty food I was being fed and the total lack of exercise, but I weighed myself when I got home and I don't think I gained anything. WOO HOO I guess you burn mega calories while surfing the web. ;-)

#2) Get this baby off my bladder! I have the urge to pee constantly. As soon as I get off of the toilet, I feel as though I have to go again. It's getting a bit rediculous. :-)

#3) I will get a belly pic up hopefully tomorrow night even though I'm already 20 1/2 weeks. Oh well, not much I can do about it!

Out of Surgery

I had the cerclage put in this morning, and let me tell you--it was SO not fun. First, I really didn't enjoy having the spinal put in. It just felt like it took forever for them to do it. It wasn't particularly painful, just long. Then, the feeling of having half of your body go numb is just WEIRD! You know the feeling when you've been sitting on your legs and they feel "asleep"? Well that's what it felt like except times 100 because you can't acually move any part of you that feels "asleep". I could feel a teeny bit of tingling when they would touch my legs, but I didn't feel anything they were doing around my cervix...and happily enough I still don't! Right now it's been about 3 hours since they put the spinal in, and the only thing still a bit funky feeling is my butt. Unfortunately it means I still can't get up because that's the section of your body that holds you up when you're on your feet. Bleargh.

Secondly, right after they put the spinal in and put me on my back, I started to feel nauseous...and then more nauseous...and then I threw up. ICK. Not only that, but I was totally on my back, and it's quite uncomfortable to be throwing up when you're on your back. Luckily, it's for this reason that they make sure you don't eat or drink for 8 hours before the surgery, so there was nothing really to throw up except a little bit of stomach bile. Not too bad.

Thirdly, after I was done being sick, it was difficult to breathe. I had to keep asking them to hold my head up a bit. The numbness from the spinal was inching up my stomach and because I was on my back, the babies were sitting on my aorta. That coupled with the fact that I'm anemic (which causes me to be out of breath) made it very difficult to breathe, so I was starting to feel a bit dizzy and faint. I didn't faint, thank G-d, but I was just waiting until I could finally sit up straight so the blood would be able to flow properly and the numbness would leave my upper body.

So there you have it. Spinals are no fun at all, but at least the whole procedure took less than 1/2 an hour (even though to me it felt like ages longer). The doctor says that "nothing's coming out of that cervix" (lol), so that's a very good sign that the cerclage itself went well. Now, I would do anything to make sure these babies are born healthy and at the right time (many, many weeks from now), but I would rather never have to do that again. I think I'll skip the epidural during labor and pray like heck that I don't need a C-Section! :-D

Bed Rest & Cerclage

I went in for my cervix check ultrasound yesterday. They looked at the twins first, and then they went to look at my cervix. Holy cow. I took one look at the screen and was like "that's REALLY not supposed to look like that!!" Basically, instead of my cervix looking like a closed fist (the way it's supposed to), it looked like a funnel (ie half open). WHOOPS! So the doctor is putting me on progesterone suppositories and admitted me into the hospital for observation and a cerclage. So far I'm not contracting, which is excellent, but I do have to stay lying down most of the time. And I'm not going back to work either--it's modified bed rest for me. :-) At least I can get up to use the bathroom!!! Whew! Luckily the hospital has wireless internet, so my hubby brought me my laptop. Now I won't go crazy from boredom! I have books, tv and my computer; and the nurses bring me my meals...who needs to get out of bed?? :-D The main drawback is the fact that the bed is not *so* comfortable, so sleeping is a bit tough, but I have my earplugs and a face mask which helps immensely. I will keep everyone updated!

P.S. This also means that my 20 week bump picture is going to have to wait until I get out of the hospital. Oh well!

Anemia

My OB tested my blood for anemia at my last appointment (and at my own personal request). And, guess what, my hemoglobin is low! (Biiig shocker there lol) I've always been borderline anemic, so pregnancy is definitely taking a toll. She wants me to start taking iron twice a day, but I do need to check on dosing. When I asked how many milligrams, the nurse said "aren't they all the same?" Well, I checked and they're not all the same. So I'll be calling them tomorrow to find out. *sigh* My blogger friend Nancy has a post today about pooping while giving birth, but I won't have to worry about that if I'm on iron twice a day because I doubt I'll ever be able to poop again!!!! hehehehe Just kidding. I am allowed to take a stool softener, but who knows if it will work. I guess we'll see!