Got Hope? - Ultrasound update 14 weeks

"Got Hope?" That's what a bumper sticker read that I saw right after my ultrasound on Friday. I couldn't relate more. My whole life seems to be dependent on hope these days. Hope every day that these little nuggets move forward and prove that this bad string of events is now at a close.

My ultrasound on Friday went fine. Again surprisingly enough they are still both there. And growing. My ob warned me to not take to heart the ultrasound measurements at this appt. because they are often off during this transition time between the first trimester and second, which instantly alarmed me. I was like, what? what do you mean? Measure them. Let me see! And then measured them and to her surprise they measured exactly 14 weeks and 13 weeks 6 days, which by her standards is slightly ahead since I believe she counted friday as more of 13 weeks 5 days. Huge sigh of relief. I mean I know twins at some point will be slightly behind in growth due to two of them being in there and being born smaller but I'd prefer to have them right on target for as long as possible. She also told me to not worry about "not gaining any weight yet". Which is often the case in the first trimester with someone suffering from nausea. I failed to mention that I did in fact gain weight...because I lost like 4-5 pound since last seeing her and has gained it back since then...leaving me, exactly at the weight I was during my last visit.

Speaking of nausea, I was finally getting used to the idea that the nausea was diminishing and I could focus on my other worries until Friday when it started up all over again. And has since been just as bad. Ugh. Helloooo people! It's the 2nd trimester!!!!

Fatigue also returned and I spent most of the weekend just taking naps or trying to get a little bit of shopping done here and there.

Another concern I had was in regards to some, errr "leaking" if you will, that has been taking place especially last week. I freaked out thinking that it might be amnio fluid but read that if it smells like ammonia it's urine and not amnio fluid. So off I go to the women's restroom at work to smell. Nice. Low and behold it did smell like ammonia...so no worries there people...the nuggets are okay I apparently have just turned into a 90 year old grandmother who can't hold her water. Fabulous.


The last but certainly not the least subject that was talked about at the appt. was the amnio. She asked what I had decided. I told her that I have my appt. set and although we may change our minds we currently are planning to go ahead with it. I told her of course I'm scared to death and she agreed that is natural. She brought up a good point though that I would have probably thought of eventually on my own. She said sometimes it's easier when you already have an older child and you have a special needs child later. At first I didn't understand what she meant. Did she mean that at least you had one healthy child already? Then she went on to explain that if you have an older child you know that that child will still be around when you and your spouse are long gone and can take care of the special needs person when they are an adult. Very true I thought... of course I also thought that I'm not entirely sure that I would like to even put that burden on a sibling if I had a choice. The bottom line is that not only do I feel I wouldn't be able to handle a special needs child just the idea of leaving them alone in the world (or two of them in the world) without knowing who would take care of them crushes me. I guess just another thought in the bucket as to why getting an amnio would help for me in particular. I also asked her if she had had any patients (twins or single pregnancies) that lost their babies during an amnio. She said no, she herself did not. Which made me feel better. But then again some one's got to be that damn .5%. I also asked her about the Dr. that was suggested for me to have the amnio with. And she said he is excellent and the best she knows of in the city. And knows he's done hundreds of thousands of these throughout the years and says I most likely will have more scans by him when I get further along because she has him scan all of her twin pregnancies. Hmmm interesting. So bottom line, her optimism was a little contagious and I'm feeling much better about the decision.


With that said, I still haven't told my work about the pregnancy and am growing bigger by the minute. I figure I'll get to the end of this week and see how I look. After this week I only have 2 more weeks before the amnio. Let's see if I'll make it that long being under wraps. Of course I'd prefer to say nothing at all until I know everything is fine with the amnio results.

13 Weeks 6 Days

So much to comment on...I'll section it off...


National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day: Last night when I came home from work at 7p I lit a candle for my 4 little previous nuggets and all the other lost nuggets out there. I said a silent prayer. There is so much loss that we experience that I just can't fathom how many people are affected. With every day I feel a little closer to having a healthy pregnancy yet my losses are still so etched in my heart and head that I know I will never forget them, and nor do I want to. To all the women out there who are currently not pregnant and grieving over their losses may they soon be blessed with a live healthy pregnancy.

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On the plus side of things (and I do mean plus size): I'm not surprised that I've been growing in gerth a bit since my nausea has diminished a bit over the recent weeks and I've been found to cram things in my mouth on a constant basis. Last weigh in showed a 5 pound loss since I first started with the pregnancy (nice I couldn't even lose 5 pounds dieting before without being pregnant) which I'm sure I've gained back and more. The problem is my clothes situation. See at work I'm still under operation keep it under wraps. And in my naive grasping for hope pea brain I'm praying that I can get through til my amnio without saying anything to anyone. Fat chance. People are staring ... or so I believe...I mean maybe it's my constant paranoia but I feel the glances towards my middle. Luckily it's frigid cold in my office and building and no one questions when I where a jacket or thick sweater even though it's still in the 90's here in CA. Hello! Can't the "weather" kick in already? I have 3 more weeks approximately until my amnio. Do you think I'll make it? I'll post some pics for you to decide. I'm thinking I'm screwed. Personally I keep telling my close friends that I want to do the "knocked up" thing (movie) and just say "what baby?" even at 9 months. I think that would be hilarious. What would not be hilarious would be having to tell everyone that I'm pregnant and then lose the pregnancy due to the amnio. That would seriously kill me.

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On the not so bright side of things: I was so happy to see that Ms. Planner came by my blog and reminded me of her experience with genetic testing. I follow her blog closely and forgot completely about that part of her pregnancy. I went back and read some of her posts and found them so comforting and strengthening. Reminding myself the reason why I've always wanted an amnio in the first place and acknowledging that it's pure free (and rightly so) that is making me sway. If anyone is going through the same struggle I am, please read the following post. It will definitely make you think twice.
http://msplanner.blogspot.com/2007/11/melt-down.html

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14 Week ultrasound tomorrow:
And so tomorrow is another ultrasound and the saga continues...will there be two heart beats? Will there be any heart beats? I'm going to hound her more like a mad man and make her answer more questions about the amnio and my chances (even though I know that only the amnio will give me real answers) I want to know more about the triple screen tests and if I can take those as well...knowing full well that they may give me the same poor results.

Working My Way Through the Amnio Decision

You guys rock. Completely rock. Thanks for all the info everyone posted on my last post. Every little story helps. I found a bunch of new message board postings about women who successfully had amnio with twins and was happy they did it. Even one woman who lost her first pregnancy (a healthy one and singleton) with a first amnio, got pregnant again with twins and had it done again...this time nothing happened. Now that woman has BALLS. And in the end she said she was happy she did it and had a peace of mind. Of course there is the occasional really sad story of loss too.

Now this doesn't mean that I have made up my mind, but it certainly helps to know that it's more of a luck of draw rather than just the twins factor.

With that said I've started taking some steps just in case I do want to have it done. In the end I may change my mind. My heart says no, my brain says yes. It's going to be a battle to the end.

I called the hospital where I am supposed to have it...same place I had my screening test done. My ob said I should book an appt. immediately because the good doctors get booked quickly. So my amnio if I choose to go through with it, will be at 17 weeks on Nov. 10th at 9a. They say 17 weeks is most ideal because there's sometype of lining or something that is for sure completely formed then. I can't remember what they called it. I'm calling it "A" day. Rather than "D"-day.

I originally requested the dr. who did the ultrasound part of my screening because they say he's the best...but they said for amnios they are done by this other doctor (who I also heard was very good). I questioned why and they said that the second dr. does more per year. Whereas the ultrasound dr. focuses more on the scans and doesn't do as many. I questioned how many per year he does because I've researched that your dr. should do at least around the 200/per year ...rather than say 50/per year. They said he did about 250/per year. So that figures out to be about 7/per week. Which I think makes for someone who knows his stuff. Of course I wasn't bold enough to ask how many he loses in a year.

I then asked about the genetic counseling. They said when I come in I'll do counseling first and then if I choose to I'll have the amnio. I am a little uneasy about taking in all that info at once and having to make a decision immediately but maybe since it will be fresh in my mind and won't give me a chance to chicken out and seek out dr. google it would be for the best. Still thinking it over if I want to request earlier counseling. My next ob appt. is next Friday. I'm going to ask her more about further testing like the triple screen etc. but from what I'm reading it's more generic testing that really has a lot of false positives. Which is not what I need at this point.

My next plan of action is to rent a doppler. Because if I'm going to do this, I'm going to need to be a total control freak and scan for heart beats on an hourly basis after I have this done. I'm already planning to take two days off if I do go through with it. My appt. is at 9a. I'll go straight home and be on bedrest for the rest of the day. And same with the following day.

My question to you guys is if you recommend a site to rent dopplers and any advice you have. So far I have looked at Heart Tones...and they look pretty reasonable. I think I want one that shows the heart beat count so that I can tell which twin is which. And make sure I'm not confusing either one with my own.

Facing the 37 year old Elephant in the Room - 12 weeks 2 days

So this last Friday I turned 12 weeks. Wow. I seriously can't believe I actually got here. Well that is if everything is still all right in there. (My usual disclaimer). So a few hurdles down and many many more to go. Just last week I initiated my ascent to my next hurdle and boy is this one a doozy. I knew this day would come, I just wish it never had to.

Genetic testing.

Last Tuesday I had my first trimester screening test, which entailed a blood test and an ultrasound. My first fear was of course, please don't let me go in there and have one of them not be alive anymore. How uncomfortable would that be? I find it absolutely ridiculous that this was my only concern...or should I say my main concern. Hey baby steps I say. First make sure the kids are still there...second get to the genetic business.

So this weekend (fri - sun) mr. sushinut and I were off to a medical conference for him and I was tagging along for company. Of course I knew that on Friday right at the beginning of our trip I may be getting a call about the results. And that these results just may break me down for the rest of the weekend. And thus that is what basically happened.

I knew full well that with twins it's just so hard to really get accurate tests with the blood work considering it throws things out of whack that there are two of them. But the dr. doing the scan assured me that they know who to take that into account. Still I've heard that first trimester screening is often a false positive but I had high hopes that by some miraculous way my results would blow my age category out of the water and that I would come away with better than ideal numbers. On the other hand another part of me just knew the results would screen positive.

The high point is that my chances for a downs child with just my age, no screening, is basically 1/97 or 1% (I hadn't realized it was that bad, yet I haven't had time to do more research). After the test my chances decreased to 1/155 or .6%. So basically I'm doing better than the average 37 year old. Good right? Whoohoo? Not quite. Except that the positive/negative threshold for the test ends at about 250. Making my test score "positive". Even though ironically if you look at it...my chances of having a normal child(or two) would be 99.4%. That's a pretty damn good percentage in my book. Yet all the talk has thus far been around two options for me 1) CVS or 2) Amnio. Both the Dr. who did the screening test and my obgyn are speaking as though I must have one of these. Although my obgyn completely is against me having a CVS because she says she's lost twins with that test before. But somehow feels completely at ease with me having an amnio. May I remind everyone that in my case with two sacs and twins I would be stuck TWICE with the needle making chances of a miscarriage "slightly higher" uh wouldn't that just be "double" the chance? Or are they just sugar coating it for me?

My obgyn explained that chances for a miscarriage with a CVS are about 1% which makes my chance of having a downs twin (or both) less than miscarrying them. And so this is why she highly recommends me not having a CVS. An amnio is basically done later and therefore "only" has about a .05% chance of miscarrying (then again with the "slightly higher" mention because of twins.) To which none of these extremely low percentages are relieving my worry the least considering if there is a percent chance of something wrong it usually happens to me. Hello...FOUR MISCARRIAGES. What are the friggen percentages of that happening my friends? I would love to report a percentage but I assume it's going to be so low because MOST people don't have FOUR friggen miscarriages. Somehow I feel that I've come to terms with losing a child "naturally" is something I can deal with...but this is like I'm forcing a chance of miscarriage on them. Even though I know it's a very small chance.

So you're probably thinking, then don't do it? Why do something you're so unfcomfortable with and scared to death about. Well mainly because having two or even one child with Downs is quite honestly something I've never thought we could handle. And I know this is a personal decision and not everyone agrees on and let me add that for those that do choose this path to not eliminate the pregnancy after finding out a child has something like Downs, and continue on with the pregancy, I bow down to you. I seriously bow down to you and have the greatest respect on earth for you. You in my opinion are the be all end all selfless parents on earth, because of the task you have taken on as yours. I'm not proud of my opinions of what mr. sushinut and I can handle but I have to be realistic. And to pretend that all would be fine and that we could handle one or more downs children would be in complete denial.

And so this is my quandary. Which is worse? Knowing or not knowing? I don't think I could live with myself if I should have this done and didn't. I'm not one to really go against what the doctor recommends, yet I'm scared as hell of losing one or both. I even asked mr. sushinut if he could go with me (which he assumed he would anyhow) but not for obvious reasons but instead, so that he could see both of them on ultrasound at least once (he hasn't seen them yet) before possibly one or both are miscarried. How morbid is that?

And then there's the last comment my obgyn make when speaking to me after getting the results on Friday, which was "From what I can tell from your numbers, chances are your babies are both just fine". Well then why all the talk about the amnio???? Why do I have to do it when everyone in their heart feels that all will be well? I'll tell you why...because your heart doesn't give statistics and yes or no answers that's why.

I guess this is why they say having children is never easy...I just didn't think it would start this early.