Today is our 5 year anniversary and was our first visit to the specialist. While we were sitting in the waiting room we kept hearing someone frantically telling the nurses that she thought she had broken the machine and needed someone to come help her. She was running around in a panic. Luke and I kinda looked at each other, not sure what that was about, but didn’t think too much of it.
We got into the exam room and did the routine first visit stuff with the nurse – basically repeating everything we had told the previous doctor. Then the doctor comes in. To our surprise/concern, it was the seemingly crazy British lady that had been “breaking” the machine out in the hall. Even as she came in to see us she was all worked up because she couldn’t find her stethoscope and ran out of the room a couple times to go find it.
Fortunately the doctor pulled herself together and was less crazy while doing the initial exam. She walked in and shook my hand and immediately commented on how tiny my hands are. Luke added “that’s nothing – you should see how tiny her feet are!” to which the doctor responded “I haven’t gotten that far yet!” Later in the visit she asked if I had done this all by myself. I think she meant get pregnant with twins without fertility treatments, but it took a lot for me to not give her the smart-ass response that Luke helped.
My focus thus far had just been on how to keep the babies healthy and I hadn’t really given my own health too much thought. The doctor assured me that she would make sure the babies were okay, but that I needed to make sure I was fine too. My size, or lack thereof, seemed somewhat concerning to her. She told me to plan to be on bed rest as early as September because she expects as the babies get bigger I’ll have an increasingly hard time getting around. Since my torso is so short, she expects the babies will end up pushing on my chest and make it hard to breathe.
We learned a lot more during the visit than I was anticipating with regards to what to expect through the rest of the pregnancy. In addition to the doctor’s September bed rest prediction, the babies will need to be delivered via C-Section which will occur no later than at 36 weeks (December 1). They may need to be delivered sooner than that if my health is in danger or if they start to develop twin-twin transfusion. In the meantime, I’ll go in for an ultrasound every other week to monitor the babies and make sure they stay similar in size. As we get closer to the delivery date, that will likely increase to once a week. The doctor instructed me to gain 20 lbs by 20 weeks which should put me about the size of someone about to give birth to 1 baby. I’m sure there will be another weight gain goal once we get to that point. Based on one of the books I’m reading, it sounds like I’ll likely be close to 200lbs by the time I deliver. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to stay upright at that size. I guess we’re about to find out!
On the wall in the exam room was a framed picture of triplets and their stats at birth. Each weighed approximately 6 lbs – the doctor noted that although it might not be easy for me to carry 2 babies, the mom of those triplets was the same height as me (4’11’’) and they all came out fine. She is hoping for the same result for our babies. It’s not impossible, but is just going to take some close monitoring.
We had an ultrasound during the visit and the doctor confirmed that the babies are sharing a placenta. Here are some of the pictures from our visit. We had lunch before the appointment and the babies were very active - they looked like they were swimming on their backs. The ultrasound tech called it their "Pillsbury Dough Boy" stage - based on the second picture below, that's pretty accurate.
