Scan! Week 19! The ..what ifs....

We saw the babinos again this week!

They looked ALOT larger than 7 weeks ago, how amazing that in just weeks we can develop so much of a little human!

I was tres nervous before this test. At this one alot of problems can be detected and I know 3 couples who have had terrible experiences at this scan. I have been abusing my body for months and have been stressing about dehydrating them into little shrivelled prunes.

Bug holds my hand the whole time and what starts off tight with stress soon relaxes as the first one - twin A measures up perfectly!!! 'A' was very still at the last scan, but here 'it' is moving around, flexing elbows, opening and closing little hands...everything looks good with twin A..then twin B. Twin B is ever so slightly smaller than A but still measured up very well for twins at 19 weeks and everything looks great. in fact the doctor is so fine about the outcome of the scan that he does not even want to see us!

(BTW we want the sexes to be a suprise! nah nah!)

The relief is immense. Being in the room and seeing them again makes us think even more how dreadful it must of been to be told that something may be wrong. One of my best friends has had this happen with and had to undergo blood tests, whether to decide on an anmio test (they didn't) and then sit it out and wait until her baby was born.

Their baby was perfect by the way. The most beautiful baby girl ever produced - honestly she is already a stunner like her mum and absolutely gorge.

Bug asks me what we would done if one or both was downs or worse...I cannot honestly say, nor can he. I do not think anyone can until they are in that situation. I was suprised to read a UK report on down's only last week that stated 90% of women diagnosed with a downs pregnancy have a termination. I was very suprised and would of expected the figure to be 50%.

I have a cousin with learning difficulties. She has Williams syndrome and is 25 but very tiny and lovely. She has had a totally normal upbringing, treated and loved the same as her brothers and sisters. She went to 'normal' school for years (but cannot read or write), she is the most socialable person that I know and can talk to anyone. Our entire family love Mo to bits and she makes us laugh with things she gets up to.

I guess my point is that I find it hard to imagine that any parent could love a 'special' child less than a normal one. It makes me think about when I found out I was having twins and I was worried that I would love them unequally. It took me weeks to get to a point where I knew that I love them the same.

People that have a sad diagnosis often have to make a very fast desicion and do not have months to think about it and change their minds.

I also know that good health does not stop at birth! We will have years and years making sure they are well physically and mentally. (and each other!)

Difference between HG and MS

I had never heard of HG before I was pregnant and there is not a lot out there about it. If more people knew about it then less Hgers would be crackered/ fired/ seen as weak people not coping with morning sickness.

HG is NOT even bad morning sickness. It is a serious illness that you can only get from being pregnant. Without medical intervention, severe, intractable cases are gravely dangerous for the mother and her babies.

"G is a debilitating and potentially life-threatening pregnancy disease marked by rapid weight loss, malnutrition, and dehydration due to unrelenting nausea and/or vomiting with potential adverse consequences for the newborn(s)." HelpHER website.

With out medical help women can (but rarely do) die today from HG. Until the 1940s when IV and aggressive treatment started severe HG women died. Charlotte Bronte died from HG (http://www.trivia-library.com/c/final-days-of-english-author-charlotte-bronte.htm) and I think it was the reason that Nicole Kidman looked unpregnant her entire pregnancy. Alot of HG women have terminations as they are dangerously ill/ have no support.

I cannot explain the effects of nausea but interestingly Bug once overate melon as a child and it made him sick. He still cannot eat melon and I know of other similar stories. I find it interesting that foods have probably caused him and others many problems but the story involving nausea and vomiting is very strong in their memory and still causes aversion and dread years later. Bug is the most fearless man I know but i can chase him around the house screaming if I have a melon.

Alex in Clockwork Orange gets re-programmed with a N+V reaction to bad thoughts and is for a while 'cured'. I have always thought that the film was interesting, but his 'cure' implausible. Now I see it as a genuine idea that is explored as a concept through the film medium. (That sounds really wanky)

I try to explain HG as having bad flu for months, the kind where you cannot eat or move your head. Others compare it to severe food poisioning. I have had a nasty case of norovirus before after falling in to the Thames with my mouth open (out my scull) and HG is MUCH worse.

Anyway, for a good comparison to MS and HG this is from the hyperemesis web site.

http://www.hyperemesis.org/mothers/hyperemesis-or-morning-sickness/index.php

This page is also good to check for symptoms.

http://www.hyperemesis.org/hyperemesis-gravidarum/diagnosis/signs-symptoms.php

HG is back but the 13 week scan was amazing

(I look cute from the side)

(But really spooky from the front rah!)

Really bad HG over the next 11 days darn it!

I am vomiting lots of blood again and have turned yellow skinned! For some reason I do not want to go to hospital. I have to sleep in a separate bed from bug as even his smell makes me sick. Now I know I am ill as he actually has NO SCENT! I have always thought that he is like the scentless Grenouille in the book Perfume but without the murderous villan bit.

However, a good thing in this time, a great thing was our 13 week scan. It feels like a long time ago that I last saw them both and I was very suprised at what we both saw today. No, don't worry it is not triplets! They were moving, dancing in fact. I did not expect this as I have only seen static pictures before. They looked like teeny tiny babies as well with lovely cute face profiles. We were gobsmacked. We saw tiny feet and long legs it was amazing!

The point of the 13 weeks scan is to see if there is a chance that the fetus could have downs syndrome or another chromosonal problem. They measure the thickness on the back of the babies neck and also take your blood. With the combined data from both tests they can give you a statistic on the likelyhood of your baby having downs.

As our is a twin preg we could not have the blood test as statistical data so we were just given the nuchal test to measure the back of the neck. One of the juniors kept dancing away in there and the sonographer took a very long time to capture it's neck! One was very well behaved and pretty still. Guess who takes after who hmmm?

The outcome of the test was a 1 in 1646 chance of twin B have downs and a 1 in 455 chance of twin A. That is over average for my age and the doctors said it was a positively good result and did not recommend any further test! Yippeeeeee I feel 10 stone lighter!

Seeing them also makes HG easier to cope with. I cannot feel the junior yet and I do not look pregnant, I just feel ill so to see two moving active babies is a massive joy and boost.

Back from holiday

(NO! that is not Bug's pale and shriveled Great Grandma on the far right of his parentals, it is I at Elbow falls where we cycle from alot - 45 mins from home :-)

So we are back in Cowtown and I am over 12 weeks 'along' :-)

You know what? I was OK on this trip. I had very, very green days and one or two really bad days where I stayed in bed and did not go on any trips but all in all I have had a 'fluffy' time.

I ate more than usual. It always included porridge but my food repertoire expanded. A lot of things worked and some didn't. I was able to eat bread with bland cheese and sometimes tomato so Bug's Ma made me lots of nice cheese sandwiches to eat and we hid them in restaurants where I steathily ate them! I did also try more restaurant food. I liked a potato chowder in Lake Louise and apart from porridge stuck to that. I also discovered iced black tea - yuuuuuum! Fizzy water was the only other drink.

(ahhh this is the life! The Shuswap Lakes in BC...bliss :0)

(Map of the gino lakes system, it would take weeks to explore)

My favourite meal and time was a cheese sandwich in the middle of the Shuswap Lake in Sicamous, BC. Bug's pops hired a cool motor boat and we spent the day exploring that wonderful lake. It was bliss.

(There are many houses and cabins nestled among the trees in the shores of the Shuswap and access has to be by boat. What an adventure!)

I did fail at one meal in a french style restaurant in Revelstoke and paid the price all that night and the next day. That restauranter must hate my guts (literally). I was a fussy 'off the menu' customer in a fine place who loudly asked if

"they had any really bland cheese"

"erm no madame sorry"

They were actually thinking 'idiot, we are a fine diner with expensively imported cheeses from France, do you really think we would serve bland %@#*ing cheese'

Basically the bland cheese sandwich and home made quiches were a success. I did not eat a lot but I am pretty sure I maintained my body weight despite being more active than the past few weeks.

(Obviously I did not take this photo but this shows Glacier off in style!)

On the way home the weather was stunning and we had much better views of Glacier National Park. Glacier was stunning. The mountains rise steeply and wildly from the roads and you have to drive under avalanche tunnels - it is so wild in winter and no one lives here. We must come back to experience the back country here one day....with the juniors!

(Bug's parentals are very photogenic, here they are on Moraine Lake. Ned rowed for Cambridge Uni - the whole uni so this got competitive haha!)

It just goes to prove to me that I was eating waaay to much in the last two years. I am such a foodie. I love food (and wine) with a passion and love cooking. 77 kilos for my 5 week preg weight was too much (I am 5ft 10) and I was trying to loose five kilos. 3 1.2 years ago I weighed below 70 kilos constantly without even trying.

On the drive home we had to stop twice for me to puke and I started struggling with food again. Hmm I still wonder if I am mental as well. I know I have HG but how did I manage the last 2 weeks only to start to slide again???

How low can I go?

Oh dear, things got a bit worse and ended up admitted in hospital!

So today is Tuesday and last Friday I took a nose dive. I did not think it would get any worse. I was wrong.

I have been finding it harder and harder to even sip liquid and most of the time it is coming out but with more liquids. On Saturday not a single sip would go down, we tried everything: hot tea, cold tea, energy drink, still and fizzy water, slush puppy stuff. But no, it is coming out immediately and I am wrecked.

I stay in bed as I am too dizzy and ill. If I move I am violently sick and everything spins.

By Monday I still cannot drink and I know that this is dangerous now it has been nearly 3 days without liquid going in and more coming out. I go to the bathroom to be sick and just big blobs of blood come out, that then alternates with bile and blood and I have to crawl as I am too tired and dizzy to walk.

I ring Bug at work and tell him about the blood sicks and he comes straight home from work and takes me to the local ER where they get me hooked up on some IVs and in a warm bed.

The IVs are really cold! I don't remember huge amounts about this night, the doctor says something about hyperemesis and twin pregnancies. They put some Gravol into me thru IV. Gravol, they explain is an OTC med in Canada to stop nausea. The only thing is Gravol makes me feel worse, I feel like I am tripping out and spinning! Things get totally weird and then I am really sick. So they give me something else called Zofran and you know what? This stuff works! It is a definate change very quickly.

Zofran is actually a medicine made for Chemotherapy patients (I am reading up on this). It is called an anti-emetic to stop you vomiting and cut some nausea away.

Not much research pins down the causes of hyperemesis so the only treatment for severe cases are drugs developed for cancer treatments. For some women even these do not work.

You know I have known a few people on chemo but I never realised that on the top of a life threatening and painful illness they are made even sicker by chemotherapy! I feel a bit humbled that I am no way as ill as a chemo patient and I also will have a lovely gift at the end of this.

Being ill gives me an insight that I hopefully can use as compassion one day. I have never been so ill before and so I have never got the concept about being 'ill'. I honestly thought you had to think positively and be strong (sorry), get on with it. I was an ignorant twat.

It also makes me realise a couple of things about my old job. I loved my old job, I loved the culture, the work, I loved deadline buzzes and mental hours and hard work. However if someone was ill for a long time and signed off it was a career killer. You just were not sick if you wanted the ladder. I would of killed my career if I was there, I am unable to work...have a shower, get dressed, drink ( I write this up a lot later on a good day).

Worst motion sickness

yuk yuk yuk yuk

Slept through today as motion is dangerous! I must not even move my head.

Tomorrow is Bug's Bday hike...just Moose mountain.

OMG I feel so dizzy and vomiting a lot and the nausea is unbearable.

Grim grim grim