This is why bed rest is good

oops

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/dec/15/olympic-weightlifting-baby-elizabeth-poblete

My life as a blob!

I am still on bed rest. That is a good thing as the alternative is daily trips to the NICU which I do not want to do until I am at least 32 weeks...so in the meantime bed rest is a good word.

However. Bed rest is even more boring to read about than it is to do. I think!

I have ordered in lots of reading books and I am going to take up knitting so have ordered a pattern book of my favourite knitable celebrities. Amy Winehouse is first! (No point knitting baby clothes when they only cost about $5)

In a couple of days I will be 26 weeks and my next goal from that is to get to 28 weeks. It is strange looking ahead at the days on the calender and completely forgetting that Christmas will fall in there somewhere.

The last scan on my cervix showed that it was still at 1.8 - so still crap but no worse and they are checking me every week with warnings of any preterm labour signs to go straight back into the labour and delivery ward.

As long as I stay lying down and off my feet it feels ok.

I am actually going out tonight to BUGS work Christmas party. I am being dropped off right outside the door and will sit down for dinner straight away and then come straight home to bed again. Any pain and I will leave asap! It is -36 outside so I do not want to hang around.

This week I met our future Doula for the first time and was very impressed by her. I was feeling a bit middle class and wimpy hiring a doula but we are having twins with no family or help on this side of the world so I can justify it! BUGS mum found her online when we were back in the UK. I did not have my laptop and we were having a discussion about care in Canada and the next thing I know is she has found 2 people in Calgary and got their life history from them ahaaaa...she also puts to them that she is concerned we do not have a clue about what to expect from a new baby, let alone 2 babies which has got us peeved. Who really does have a clue until their own arrive? You can guess, read every book and talk to your mum, friends etc but until it happens I bet we have no idea! - and I don't mind that. I fully expect it to be hard, funny, stressful etc etc

Anyhoo, the doula has looked after a lot of twins and some of them have been premmie babies, she stated that her insight is not medical but was still very reassuring about premmie babies. The twins she is off to look after from now until March were born at 27 weeks and are coming home all OK - a big relief as I only have just over a week until I am 27 weeks. She has lent me a book called The Multiple Pregnancy Sourcebook which is a joy to read for the very reason that it has no blooming fruit and veg comparisons in it. Nor does it hector or 'fluffy up' any copy. It is an insightful, factual read about multiple pregnancy so includes a lot of pre term labour and premmie births.

Bug is being a genius around the house cooking, shopping and cleaning (kind of!). He is feeding me and the juniors up on super foods like spinach soup (at least a bag of spinach per bowl), stews and porridge. I am getting pretty round shaped though despite no pigging out and being super healthy. I think my body is storing any fat it gets for the juniors.

The hyperemesis is back under control, I had dipped a bit on the diclectin as I didn't really think it did anything and I take 8 a day of those, 2 - 3 of zofran and 2 of ranitidine. However, I can report that diclectin does have an impact as after 2 days without it and just on zofran alone I puked in the taxi on the way to the doctors and was so sick again...oops! It took a few days of being back on all 3 pills to nub away the green feeling and I feel pretty normal again now which is good as I am looking forwards to turkey tonight (the bird variety!)

Bored!

Bed rest is so boring especially to write about in a blog...

As I said when I started this blog '9.99% of blogs are irrelevant crap and mine is no exception"

Well, I want to share a blog that IS the exception..if you like the outdoors and fitness.

http://banfftrailtrash.blogspot.com

I no longer need to read Runners World, this is as good as it gets in running, the adventures that this women has and the group she runs with around the trails in Banff national park and beyond are simply amazing and I can only hope that the juniors take to the outdoors so I can run some of these one day too (athough NOT that 100 miler yikes!).

BED REST

I had a 24 week ultra sound today. I thought it was going to be a standard scan like I have been getting used to but mostly they just wanted to look at my cervix measurements.

A 'good' and closed cervix should measure over 3cm ( I think...bear with me!) . They start to flag it if you are less than 2.5 to 2 cm. I was 1.8 and funneling...hmmm. I may have an 'incompetent cervix' The doctor explained it to us and said it is a red flag for early labour and I may be having steroids to help the juniors in case bed resting does not work. I have been googling it all day since and worried myself in to a stress ball. Hopefully I can get hold of my elusive OBs tomorrow and get some more info. I am sure it is OK or the doctor at the unit would of sent me straight to hospital.

I have to go to hospital if I have any discomfort but between having spasms of constipation and SPD pain in my pelvis I just hope that I can spot anything else....

Hello Sunshine!

So, I am back from our great trip back to the UK. I spent a whirlwind 3 weeks zooming thru friends, family, London and Dorset and loved every minute of it. I miss my friends SO MUCH, I love them all to bits and feel terribly lucky to have them all.

Being back made me make comparsions to here and there and what I have found is:

The weather in Alberta is divine! Hello sunshine, goodbye 3 weeks of rain, rain and RAAAAIN.

I must apologise for an earlier post about bad Albertan drivers. UK drivers are just as shit, me included as I crashed my Mum's car in sodding Poundbury (a souless dive that prince Charles has built). Sodding Poundbury does indeed sound like a Dorset town but Charles just named it Poundbury....and made knife edge granite curbs that slice up car tyres :-(

Traffic = UK, I spent a disproportionate time in traffic jams. Traffic jams in the rain.

Erm, that is it really, I bang on about missing Tate Modern and Selfridges but I did not visit them - friends, family and Dorset took priority.

My belly grew twice as large due to eating lots and it weighs a ton! I have SPD - a pelvic thing where it feels like the pelvis is separating in half the wrong way and yikes it hurts - mostly turning in bed and as for standing on one leg forget it! Doing lots of PVF exercises to help it.

The bowl of Life and 20 weeks!

I am in silly season today. Barfing up like a drunk, nauseous waves are starting and soon I will be polaxed for the rest of the day... but I am happy as we are off to the UK in a few days and I get to see my Ma again...plus on fluffy days Selfridges, Tate Modern and some more culture.

At last we are at 20 weeks and for twins ths is well over half way with only 18 more weeks to go.

Now, we have been keeping their sexes a secret but I can reveal that one is...a banana! According to Babycentre.com and What to Expect.. I have a large banana gestating, others reckon it is a mango. It is twins, could be one of each, I am happy as long as they are edible.

Why fruit? Maybe most (sickness free) women can carry out their weekly shop and size themselves up in the grocery section, have a feel, weigh it in their palms....eat it. They get some idea of what is growing and have a nicer customer experience in store.

I just find it really fluffy and would rather have a ruler to look at or x-ray specs sold free with each book.

I also went food shopping (for the second time in months!!) and ended up buying all the fruits I have been missing out on week by week. Here they all are lined up, how cute. Some were out of season so I had to get a kiwi to stand in for the plum, a fake fig, and Safeway had no prunes so I thought a date is much the same. The book compares one week to a chicken breast. That is not possible for me right now or hygenic. Luckily Babycentre offered a lemon instead. Phew, much more HG friendly.

(I will try to get this larger - it is a large file...blogger novice!)

I better hope that HG ends at 24 weeks as junior(s) outgrows fruit and is lovingly compared to a 2 pound chuck roast. I have no idea what a chuck roast is but it sounds disgusting, like minced beef (2 pounds in weight shown!).

Anyway, I also arranged them into a bowl for composition, I ate the date (10 weeks) and trod on olive (9 weeks) so cannot include them in this shot. But here it is (top of page)...the bowl of life, My fruit trimester.

I am definatley getting better, I could not of done this just 2 weeks ago. What an achievement, I deserve a medal (irony IRONY!)

(The sketching is crap, I was in a hurry - usually much better!)

Yiipeeeee

Zofran has changed my life! thank you little pill I love you!

We went back to Banff again this weekend. I have been on Z for a few days and hoped that I was going to be fluffy very soon!

I was! We went to an ace veggie restaurant in Ba

nff called Nourish. They make really wholesome, home co

oked grub. I was not hungry but said that I would share Bugs meal. He ordered edamame to start and a veggie quinoa/ lasanga thingy for his main.

I ate one edamame...hmmm yum, and another and another and actually I think I ate them all. then I ordered another portion MAMMA! YUM!!! I also had a little taste of his main dish AND then i nicked half his pudding heheh.

Bug had been out to Marble Canyon in the Kootenay NP earlier in the week as part of his Geology conference. He said it was stunning and wanted to show me the place too. He reckoned that it was even more amazing than Johnston Canyon. I had to see this place!

The image at the top is the plunge hole at marble Canyon with the on above being the crevasse (I can't work out how to portrait this image argh!). The river is probably an exposed cave system because it is so deep and narrow.

It has been snowing and it is ccccold so this was the plunge hole when we were there. Fancy a dip?

There are lots of trails from Marble Canyon that look like ideal running trails. I used to trail run when I was younger and meant to start again here in Canada but got bursitus...pregnant etc. We took an easy walk of 6k to paint pots and back...

hmm dont go there in the snow as there is nothing to see! I look so excited no! We did see cougar tracks in the snow tho. I was carrying a mighty stick to beat it with if it tried to eat me. Reckon I scared him off.

We had to head back to banff to pick up my engagement ring (!!!!) So exciting! We made it back just on time and ran into the shop. I had to try it on again as they had resized it for me. The two shop ladies were very refined women, one even had leather trousers and a matching corset on with furry bits (yikes!). It was hideous but it looked expensive. The reason I mentioned that was because the mighty stick I had carrying to beat off cougars was tree burn. Kootenay had an almighty forest fire 5 years ago and the entire area is regenerating...I had picked up an old burnt charcol stick and my hands were jet black.

Bug noticed and shrieked at my hands, then they women noticed and had some kind of deep internal reaction, I ran off to wash my hands several times...until the water ran clear and then tried it on. :-)