Hormonal volcano

Holy cow this whole pregnancy thing really plays with your mind doesn't it? Over the last couple of days I seem to have become a simmering pot of frustration and close-to-the-surface anger.

So far I have (thankfully) managed to keep it close to me and so far I haven't had any major casualties but it's bloody scary *sigh*

Anyway onto news of the twins...

This has been a very busy week. We had our first midwife ante natal appointment on Monday which started off so well until we realised that due to some miscommunication at the hospital, the midwife was under the impression it was a single pregnancy. When we figured this out and mentioned it to her she was quite taken aback, even more so when we (innocently) mentioned that we knew that they were identical because there was no membrane seperating them. How naive were we? We just figured that this was normal - we were to find out that it isn't.

The midwife wasted no time in tracking down our original scan results and the appointment continued without a hitch, until... the midwife very casually said that we obviously weren't having the Downs scan (can't remember the official term). We were quite shocked by this as we had never even been given the choice and it was something that we definately wanted to have done. After glancing at out notes she explained that it was only possibly to have this scan up to 13w6d and we were already at 13w3d so there really wasn't time. The RO thankfully has some experience with the NHS and he impressively convinced both the midwife and the sonographer that it was our choice and that we were entitled to it even though we had both agreed that despite the results we wouldn't go for an amnio. They decided to squeeze us in the next day.

During the discussion this missing membrane was mentioned again and the sonographer provided a little more information about it, saying that it was called monoamniotic-monochorionic and she felt that it was very unlikely that this was truly the case and that the consultant would take a good look the following day.

Of course we rushed home and Googled it. Fortunately we managed to find some really good information (with no deliberate horror stories) and we were soon very hopeful that the membrane would be found.

Unfortunately it wasn't. The consultant did the water on the neck measuring thing and then spent a long time beating my bladder into submission as he searched for the elusive membrane but it wasn't to be.

So, we find ourselves in the position of yet again being a statistic (both Chris and I are quite fed up with our medical lot). But we love these twins fiercely already and we're ready to do whatever it takes to get both of them here safely.

VP

Big... no.... HUGE news!

Well today was the day that we got to have our first scan. I had specifically requested an earlier scan as I had originally only been booked in for an 18 week one.

All I can say is thank the deity that I did because it seems that we are to be blessed (or something, we'll update on this in about 7 months) with twins.

I don't think that it has really sunk in yet and I'm pretty sure that it will take some time before we are used to the idea of being parents twice over, but in the meantime, lots of excited family members are keeping us busy :-)

About the twins: We don't know the sex yet (although I think that we will be finding out) but we should be able to tell in about 4 weeks or so. T1 (Twin 1) is slightly smaller than T2 (duh, Twin 2) and there seems to be about 5-6 days between them but we're not to worried about it yet as 1mm makes a huge difference at this stage.

This does mean that I'll be going in for a scan every 2 or so weeks from now until they're born so we will be able to keep up to date with the progress of the babes.

I have big intentions (and at loeast 3 decent posts swimming around inside my head) about being more consistent with the blog - hopefully the nausea will start to become a thing of the past very soon so that I don't feel the urge to throw up whenever I see my screen :-)

Thanks to everyone for their good wishes, they are hugely appreciated. To my IF friends, I know that this has all come awfully easily to us and I wish more than anything that it could be the same for everyone.

So with love from all of us........

I bet that you thought that I'd forgotten you...

But you'd be wrong, I haven't forgotten I have just been completely overwhelmed by the New Year.

Plenty of news to share so I'd best get to it :-)

The wedding was beautiful. Somehow, despite being thousands of miles away my mom managed to accomplish everything that we asked of her. It was a fairly casual affair, the weather was warm but not hot and everyone seemed to have a lovely time. There was lots of laughter and a few tears so the perfect combination really. Pictures will follow as soon as I figure out where the CD has disappeared to.

Christmas was lovely too, despite it being slightly less of an occasion given all the other things that were going on. I got to introduce the RO and his Best Man to a typical Southern Hemisphere Christmas, sitting in the swimming pool with a cold beer in hand. I think that they found it quite strange :-)

The flight back from SA went fairly smoothly, I managed to sleep a fair amount as this is the only real solution that I have found to my 'all day' morning sickness. Unfortunately though, the RO and I both caught a cold somewhere along the line. Take a queasy stomach, add a blocked nose, a post nasal drip and temperature and you get one very miserable Villagepig.

The fact that the builders still haven't finished didn't help either but fortunately all of the big jobs have been completed, it's just the finishing touches that they're still busy with (although this stage seems to be taking the longest). It does mean that we no longer have any excuses for not unpacking boxes. If we thought that our lives were disrupted before we were sadly mistaken, now there is ALWAYS something that needs to be done - which means that everything else has taken a back seat.

Hopefully we'll get on top of it soon, but in the meantime I'll pop back as often as I can and I'll bring some of those pictures along to.

Bye for now darlings!

VP