10 weeks - lots to update

First of all, I am really sorry it's been a week - and a big week at that - with no updates. I used to hate when bloggers did that to me, and even stopped following a few blogs because the women would get me so anxious / excited for their updates and then make me wait forever for them. That made me worry something terrible had happened.

I vow to try to never do that again.

Onto a more fun subject. I am 10 weeks pregnant today! "More pregnant than I've ever been." That sentence applies to every day I wake up until and unless someone tells me bad news.

Last Friday, at 9w1d, we went in for our graduation ultrasound. And we graduated! With flying colors, in fact. Both bubs were still in there, hearts beating away. We asked to see a doctor rather than the nurse practitioner since we have a high risk pregnancy and have a lot of questions. We lucked out and saw our former IVF doctor and she hugged us and spent so much time answering so many questions for us.

Really, though, the BEST NEWS of that ultrasound was that Dr. B found the membrane. So our pregnancy went from ultra high risk, a doctor will potentially suggest we abort, to just plain old high risk. Here's an explanation: our twins share the same placenta but have separate umbilical cords and separate embryonic sacs. The membrane we saw is so vital because without it, our twins would share everything, as they do now, but would also share embryonic sacs and be at a high high risk of having their umbilical cords get tangled and knotted around each other. If you'd like to learn more, you can google "momo twins" (the super scary, no membrane twins). Ours are now "modi twins."

We left on cloud 9.

Here they are, pictured at 9w1d. They're still little blobs, but we got to see them moving a little bit and saw and heard their heartbeats (each measuring at 178 bpm), each measuring right on track as far as their s. Our doc took this photo and told us "here's a family photo for you." Interestingly, you can still see the remnants of former-baby-A's sac in the top right hand corner. So it really is a family photo, with former-baby-A continuing to act as guardian angel to his / her brothers / sisters.

Back at our first ultrasound at 5 weeks, I made an OB appointment. That was just 5 days after our RE graduation appointment, and happened on May 21. We had an hour-long ultrasound where the tech measured everything. It was also my first tummy ultrasound (she also did a vaginal ultrasound) and it was so awesome to see the kiddos that way. Made me feel like a "normal pregnant lady" and like things might continue to go well for us (knock on wood). This ultrasound tech was ALSO able to see the membrane and, like last Friday, it was as clear as a well tuned bell. It was so cool to see and really made our hearts relax just a little bit.

We got to see them moving a LOT and saw baby A (the one I used to call baby B1) moving legs and arms. We also saw the BRAIN of one of them! We could see both lobes of the brain and the split between. That was wild as all get out.

We were just blown away with how quickly they have grown and how much they have changed. In just 5 short days, they went from the blobs pictured above to baby-shaped blobs! Here you go, them at 9w5d. The angle of the vag cam makes them look different sized, but they are the same size:

Our OB was out sick so we met with another doc in the practice. He didn't know us from arthur, which was annoying, and he said things like "so why IVF?" (to which I wanted to jump across the room and strangle him and my husband wanted to say "why not, the old fashioned way was too boring and we wanted to drop $60,000."). It also turned out that we knew more about our pregnancy than he did and he kept punting questions. I get to go back and actually see our OB on June 10, and I am really excited about that. She has helped us through everything, including the ectopic, the D&C and the emotional roller coaster of the last 3 years. I am thrilled to (hopefully) continue to see her as a pregnant lady!!!

Our next stop is on May 31, and it's with a perinatologist. We'll continue to see the OB but the perinatologist will take over this high risk pregnancy and monitor us closely (at least every 2 weeks but likely every week) to make sure twin-to-twin-transfusion and other complications don't go unnoticed.

There is almost no way we'll make it to our due date (December 19) and I will almost definitely have to have a c-section (fine by me!). That aside, today we are 10 weeks pregnant and over one quarter of the way there!

I am showing a little bit - have been for a few weeks because there were three in there for the first 6 weeks of pregnancy so my uterus stretched a LOT - but I want to try to find a blackboard this holiday weekend before I take my first bump shot. So, fingers crossed nothing terrible happens, and expect a bump date shot at 11 weeks.