Multiples Check-In (May 21)

Manada

Welcome to our first Multiples Check-In! 

I'm sorry I didn't post it earlier, I've had an exceptionally busy day at work today... that said, I am expecting that people will trickle in over the next couple of days...

Okay -- First things first:  Let's start a List.   Post your S/N, Your Partner (if they're on TB, or their initials if you refer to them), If you're Pregnant or Parenting, your EDD or Babies birth month/year, Type, Any identifying info you want us to know (sexes, nicknames/initials/names, any other children....)...  that sort of stuff.   I'll try to keep editing the thread this week, and that way whoever posts next time can cut and paste it.  

2.  How often do we want to check-in?   Does it matter to you?

3.  Your check-in this week:   What appeals to you about doing a Multiples check-in?  How are you doing?  Anything specific to say?

4.  QOTW:  I thought we might try to do either a QOTW that applies to both pregnant and parenting families, or do two that we can reply to either or both of - what do you guys think?    Suggestions for some?    I don't have a good one yet, but maybe I will by the time I get my post done.

Members Info:
Note:  if only one partner is on TB their initial/name is listed first in the identifying info.  I've also put babies names in quotes before they're born, but wasn't sure about this part - am happy to change it!


Pregnant:
@2MomsinCA (aka:  A & K) - 27 weeks (EDD Aug 20, 2014) with di/di boys.  A. is carrying
@Flygirl1228 (Rebecca & Ally) - 27 weeks (EDD Aug 21, 2014) with b/g twins ("Quinn" and "Weston"), A. is carrying
@Shelly2314 & "M" - 21 weeks (EDD October 2, 2014) with g/g twins ("Elise" and "Olivia"), S. is carrying
@Manada and @Healz413 - 17 weeks (EDD Oct 29, 2014) with di/di twins via Partner IVF, M. is carrying.
@RobertJane 33 (Beth & K) - 7 weeks (EDD Jan 8, 2015) with di/di twins, K. is carrying

Parenting:
@AmandaG47 - (aka A & J) - 3 month old twin girls.
@2brides & "L" - 8 year old Fraternal twin boys - Grayson & Carter

Manada

I'm Manada, my partner is @Healz413, who I assume will check in herself.  We are 17 weeks pregnant with our di/di twins via partner IVF.   We don't know the sexes, and won't be sharing them anyways, and our EDD is October 29. 

My suggestion is to potentially check in biweekly, or however often feels relevant?  I have noticed that the Induced Lactation check-ins and the Gender Open parenting ones are being posted as feels relevant to those who are actively involved in them, so maybe that would work?   I am really easy about this though.

My Check-In:   I'm having a GREAT day body-wise today!    It's actually one of the best days I've had in a long time.   One of my chief problems with carrying twins has been the fact that I've felt like my body is growing at such a huge rate I can't catch up, and this week I am feeling less tired, less sore, and just overall a bit more comfortable with my size.  It's good, and welcome relief from feeling a bit like I ate something out of Alice in Wonderland.

I can't wait to meet with our MFM next week.  He is also one of the best Twin doctors in the country, so we feel quite lucky to meet with him and to be delivering at a hospital where they see lots of twins.  It has been a bit frustrating/unnerving to be feeling a bit like we have to do lots of education in our communities around what's normal for a twin pregnancy and I look forward to meeting someone who can answer some of OUR questions.  

I'm having a good day today, and it's definitely affecting my mood and outlook -- but I'm glad to have this check-in.  There are many days where I just feel like a huge freak, and am just so tired of getting well-meaning advice from people who only have experience with singletons, and who have lots of assumptions about how I should be, or what might be healthy, or how romantic it is to have two babies coming.  I feel a little alienated sometimes I guess.   That said, I'm super happy we are having two, I am glad our Rockies will have each other.

QOTW:  Do you, or do you plan to, do Parent & Me type of activities with your kids?   This is on my mind lately as I think about my maternity leave and things to do, I'm not sure what may be possible or affordable but am quite interested in checking out Music or some sort of activity group once a week, plus potentially some of the drop-in activities around here.

2momsinCA

Hello LGTBQMoMs!

I'm A and my wife is K, she is not on the bump. I am 27 weeks along with di/di boys. EDD is 8/20 but the delivery date will be on or before 8/6, the OB will not let us go past 38 weeks.

My check in- I am at the lab now doing my one hour glucose test. I just drank the orange drink and now I sit for an hour and wait for my blood draw. I'm a bit concerned because the risk of GD is higher with multiple pregnancy but I will wait and see. I generally eat healthy and I've never had a problem with weight, food, diet etc. However, in my effort to avoid preterm labor, I've considerably upped my calorie intake with my second trimester as advised and as the Dr. Luke book dictates (once I had an appetite). We will just wait and see...

Overall, I have been feeling good, some pressure in my abdominal area, but nothing serious. My feet hurt at the end of the day and I have off and on gallbladder pain if I sit too long since they found I have "sludge" in my gallbladder. I haven't found that there is any impact or change with the foods I eat, I just can't sit for lengthy durations. My commute to work, on the 1-2 days per week that I go, has been difficult. I start to feel faint with all the sitting.

Next Wednesday is the start of my maternity leave. I feel both fortunate and a bit guilty going off work at 28 weeks. Guilty because for the most part I feel fine, but I just can't do the commute (45 mins each way). Working from home has been wonderful but once I finish these reports I'm working on, there isn't a whole lot more I can do from home. All the women at work who gave birth to singletons worked right up to their due date. I'm already so big, it's just so different with twins.

QOTW: I would love to do some sort of mommy and me type thing with K. I can't see myself managing two babies on my own in that sort of setting but with K it would be fun. This is one area I'm not too concerned about though- with twins there will be plenty of early socialization between the two of them.

AmandaG47

Edit-the bump keeps eating half my post every time I try, so I will try on a PC later, sorry!
Hello all! I didn't vote in the MoM check-in question but I'm glad it's here And for the record, I think a check-in for whenever-it-seems-relevant is great, maybe starting around every two weeks.
I'm A, my wife is J. We have beautiful twin girls that are 3 months

healz413

RobertJane33 said:

I worry that she isn't eating enough - I keep hearing all this stuff about how she's supposed to have lots of protein with twins in particular, but I'm not sure if that applies this early on. In any case, all seems to be going well.

My understanding is that for twins it's the same as for singletons-- survive the first trimester and don't worry about "eating enough" or "eating the right stuff." As long as she's eating enough to maintain her health and drinking enough to stay hydrated she's doing okay. The vitamins and supplements are important, so your RE/OB may recommend calcium and/or iron in addition to the prenatal, especially if she's not getting enough from her diet. But I wouldn't worry to much right now about meeting a minimum of total calories in a day. Second trimester is when you can start getting her to eat a lot more and start gaining more weight. That said, @Manada is still having food aversions and we're at 17 weeks now so she's not packing on the weight yet (it's just moving from anywhere else on her body to her belly). I think that her appetite may change soon, though.

Manada

@RobertJane33 - @healz413 gives me "loving reminders" all the time   

healz413

I'm Heal.y (added the dot to make it less searchable since my name is uncommon enough to stand out on google). I'm healz413 here. My partner is @Manada. She already intro'd.

M is carrying our twins who were conceived after a long struggle with infertility (see our signatures for details). We ended up using my eggs and M's uterus. When we had 3 embryos growing, we called them Rocky 1, Rocky 2, and Rocky 3. Rocky 1 and 2 are 17 weeks in M right now and Rocky 3 is in the freezer.

2. I think bi-weekly is good. We're currently on the same week as the induced lactation check-in, which is also bi-weekly, but I don't know if that check-in needs to stick around since there aren't many participants.

3. I think others have expressed many of the reasons for a multiples check-in. I think there are some things that we deal with, worry about, etc. that are different than singleton pregnancies and singleton parenting and I like having a space for that. Also, I like that this check-in is both for people who are pregnant and people who are parenting.
I'm doing pretty well. Apparently M is feeling better today (this was the first I'd heard of it) so that that makes me happy. Maybe she'll even feel like eating the dinner I make tonight, even though it's not just carbs and cheese.
I struggle with the food aspect of this pregnancy. I do most of the cooking in our family. I'm also someone who shows caring through food. As a result, one of the primary ways that I want to support M in this pregnancy is by feeding her and making sure that she is nutritionally taken care of. So her nausea and food aversions have been hard for me to deal with (harder for her, of course, since she has to actually experience them) because I feel like I'm doing a really crappy job of taking care of her and the Rockies.

4. I think that by the time I'm the stay-at-home person with the twins (probably when they're about 7 months old) it will be easier to do out of the house things with them since they won't need as frequent sleep or diaper changes. As a result, I do hope to be able to go to activities and stuff with them.
Also, M's question made me think of this thing my parents did with me and my brothers for a little while when I was probably 9 or 10. Once a month each of one of us kids would go out to dinner with one of my parents or my aunt on the same night. So, I might go with my dad and my brother C with my mom and my brother S with my aunt and we'd all go to different restaurants. Then the next month we'd switch it up. I think we might actually have only done this one time through (three months), but I thought it was really awesome to have one-on-on time and a special meal with an important adult. I would like to do this maybe starting when the kids are about 3 years old. I think it will be really good for bonding with them and also letting them develop their individuality.

2momsinCA

@healz413‌ I like the idea of spending individual time with each parent. That way each child has they own special relationship with both parents. My parents weren't big on much relationship cultivating until I was older so it seems that would be so essential to helping each child grow individually beginning in early childhood.

@RobertJane33‌ in my first tri I thought I was failing at pregnancy because I lost weight and generally didn't like much in the way if food. The babies always measured on target though and I did my best to keep my prenatals, DHA, iron, and calcium supplements down. But there were definitely a few days when that didn't happen. The weight gain will happen in the second tri. She should just eat eat what she can, when she can. It all evens out eventually.

shelly2314

Shelly2314 here and my wife's is M (she's not a bump member). I am currently 21wks with twin girls. I think we have decided on Elise and Olivia for names.
3.  Your check-in this week:   What appeals to you about doing a Multiples check-in?  How are you doing?  Anything specific to say? I think it will be nice to hear from other parents/pregnant women about how they are dealing with either more than one child at a time or a twin pregnancy. Nothing specific today other than just got sick and it SUCKS!

4. I wish I had something for you here!

2brides

DP (L) and I have fraternal boys who just turned 8y. We were fairly active in our local multiples group when they were younger, but no longer are members. We found as multiples get older, it is less about "OMG we have TWINS!" but "we have 2 kids!" I do think it is important for parents of multiples to connect with other parent of multiples to vent and learn from other's experiences. the first 3y of having twins can be hard, but it gets progressively easier, and now I think having twins is easier than having 1 or having 2 of different ages!

QOTD: When they were younger, we did Water Babies, a few rounds of Gymboree, and when they were 3y+ we did a few sports sampler sessions. We both work FT outside of the house, which limited up to weekend classes that aligned with their napping schedule! A lot of places give a discount for a sibling/twin and no one gave us a hard time for the times we had 2:1 ratio (we never did for swimming, but for the others, I would often take them solo while L worked on her dissertation.)

Manada

Whew!  This setting up a check-in business takes up a little bit of time!   Okay - I have everyone accounted for so far, and am super enthused to see our little conversation happening.

Please feel free to mention anything if you want anything changed in the Info list....

I think we're on a bi-weekly check-in plan then?  Seem good?   I'm happy with that and willing to repost this on June 4. 

@2momsinCA - how did you get dx'd with "sludge" in your gallbladder?   I'm curious because I am assuming (past on my diet in my 20s of pizza...) that I probably have some gallbladder build up as well, but don't want it to rear its ugly head with a painful attack!     

Are you at least a little bit excited to be off work next week?   I would probably be both frustrated (because I actually like my job and want it to be in similar state of control when I get back from parental leave), and also super pumped to have the time to putter around and get some home-things done.  

@RobertJane33 - cheese and carbs were my saving grace in first tri!   I ate a ton of bagels with cheese & eggs, pizza, toast, bread....   that and fruit!  If K. can stomach it, somewhere around 8 weeks I discovered fruit was a thing of the gods!  Apparently because smell is heightened it makes some foods just taste so intensely good, while others are just too much to handle.   I got most of my vitamins from my prenatals and fruit in the early days.  Now I'm trying to reincorporate more veggies, but it's a slower process.

@Flygirl1228 - Travel is something I used to dream about doing more with kids, and your post reminded me of that.  Working full-time has been a major draw-back for me on only having limited vacation per year...  I look forward to hearing in the future about how this works out - how old do you think your kids will be before you travel with them?

2momsinCA

@Manada‌ I got my lovely sludge dx after I started to develop upper right shoulder blade pain around week 20. I asked dr google and apparently that is where the gallbladder is located and gallbladder problems are common with pregnancy and moreso with multiples. I immediately worried it was gallstones. My OB sent me for an abdominal ultrasound and there were no stones, but sludge. So I can't process fats as well as I should so I try to eat low fat. There's nothing else I can do and apparently it clears up after giving birth. It's some sort of response to the extra estrogen in my body.

I am excited to be off work, but a little frustrated as well. I do have projects I need to take care of at home to get ready for these boys but I also enjoy my job. I work for the dept of education and we have a summer break so I'm going off about a month before the natural break, I just thought I would last a bit longer. My OB started offering to sign me out of work starting at 25 weeks, her policy with twins. Do you know when your midwife/MFM will sign you out? Do you have a goal week that you want to work up to?

@Flygirl1228‌ I hope to travel with our boys too. We especially want to take them to Australia and NZ. I've never been but K spent some time living in Australia and I know she would love you return and my Dad lived for several years in NZ. I feel like these are just some of the beautiful places around the world that we hope to share with our boys. As a kid my mom took us to lots of the national parks here in the US and I really impressed upon us this love of nature that I think is so important for little ones.

On a side note- I was happy to find out yesterday that I don't have GD but I am anemic. What iron supplements is everyone taking/took? I have been taking a natural food-based iron supplement by New Chapter, but apparently it's not cutting it. I don't want the constipation that comes with most iron pills though... Ugh.

Pinkspark

Hello! I'm Pinkspark, my wife is not on TB. We just had our twins in April, a boy and a girl at 33wks via emergency c-section. We conceived the twins on our first IUI (I didn't find out until later that twins ran in my family!)

2.  How often do we want to check-in?   Does it matter to you? Whatever works!

3.  Your check-in this week:   What appeals to you about doing a Multiples check-in?  How are you doing?  Anything specific to say? The babies are getting bigger, which is nice! We are almost to the twins actual EDD and they are beginning to act more like babies than preemies. Little man found his voice at the beginning of the week and luckily it doesn't seem to bother his sister much.

I think what appeals to me most about a check in is that I had the pregnancy from hell- and my wife and I couldn't really find people to relate to. Even now that we've joined a MoM group we're the only same-sex couple there. Sometimes you just want a nice safe place to discuss with your peers.

@2momsinCA  - I was anemic and I stopped taking my pre-natal and switched to Flintstones Complete chewables at the advice of my nurse. 

@RobertJane33  - Don't worry too much about the 1st Tri.. I had TERRIBLE "morning" sickness and food aversions from 6w to 18wks. As long as she stays hydrated and can get her prenatals down- she'll be ok. I felt AWFUL that I lost weight during the 1st tri, but you can make up for it later! 

yachee

Hi all! I'm A and my wife is L. L carried our twins (also A and L) to 37 weeks 6 days when they were born via scheduled c-section (L was Baby A and flipped from vertex to breech at 33 weeks). They were born on February 27th and are already three months old on Tuesday! How the heck did that happen?!?

I really like the idea of a multiples check-in because having two (both in utero and after they're born) is sooooo much different (aka harder) than a singleton. And we are the only same-sex family in our multiples group, so it'd be nice to have a group of people to talk to who are members of both of these super special clubs.

Pinkspark

Flygirl1228 said:

@pinkspark I'd love to hear about your birth story. If you posted it already can you direct me to it? I always want to hear about a multiple birth story. 

You can read it here!

https://forums.thebump.com/discussion/12321777/the-twins-arrived-early#latest