Twin story so far :)

This is the perfect time to start blogging again.....I think. In all honesty, I have blogged twice in the last couple of months, but never published them because of certain things that I was feeling under the circumstances. Does that make sense? For example....when we found I was pregnant, I was soooo excited! I didn't want it ruined by people telling me I need to have a boy. We tried to keep it a secret as long as possible, but I couldn't hide it much longer. I was really sensitive to people telling me I needed to have a boy because I had been on fertility because I have a hormone disorder called PCOS and I've been dealing with big cysts on both of my ovaries the last 3 years. We had been trying for over 2 years. We stopped trying in those 2 years twice. One for about 6 months due to personal things and then again for about 4 months when I had surgery last summer. I wanted to have a baby so badly. It physically hurt to hear that someone was pregnant. I strongly disliked people that were pregnant. Well, not really the people, just that they were pregnant and I wasn't :) Not a lot of people knew that we were trying to get pregnant and that fertility was an option. I don't like people talking about me and I figure it's not really anyone's business until I decide I don't care anymore if anyone knows. So, the whole thing was a very sensitive subject. Plus the pregnancy hormones don't help with that either. This pregnancy was worse with the hormones in the first trimester as well.

I knew that I wanted to find out what we were having. I wanted to wait until we had the ultrasound to even tell people we were pregnant, but because I couldn't hide it, we told when I was 14 weeks along. I tried to ignore everybody's judgements on us needing to have a boy, not that I didn't want one, I always wanted boys, but it's really not anyone's business and they don't get to decide. I didn't like the implications either. Why do I have to have a boy because I already have two girls? What's wrong with my girls that I need to have a boy? If it was a girl would it be disappointing to people? I get why people think that way, but I didn't care what we were having, I was just so grateful to be having one and I just wanted people to feel that way too. I am over all of that now. My hormones have died down and now that we know what we are having, it doesn't matter anymore! Which is nice.

I was pretty nervous about getting pregnant with twins in the beginning due to the fertility drugs. I talked to my mom before I went on them and she told me that I just needed to go into it thinking I was going to have twins, so that when I only had one, I would be happy. So that's what I did, well, I tried anyways. My OB/GYN wouldn't see me until I was 12 weeks. I couldn't wait that long to talk to a doctor. I went into the clinic to see if they could hear a heartbeat. He couldn't find one, so he went and grabbed the portable ultrasound machine. He found the baby and a heartbeat. I was relieved to see the heartbeat and to see only one baby. He told me there was only one, but that he was no ultrasound tech either. I saw my OB/GYN shortly after and he found a heartbeat very quickly. Just one heartbeat. All of my anxiety disappeared after that. Up until I saw him 4 weeks later.

I went in and like I said, I couldn't hide my tummy anymore. He was feeling my stomach and it took him awhile to find a heartbeat. I was getting kinda nervous. He finally found it and listened for a couple of seconds and then proceeded to keep looking around with the doppler. I instantly asked him what he was doing. He asked me if I was sure my dates were correct and told me I was measuring a bit bigger than I should be. I agreed and then the nurse knocked and told him he was wanted on the phone. He left and on his way out told me not to worry, he says things like that all the time and it's only one baby most of the time. So comforting of him. Seriously, who does that? Who tells a pregnant woman there is a possibility of having twins and then walks out without discussing anything with them? I was to see him after my ultrasound which was 2 weeks later. I let him know nicely how I felt about it later :)

2 weeks to sit and stew about twins again. I ate, slept, dreamed, and thought twins the whole time. It took forever for that ultrasound appointment. The day finally came and I went in by myself for the first bit. Jar sat outside with the girls and came in for the last bit to see some images. When I went in, I twisted my head so that I could see the screen while she was doing her thing. When she first put the transducer on my stomach, I could have sworn I saw two black circles that each had a big solid circle in them. I'm no ultrasound tech though, but as soon as I saw what I think I saw, I felt the tech change her pressure for a second, she shifted. I looked at her face and she looked at me and before she even opened her mouth I knew what she was going to say. It's twins. I instantly started to bawl. It wasn't a happy cry or a sad cry. I think it was more of a dam breaking and all of my anxiety and tension were being washed away. She looked a bit concerned, asked if I was alright. I told her it was a happy cry, and told her a bit about why I was nervous about it. She told me it was okay to cry. In my fight to stop crying I told her I couldn't cry because my tummy was shaking and I couldn't see the ultrasound when it was shaking. So she continued on.

It was the weirdest thing sitting in there by myself getting the first sneak peek at my twins. She didn't say much and I didn't either. I did tell her we wanted to find out what we were having if possible. The ultrasound machine decided to quit during twin B. She was nervous she was going to have to do it all over again, and to be honest, I wouldn't have minded. She started the machine up again and was able to pull it all up and we finished up the measurements. She said she was able to get good pictures of the genders, so we would be able to know what we were having. She went to go get Jar and the girls to show them. She said I could tell them the news. She left I started to panic. How do you tell someone you are having twins? I started to tear up again. They all came in and I knew I wasn't going to be able to talk, so I just held up two fingers. He was excited, the girls were excited, I was excited. Nervous, but excited. I don't think that is really going to change much until they get here either :)

We started calling everybody to tell them it was twins. It felt like announcing we were pregnant all over again! It was a lot of fun actually. My sisters screamed and I'm sure my mom would have too, but she was working. We didn't find out what we were having until 5 days later because we had our ultrasound on the Thursday and it was the long weekend, so we went in on Tuesday. When my OB/GYN came in, he laughed and said he figured he'd get to meet the whole family today because of the twins. He then told us we were going to be evened out because we were having two boys! Jar was/is over the moon! The rest of them left while I finished my appointment. I heard both heartbeats and I talked to him a bit about when they would come and where. If I could have them naturally or did it have to be a C-section. Stuff like that. I felt soooo much better after talking to him. When I came out of the appointment, we did some more phone calls to let people know we were having boys. Then we went to Toys R Us so I could go buy something blue.

Honestly, I went into shock I think about the whole 2 boys thing. I was excited of course, but I had thought there would be at least one girl in there. I knew I would be nervous about a boy because I only have girls, but 2 boys? Scared me to pieces. It took a few hours to process and then it was good. We had names picked out almost instantly. Cooper Hatch and Walker Grant. Hatch obviously because of my maiden name and Grant was my Grandpa who was a bit more to me than that. A lot of cousins have that middle name as well. I always wanted to have that middle name for my boy. There was no discussion really. We both liked the names. It was easy. I considered twin A, the one that has the placenta attached at the front, to be Cooper and twin B, his placenta is at the back, to be Walker.

I've had a lot of people ask what it's like to be carrying twins. Honestly, up until the last week, the only difference was I was measuring bigger, I was a lot more tired, a lot more hormonal, a lot more round ligament pain, and I felt them pretty early. The movements still felt the same, just earlier and a bit more often because they seem to be on different schedules already :) This last week though the movements are getting stronger and more frequent. They are squished in there already and there is still 16 weeks to go. I am measuring about 10 weeks ahead of what I really am. So, I feel their movement a lot more and it hurts a lot more. I've been having electric like feelings sometimes when they kick me in certain spots. I almost got dropped to my knees in the middle of M's kindergarten class, one was so bad. They can already kick me in the ribs and they don't like it when I bend over too far. So, in that way it is different. If it was only one in there I would just be showing, feeling some movements, but less frequent and not at strong because of all the room they would have.

I feel pretty good though for the most part. If I do too much, it takes me at least 2 days to recover. Last week for instance was hard. Thursday I had to clean and do laundry, Friday we had to go to Calgary to pick up Jar, so we were walking a lot that day, and Saturday was Mackie's birthday party. By the end of the party I was done. I laid on the bed after and didn't move for awhile. By Tuesday I was feeling better. I still get major pain in my groin or pubic bone. My hips have definitely stretched out. I've put on about 15 lbs, but apparently I am supposed to gain 10 more in less than 3 weeks. We'll see how that goes. Another source said that with a twin pregnancy you should gain 41 lbs by 28 weeks. Crazy! Do they not realize how hard it is to eat when you have no room in there?

Well, that's a lot of info, but I know people are wanting to know. Plus I don't want to forget these things. My brain is mush x2 these days. I will keep it updated a bit better. I have a lot of thoughts constantly going through my head about this and this is a nice way to sort it out for me. Kinda relaxing!