Measuring? Baby girl is a few days ahead, baby boy is a few days behind. Overall, reassuringly normal right now!
Size? Bananas! My huge friend (aka, the stuffed gorilla), who first shared news of this pregnancy with my husband, clearly approves of week 20! For those who are curious, his picture is below. Yes, I am crazy. Blame my best friend and our gag gift war for this one!
Heartbeat? They were 144 and 141 last Thursday.
Total weight gain/loss: Up 16 to 134. I know Dr. Haney encouraged me to eat whatever/whenever I wanted, but two pounds a week is worrying me. The babies are estimated at just over a pound total, so I know it's not all them!
Maternity: Very much so. Just made one of my last purchases, of a bunch of loose dresses. Hopefully that will last me through.
Stretch marks: Nothing new yet.
Sleep: Eh. No real changes. Still with the constantly weird dreams.
Movements? Feeling a bit more, but it's still very sporadic compared to Quinn. I felt my first kick or punch from the outside yesterday, which was fun.
Cravings? No. Still feeling really 'blech' when it comes to food.
Gender: One boy, one girl.
Miss? I still miss feeling good. I miss my old body and its ability to exercise hard. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my baby bump, but I wish I was one of those 'marathon at 32 weeks, crossfit until delivery' types. I'm more 'barely shuffle 2 miles on the treadmill.'
Looking forward to? Viability on New Year's Day. 4 weeks left!!!!!
Feeling? I told someone that nausea has uninvited his friend vomiting, but welcomed in his friends burps and heartburn. Boy have they shown up with a vengeance.
Comparisons to last time? Still pregnant! Still out of the hospital! Pretty amazing comparisons! Four more weeks to viability. Less than 30 days!
Now, the real star of the show, my huge amigo (please note he's wearing my husband's Banana Republic shirt). :)
Also, 20 week bump picture.
Yay for 20 weeks!!! That's awesome!!
ReplyDeleteI remember the 2 lbs per week recommendation and having others tell me I should be aiming for gaining 100 lbs by 38 weeks. For someone who has struggled to maintain a healthy weight, this was news I really didn't want to hear. What helped alleviate the anxiety was seeing the data about twins born early when the mother had focused on gaining weight. The other thing that was helpful was seeing those same mothers who packed on a lot of weight pretty much drop it within the first year post-partum. It's odd, because for singleton pregnancies this type of weight-gain is highly discouraged, but a twin pregnancy is vastly different from a singleton pregnancy. In short, I hear you and it's definitely not what common lore would be telling you, but that's way we see the MFMs we see.
Hang in there lady!!
Thank you - this really makes me feel better. I've spent a lot of time on the research, so I know the 'why it's good' part - I just have a terrible time with the 'ack! This isn't normal!' part! :)
DeleteInteresting! I did not know that about weight gain and early delivery. I found this article that is interesting too. https://www.livescience.com/45233-twin-pregnancies-weight-preterm-birth.html
DeleteI agree with what Cristy said about the calories! A nurse told me to start drinking Ensure to get even more calories since one of my fraternal twins had IUGR. She always measured small, but I was always frustrated that they use singleton growth charts for a twin pregnancy. My twins were born at 37 weeks and I think I gained 50 lbs. Most of my weight gain was toward the middle of my pregnancy. Two placentas and two sacks of amniotic fluid weigh a lot. Plus you put on weight in your arms and hips so you have additional calories stored to gear up for breastfeeding. I never understood why my arms looked so chunky.
ReplyDeleteAh! You hit on something that's bugged me: why are they using singleton norms for twins! We know that twins are SGA compared to singletons - I thought I was the only one who wondered about that!
Deletehttps://www.tamba.org.uk/blog/growth-charts
DeleteThe UK has started using twin growth charts which is pretty cool. I think early pregnancy it is fine to use the singleton chart, but there becomes a point when twins deviate from the curve since there is simply not enough space to grow two huge babies.
This is all in metric, but is still pretty informative on how the baby weight adds up. The targeted weight gain for pregnancy is also much higher for twins.
Deletehttps://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/healthy-living/food-activity-and-sleep/healthy-weight/healthy-weight-gain-during-pregnancy