Week 19 - unexpected peek

We got an unexpected peek at the babies today because I had to have an unplanned ultrasound. The good news is that both babies are fine and that there wasn't any sign of pre-term labor. Yeah! The other good news is that we got a second confirmation that it is a boy and a girl. Yeah!

I had to have the ultrasound because I've had severe abdominal pain since Sunday night, including two sleepless nights. We went to the hospital early Monday morning (they have a maternal assessment center, which is kind of like an ER for pregnant women) and they said it was "ligament pain" caused by a growth spurt in the babies stretching my uterus out more than it likes. They tested me to make sure I didn't have a urinary tract infection (common in pregnancy) or that I was having contractions. And they checked the babies' heartbeats. They told me to take Tylenol, lay on my side and use warm packs on the pain area. That did absolutely nothing.

Monday night I had contractions during the night, which of course, freaked me out. (contractions are extremely common in multiple pregnancies and are normal, but you usually don't feel them very intensely). These were intense and the doctor later said it was likely due to the fact that I was already in pain.

So this morning I got an appointment with my regular doctor and that turned out to be a blessing. She found a fibroid growing kind of between the two babies and she thinks that is exacerbating the pain from the ligament pulling. Fibroids are also common in pregnancy, especially among "older" moms like me, but unfortunately there's nothing they can do about them. Usually they go away after giving birth. So the bad news is that I'm likely to have at least some of this pain for the duration.

My doctor thinks the babies are just going through a growth spurt and that the ligament pain should subside. To help me manage the pain -- and more importantly -- get some sleep, she prescribed Tylenol with codeine. So far that isn't helping a whole lot, though. UGH. If the pain is still persistent in the morning, I'll be going back to the doctor again.

The ultrasound showed that the babies are growing really well. They remain ahead of where they are expected to be in terms of size (which is awesome!) and heartbeats and everything look really good.

The picture marked "baby A" is the boy. He's currently on my left side, with his head down. The girl baby (picture is not labeled) is on my right side, in breech (just like I was!). It's still possible they will move around more, but at some point in a month or two, there won't be any more room for them to get around. These aren't the greatest ultrasound images -- we think the machine they used was kind of old. Oh well. It's still fun to see them.