So I've been thinking about the things I've heard that I never expected to hear at the fertility clinic:
1) Yup. It's twins.
2) Your uterus is perfect! It's so fat!
3) If it's ok with you, I'm afraid this scan will have to be an external one, not an internal one. No need to take your underwear off.
4) Hmmm...looks like you and Aidan need to update your syphilis tests. (No, neither of us have it, the clinic is just sticklers for having the tests updated every year.)
5) The next time we see you, you'll be bringing the babies in to see us!
6) You'll get to be on the waxy ass bullets until you're 28 weeks pregnant! (OK, they don't call them waxy ass bullets, but you get my drift).
I'm sure there's more, it'll come to me.
So. Here I am, at 9w2d. I'm still spotting lightly (still brown). I wanted some kind of pregnancy journal to keep track of everything, but not only couldn't I find one for twins (I could just imagine them years from now-What, even then we were just twins, we couldn't have our own books? but they're all Anne Geddes-schmucky-cutesy. I couldn't bear to write my thoughts and fears in a book that either had a cover with a baby dressed as a pea pod or a pregnant woman smugly rubbing her stomach, not looking nearly as haggard as I do. So I bought a blank book and started keeping a diary of daily life, including symptoms, the results of my daily morning weigh-ins, and a list of what I eat during the day.
And can I just say that a pack of rhinos in the zoo can't compare with the amount of food I'm eating.
With the exception of one or two days when I fell off the wagon (can you say Cheese Doodles?), I've been eating very, very healthily. I do have to snack throughout the day, mostly to keep the nausea at bay (it peaks first thing in the morning and at dinnertime, the rest of the time I'm generally ok.) But when I snack, it tends to be things like yogurt, cottage cheese, crackers, fruit and granola. I'm being particular about this-I don't see having twins as the chance to eat for three, in fact the books say that even with twins, although I do need to gain about 35-50 pounds (and am currently up 4.5 pounds from my pre-pregnant fighting weight), my daily caloric intake should only be 700-1000 more calories a day than I was eating.
Which, before I got pregnant, I really wasn't eating much. Yogurt for breakfast. Sandwich and fruit for lunch. Healthy dinner. I was living the life, man, living the life.
So I'm trying to control my diet. I did freak out one day and HAD to have a Kit Kat, which I ate then regretted once I saw it was 27 grams of fat in that bad boy. It's true that I am one of those mental types who has struggled with anorexia and bulemia for the majority of her life, but trust me when I say that won't be a problem for me now-there's absolutely no chance in hell I'm starving myself, as there are two others counting on me (plus the nausea won't allow it.) I just want to have a healthy pregnancy as full of vitamins and nutrients as possible. So I've bought some ice milk, which is surprisingly very good, tastes just like ice cream, and is loaded with calcium. And that's ok, because I can't seem to get enough calcium products lately-it's all I want to eat. Cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, iced milk, all of them. It's a huge craving.
Which brings me to my other quandry, and that's what my hormones have on the "avoidance" list. Suddenly, my "dear God, get those away from me NOW" list is real. It includes:
- Baco-s (which aren't even bacon).
- Marmite (but I've never liked the stuff)
- Any and all vegetables.
That last one is a real problem for me, because not only should I be eating loads of them, but I'm a fucking vegetarian. I love(d) vegetables of all kinds (except kidney beans, those are foul and should be banned. I'm sure they cause cancer. See? Should be banned.) I used to eat veggies all the time, and we had massive salads for dinner several times a week. Now I honestly have to force myself and my gag reflex to eat a small salad.
On the symptom front, I have the following:
- Sheer, complete and total exhaustion. I'm practically narcoleptic. I'm forever going to look back on my first trimester as "That Period Where I Slept On the Couch All the Time". The best accompaniment to this sleeping interlude is Charmed. I've found having it on in the background is incredibly helpful, nothing puts me to sleep like Prue's battling with the demons, and at least I get to avoid Paige's painful, clay-like lip gloss while I sleep. I can't explain it, I've never really watched that show, but I do sleep like a baby when that show is on now.
- Constipation. I know, I totally said that wasn't a problem, but it became one. So I went and got a bag of organic prunes while Aidan was in Stockholm, and without thinking, I ate the whole bag. Lemme' just say this-if you have constipation, you can probably get by with eating just one or two of the things. The whole bag, it might be overkill. The farting was so massive the dog even left the room to get away from me (that fucking hypocrite), but at least it did the trick. I've now stepped up the amount of water I drink to 4,392 litres a day. It does the trick. I'm so sick and bloody tired of water you wouldn't believe it, but my clinic seems to think it's the miracle drug. Constipated? Drink water! Have leprosy? Drink water! Convicted felon? Drink water!
- Depression. That's right, I got the blues. To be honest, I also have the typical hormones associated with pregnant people-I go from instant joy to instant tears in less time than it takes Britney Spears to shave her head. But I am also succumbing to the depression a bit, which is a possible risk if you are someone with a history of depression, as I have. I'm not really talking much and I've been cancelling on meet-ups I have with friends (which is probably ok, as everytime I leave the house I need a 4 hour nap to recover). I'll keep an eye on it, but maybe there's simply still that element of OH MY GOD to my every emotion, our shock still hasn't dissipated - I'm happy that it worked, but OH MY GOD. What will my life look like after they're born, OH MY GOD. I can't believe their little hearts are beating still and they're moving, and OH MY GOD. Aidan and I are stressed about money, travel, accommodation, and relationships, OH MY GOD.
- Dreams. Weird, trippy, hippy bizarre dreams. They tend to fall in three categories:
1) sexual
2) nightmares
3) food-related
I have more horny dreams than a teenager, man. Seriously. Just last night I combined two of the categories in one and dreamt I was making out with a conquistador made out of baked cheese.
Now that was a good dream.