16 week appointment

How did I forget that the 16-week ultrasound was a longer one where they scan every organ, finger and toe. Times two. The ultrasound itself was about an hour and fifteen minutes long followed by a meeting with the doc.

The good: all organs are functioning and there is ten of everything on each baby. Stats? Baby A is measuring 17w5d and Baby B is measuring 16w4d. Confusing because Baby B seems to be measuring on schedule which would mean that Baby A is actually a week ahead. But the ob is suspicious of the dates and thinks that there may be a possibility that Baby A is on schedule and Baby B is small. I don't know what to think- I gave them the right date of my last period and we did have a dating ultrasound at 6weeks that confirmed that date. We'll just have to wait till the next ultrasound to get a clearer picture.

The concerns? Two old ones; one new one.

1) Twin to Twin Transfusion
2) Preeclampsia
3) Velamentous Cord Insertion (Baby B)

There are no signs of the first two yet, although my ob seems to be most concerned about the preeclampsia. Apparently because mine was classified as "severe" at the end and also was early onset, my chances of it happening again actually increase with a second pregnancy...and then add the twin thing on top of that added risk. As for the twin-to-twin, no signs yet. And what is a velamentous cord insertion, you may ask? The cord has inserted just outside the placenta. It is still getting use of the placenta, but as the baby continues to have increased needs, it may not be effective enough for that baby to keep up a good growth rate. The thing is that while twin-to-twin transfusion has a couple of options for solutions and even preeclampsia has some options such as bedrest, it sounds like the most likely solution for issues with a velmentous cord is delivery. None of this was new information or surprising to me...I knew the twin-to-twin stuff, I have direct experience with preeclampsia and although I didn't know that one of the babies had a velamentous cord, I knew what that may mean. The one thing that the doctor said that had me catch my breath a little is that she mentioned viability and that if any one of the above situations was occurring, the options would be evaluated as to keep the babies in and take them at 25/26 weeks. 25/26 weeks. That's like 9 weeks away. Up until now, I only had numbers in the 30's floating around in my head.

All the above being said...it's still all "chances" at this point in the game. In the moment, the babies look good. "It's a good start", she even said. So we'll take that for now and deal with each appointment as they come.

However, I will say that since that appointment, I feel like it's time to come out of our shell of denial and get things in order. We have some big furniture/room changes to make to accommodate two little ones in our house.

My DH heads home tomorrow after 6 days in Asia. So ready. So, so ready. I feel like I'm going to crash when he walks in the door. He has been putting E to bed every night that he is home and I realize, now that he has been gone for a stretch, what a relief that has been. I find that my body crashes about 7:30PM...but when you have a 3-year-old to put to bed, and that bedtime process takes much longer than it should...well, you have to push through.

In other news, it is the last week of classes. Yay! I made it through the entire semester with only calling in sick once and never puking in class. This, sadly, feels like an amazing accomplishment.

Next post: Thursday evening with the news of the gender. Emmeline says "boys" and given how amazingly intuitive she is, I wouldn't doubt it. Time to do some major clothes purging if that's true...because these tubes...yeah, they're getting tied during the c-section. All done.