22 Weeks

This is me today!

I'm feeling really well at the moment. I spoke a bit too soon when I said my morning sickness had stopped at 20 weeks...I had another week of it, but it "appears" to have stopped now!

Sleeping is getting harder and harder. I can't sleep on my back (it puts too much pressure on a major vein called the 'inferior vena cava') and I can't sleep on my stomach as I feel like I'm squashing the boys (plus it's uncomfortable). I'm trying my best to sleep on my left side as that's the recommended position. Apparently it provides the maximum blood flow to the babies, and improves kidney flow for me. Although, if I sleep in one spot for too long, I get aches in my hips, back and shoulder. Oh, and our bed has been taken over with pillows, mainly placed under my stomach and knees. It's a big job getting them all into position! But, of course it doesn't last long as I'm up at least 3 times a night to go to the bathroom...then I have to get comfortable all over again!

The boys are getting more and more active. Some nights I can't help but laugh...there are arms and legs going everywhere! It even makes me jump sometimes! They're more active at night...usually after icecream...they've got a sweet tooth! We started feeling their kicks at 18 weeks, but they're getting stronger every day.

We had our usual fortnightly scan this afternoon. It wasn't as comprehensive as the last ones have been, so only took about an hour. It was mainly to check my cervix and to check the pleural and pericardial effusion issues.

I mentioned that in my 18 week scan the pleural effusion (fluid in the lung) in Twin 1 had gone, well in our 20 week scan they discovered that Twin 2 had a pericardial effusion (fluid around the heart). We were again offered the option of an amniocentesis, and again we declined. We just hoped that it would be something that would go away, like the pleural effusion did. Well...it has gone! A huge relief!

My cervix still looks fine. It measured 3.8cm...a little shorter than the previous few scans showed, but still a great number. It's shortened towards my TAC, which is to be expected. The main thing is that the TAC is doing it's job. There was no presence of funnelling, even with fundal pressure (pushing down on my uterus), which is a good sign.

The boys both looked perfect in today's scan. The sonographer wasn't as nice as the others have been, so she didn't take as many pics for us. Plus the boys were dodging her everytime she tried to look at them...it made me laugh that they weren't totally impressed with her either!! The boys have moved a lot in the last 2 weeks...they're now both head down, feet up...that explains the party that's been going on in my belly! They were so close to each other, that the sonographer kept getting them confused. She even measured Twin 1 and then realised half way through that she'd somehow started measuring Twin 2 at the same time. It's just a jumble of arms and legs in there!

Here are the twins today. Again, they are both measuring ahead by a few days and both heartbeats were strong (Twin 2's was 147 beats per minute, but she didn't record Twin 1's for some reason). Twin 1 weighs 497 grams and Twin 2 weighs 503 grams.

Oh, and I don't know which twin is which...she didn't label the scans. I don't think she couldn't quite figure it out!

Their little faces:


A side view of one of them:


The tops of their heads (I'd give a better description, but I really have no idea what's what!):