Appointment Day!

I had an appointment with my OB today. She is such a fantastic lady. She walked in the room with a huge smile on her face, congratulated me and Nate up and down, and then gave me a hug. We solidified some plans for how this pregnancy will be monitored, so that helped to put my mind at ease. Our ultimate goal will be to deliver these monkeys at 38 weeks, which takes us to October 18th. But our first goal will be to make it to 34 weeks (which is September 20th) because our hospital is not equipped to take babies any younger than that. So if they would happen to make an early entrance, they would be flown out to another facility. Obviously, not what we want. So everyone keep your fingers crossed we make it to at least September 20th!!

As for the plan from here...I'll be seeing Dr. L again in 5 weeks. Shortly thereafter, I may get bumped up to biweekly appointments, depending on how things are going. At each appointment, she will do a quick ultrasound in the office just to check on the heartbeats. The picture isn't that great, but it's great seeing how fast they grow!!

In 6 weeks, we are scheduled to have our big "fetal anatomy" ultrasound. From that point forward, we'll be going in every 4 weeks until they're born for an ultrasound to check on their growth. We want both of them to be growing at relatively the same rate. They will tell us at each ultrasound how much the babies are estimated to weigh, though this can be off by several ounces. But it'll be fun to see them on the really high-tech scanner every few weeks!!

So between all of the appointments and all of the scheduled ultrasounds, we will get to see these babies a lot! I was simply AMAZED at how much they've changed in just 4 weeks. At my last appointment, they were still little blobs. It was really heard to decipher what we were exactly looking at (head, belly, butt, etc.). Today, there was no denying what we were seeing! They look exactly like miniature human beings now!! The baby on the right side of my uterus -- the one who was bouncing around like a maniac last time, was sound asleep! Of course the baby residing on the left side -- the one who was completely mellow last time, was folding his/her arms across the chest and then flailing them out. He/she was also crossing and uncrossing the legs furiously!! Again, both heartbeats were nice and strong at about 160bpm. And the amniotic fluid levels look great. All in all, Dr. L said she "has no complaints" and wants all of our appointments to be this smooth.

As for mommy. The morning sickness has again lightened. Though I'm afraid to say that because the last time I blogged about that, it came back with a vengeance. I have gained a whopping 1 pound thus far. No one is concerned quite yet, but we'll now be shooting for a weight gain of about 1 1/2 pounds (or maybe a tad bit more) per week for the rest of the pregnancy! Something tells me I might have to put away the fruits and veggies and start packing in some more calorically dense foods!!