Weight breakdown in pregnancy

Hmm.. I have put on 10 kgs now:
1) Babies are 1.8kgs each = 3.6kgs
2) Placenta are 0.9kg each = 1.8kgs
3) Amniotic fluid = 0.9kg
4) Extra Blood volume = 1.8kgs
5) Uterine enlargement = 0.9kg
6) Fluid in maternal tissue= 1.4kgs
7) Breast enlargement = 0.4kg
Total 10.8kgs

That seems about right. At least I am on track. Well .. I am supposed to put on one pound a week from now onwards or something like that. So let's eat more!! Yummy potato chips at my desk right now. And I ate a very calorie filled lunch today - pasta and fries. Delicious! Had McDonalds on Friday too. Crazy huh?

Another friend is preggie!

What wonderful news I heard today over lunch. Another friend is preggers too. Hmmm... seems like I am surrounded by pregnant women ... great.. we can all swap ideas.. and aches and pains..

What a blessing to hear such good news.. and she is feeling well too. That is good to hear too. Having a good pregnancy makes it all the more enjoyable.

Last check up- 32 weeks

I had minor contractions shown on my CTG in the last 2 check ups and were getting bigger in magnitude... that was a bad sign. I had the cell group praying for me on this.. and lo and behold.. the check up yesterday revealed a quiet uterus.. wonderful!

Babies are growing well (they were kinda stunted for 2 weeks) and now at 1.8kgs each. Doctor was beaming when he told me that I only need to hang on for 2 more weeks - till week 34 for them to be relatively safe to come out to the world without much special care.

Both girls were sort of in a standing position this round instead of their usual traverse selves. Oh dear, I have been knocking on one rather violently to stop her from causing that much pain at my ribs. Poor girl.. probably have been knocking on her head.. bad mummy!

Counting the days till 34th week. Hmmm.. another 8 days to reach exactly 34!

Stem Cells

Today I had a chat with a person from Stem Life. Marido and I are considering to store our twins' cord blood for the future. This stem cell thingy has been going on for quite a few years in Malaysia now.

We are hoping that the stem cells in the blood will be able to help anyone in the family later who may need it for cancer, any degenerative disease, injury... etc.

It cost RM3000 to harvest for the twins but I think its worth it.

Hmmm... I wonder if any of my friends did go for this? No one has mentioned to me except for the Suwitos. Must be a very private thing, huh?

Water Retention

Ok.. am at week 32 now and finally the water retention has started on the legs. My legs look strange... kinda like I packed on the pounds there. And it has started to feel numb occasionally too esp when i am sitting in the same position for too long. Today, whilst at Genji Restaurant enjoying yummy sashimi (ssh! I am not supposed to eat this but i had refrained for the last 8 months...), I felt that my legs were getting numb!

I have gotten used to the swollen v a g i n a thingy... as well as the pain that accompanies it when I walk. But it does get rather bad in the evening.

I am 60kgs now and have a waistline of 42 inches.... definitely beating Marido. Now I can proudly say to him to "Move over! Cos I am larger than you!" when we are in bed and he is hogging the space!

Babies are 1.7 kgs each (or sud be) and the placentas are about 1kg each too I think... that means I have about 4kgs plus of baby and material in here.. so so tiring to lug them around all the time. Getting in and out of bed is like moving a beached whale... bleck!

Pregnancy Shots- unedited

My friend Fiona came by last Sat to shoot some photos of me in my huge glory. These shots are inspired by my friend Biow! So.. do I look big for 7 months of what? Can't imagine what the belly will look like in the next 2 months??? This is taken in my bedroom... look at the red scary wall paper!

I like this picture of Nimbus pressing against the belly. He looks like he is almost grumpy.. "Bleck! Don't like these twins... they are going to steal my mummy's love away from me"... No worries Nimbus, I will always Love you!!


Marido and I standing by the pool... at our apartment. No one around....

At the poolside chair with Marido. Kinda a nice intimate picture!


Taken at the garden at my apartment. Just love the lush greeness!

Eating

I can't seem to eat much these days.. thus explaining my lack of weight increase. I try to eat chocolates and ice cream but the body does not seem to like them.. I get a funny, yucky feeling on the tongue after eating them. The same goes for fruit. The body seems to like bread.. or more specifically PIZZA! I have never eaten so much pizza in such a short span of time. Everytime Marido asked me what I would like to eat.. it's always the same answer.. PIZZA!

I think I do not have much space in the tummy anymore for food.. the acid seem to rise up the throat sometimes.. blegh! Yucky!! The babies are definitely squashing my internal organs. Sigh! Sometimes I am amazed that 3.5kgs of baby is in here... freaky! Can u believe it that by next month, i would have about 5 kgs of baby in here.... woah! Scary... Pant! Pant!

Sleep

The pregnancy is tiring. I have to admit that I am in bed normally by 10pm every night.. whether or not I fall asleep is another matter. But the blessed me is able to drop everything at 10 and go off to dreamland. I have about a full 8 hours of sleep at least and most days, I have 9!

I start work at 8.45am and I am normally out of the house by 8am to make it in time. I get off work about 6.30pm and am normally home by 7.30pm for dinner. At 8.30pm, i take a shower and get on the net, read about babies and work stuff, play with Nimbus, chat with Marido, some light household chores. And then it's time to go to bed.

I think I am blessed indeed!

Sleeping.. well .. even though I get the 8-9 hour sleep, I normally wake up 3 times in the night to empty the bladder and by 6am, Nimbus is meowing his head off to get fed.. bad cat!! So the sleep is not that great quality but hey! It's better than less sleep.

A 9 or 10 month Pregnancy?

I am a bit confused.... how do I measure my pregnancy in months? Well, most preggers count by weeks but that does not make sense to a non pregnant person who has no clue about pregnancy. Therefore I try to simplify by saying it in months.

Full term = 40 weeks
But if you divide 40 weeks by 4 (which is roughly one lunar month) then a person is pregnant for 10 freaking months!! That sounds very long and torturous. However, if we look at the normal gregorian month.. it has about 4.33 weeks. So depending on how I calculate it, I could be be (when I am at 31 weeks) :

Lunar month = almost 8 month (32 weeks being 8 month on the dot)
Gregorian month = 7 months (30.33 weeks being 7 month on the dot).

So which month is the right one for me to tell people?? Still confused. Well, I am been telling people that I am 7 months. Gee! Can't wait for the 8th month.

Anti Contraction Drugs

I was given Terbutaine or Terbutaline 2.5mg (supposed to stop the minor contractions) which causes me to throw up. So far, I have thrown up about 3 times today... once at 5am (after eating some noodles cos I was so hungry), felt nauseous all day, threw up again at about 5pm... and again at 7.30pm... and now that its 11pm.. I think I will just pop over to the toilet to have another round of retching.... yuck!

My gynae assured me that the medication will normally cause palpitations but when I read the internet, nausea and vomiting is also a side effect... I also feel really tired.. probably due to the vomiting too. I think I am going to stop eating this pills... its a very yucky feeling to be throwing up. Sigh!

Maybe my minor contractions are truly minor and normal in this part of the 3rd trimester. Anyway, going for another CTG next week. See whether the contractions are stronger or not. If not, great....no harm in stopping the medication.

Gynae comments

I am almost 31 weeks now and weigh abt 57.5kgs.. no change last week and this week....yicks. And I had another cardiotocograph and it showed that I have minor contractions. So I have to eat medication for 2 weeks to slow down the contractions.

Hmmm... so other than the swollen v a g i n a and hemorrhoids, all is ok.

You know.. people say that they always wanted twins.. and I am so lucky to have them... well I guess I am but it comes with a price... they are just too heavy for me now. If I count them, they are 1.5kgs each and an extra placenta is about 500gs.. so I have about 3.5kgs worth of baby material not including the amniotic fluid which I think must weigh a lot! Don't u think that by 3.5kgs.. the mother is ready to pop!?

Heavy, heavy!

Hmmm.. I had a bad dream one night where I gave birth to 4 babies - 3 boys and 1 girl and they all died. When I woke up that morning, Nimbus quickly walked up to me and slept on my tummy to comfort me. How the heck did he know that I just had a bad dream? The last time he did that was when I threw up 20 times a day. What a wonder my cat is!

More pain

Today, i felt even more pain then ever at my pubic bone area and by end of the day, it was already swollen. Sad! This is probably due to the fact that I had a meeting with Sunway yesterday and had to walk a distance to reach the office from the car park and then back to the car park. Also I had to walk from the carpark at the Curve to Colonial Times for dinner... that was a long walk in this condition.

I left work half an hour earlier... gee! Sud have left earlier. But nevermind.. see how I feel tomorrow.

Amidst the news of elections

I guess my pregnancy is still getting on despite me wanting to take a break from it and concentrate on the historic moment of Malaysian's political scene. We just had the elections on March 8 and I think that Malaysians in general were in shock at how far the opposition managed to take on Barisan National.

So back to my pregnancy - last night I developed some rectal bleeding and also the restless leg syndrome.... great! I could hardly sleep and am feeling rather exhausted now. Hopefully I won't have much problems tonight. According to Babycentre.com -This RLS is this an uncontrollable urge to move around in bed to relieve crawling, tingling, or burning sensations deep inside your legs.. Some researchers estimate that up to 20 percent of pregnant women develop this problem during the last few months of pregnancy, though others believe it's much less common than that.
This symptoms is normally noticed when you're at rest, especially right before you fall asleep or when sitting still for long periods, such as at the movies or during long car rides. Most of the time, you'll feel it in your legs, but some women experience it in their arms as well.

Moving the limbs brings immediate relief, but unfortunately, it's only temporary. As soon as you sit or lie down, the sensations return. Your restless legs may even be waking you up once you're asleep.

Dang! I wonder if there is anything more that is coming up!?? Horrors!

Anyway.. am 30 weeks now.. Babies are 1.3kgs now.. yippee! And measuring about 38cm...

Another 3 weeks to go before they are almost safe to come out. Then they will be about 2kgs (hopefully)

CTG

I had a CTG (cardiotocograph) done last week where the doctor wanted to check if my womb was about to have contractions. 1 small device was strapped to my abdomen with soft belt- it measures the intensity and duration of contraction. Fortunately, my womb was restful. I am now at 30 weeks tomorrow. So I will visit the doctor again next week to check again for this. This is becos if the babies decide to come out in less than 32 weeks.. they will have trouble surviving without having defects. So that means another 2 weeks to go!

"Your pregnancy- week by week" by Lesley Regan was enlightening. She herself is a medical doctor who had twins at 33 weeks gestation! The babies had no complications but had to be in the special care ward for a month. That I think is rather scary too!

Marido sud be back from his business trip this week. I would be happy to welcome him home. It had been rather tiring being all by myself (with Nimbus for company). It would be nice to have the hubby back again.

Gynae says...

My pain in the groin cannot be helped unless I am willing to take Panadol or take time off work. He recommends that if there is swelling, I sud take time off work for a day and go back to work the next. I am not abt to do that since I am having too good a time at work!

Did I mention that 100% of the married women in my dept is pregnant... so keng, right?

NTT- Nusa Tenggara Timur

Ah! I finally figured out that Debbie is not from Entiti but from NTT- Nusa Tenggara Timur... I was telling Marido and suddenly I remembered that it may be NTT. So here is the map. It's a cluster of islands on the right of Bali.

Debbie is not around for me to ask which island she is from. Wl update later!

Maid arrival

Today I had a call from my maid agency. My maid has arrived. Funny how I was just blogging about that and telling Goat that she has not arrived yet and here she is.

Debbie is about 5 feet tall and looks about 50kgs. She has a great smile.. with dimples. Her Bahasa is good... fortunately for me!! After I took her from the agency, I passed her to my sister for cooking and cleaning training. Esp the cooking bit! I will only put her in my home permanently when the twins arrive.

Debbie says that she is from an island called Entiti.. but I could not find it on the map of Indonesia. She mentioned that it took her one week by ferry to arrive to Jakarta and if by plane.. it's about 4 hour flight.. on a Air Asia type of plane. Must be really far.

She is the 5th of 7 siblings. Her father is a furniture maker and her mum is a penenun... a weaver. She is married with one son who is now 1.5 years old and is taken care by her mother in law. What drove her here is obviously to earn money. If she stayed back in her hometown to do some teaching.. she would only get RM150 per month. Here in Malaysia, she get more than 3 times that. I guess it's like the many people who keep wanting to migrate to get better pay or better opportunity. Hmmm.. at the end of her 2 years here.. she would have saved enough to relax for the next 5 years.

I was very glad that she told me that she likes cats. Nimbus will have no problems with her then. Hopefully that boy will not decide to adore her instead of me.. i would be so sad!

The 7th Month

I am now finally in the 3rd trimester! With the start of this trimester last week at 28 weeks, it brought new aches and pains to the body. My leg cramps have increased to almost once or twice a night. Both legs are aching now as I blog this. Also, I have this persistent pain on my right side of the tummy... maybe it's one of the babies in that position.

Not only that, I have started feeling shooting pains in my groin area when I stand up and start walking. Due to this, I have been walking really slowly... much to my own irritation. Staying in the apt where I have to walk from my car to the lift, then the lift to another lift quite a distance away. This pain apparently is common to women who are late in their pregnancy and who are about to deliver. When I got that pain last thursday, I went to see a GP who told me that I looked like I was 8 months pregnant! Actually, to think about it.. I do have 2 babies who weight 1 kg each and therefore having 2 kgs of babies and about 1kg of placenta surely makes me look like 8-9 month pregnant. The pain could be symphysis pubis dysfunction where the stiff joint near my groin area start to move a bit too much due to the weight of the babies. This causes pain and inflammation and may progress to a more severe condition of intense pain when the joint loosen and creates a gap.... gasp!

My ears are becoming blocked again and I keep looking at my feet to see any signs of swelling. So far, I only have the above problems. Sometimes I wish that the babies can come out soon but if they do, surely they will have a hard time surviving since they are so small and not fully developed.

My gynae wants to monitor me every 2 weeks and also check for possibility of contractions via a fetal monitor belt. Well, next check up is on Tuesday.

The maid has not arrived yet... scary! When will she arrive? I have waited 5 months and according to the agency, she is to come mid march (they actually said that she is to arrive after CNY but it took longer than normal).

I found a baby sitter too but the distance in Bandar Utama is quite a turn off but the alternative is Kota damansara... yicks... worse!

Weight and waistline

1st month - 50kgs and about 26 inches in waist
2nd month - 48kgs and about 25 inches in waist
3rd month - 45 kgs and about 27 inches in waist
4th month - 50kgs and about ????
5th month - 53kgs and about ????
5 1/2 month -55kgs and about 34 inches in waist
6th month - 56 kgs and about 38 inches in waist (yicks!)
7th months - 57 kgs and about 40 inches in waist (measured at 28 weeks)
8th months - 60kgs and about 42 inches in waist (measured at 32 weeks)

View of Beaches

This is like a picture of a postcard, right? I took it in Maldives.
This picture was published in the local paper in Queensland. Picture taken by Marido on Burleigh Beach.

My Tadpoles

Since I am a frog.. it would make sense to call my 2 growing buns the in the oven... tadpoles... tho i don't think that tadpoles like being in ovens...

They have been steadily growing... and squirming around the limited space in my womb. Tell you what.. i actually feel like my body has been invaded by aliens. They move around and push here and there.. constantly reminding me of their presence. It's a good thing... them moving around.. but the feeling is quite out of this world... either like you have constant diarrhoea or u swallowed a live fish and it is swimming inside you. Queer Queer!

I have been reading about twins coming out earlier.. normally they come out about 3 weeks earlier. However.. some unfortunate cases in KL- one came out 2 months earlier.... at 32 weeks and the other I read about today came out at 31 weeks.. gosh I am almost at 27 weeks.. yicks! That is like another 4 weeks.

I plan to take photos of my growing bump at 31 weeks.. since this may be my only pregnancy... according to hubby. I am getting my friend Fiona to come over to my home to take shots of me in March. I hope it will turn out good. Hmm.. the bump is quite large... I think I look like a 7 month-er according to my sister. Fiona insisted that I take the photos as late as possible so that the bump will look 'nice and huge'... hopefully without stretch marks.

Ah! Tadpoles... u won't be swimming around for much longer.... but Mummy hopes that you will stay as long as possible and that you will not need me to go for caesarean.

Writing of caesarean,... i have not had a good experience with my gynaes.. the first one whom i liked got transfered to JB, then I had a doctor that spoke like Donald Duck twice in a row... then I switched to another which told me that he is not keen on natural birth and that I won't have enough milk to breastfeed my twins... would you believe that nasty doctor!! Or am i being too judgemental??

I decided that I will seek a 2nd opinion. Going to Damansara Specialist Hospital to visit my original gynae that told me to keep trying for a baby naturally (as mentioned in my earlier post). Hope the meeting will turn out good!

Baby - another one!!

My graduation

Marido and I graduated on the 26th Jan (Australia day) in our beautiful Nottingham University Campus in Semenyih. Whoohoo! It was really lovely that we could celebrate this momentous occasion together... another memory we are making!

The ceremony kinda reminded me of something out of Harry Potter..;)

Buying prams

Sheesh! I did not realise that it was so hard to choose a pram. Here were my options :

Brand, Model, Price, Includes, Weight
Peg Perego, Pliko P3, RM2299, pram plus car seat carrier, 8kgs without car carrier
Maclaren, Techno XLR, RM1799, pram only, 7.8kgs without car carrier
Combi, 5 way stroller, RM2299 , pram plus car seat carrier, 4.2kg without car carrier

All the strollers/prams could recline about 170 degrees (not fully but good enough. I was really in favour of the lightweight Combi (Japanese) strollers but Marido found that he had to hunch down to push the pram and he kept on kicking it too. I was also keen on the Maclaren but after bringing my sister along, she noticed that the padding on the Maclaren was too thin and not suitable for newborns which needed more comfortable surroundings. So, I got the P3 in the end. Heavy but let's hope it will be useful and hardy for travelling.

Weight and waistline

1st month - 50kgs and about 26 inches in waist
2nd month - 48kgs and about 25 inches in waist
3rd month - 45 kgs and about 27 inches in waist
4th month - 50kgs and about ????
5th month - 53kgs and about ????
5 1/2 month -55kgs and about 34 inches in waist
6th month - 56 kgs and about 38 inches in waist (yicks!)
7th months - not yet

Driving to work

I have started driving to work starting Jan.

Surprisingly, it was not as hard as I thought. Altho I do have doubts about the sudden cramps in the legs that I get and therefore I might crash the car…. But generally, the drive (half hour to and one hour back) is still manageable. However, I never had to go through one hour drive back in my previous job (sob! It was only 10 mins). Traffic in PJ/KL is bad….

Work! There are 2 obvious camps. When I am with one…. The other get suspicious and when I with the other, the first one wonders if they sud be telling me things in case I report it to the 2^nd. Sigh! What a disunited group! Never had this problem before.

Marido has been away for the whole week. I was actually quite apprehensive about him going off and leaving me behind cos I tend to feel a little ill after work and may need to be ferried around for food. Fortunately, this week was great. I managed to have dinner with good friends and with great food! What a treat! I tried this organic shop called Organic Café at Bangunan Siti Hasmah at Tmn Tun near Kiara walk. Pretty good.

Greeting the new year

I woke up on New Year's Day and proceeded to eat a piece of fruit cake from the fridge. Festive mah! Then half an hour later, I was found throwing up in the toilet. That ruined the rest of the day for me… I was feeling lousy all day. What a great way to start the year. Imagine.. at 20 weeks pregnant, I was still throwing up. 2 days later, after lunch with my colleagues (I am not sure whether it was the warm temperature at the hawker shop or the oily char kuey teow or the ‘juicy’ piece of information I found out about my boss) I promptly threw up everything down the toilet bowl in the office. Then I proceeded to throw up whatever water I tried to drink. By 6pm, I was ready to faint. What a day.

Also, while in meetings, when the room is stuffy, I find myself drifting away… It never used to be this way. I must be psycho for starting a new job when I am pregnant. But I am still very very blessed to be able to get the job. So I shall persevere. And.. ooh! I just found out that I am going to handle a new promising project.

Gaining weight

On the recent visit to the gynae on the 2nd Jan (on my 20 week), I noticed that my weight was about 52kgs... which mean that from the 4th month onward (ie when I started work), i gained one kg a week... wowee! If this keeps up, by the time i reach 40 weeks, i wud have gained another 20kgs thus being 72kg... totally unacceptable!


I doubt that i will last until week 40. Very likely I deliver before week 37 (since I am having twins and hence there is not much space for them anymore).


The 20 week scan took one hour by the sonographer. Babies look fine and healthy as detailed by the expert. Also, I found out that that they are hamburgers... (not hotdogs). Yup! 2 girls. I do feel that my mission seems not completed without a boy. After all, Marido already has a girl so these 2 girls don't seem that special anymore. Sigh! I sud be happy though but I can't help feeling a little disappointed.

My 2nd day at work

Today is Tuesday.. my second day at work. So far so good but yesterday I was in near hysterics. Being pregnant certainly makes you more of a chicken than ever. Driving around seems like a chore and so I got Marido to send me to the office in PJ at 8 in the morning and we got there at 8.30am.. not much traffic as its school holidays. I was dreading the cab ride that I foresee i will be taking as my actual office for the next month is in KL. The entire dept is due to move to PJ but since renovations would take some time, I was to be stationed at KL after meeting my superior yesterday morning.

Then the boss told me that I have a training session for several days in a hotel and so he dropped me off at the hotel (so nice of him). At the end of the day.. 6pm.. of the training, my bum was aching and I felt rather ill. How am I supposed to get on tomorrow.. i wondered.. is going back to work a psycho thing to do? I was exhausted at the end of the day. Marido figured out that this was probably the most exhausting day in the last 4 months that I was pregnant and not working!

Well, this morning, I found it so hard to crawl out of bed even though I went to bed at 10.30pm the night before. Marido drove me to work today.... I was like a stoned person until I reached KL. Fortunately, by the time training started, I was not feeling as bad as yesterday.. altho the bum is still aching from sitting for so long... well.. I think all preggie women experience that!

More to blog later I hope about my work adventure!

Decision to rejoin the workforce

When I announced to my friends about my decision to rejoin the workforce 2 months ago.. I was just surprised by how much people cared about me. I had so many opinions given to me (all which were valid and honest) that I got a bit confused about that decision to go back to work.

Many people said that they would quit work immediately upon hearing that they have twins. You know.. twins... higher risk blah. However.. none of these women were mengangguring for the last 6 months or had invest quite a large sum of money on a post graduate education a year before that.

I do know that twins carry a higher amount of risk but according to medical books... the risk are not that much higher than a singleton. The mother-to-be may be a little more exhausted than a singleton carrying mum but it does not mean that the mum cannot work. I don't deny that i will have a harder time than most people. Well.. in the end.. the decision to go back to work is a mix of so many things that I have weighted. However, if by the end of this month and I am still not over the vomitting.. I shall concede defeat and give up the job. In the meantime.. I am excited about going back to work. That put a smile on my face (other than when I found out I was carrying twins).

Here's to a successful venture! And happy twins!