Thinking back...

I often try and think back to where I was a year ago.  I was about 18 weeks pregnant and from what I remember just starting to have to wear maternity clothes.  I don't mind admitting that I still wear some of those clothes - they're just really comfortable!  I fit into most of my old clothes, but my shirts feel a little short, but I'm a bit more self conscious of my belly so I tend to want longer shirts to cover it up.
I remember feeling really good and was getting around relatively easily.  I recall taking the stairs at work up until the day they took me out of work (at 22 weeks).  I had had a pretty easy first trimester with no morning sickness.  I do recall feeling really tired all the time though.   I had already had the CVS testing completed and I already had the preliminary results, which included the sexes of the babies!  I had already told everyone in my family and at work and was already looking into what bedroom furniture we should get.  Tony had to help with that - I'm a bit 'spatially' challenged - to figure out what we could actually get and how it would all fit into the room.  The furniture actually arrived just in time - about 2 weeks prior to the babies!

I actually wasn't until week 22 that some of my complications started.  I had a bit of bleeding at the end of my workday.  I called Dr. Rosen's office and explained what was going on.  My maternal fetal medicine specialist was Todd Rosen and I grew to really like and respect him.  I'm still a little sad that he wasn't the one to welcome my babies into the world but glad he came to see me afterwards.  He told me to go to the L&D dept across the street and they would monitor me to see what was going on.  I ended up seeing a colleague of his, who I learned much later on, was pregnant with her own twins.  They tried checking my cervical length, but couldn't get a good reading due to my empty bladder.  They proceeded to fill me with iv fluids, but wouldn't not allow me to eat anything.  It was nearing the end of the day and thought I was going to stay overnight, so I called and spoke to my manager to not expect me the next day at work... or any more days for that matter.  Over the course of that evening, Dr. Rosen basically told me that I was done.  Even if they weren't able to get a great measurement (c.l.) it had appeared that it had shortened quite a bit since the last time I was measured just about a week or more ago.  I was actually discharged at around 11pm - which was really annoying. I had already been cuddled up in the not-so-comfortable hospital bed, and was tired.  I was half asleep when they told me I could go and to follow up with Dr. Rosen the next day.  To be continued... I'm getting sleepy talking about being sleepy!

Here's the video of my uber-cute baby boy.  It's not the balloon fight, but rather him jumping.  I'll post the balloon one later.