From The Beginning

Hello and welcome to my page. I have a feeling I'm going to need this outlet in the next months, perhaps years to come! My name is Alison Welles, I am 33 years old and I am pregnant with twins. My husband, Brett, 29, and I have been married for 2 1/2 years and we've always known kids were in the plans. We started officially trying in May of 2010 with no success. Since I was diagnosed with PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome) when I was 21, we knew there might be issues getting pregnant. In November 2010 we were referred to The Center for Advanced Reproductive Services at the Farmington UConn campus at John Dempsey Hospital. You want to talk about Advanced? Holy crap.....this place is dynamic, efficient, precise and effective. I started using Clomid, which is a pill medication that helps to produce more eggs than normal during a cycle. It also helps to create regular cycles which, in order to get pregnant, is you know...essential. After 3 months of no luck on the Clomid alone, we started having an IUI (Interuterine Insemination) along with the medication, which I'll let you look up on your own if you feel so inclined to go beyond what the name suggests. After 5 months of not getting pregnant, Brett and I decided to take a break. This process is not for the faint of heart. It is both time and energy consuming and it is also heart wrenching, emotionally taxing and can be downright depressing if you don't get pregnant. After 8 months of no, Brett and I were certainly ready for a break. We took 4 months off, essentially the summer and our Disney World vacation.
We started back in November 2011. I started on the injectable medication, Follistom, which is a more concentrated and potent medication to produce more eggs. (This is the reason there are so many multiples with fertility medications....the meds force the body to release as many eggs as it can which allows for that many fertilizations to happen.)
The Tuesday after Thanksgiving, I went in for blood work and low and behold, I was pregnant!!! I couldn't believe it actually worked. I always figured I would know if I was pregnant. Especially since I was now SO in tune with the way my body works. Yeah, not the way it works. There were signs. I couldn't drag my butt of the couch to get anything done, even though that's so totally not like me at all. I'm always on the go, I'm always making things, cooking, cleaning, organizing. I couldn't get off the couch to take a shower, let alone make all of the Christmas cookies I had planned. I started with pregnancy numbers of 189......50 and above is normal. But it wasn't off the charts so the nurse told me she would be surprised if it was more than one. Two days later, my numbers were at 460-something. Again, we were told those were really strong and really healthy numbers. A week later my numbers were "soaring beautifully over 6000." Being a novice to pregnancy (who knew there were numbers involved like this?!?!) I figured they would say something if they thought that was multiples so we just went on with our lives. (Of course, our friend Rachel, who has 2 kids knew those numbers were way too high for one baby, but wisely didn't say anything to us until later!) We had our first ultrasound on December 15th when I was 6 weeks 3 days pregnant. The doctor looked at the screen and said, very nonchalantly, "yup, looks like twins." Um....WHAT?!? Back the truck up.....twins?!?!? If Brett hadn't been standing against the counter I think we would have fallen over. The smaller of the 2 babies was really small and it's heartbeat wasn't as fast as it should have been. Our doctor told us that the baby may not even develop, only time would tell, but the ultrasound was really early, so it may just need some more time to catch up.
This was right around the same time the early pregnancy symptoms started to kick in. I'm a night owl, I can also be a morning person, but not both at the same time. I need my sleep, but I usually go to bed around 11-11:30 on a week night. Suddenly I could barely keep my eyes open starting around 7 p.m. I'm going to bed by 9 in order to keep enough energy during the day to make it through work. Since Brett's schedule has him working until 7, a lot of times I will come home from work and take a nap so I can spend some time with him a little later than I can usually stay up. I also found that I cannot get enough water. I drink water like it's going out of style and that's pretty much all I can imagine drinking. Everything else makes me sick. OH!! Speaking of sick......morning sickness is full of bull. It's not morning, it's all the time!! I haven't figured out what is causing it yet (too much food, not enough food, certain smells, time of the day) so I keep mints in my purse and crackers at my desk. I feel like I've lost my brain, I forget everything where as I used to remember everything. Baby brain, while somewhat aggravating at times, makes me laugh. And the best side effect.....the 20 minute meltdown, as coined by Rachel's husband, Justin. I will flip out, for no reason, for about 20 minutes or less and then I'm perfectly fine. I thank God I have such an amazingly patient husband! I figure if this is all I I have, I'm doing pretty good!
Our second ultrasound was on December 30th and it was confirmed that we are indeed, having 2 little ones. Our doctor said that the little one is probably just a few days behind the other one. We got to hear their heartbeats, which was super cool and rather emotional. We have our first appointment with the ob/gyn tomorrow and I'm excited to hear what he has to say!!