Fun stuff

I'm beginning to realize there are many strange and unusual things that happen to our bodies during pregnancy that no one ever tells us about. My newest pregnancy problem: PUPPP. This stands for Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy (try saying that 10 times fast). It is a fairly common skin rash that occurs in women during the last trimester of pregnancy, and it is apparently more common in women who give birth to boys. Lucky me, I'm giving birth to two boys so I guess I was doomed to develop it. Basically it itches like crazy. And it doesn't just itch on my growing belly - it itches everywhere! It keeps me up at night. My doctor told me to take some Benadryl to see if that calms it down. If not, I have a prescription for steroids just waiting to be filled. You better believe that If I keep myself awake tonight because I can't stop scratching my arms and legs, that prescription will be filled first thing in the morning! Another fun part of a twin pregnancy - weekly non-stress testing. Basically I have to go to the hospital once a week and get hooked up to three different monitors (you can only see two of the monitors in the picture, but there is another one under my belly). Two that measure each baby's heart rate and one that measures contractions. Today it took three nurses over 30 minutes to find both babies. The test itself is only supposed to take 30 minutes! Once they find the babies, I have to lay there and wait for about 30 minutes (which always ends up being more like 45 minutes) while they track their hearts and my contractions. Luckily I wasn't having contractions today, otherwise I would have had to get a shot to stop the contractions and then be monitored for another 30 minutes or so. Fun stuff!