Part 3: Due January, February and March 2019

Simkan - good to know, thanks! I think I'm going to try one... I can't imagine how uncomfortable I'm going to be when I get further on. I already feel like my "pregnancy waddle" is starting!

Raining and Hopper - sorry you both have been so sick :( Hopper I'm glad you are feeling at peace with baby being a boy - IF it is a boy!! Like you said either way baby is meant to be!!

Eighme - I definitely had that "feeling like crap all the time" thing go on for many weeks and it sucked. I still can't say I feel great... The nausea is better but not completely gone and I'm still so tired. And I've had headaches this time too :( The other day I had the WORST headache all day long - yuck.

Pretty - I think we're in the same boat as far as feeling huge! I honestly can't believe how big I am already... I've put on something like 20 lbs :( I only gained 25 lbs w/ DS1 and 30 with DS2 so this is insane to me. And to make it worse I've Googled pictures of women with twins in the 3rd trimester and it SCARES me!! Some of them I'm like, how can your belly actually stretch that big?! Sigh. I'm sure you will look beautiful at your shower!!!

I have my anatomy scan in 3 weeks. Really going insane waiting to confirm - for SURE - that there is a baby girl in there. I'm still so mad that last week they could confirm the boy but not completely confirm the girl!! But I'm also anxious to make sure that they look healthy.

Hi ladies. I’ve just bee quieting lurking as well.
I got my nipt results back and they were all low risk which is excellent. I didn’t call my obs office to find out gender...but it is doing my head in knowing it’s written on a piece of paper in my file! Lol!
I’m a radiographer so have access to sonographers at work. I got one of my friends to scan me the other day just to check all is good anatomically because we’re not doing the 13wk scan. All was good... I think I may have seen boy bits but not 100%. My friend assured me that she didn’t see and that even at this gestation (12wks) girls can be quite swollen. So who knows... it did set off some gd though. Don’t get me wrong I’m so happy all is going well, and we still want to stay team green but gee the desire for a girl is real. Deep down I know whatever this little one is, that they are what is meant for our family.
My headaches have still been coming around every 4 weeks, lasting 4 days. So painful. Only just getting over this last one. And to top it off I had conjunctivitis and now am getting a cold. Ahh the joys.


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Originally Posted by ABC.2606

Hey ladies... How is everyone doing? I feel like our board has been fairly quiet lately :)

Has anyone used a maternity belt in pregnancy? I'm thinking about getting one. I'm getting big SO fast and I'm already starting to have back pain (which I never really even had the first two times around!). Just wondering if anyone has any positive/negative experiences!!

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I have used a support belt in both my pregnancies (not sure of name as was provided by hospital physio) - it was a lifesaver in the last trimester for both my boys and I have already started wearing it again at 21 weeks this time as I am already getting back and sciatic pain. It is especially helpful when I am at work as I am on my feet 8-10 hours. I don't think I would be able to survive without it towards the end.

I know it is an individual thing but I need all you lovely ladies to give me some advice as to team green or find out gender. I wanted to be team green with both my previous pregnancies (happy with this with DS1, DS 2 flashed us so choice was taken away). This pregnancy the GD has been so bad - I am not sleeping as I am constantly thinking about this being another boy and how disappointed i will be and then hoping so much it will be a girl as my morning sickness have been terrible - still sick most days at 21weeks and no food seems to appeal to me (never been this bad with either boy but DS2 was worse than DS1 so makes me think another boy but then I get my hopes up with the OWT that nausea worse with girls - I know it's not true but I am clinging to any hope). We didn't find out gender at anatomy scan as I couldn't face the disappointment the day before DS2's 1st birthday. However the tech said the dr should be able to tell me from the scan pics at my next appointment if I wanted to know. That appointment is now tomorrow and I am sick to my stomach with anxiety over whether to find out gender or not. I don't know I can get through 19 more weeks of hoping then getting so upset when I see people with their DDS and thinking how upset I will be when he is born if I have let mmyself continue to hope there is a chance this is a girl. I am just torn as to what to do. Sorry for the rant but any advise would be appreciated as I know some of you have already found out and others are strongly team green.

I don't really have am answer for you one way or the other.
I was team green for my first 2 and was really happy not knowing and guessing and doing all the OWT. With my first it was more fun because I really didn't care what we were having. With my second I was hoping for a girl but knew we were going for 3 so had another shot. When he was born in think I had GD. The whole birth pretty much shocked me and he arrived a month earlier than expected and I was not at all prepared, he also had to have alot of tests because of abnormalities found during pregnancy so it was all very overwhelming and the fact that he wasn't a girl on top of all the other things was just one more thing that hadn't gone my way.
When I fell pregnant this time I initially thought I'd go team green again but it wasn't fun speculating like before. Every time someone suggested another boy it felt like a personal dig at me. And I was even more annoyed if someone said they thought we'd have a girl because that was getting my hopes up.
I just ripped the bandaid so I could get my head around whatever the result was because having real GD with a newborn would have been too overwhelming for me this time round.

Hope that somewhat helps.
However I have 2 friends that were hoping for girls and went team green. The one has a video (not graphic) of giving birth and finding out she had a daughter. The other has photos and it looks so special. Though they did get what they were hoping for...

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Originally Posted by Kelbear

I know it is an individual thing but I need all you lovely ladies to give me some advice as to team green or find out gender. I wanted to be team green with both my previous pregnancies (happy with this with DS1, DS 2 flashed us so choice was taken away). This pregnancy the GD has been so bad - I am not sleeping as I am constantly thinking about this being another boy and how disappointed i will be and then hoping so much it will be a girl as my morning sickness have been terrible - still sick most days at 21weeks and no food seems to appeal to me (never been this bad with either boy but DS2 was worse than DS1 so makes me think another boy but then I get my hopes up with the OWT that nausea worse with girls - I know it's not true but I am clinging to any hope). We didn't find out gender at anatomy scan as I couldn't face the disappointment the day before DS2's 1st birthday. However the tech said the dr should be able to tell me from the scan pics at my next appointment if I wanted to know. That appointment is now tomorrow and I am sick to my stomach with anxiety over whether to find out gender or not. I don't know I can get through 19 more weeks of hoping then getting so upset when I see people with their DDS and thinking how upset I will be when he is born if I have let mmyself continue to hope there is a chance this is a girl. I am just torn as to what to do. Sorry for the rant but any advise would be appreciated as I know some of you have already found out and others are strongly team green.

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Glad to see posts in here again -- I have so many things to chat about but didn't want to spam the group, haha.

Kelbear, I'm so sorry and understand the struggle. I can at least offer the other side of the Team Green coin -- we found out with DD, and I was insanely depressed the rest of those 20 weeks. Like to the point my therapist was considering medicating me (when I hadn't ever been medicated in my years with her) because I was borderline suicidal and an absolute wreck. And then had a really rough, unusual labor. But the moment I saw her, I was absolutely in love -- there is a photo I have (with my tits out, haha) that our doula took the moment I laid eyes on her, and you can see in my face how I felt. I remember even thinking, "Oh, THIS is the immediate love/bond I heard so much about."

THAT has influenced me for this pregnancy, as I don't want to put my husband and DD through that -- and it was honestly a big reason why I always planned to find out gender early with an NIPT and choose whether to kept it to save us all from the depression. All our losses and DD getting further and further away from the age gap I had hoped for (and DD loooooving babies) changed my plans.

Knowing I at least felt it with DD, I'm hoping those birth hormones will carry me through. Though obviously I have had many a therapy session since wondering if I'm doing the right thing, since hormones can also be all over the place after birth, too.

I know I read somewhere (either here or another gender group) that, "The baby is coming either way. If you're not going to terminate, does it matter when you find out? At least enjoy your pregnancy." THAT resonated with me just because, as I learned, even after YEARS of therapy (and my therapist is great and I spent a good 9 months spewing GD to her lol), I didn't "work my head around" to a girl. It took having my baby to get over it. But I know not everyone would be the same. On the flip side, 98% of people thought I was having a boy with DD. Only DH, his MIL, and my SIL thought she would be a girl. And DH felt girl strongly VERY early (day of BFP).

If I hadn't found out, I would have been going through pregnancy with most people telling me I was getting a boy, and I wanted one so badly that maybe I would have had a VERY different birth experience. Now I'm pretty much "having this baby for DD," so I'm at least keeping green to keep me sane and will just recalibrate at birth if this is a girl. Will I be disappointed? Yes. But I will also be expecting it can be a girl -- as it took finding out I was having the girl I dreaded with DD to find swaying and discover all there was to know with it. Now I'm staying Team Green, and even DH, MIL and SIL also think boy (though SIL says, "I'm usually wrong" -- except she wasn't with me before haha). Am I getting my hopes up? Sometimes. But I'm very good at keeping myself thinking the worst after all we've gone through. I'm still not even banking on this baby making it alive, which is just the morbid reality I face.

I say all this with: tomorrow is our second anatomy scan to get those shots we didn't get last time. I am half wanting to cancel it, because I don't want to run the risk of gender making itself known. And the tech told us they HAVE to document gender to know if things are abnormal, which I am considering saying, "I don't consent to that," because I really don't want to know. I've been very at peace the last two weeks knowing that even tech couldn't figure out... but I am also concerned about that spinal cord and nasal bone!!

I wish I knew what the best choice was. I just know -- you can have a very, very difficult pregnancy of GD if finding out and not have it resolved. I know that firsthand. Birth was the only fix for me, so I'm relying on that this time to carry me through Team Green.

And in catching up:

Thanks for checking up on me hopper. Things are better with DH, but things were really bad all week. I think I finally hit the right thing to say to him. But still, I feel a lot of "things being better" is still me just glossing over things. I started reading a book called "Coping with the Passive Aggressive Man" and that's been a rough, but helpful, read.

And eighme, those Sneak Peaks are NOT scientific! They are legit novelty tests. I'm so sorry you did it and now have this stress to worry about. And if you do really end up with a boy, my "intuition for other's pregnancies" is truly at its end haha.

My symptom update: restless legs at night. Holy cow. This is awful. I am SO exhausted all the time now. And my low back is truly, truly excruciating despite chiropractics and I even did a massage. I was complaining to DH last night that I neeeeever felt any of this with DD. I was active and moving and pain free the whole time. Now I'm shy of 22 weeks and hobbling everytime I get up. I'm not that much bigger than I was then, so I can't imagine it's weight related?! Worried it's because I haven't lifted weights this whole time (though I've done lots of walking, yoga and swimming this pregnancy!) that my back is just weak, and maybe this is what all pregnant woman deal with and I was just so muscled with DD to not notice? I keep not letting myself entertain the OWT of low back pain and gender, but my god, this back pain is... impossible to ignore.

I have my midwife appointment and am seriously debating whether to ask her if I should cancel my followup anatomy scan for tomorrow. Obviously the fact that they couldn't get a good nasal bone reading on both nuchal and anatomy has me slightly stressed (though NIPT was fine), and spinal cord too (though I was on SO much folate for so long, I also doubt anything is wrong there). I just so don't want to even potentially risk gender being found out, even by the tech.

We found out with DS1 because we couldnt contain ourselves. Same with DS2, where I did feel a lot of GD throughout the rest of my pregnancy and beyond, but when I got it into my head a name and clothing I got excited he was coming. Also found out with Oops obviously... Im GDing for sure, but I want to meet this stubborn little man who defied all the odds to be made. I was always worried that if I went team green, that at the birth I heard 'Its a Boy!' again, id have that wave of disappointment and I didnt want anything to mar that moment.

Kelbear - oh I wish there was an easy answer. Unfortunately with GD I just don't think there are easy answers. I found out both times with my boys. I wanted a girl with both & thus had GD with both. With DS1 it wasn't too bad - we knew we were going to have at least one more and we wanted at least one boy anyways. But with DS2 I found out at 20 weeks and my GD was BAD. I wasn't totally miserable the rest of pregnancy (I had complications during the pregnancy which sort of "refocused" my mindset bc I was just worried about baby), but I definitely had very strong GD. Then immediately after he was born I suffered a pretty bad postpartum hemorrhage & had two blood transfusions. After we went home and I was recovering from all that trauma, I had a terrible time breastfeeding (as I did with DS1, but even worse), and everything - traumatic birth, BF struggles, my GD boiled up and I'm pretty sure - though I wasn't diagnosed/treated - that I had postpartum depression. To make it worse a month or so after DS2 was born we found out my SIL was pregnant with her 2nd and OF COURSE it was a girl (her first was a boy). So I wish I could say my GD went away before or even after birth but it didn't - I still struggled badly with it for months after he was born and with everything else was pretty depressed. Not to say that I didn't adore him as well - I actually felt we bonded maybe even more than I did with DS1 (probably because of all the drama of that pregnancy & birth). But it just took me a really, really long time to get past the GD. Even now - as I've said on here before - I feel resentment when I see all these women who get boy/girl pigeon pairs without even trying - I don't know why, it just irritates me!

But that all said - while finding out didn't make it easier, I don't think I would have done better going Team Green either. The hope of a girl through the whole 40 weeks would have been too much and I think it would have crushed me even harder if I hadn't found out until birth. For me it's always been the dilemma of do I spend a lot of the pregnancy sad b/c of GD or do I allow myself to hope for 40 weeks only to be disappointed in the end? Which is easier? And honestly - I don't think there is any easy answer to that question, and maybe the truth is that neither is really "easier". But, as all of our experiences show I think it just depends on the person. I think you have to do what you think will be the best situation for YOU - whatever way YOU think you'll adjust better. And it's impossible for any of us to say what that is. But - we're here to support you either way and whatever happens!!

I will say that with this pregnancy we knew we were going to find out, didn't know at what point we'd find out, BUT one thing I did know is that I wanted to find out alone or with just DH and not through a doctor or nurse, at an ultrasound, etc. I didn't want to hear over the phone from a doctor or have an ultrasound tech tell me - I wanted a piece of paper with the genders written on it or the online NIPT report, etc. We found out by looking at our online NIPT results at night after the boys were asleep. I was VERY emotional both before and after we looked at the results. If you aren't sure about tomorrow - maybe you could have the doctor write it down for you so that if/when you decide to look you can do so on your own. Then if you're in private you can react however you want without the awkwardness of being in a doctor's office or ultrasound room. When we found out with DS2 at our anatomy scan I was choking back tears in the scan and I hated that. Especially because I know the tech could see I was disappointed. I think I knew then that if we had another I wanted to find out alone.

Thinking of you... I know none of this had been made easier with how your DH has reacted. Hoping things get easier soon.

TP sorry for all the pain you're going through!! I think it's probably a "2nd pregnancy" thing (and I know it's not your 2nd pregnancy but you know what I mean - 2nd one to progress to this point!). Everything gets so stretched out and out of place the first time around and I don't think things really go back to normal completely afterwards - nor are those ligaments/muscles as strong the 2nd time around. I once heard that after a pregnancy or two (or more) your organs have been shifted around so much that they will never go back exactly where they were before! I don't know if that's true but clearly postpartum bodies are different :) Anyways most women I know had more issues with pain in subsequent pregnancies. I know I did with DS2.

Ahhh the joys of pregnancy :)

Personally I feel like you should keep your scan so you can at least get those needed shots of the spine, nasal bone, etc. I'm sure all is fine but I think it'll make you feel better knowing that. If you do keep the appt maybe just make sure that your MW/tech is VERY clear that you don't want to know gender and that she tells you to look away when she zooms in on that area! Maybe only look at the screen when she's doing the upper half of the body.... With DS2, when the tech started the scan before she zoomed in and we just got a full body shot I swear I saw his stuff immediately! I think tech must have too b/c she was able to tell us the gender within the first two minutes or so. I make very NOT SHY boys apparently - LOL. So an accidental shot is definitely possible but if they are being super careful and you look away when needed I think you can avoid it! I don't know - just my thoughts!

Glad things with DH are a little better... if not great.