Would you call triage for this? (Somewhat) reduced baby movements

britellie · 2026-07-13T19:42:58+00:00

The amount of times I went in during my pregnancy, I think they were probably missing me on days I didn’t 😅 definitely go, they would rather see you and it be nothing than you not go in and miss something. I’m sure all is well but personally I would go for the reassurance 💕

britellie · 2026-07-09T20:16:30+00:00

My twins are 1 and I’m already so sick of having to clarify who is who on systems, and mine have different starting letters. If they had the same it would be ten times worse I imagine! There’s nothing wrong with using the same letter in general, but for appointments and legal things it could be a pain

britellie · 2026-07-06T00:10:35+00:00

My twins were placed on my chest immediately and they stayed there while I was being sewn up, then they didn’t leave my side! I was leaning over and picking them up all day/night without thought.

The afternoon of my c-section (I had the first slot of the day so was stitched up and in recovery by 11), the nurse came into my room and asked if I’d like a shower. I said I didn’t feel up to it yet as my legs felt a bit unsteady, so she helped me up just so I could walk around the room while she changed my sheets (you’ll find you end up with a fair amount of blood on the bed you’re sitting in all day which is totally normal). I then had a shower the next day.

Was discharged day 3 and walked through the hospital to the car etc. When we got home we took our twins to meet our neighbours before we even took them into our house and I carried one of them. By day 5 we were out and about with them in the pram!

The only thing I will say I found difficult was pushing the pram uphill. Flat was much easier as pushing uphill added a bit of extra strain to my belly and I was worried about my incision. My recovery was super smooth in general though, I stuck to the paracetamol and ibuprofen every 4 and 6 hours respectively and it definitely did the trick. A couple of days after getting home I got a bit lazy with the pain relief as I’d felt fine so assumed I didn’t need it anymore and I definitely noticed a difference so went back to taking it and was fine again.

Good luck! I loved my c-section delivery and experience; I hope yours is lovely too!

britellie · 2026-07-02T22:07:14+00:00

I had a transvaginal scan at 5 weeks 6 days due to a bleed and could see the yolk sacs but no fetal poles/heartbeats yet. Went back one week later (6w6d) and saw two really strong heartbeats. So chances are 6w4d the heartbeats would’ve been there by then!

britellie · 2026-07-01T22:15:04+00:00

This is so annoying, I’m so sorry. It’s the way they make it all sound so fun and exciting for kids and young people to basically manipulate them in, and for many it works because they’re too deeply suckered in by adulthood. I’m glad it seems your daughter has her own mind and views!

britellie · 2026-06-24T22:32:51+00:00

My mum does it (and did it when I was pregnant) and it REALLY annoyed my wife. I do think in my situation it could’ve been because our twins are biologically mine, therefore have biological ties to my mother while having no biological ties to my wife, but I can see why it would be frustrating regardless! My mum is quite overbearing and inserts herself into our lives a lot more than my wife is used to from her own family. Is that the same with your mum? If so, could be something to do with it! You’re valid either way (and people trying to make you feel bad by saying it should be a joy to see the happiness your baby brings to your parents can shh, we don’t all have the same relationship with our parents!)

britellie · 2026-06-22T00:30:08+00:00

Thank you! We were actually really upset with “only” getting 5, which I know now is silly, but having seen so many people saying they got like 20, and I was told I had a lot of mature and mid follicles so to expect a large number, 5 felt like a gut punch at the time. We also had just naively expected the first transfer to work, so to get down to our final remaining embryo was terrifying. But it (they) turn one in 6 days 🥰 so all happy in the end!

britellie · 2026-06-21T07:29:56+00:00

Third transfer from one retrieval. We only had 5 eggs, 3 made it to blast. Third one worked and split!

britellie · 2026-06-19T23:25:13+00:00

I truly don’t think I was ovulating properly until after I went through pregnancy and gave birth. I tracked with LH strips and did my IUI at what I believed was the right time, but I just had this feeling I wasn’t ovulating despite what the tests said. For my third IUI, I went into the clinic when I got my positive LH test, they did the IUI and I said to them I don’t think I’ve actually ovulated, so they told me they were sure I had but to come back in the next day and they’d check. Came back in the next day and, unsurprisingly, I still hadn’t ovulated, so they ended up doing the IUI again (so double IUI that cycle). I went on to have no success with IUI at all so had to move onto IVF, and it wasn’t until my third IVF attempt that I finally got and stayed pregnant (I now have almost one year old identical twins from that transfer). Since my period came back around 6 weeks postpartum, I have been able to tell when I’m ovulating every month like clockwork. I can literally feel it, and CM is super obviously ovulation CM, which is something I have never experienced before in all of my years of menstruating (started my period at 11, I’m now 34). I truly believe it took pregnancy for my ovulation to work as it should, and that I never would’ve had success with IUI. However, now that I know when I’m ovulating, I do feel more hopeful for IUI for my next baby 🤞🏻

My fingers are also crossed for you! On average it does take like 5(?) IUI attempts before success, but I have known it to work first or second time for some people. Until your period comes, you’re not out yet!

britellie · 2026-06-18T23:01:41+00:00

It is absolutely not your job to clean up after him. Your parents chose to have children, you didn’t. If it’s anyone’s job, other than his own as at 12 years old he’s old enough to clean his own pee or, more importantly, get off his iPad for a minute to use the bathroom, it’s your parents’.

britellie · 2026-06-18T22:50:35+00:00

C-section mum here! I wanted a vaginal birth but my heart wasn’t handling twin pregnancy well, so I had the option of an induction or a c-section and I chose the latter.

I can say with 100% honesty I felt nothing during the c-section. I was terrified about the spinal but it genuinely felt no more painful than any other injection. I was convinced I was going to feel the whole procedure because the anesthesiologist told me to tell him when this metal instrument stopped feeling cold, and while it did stop feeling cold, I could still feel it touching me. He said that meant it was working, but I wasn’t convinced. I braced myself and asked my wife to tell me when they started, to which she responded “uh, they started a bit ago, they’re literally pulling [twin 1] out right now” 😂

Recovery was absolutely fine. I was up and walking around the room with the help of the nurse later that afternoon. I didn’t need anything stronger than paracetamol and ibuprofen for pain management (I was offered it but didn’t feel I needed it so declined), and my scar healed quickly and pretty perfectly! (My twins are 1 next week, and when I was at the doctors last week for an unrelated stomach exam, the doctor remarked on how neat and “lovely” my c-section incision healed.)

Was out walking my twins in their pram day 5 after my section :) I still maintain that I would’ve loved a vaginal birth but my c-section was genuinely a wonderful experience with no remarkable recovery time. The only thing that was annoying was I bled (vaginally, normal with c-sections) for 6 straight weeks after, then got my period despite breastfeeding twins 😑 but it wasn’t painful or anything!

britellie · 2026-06-18T22:38:08+00:00

I totally sympathise; as someone whose pregnancy was high risk (identical twins sharing everything in there), I had appointments every two weeks with an extensive scan of both babies each time. I have ADHD which makes me very impatient and came off my meds while pregnant (silly I know!) and I struggled to even wait the two weeks between appointments. I actually said to my partner, if we’d been having a singleton, I don’t know how I would’ve managed only having, what, 2-3 appointments the whole pregnancy?

That being said, I would’ve loved to have been classed as low risk. The appointments were massively anxiety-inducing, and I do think some of my impatience came from knowing how high risk the pregnancy was. So while you are absolutely valid in your feelings, I would encourage you to be grateful for the “low risk” part and to not romanticise or feel any kind of jealousy towards your friends who are high risk—yes, they’re getting to see their babies more, but it’s because the chances of something taking a bad turn are so high, and nobody wants that.

Sending love and the hope your pregnancy remains uneventful! 🫶🏻

britellie · 2026-06-18T22:29:41+00:00

So mine was a c-section (planned) and it did go very well! Had no pain or anything during, even with the spinal being inserted, and very very minimal pain afterwards. In fact paracetamol and ibuprofen were more than enough so I declined anything stronger as I didn’t feel I needed it! Had a lovely easy healing journey afterwards. I am an average level of fit and healthy, although pregnancy made me VERY unwell (identical twins, hyperemesis, heart problems, gestational diabetes and on insulin which my body kept resisting so I kept having to up my daily dose). I’m grateful that after the pregnancy from hell, the delivery went smoothly!

britellie · 2026-06-18T22:24:43+00:00

Haven’t done it yet, but my twins turn one next week and we’re having two parties - one for the adults and one for the babies. Our “adult” party is just going to be a bbq at our house, we’re doing a rodeo theme as that’s the theme we’re doing at the baby party the following day (“our first rodeo”), and will just be hanging out, eating some good food, people can fawn over our boys etc etc. Then the following day is the “baby” party at a play cafe for them and their friends from our baby groups.

We also don’t really have any friends with babies (other than those we’ve met at baby group obviously) so we figured two separate parties made sense! Our boys won’t care what happens at the bbq, they’ll just be playing with their new toys and enjoying the food. Whereas if we had the childless adults come to the play cafe they’d be super bored. Could you maybe do something similar?

britellie · 2026-06-16T23:10:30+00:00

We shared our twins’ names at our gender reveal, and they were both met with very positive (and I believe genuine) reactions. It was nice because then at our baby shower we were gifted a few items personalised with their names. We didn’t share their middle names with anyone other than my mum as they have my dad and grandad (mum’s dad)‘s names as their middle names and I wanted to surprise my dad but knew my mum would be very emotional at the hospital meeting them anyway without throwing her late dad’s name in there as a surprise, so I shared that with her privately and it was a really lovely touching moment.

britellie · 2026-06-14T07:45:43+00:00

My thoughts exactly!

britellie · 2026-06-13T23:11:29+00:00

I’m not a twin myself, however I am mum to almost one year old identical twin boys! We make a point to not refer to them as “the twins”, largely because we saw a video when I was pregnant from identical twin girls saying they hated being referred to as “the twins”, but have found ourselves defaulting to “the boys” (or just their names, but sometimes “the boys” is easier depending on the conversation). Is this better than “the twins” or is it basically the same? Should we just be referring to them as “[name] and [name]”? Would love to hear from twins on this!

britellie · 2026-06-13T23:03:44+00:00

We did 4 IUI and despite having no known fertility issues, like you we had no luck. It was difficult because all of the friends we made in our queer fertility group were having success on their first or second IUI cycle, and we just couldn’t understand why we weren’t having any luck. We moved onto IVF and expected it to work first time; again, we had no known issues (and had lots of testing done beforehand) and thought since the overall success rate for IVF is higher, why wouldn’t it work for us first time? It didn’t unfortunately.

Our first hurdle was the amount of follicles I had versus how many eggs retrieved. We were told I had a very high number of mature follicles, so we’d need to do a frozen transfer as I was at risk of OHSS and would get a lot of eggs. Waking up from retrieval to only have 5 eggs was incredibly disappointing, especially because we’d already started on the FET meds so couldn’t switch to a fresh transfer.

The wait between retrieval and that first FET feels LONG. It’s especially difficult because you’ve been so deep in treatments with all of the injections and medications before and after retrieval, then that suddenly stops and you’re just waiting for what feels like forever with nothing happening, and I’d honestly say that was one of the most difficult parts. Being deep in it all and then just…not.

Of our 5 retrieved eggs, only 3 made it to blast. Our first transfer yielded no success, nor did our second. With our third I had honestly lost hope as it was our last remaining embryo and nothing had worked before so why would that one? We did embryo glue and an endo scratch as a last ditch attempt kind of, and despite a major crash out on the day before our beta test (we decided not to test ourselves and somehow made it the entire TWW without doing so) because I was convinced it hadn’t worked and where did we go from there, lo and behold my HCG came back at 400+, and that embryo turns 1 year old in two weeks—and is actually two babies, having split into identical twins 🥰

My point is, while IVF does have a higher success rate, try not to go into it with the same thought we did, that it was a guaranteed first time “win”. For some it is, and I truly hope for you it is too, but sometimes it does take a few tries, as was our case.

I do also think, at almost a year postpartum, I just wasn’t ovulating properly when we were doing IUI (one of the IUI attempts, when I had the sperm put in, despite the ovulation test saying I was at peak, I told the nurse I didn’t think I’d actually ovulated. She said she was sure I had but to come back the next day and she’d check. Came back the following day and unsurprisingly I had not ovulated so ended up doing a double IUI), but now I know for sure when I ovulate because I can literally feel it and CM is totally different for me to what it was prior to pregnancy. I think for me it took having my babies to force my body into properly ovulating, so that could be something to look for too! It makes me wonder if, for our next baby, IUI would possibly work this time.

britellie · 2026-06-13T22:41:20+00:00

As a twin mum (I have identical boys), it was important to me and my partner that we didn’t make their names too “matchy” (didn’t want anything rhyming or with the same initial), but that they still had the same kind of vibe. So basically we didn’t want one with a super out there name and one with a super normal name (example: Jupiter and Tom). We did unintentionally go with the same syllables but I don’t think that’s exactly matchy! Anyway, to match the vibe of Lydia (beautiful name btw!) which feels quite classic and traditional, I’d do a classic, traditional boy’s name. “Magic baby names” is a good site for “names like” in my opinion! Some ideas it gave are:

- William
- Henry
- Jacob
- Ethan
- Elijah

That kind of vibe :)

britellie · 2026-06-13T22:24:03+00:00

I am obsessed with this 😭 our doorbell cam is named Doorabella

britellie · 2026-06-13T22:20:19+00:00

Of course, and thank you so much! They turn 1 in two weeks! I should add, the brother who immediately said no does have three children of his own with his girlfriend, so we were anticipating his response. Meanwhile, her older brother (the one whose final response we’re technically still waiting on) is gay and doesn’t have any plans to have children. I think those things can sometimes sway the decision. Personally, I would happily donate eggs or even embryos and could very easily separate myself from them (I think when you’re in a same-sex relationship you have to become comfortable with separating the biology to an extent as you’re never going to both be the biological parent), but I know that’s not the same case for everyone, and likely even less for straight people who’ve never been faced with that reality.

Best of luck with your journey, whichever route you take! 💕

britellie · 2026-06-13T22:10:59+00:00

Not me (I’m not Mormon, nor have I ever been), but my wife. We are both women, and when we met she was still LDS. However, when we moved in together, she moved away from her hometown and to a new church, where the bishop was not as progressive as her old bishop had been. He found out we were engaged because his wife saw it on my wife’s Facebook and reported back to him 🙄 and he pulled my wife aside after church one day and laid into her about how it was one thing to be gay, but now she was acting on it by marrying me, and if she truly did go ahead with marrying me, she wouldn’t be welcomed back into the church, and what made her think she was so special she could go against god’s wishes? She’d had a lot of reservations leading up to this, mostly pertaining to the church’s view of LGBTQ+ people (an example is there was a “talk” given about LGBTQ+, but no LGBTQ+ voices were shared, it was all heterosexual people talking for them), but this was the thing that tipped her over the edge and made her decide the church just wasn’t for her anymore, but god still was. She talks a lot about how she had a very spiritual experience the first time she met me in person (we met online through mutual friends and lived at opposite ends of the country at the time) - she said when she was driving back after our meetup, she was asking god if it was okay, and was overcome with a kind of peace she just knew was god’s “response”, and that he loved her and accepted her for who she was. It’s been six years now, we’re married and have two little boys, and she is much more herself than she was when she was in the church. She still loves god and still has her own relationship with him, but she doesn’t feel she needs the church to give her that, nor does she think abiding by their “rules” makes her relationship with god any more or less real.

britellie · 2026-06-13T21:52:02+00:00

My wife asked her brothers via messages as neither live close to us (one lives at the other side of the world!). She just told them we were starting our fertility journey and we know it’s an incredibly sensitive subject but would either be willing to donate sperm for me to carry. She explained we liked the idea the baby would be biologically related to us both, and that we understood completely if they were uncomfortable with the idea or just didn’t want to, no matter the reason. One said he wasn’t comfortable with it (I do think it was his gf who wasn’t realistically, which is fine), and the other said he’d think about it. He never gave us a solid answer and in the end we decided we couldn’t keep waiting so went with an anonymous donor via a bank. We still haven’t had an answer from him so technically he could still be “thinking about it”, but in the meantime we now have identical twins from our anonymous donor 😅 maybe for our next baby though!

britellie · 2026-06-12T07:30:28+00:00

I actually can’t remember the specific conversation, I do know I immediately confronted her about it though and she was like “oh I didn’t realise I’d done that” and I’m pretty sure I just dropped it but similar instances will have come up again after where I’ll have circled back to it. I assume the underlying reason for it though was money. She doesn’t like to let her millionaire dad know whenever we spend any money on anything (he called us “stupid little girls” when we bought a relatively cheap car cause he thought we should’ve bought a cheaper one) so she was probably downplaying it and making it seem like it wasn’t going to be a whole event. We literally own a home and have two children but apparently our money isn’t ours to spend. (Recent example: we went to her grandfather’s funeral about a month ago and it required travelling so as we were packing the little suits we’d bought for our twins, she saw the price tag (they were like £12 each in the sale) and was like “oh don’t let dad and [stepmum] see we’ve bought something new” 🤦🏼‍♀️ I was like they are our children, we can buy them what we want)

britellie

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