As I told you in my MDW post, one of my very best friends, Erin, is pregnant with a set of twins of her own.  We found out that same weekend that she is expecting identical twin GIRLS!  Hershey’s dream of having our own girls’ basketball team may come true after all…

I picked 3 different pics of the same thing because OMG the faces on the different family members.  I especially love little Livy’s face in the last pic.

My poor bestie has been so under the weather lately, and it’s been a while since I did a pregnancy post (especially considering that Hershey and I will NEVER be on the preggie boat again, with good reason), so in honor of my dear preggers friend, I would like to offer you my top 5 must-haves for staying healthy during a multiple pregnancy.  Some of these things can work if you’re also having a SINGLETON, but I have never been pregnant with only one child, so I can only offer my advice for being pregnant with MORE than one!

5.  Belly Band. I have written about this little wonder before, and any time any of my pregnant friends complain about hip pain, I point them right in the direction of this piece of wonderful fabric.  I didn’t always wear the belt over my tummy because it sometimes gave me belly burn (yup, that’s the technical term), but even without it, the belt gave Jane and Emma some great support and made my hips not feel like they were going to crack in half.

4.  Rest. And the only way that I got that when sleeping with 3 people in one body was with the Pregnancy Boppy (the body pillow AND the wedge pillow).  I used the body pillow until I was too big to fit in the bed with my husband if I kept it, and then I got the wedge.  When I got really desperate towards the end, I got this giant wedge pillow.  I remember having this bad boy on the couch with me the night that I went into labor for REALS.  It helped TREMENDOUSLY.

3.  Fresh air.  Whenever I was feeling totally overwhelmed and like I couldn’t deal anymore, I got out and got some fresh air.  Whether it was going for a ride, shopping, or just down the stairs to the front door, I got out.  Having a clear mind is integral to having healthy babies.  If you are in a funk, the littles feel that.  Fresh air and sunshine can help that.  Not CURE it, but definitely help.

2.  Healthy food.  I know, you want to give in to the litter in your belly’s every whim and just feed the masses the chocolate dipped Oreos that are screaming your name, or you want to vomit up everything you’ve eaten for the last 5 years, but doing that always made me feel worse.  In fact, when I got close to the end of my pregnancy, because I had eaten frozen Stoeffer’s Mac n’ Cheese 167 days in a row, my iron levels were scary low and I was facing a blood transfusion.  So I went home and ate a steak and some spinach.  Of course, shortly after that I went into labor, but if I had been eating balanced, nutritious meals the entire time, I would have probably avoided having a nurse stick me with a needle to draw blood every couple of hours, even when I was sleeping! And if you’re too nauseous to eat anything at all, my doctor gave me something even more wonderful than chocolate dipped Oreos…

1.  B-Nexa.  This little wonder supplement changed my freaking LIFE people.  I’m not even kidding. I was so nauseous all of the time, and even tried a couple of prescription anti-nauseas (Zofran, which actually wasn’t approved by the FDA for that use, being one of them), but nothing worked except for B-Nexa.  I had Preggie Pops and Sea Bands and lions and tigers, and…You get the point.  B-Nexa was the ONLY thing that worked, and I will swear by it from now until eternity.

So that’s it!  I am wishing Erin a vomit-and-headache-free remainder of her pregnancy, but she is also raising a toddler as she is going through this, so I know that it’s going to be rough no matter what.  If you know someone who is expecting, please share this post with them.  Over a Margarita.  Nonalcoholic.  But buy them the tequila.  They’ll need it after the babies are born.

Do you have any tried-and-true methods for staying sane and healthy during pregnancy?  I’d love to hear them!

See you soon, friends!

~For Erin – Love you, girl.