Fully cooked! Are we talking 4th of July burgers or babies?

On Thursday, we got our weekly pregnancy email from Ba.bycenter.com. This is what it said:

Does that really say "Congratulations - your baby is full term?!?!" Then why the heck is our dr waiting until 38 weeks (38 weeks and 1 day to be exact) to pluck the little ones out?

Arghhh! 6 more days... 6 more days.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful 4th of July! YAY for barbeques!

Got plans for next Friday?

And next week we'll be mommies.

Or so our doctors seem to think. We went to our specialist yesterday and at the end of the appointment he told us that his gut feeling was that the babies would not be coming earlier than the scheduled c-section next Friday. We'll see if he's right.

The appointment was to check fetal movement/stress test and the babies' amniotic fluid levels. They hooked up a heart monitor to J for each of the babies and one for uterine movement. It took a while to find the heartbeats as the girls are still at this point flip flopping around in there.

But, they finally found them.

We were told that they'd need to record the babies heart rates for about 20 minutes so we sat in the room watching a rerun of Desp.erate House.wives. The girls have always been so "good" at our dr appts - always were in great positions to measure all the parts of their bodies that the specialist usually measures, so of course this time the girls would misbehave. They kept wiggling around causing the monitors to lose the heart readings which in turn would cause the machine to beep loudly. We think we actually heard giggling from inside J's belly ;) Luckily after about 20 minutes there was enough movement recorded to call it a day. There was virtually NO uterine movement recorded during this time. Sigh. Next we had an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid levels. We weren't sure why we didn't have the ultrasound first because when the nurse was attaching the heart monitors, she was going off of last week's ultrasound images and they had both completely moved since then. Would have made for less guessing as to where to find the strong heartbeats. Oh well. The fluid levels were both great and 2 hours later, we were leaving the specialist.

Today we had an appt with our ob. We hadn't actually seen her in what seems like a month or so as she was on vacation the last week and a half and before then she had called in sick the day of our appointment. The first thing she said to us was, I can't believe the babies are still in there!! J's uterus is measuring 43 weeks - which is a little over 6 weeks from where we actually are! That's one large belly ;) We got our usual ultrasound to check for strong heartbeats and a cervix check. We aren't sure why we have to see the specialist AND our ob each week now, but hey, it's all over next week right? We never thought we'd say this but we are getting SICK of going to dr appts! We just want our little pumpkins with us already! ;)

After a quick blood test to check J's thyroid levels, we headed home. Tomorrow will be 9 days until we meet the little ones. Single digits! OH YEAH!

But before we celebrate the arrival of our girls, we get to celebrate M's birthday on Thursday! 2 more days! YAY!

We made it! 36 weeks...

...and the girls don't have any intention of coming out anytime soon it seems. We had an appt with our ob today (although we saw a different dr in the practice as our regular ob is still on vacation). The babies, and their individual body parts, are so hard to distinguish on the ob's ultrasound machines these days but all our dr really looks for is a strong heartbeat anyway - of which we saw two. :) J has had a lot more cramping the past few nights and terrible lower back pain. We actually thought that last night we would be making our way to the hospital as J was so uncomfortable. Luckily the girls listened and did not show up on her bday. The dr checked J's cervix and said with a chuckle, these girls are not trying to go anywhere. Sigh, still long, thick and VERY CLOSED. GIRLS... in case you misread our numerous chats, you ARE allowed to come out now! Our dr said that "most" twins come before 37 weeks. So that's 1/2 come before 36 weeks and "most" come before 37. We guess the girls don't understand statistics yet, whether it be a percentage or a descriptive as in "most." They have their own agenda and apparently don't feel like sharing it with us.

The one saving grace is that we KNOW for certain we'll have our daughters' in our arms in at "MOST" two weeks from tomorrow.

Happy Birthday J!!

Today is J's birthday!!!

Since she can't really get around very well these days, I am doing everything I can to make sure that she has a great birthday! After all, she is the love of my life and I'd do pretty much anything to see her smile.

We had a wonderful morning together and I am so looking forward to birthday cupcakes at lunch and a delicious birthday dinner with the birthday girl tonight!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY my love. I hope you know how much I love you!! :)
-M

Eighteen, twelve, ten and two... the numbers of today. Can you find these numbers in our blog? ;)

18 days! That's what the calendar M made J says. The first thing J does in the morning is pull down the previous day's number: 20, 19, 18 and tomorrow morning... 17! As J is up every hour on the hour all night long, she considers it officially "morning" when M's alarm goes off at 6:15am.

Today we had an appointment with our specialist. The girls look great! And by great - we mean L*A*R*G*E! For twins that is... Our dr was impressed at how well they are growing and how far along we've gotten. Baby A is approximately 6lbs 1oz and Baby B is 5lbs 15 oz. Doing the math that makes for a 12lb baby! Seems like a pretty rational reason for all J's discomfort and stetching. This of course does not account for the extra 1lb of placenta, all the extra amniotic fluid and over double the amount of blood J now has circulating her body. You can see it in the veins popping out of her hands like a body builder - especially on HOT days. In the past week or so, water retention has really been an issue for J, but ironicallay not in her ankles/feet. It's pretty mild there. It is in places that she doesn't see swell - her knuckles and her knees. Who knew it could be so painful. Ok, enough complaining, that was 2 blogs ago.

Anyway, we go back to our specialist next Monday where they will monitor the babies heartbeats for 30 minutes, as well as check fluid levels. Our dr said that twins at 36 weeks can start to have complications so they do extra monitoring. So we wonder, why wait until 38 weeks to schedule the c section? But what do we know, we're not the drs.

From here on out (or for 18 days ;) we will go to the dr twice a week. One specialist appt and one appt with our regular ob. Good thing our jobs and our bosses are so flexible! Looks like J will be able to work right up until the day we go in for the c section. And with blackberrys she can even work during and after the delivery. Just Kidding ;)

We were told that we'd have to go in on July 8th or 9th for some routine testing at the hospital before the surgery on Friday the 10th. We don't really know anything about this yet but will be getting all the information at our ob appt on Thursday.

2 days until J's bday! :)
10 days until M's bday! :)
X days until our Daughters' birthday! ;)

Here are a couple pictures of our daughters' beautiful profiles! Don't worry, our family couldn't tell this was a baby either. J's brother actually said it looked like a muppet. Hi Kermie!

20 days and counting!

We had another good doctor appointment this week. Our doctor told us that J's cervix is still thick and long and closed. We don't know much about cervixes but have come to accept these as positive words when describing them during pregnancy. Our Dr even joked that the girls might stay in there for 40 weeks - at which point J almost killed him for joking about something like that! 5 more weeks for J would just be too much to think about. So instead we are counting down the next 20 days until our daughters' birthdays. The doctor's office scheduled our C-Sec.tion with the hospital for Friday July 10th at 10am. So unless they make a surprise appearance before then, that will be their birthday! So 20 days, we can do that :) M made a countdown calendar for J so she can keep in mind that there aren't many days left for her to feel so uncomfortable. J's been having a lot more uterus stretching and cramping so we can tell the girls are really putting on a lot of weight and growing a lot. J doesn't think she's had any brax.ton hicks/contractions, but says its very hard to tell since her stomach always feels extremely tight which is how everyone describes early contractions.

At the last appointment J also got her Strep B test done. We didn't really understand why she needed it since she is having a c-section, but whatever, a quick swab and she was done. One of the most annoying things when we go to the doctor is the bathroom J has to use for her urine samples. The toilet is extremely low and the toilet seat itself is so small. When you flush the toilet you practically have to stick your head in the water to get to it. M has trouble using that bathroom and she is NOT pregnant, so J is definitely over that toilet.

We have our appointment with our specialist on Monday. It's funny, when we made that appointment we actually said yeah right, we'll never make it to the 22nd. Here we are, 3 days away from that appointment! We are so excited for it so we can see how big the girls have gotten. We are guessing that they are about 5 and 1/2 pounds each.

We are counting down a few other things as well:
1. J's birthday is on Wednesday June 24! She keeps telling the girls they can come anytime now, just NOT on her birthday.
2. M's birthday is on July 2nd!
3. The twins birthday on July 10th! If they are born on this day, their birthday is exactly 1 week and 1 day after M's birthday. And M's birthday is exactly 1 week and 1 day after J's birthday! Cute, eh? And it looks like we are all going to be Cancers!
4. Eating a grilled hotdog. We know it hasn't been the best summer so far with all the rain, but we have really been craving some hotdogs on the grill. Once the girls are here, it's on.
5. Ice cold coronas with 2 limes. We just can't wait, end of story. Pump and dump will be our friend :)

At our monthly NYC TTC brunch we have had a possible twin explosion! Congratulations to J&C at Waiting For Mavis and D&K at Puffer and the Baby Fish on their BFPs!! We never in a million years thought we would be lucky enough to be having twins and now we might even have good friends having twins too!!

Here is a shot of J's belly at 35 weeks and 2 days. Not tiny.

The Ups and Downs of being 34 Weeks pregnant with twins

Editors footnote (at the beginning instead):
We are not trying to sound like a couple of whinos in the following blog, we just wanted to document how J is feeling (good, bad, and ugly) so that we remember it since this will be the one and only time she is pregnant. That said, enjoy :)

Friday night J took M out for a date night. It was a delicious dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and the food was fantastic. Of course we are on old folks time and were having dinner at 5:30pm, but we still had a great time. During dinner we were saying that this could very well be our last date night without kids. Then again, we've been saying that for a while now with the fear that the twins would come early as most do. Lucky for us, our girls have decided to be good girls and stay in there until the "safe zone"! On Thursday we reached the 34 week milestone! From what we've come to understand this is officially the safe zone for twins. If J starts to go into labor at any point now the doctors wouldn't do anything to stop it. The babies are fully formed and their lungs are fully developed at this point. Now they are just putting on the pounds. And J feels each and every ounce they put on - times two! It's gotten to the point where J is always tired and uncomfortable. She is out of breath most of the time, her thighs go numb when she stands too long or lays too long (this is clearly a no win situation), she can't sleep because she can't ever get comfortable, she has heartburn 24-7, and her pubic bone seems to always hurt which sometimes makes something as simple as walking impossible. As if those weren't enough complaints (we promise this is the last one), J got the mother of all bloody noses Friday morning. It had been almost 5 weeks since her previous nose bleed, but this one absolutely made up for it! That being said - we couldn't be more excited!!! We can't believe that in no more than 3 and 1/2 weeks we will have our babies!! We are taking it one day at a time, of course hoping that they stay in as long as possible (even though J is ready for them to be out). We just know the longer they stay in, the less likely they'll spend any time in the NICU, and that would be good for everyone involved!

The babies are really always moving around in there which we are finding it hard to understand how. For one, we don't understand how they have the room to do the cirque du soleil moves it feels like they are doing. And for another, do they not ever sleep?? Could this be a foreshadowing of their sleep patterns when they are here?? The last time we were at the specialist the babies weighed about 4 1/2 pounds each and were about 17 inches long. That was 2 1/2 weeks ago so we are thinking they must be over 5 pounds each by now. We go back to the specialist on the 22nd of June IF we have not delivered the babies by then :) We see our regular OB weekly, and this week we'll see her on Thursday. As of this past week J's cervix is still completely closed and thick which is a good sign per our dr. J had been having random crampiness and sharp pains, but our doctor was not concerned at all since there is no pattern at all to either of these. It is apparently just J's uterus stretching even bigger -- she measured at 40 weeks at this weeks appointment.

On a final note, hiccups. The girls have them at least once a day. We used to be able to feel the hiccups but now you can actually see J's belly moving with each hiccup. It's pretty cute.