Wednesday, February 25, 2009

And the verdict is in!

We are having one boy and one girl!!!! We are so excited! We spent the entire afternoon calling family and friends to tell them the great news.

Today we had our scheduled dr appt and everything looked great! Our boy is sitting on top of our girl and we think she isn't enjoying it because she was kicking him during the ultrasound. The little guy just slept through it. J's belly is growing nicely and the dr was surprised at how big and high her uterus has already gotten! 25 centimeters! The heartbeats were strong and the fluid in the aminiotic sacs looked great. We, of course, had a list of questions for our dr.
1. We asked about rechecking J's thyroid levels - we were told this will be done at the next appt in 3 weeks.
2. We asked whether it was ok/normal for J to always be freezing - our dr said it's totally fine, usually they would check thyroid levels, but since J is already being treated for this, she isn't concerned.
3. We asked again about the bloody noses since J had one last night. Luckily she hadn't had one since our last posting a couple of weeks ago - we were told as long as they are stopping on their own, and we don't need to go to a hospital or anything, it's totally normal. Just keep using the humidifier, stay hydrated and use saline solution.
4. J has had an annoying pain under her ribcage on the right side. It comes and goes. J says it feels like an elbow is poking her hard in the ribs and won't stop - our dr said as long as it isn't associated with a fever or nausea or vomiting J can expect to feel a lot of things growing and stretching and apparently poking.
5. When J moves around too fast, is laying flat or bends over, she hears her heartbeat (a whoosh whoosh sound) loudly in her left ear. It sounds like the heartbeat of a baby through a doppler - our dr said J has twice as much blood circulating through her body so this too is normal.

So, one by one, our questions were answered and we left feeling like everything is going perfectly with our little son and daughter.

Next Wednesday we go to our specialist for the babies' anatomy scans. Our dr told us we'll get some really good ultrasound pictures so we'll be sure to post a few.

In other baby news, after weeks of online research and instore visits, we finally decided on a crib we liked and ordered TWO! They were a little more than we had initially wanted to spend but we fell in love with it when we saw it and it was also rated one of the top cribs for safety by Consu.mer Reports. For some reason the lady at Buy B.uy Baby gave us a 20% off coupon and said she can also give us 10% off since we were buying two, so that, along with J's parents paying for one crib made the cost much more managable. We expect the cribs to be delivered in 12 weeks or less. We also ordered a changer and toy box from a different store but when they arrived yesterday, we realized the stain didn't match that of the cribs. Now we get to bring these 2 87lb boxes back to the store. More on how THAT goes in our next blog.

We've done a lot of car shopping/research as well. Looks like M will finally get the minivan she's always wanted! She used to put her B.MW into the shop and REQUEST a minivan loaner car. Guess she was always meant to be a mom :) J is just happy they are so hooked up these days and has requested that we also get a driver so she can sit in the back with the babies and watch the TV. We haven't bought a minivan yet but have narrowed it down to two and will probably purchase it next month.

We have also signed up for a couple of classes at our hospital. One is called "Marvelous Multiples" and is a class all about preparing for, delivering and surviving baby multiples - or 'twinfants' as we like to call them. This class is on March 14th. The other class is a breastfeeding class which we'll take in the beginning of May.

We were so happy to read about the ladies over at An Offering of Love getting a GREAT first beta! We are definitely hopeful that their great beta number means TWINS! :) Congrats ladies!

Looking forward to more BFPs in the coming weeks!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Nothing like a nose bleed to get the morning started off right!

We were awoken today at 5am with the mother of all nose bleeds. We tired pinching the nose, icing on the nostril, icing the back of the neck, stuffing the nostril, but this one was a doozy. It finally stopped around 5:45am and now J is resting, keeping her head elevated and trying to stay still as to not have it start up again.

We went in for our scheduled bloodwork yesterday morning. When we were asked to check over the paperwork before signing it, the only thing wrong (however a big thing) was the number of gestations listed. No, nurse, there are definitely TWO in there! She said, GOOD CATCH and that they definitely run the test for spin.a bifid.a differently for two. We wonder what kind of results we would have gotten had we not caught that! EEK! The nurse told us we could call on Friday for the results.

While we were there, we asked about the nose bleeds and they assured us they were common and just to keep J's nostrils moisturized, drink a lot of water and to keep running the humidifier. This morning J was initially woken up because she was so dry, and within 5 minutes, the nose bleed began.

J was also weighed at the dr yesterday. Her weight was exactly the same as it was 2 weeks ago which is actually back to her pre-pregnancy weight (however not pre TTC weight unfortunately). J lost 5 lbs in the 1st trimester and then has since gained it back. We were surprised that J had not gained any weight because she definitely has a belly now which means the babies are certainly in there growing. In our calculations, since the babies have gained weight, and the belly is getting larger, that means J has actually lost weight. Sigh. We asked our dr about this and she was not concerned. She said at this point, as long as the babies are growing and J feels ok, she isn't too concerned but will definitely watch J's weight. We didn't get an ultrasound yesterday, as it was merely a bloodwork visit, so we were not able to see our babies. 2 more weeks!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Bloody noses, cocktails and baby gear, oh my!

Well, to pick up from our last blog (albeit 2 weeks ago) we did not get confirmation of the sexes of our babies at our last visit. There is some speculation but we guess it will be our next visit or the full body scans a few days later that will confirm.... and WE CAN'T WAIT!

We are 16 weeks and 4 days today! Time sure is flying by and everything is going great! J has developed a nice forming baby belly in the last few weeks. M just looks at J's belly and says "I can't believe how cute your belly is! It's just so.... cute!" We are contemplating posting a belly shot. Anyone care to see one of twins at 16 and a half weeks? J's belly button has become almost completely flat ... bye bye inny!

J has had a few symptom changes since entering the 2nd trimester. Her appetite is picking up, although meat is still an issue and she doesn't eat as much as the books tell us she should eat. Then again, no one could eat what the books are telling us J should eat - not even in a week!
She has to sleep on her side now, when she is on her back, the weight of the babies is uncomfortably heavy. Nasal stuffiness has set in. J was traveling for work last week when yet another new symptom began. Bloody noses. We think it was worsened by the super dry winter air (even Atlanta where J was was super cold and dry last week), the flights, the hotel room and being in a dry studio for several days. The nose bleeds always found the worst time to make an appearance too. Like after a very long day on the dry set and then going through security at the ATL airport, J thought she had a runny nose until she stopped in her tracks and said... NO, I KNOW THIS FEELING! J grabbed her stuff off the conveyor belt and found tissues just in time. J was trying to stop the bleed while heading down a extremely long escalator on the way to the tram to take her to her gate. Of course, she was pulling luggage, carrying 2 coats and a bag all while trying to hide the blood pouring out of her nose. While on the tram, and of course while getting many a stare, the bleed finally stopped. J managed to not get blood on any of her clothes or bags but unfortunately her plane ticket didn't make it out stainfree. On a more positive note, J has had more "daytime energy" but as soon as 9pm rolls around and her head hits the pillow, she's OUT.

J is on an interesting cocktail of pills these days. Thankfully the days of progesterone suppositories are long gone and we were even able to drop the baby aspirin last week. So now, J is just down to a mere 7 pills a day. Thyroid medicine when she wakes up; iron, calcium and folic acid at dinner and for "dessert" a prenatal and 2 pills that are supposed to "keep things running smoothly" but don't necessarily always work... if you catch our drift ;) Due to the twins and J's aversion to meat, the iron is prescription strength to help with the anemia that has set in. Of course, this pill likes to counteract the other 2 dessert pills.

Up until now, we have only bought a onesie here, a cute baby top there but this weekend we bought our first baby gear. We decided what we thought we'd want to buy new - like car seats, cribs, breast pump ;) and the rest we thought we'd try to find on craigs.list and the likes. We met up with a family who had twins 13 months ago. They had everything you would need if you were pregnant with twins. We ended up getting a double snap and go stroller for $30 (a steal!), a sesa.me street walker and a rainforest jump.er. They are all so cute! Our cat has thoroughly inspected the items and gave us her stamp of approval by laying right in the walker. We ended up chatting with the mom for quite some time while her twin boys were playing around us. It was great! She gave us a book which she found very useful when she was beginning to buy baby stuff. It is awesome - "Baby Barga.ins" and so ironic that she gave it to us because after their house we were actually off to buy it. We also did some intense crib shopping both in store and online this weekend. We'd like to get these ordered soon.

We go in for our spi.na bif.ida blood test this week. Will any of these tests ever not be totally nerve-racking!? Take your folic acid ladies!! We go back in for our regular ob appt on the 25th and then have the babies full body scans on March 3rd. We are looking forward to seeing the babies in a couple of weeks! We can't believe that after this visit, we have to go in every 2 weeks already! This pregnancy is seriously flying by - but not fast enough that we aren't enjoying every minute of it.