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The family that consists of 2 moms, 2 daughters and soon..... A SON!
Yep - that's right, we're adding a little testosterone to this estrogen driven family. We had our 20 week visit to the specialist yesterday for a growth check and they were able to easily without a shadow of a doubt confirm we are having a son. We couldn't be more excited! He is growing perfectly in every way and can't wait to hold him on our arms!

Hi little guy!



M is feeling great these days. She had nausea until about 12 weeks and her daily headache tapered off around week 16... boy those SUCKED! Her new fall accessory is a baby bump. It's adorable and perfect in every way. Luckily we have several holidays to help the next 20 weeks fly by!

The other 2 darlings are doing fantastic. They pretty much repeat everything we say - not perfectly and sometimes not even close but it is a constant reminder that their little ears are only inches away and we REALLY have to watch what we say and do. They play with each other almost non stop and it melts are hearts to see that they are already becoming each others best friends. We've recently started them in a music class which is fantastic. We go with their "best friends" (the triplets from across the street), not only do they get to play, dance and make music with them, J gets some adult time with their mom (albeit waving handkerchiefs, shaking eggs, tapping a tamborine, singing along to great music) . It's a win win for everyone. We also started going to the library for storytime. There was quite a turnout the first week and the ages ranged from around 5 months to 14 months it seemed with our daughters being the oldest in the group. The next age group is 18 months to 3 years. While all the younger baby sat nicely on their mommy/caregiver's lap, A and R were in the middle of the circle, watching along as the librarian read the book, pointing at the babies, playing with each other... you name it, they did it. Nothing bad or too distracting, but J was glad it was only a 20 minute session because she felt like she would have lost their attention in that circle if it lasted too much longer. J had internal conflict of letting them be in the middle of the group vs forcing them to sit on her lap (which WASN'T working). Were the other parent's thinking to themselves that J should get her kids under control and out of the middle? Were they understanding that theirs just don't walk/crawl yet so one day that will be their babies? We don't know but it is what it is. We missed it last week as the girls had a cold but we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

We are excited for Halloween this year! Every holiday is just a little more fun, a little more special now that we have children. The girls LOVE to put on their costumes and walk around in them. We thought we'd have to force them to keep them on but NOPE, they actually grab them and bring them to us to put them on. TOO CUTE! We went with personality driven costumes this year - A is a lion and R is a monkey.

We went pumpkin and apple picking this weekend. It was one of the best weekends we've had yet! 15 month old are SOOOOOOOOO much fun!!!!


R LOVED eating the apples she picked!


A on the hayride back from the orchard.


Our lion and monkey

We Graduated!

We are just trucking along in M's pregnancy! Today we are 9wks and 3 days already. We had an u/s and doctor appointment last week and the u/s technician said Baby C was measuring 8wks 5days, which was 2 days ahead of schedule at that time. We saw the heartbeat, which was 169 bpm; an excellent heart rate! Baby C has an adorable little round head and little itty bitty arm and leg buds already! SOOOO cool to see! Because everything has been going so well, our fertility doctor decided to graduate us. Next week we will begin seeing our regular OB. It will be nice to see her since we haven't since she delivered our twins.

Things have been going pretty well so far with M's pregnancy, besides the fact that she is nauseous pretty much 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It's pretty bad but at least she hasn't actually puked (yet). Nothing really helps, not even ging.er ale and pretzels, which were J's best friend during pregnancy. M is still able to stomach meat, but overall it doesn't really appeal to her. She has lost all her desire for sweets ... her sweet tooth which is normally in full effect is completely gone. So weird! For the most part M can eat pastas and pizza happily. Oh, and raspberries and french fries, she is always craving fries these days.

Other than the nausea, M has been doing really good. No spotting or cramping or anything scary, which is a nice change in this pregnancy. Her bb's have been sore since about week 4 and a sports bra while sleeping has become a necessity. She has had a couple bouts with insomnia but isn't sure it's pregnancy related. M has also noticed that she gets out of breath a LOT recently and tired more easily. We aren't really sure why she is getting so out of breath so early in the pregnancy. Something we'll definitely bring up with our dr. She definitely has a little "baby brain" going on and is beginning to forget things...

As for A and B, they are doing great! We are finally done celebrating their birthdays. We had 3 parties: 1 with M's family, 1 with J's family, and 1 with all of our friends. The friend party was very fun and we had about 10 kids under the age of 3 running around our back yard. It was great! Literally the next day A started walking. We think that she was inspired by all of the other kids walking around at her party. She gets SO excited when she walks!

They still aren't saying any words, beside the occasional "Mom" that B says. So we've started to teach them some basic sign language to help keep them happy. We found that especially during meal time they scream a lot, and we know it is because they are frustrated that they can't tell us what they need. So we have taught them the signs for milk, drink, eat, more, and all done. They are definitely catching on and its super cute to see little A do the sign for milk with her big grin :)

Please meet our newest addition (almost) - BABY C!

Update... finally

We've been meaning to write a blog since Monday when we went to our Dr for M's 1st u/s, but it has been a crazy week with planning the twins 1st birthday party! Anyway, the appt went great! The hours were from 7:30-9:30am to get the u/s. So we left M's family's house in PA at 7am giving us plenty of time to get there ... until we noticed the low tire pressure light come on in our car. Luckily, after putting some air in it we were able to get back on the road and make it to our dr appt. We have come to find out there was a nail in the tire and we needed a new tire - blah! We were very nervous yet excited for the appt. With our beta numbers being kind of high and more than doubling each time, we weren't sure how many sacs we'd be seeing. During the u/s J said, "don't tell me if you see six." The u/s technician, who if you remember has TERRIBLE bedside manners, cracked a joke saying "don't worry, if I do I won't say a word, I'll just be running out of the room." After a few minutes of prodding she announced, "Well, there's only 1 sac" ... we were both very happy to hear this and a little relieved. Not that we wouldn't have been thrilled with twins or multiples, we just really only wanted 1 this time so it was perfect! We even got to see the yolk sac and the heartbeat!! The u/s tech said M was measuring 6 weeks. We didn't get the HB rate though as we didn't even think to ask because we were so overwhelmed.

M went back in yesterday to see our Dr since he was out on vacation when we went in for the u/s on Monday. This time we asked what the HB was on Monday and he said 101. And then immediately followed it with the fact that he wouldn't have even expected to see a heartbeat at that appt so it's a good number for being so early. He told us that yesterday M was 6wks 2days and our due date is March 1, 2011!

We go back in for another u/s and dr visit in 2 weeks. Until then, we'll just keep doing what we're doing!!

Tomorrow these cuties turn 1!!!!!!!!!




WWWWWOOOOO WWWWWOOOOOO!!

Rising betas

As we’ve hoped, M’s beta is rising nicely! As of yesterday it is sitting pretty at 7234. We are going in for an ultrasound on Monday… FINALLY! M hasn’t really had any symptoms yet, although we know it is still early. She is VERY bloated and almost looks several months pregnant! The dr said her ovaries are still swollen and it will go down some.

We heard some disturbing news this week while talking to our neighbor (we’ll call her H) who lives across the street and has adorable 2.5 yr old triplets (2 girls, 1 boy). First of all, we are new to the area as we just moved into our house in February after months of renovations but we really clicked with the couple across the street as they are our age and also have multiples. J goes to the park often with the girls and their triplets (who is also cared for by a fulltime nanny who our daughters equally love). H told us that she got in an argument with a gentleman (single, no kids, good looking, mid 40s, we’ll call him M) who lives 2 doors down from them a couple of weeks ago. We don’t know M very well, but always seemed very nice and his girlfriend made us a delicious cake when we moved in. Anyway, a couple of days after this fight, social services showed up at H’s door and told her (and the nanny who was there) that they had a complaint that there is drug and alcohol abuse in their house. Now we have always thought that they perhaps sm.oked po.t but we have no proof, and although we don’t smoke it these days, we think there are worse things that they could be doing. And as for drinking, they are clearly of age and having multiples, we know that sometimes you NEED an adult beverage to RELAX after a long day. H and her husband have had frequent surprise visits from social services including rummaging through their fridge to make sure there is adequate food for the 3 babies, crib checks, and random drug tests. We don’t personally think any of this is warranted as we KNOW they are great parents, have healthy well adjusted kids, and a wonderful nanny but what REALLY gets us is that this random guy doesn’t like this family for whatever reason and makes one complaint and now this family has to endure what could probably last over a year, PROVING that they are good parents. It was even in the newspaper under the police section that this report was made! It is scary to think that this could happen to anyone with just a call to the cops by someone who you get in an argument with. We feel as though a “check” of sorts should be made on the person reporting the child neglect as well. It is just a very sad and as H said “embarrassing” situation all because she believes she argued with him. Needless to say, we will remain “friendly” but will try not to interact too much with this neighbor. As we don’t really have anything in common with him, this shouldn’t be too hard.

On to a happier note, I’d like to wish M a very very very happy birthday! I love you honey! We are headed to Scranton to her family’s house to celebrate the 1^st of 3 birthday parties for the girls. We STILL can not believe they will be one next Saturday!!!!!!

Hope everyone has a happy and safe 4^th!

Up, Up, UP!

M went in for another blood test on Saturday and our numbers have gone up to 1383! We go back in for another beta test next week and THEN they will schedule our ultrasound depending on those numbers. This waiting is worse than the tww was!

As the girls are coming up on their one year old birthday, we thought we'd make a list of all the words they understand completely at this point. We were surprised at the list we came up with and are even probably missing some. The words they know are: Cheer.ios, ball, balloon, Barne.y, book, Mom, Uncle Tim, no, milk, cookie, pool, dance, juice, cheese, toast, kitty and puppy. They also know each other's names. They both say one word each - R says "Mom" and A says "EEEEEE" as in kitty or puppy. And of course A said "dada" a while back but has stopped since probably because she got no positive reaction out of us. ;)

Today we went to the NYC pride parade with our girls and met up with Puffer, Chicken and their cutie cutie little boys. It was a HOT one but we all had a great time!


R (with her hair slicked back from sweat) waving the pride flag.


The girls holding hands while drinking their milk at the parade.

Our beta doubled!

Our new beta as of yesterday morning is 541 at 17 days past trigger. We are scheduled to go back in Saturday morning for another beta test. We CAN'T wait for the ultrasound!!!

On a side note, I just wanted to wish my beautiful wife (J) a very happy birthday! Yesterday was her birthday but with family in town visiting, I didn't have time to post. I love you!

We've got numbers!!!!

Well, we've got numbers to back up our positive pregnancy tests. We don't know if our beta is trying to tell us something by duplicating a certain number 3 times or if it is just a really solid singleton number but either way we are ecstatic with our beta of 222! We are 15 days past the HCG shot so we have a really strong number either way.

We go back in on Thursday for another beta test - maybe this beta will help tell the story. Can't we just jump to an ultrasound??? ;)