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!

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!

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.

This week's lesson: Ratios

We found it surprising that we forgot they were going to call on Monday. We keep close track of everything involving the pregnancy. We guess with the perfect NT Sca.n measurements we totally forgot we'd actually be getting more results from our peri.natalogist - the final ratios. The office called on Monday as we were told they would and let us know that Baby A and Baby B both have excellent numbers and ironically the SAME ratios. (They're already competitive??) The odds of the babies having Down's Syn.drome are 1/8900 and the odds for Tris.omy 13 & 18 is 1/10,000. These are even higher (or lower odds actually) then our genetic counselor used as her example of great numbers. We'll take 'em!

We feel so incredibly lucky with each and every step of this pregnancy. It took us over 18 months to get to where we are today and we never let a day go by without being thankful for what we have been given. We know now that all of the months of forced waiting, medical treatments, fertility drugs, miscarriages and unsuccessful IUIs were meant to be. If not for them, we wouldn't have these 2 healthy babies growing inside of J at this moment. And for all of you that are waiting for your miracles, we think of you every day and know you will get them soon.

As for our next step, we are excited to see dr. H (our regular ob) on Tuesday. We are pretty sure we will be finding out the sex of the babies. Are there any guesses out there as to what you think Baby A and Baby B will be?

NT Scan...CHECK!

Yesterday we had our first appointment with our perinatal.ogist. The first thing we did was speak to a genetic counselor about the risks involved in having twins at J's advanced maternal age. That's right. 32 is considered "ADVANCED MATERNAL AGE" for having twins! She's never felt so old.

We seriously don't know how there are so many healthy babies born each day with the NUMEROUS things that can go wrong throughout pregnancy!!! Granted, when you put it in perspective, with J's great family health history as well as our donors, the chances for a lot of the chromosomal abnormalities the counselor spoke of is about 1%. Which leaves a 99% chance of having a perfectly healthy baby... or babies! With all that being said we were still overwhelmed and slightly nervous before heading into our Nuch.al Trans.lucency scan. The counselor said we would want the NT measurement to be about 1 mm and that everything under 3 was considered "normal" but we didn't want to see 2.9 mm or anything like that.

We entered the ultrasound room and were surprised to see a HUGE screen in front of us to watch the scan on. No more sharing the little ultrasound screen with the technician. We were able to watch as she took the measurements and the first measurement of Baby A that she took was 2.6. TWO POINT SIX?!?!?!?! She then took 2 more measurements that were 1.6 and 1.4. She preceeded to go back and DELETE the 2.6 and remeasured the fold, this time as 1.6 mm. PHEW! We both were holding our breath after we saw the 2.6! Then Baby B was measured, it's measurements were an average of 1.5. The perinatal.ogist came in while Baby B was being scanned and walked through some of the complications associated with pregnancy but especially with twins. She talked about preterm labor, pre.clampsia and gestational dia.betes among other things. She went through the preterm survival rates as well which we found very interesting and very PROMISING! She said babies can survive after 23 weeks of gestation in the hospital but granted most of these babies will have a host of problems such as cereb.ral palsey. After 28 weeks, the survival rate for a HEALTHY baby is 80% and after 32 weeks, there was only a 3% chance of complications after birth. These statistics made us feel SOOO much better but we still hope the babies stay in their current cozy home until our 38th week c-section. In the midst of all this talking, the technician announced that the babies NT scan test "scores" were PERFECT with 1.6 for Baby A and 1.5 for Baby B.

We also HEARD the heartbeats for the first time! They caught us by surprise because we were so intently listening to the perinatal.ogist while also watching the show the babies were putting on for us on the big screen in front of us. It was SOOO AWESOME to hear the beating hearts!

Following the scan, J had to do a finger prick blood test and then we were sent on our way. J said she couldn't recall the last finger blood test she had but was sure it was sometime in middle school. The girl taking J's blood said it will be a pretty good pinch. WAS IT EVER! OMG, J thought the girl had cut the top of her finger off! Today she has a pretty bruised finger tip but all worth it for the babies. We should hear on Monday or Tuesday the full results of the NT Scan including ratios of the likelihood of the babies having Down's Syndrome, Trisomy 13 and the likes. We aren't too worried about these results since their N.uchal fold measurements were so great. Right now we are feeling extremely blessed.

Our next perinatal.ogist visit is in 7 weeks (March 4th) where they will do a full body scan checking out every inch of the babies bodies. They told us the appointment will take about an hour as the scan is very thorough and very detailed. Before then, we will see dr H for our regular OB visit on the 27th. We hope to find out the sex of the babies at this appointment but we'll see!

J is feeling great and her appetite has definitely picked up. She is still extremely tired in the late afternoon but still hopes that will lessen over the next few weeks. J's been so busy with work, the naps have fallen to the wayside but today she needs one since we are headed to a basketball game at MSG tonight and will be up way past her (and the babies) bedtime! The babies first (of MANY) basketball games!

Give Us A Hand!

That's exactly what Baby A and Baby B did for us yesterday at our first appointment with our new OB/GYN. We were nervous before we got there - would we like her? Would we like how her practice did things? After having such a great experience with our fertility dr, we had high expectations about what we wanted in our new dr especially since they would be the ones bringing our babies into the world. We got an immediate good vibe by getting ROCKSTAR parking right outside the front door of the building. It was a rainy, cold evening and the whole lot was packed. Then as we were headed back to our dr's office, there were pictures on the wall that 100% resembled the flower centerpieces at our Bridal Shower. We took this to be another good sign. Finally we met dr H. She was fabulous. She is so sweet, so attentive, very thorough and took the time to answer every question we had (on our long list) without making us feel rushed or stupid. Another important thing we noticed was that she spoke to each of us in equal amounts - not to just J because she is the patient. She made us both feel equally important and involved. One thing we learned is that we will definitely be having a cesearan as (our) dr's malpractice insurance will no longer cover vaginal births with multiples. We had previously read that 50% of multiples end up with a c-section because both babies are not facing the right way so we weren't shocked at the news (it was just a different reason). We will be scheduled for the c-section during our 38th week which is when twins are considered full term. Hopefully we will make it as she followed this statement by saying that the average for twin delivery is 36 weeks. As for our schedule with dr H, we will see her every 4 weeks up to 20 weeks, every 2 weeks up to 28 weeks and then every week after that.

On Monday our fertility dr said we could stop the progesterone supps. With it having been our lifeline for so many weeks now, we were terrified. We weened off to just 1 a day and after getting a second thumbs up from dr H to stopping them, we are now officially without our security blanket. That is just two less things that J has to remember to do during the day. In the mornings we both had reminders on our work calendars and at night we would leave a small light in our kitchen on until it was done. It is weird how you can forget after so many weeks but strangely it happens.

After the initial office conversation, we all headed to the ultrasound room. Here she did a pelvic check (upon which she said "Boy your uterus sure is growing!") and then a sonogram. Our first non-vaginal sonogram! CRAZY! J thinks it felt kind of weird - not like she would have expected it to feel. You would think it would just feel like something rubbing against your belly but to J it was different. Maybe it was because of the slight pressure that was also used on her growing uterus or the jelly or something but she didn't really love it. Probably just something new to get used to. What we DID love was what we saw on the ultrasound screen! Two waving, moving babies! At one point Baby B (who was sleeping the last time we saw him/her) was completely stretched out - what LONG legs this lil guy has! He/She definitely takes after his moms :) They both had great heartbeats and we got a few more pictures. We can't believe how distinct the hands are at this point. M saw a foot last week and said that it also looked very distinct. They are really like two very small babies!! Here are a few pictures of our friendly babies waving to us and our new dr.



Our dr suggested and we fully agreed that we should have many of our scans done over at the MFM Specialist. She said she recommends it for any pregnancy but especially for multiples. We were glad she was on board with this 100% as we wanted the extra reassurances from a specialist along the way. We are not yet sure how often we will be seeing the MFM specialist but we do know we'll be in for the NT Scan this week or next and then back around 18 weeks for the next growth scan.

When we got home, we read through the paperwork and brochures that were given to us (along with a lot of free samples!). The brochures were mostly about giving birth and the hospital procedures. As we sat in our guest bedroom, which will soon become our nursery, it dawned on us that we had suddenly switched from reading about getting pregnant to reading about giving birth. It was a surreal realization that we'll remember for a long time. We think we are finally beginning to accept the fact that we really are pregnant and staying pregnant this time.

Graduation Day!

We did it! We finally made it to Graduation Day! We never thought this day would ever come but alas it has - and we got sent off with an "everything looks perfect!" record. We also got, as promised, TONS of ultrasound pictures, dating back to the first sighting of our little beans. We'll post a few pictures at the end of the blog.

Baby A was again the highlight of the visit. He/She was dancing around, doing flips, and even waved at us! Baby B was doing his/her thing - and well, snoozing. Baby A had a heartbeat of 160 and Baby B had a sleeping heart rate of 156 ;) Since the range is between 120 and 160, we think we are in good shape. The technician said that the babies were growing perfectly. They are both about 2 inches long! J thinks she feels them bouncing around in there (although we know it is probably just gas) but with the way Baby A was moving about - now it makes you wonder if the fluttering J feels is really them!

Today we are 11 weeks and 4 days pregnant. J's uterus is measuring a little over 13 weeks and our Dr said everything looked and felt great. We can't wait for Thursday when we FINALLY hit the 12 week mark. So, we've read conflicting dates as to when the first trimester is over. Does anyone out there know for sure? Is it the beginning of the 12th week or the end of the 12th week? Either way - we are SOOOO CLOSE! We are having trouble believing we are pregnant let alone just days away from our second trimester!

We have our 1st appointment with our new OB/GYN on Wednesday where they will conduct the NT Scan on our babies. We are excited to be able to see them twice in one week!

Enjoy some pics!