2 Girls and Their Family

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2010-10-12T10:14:00.009-04:00

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!

2010-07-28T19:35:00.002-04:00

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

2010-07-09T15:32:00.003-04:00

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

2010-07-02T10:11:00.002-04:00

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!

2010-06-27T17:17:00.008-04:00

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!

2010-06-25T09:55:00.004-04:00

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!!!!

2010-06-22T15:56:00.004-04:00

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??? ;)

A +

2010-06-20T08:36:00.007-04:00

We don't go in for a blood test until Tuesday BUT.....

Almost two weeks ago we did the Trigge.r shot and now we have a BEAUTIFUL plus sign showing on our p-test! (It looks a lot darker in person and we even saw a hint of a plus sign yesterday morning as well!) We are kind of in disbelief at the moment as this whole process has been pretty laid back and worry-free. Life is just SO busy that the two week wait flew by and now we are sitting pretty looking at a perspective sister or brother for A and R! We wouldn't be being completely honest if we didn't mention that we can't wait to see the B.eta numbers but more importantly an ultrasound to see how many sacs are in there. With M having 3 mature eggs 2 days before we triggered along with many smaller ones, it just makes you wonder. As we know it isn't likely, the shows like "J & K + 8" and "Ta.ble for 10" makes our minds wonder. Either way, we are pregnant and did a bit of a "We're having a baby" dance with the twins this morning. They were equally excited (although they are always full of smiles when we walk into their nursery in the morning).

As we mentioned it's been a busy few weeks. For one, the girls went to their first fair. A hadn't napped and we knew they would both be going to bed after their normal 7pm bedtime so we didn't really know what to expect but they did GREAT! It helped that we had M's mom and 2 cousins with us along with J's brother. More hands to help but the girls had a great time people watching and trying tidbits of fair food (primarily a "turkey leg" and some ice cream). A got EXTREMELY excited when she saw huge lion and tiger stuffed animals hanging from a game vendor. J luckily captured a snapshot of it. That girl LOVES animals.

They also went on their first ride - the carousel. J sat on a horse with R and M with A. A LOVED the ride but R clung to J tighter than ever and whined the entire time. We felt so bad but J couldn't even get down off the horse because it was constantly moving up and down and... when the heck did they start going so high off the ground?!?! A was holding on to the pole with one hand and trying to pet the horse with the other. That will be the child going on all the fair rides with M in the future and R will be holding purses with J ;)

R is really walking around quite well these days. She has great balance! Yesterday A took a few steps with a little cheering and guiding! We had her hold onto our rocker and we pushed the couch ottoman out a bit and cheered her on to push off and take the necessary 2 steps to the ottoman. It worked and she felt SOO rewarded when she did it! When A is excited about something, she squeals exactly like "Carrie B.radshaw" from SATC. It is the cutest thing in the entire world!

Yesterday the girls went to their first friend "kidd.ie party". It was lots of fun as our friend has acquired quite a few outside toys over the past 2 years of her daughter's life. They played for quite some time in a plastic "little t.ikes" house with 2 other little boys. It is interesting to see the interaction between other kids and our twins. The 2 boys (not related) kept stealing toys from each other and our girls. Our girls didn't cry or mind as I think they are used to it since they (mainly R) always steal toys from each other. But if a toy was taken from one of the boys who are both only children, cries insued. It was interesting to watch.

R has her top left tooth breaking through which has made her a little whiny but all in all she has been pretty good with her teething although she hasn't had any teeth break through since her first 2 bottom over 5 months ago. We didn't think she was EVER going to get more teeth! R still has 2 tops and 2 bottoms.

A couple more days until we get our first round of betas... BRING ON GOOD NUMBERS PLEASE!!!

You're Fired!

2010-06-09T13:26:00.002-04:00

We had to let go of our nanny today. As we've mentioned in previous posts, she is unreliable, she is only on the floor playing with them about half the time and doesn't really talk to them. This is the age where their language skills are developing so it is imperative to have communication going on. The straw that broke the camels back was that J asked her to be at our house at 10am this morning and to PLEASE NOT BE LATE (since she always is) because she had to run a meeting at 10:30am. We were smart enough to give her a 30 min cushion KNOWING that she would be late even though we specifically told her she couldn't be today. It was ridiculous that we even had to do this but it is what it is. So, 10:15am rolls around and J is getting a little nervous. The babies were sleeping at this point but of course they would wake up at exactly 10:30am if our nanny wasn't there by then. At 10:25am, M calls our nanny and asks where she is and she said she was running really late. M asked if she was at least close and she replies no. NO?!? She said she "wasn't even close." M was fuming and let J know. We both decided that this was it. We had to stop dragging our feet and find a new nanny ASAP. M called our nanny back and said that we didn't need her today and that actually we didn't need she services anymore as it wasn't working out.

J's brother is staying with us so he was luckily available to watch the girls while J had her call.

So.... it's back to the drawing board for us. It will be a little hairy around here until we get a new nanny but all in all we're glad we let this one go. She added more stress than help.

(Side note: we're still very much cheering on M's mature eggs and the millions of little guys swimming around hoping for a happy collision. Cyst check on Monday.)

An insemination like never before...

2010-06-07T18:41:00.005-04:00

and now we enter the wonderful TWW.

We triggered this morning at 4:15am which is why this is going to be a short and sweet post. Neither of us fell back to sleep before our little darlings woke up at 5:30 and were ready to start the day. Next insem is tomorrow at 4:15pm. Our dr told us M had 3 mature eggs before the trigger and a great sperm count with 65% motility.

Yawn.... goodnight!

Rocking and Rolling...

2010-06-02T15:37:00.006-04:00

Or should we say Poking and Producing!

M had bloodwork this morning to make sure the Rep.ronex is actually working. And.... IT IS! We keep with the same regime of 2 powders, 1 cc liquid and go in tomorrow for bw and an u/s. Very excited mommies in this household of ours!

M has been doing really well with the injections! Ice, clean, stick, inject, ice... all with no problem! M pinches the area, J darts the needle in and M inserts the hormone... we have it down to a science as all we did was reverse rolls from J's IVF last year. The one thing that isn't consistent is the size of the welts J had vs the size M is getting. M was nervous about the welt size and pain that was associated with J's injections. She is VERY LUCKY so far!!!

Comparative pictures:

J's belly during her Repro.nex injections a year and a half ago.

M's belly with the Rep.ronex injections. TINY WELTS! YAY!

Day 1... no problem!

2010-05-31T19:56:00.005-04:00

Well last night was our first Re.pronex injection and although we TOTALLY forgot until about 9pm (we planned to do it at 7pm when the girls went down), the shot was quick and painless (per M). She has the smallest mark around the injection site (unlike when J was using Rep.ronex) and was only a little sore when she was holding a baby. We'll see how that fairs as we use up more and more real estate on M's belly.

Getting ready to gear up for injection numero dos! Come on ovaries... let's get producing!

Happy Memorial Day everyone! The girls went to their first parade today! Then we took some pictures at the park near our house, went swimming in their little pool and had a family barbecue. Fun, relaxed, most enjoyable day!

Watching the parade! It was sooooo hot out.

A has some SERIOUS teething pain the last couple of days. R doesn't really know what to do since A wouldn't stop crying.

Interesting setting on the camera. Must explore further.

Buckle up...

2010-05-29T14:24:00.008-04:00

here we go.... AGAIN.

M's AF finally showed up yesterday. Since our dr is closed tomorrow, they had us come in today on day 2, for bw and an u/s. Since the appointment was at 8am this morning, we had to bring the girls with us. Normally we'd rather not bring them but this was kind of a surprise appointment. They were surprisingly good for it being their naptime (yes, they go back down for a nap around 8am when most people are just getting up). They got lots of attention from all the nurses, technicians and our doctor, which they ate up of course. They, but especially A, are little hams at the ripe age of 10 months. They know how to work the crowd.

So, we start Re.pronex tomorrow. Hope M's belly is ready for all the pokes and prods that are about to come! We are extremely excited and can not believe the day has finally come for PROJECT BABY C to begin! We go back in on Wednesday for b/w to see if the dose needs to be increased or decreased.

As exciting as this all is, it's been a hard week leading up as we've had a house full of sick mommies & babies. We have realized he.ll on earth quite possibly is when both parents are sick as dogs and have 2 sick infants as well. It was a TOUGH few days! Thank goodness for our nanny watching the girls which allowed us to nap or at least rest for a bit. We all went to the dr this week, the girls AGAIN as their coughs got significantly worse, but luckily the fevers never got above 100 degrees. J ended up having bronchitis, while M and the girls have really bad colds and coughs. The girls were given an inhaler to help clear out their lungs. A took it pretty well, but R was a struggle at first. But after almost a week of aspirating, pushing fluids, using the inhaler, refilling the humidifier, cleaning up a few mucusy throw ups here and there, we think we are FINALLY seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. A seems much better and R is about a day behind A so she should be feeling much better tomorrow. M is about 90% while J is pushing 60%... she just can't kick whatever she's got.

Amongst the coughs and sneezes, R found time to learn a new trick - to climb stairs. And not just one way of climbing but 3 ways! She'll crawls/climbs up each step one by one, she'll hold the banister poles and literally walk up the stairs, but worst of all, she will try to walk up the stairs on the OUTSIDE of the banister where there is about 1 1/2 inch of stair. Someone is always there when she is trying out her adventure as the room with the stairs in it is pretty much gated off to them at all times, but she can really get to the top of the staircase in a hurry! Granted, she's also climbed 1/2 way up the gate as well. Yep, we sure have our hands full with this child! On the other hand, we can find A in the "library" (the corner with all their books) sitting flipping slowly through pages. How different they are.

And onto some pics of the littlest ladies.

Silly-faced R

A saying "Pretty please, Mommy!"

A reading a book.

R using the inhaler.

The girls LOVE animals!

R climbing the gate.

Cough cough cough...

2010-05-25T09:14:00.007-04:00

Once again, thank you ladies for your advice! We are going to make a plan similar to all of yours to ween the girls off their bottles.

We took the girls to the dr on Friday where they checked out a-ok but our pediatrician said if they get worse to call him. Yesterday they developed terrible coughs (particularly A) so their dr wanted to see them again. Poor little babies! A was coughing a lot in her sleep but they both slept the night which was good. We head back to the dr this morning. Luckily they are both eating and drinking well, so aside from their cough and extra tiredness, they seem ok.

At the girls’ 9 month checkup, we asked the doctor about what other foods the girls could try and he gave us a whole list of wonderful suggestions. At that point he said, let’s not give them any whole milk yet because of their belly issues when they were newborns. We did however get the go ahead for yogurt and cheese so when we were at the dr on Friday we asked again about milk (whole milk) and mentioned that they have been eating yo.baby and American chee.se with no reactions or problems. He said go ahead and try the milk. I asked how much, thinking an ounce or two to introduce – but he said it can be up to 50% of their formula/milk intake. Great we thought as we are spending $120 a week on formula since they are on the Ca.dillac of formulas (Simil.ac Aliment.um). We tried giving the bottles in cups for a couple of days and they would both take a sip and then push the cup away. Yesterday J heated the milk up and put 3 oz in a bottle and A drank it right up! R is still not loving it but we think we have a good 2 months to move her in that direction before we completely ween them off formula so we’re not worried.

The girls were cast to be in the H.BO miniseries “Broadwa.y Empire” and were supposed to shoot yesterday in Brook.lyn but our agent didn’t get the message from the casting agency until late Sunday, when the casting agency of the show contacted him early Sunday. Since they hadn’t heard from back from my agent, they chose other babies to be in the show. It actually worked out for the best since the little ones are fighting this cold.

We are starting to think Project Baby C may never be underway! J’s AF has come and gone but M’s is nowhere in sight. :( Come out come out wherever you are!

Helpful advice!

2010-05-21T09:42:00.005-04:00

We’d like to thank you ladies for your comments! You are all very helpful! We have started to put milk in a N.uby bottle that has a sipp.y cup nipple hoping the fact that they are still holding a bottle would be a good transition. So far, R will drink milk out of it but A still won’t have it. It’s weird because all day long they will drink water out of anything you give them- sippy cup, straw cup, real cup, water bottle, regular bottle, you name it, they’ll drink water from it. We hope if we keep offering the sippy cup or sippy cup nipple to them every day that someday they will both drink the milk out of it and we can be off of bottles at a year. For any of you with kids over 1, do you still give them a nighttime “bottle”? Our nighttime routine ends with both girls getting a nice full bottle. Do we have to ween them off that by/at a year as well?

We took Two Moms, Two Monkeys advice and started giving the girls one meal of rice or oatmeal cereal a day. We always add a fruit and/or vegetable and although the first time we offered it to them again, they pushed the spoon away, they are now welcoming it a little more. We might be taking A from A+K up on her offer to talk feedings. :)

Last night was a rough night for A. We didn’t put the air conditioning on last night because it was so cool out, but since the girls room is on the first floor along with ours, we don’t open their windows. A woke up around 2 and was REALLY hot. We took her out of her sleep sack and changed her diaper but she still felt hot. We took her temperature and it was 101.4. Could body temp go up from being really hot? We gave her generic tyl.enol and a bottle. She wouldn’t really fall back to sleep and was kind of whiny. J rocked her to sleep finally only for A to wake up 20 mins later. The AC was on at this point so it wasn’t because she was hot. At this point we offered her her bottle again as she hadn’t finished it before and them M rocked her to sleep. Finally at almost 5 she was back down only to wake at 7. She’s been kind of cranky all morning but we think it is because she had a poor night sleep. We are going to monitor her temp today before taking her to the pediatrician. As of this morning, she didn’t have one. We know you can get a fever with teething, and we KNOW she is teething. Guess we’ll see how the day pans out. R, thankfully, slept through the entire night.

The evening started out really great as we had a babysitter over and were able to go out on a date night. We try to go at least once a month if not more. This month, with such great family and friends, we’ve gone out a few times! We even went to the movies which we hadn’t done in almost 2 years! We’re already trying to line someone up in the next few weeks so we can go see SATC 2! Would be great if we could find a theater that allows you to sip Cosmos while watching the movie! ;)

R drinking from the N.uby bottle with sip.py cup nipple

A still loves her bottles

R loves to bang her cup up and down on her high chair tray.

We always new A loved puppies but this past weekend she actually got to play with a few and LOVE LOVE LOVED them. She had a little help from her cousin in this picture.

Steppin' it up!

2010-05-19T09:56:00.001-04:00

Big news! R took her first few steps last night! It was awesome! She’s been on the verge of walking and won’t yet do it on her own but last night when we stood her up, backed up a little, and called her name she took 2 steps! Miraculously we ALSO got it on video which we promptly posted on face.book for our family and IRL friends to see. A still has super wobbly legs but can walk like a champ pushing her little car walker toy. Sooner than later we’ll have 2 tiny walkers which we always thought would be easier as we wouldn’t HAVE to carry them from point A to point B but we are sure it will have its new challenges. Probably something like we’ll never sit again.

As written in a previous post, our girls are completely off baby cereal and pureed meals and strictly on bite sized foods. R, who is the smaller of the twins, will some days eat like a champ but other days hardly eats anything. It's like she survives on air alone. We worry because she is so tiny (to us) and wondering if she is getting enough calories and nutrients on the days she just pushes her food around her high chair tray. She rarely finishes her bottles of formula but does drink a LOT of water as she loves her sippy cup with a straw. Maybe we should put her milk in the sippy cup too? Any advice out there? Should we go back to cereals and stuff? We initially stopped offering it because the girls wouldn’t eat it. We also find that there are times when A will eat some and then start screaming/crying to get out of her high chair. If we put on Barney or something for them to watch while eating they do great but we don’t want to get them in that habit.

You're never here when we want you to be but always come when you're unwanted.

2010-05-18T08:42:00.002-04:00

Dear AF,

Where are you? We thought you were coming this week but there is no sign of you. We are very excited for your arrival so please step on it and get here as soon as you can.

Many thanks!

Love,
M, J, A & R

Smile baby... smile!

2010-05-14T08:32:00.003-04:00

We’ve had a few of you ask how we got our daughters into the modeling/television business. Although J works in television she did not use any connections in getting the girls their agents or any of their gigs. Over Christmas break we mailed a bunch of pictures of the girls together and by themselves to NYC agencies we hand selected. This is an easy goo.gle search to find reputable agencies. A couple of weeks later, we got calls from a few of the agencies asking to meet our daughters. We met with three and immediately upon meeting the girls the agencies wanted to sign them (represent them). We chose 2 to work with (exclusivity is not a factor at this age as it will be when they get older) but we get most of the auditions through one of the agencies more than the other. A and R were offered a TV spot on “Damages” (which they couldn’t do because we were out of town) and the spot on “The Go.od Wife” without having to go to an audition. Our agent sent their pictures to the shows casting agents and our daughters were chosen. For the Ral.ph Lauren shoot, both daughters “auditioned” for a spot but only A was chosen. She had the “full figured Gerb.er baby” look that they wanted. The auditions usually consist of going to the casting agency (or in Ral.ph Laure.n’s case we went to their advertising office in NYC) and a few pictures are taken. The shoot is usually the next day or the day after. You need a very open and flexible schedule to get your children into this business. Since J works from home, her blackberry allows for mobility even during work hours. You are usually told about an audition the day or night before and are given a window of 4 to 6 hours of which the actual audition is held. Some auditions are packed while others known as “Go see’s” are quite manageable. With go-sees, the casting agency has already slimmed down the candidates via agent websites and only those babies are allowed to audition. That’s pretty much the gist of it! Good luck!

The girls are the Ral.ph Laur.en shoot. A is VERY excited as you can see!

10 months!

2010-05-13T09:37:00.010-04:00

Our little girls turned 10 months on Monday! We can hardly believe it! Life just keeps getting busier and busier. We would always say “this stage” is the hardest and the next one HAS to be easier. Not really… each stage has its own ups and down, good times and hard times. Although we both agree nothing has been as hard as the first three months were. Phew! Glad that’s over! These days are spent with very very mobile babies. They are both all over the place and although we have them confined to one room where their toys WAY outnumber our furniture, they always seem to want to break out and explore the rest of the house. We get it girls… we do but we need some kind of order to the crazy days we live through. They are both on the verge of walking. R stands without any support for 30 or so seconds until she gets bored and plops down and crawls to what has caught her eye. She can stand while drinking from her sippy cup, playing with a toy, watching Bar.ney. She’s awesome at it! A, who literally just started crawling a month ago, is all over the place pulling up, cruising, standing for shorter periods of time. She had the fastest transition from crawling to cruising that I’ve ever seen… it was DAYS not weeks like R. A has learned to clap in the past 2 weeks. Specifically whenever she hears the song “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands” which it seems every one of our toys sings. She hears the first few beats and her eyes light up and she sits down and gets ready to clap. It’s adorable. R is not clapping yet but does say “Mom”… just not directed at either of us yet. We also think we hear A’s name which is so cute. Again, not directed at her sister. A says hi indiscriminately and that’s about it. They both talk up a storm and A “sings” to any song she hears.

One of the biggest changes has to be food. The girls no longer eat “baby cereal” or pureed foods. They want finger foods and they want them now! In the mornings we start with Cheer.ios while we make them either eggs (with or without Amer. cheese), or French toast along with grapes, bananas, or strawberries and if they are really hungry some toast on the side. They particularly like them in strips that they can hold and bite off of. A has 4 teeth (2 on top, 2 on the bottom) and B has only her 2 bottom teeth so far so most of their food is still gummed to death. Our dr said it looks like A’s got 2 teeth coming in on the bottom and 2 on the top as well! Per our pediatricians instructions we are only using the yolks of the eggs which means we need to use at least 2 every morning… we fly through eggs and bread these days. For lunch they love grilled cheese (just toasted bread with a slice of amer cheese, no butter, etc), any type of fruit cut up and yo.bab.y yogurt. Dinner comprises of pasta with sauce, chicken (boiled as of now) or hamburger. There is always a veggie with dinner – their current favorite is steamed fresh string beans but also enjoy bite sized sweet potato. We tend to end every dinner with blueberries but sometimes they have oranges. Their snacks throughout the day are mum.mu.ms, Cheer.ios, and yogu.rt melts. They still enjoy their bottle every three hours (approx 4-6 oz of watered down formula) and still get a nice big bottle before bed (10 oz, again watered down).

Sleeping has been an interesting feat. With multiples, the “cry it out” method gets a little tricky. A has been a great sleeper recently going down between 7 and 8 and waking up between 6 and 7. R has been the cause of the large bags under our eyes. They began sleeping through the night at 2.5 months and then stopped over Christmas time probably due to their teething and all of our traveling and/or guests. If there are guests in the house, they fight going to sleep. Lots of tears before they finally lay their heads down. For one reason or another (traveling, guests over, etc) we couldn’t diligently let R cry it out at nights lending to months of sleep interrupted nights. Not only does it effect R at night, it messes up her day as she is super tired and therefore crankier. A is pretty good at sleeping through R’s late night (3am) cries but if it lasts long enough, A joins in the fun and it is at least an hour or so until they both cry it out. We recently spoke to our pediatrician about this and if it is detrimental in anyway since we THINK R gets scared at night when she wakes up because when we go in to check on her and lay her back down/change her diaper, she CLINGS to us so hard you don’t even have to hold her on to her and she won’t fall. It is an amazing feeling but also sad. We feel bad but know she is ok and is better off sleeping. R has “stranger an.xiety” much worse than A does and our dr explained that this is why she is so clingy in the middle of the night. All she knows is that we aren’t there and she panics. It breaks our heart but we’ve been diligent the past 9 nights and FINALLY last night they both slept through the night. Not only did they go down without a hassle, but not a peep until 6am! We do get a full night here and there so we are not yet confident it has truly worked yet but we do know that since we are headed to Scran.ton this weekend, that our efforts will probably be for naught and we’ll have to try all over again when we get home. Fingers crossed the traveling doesn’t throw them too far out of wack.

J is still working from home and although we have a nanny that comes a few hours a day, J still finds it hard. We don’t love our nanny – she’s always late, we don’t see enough interaction with the girls in the areas they need now like talking ‘This is a ball” “Say hi to the bear” etc. We have also not been diligent in finding a replacement, as it is such a process. Last night we finally had time to make a few calls.

As for the girls working, A was in a Pol.o Ral.ph Laur.en photo shoot last week. She did GREAT! She is a pro at this. :) We believe the images will appear on their website at some point (it was a fall line the babies were showcasing).

Onto Project Baby C news: We were smart enough to fill our last prescription of R.epronex before J went on M’s insurance back in 12/08. We had always planned to start Project Baby C when the twins were around 3 months old. Yeah…. that didn’t happen. So we pulled out all the vials of Re.pronex that expired in 12/09 and brought them to our fertility dr. He said he would be able to tell by looking at the vials if they were still usable or if the hormones had started to deteriorate. ALL BUT ONE VIAL ARE USABLE!!!! That saves us $2000 in medicine that we would have had to fork over for this injectable cycle! Now it should only cost us $3000 (wau wau wau). We are just waiting for M to get her AF and then head in on day 3 for an ultrasound. We are soooo excited! Having twins already might make the process a little easier to bear but we must admit we are as excited as we were when we were trying to get pregnant with our first (errr and second) baby. In a week or so, we think that Project Baby C should finally commence!

Now for pictures of the ladies...

A with her first popsicle.

The girls first "swimming pool" experience

Happy R!

The girls playing in the grass
(R on left, A on right)

April showers bring May pregnancies?

2010-04-20T22:08:00.001-04:00

The appointment with our fertility doctor went great! We talked through all our options and he is open to jumping to a more aggressive plan. We think we decided to do a cycle or 2 of injectables before jumping to IVF. Although the average rate of pregnancy is 18% with injectables, our doctor said those numbers don't tell the real story as we aren't "infertile" per say and M's a great age at 31 to conceive and carry a child. We asked which medications we would use and he said Repron.ex or Folli.stim. If anyone has or knows someone who has any of these medications and no longer need them, we'd love to take them off your hands! We will pay any copay or shipping fees! We got an estimate of $5K per injectible cycle or $12K for IVF since we don't have insurance. One large factor in choosing an injectable cycle over IVF is the risk of having frozen embryos left over like we do from J's IVF cycle. We can't distroy them but we don't want to become the lesbian oct.omoms either.

Since M just finished her AF, we'll begin with her next cycle - YAY FOR MAY!

Aside from Project Baby C - our two little angels are getting so big! A is 22lbs and 28.5 in and R is 18.7lbs and 27.5 in. A has 2 bottom teeth halfway in and 2 top teeth that just finished breaking through. R has 2 bottom teeth halfway in and a top tooth that looks like it will break through in a few days. We think R is going to walk sooner rather than later. She now stands for 5 to 15 seconds at a time not holding onto anything and will sloppily walk when holding one of my hands. A is pulling herself up on more and more things and crawling a little more as well. They both have blond hair growing in more and more and A's eyes have turned a beautiful light brown while R's eyes are still TBD. Sometimes they look blue, sometimes slate, sometimes brown and sometimes green. R is REALLY into giving kisses and hugs these days. A has been giving kisses for quite some time but R will actually crawl over to you kiss and hold on to you sooooo tight! It melts our heart whenever she does this as we know it is her way of telling us she loves us. Tonight M was trying to get R down (who was fussing) and M heard R say "Mom" clearly and then kissed her twice! Life is AWESOME!

And we're back in the game again.

2010-04-19T08:09:00.008-04:00

Yes, it’s true... We are gearing up to make a little brother or sister for the twins. Project Baby C is now underway! We might be crazy but we are actually 3 months off when we thought we’d start trying again. Life was just too hectic when the girls were 6 months old as we were also reno-ing a house and then moved in where renovations continue. Now that the girls are 9 months old we are ready to begin this TTC process all over again – this time with M in the drivers seat!

We have our first appointment with our fertility doctor TODAY! We are very excited! We are NOT excited about the punch in the pocket this will cost as M’s insurance (as with most NJ insurances) does not cover infertility like J’s did. Our winning IVF cycle ended up being a couple thousand in the end at most but depending on the path we choose, this cycle could costs an upward of $10K. Our plan is to skip all the IUIs and jump right to an injectable cycle or IVF. This is what we will talk with our doctor about today.

We couldn’t write a post without a little update on how our beautiful angels are doing. B is and has been for a couple of months, pulling up, getting down and crawling ALL OVER THE PLACE! The gates and child proofing has been up and running for quite some time now. A, our more mellow baby knows how to crawl but doesn’t as much as she could. She’s very happy sitting and playing and then crying if she wants to be moved. ;) We did have a big morning with A – when we went into her nursery to get her this morning, she was standing in her crib! This is the first time she has pulled herself up without our help! YAY BABY A!

Neither baby is really saying any words yet – “dada” is repeated over and over again by A but not because she knows what it means just because it is easy to say. B is really into “blah blah blah”. It’s really funny! I think they are both waiting for May 9th to say “Mama”.... That would be the best Mother’s Day gift EVER!!

At 9 months, J has finally stopped breastfeeding. Not because she wanted to, in fact, she was pretty upset that her breastfeeding days were over. The girls just naturally stopped. A was done breastfeeding about a month ago, and B just recently stopped. The girls still have their bottles of formula throughout the day. But now they are also having 3 square meals, which we try to make family meals whenever possible! In the mornings they have oatmeal, Cheer.ios, and bananas(or some other fruit)- which they LOVE. They literally shake and squeal with excitement when we pull the big yellow Cheer.ios box out of the cabinet. There is a little song and dance that we do with it, which may add to their excitement, but either way, they love their Cheer.ios. At lunch they have been having some grapes, toast, cheese and another fruit or vegetable like apples, carrots, peaches, etc. We have to really limit their cheese intake since they had such issues with dairy as babies, but we'll slowly increase it as we go. For dinner they have rice cereal along with a vegetable and some apple sauce. Dinner is always followed by blueberries which again brings on the shaking and squealing. The girls make it pretty obvious which foods are their absolute favorites. They are eating so many new things these days: apples, bananas, peaches, blueberries, watermellon, grapes, carrots, sweet potatoes, peas, string beans, toast and egg yolks. We are going to try chicken, avocado, blackberries and a few other things soon. We just try to do about 1 new food every couple of days so we can make sure they aren't having any bad reactions to them. At the end of the day they get their baths and a nice big bottle which almost always puts them right into a sweet, peaceful sleep....

As for The G.ood Wife - the episode the girls were in is "HEART". You can watch it online. A is the baby in the carseat shot at the beginning and then they are both in the conference room scene right after the first commercial break.

To end - here are a couple of pictures of the girls.

R rehearsing on the set of "The G.ood Wife"

The girls playing together

R being silly

A's Easte.r picture

7 Months!

2010-02-18T14:51:00.012-05:00

Hi blogging world! It's us! While the babies are napping, we thought we'd write a quick update.

Our beautiful A and R are 7 months old already! SEVEN MONTHS!?! We can hardly believe it! They both have their own adorable but separate personalities coming out strong. Life has definitely gotten easier and harder at the same time. Neither are crawling yet but R is on the brink. If we didn't have hardwood floors in our house, she'd be off. For now she suctions her hands to the floor and pulls her knees in to move, or just rolls. A just rolls onto her belly getting ready to crawl but isn't really getting up on all four's yet. She'll prop herself up for a while then whine to be rolled over. Yes, she knows how to roll, but she'd rather one of her Mommies help her because 99% of the time she gets some cuddle time out of it.

We think one of the cutest things about the girls at this age is their interaction with each other. A makes R laugh all the time. It's sooo cute! They look for each other now and "talk" to each other as well. They will sit and play together, and R has been known to stealing whatever toy A has in her hand.

The twins are on a couple of solid foods. Their feedings begin with being nursed when they wake up (usually between 6:15am and 7:30am) then around 8:30am they get cereal and smooshed up banana with some juice (99% water, splash of juice). They go down for a nap after their cereal and usually sleep about an hour but has been up to 2 hours. They get a bottle/breastfed within the hour after they wake up and then a vegetable at lunch. Can you guess what we were trying this day? Think she liked it??

J is making her own baby food and so far found it pretty easy to do. They get another afternoon bottle/breastfeeding and a nap or 2 depending on what we are doing that day (staying home or running errands). Around 5:45pm they get more cereal and then it is bath, bottle and bedtime. They are in bed and sleeping by 7:15pm these days which is great! For a while R was getting up around 10pm for another feeding but we let her cry it out a couple times and it worked. She falls asleep after her bath without finishing her bottle so that's why we think she was waking up. We recently started giving her 1/2 of her bottle before her bath and think she's getting more milk but the cereal is doing a good job of filling her up for the night anyway. They also get a Mum.Mu.m during the day. They are rice crackers that pretty much melt in their mouths. It's adorable watching them eat them. They will hold them with 2 hands and nibble with the 2 bottom teeth that they have growing in. TOO CUTE!

The lack of posting has more to do with how busy we Mommies are, not necessarily how busy the babies keep us. (They DO keep us very busy though!). J is working again part time (25 hrs a week). She started back up in November and works from home. Once a month or so she heads down to her office which is in Arlington VA. It works out nicely since her whole immediate family is in a 10 mile radius of her office so she drops the babies off with Grandma and Grandpa and heads in. We also bought a house at the beginning of December which we have been renovating. We finally moved in Jan 31st but are still doing work every night when the babies go to sleep. And if both of us working and renovating a house wasn't enough, the twins are also working! They were cast to be on a few episodes of "The Goo.d Wife" on CB.S. It seems as though R did not make the cut but A will be in a couple of scenes in 2 episodes. R cried when she was put in the actress's arms. It was evident the actress didn't have kids nor seem to really like them as she didn't know what to do when either baby cried. J was like "try bouncing a little while you are holding her." She didn't take the advice. ;) Either way, they are both making a little money for college.

We all can't wait for spring to be able to get out easier and utilize the amazing yard we have and park we live near. We are OVER the snow already but still try to get out and enjoying it a little before it is gone in a month or so.

Here are a couple of pictures of the girls. R laying on Mommy's belly, A yawning and R rehearsing in her trailer. R was supposed to use the pacifier during her scene on "TGW".

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T09:59:00.006-05:00

We know we are behind on our blogging but we wanted

to jump on to wish everyone a

Merry Merry Christmas!

Bedtime...

2009-11-05T10:20:00.003-05:00

We are blessed with the fact that not one but BOTH of our babies have been sleeping through the night since about 2.5 month of age. We're not talking 5 hours, were talking 8 to 10 hours a night! The problem is getting them to bed. The routine is we feed them both around 8:30 or 9pm, rock them to sleep and then put them in their cribs. Sometime over the past month A started a bad habit of screaming hysterically until she falls asleep. It is not only annoying, it keeps R from falling asleep. No matter what we do, pacifier, no pacifier, rock over the shoulder, rock in arms, rock on rocking chair, walk around, she screams. Has anyone had any problems with this? Also, when is it still too early to let them cry it out in their cribs (Ferber type method)? They will be 4 months old in a few days and wondering if now is the time to try it. A cries anyway (for naps or bedtime), so why not let her cry in her crib and just do the "Ferber check" on her until she falls asleep. Does anyone have any options or techniques we could try?

Aside from the crying, we think that daylight savings has effected them. We used to be able to get them down by 10:30 but now it is running into 11:30 or 12am. They both sleep until about 8 or 8:30am, which is AWESOME, but I'd prefer them go down a bit earlier and wake up a bit earlier.

Other than that, the girls are awesome! The pediatrician told us they were both teething - well their teeth probably won't break through for another few months but their gums are swollen and getting ready. This has led to a lot of drooling (especially R) and constant chewing on their hands. They both seem to like gnawing on the thumb, pointer and "tall man" at the same time. Yesterday, they both also started bringing things, like rattles, to their mouth to chew on! We also held a teething toy to their mouths and they both went to town. J keeps saying she's not going to nurse them once teeth come in because they both (but mainly R) like to bit down on her nipple with their gums if too much milk is coming out or if they are done nursing. M always knows when it happens because J will jump and scream OW! Good times lie ahead on the nursing front ;)

No nablopomo for us

2009-11-03T10:15:00.009-05:00

There is no way we would be able to do NaBloPoMo but we are trying to blog more often. Last Friday the girls had their 3.5 month well visit. They did great! They gained the same amount of weight and now A weighs 13.3lbs and is 26 inches long while R weighs 12.14lbs and is 25 inches long. They both got 3 shots and did wonderfully! Can’t say the same for M who cried at the sight of her daughters’ discomfort. Luckily the cries from the girls only lasted for a few moments, for as soon as they were picked up the crying stopped. PHEW!

They are eating 5oz of food at eat feeding (about every 3 hours when awake) and our pediatrician said no need to add rice cereal to their diet yet so we’ll continue the 50/50 mix of breastmilk and formula. Since the girls had all the gas issues the first few months they were put on the cadill.ac of formulas - Sim.ilac Alli.mentum - lucky for us and our wallets. We will basically have to take out a second mortgage to pay for a year supply but at least it’s working! ;)

A and R are so easy to entertain these days! They will spend ample time on their activity mat then can be moved to the rain.forest jumper, last week were introduced to the Bum.bo chair or of course, a little tummy time on the floor. The game they both love the most is when we lay them next to each other on the floor and “do the Hokey Pokey”. They laugh the entire time as we “put their right leg in or their left arm out.” It is a surefire way to get them to smile. Yesterday, J had the girls in the Bum.bo chairs with the tray on it and some rattles and rings on top. R, with much concentration, intentionally grabbed the rings on the tray! It was so cute! A did as well but R was really into it! They are learning and growing so much these days! Last week, (Oct 30^th) R grabbed her foot for the first time – we guess soon their little piggies will be in their mouth non stop ;) R also has a crazy trick – since she was about a month old, if you hold her in the walking position she will move one foot in front of the other like she is walking! It is soooo funny to watch because she will literally walk across an entire room! And of course, she is proud as punch when she does it. R seriously never stops moving. A is more the type to sit and listen to a story, or sit and smile on your lap, or apparently help write a blog as she just finished playing on her activity mat and is now sitting on my lap as I am typing this, just watching the letters appear on the screen. Needless to say, it is about naptime for her and so she is pretty delirious. Speaking of naptime, the girls are getting into somewhat of a routine. It starts with one waking up first, she is breastfed laying in bed with J then given formula and then off to the activity mat while the other wakes up, is breastfed, given formula and then playtime. Minutes after the 2^nd baby finished eating, the one who woke up first is ready for a nap. So right now, R is napping and A is about to be. They sleep anywhere from 30 mins to an upward of 3 hours for their naps. A, who wouldn’t nap the first 3 months of life, has become a great napper.

We spoke to our pediatrician on Friday about swaddling. We still swaddle the girls, (their arms but not their legs as they are too long for the swaddle) and he said as long as they aren’t busting out of the swaddles – as in the swaddle won’t end up around their necks or over their faces – we are fine to swaddle. They don’t sleep but 20 mins or so when they aren’t swaddled. Their flailing arms wake them up. We’d love to break the swaddling habit but don’t really know how to. We’ve read that you can swaddle with one arm out and slowly break the habit that way. Does anyone know any other ways? If you swaddle or know a child who was swaddled, how old did they swaddle until? We wanted to stop at 3 months, but we are also loving our full nights of sleep ;)

Remember us?

2009-10-29T11:30:00.007-04:00

Has it really been almost 3 months since our last blog???

Life in the 2GirlsAndTheirFamily household has been wonderful. Lots of changes since our last “less than wonderful” posting. Our girls are now 3.5 months old – boy does time fly!! We are enjoying them sooo much these days! It is seriously like night and day the way the girls are now as opposed to even just a month ago. We had been told during that hard times that the 3 month mark will bring about lots of changes. We didn’t believe it at the time as we couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel but at about 2.5 months of age, the girls did a 180! Was it because they were a little “older”, was it because we had FINALLY figured out their gas issues, we don’t know but at 2.5 months old the girls started sleeping through the night (yes BOTH of them), they started playing independently (and together) on their activity mat and they only cry when they needed something. Life is fun again. J gets out of the house daily now with the girls whether to run errands or just go for a walk, which a couple of months ago wouldn’t have happened as one or both of the girls could cry for no reason at any moment and there was no stopping them. The only tough thing about getting out of the house these days is the 3 hour window we have. If the girls are up, they want to eat every 3 hours on the dot. They are getting 5 oz each – half of which is formula and the other half is breastmilk. J’s goal before the girls were born was 1 year of breastfeeding, then after they were born it dropped to 3 months. Since she’s hit the 3 month period, it has moved to 6 months. Breastfeeding has definitely gotten easier but still has its ups and downs. We are both proud of J for hanging in there.

In order to catch up from months of blogless days, here are a few things about each of our pumpkins: A first since she is a minute older. ;)

A is our cuddly baby. She loves to snuggle with us and be up hanging out with us. She isn’t a great napper so it seems she always gets an extra feeding or 2 a day which might be the cause of her cute cubby cheeks ;)
A is very chatty. She will have long conversations with you.
A is also very smiley – she smiles and laugh all day long. Her beautiful smile will melt anyone’s heart.
A is our calm baby. Whenever anyone meets her they can’t believe how chill she is. When on her activity mat, she generally doesn’t move around all too much but has been seen 180 degrees from the place where we put her down. She bats at her toys hanging above her and occasionally will grab something but isn’t at the stage where she will grab a toy because she wants it yet (R is the same way).
A's eyes are still blue but we think they might be changing to brown.
A loves the fishtank! We can put her in her Bumbo (sitting with her of course) and she'll sit and watch the fish forever!

R is very active, it is almost impossible to change her diaper or dress her these days as her legs and arms never stop moving! She basically beats her sister up when they are on the activity mat because she never stops moving. ;)
R is VERY ticklish! Rub her belly, her chest, her neck, her ears, her thighs – you will get an adorable giggle out of her. She recently almost curls up into a ball when she is laughing and brings her hands up to her mouth.
Speaking of mouth, R always has her hands in her mouth it seems. If she is holding your hand, it is your hand that will be brought to her mouth.
R has become very talkative the past month. Her personality is really coming out and it is adorable!
R has grown to tolerate her carseat. She no longer screams as soon as she is put in it and she actually has conversations with the warning label that is on the side of it. It’s really cute.
R still has blue eyes and now we are really starting to wonder if they will stay blue.

We often wondered when the girls would acknowledge each other. It finally happened about 2 weeks ago! We sit them looking at each other and A LAUGHS AND LAUGHS at R. We aren’t sure why she thinks R is so funny but we end up laughing as well. A has GREAT eye contact and will stare at R and talk to R. R, most of the time, isn’t interested but occasionally she will stare back at A and they have even had a conversation with each other! Where was the video camera when that happened!?!? ;) They grab each others hands and touch each others faces. When J is nursing them both, they look at each other the whole time. It’s very cute. And on the activity mat, they will both play longer when they are on the mat together as opposed to just one playing by herself. We think this is a GREAT sign for when they are a little older! We keep telling ourselves that twins are harder when they are infants (than a singleton) but once they get a little older, they will always have a playmate and so life will be easier than if we had one child that we had to entertain/play with all the time. We’ll see if this is true.

Some milestone the girls have hit so far:

A’s First Smile – Aug 24th
B’s First Smile – Aug 31st
First time sleeping through the night (and they BOTH did!)– Oct 1^st
A’s First Laugh – around Oct 14
B’s First Laugh – around Oct 14
R rolled over from front to back – Oct 16th
A rolled over from front to back – Oct 20th
They both seem to have the idea and desire to roll from their back to their front but neither have actually done it yet. They both roll onto their sides a lot.

Here are some pictures and videos to help catch you all up! Enjoy!

One of their Halloween costumes: Our Sweet Peas!
A on left, R on right

Smiling A while R eats her arm.

We think R's face in this picture is very funny.

M and R playing with each other.

Giggling A

Ramblings of 2 very exhausted mommies...

2009-08-07T20:57:00.009-04:00

OK, we admit it. Parenting is hard. Really hard. There is a reason we have not posted a real blog in 3 weeks.

Today the girls turned 4 weeks old. Although we can't really believe it, we also can't remember them not in our lives. But a lot has changed in 4 weeks - both for better and worse. After what we call the "honeymoon phase" ended (when the girls were about 10 days old) life with twin newborns showed its true colors. The "sleep all the time until you wake me for my every 3 hour feeding and only cry a little cry when I want food" has ended. The girls have found their cries and holy cow - they are LOUD! Turtle's face turns bright red and she screams, no... SCREAMS so loud, most of the time, just to be held. She is the very affectionate one and likes human contact and attention. Birdie can also scream with the best of them.

We're tired. We've had a rough 48 hours where Birdie has slept only about 5 hours in total and lucky for us, when one baby cries, it now will cause the other baby to cry as well. UGH. We take turns caring for the two in the middle of the night. If M has Birdie, J has Turtle until one of us needs a break from an inconsolable baby. Like last night for example, there was nothing we could do to calm Birdie - she was fed, had a clean diaper, held, put in her swing, put in her vibrating chair, swaddled, and walked for miles around our living room in figure 8's strapped to M in the Baby B.jorn but to no avail. It wasn't until 5:30am as the sun was coming up that she finally closed her eyes only to wake to the same screaming inconsolable baby 2 hours later. We feel so bad for her and want to cry ourselves when we don't know what she needs or how to help her. Today Turtle joined in the fun of constant crying. We tried going for a walk with them and a car ride but only the b.jorns quieted them down. We had determined by late afternoon that Birdie's problem might be gas related as the past couple of days she had been spitting up more and had almost every diaper leak poop all over.... EVERYTHING. We called our pediatrician and she told us to take Birdie's temp - which we did, thankfully no temp, and then said try Mylico.n drops. We have given Birdie 2 doses so far and.... as you have probably figured out since we have time to write this blog, she is FINALLY SLEEPING!! They BOTH are finally sleeping! We were just joking that Birdie might sleep until tomorrow morning as she has a lot of sleep to catch up on. We totally just jinxed ourselves. We are literally staring at our video baby monitors with our breath held hoping that the little sleeping swaddled babies remain sleeping.

Another crazy thing that has happened in the past 48 hours is that Birdie now breastfeeds?! Since she was born she absolutely refused to take breastmilk from the boob - even with countles lactation consultants helping us in the hospital. She would only get her breastmilk from the bottle. So today J has been breastfeeding them both at the same time - GO DOUBLE BREASTFEEDING PILLOW! J had pretty much stopped breastfeeding Turtle over the past 3 weeks as it was just easier to give her expressed milk since she was pumping for Birdie anyway. Enter S-O-R-E nipples... all over again! Will it take another 2+ weeks for them to "buck up"? Since we never really breastfed Turtle solely (we always supplimented with a bottle of expressed as well) we aren't sure how much milk the two are getting or when to stop feeding them. When they "fall off the nipple" are they done? They seem to fall asleep right there on the pillow and if you try to move one, they wake up and start rooting again. How much is enough... or how long is enough? We feel like we are back at stage 1 with this breastfeeding thing but are trying to figure it out, all while completely exhausted and with very cranky babies. We also still have some latching on issues that we are trying to work through.

It is funny how we "nested" and cleaned the heck out of our place before the girls arrived. It didn't take long before everything was covered in either breastmilk, poop, pee or spit up. Paints a lovely picture of our house doesn't it ;) We have received a crash course in the tough lesson of "going with the flow."

Aside from the babies, J's incision seems pretty much healed. She still has very sore abdominal muscle from them being cut through and now healing. She also is still bleeding - 4 weeks later. We didn't even realize that she would bleed after her c section. We thought that was just a vaginal birth thing. How nieve of us - of course J's very large uterus will have to shed. After not having her period for 10 months, J is definitely ready for this month long period to end.

Now on the the BETTER part of life with twin newborns (Puffer - just pay attention to this part!). They are adorable. Simply adorable. No matter how little sleep we get, no matter how cranky they are, no matter how messy our place gets, we couldn't be more in love with these two little babies. They have really shown their different personalities over the past 4 weeks and we can't wait to learn more and more about them as the days, weeks, and months go on. In the past few days, Birdie has had amazing eye contact. It is like the newborn hazy has been lifted and she will just stare into your eyes with her big beautiful almond shaped blue ones. Turtle loves to hold our finger or our shirt or just have her hand on us in some way. It is so cute! We read that they will actually be able to smile within the next month and we can't wait to see Turtle's dimple and Birdie's eyes smile along with her mouth.

They both love to fall asleep on our stomach/chest but before they doze off, they will lift up their heads and look you in the face. We cheer them on as it is just another version of "tummy time" but also find it adorable that they look at us before laying their heads down.

Speaking of laying heads down, we should really be catching up on some much needed zzz's as they girls will probably be up shortly for their next breastfeeding adventure! To those that have breastfed/are breastfeeding - do you and your baby get covered in breastmilk during the process??? We definitely have some much needed practice coming our way ;)

We'll end with a couple of pictures of our little angels.

Turtle fell asleep during some light reading

Clean Birdie!

Birdie throwing her gang sign

Apparently Turtle is going to be a boxer

Exhausted, but Alive

2009-08-01T21:57:00.010-04:00

Hello!

We know it's been a while, but as you can all probably guess, we have had our hands full with the twins! All is well here, J is healing nicely from her c-section, and the girls are doing awesome! There is no longer any problem with jaundice. In fact, the last time we went to the pediatrician he was pretty impressed with their weight gain. Birdie had gained enough weight to put her at 8lbs 4ozs. And Turtle had gained enough to put her at 7lbs 15ozs! Our pediatrician suggested that them gaining a pound a week is probably not the best thing, but he wasn't concerned at all. They are growing girls!!

We'd love to post more but are way too tired to write a long blog. We just wanted to check in :) The girls are asleep and we definitely need to take advantage of these precious few moments to catch some zzzz's of our own.

Here's some new pics of the little ones - can you believe they are 3 weeks and 1 day already?!?!

Sleeping sisters

Turtle Sunbathing

Birdie content after bath

Pretty girls

Turtle chillin'

Birdie snoozin'

The first week with our girls.

2009-07-19T13:23:00.016-04:00

We can’t believe it’s been over a week since our daughters were born! Time flies when you are having fun!! They even have nicknames now – Baby A or A in the previous blog is Birdie. She got nicknamed that because when she is rooting for food her head turns to the side and she looks like a baby bird begging her mom for a worm. SO CUTE! Baby B or R in the previous blog is Turtle. She is very aware of her surroundings – she has BIG newborn blue eyes and her eyebrows raise while her forehead wrinkles making her look like a cartoon turtle. Equally as ADORABLE! We can’t remember life without our babies! But although it’s only been just over a week we’ve learned so much already and thought we’d share our top 10 list of what we’ve learned.

10. Projectile poop really does exist – just ask M.
9. You shouldn’t choose the bottle type/brand for your baby ahead of time. We bought a bunch of Avent bottles for the girls and only Birdie will drink from them. Turtle does not like the nipples and will not take milk from that bottle no matter what. Thanks to a friend mentioning the Nuby bottle to us months ago, we finally found one that Turtle likes and will feed from.
8. Don’t bother making a plan. We had it all set in our minds that J would breastfeed both babies at once (or at least work up to that). We bought the double breast feeding pillow which is still in its bag. Birdie will NOT breastfeed no matter what we do. We had multiple consultants and nurses at the hospital trying to help but to no avail. Turtle breastfeeds like a CHAMP! Since both girls have Jaundice (which stemmed from them bring premature – although full term for twins and the fact that their blood type is different than J’s) we’ve had to supplement their breast milk with formula as the formula is thicker and will help them pee/poop more. The more they pee and poop the faster the bilirubin will leave their body. So our feedings go like this: Turtle breastfeeds for a bit, M feeds Birdie breast milk from a bottle, Turtle has breast milk from a bottle, Birdie is changed, Turtle is changed, Birdie is given formula from a bottle, Turtle is given formula from a bottle then J pumps for the next feeding. We’ve slowly gotten this down to 1 ½ hour cycles which gives us 1 ½ hours in between feedings to do what we have to do whether it be sleep, laundry, clean the house, wash bottles, do laundry, play with the girls, make food for ourselves, go to the park… etc.
7. Birdie is a faster eater than Turtle.
6. Both babies love so sit in their Boppys and sleep, look out the window, or just hang out.
5. Putting both babies in the same crib has worked out great and they are so cute to watch from our monitors as they sleep.
4. A baby can sleep with her arm straight in the air.
3. We are surprised at how “easy” it is to take care of our girls. Yes, we are sleep deprived but all in all, they never cry unless they are hungry or have a poopy diaper. Our house has remained remarkably clean and we’ve been able to shower almost every day. We are also surprised at how easy it is to go out to dinner with newborns – feed them, change them and then they will sleep while you eat.
2. We were surprised at how quickly their nails grow!
1. How quick it was for both of us to fall completely in love with our daughters. We have always been told that there is nothing like being a parent but we never really understood the reality of this until our girls arrived. Words can not explain the feeling we have towards them. “Loving them” is not a strong enough descriptive. It is an unbelievable feeling which has also brought us even closer together if that was even possible.

The girls are amazing! We just stare at them, kiss them, cuddle them and love them all day long! J is healing nicely from the c section but is frustrated that she is not allowed to pick up anything heavier than 1 baby for 5 more weeks. M has been doing all the heavy lifting including carrying 2 baby filled carseats at once. M is going to mostly work from home for the next 5 weeks with an occasional trip to the office (which is 5 miles away) but that means J is housebond while she is gone. We are surprised at how quickly her enormous belly is going down. J weighed herself 1 week after the c section and she was 30lbs lighter! Only 15lbs to go to get back to her pre pregnancy weight! Look at the difference here! CRAZY!

Other things about the girls…
· The girls seem to change a little every day. Birdie’s face is filling out and they are looking more and more like each other.
· We’ve caught Birdie with her thumb in her mouth a few times and she is the only one who will take a pacifier. Neither the pacifier nor the thumb we are very fond of.
· Birdie has also “held” the bottle a couple of times! We know she isn’t intending too, but it is cute how interactive she is during feedings.
· Turtle loves to gaze up at J while she is breastfeeding. It is an amazing bonding experience that they share.
· Turtle LOVES music, especially Classical (and also a little Pink and Black Eyed Peas when we feel like getting a little saucy). Her eyes get really big and she perks up. Her arms move around slowly as if she is conducting the orchestra. It is absolutely adorable.
· Turtle doesn’t love her sponge baths but Birdie will just lay there and enjoy it.
· They both fall asleep in the car and the stroller.
· Turtle smiles a lot – we know it isn’t a REAL smile yet but we can tell she is going to have one beautiful smile once she can! She has 1 dimple on her right cheek. They both have little dimples by the top of their upper lip when they feed. It is so cute!
· They are both very photogenic which we only know because M takes about 1000 pictures of them a day. Over the span of a 1 minute “photoshoot,” the babies expressions will change a hundred times.
· Twins get a LOT of attention when we go out. A LOT.
· Our entire family could not love these girls anymore than they already do!

We are going to get ready to head to the park and sprawl out along the lake now. Too beautiful a day to stay cooped up inside.

Here are a few pictures of our little angels. Enjoy!

Bedtime for the Babies!

Chillin' in their Boppys

Milk drunk

Stop crying Birdie! You're hurting my ears!

ALL CLEAN!

Sisters

Our girls are finally here!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-07-11T18:55:00.004-04:00

Our twins were welcomed to the world Friday morning!!

A (ironically also Baby A) was born at 9:56am at 7lbs 5oz and 19 3/4 inches
R was born at 9:57am at 7lbs 2oz and 19 1/2 inches

They are not tiny girls!! Now I see why J couldn't move for the past month! LOL.

Now, we may be biased just a little bit, but we can't help but think they are absolutely perfect. We know it's only been 36 hours, but we can already see cute little personality traits coming out. We couldn't be more in love with them. We just sit and stare at them all day long! The babies are doing really well, they have a touch of jaundice which we are hoping doesn't require them to spend the day under the special light, but all in all they are perfectly healthy! The nurse actually just reported that the billi.rubin numbers are stabalizing - guess putting them near the windows today helped! J is doing great with her recovery from the c-section and the two of us could not be happier! There truly aren't words to describe what we are feeling. We know what a blessing (or two) has been given to us!

Here is a picture of our sweat peas ... plenty more to come!

Tomorrow is D-Day or should we say C-Day?!

2009-07-09T20:43:00.002-04:00

Well, we are finally all set for tomorrow. Everything has been done and our bags are packed and at the door. Our c-section is scheduled for 10a and we have to be at the hospital at 8a. We hope we sleep tonight, but are not too hopeful. Both of us are just so excited at the thought of meeting our daughters tomorrow!

We'll post updates and pictures as soon as we can! Thank you everyone for all of your support along the way - it's been a long road, but we've finally reached our goal!!!

We Graduated... AGAIN!

2009-07-07T09:39:00.007-04:00

Yesterday we had our last visit with our specialist. Our dr finished the appt with "You've Graduated! Good Luck on Friday!" YAY! This appt was the same as last Mondays - heart monitors on the babies and J's uterus for 20 minutes (which they behaved VERY WELL for this time!) and then an ultrasound to check positioning, amniotic fluid, etc. Our dr did tell us to make sure that the hospital did an ultrasound before J goes into the operating room to recheck the positioning of the girls. Apparently, the way Baby A is laying now, transverse (sideways) along the bottom of J's belly and face down, is perfect for a normal cutting of the uterus - from left to right. If she flips and is back down/face up on Friday, they will have to cut J's uterus vertically because they cannot grab the back of a baby to pull it out apparently. Our dr said we don't want them finding out the baby is back down after already being cut open as then they will have to make yet another incision either making the uterus cut like a J or like an upside down T to get baby A out. If this happens, the uterus will be a lot weaker in the long run and more susceptible to bleeding as it is healing. So yet one more thing to remember on what we’re sure will be a crazy Friday morning.

We have 2 more appointments this week. Our final ob visit is tomorrow followed by our pre-surgery testing at the hospital. We can’t believe this is finally it! 3 more days! J is sure she is going to go into labor before Friday – “JUST BECAUSE” we are so close to our scheduled c-section. ;)

The past week has been pretty uneventful. J has still not had a single Braxton Hicks or contraction which we can’t believe. Besides the weight of her belly and the general discomfort of being 37w 5d pregnant with twins, things are status quo. The only new symptom J has had the past few weeks is knuckle pain in her hands. She says it feels like major arthritis and she can’t make a fist at all and is in pain when she has to use/bend her fingers. Great timing eh? ;) We hope the water fluid retention goes away pretty quickly after the girls are delivered and her hands go back to normal (and normal size). Everything seems to swell quicker these days. J is still working which is fabulous and plans to work up until Thursday. Why not?! She works from home and with the comforts of her blackberry and our bed (and her ma.c next to the bed) it makes working “easy”!

J had completely grown out of all her maternity clothes about a week or so ago. We are making due with things she can fit in as she doesn’t go anywhere except to dr appts where she can easily just wear sweatpants to. We found all her running shorts with elastic bands still fit her as she really has only gained weight in her belly. Here is a funny comparison of J in her running shorts before TTC and a picture of her last week (same shorts).

Here is another shot of J’s belly this morning – does that look like 15 inches to you?

It is going to be so weird with J NOT having this belly. We almost forget what it is like because she started showing so early on – 15 or so weeks! Needless to say, J is ready to retire this heavy new addition and let M carry half the load from now on – on the outside of course!

We’d say we are generally ready for the girls – really have been for several weeks now – JUST IN CASE. The only outstanding “issue” to resolve is whether or not we want J’s mom to stay with us for a week after the babies arrive. She is more than willing to stay but said it is up to us. We keep going back and forth. We currently have a 2 bedroom place, while a large 2 bedroom place, this still means J’s mom will have to sleep on the couch. This isn’t a problem for her at all but will it just add confusion to the crazy week we will have or will it be helpful for her to be here? She can’t help with feeding as J is going to breastfeed so we guess diaper changes, burping, laundry, cooking? Would it be easier for us to just find our routine on our own at first? We KNOW we will be beyond exhausted and walking around in a daze (and of course, J will be healing from her c section) but would it be easier without another person thrown into the mix? J is leaning more towards thinking her mom does not need to stay (probably delusional thoughts?) and M is leaning more towards wanting J’s mom to stay. Any suggestions out there?

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

2009-07-04T10:09:00.008-04:00

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?

2009-06-30T17:51:00.006-04:00

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...

2009-06-25T20:26:00.003-04:00

...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!!

2009-06-24T09:47:00.000-04:00

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? ;)

2009-06-22T19:07:00.006-04:00

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!

2009-06-20T10:12:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-13T20:02:00.004-04:00

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.

Our nursery is ready!

2009-06-06T14:49:00.011-04:00

Well, it's official, our twins nursery is complete. We've both agreed that it is everything we ever dreamed of in a nursery! It looks so cute and we are so happy with the colors and theme we decided on for the room. As you can see from the pictures below, we went with primary colors and ABC's and 123's.

Completing the girls nursery was one of the final items remaining on our "Baby To Do" list. So we are now able to check that off. We are one step closer to being ready for the twins. Since this Thursday we will be 34 weeks it's a good thing we are almost ready!

Enjoy the pics!!

31 Weeks, 5 Days and still chugging along!

2009-05-26T19:33:00.003-04:00

VA Shower
A couple of weekends ago Js sister and mother threw us our 2nd baby shower down in Virginia. It was at her new house which turns out is perfect for hosting baby showers! :) We got a lot of really adorable clothing and gifts. But more importantly we got to see some of our friends from when we used to live down in VA -- many of them have not seen J at all during this pregnancy, so they were all shocked at her size! The shower was absolutely perfect - except the swollen feet J ended up with. The weather was really nice but it was a little warm. So after being on her feet at the shower for a few hours and then spending the rest of the afternoon and evening with some of our friends, Js ankle and foot bones had completely disappeared! That night we went out with 4 of our close friends to PF Ch.angs for dinner. The waiter really took a liking to us and especially to J and her belly. At the end of the meal he brought us our fortune cookies but insisted that he go around the table and each person pick a cookie and give it to someone at the table, and then that person takes one and gives it to someone else, and so on so we were gifting fortunes to each other. In the end, M picked the last fortune and gave it to J, when she opened it up the back of the fortune had the chinese word for "Mother"! How weird is that! M's fortune had the chinese word for "On Time" - so we're hoping that means the girls are going to come out at the right time and not too early!!

NJ Shower
This past weekend was our final shower and it was at our place in NJ. Originally it was going to be at Ms brothers and his wife's place in NYC, but the guest list was a little too big for their tiny apartment so we had it at our place instead. It was really a great day and we are so grateful for everyone that came and showered us with lovely gifts! We played a little game where everyone had to guess at the size of J's belly around. We had played the same game the previous weekend at the shower in VA and were quite surprised to find that Js belly had grown 2 inches in just 1 week!!

Nursery
Our nursery has really come a long way from the old spare bedroom/office it used to be! We've got two fully assembled and bedded cribs, but we still need the protective crib pads in them. The changing table is ready to go, but we still need a changing pad. The toy box is assembled and full of blankets for now. The dresser and closet are both full of adorable pink clothes and we only need a few more things to complete their wardrobes. All in all we are doing pretty well! We even made the largest of our purchases this past weekend - we bought a minivan! We got the fully loaded Honda Odyssey - a real family car :) It is seriously awesome, and we think the girls are going to love riding in it! This coming weekend we plan to finish buying the odds and ends that we still need ... then we should be pretty much ready for their arrival. Speaking of - that is only 6 weeks away (MAX!)! So its a good thing we are getting to the end of our TO DO list! Pictures of the nursery to follow soon!

Updates
Last week we had an appointment with our ob. Dr H told us that everything looked and felt great and that there were no signs of pre-term labor. When we were looking at the u/s she pointed out how our girls rib cages were moving up and down. Although they are not breathing, their diaphrams are moving up and down simulating breathing, and seeing this on the u/s is a very good sign that doctors look for but don't always get to see. Dr H also told us that they won't do anything to stop labor if it starts after 34 weeks. She said the drugs they use to hold it off are more dangerous than having the babies at that point. She said their lungs are fully developed by then and the only reason they'd need to be in the NI.CU then would be to put on weight. She said there is a 100% survival rate at 34 weeks. This news sent a wave of relief over both of us since we are currently approaching the end of our 31st week!

This week we have an appointment with our specialist and can not wait to see the girls and how big they have gotten! J really feels every move they make and by the size of their movements we can tell that they are getting really big. Also we can tell how big they are getting by how uncomfortable J has been lately. With all the work that needed to be done around the house (and nursery) sometimes J overdoes it, and then she can't really walk because of the pain she gets in her pubic bone. Luckily if she rests for a day or so the pain subsides and she can move around again. We are really trying to get everything done so we can just sit and relax the last few weeks of our pregnancy. We'd like the girls to stay in there as long as possible and are pretty sure that relaxing is the way to go!

We also have an appointment this week to meet our potential pediatrician. We were given the reference from a friend, and once we found out that the doctor is only 2 miles from our place, takes our insurance, and is affiliated with the hospital where we will be giving birth to our girls, it was a done deal! Hopefully all goes well with the meet and greet on Thursday! It would be great to be able to cross that off of our to do list :)

29 weeks and 29 updates...

2009-05-08T21:12:00.005-04:00

This past weekend we had our first baby shower. We are actually having 3 showers in total, but there's a good reason for it (before you go thinking anything bad). Our family and friends are spread from VA up to PA and out to NY. It's really not easy to get them all in one place, and we are so lucky to have awesome sisters/moms/sisters-in-law! The PA shower was thrown by M's sister, Mom, and our sister-in-law. It was mostly M's huge family and also some of our friends and it was fantastic! It was so great to see everyone and all anyone could say to J was how great she looked. Several times she was asked, "are you sure there's twins in there?!" It's true, J has been very lucky gaining weight only in her belly and no where else. From behind you would never know she was pregnant. The night before the shower we were out for dinner and since M could only see from J's bbs up at the table, she also commented that J didn't even look pregnant...until she pushed back from the table to reveal that giant belly!

We got a lot of great gifts at our shower - things we really really need for the girls and also a lot of really ridiculously cute baby clothes! When we got home we unloaded all of the stuff in our living room and it basically looked like a giant pink explosion! Look at these cute little feet!

Tomorrow J's sister/Mom are throwing us a shower in VA. We are really looking forward to seeing J's family and our old friends from that area and even down into NC where J lived for 9 years! Some of them haven't seen J pregnant yet so they will be surprised when they see her!

As for baby updates, last week at our specialist appt, the dr said the girls looked great! They are about 15 inches long and they each weigh about 3lbs. They BOTH actually are weighing a WEEK larger then a SINGLETON would at that same week! CRAZY! No wonder J feels like her belly is so heavy and so large! The ultrasound techinician jokingly remarked that these girls are definitely not starving for nutrition and J should keep doing what she's doing. Both girls are still transverse, which means they are lying horizontal instead of vertical. J often says that she feels like the sides of her stomach are going to split open. The technician actually remarked that it looks painful as they are stretching J's uterus the wrong direction. Aside from the belly stretching, J has had pubic bone pain as well. Who knew the pubic bone was actually 2 bones held together by ligaments (or is it a muscle??)?!? With all the extra relaxin J's body is producing because she's carrying 2, along with her small frame and the weight of the babies, she sometimes has trouble getting up or walking from the pain of her pubic bone being pulled apart. This past Monday J had to take the gestational dia.betes test. She had 5 minutes to drink 5oz of some thick sugary substance that she said just tasted like thick, flat Spri.te. She made M try a finger dip full. ;) We got a call on Wednesday saying that J had passed! PHEW! No 3 hour test for this girl! We were a little more nervous since J had an increased risk since she's carrying twins. Alas, J's still anemic but her numbers are going up and getting closer to normal! Finally!

We had our last class this week as well. It was our breastfeeding class and we found it to be very informative. The lactation consultant/nurse who taught our class actually had twins (boys) so even though we were the only ones carrying multiples in the class, she always stopped to reference how we could do things with two. It was great! Now... if only it is as easy as it looked on the video that was shown.

As for our nursery, we have our 2 cribs, 2 mattresses and our changer/dresser set up. We are having a problem with getting rid of that "new furniture" smell (stain smell? The furniture is E.spresso in color). Does anyone have any recommendations as to how to get rid of the smell? We have had the drawers out of the dresser and the mattresses out of the crib airing out for several weeks now and even wiped down the wood a few times but to no avail. We don't want to put any of the girls clothes in the dresser in fear that they will smell like stain. Any suggestions are greatly welcomed!

We hope all our blogging friends that have recently given birth have a great Mother's Day and we are sending lots of baby dust to those that are in the throws of becoming Mommy's!!

To Store or not to Store ...

2009-05-03T08:20:00.001-04:00

That is currently our big question. All along we thought that the decision to privately bank the blood from our newborns’ umbilical cord was a no brainer. But now we aren't sure if this is something we should be investing in. We have done some research and have come up with the following list of pros and cons:

Pros:

1. "Just in Case" - Storing stem cells would provide a type of biological insurance, in case our baby or another family member needed a stem-cell transplant or related therapy in the future. Scientists think stem cells may hold the key to treatments and even cures for Par.kinson's, dia,betes and a range of other diseases. And stem-cell transplants are already used to treat some can.cers, and immune, and blood disorders. Wouldn't we want our babies to have their own ready supply of perfectly matched stem cells, just in case? Of course. What parent wouldn't?

Cons:

1. Expensive - blood collection fees typically range between $1,500 and $2,500, and storage fees run between $100 and $200 per year. And since this is per child, our initial fees and first year costs for the twins would be close to $5,000. Of course, we'd spend any amount of money to protect our children, but is private banking of cord blood really warranted considering the next few Cons ...?

2. No conclusive proof - much of the stem cell promise is still more theoretical than practical. Research has found only a few cases where cord-blood banked "just in case" had actually been used. This is in contrast to the main marketing message of private banks, which promote the idea of children using cells from their own cord blood. Doctors, in fact, won't even use a child's own stem cells for some illnesses, as this could reintroduce the illness into the child's body.

3. Other sources - stem cells can come from other sources, including bone marrow, public cord blood banks and someday possibly even adult cells.

4. Recommendations from the Am.erican Academy of Ped.iatrics and the Am.erican Med.ical Association - both organizations advise against private cord blood banking for most families, as the likelihood of children needing their own banked blood is low. The range of available estimates is from 1:1,000 to 1:200,000. Empirical evidence that children will need their own cord blood for future use is lacking. The exception is when there is a family member who has a current or potential need to undergo a stem-cell transplant. We have a family member with MS, but there is no available research on the benefits of umbilical stem cell transplantation for individuals with MS.

We'd really like to get some of your thoughts/opinions on this topic. Even though our Cons list is much longer than our Pros list, there is still that question of "what if?" that we can't get past. We are hoping someone will say something that will help us with our final decision.

If we do not store our newborn's stem cells for our own use we will most certainly donate it to a public cord-blood bank. Donating to these banks is typically free and the benefits to someone in need can be immeasurable. You can contact the National Marr.ow Do.nor Program at www dot marrow dot org for a list of sites. We wanted to donate to a cord-blood bank specifically dedicated to MS research but as of now we haven't found any sites that are looking for cord blood specifically for MS research.

A bit of a Babymoon

2009-04-25T07:05:00.002-04:00

J had to travel to Baltimore, MD for 2 weeks of work at the beginning of April. As Easter fell in between these weeks and J’s family lives in the DC area, M decided to drive down to Baltimore on Thursday night and spend the weekend with J and then Easter with J’s family. Even though we both lived in the DC area for several years, M had never made it up to Baltimore so we thought we’d make the weekend a “mini babymoon” as we didn’t see any other time before the babies arrive where we could fit one in. M spent the day on the set with J on Friday and then we went out to a nice dinner. We had planned to go to the Inner Harbor but it was raining and cold so we postponed it to Saturday night. Saturday morning we had a lazy morning just lying around (the very nice hotel room courtesy of J's company) – something we haven’t been able to do much of recently. There always seems to be something we need to be doing or someplace we needed to be going but this particular Saturday, we just relaxed. We eventually got ready and drove to DC where we met up with one of M’s best friends since childhood and J’s coworker (yes, we were introduced through her over 5 years ago) and hung out with her, her husband and their 6 month old baby for the afternoon. From there we headed back to Baltimore where we decided to walk around the pier and have dinner in Fells Point. The night started off perfectly when a parking spot opened up right in front of the restaurant we were about to go to. Then to make it even better, the man pulling out of the spot rolled down his window and gave us his prepaid parking ticket which still had almost 4 hours on it! Although M had never been to Baltimore, she made all the plans and had picked out a wonderful little place on a cobble stone street overlooking the bay water. There were 2 levels to this quaint restaurant and although we (particularly J) had to climb a set up stairs to get to the upper level, we were seated at a lovely candlelit table right by a window. To make it even better, after a few minutes, the only other couple up there with us had finished and left so we had the entire room to ourselves! The atmosphere was amazing and the food was absolutely delicious. We enjoyed each other’s company immensely and although a lot of things in our life are about to change, it is comforting to know that we are doing this together and completely recognize how lucky we both are to have each other and this wonderful life we live together.

Sunday we headed down to Arlington, VA where J’s sister and her husband just bought a great house and where J’s family would be celebrating Easter. It was a great day, a great weekend and although we didn’t think it was possible, we fell in love with each other all over again.

My how time flies!

2009-04-24T11:25:00.011-04:00

We have been very bad bloggers in the past few weeks. M has been very busy with her new promotion and J was sick for 2 weeks then on a shoot in MD for 2 weeks. So we are going to attempt to catch up on all that's been happening by posting several blogs over the next few days.

We are currently 27 weeks and 1 day and even though J's belly is getting very large and there is constant movement from within, we still have a hard time grasping the fact that in under 11 weeks we'll be bringing home our two little baby girls. We think once our babies are handed over to us, it might seem a little more real... or will it be once we are home and we are up feeding them at 3am that it will all really sink in?!?! Either way, we can't wait to meet them.

First update: Classes

At the end of March we took two classes to help prepare us for the babies. The classes were not supposed to be on the same weekend, but one got postponed from early March so we ended up spending our entire weekend in classes at our hospital. Not the ideal way to relax on a weekend, but the classes were well worth it.

The first class was a Adult/Toddler/Infant CPR class. We both have always wanted to take this type of class and figured now was a good time. J already had the basic training from her days as a lifeguard but since M worked at an ice cream stand growing up ... she didn't really have a clue. The bulk of the class was for CPR. They also touched on the Heimlich Maneuver a bit and the functionality (not the actual usage of) an AED. It was all very interesting. J was sore the next day from being in weird positions all day and getting up and down off the ground for our hands on procedures.

Much to our surprise, we were not the only gay couple in the class! There were actually 2 other lesbian PREGNANT couples, one of which brought 5 of their family members for training. For the first time in a while, we found that we outnumbered the straight couples in a non LGBT event! Ahhhh ... gay life in NJ is becoming more and more prevalent. :)

Our second class was called Marvelous Multiples ... and was all about the joys (!) of having multiples. Most of the couples in the class were having twins, but one woman was pregnant with triplets! Before the class we thought J was big, but after seeing some of the women that were further along we know she has a ways to go! The class was awesome! We learned SO much and the teacher offered so much great advice to us. Who knew that baby powder was not recommended for use these days?? We certainly didn't. We also got a tour of the hospital which was awesome! Private rooms, Level 3 NICU (which we HOPE we won't need) and excellent ratings all around. We are confident we are going to have an excellent birth experience there.

We have our final class, Breastfeeding, on May 5th. It should be another very informative class as we don't know too much about it at this point. We've researched and registered for a pump and have done some reading here and there but this class should be more hands on (as much as it can be).

More updates to come but in the meantime, here's a belly shot of J at 26 weeks - still veiny but also still the only place she's gained weight! (The engagement ring and wedding band have been taken off until after the babies arrive) :(

We now return to our regularly scheduled appointments...

2009-03-15T16:16:00.005-04:00

We had 3 unscheduled appts this week - one with the gastro-intestinal specialist, one for blood work and yet a third for an ultrasound- just not of the babies. The pain below J's ribcage has not gone away and the Pep.cid AC Max Strength that our dr put her on isn't helping. (Side note - J has a high tolerance for pain - she once had major dental work done without novicane because she was in her tww.) For a little at home relief, we tried to put heat on the pain but that didn't work; J finds more relief with ice. Either way it is difficult treat because the area of pain is so close to Baby B along with J's ribcage. Our dr referred us to a specialist to make sure it wasn't J's kidneys or gallbladder or some other internal issue. Wednesday we went to the specialist where we should mention that we were the only people who didn't walk in with a cane. The dr said he didn't want to do much invasive testing because of the pregnancy so he started J with blood work and an ultrasound. Of course, they didn't have a ultrasound machine in the office and because of our insurance we had to go to a different place for the blood work. After the appointment, we made our way to the other clinic for J to give blood and then we made the ultrasound appt for the next morning (which was at the hospital). We are going to be able to drive to the hospital blindfolded when J goes into labor we are there so often. ;) In the waiting room for the ultrasound, we were again the youngest people by a good 50 years. They took an ultrasound of J's stomach, kidneys, gallbladder, liver and aorta. Still not sure why the aorta, but we're not the drs. We got a call Friday morning from the specialist saying that the ultrasound and blood work all came back normal. That's a relief, but we still don't know what the pain is. We are now assuming it is ligament/muscle stretching or maybe even something slightly torn as J's belly has grown insanely over the past 4 weeks. She looks at least 7 months pregnant (with a singleton) and we are only in our 5th month! We have our regularly scheduled appointment with our ob tomorrow afternoon so we'll see what she says about J's pain. She's also going to do the first cervix check which will be an indicator of whether J is at risk for preterm labor or not. YIKES! BE LONG, THICK AND CLOSED CERVIX!!

A few other pregnancy symptoms have begun in the past week or so. J's begun to leak very small amounts from her breasts. Nothing noticable, but J knows. Also, J can't believe how heavy her belly is. We wonder why we never hear pregnant people speak of this! Her balance is definitely off these days - M has had to save the day a few times so J didn't topple over ;) J's appetite has been good, but nothing exceptionally crazy like we thought it would be. And as for sleep, J is up every morning from approx 5am - 7am like clockwork. Luckily she works from home most of the time so that she can fall back to sleep for another hour or so at 7. Unfortunately, sometimes she accidentally wakes M up during this time, which leaves a very tired girl heading to work at 8. Our dr said that J would probably not be able to travel after 20 weeks due to discomfort more than anything else. At the time we were about 14 weeks and couldn't really comprehend what she meant but now that we are over 21 weeks and J did travel down to DC this week, we know where she was coming from. Between the early train ride down followed by 2 fully packed long days in the office and the late ride back, J was SPENT! Not to mentioned the pain under her ribs hurt her 10 fold because of all the extra movement and bags she has to carry on these trips. We think her traveling days are definitely numbered at this point.

In exciting news - M felt the babies kick for the first time yesterday!!! Actually, she felt them kick a LOT in the past 2 days - they must have been getting their workouts in. :) It is really awesome that we both get to share this pregnancy experience together! J definitely thinks the kicks are getting harder and feel more like kicks then butterflies in her stomach.

On Friday, we received a package from a really good friend. When we opened it, inside were two ADORABLE little baby girl onesies! It wasn't until then that we realized that we had not bought any gender specific baby clothes yet. These onesies were tiny and pink with ruffles on the sleeves and were definitely 100% Baby Girl! We preceeded to go on a bit of a shopping spree this weekend. Our nursery closet is now filled with adorable baby girl clothes. (We love Tar.get!) Let's hope tomorrow's appointment doesn't throw us for another gender surprise! (We'll hold onto the receipts for a while just in case) :)

Our respective sisters are each planning a baby shower, one in Scranton and one in DC. Last weekend we registered and were surprised at how exhausting it is! So much research, so many choices...! Between the 3 stores we registered at (we had to find stores that were in each location of our showers/family) we think we finally got everything we will need. Now we wait just a few short months for our daughters to arrive! (oh, and we need to set up the nursery too!)

Oh boy... Or should we say GIRL?

2009-03-05T17:44:00.001-05:00

We had our 20 week anatomy scan yesterday. It was so nice to spend almost an hour and a half looking at our babies! They meticulously measured and analyzed every bone and organ in their little bodies and we were told that everything looked absolutely perfect! Baby A’s estimated weight is 11 ounces, is approximately 10 inches long and is measuring 20 weeks and 1 day! PERFECT! Baby B’s estimated weight is 13 ounces, is also approximately 10 inches long and is measuring 20 weeks and 3 days! YAY! The specialist asked if we wanted to know the sexes and we said, we were already told it is one boy and one girl but yes, please verify :) Well good thing she did because our little BOY is not a little BOY afterall! She is 100% WOMAN! Errr well Baby girl! There was DEFINITELY NO male package in between those legs! Perhaps it was part umbilical cord or that the female parts were still swollen (as they are when they are very small) but it was crystal clear to all of us yesterday – we are DEFINITELY having TWIN GIRLS! BRING ON THE PINK! The ultrasound pictures we got (albeit about 100 of them) don’t even almost do justice to the amazing images we saw on the screen. We’ll try to post one or two of the better ones in the next few days.

For the past week, J had been feeling a strange, yet strong, burning feeling right below the center of her ribcage. It didn’t feel like heartburn to her, as she also has that lovely symptom. So after about 5 days of this pain, we decided to call our dr. Of course, it had snowed 6 inches the night before and the office was closed so they paged our dr. J told her about the burning and she thought it might be acid reflux, which is intensified with multiples. J again said, well it doesn’t feel like it because it doesn’t go up my esophagus or anything, it feels like acid is right under my skin. She told us to go to the hospital and she’d have them run some tests. We didn’t have to go to the ER, just to an outpatient type of maternity area, much like where our specialist is located. We were the only ones there so check in was easy and quick. They first checked the babies heartbeats and they were perfectly beating in the 150 bpm range. They put a contractions monitor on J’s belly while they ran through a list of questions and took lots of blood. The resident on duty, in speaking with our dr as well, thought it was just acid reflux and gave J some nasty tasting medicine to see if it helped at all while we waited for the blood work results. J did actually feel some relief from the pain. Two hours later and a shift change later, another resident came in and told us the blood work all came back normal and just to take Tum.s every 2 hours or so. She did mention that J's hemoglobin came back low, 9, and asked if J was on iron supplements. We said, yes and the resident said our dr will probably up the dose to prescription Ferra.let. We looked at her saying, that’s what J’s been on for over a month! Sheesh. J eats red meat every other night as it is, is taking the strongest prescription iron supplements out there and is STILL anemic?! Anyway, J decided to eat a very very bland diet for a few days to see if the acid subsides some along with taking Tum.s several times a day. J isn’t sure how well it’s working but we are both assuming that her stomach must be pretty raw at this point from the days before J started to take anything for it. We hope in a few more days, she’ll have full relief of this pain and just have the old run of the mill pregnancy heartburn.

Now that we know exactly where Baby A and Baby B are situated, we now blame Baby B for all the rib pain J’s been having. She is situated right under J’s ribcage, head on the left side, legs on the right. Not so oddly enough, the rib pain is on the right side. Do we have a soccer player on our hands?

In other news, J looks like she swallowed a basketball. Her belly just protrudes straight out in front of her. M still thinks it is the most adorable baby belly ever but J just looks in the mirror and laughs at it. J has been thin her whole life so it is weird to see this thing sticking out of the front of her! M continues to talk to our girls several times a day (and apologizes for calling Baby B a boy for the past week) and rubs lotion on the growing belly every night! No stretch marks yet! ;)

In our last blog, we mentioned that we had 2 very heavy boxes delivered to our place – one changing table and one toybox. J guesses that M had eaten her Wheat.ies this past weekend because she dragged each box down the stairs, down the walkway to our car and then proceeded to get them into the trunk. J’s really not sure how she did it but was very happy to see M sliding the last box in as she approached the car. Once we got to the store, a man with a cart from the store help retrieved them. All in all, easy return. Now we just need to find a changer that matches our cribs! (Side note for Strawberry – the crib we got is the Bonavita Lifestyle Peyton crib - x 2 of course).

All in all, this pregnancy seems to be flying by as we are 20 weeks today! That means only 18 to go if the girls stay put! M’s sister is in the throws of planning our baby shower – so I guess the next thing we have to do is REGISTER! YAY!

And the verdict is in!

2009-02-25T19:51:00.004-05:00

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!

2009-02-12T06:18:00.010-05:00

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!

2009-02-09T21:09:00.005-05:00

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

2009-01-20T20:22:00.003-05:00

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!

2009-01-15T09:16:00.005-05:00

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!

2009-01-08T08:42:00.006-05:00

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!

2009-01-05T21:01:00.010-05:00

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!

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T17:51:00.004-05:00

Just wanted to wish everyone a very happy and healthy New Year!! We hope that 2009 brings everyone all of the happiness that they wish for! :)

Sick of Spotting!

2008-12-27T10:05:00.003-05:00

Why can't we just have a spotting free pregnancy?!?!?! This isn't helping us relax and just enjoy being pregnant!

Over the weekend, J again had brownish spotting, this time along with mild to medium cramping. We headed into our Dr on Monday for an ultrasound to make sure everything was ok. They had previously told us that we would see spotting b/c of the small bleed on J's uterus but they also said we should come in if we had any problems.

As soon as we got to the office we were brought right in and the technician immediately said the babies looked fine. PHEW! She measured the babies and J's uterus as well as checked the heartbeats which were a perfect 173 and 180 for Baby A and Baby B respectively. The bleed was still visable on the ultrasound but since our Dr wasn't in the office, they said they would call us after he looked over our ultrasound pictures. To our untrained eyes, the bleed looked bigger but the technician said it is hard to tell b/c the ultrasound is 2D. She also said the uterus is a muscle so while it is being stretched, cramping is expected. A few hours later Jenn, our favorite nurse, called to tell us that our Dr said everything looked great on our ultrasound but J should be put on bedrest until the spotting has stopped and then for 24 hours after. By this time the spotting had stopped so by Wednesday (Christmas Eve) J would be off bedrest and would just have to "take it easy."

We think we overdid it last Friday morning when we got stuck out in the snow storm after our last appointment. Our place is up a very large hill and the roads were not yet plowed so not many cars were making it up the hill. We didn't want to risk it so we ended up parking in a shopping center lot overnight and hoofing it up the half mile hill in the snow and cold carrying all of our bags. The next day, the spotting and cramping started. If you remember, J is not allowed to exercise at the moment, so climbing this hill (and walking down it the next morning) was clearly the cause. Not sure why it didn't even occur to us to call a cab - we guess we still have a lot to learn.

J's parents and brother came up for Christmas. We had planned to go food shopping and get last minute gifts on Monday and Tuesday but since J was put on bedrest, M had to do ALL the work!! She tackled the crowds at the mall, waited in long lines at the food store and then came home to take care of her wife while cleaning our place! As if this wasn't enough, she also prepped the meals for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and made 2 cakes and a pie! While J's family was here, M did everything as well, as to not let J overdo it again. J is definitely putting her up for the best wife award this year! J has had no cramping or spotting since so all M's efforts have paid off. :)

As for some pregnancy updates, the single most significant symptom would be EXHAUSTION! We are 10 weeks 2 days pregnant today and hoping that the second trimester brings some relief. We think that beside the fact that J is growing two lil babies inside her, her extreme exhaustion is from lack of exercise and lack of protein. We had b/w done yesterday to check to see if J is getting anemic (along with checking her thyroid levels). No meat appeals to J still, but she did manage to eat a few peices of ham on Christmas and some tofu sausage last night. It's a start!

We go back for our last visit to our RE on Jan 5th and at that point will get "enough ultrasound pictures to wallpaper our walls," says our stingy ultrasound technicial who will not give us a single picture. Now that our families know, they all want to see pictures - AS DO WE!

We hope everyone had a great holiday and have a happy and safe New Year!

A Wonderful Day

2008-12-21T12:25:00.005-05:00

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with M's family in Scranton, PA. The day started off with us giving M's mom a belated birthday present. The present was a Christmas ornament of a pregnant woman's belly upon which we had "babies" written. There was an arrow pointing from the word to the big round belly. We also had written "Grandparents To Be" along the bottom. When she opened the gift she immediately began smiling and teared up and M's dad leaned in to see what the gift was. As they began hugging us in joy, J said we saw them dancing in her uterus yesterday at which point M's parents FROZE and said "What do you mean... THEY?!?!" We guess they didn't see the "..ies" at the end of "babies"!! They were absolutely thrilled! M's brother and sister in law were there and were equally excited.

M's sister arrived a little later, so we told her while the family was opening gifts. We told her in a similar fashion to how we told J's family. We let her open a gift with one onesie in it and then we waited about 30 minutes until all the gifts were opened and gave her another gift with the matching onesie in it. Her reaction was PRICELESS! Bawling and screaming "T-W-I-N-S"!! It was an amazing day all around.

We had a delicious Christmas dinner which had many a toast to a happy healthy year and of course to our two little miracles.

Two Week Waits Never End

2008-12-19T20:50:00.004-05:00

So this was a really long two weeks of waiting .... we definitely thought that getting pregnant meant the end of those dreaded two week waits ... but they are in full effect still!

Towards the end of the 1st week we became very anxious to have a look inside J's uterus just to be sure everything was still A-OK. Plus we were taking a trip to Raleigh for J's grandmother's birthday. Since J's immediate family was going to be there, we were planning on telling them about our pregnancy, so we thought we'd feel better if we saw that everything was still a go. So we called our doctor and asked if we could come in and long story short they said no. Apparently they don't "scan just to scan". Apparently they also forgot that we just recently had a m/c around these same weeks. Oh well. We decided to go ahead and tell J's parents, brother, sister, and brother-in-law anyway. We showed them a onesie and let them soak it in ... and then BAM! pulled out another matching onesie. The reactions were really priceless. J's brother - who is 26 - is so excited, it's really cute how into it he is!

Today we went in for our scheduled visit. Luckily we got in before the storm hit (getting home was another story). The first thing the u/s technician said was "everything looks great". This was exactly what we wanted to hear! Then she did her usual measuring and prodding around, and told us the heart rate of Baby A was 175 bpm. As she kept measuring she began shaking her head in a "no" like fashion ... clearly we both internally started flipping out! What seemed like hours later she finally announced that the heartrate of Baby B (Lil' Stinker) was 183 bpm. He was moving around too much for her to get the reading - which is why she was shaking her head. Baby B continues to live up to his name as the trouble maker!

She then turned the u/s screen and began explaining what we were seeing. At this point in the appointment, M had already cried once. It was here that J saw what had made her cry. There on the u/s screen were two babies - not little blobs - but BABIES! She pointed out the obvious - the heads, the bodies, the little arm and leg buds, the hearts and the spinal cords. We were (and still are) in disbelief at how much they were moving around! It looked like they were dancing and giving us Jazz hands! Sooooooooo cute and so unbelievable!

Our Dr then came in and again repeated that everything looked great. We are 9 weeks and 1 day today and J's uterus is measuring around 11 weeks. We asked if she could begin exercising and to our surprise he said no. He brought up the issues we've had in the past and mentioned that small bleed in J's uterus and suggested she just stay off her feet and be waited on. J had no argument with that! We also asked about the progesterone suppositories and how much longer J would be on them and he said until 12 weeks.

We go back in two weeks to get our diploma (aka files). Then we are off to our new OB/GYN thanks to an excellent referral from Mommy and Mamita - who we also want to congratulate again on their progressing BFP!!

All we want for Christmas are our 2 heartbeats :)

2008-12-06T18:17:00.009-05:00

Sorry we haven't blogged in a while but J has been sleeping since the last blog entry. ;)

Our dr appt this morning went very well. We were excited to see our babies after a FULL LONG WEEK! Baby A, who has been nicknamed Show Off, was all out and about with a strong heartbeat of 128 bpm. Baby B, who has been nicknamed Little Stinker, was hiding at first but then appeared and showed us an equally strong heartbeat of 122 bpm. The u/s technician said everything looked great but did point out a small area that could be a bleed near Baby A! She said our dr would talk to us about it.

Our dr said we were 7 weeks 2 days pregnant (as if we didn't know that already) :) J's uterus was measuring 9 weeks and he also said everything looked great. I asked him about the bleed that the u/s technician mentioned and he said it was nothing to be concerned about. He said most, if not all pregnancies have this and it will not cause a m/c. He said we should think of it like an air bubble behind wallpaper. It could cause spotting but definitely not a m/c. This made us feel much better. He actually left saying everything was an A+ and to come back in 2 weeks.

More pregnancy symptoms have kicked in this past week. J hasn't eaten a real meal since Thanksgiving - no puking, just no appetite at all and lots of food aversions (don't bring meat of any kind around her!). She has nausea that comes and goes and of course sleeps whenever she can. Although there has been a few very early mornings where she'll get up to pee (for the 2nd or 3rd time that night) and not be able to fall back to sleep- even though it is only 4am. She's been feeling a lot of uterus stretching and some headaches from time to time. J has taken to wearing a sports bra 24-7 as it helps with the soreness of her now very large (and veiny) bb. Sexy eh? Oh, and have we mentioned J cries at the drop of a hat? She recently started to cry during a Mc.Donalds commerical!

Today we went to babies.r.us and perused the entire store. First stop, stretch mark lotion! M has been commissioned to rub this on J's belly and bb twice a day. We spent significant time rocking on the gliders and imagining how different our lives will soon be. I wouldn't say we are scared, but seeing the 2 heartbeats today really made it all seem that much more real. We are definitely having twins. 2 babies. Same time. Whoa.

We stopped by bord.ers in hopes to pick up a good book about twins and pregnancy with twins. Can you believe there wasn't a SINGLE book?!?! When we got home we went online and found a few that looked good and ordered them.

We also got our Christ.mas tree today and decorated our place. While typing this blog, we are in the process of watching The Christm.as Story for the 3rd time. (J fell asleep through the 1st and 2nd viewing so we keep restarting it.) Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of our babies today so we are posting a picture of our tree and our furry baby instead. We think Addy is looking for her presents under the tree. She's been sitting there for HOURS! Too cute!

Spotting Scare

2008-11-29T17:12:00.005-05:00

Last night J had some spotting and we freaked out a little. It didn't last long and there wasn't much blood but it was bright red and frightening.

Since it stopped quickly we didn't call our dr until this morning. He said since it stopped and it wasn't accompanied by cramping we didn't have to worry, it was normal but if we wanted to come in this morning we could. So we did. :)

We drove (quickly) back from Scranton, PA where we had celebrated Thanksgiving. We thought the office closed at noon but at 9am when we spoke to our dr, he told us they were closing at 11am today. Needless to say, we scooted out of M's parents house in whirlwind time making up all sorts of excuses on the way. To make it a little more complicated, we had our brother and sister in law riding back with us. And I should restate, no one knows that we are pregnant yet.

Miraculously we made it to the dr in time and were brought right in for an u/s. The u/s technician said immediately that she didn't see any bleeding in the vagina and then preceeded to say there was no bleeding in the cervix or around the gestational sacs. PHEW! She then did the usual measuring and asked J to hold her breath a few times. After a few minutes, she turned the monitor and showed us the sacs and then showed us the heartbeat of Baby A!! All J could say was OMG! We had NO idea we would be able to see a heartbeat today! She then showed us Baby B and we could not yet see the heartbeat. She said this was of no concern for a few reasons. One, and the primary reason, being the positioning of the 2nd sac. (As you can see, Baby B still looks smaller in this image, but it isn't, it's just shy.) It is located lower and almost behind Baby A so it is hard to see it. Secondly it was still early, they didn't expect us back for 3 more days to see the heartbeats. She was confident everything was just fine and once it gets a little bigger, we'll be able to see them both.

Our dr then came in and said while he couldn't really explain the bleeding, he stressed that most if not all pregnancies have some spotting. As long as it isn't heavy and accompanied by cramping, it is fine. He did a quick examination and concurred that everything felt normal. We were 6 weeks 2 days pregnant today and J's cervix was measuring 7 weeks. He said we didn't have to come back in on Tuesday but to reschedule for a week from today; next Saturday. He adviced J to stay off her feet for a few days and also said we may see more spotting so not to be alarmed. We'll let you know how that goes. ;)

We are relieved yet still in shock of seeing a heartbeat today. Absolutely Amazing!

Happy Turkey Day!

2008-11-26T21:20:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy the turkey! :)

Guess we should have listened to you

2008-11-25T14:41:00.010-05:00

Many of you speculated, some of you guessed and a few of you even insisted.

Well, please meet Baby A and Baby B :)

Looks like we should listen a little more closely to our well-educated blogging friends. (Due to the angle of the ultrasound when the picture was taken, you can't see Baby B that well but they are both about the same size)

We were able to see 2 yolk sacs in their respective gestational sacs but it was too early to see the babies or the heartbeats for that matter. Our doctor advised us against going out and buying matching outfits until we see the heartbeats next week but he feels that everything looks great at this point and he'd be surprised if we didn't have a great visit next week as well. He said a lot of other positive things but we didn't really catch it all because we were so overwhelmed. We just stared at each other smiling. And to be honest, we are still wearing our smiles. We both always wanted to have twins, so maybe this is the reason (if there has to be one) for our last baby not making it.

We are told their due date is July 23rd and that we are 5 weeks 5 days pregnant. Our Dr said J's uterus felt 6 to 7 weeks in size and the cervix was long, thick and closed (closed sounds good to us!). We have our next appointment on Tuesday Dec. 2nd at which point we should be able to see two heartbeats. It is going to be a LONG holiday weekend – but we are filled with so much joy!! :)

We'd like to thank you all for your positive sticky bean vibes … it worked... TWICE!

New betas are in!

2008-11-24T19:57:00.005-05:00

6487

It doubled. It a little more than doubled actually so we couldn't ask for anything more. Tomorrow afternoon we go in for our first u/s to see the gestational sac! How exciting!! :)

J has been extraordinarily tired lately. Besides very tender (and large!) bb this is her only major symptom. Very mild nausea sets in from day to day - but nothing a few pretzels and some Ginger.Ale can't fix. Ginger.Ale is seriously the miracle elixir. Today J slept most of the day, lucky for her she works from home! Not so lucky for her company (wink, wink). She gets some random pains in her belly which freaks us out - but we're pretty sure all is well and it's just all of her ligaments and uterus stretching ... or gas. :)

We love the betas we've been getting, but we are ready to see the sac ... and the heartbeat ... and the baby! We've gotten to all these milestones before and we really won't be able to relax until we get past the heartbeat hump. We haven't been lucky enough to get to that milestone yet. We think this is our time!

Tagged!

2008-11-20T21:06:00.004-05:00

Christmas Tagged by Gia, so here it goes!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Recyclable brown bags personally decorated
2. Real tree or Artificial? REAL
3. When do you put up the tree? It's already up. (JUST KIDDING) Early December
4. When do you take the tree down? Early January
5. Do you like eggnog? Not so much
6. Favorite gift received as a child? ALF doll (for both of us, strange you say? Clearly we were destined to be together)
7. Hardest person to buy for? We're really good shoppers
8. Easiest person to buy for? Each other
9. Do you have a nativity scene? No, but looking for the perfect one
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Definitely mail
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Nothing that couldn't be regifted ;)
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? We're changing this question to FAVORITES - A Christmas Story, Home Alone (1), Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, the original Miracle on 34th street, Elf
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Black Friday
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? See question 11
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? M's homemade apple pie or homemade Christmas cookies
16. Lights on the tree? Yep, white lights
17. Favorite Christmas song? Too many to list, no single favorite but we have been listening to Christmas music since Nov 1 ;)
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel - family in PA and DC
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? But of course, we could say them or sing them
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Both
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Traffic near malls
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Silver and Red
24. Favorite meal for Christmas dinner? Turkey and stuffing and lots of sides (does this sound a lot like Thanksgiving?!)
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? To see our baby's heartbeat

We tag TravelHer

Four Digits

2008-11-20T13:49:00.003-05:00

Things are still looking great! Our beta this morning was 1604! YAY!

We were told to come back in on Monday for another bw and if all looked good, we'd have our first ultrasound on Tuesday. We both already love our nurse Jenn, but when she calls with news like this, we love her even more. :)

We have not told any of our friends or family yet about the pregnancy or even that we were doing IVF. This one we are keeping to ourselves and our blog readers until at least 12 weeks.

On the up and UP

2008-11-19T09:42:00.003-05:00

We had follow up blood work on Monday and our beta was up to 434! We are very happy with this number since it more than doubled since Friday!! We haven’t been able to blog because our home internet isn't working correctly and we can’t get on important websites such as our blo.g and hot.mail =\ Since J had to travel for work Tuesday and Wednesday, we won't have our next bw until tomorrow morning. We sure like the reassurance of a rising beta this early on! We are very excited about our numbers but because of past events, are still a little cautious about falling in love with the idea of being TRULY pregnant. We've been through that heartache and it SUCKED!

But we are taking it day by day and staying relaxed and just enjoying the beginning of the holiday season!

The results are in...

2008-11-14T14:01:00.010-05:00

It's official.

We're pregnant!

And with a whopping 176 first beta, we are EXTREMELY happy!

Our last miscarriage started with a 12.1 beta so we are feeling pretty good today. We go back in on Monday for our next bw. In the meantime, J is to start prenatal vitamins and 1 baby aspirin a day and we are more hopeful than we have ever been.

Not really sure what else to write so we'll end it with YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY! :)

Only During Your TWW Would...

2008-11-13T14:06:00.004-05:00

Only during your tww would the below list of symptoms be acceptable and even welcomed.

* Complete exhaustion
* Nausea
* Sore BB
* Frequent trips to the bathroom
* Cramps/Bloating

All good pregnancy signs right? Well, the best sign of all was this one we got this morning...

Slight nausea kicked in last night and continued this morning and well, the rest of the symptoms have pretty much been on and off throughout this whole process. We can’t wait for our blood work tomorrow to see where our beta numbers are. With the way our perfect IVF cycle has gone, we won’t accept anything less than 100% (or well a beta of 100 would be nice) ;) We are excited but obviously cautious as J’s had 2 miscarriages already. How nice it must be for those people who take a pregnancy test, see it's positive and that's that. They have a beautiful baby in 9 months. No worrying about beta numbers, weekly ultrasounds, or if they’ll see a heartbeat or not. They're JUST pregnant. Since we are not “THOSE” people, we’ll just take it day by day, reach each milestone as it comes our way. First being good numbers tomorrow.

TWW

2008-11-12T09:25:00.002-05:00

Well, we are headed into the last few days of our tww. We go in on Friday for bw to see if we are pregnant. We’re just going to go ahead and assume we are, is that bad? No, there haven’t been pregnancy symptoms really, none that J hasn’t had since she started the injections (cramps, sore bb, exhaustion which is prob from progesterone) but we are going in hopeful and with a positive attitude. The last 2 times we tried to get J pregnant, she did. Unfortunately both of those pregnancies ended (chemical and no heartbeat at 6 weeks) but can that really happen again? Could life be so cruel as to have history repeat itself over and over again? Can these 2 “perfect” blastocysts really not implant and form at least 1 beautiful baby in 9 months?

Yes, we are pregnant. At least until we get the results of the bw on Friday.

I hope I don't get bed sores...

2008-11-06T13:12:00.004-05:00

...as I'll be horizontal for the next few days. ;) I certainly won't get stir crazy though as my wife is taking EXCELLENT care of me and our babies. The dr recommended 2 days of bedrest but I plan on laying here until.... well, they are born. We're not taking any chances ;)

Everything went great this morning. Unlike what we have read on other blogs, M was not allowed in the operating room for the transfer. It was just Dr R, a very hyper nurse, the embryologist and me in crazy moonboots that they kept referring to as "stir ups". I mean my legs (up to my knees) were STRAPPED into these bright yellow and black boots!

We are lucky to have 3 extra blasts that were able to be frozen today (for the bargain price of $1700 which of course is NOT covered by insurance). We are hoping that they remain frozen for at least a year ;)

Aside from a cyst check appt or two, now we just sit tight (and look at our little picture of our blastocysts) until we go in for a pregnancy test late next week. Our TWW is slightly shortened by the 5 day transfer but it sure doesn't make it any easier!

And the 6 report cards are in...

2008-11-04T20:25:00.003-05:00

5 of our little embies are dividing perfectly and look very strong! The sixth is looking good just lagging slightly behind the others in the cell dividing. Our embryologists thinks it will have caught up by tomorrow. Guess we'll see :)

We are just sitting here watching the elections and are hopeful that our kids will be born during an Obam.a presidency.

We just need one more perfect report tomorrow and our scheduled 7am transfer on Thursday is a GO!

Cautiously Optimistic

2008-11-03T20:19:00.005-05:00

Yep, six fertilized little growing embryos all with half of J's genetic makeup (lucky dawgs!) :)
It is truly insane to think about it in this way. Just 15 miles west of where we sit, right now, there are 6 babies-to-be growing. Our six little babies. Dr R wants to do a 5 day blastocyst transfer which means Thursday at 7am, 2 of those little babies-to-be will be inside J. FINALLY. We are SUPER nervous that some may not make it to day 5. Is it ok to be sad if some don't? Not sad b/c we won't be able to use them, but sad b/c right now they are growing and mulitplying and... real.

Dr R decided to do a 5 day transfer b/c these 6 embryos are multiplying perfectly and have a perfect shape to them. He wants to be able to watch them for a couple more days to be able to pick the perfect 2 to transfer. So, now we wait, again. Wait for our next fertilization report tomorrow. Wait for the transfer on Thursday. Wait to see if they embed. Wait to see if we are pregnant. Wait.

We are worried that Dr R should have chose a 3 day transfer but we know if he did, we would have worried about why we weren't doing a 5 day transfer. No matter what method we use, it is still 100% a guessing game. All up to luck and chance with a little assistance from a guy in scrubs.

In the meantime, we'll try to keep busy but we are not sure what else there is left to do! We did everything we could this past weekend waiting for our first update! The house is spotless, the coupons are clipped and organized and as previously mentioned, the sewing is done too. Aside from an insane amount of pills J is on post IVF, there are no more nightly injections to do and her stomach is finally beginning to look somewhat normal again. The only reminder that any of this IVF stuff ACTUALLY happened is J's sore ovaries from the retrieval and a small IV prick mark on her arm.

tick tick tick

2008-11-02T14:57:00.001-05:00

Who else is sick of waiting for our Dr to call with the results of the fertilization?

Oh, just us? Ok.

9 Lives

2008-11-01T22:10:00.004-04:00

This morning we went in for the egg retrieval bright and early. By 8:30am Dr R pulled me from the waiting room to give me the outcome of the retrieval. First and foremost, everything went well and J did great. Secondly they had managed to retrieve 9 mature eggs! 9 is a good number. We are happy with 9. Then Dr R said that the important thing is that they are 9 good eggs. He repeated that they look really good. We are happy with 9 really good looking eggs.

Once J woke up from the anesthesia we went home and spent the bulk of the day relaxing in bed ... and by relaxing I mean waiting impatiently to hear from our Dr about the fertilization. So we did what we could to make the day go by quickly. Today J realized that M has a new nervous habit. Sewing. She couldn't have stitched more holes in sweaters, sweats, and socks today. If it was stitchable, it was stitched. A talent like this can come in handy in 9 months!

We should hear tomorrow and are waiting IMpatiently for more good news. It's weird to think that somewhere miles away from us our potential babies are sleeping (and growing) in a petri dish!

Save the Date!

2008-10-30T20:46:00.004-04:00

Together with their follies

Mrs. J H
and
Mrs. M H
request the honour of their Dr's presence
at their egg retrieval
on Saturday, the first of November
Two thousand and eight
at half past seven o'clock in the morning
Dr R's Office
New Jersey

Transfer to Follow

~

Just call us the Du.ggers

2008-10-30T04:46:00.007-04:00

Have any of you been consumed like we have by these large family programs on TL.C? We can never get enough Jon and K.ate +8 and now, the family with 17 kids - the D.uggers. We are currently referring to ourselves as the D.uggers since we found out on Tuesday that we now have SEVENTEEN little follies trying their hardest to grow grow grow! (Keep it up guys! You're doing great!) I have 9 follies on my right ovary (the primary ovary we are told) and 8 on the left. We go back in this morning (WHY have I been up since 3:30am?) for b/w and u/s and to maybe set the day for the retrievel. Will it be Saturday or Sunday? Yesterday we went into our RE's office and had to read through and sign what seemed like more documents then when we bought our home! We had to answer questions like "If J dies, what happens to the frozen embryos, does M get them or are they destroyed", if "M dies, who gets them" and what if we both die or get divorced. In case you are wondering, I'm taking the eggs, M gets the couch. ;) The fact that we were even asked these questions made me VERY HAPPY that we moved to NJ. I highly doubt that Virginia would have given us the option of leaving the frozen embryos to M without getting a lawyer involved!

As for my being up since 3:30? This has unfortunately becoming a common routine recently. Has anyone had insomnia while taking Lupr.on or Re.pronex? Maybe it is just all the excitement about the I.VF (including the painful bruised belly and 2 very large sore ovaries that I feel anytime I roll over) along with the fact that work has been super busy but if I wake up for any reason during the night, I'm up until I go back to sleep the following night. I consider myself a walking zombi at this point. Perhaps I'm just getting my body used to motherhood (9 months early) ;) It's times like these that I LOVE my kitty the most! If I'm up, she's up, keeping me company. You can meet our little angel at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls47oMjwBSw She's a diva!

A dozen one day, a bakers dozen the next

2008-10-27T19:07:00.000-04:00

On Saturday we had our first u/s to inspect how well the Repro.nex was working with J's ovaries. There were 12 little follicles - 8 on the right side and 4 on the left. Today we went in for another u/s and b/w and found that we now have 5 follicles on the left and 8 on the right! And most of them had increased in size since the prior u/s. So all in all everything looks good. Tomorrow we go in for u/s and b/w #3. We were told today that our estimated retrieval day will be Friday or Saturday. This is what our dr predicted way back when we started the IVF injections a month ago and lo and behold - he was right!!

As you can see from the pictures below, J's stomach is looking sexy. By our count we have about 1 bruise and/or welt for each follicle. I'd say that's an even trade :)

Strange places

2008-10-25T06:53:00.000-04:00

When we started doing these shots for IVF we didn't realize how challenging it would be to do them every day at the exact same time. With our crazy schedule we've had to get pretty creative to get them all in and at the same time. Here are some of the strange places that we've had to "shoot up":

- Wedding Reception: Not only were we attending our friends wedding but we were also the wedding videographers. We ran outside to the car half way through dinner service to get our 8PM shot in. When we got back inside we realized that we almost missed video taping the father daughter dance and the mother son dance!

- Restaurant bathroom: During dinner with friends we had to duck away in the bathroom of the restaurant in NYC to take care of business. Unfortunately the restaurant only had a single bathroom for both men and women! When we came out there was a long line and everyone was grumbling at us ... clearly under the misconception that we had been in there having some fun - we were in the Chelsea area after all.

- At J's parents house: J told her parents that she had to get on a work conference call at 8PM with some people on the West coast. This was the only way she could slip away for a 1/2 hour during her visit with them without them wondering where she went.

We still have 1 week of shots left (minimallly) so who knows what fun things will get added to this list!

My wife ... the human pin cushion.

2008-10-22T18:49:00.000-04:00

Last night was the first night that J had to do two shots in her stomach. The shots have to be done somewhere between the pelvic bone and the bottom of the ribs, and they also can not be done within a 2-3 inch diameter of the belly button because that area is very sensitive and it would hurt (worse than it already does). So that leaves about 3 sq inches of space to work with on each side. We got both shots done but J said the Repro.nex really hurt afterwards. It is also a pain in the ass to mix the powder & water to create the Repro.nex shot! It took us almost half an hour to create a 10cc shot last night. This morning I couldn't help but notice that my wife's beautiful stomach was beginning to resemble somewhat of a battle ground. Everywhere I looked I saw pin pricks, or bruises, or welts. I really don't know where we will do the 2 shots a day for the next 12 days since we seem to be quickly running out of available real estate.

I feel 100% terrible giving J these shots each night. I am sure she can't wait for these 12 days to be over so the pain will go away and her stomach can heal. I concur. Hopefully the bruises and welts will disappear as a new little baby bump forms! When we have a beautiful baby at the end of all this it will be soooooooo worth it.

And then there was 2 ...

2008-10-21T20:00:00.000-04:00

... shots that is!

J had her b/w and u/s today to see if the Lup.ron had successfully supressed her ... ummm ... everything. "Baseline" is the word everyone in the doctors office kept using for what we were trying to achieve. Anyway she was sufficiently supressed which means we get to move on to the the next step of IVF - stimulating the ovaries to produce lots of follicles!

It's almost unbelievable that we had two doctors appointments this week and both times we left there smiling. That is a welcomed change!! So starting tonight J has to do 1 shot of Repro.nex and 1 shot of Lup.ron. M should probably do 1 shot of Tequilla so as to not feel left out.

Next appointment is Friday for some more b/w to see how things are coming along. Now follies - don't disappoint your mommies and GROW GROW GROW!!

A+ Uterus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-10-20T19:32:00.001-04:00

Well it is Monday evening and this morning J had her Hydro-tubation procedure - which if you read our previous blog entry you'd know that the outcome of this procedure would decide whether we proceed with our IVF cycle or not. If our dr saw any polyps or abnormalities in J's uterus then we'd have to stop and have them removed - which would lead to another 90 day waiting period and utter devastation.

About 2 minutes into the procedure Dr R announced that "everything looks great so far". And about 2 minutes later he said that everything was perfect. In fact he said that everything was better than perfect, it was an A+! It's been a long time since we got graded on anything but I don't remember it ever feeling so good to get a perfect score!

So with that we are proceeding with IVF as planned. Tomorrow brings our first b/w to see if the Lup.ron suppressed everything completely. If it has, we move on to the next step - Repro.nex.

Hydro WHAT?

2008-10-18T12:04:00.000-04:00

J is scheduled for a hydro.tubation procedure on Monday 10/20. Basically they stick a catheter into her uterus, fill her uterus with saline solution and look for polyps or other abnormalities in her uterus that could interfere with a potential pregnancy.

Basically, if this test doesn't go well and the dr finds something, the IVF cycle is a BUST. Our dr calls this "being thorough" - we call it ANNOYING.

Our FINGERS and TOES are crossed.

Shots Shots Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

2008-10-18T11:46:00.000-04:00

We called our doctor back in September get our medication ordered as we were told it took several weeks to process and be sent out. The MASSIVE box of injections and pillls arrived and quite honestly we thought... WHAT ARE WE ABOUT TO GET OURSELVES INTO?! The days of football and coronas are now long over. (well, not so much football, but definitely corona.)

On October 1st, we called our doctor to see what the next steps would be as we only had 14 days left in our 90 day waiting period. We were told that we start on day 21 of our cycle. Of course we were bummed by this news... more waiting... until we were asked when J's last Day 1 was. Since it was on September 16th we were told that we could start our injections on October 7th! This was 7 days before our waiting period was up! FINALLY WE CAUGHT A BREAK!!!!!

We went in for our "how to" class early Tuesday morning and then preceeded with our first injection later that evening. As J had to travel for work the next day, she gave the shot to herself as practice for the following night. After several c ounts to 1..2..3 J finally jabbed the needle into her stomach. OUCH! That hurt more then she had thought it would! But it was done. 1 down, 13 days to go for the Lup.ron. After the 14 days, we go in for an u/s and b/w to make sure J's ovaries are suppressed. We were told by suppressing the ovaries, it gives our dr full control of our cycle. If all checks out, we will being the Reprone.x cycle of injections.

Injections have been going fine. Some days it hurts more than others. Only one call to the pharmacy with a panicked "is she going to die?" J injected herself (while in DC on business) and when she pulled the needle out, bright red blood followed. Enter M calling the pharmacy while J worries she hit a vein. The pharmacist had assured us that while "this is NOT normal, it could happen and it isn't anything to worry about." Not so r elieved but definitely bruised.

We have yet to find the "perfect location" of where to inject for the miminal amount of pain. Until then, J's stomach will be covered in pinholes, bruises and a few welts. Sexy eh?

The last year of our lives.... recapped.

2008-10-13T21:31:00.000-04:00

Every day we said "we should really be writing all this stuff down" ... every time something good or bad happened ... but we kept putting it off. So here we are 1 year into trying to get pregnant and we're finally going to start documenting our journey.

October 2007
It was early October when we first headed to Fairfax Cryobank to pick up "the goods." We had finally made the difficult decision on which donor to use and now it was time to meet him! Since our fertility doctor was in DC and our 1.8 billion potential babies were all in Virginia, we decided it would be best to personally transport them to the doctors office. So we drove out to the cryobank to pick up what we expected to be a small container. Sperm are small. So the container that holds them should be small too, right? Wrong. Picture your typical missle and then picture bigger. Now picture us carrying this large vessel-like-object around M Street in Georgetown! For those that don't know M street, it would be like carrying a similar object around Times Square in NYC!

Well we got the goods delivered, although this is hardly how we imagined our first outing with our babies! Now if only the rest of our baby making could be as fun as this day was :)

November 2007
First IUI ... unsuccesful. Almost positive we did not time this right.

December 2007
Second IUI ... unsuccesful. Again - almost positive we did not time this right. This time we tried using Proge.sterone although it didn't change the outcome of this attempt.

January 2008
M is now living in NJ and J is still living in DC. This month J had to inseminate on her own. But this may have been the change we needed (along with the addition of Clo.mid) because this time we got a positive pregnancy test! J was home for the weekend and we got to take the test together. It was completely unbelievable when we saw the pregnancy test turn positive. We thought it was too good to be true. And guess what, we were right. The b/w looked good the first check, but 2 days later... the beta numbers had dropped. It was a chemical pregnancy. BLAH. The only good news was that J responded well to the Clo.mid and she can get pregnant! The only side affect she had to the Clo.mid was some hot flashes which were entertaining to watch as she began stripping articles of clothing.

February 2008
It's so sad when a month is wasted. There's really no feeling like it - when you realize that when your eggs ovulate and look for sperm they will not find any to become fertilized with. Instead they will shrivel up and die. This is what February was for us because even though we were not pregnant any longer our beta numbers refused to go to zero ... and until that happened we could not try another IUI. So we sat ... waiting... impatiently.

March 2008
This was an interesting cycle. Not only did our doctor tell us we could not attempt an IUI this month but he also informed J that she should go on the pill. Thats right, my les.bian wife that was trying to get pregnant was now on birth control for the first time in her life! Ironic isn't it? Our doctor had high hopes that the BC would help to get rid of the cyst that had formed ... we think due to the Clo.mid. End of month proved our doctor to be wrong as the cyst was still there taunting us.

April 2008
Well we finally got to try to get pregnant again this month. It was Spring and there was a promise of new life ... and we had especially high hopes. It was our first IUI with our new fertility doctor in NJ and he had informed us of a little something called the Trigger Shot. WHAT?! What is this shot and how did our other doctor fail to mention this to us!? Why were we inseminating based on a whim and an ovulation stick?! It had always been such a crap shoot to figure out when to inseminate and now with the knowledge of the trigger shot we could know within 36 hours of when to inseminate. We finally felt we had a chance to get pregnant. After using clo.mid for 5 days we went in to see how many follicles had formed. We went for a u/s and it showed 8 follicles too small to use just yet. We were instructed to return in a few days once the follicles had grown a bit. When we went back for another u/s we were looking forward to hearing some great news, so we were a little sad when our doctor informed us that none of the eggs had grown and our ovaries appeared to be ummm... resting. Yes, taking a nap. So he had us repeat the Clo.mid even though this was not something we even thought was possible. The next week we went and found that we had some mature follicles! YAY- once again we were hopeful and geared up for our insemination.

May 2008
It's Mothers Day and today is the day that we can do our Pregnancy Test. Once our eggs finally woke up and grew to a respectable size the rest of the insemination went perfectly. Plus it's Mothers Day - it's meant to be, right?! So we wake up and take the test fully expecting a Yes. Again, it's Mothers Day, it just HAS to be positive. Negative. (Yes, you read correctly, Negative on Mothers Day). Enter mexican restaurant and Coronas.

The next day we tell our doctor it was negative but they ask us to come in for b/w to confirm so we do. Only to find out that we ARE in fact pregnant. However the numbers were a little low (12.1 on 5/12). At this point we are cautiously optimistic but are figuring it will end up as another chemical. Later that week they had more than tripled which was great news! (80.0 on 5/15). And by Saturday 5/17 the beta had reached 258! We waited one week before our next round of b/w and our betas had reach 4166 on 5/23! All signs were good, we even got to see the baby gestational sac and carried the u/s picture around with us like it was an actual baby. We were too excited to keep it a secret and told basically everyone we knew that we were 7 weeks pregnant. Yeah, it was a little early to tell people, but all signs were good, and we already had 1 m/c, so we had to be ok this time. After we had told pretty much everyone that we were expecting we went in for our appointment to see the baby's heartbeat. There was none. We waited one week and went in again and this time there was a heartbeat! Our prayers had been answered! But then the doctor told us the heartbeat was too slow to be happy. The following week there was no heartbeat and our dr didn't have to say anything we were already unhappy.

Just to recap that cycle in case you couldn't keep up: ovaries "resting", ovaries made eggs, inseminate, negative pregnancy test, positive pregnancy test, numbers too low, numbers look good, see the pea sized baby, no heartbeat, heartbeat but too slow, no hearbeat. Sound like a rollercoaster? Because it sure felt like one!

July 2008
We let everyone know that we had miscarried and decided to let nature take its course ...
After 2 weeks of heavy, heavy (scary heavy) bleeding it finally stopped. There were definitely phone calls to the doctor in this time to make sure that the amount of blood we were seeing was normal (and safe). Then it finally stopped. We figured it had all passed, but after a u/s we were told there was still more to come out. Again, we think nature will do its thing. So 2 weeks later began more heavy bleeding. This time it all has to be all out for sure! Doctor appointment, u/s, still more to come out - sound familiar? Yeah, except this time we were told that we pretty much had to get a D&C ... because nature had clearly not been taking it's course.

On July 14th, J went in for her first sugery ever and her first anesthesia ever. All went well but the real recovery was the emotional one.

August 2008
We thought we could try another IUI this month since J was completely recovered from the D&C, but when we asked our doctor they told us that following any surgery it was required that we wait 90 days before doing anything otherwise insurance would not cover it. Seriously? We did not know this - it really would have been nice to know this. So we called our insurance company to verify and they told us that they had never heard of that and it was not true. So we called our doctor back and they assured us that it was true. So we called the insurance company back and got the same answer. At this point we are so confused so we tell our doctor to talk to our insurance company with us on the line. The conversation went something like this:
cig.na - "I understand there is some confusion with J's coverage"
doctor - "No, she doesn't have coverage because of the global code"
cig.na - " Ohhhhh, the global code! Yeah, she has to wait 90 days."
doctor - "ok bye."
J - "WHAT THE (%&$!!!!"

Maybe you could have mentioned this "global code" 4 weeks ago instead of wasting my time calling cig.na and the dr 400 times?!

At the end of the day we knew we had to wait 90 days - which meant October 14th.

September 2008
Helloooooooooo coronas and college football. We decided that if we weren't pregnant or even trying to get pregnant, we were at least going to enjoy your time off.

October 2008
IVF process begins and this is where we start blogging in real time.

Would The Perfect Donor Please Stand Up

2008-03-18T11:59:00.000-04:00

We always knew we wanted to start a family but being two women in a committed relationship, we didn't know where to begin. We embarked on an extensive internet search coming to the conclusion that we would need two things: a fertility doctor and a donor.

After months of meticulously searching for a the perfect altruist, we finally narrowed down the perspectives from ten to five, and finally to three. Three catalog numbers, three health reports, three personality profiles, three childhood photos. In the wise words of SchoolHouse Rock, "Three is the magic number" right? Well, in our case, THREE is TWO too many. Sigh.

We knew the main criteria for our perfect donor would be excellent health records, height (as we are both tall), blue eyes (since one of us has brown eyes and one has blue, we looked back to our grammar school days when we learned about eye color dominance and wanted to make sure that our children would have a chance to have either of our eye colors), and athletic (as we both are).

We knew we both wanted to carry a child and therefore determined that our donor would be the integral component that would interconnect our children. This decision only made our current deliberation that much more important.

In time, three narrowed to two and it soon became very clear to us who our donor should be.