30 Week appointment

Okay, so I had told myself that I was going to write about the shower before today's 30 week appointment, but I was really lazy yesterday and I want to really take the time to decide what I want to say and choose some good pictures to post. So for now, here's my 30 week appointment synopsis.

As with every appointment, today's started with a ultrasound. It was an appointment with my regular OBGYN so none of the fun measurements, BUT I did get to see that while Logan is still head up, Riley is well on his way to being head down. He isn't fully head down yet (still on a bit of a slant) but he will be soon. Just to recap, first they were in bunk bed position with Logan on the bottom. Then Logan was head down and Riley was head up. Then they were both head up,and now Logan is up and Riley is down. We talked about the possibilities for delivery in the future. Logan is "baby A" which means he's the lower one. If he doesn't turn around, its a c-section, no questions asked. If he does turn around, well then I will have to make a decision. My doctor let me know that even if they are both in prime position, while Logan is being delivered, Riley could move out of position and I could have to get a c-section anyway. I can't think of anything more painful than having to go through BOTH recovery processes! I guess we will have to wait and see if Logan even gives us the option, but I don't think anyone will blame me if I decide just to go with the c-section. I guess I will have to think about it more as I go to my twice weekly non-stress tests and biophysical exams and see their positions as we get closer.

I finally have answers to the questions everyone has been asking me!
1. Will they let the babies go all the way to their due date? Sorry grandma, Lisa, and all you other April birthdays, the babies are going to be born in March. Should they choose to continue "cooking" that long, they will pull the plug and deliver the babies between 37 and 38 weeks.   That means that March 25th or so would be the absolute latest they will make their appearance. That doesn't, however, rule out my St. Patty's day guess!

2. When will you stop working? The doctor told me that while they used to make all women pregnant with twins stop working at 28 weeks, now they let them go a lot longer. She is, however, pulling the plug at 34 weeks, so my last day will be Feb 27th. I know its weird to end on a Monday, but I have a dr. appointment Friday and I want to have the time to make sure everything is in order and not go running out on my last day if I can help it. In case you don't remember, yes, I am going back to work, on  May 16th. I'm not out of my mind - Steve will be done working by then and my mom is going to help him get acclimated if I end up going back a week sooner (I'll decide after they are born). That way we don't have to worry about daycare AND I don't have as many unpaid days. PA does not have those fantastic FMLA laws that NJ has. 

Baby Bump Pic - Weeks 28 and 29

Sorry for the delay in pictures - things have been really hectic with the new semester starting and Penguin seeming to have come down with kennel cough.

No more excuses, though, so here are the pictures! We thought we'd change up the scenery a bit, so here's the corner of our fireplace:

Week 28

Carrie likes to point out that there doesn't seem to be any week-to-week difference in size. In alien baby appearances? Definitely more, especially when they get a book read to them.

Week 29

GT test and 28 week appointment

On Saturday I went to the lab for my glucose screening. They do the screening to look for gestational diabetes. The screening requires you to drink a disgusting sugary drink, sit for an hour, and then take a blood test. If you fail the screening, you have to take a 3 hour test, which requires you to drink an even worse drink, sit and wait for 3 hours, and then take a blood test.

When my doctor gave me the lab order, she didn't tell me anything about it as far as whether I should fast or not, so I decided to look it up. Nothing I came across said anything about fasting, but I did discover that you have to drink this beverage within 5 minutes and it is not uncommon for women to have difficulty keeping it down. Seeming as though I have thrown up water before from drinking it fast, I was worried. When Saturday arrived, I was going back and forth between the idea of eating or not eating, not sure which would keep my stomach settled. I ultimately decided to drink just a little bit of milk (about 3 oz) because water tastes nasty to me when I wake up. When I got to the lab, I was told that I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything and now I must wait an hour before drinking the sugar drink and waiting an hour. I said I'd rather not wait and drink it right away (which could affect the results) but Steve wouldn't let me. The good news is that I was able to keep it down (although it was questionable at times) even though I wasn't allowed to drink any water for the whole hour after it. The better news is that I passed the screening (hooray for ice cream after dinner!)

Monday I had my 28 week appointment at Maternal Fetal Medicine. I was disappointed not to have Kristen as my sonographer, and the doctor I spoke to at the end was incredibly rude to me and refused to answer my questions, BUT the babies are doing great! The babies are still both head up, butt down, but the sonographer said they are facing my back (which meant no good pictures, sorry). I'm sure she is right, because she is the expert and it all looked like blobs to  me, but that means unless they have moved since yesterday, my babies are contortionists! They are still alien-baby moving all over my stomach, and Riley likes stick out both his head and his butt, making my stomach look lopsided.

The really good news is that Logan was measured at 2 lbs, 10 oz and Riley was measured at 2 lbs, 9 oz. They were only 10 grams apart, which gives them only a 1% differential. I guess I didn't seem impressed enough, so the sonographer kept saying it was incredible and offered that they don't even start to worry about the sizes unless the differential is at least 20%. She also showed me the charts below and emphatically told me they are growing beautifully and all looks really great. The bottom line is the low normal weight gain for a single baby, and top is the high. Both Logan and Riley are just above that 50th percentile. That means I'm growing two perfect babies. What are you doing?  :)

Okay, I guess she's not stealing the basketball.

Hmm... maybe it's a beach ball under there.

Penguin seemed to enjoy her first experience with a basketball, though I think she would have liked it better if she could have actually picked it up.

Baby Bump Pic - Week 27

Latest baby bump pic:

Week 27: Here come the alien babies!

If you've never seen the alien baby effect in action, it's pretty cool. I never knew that you'd be able to actually see the movement a baby through the belly!

More pics and videos of the nursery and Penguin to come!

- Steve

Carrie's favorite day of pregnancy - week 20 appointment

After a lot of waiting (although I swore it was 2 boys from week 10 on) the day before Thanksgiving finally arrived. This was a double whammy of excitement for me because yay, it was a half day with a 5 day weekend, and it was time to find out the sex of the babies. My parents were at my house when I got home from school, and after lunch we were on our way. As I had mentioned before, Kristen, the sonographer, had scheduled herself to to my sonogram and had also checked in with me at my previous appointment a few weeks prior to see if I had still held out about telling people it was twins. She was excited to do the scan and warned her coworkers that if they heard screaming, they shouldn't worry.

So in we went, and after they set up, Kristen asked "So, you want to know the sex?" and I of course replied that  I did. After no more than 30 seconds of looking, she exclaimed "It's two boys!" My parents laughed, thinking it was a joke. I said "I knew it!!!" because seriously, I'd been saying that for 10 weeks.
The room quieted down and the sonographer started the measurements. On the screen, it said Twin A and Kristen kept mentioning that there was more than one baby as she measured, saying things like: this is the first baby's hands, and this is baby A's spine. No reaction whatsoever from my parents. My dad kept looking at Steve, but didn't say anything. My mom kept looking at the screen with a smile on her face. Steve was looking worried, and kept staring at Kristen who was beginning to look exasperated. I found myself wondering if I was going to have to tell them on the ride home. Right after viewing the chambers of baby A's heart, Kristen moved to baby B's heart to try to make it really obvious. Nothing. This whole time Steve is poking me and making faces at Kristen, as if to say "What do we do?" Unsure of any other way to make it clear, Kristen zoomed out and loudly said "And THIS is the MEMBRANE separating the TWO BABIES."

At this point, 25 minutes in, my mom FINALLY got it. She started shrieking and crying and laughing all at once. There was a rapid fire of emotions... I'm so happy!.... Are you going to be okay?... How could you not tell me? I'm really mad you didn't tell me.... What a surprise.... This was a neat way to find out....

My dad just turned and said "I thought I was the only one who didn't know."

Then the nurse came in (who also knew our plan) and asked what took so long. She had been waiting outside the door. While Kristen did the rest of the measurements, my dad kept ragging on my mom, asking how she didn't notice the Twin A and Twin B on the screen OR all of Kristen's descriptions. She just said she was so focused on the picture she tuned everything else out.

When it was over, we went to Buy Buy Baby to pick out the bedding, because my mom agreed to paint a mural in the nursery to match. I swear my mom told everyone in the store that it was twins and about how she found out. Only she didn't start from the beginning, telling everyone a different part of the story, and no one had any idea what she was talking about.

It was a good day.

At this point, they were no longer bunk bedding it. One was head down, on my left, and the other head up on my right. We just always call Logan left and Riley right. Who knows how many times they have/will switch names.

The 12 Week appointment

So like I said, Steve and I realized that we were adjusted to the idea of twins the night before the 12 week appointment. We were excited to go to the appointment because it was at Maternal Fetal Medicine and we knew they were doing measurements, so that meant we'd get to spend a lot of time watching the babies. When we got there, we had to meet with the genetic counselor because of my blood disorder. (Side note: on Dec 27, the hematologist told me that I do NOT have spherocytosis, the blood disorder they have told me I had my whole life. She said they just call it that because they don't actually know what I have. Its my own special blood disorder and it might not even be genetic. They just call it spherocytosis because it presents the same and that's the closest thing with a name to my blood disorder.)
What was cool about meeting with the genetic counselor was that he answered any and every question I could possibly come up with about the twins. Then it was off to see the babies! As you can see in the picture, the babies started out in bunk bed style.

Kristen, the sonographer, told us that the bottom baby looked like a boy. She wasn't sure about the top baby, but before she could share her guess, we asked her to please not tell us! We wanted to wait until the 20 week when we could be more sure. In conversation, we also told her that we were not telling anyone it was twins until we found out the genders at 20 weeks. I told her that my mom was going to come to that ultrasound and it would pretty funny if that's how she found out. Kristen said she thought that was an awesome way to tell my mom, but she bet that I would not be able to make it 8 weeks without telling. (To which I replied, why not? I waited 8 weeks to tell anyone there was a baby to begin with!) After the measurements were done and the appointment was over, Kristin walked out with me to make sure she would get scheduled for my 20 week. She said there was no way she was going to miss this!

Baby Bump Pic - Week 26

Here's the latest pic!

"So that's who stole the basketball..."

Carrie has decided she should be called "Shamu-mu," since she says she feels like a whale and her clothes look like mu-mus.

I personally think she still looks great, though, and am still fascinated by the moving lumps on her belly.

From the beginning...

As you can imagine, while having a baby was planned, having two was definitely not.

Steve and I found out that we were expecting on August 2nd. I was about 4 weeks along at the time. At 7 weeks I had my first appointment, which was really just a question asking/information session. The following week was my first real appointment, so Steve came with me. They started the appointment with an ultrasound to confirm that there was, in fact, a baby. When the ultrasound technician brought the blobby looking image up on the screen, she said something to the effect of "Oh look, it's twins!" I responded with a chuckle and said "very funny." Steve laughed as well and we directed our attention back to the screen.

The tech continued on with her twin speak, to which I replied, "You're hilarious. Please stop." Steve said he didn't think she was kidding and pointed out that he could see two circular images on the screen. That's when the nervous laughing started. I swear that Steve laughed for the next 45 minutes... even while we were in the exam room later on with the doctor. Later he said that he just laughed continuously because he didn't know how else to react. I, on the other hand, was not laughing. I did however yell in the ultra sound room "Two babies on the first try? I am the most fertile person EVER!"

Have you ever heard of the saying "If you want to hear God laugh, make plans?" Well, after getting pregnant on the first shot with good timing to be on maternity leave through the end of the school year, I thought my plans were working pretty well. I felt like the news of twins was God's way of laughing at me and giving me the finger. I was not pleased. At all. It was a lot to get used to... and on top of it I felt guilty that I wasn't happy about it. That is, until I found out that my reaction was completely normal. In fact, unless twins run in your family, they are more concerned about you if your first reaction is glee instead of anger or panic. That made me feel a lot better. Anywho, it took about 4 weeks before either of us were okay with the idea. The day before the 12 week ultrasound, I asked Steve how he would feel if there was only 1 baby this time. For the first time we both agreed we'd be disappointed.

Toy #1

Success!

The babies' first toy has been put together without any injury, cursing, or broken/missing/extra pieces. Although Fisher Price could have done a better job of getting the holes in the seat to line up with the pegs on the frame. All in all, an easy build, and Penguin is still just a bit wary of it when it moves. We've been nice enough to not put any batteries in it yet.

Carrie wonders how much Penguin's going to like the motorized swing/bouncer.

Next on the agenda is the nursery. Carrie's mom is coming tomorrow to paint some jungle scenes. We'll post before and after pics later.