The waiting game

"I haven't had the baby yet."  That's how I've started most phone conversations lately.  It's my due date today so everyone has been a little on edge when they see my name on their caller ID.  I've also been dilated at 5 cms since at least Monday when my Doctor stripped my membranes so that is really putting everyone on edge.  But NOTHING is happening.  And the anticipation is killing me. 

I am proud that I made it to my due date.  What gets me is that I'M AT A FIVE!  On Monday my doctor said she'd be surprised if I made it to my next week's appointment, but if I did then we would talk about inducing.  She left the room saying, "maybe I'll see you later today." We've been on high alert pregnancy wise since then.  Every night I go to bed thinking that I'll wake up at 2:00 am or something to contractions or my water breaking.  And every morning I am severely disappointed when I wake up at 6:00 to the regular morning routine.

I've been passing the time by sleeping, watching movies and TV (we got a digital converter box from Brandon's Grandma's house so we are trying it out) and crafting.  I framed this card for above the girl's cribs.

And I made this for the kitchen.  It say's Putting the MESS in domestic.  That's kind of my theme around here.  (Yesterday I discovered how to blow up a can of frozen orange juice using the microwave.)

So yeah, if my name shows up on your Caller ID its because I'm bored, not because I had the baby.

Babies are Here!!!

I'll do a more detailed post later, but for now this will work.

The girls were born last night. My water broke at 6:15 and the babies were delivered by C section at 10:39 and 10:40. Here are the stats:

Charlotte Skye (AKA Baby A)

19 inches

4 lbs and 10 ozs

Lydia Brooke (AKA Baby B)

17 inches

3 lbs and 12 ozs

Both babies are in the NICU and they are both being assisted with breathing, but they are improving all the time.

I'm doing great! I'm working on getting a lot of rest and learning how to walk again.

Thanks for all your love and support.

Happy Halloween

Brandon and I celebrated Halloween last night since that is the last evening he has off for the rest of the month. We carved our pumpkin to look like a baby.

Babies are about the only thing on our minds right now.

Brandon made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to take to work to celebrate his last night working swing shift. (He's switching to mornings in November!)
We also tested out our donut recipe.

It was good except, it wasn't as sugary as the cookies so the donuts weren't as good as we anticipated. But they were totally great to eat for breakfast!

Any day now?

I've made it to 35 weeks. The big question now is will I make it to 36? Yesterday was a triple header medical day. I schedule my appointments with my OB, the NST center, and the ultrasound all within a few hours of each other. That way Brandon and I only have to drive into Salt Lake once.
We started out at my Ob's office. I've lost two pounds in the last week, but my uterus grew 2.5 centimeters so I'm not sure where the weight came from. My uterus is now measuring 40.5 centimeters! I'm also dilated 2 centimeters. My Ob had me schedule my appointment for next weeks, but she also mentioned that she might be seeing me and the twins sooner than that! Brandon and I were both excited at this news, but we also started feeling unprepared. We were still trying to wrap our heads around having the babies within the next three weeks - not any day!

Brandon and I then drove up to LDS hospital to the Maternal Fetal Medicine
(MFM) center up there. That's where we have had all our ultrasounds and our non stress tests. We are getting really used to that place. MFM is right next to Labor and Delivery and I joked that I should start pretending to be in labor when we are in the elevator with other people. Our non-stress test was really uneventful. I think all four of us were asleep at one point. The nurse had to buzz the babies to get them to wake up and show us that their heart rates are still responding properly.

Then we had an ultrasound. I think this was number 10, but I've had so many I've lost track. The tech checked the blood flow through Baby B's umbilical cord and then the Dr came in and said it looked fine.

Every time we leave MFM I feel like we are escaping, and yesterday was no exception. As we left the waiting room a nurse called, "Valerie." My heart froze - did they discover something and need us to go to Labor and Delivery? Then I realized she was talking to another patient. Brandon and I got out of there as fast as we could.

We stopped off to visit one of my friends who had twins about 10 months ago. It was so fun to see her girls. The visit got us excited to see our own little girls - just not yet.

When we got home we packed the hospital bag. Brandon and I are champion bag packers. We both lived away from Salt Lake for years and we learned how to pack for weekends home. We also have been camping tons of time. But we've never really packed for a hospital visit. (Actually Brandon has, but he had surgery in his mouth so he didn't even need to bring a tooth brush to the hospital) I kept thinking of things that we would need on a camping trip. I would think, "do we need toilet paper? No, they will have that. Do we need matches? No, why would we need those." Eventually we got the bag packed, but there is probably a lot of stuff in there that we will never need.

Anyway. We are basically ready for the twins to come, but we don't want them to come for at least another week. So we'll see how this goes.

How much time do I really have left?

Here I am at 34 weeks. Officially I have less than 6 weeks left; however, my Ob says that if the twins haven't come by 38 weeks then she will induce me. So I basically have less than 4 weeks remaining in this pregnancy!
It's now time for guessing the twin's birthday, height, and weight. Leave your guesses in the comments section. Make sure you guess for Baby A and Baby B.

Here are some stats to help you guess.
I'm officially due November 29 and I'll be 38 weeks on November 15.
The last time we measured, Baby A weighted about 4.5 pounds and Baby B weighted about 3.5 pounds. That was a week ago. We wont be able to measure again for another 2 weeks.

I guess I should say something about how I am doing. I'm feeling very pregnant. Rolling over in bed has become a new adventure in pain. Sitting and standing are usually fine. ; I'm having lots of Braxton Hicks contractions (I've had them since 20 weeks so this is nothing new) In one week I gained two pounds and two centemeters. My uterus is now measuring 38 centemeters (40 is the usual size for full term with one baby) Both babies are still very active, and they have been preforming well on their NST tests. I think Baby A has had hiccups off and on for the past 24 hours.

Overall everything is going well. I'm looking forward to the end of this pregnancy, but I also want to keep these babies in me as long as possible. I'll keep you posted.

Less than 7 weeks and a game

Is it just me or am I smaller than the woman on my pregnancy countdown thingy at the top of the page? I like to think I am. On Monday we had an appointment with my Ob. In the last month I have gained 11 pounds. Then on Tuesday we had and ultrasound where we measured how much the babies have gained in the last month. Both have gained about a pound and a half. Factor in fluid and placenta and I guess I'm doing well weight wise. Honestly I could care less about my weight. I figure I'm having twins so whatever.
At the ultrasound the tech spent some time measuring the amount of blood that is coming through Baby B's umbilical cord. B always measures smaller than Baby A so they want to make sure she is getting her fair share. The doctor explained that everything looks good, however, if there was ever a time that the blood flowing through the cord didn't look good then we might be sent over to deliver the babies that day. EEK! That got me thinking that I really need wrap my head around the fact that these babies could come soon. Thankfully, I received a lot of gifts at the shower and everything is coming together nicely.

Speaking of the shower, here is one of the games we played. It's a "guess that body part" game based on the many ultrasounds we've gone through (the total is up to 8 for long ultrasounds). Enjoy!

Baby B the drama queen

I guess most parents have the luxury of learning this lesson after their children are born. Brandon and I have been able to learn it now. The lesson is this . . . your children will not do what you want when you want.

Friday was our third non-stress test of the week. Usually we are supposed to only have two, but we had an extra one on Wednesday because the doctor was concerned about something she saw on Tuesday's NST for Baby B. She wanted us to come back for a second try.

Anyway, Wednesday's test was fine and we figured that Friday's would be too. Baby B had other plans. She wouldn't preform correctly for the test. Her heart rate just wouldn't increase the amount it needed to. We tried buzzing her, but that made her move away from the monitor. We could see that she was moving, but since her heart rate wasn't on the monitor it didn't count.

So after 40 minutes Baby B had failed the non-stress test. This combined with the weirdness on Tuesday's test made the nurse and the Dr concerned. So then we moved on to what is called a Biophysical exam or something like that. After going through this exam I now take back everything I ever said about how boring ultrasounds are. This was by far the most boring medical procedure EVER!

The nurse explained that we were going to do an ultrasound of Baby B. We would be looking for three things. 1. At least 3 movements of any kind. 2. One quick movement like a hand jerk or leg kick. and 3. Evidence of the baby breathing for 30 seconds. She said the test would last half an hour.

So she turned on the ultrasound and positioned it to look right at Baby B's rib cage. Then we all stared at the monitor forever. We got the movement and the quick movement right away, but the baby would not breath. (Babies only practice breathing about a third of the time.) Finally after about 20 minutes we saw the tell tell rib expansion that indicated Baby B was practicing her breathing. The problem is that she only did it for about 15 seconds. So we stared at the monitor for another 10 minutes hoping that she would start breathing again. Nothing!

At the 30 minute mark she finished the test and only scored a 6 out of a 10. The doctor said we had to come back again the next day for a NST and try again. I had my baby shower scheduled for the next day so the staff was kind enough to schedule me at the Intermountain Medical Center (IMC) which is closer to my parents house.

Today I went to Labor and Delivery at IMC for the test. As I suspected, Baby B preformed perfectly. She stayed on the monitor the whole time and her heart rate did everything it was supposed to. I don't know what her deal is, but Baby B likes causing these little disruptions.

There is a bright side to all this. Since I had to have the test done in Labor and Delivery they had to treat me like I was checking in to actually have the babies. It was a nice little practice for when I have to go there for real. The test was done in a Delivery room so I was able to see that the room wasn't as big as the ones at LDS where I plan to deliver. So maybe Baby B was just trying to show me what I needed to know.

Brandon's New Birthday

Here I am at 32 weeks. I'm having lots of days where I feel very pregnant. I've discovered the beauty of sleeping in our lazy boy recliner. It's almost as comfy as the Non-stress test chair. I'm also incredibly sick of eating. I'm constantly hungry, but less and less foods are appealing to me. I just want to get full and stay full! Everything is looking good with the babies. They will be here in 8 weeks or less!
The girls are due the day before Brandon's birthday. I'll probably be pretty out of it one way or another when his actual birthday is here, so I moved his birthday to Monday. He worked 5 hours for a co-worker which gave me plenty of time to cook him a surprise dinner. He was so excited when he got home and saw the dinner.

Also Brandon's diploma showed up in the mail on Friday. It's official. I am married to a college graduate!

Non-Stress Test

Today was the second of many Non-Stress Tests. A NST is where monitors are attached to my belly for 20 minutes. The monitors pick up the twins' heartbeats. The point of the test is to see that the babies heart rates increase when they move around, and that it is stable when they are at rest. It shows that the placenta is delivering enough oxygen and other nutrients to the babies. (I am constantly shocked at how much the placenta controls . . . basically this entire pregnancy has been at the mercy of the placenta. It creates the extra hormones that make morning sickness, it can contribute to gestational diabetes, it helps us determine that the twins are identical, etc)

I've heard that these tests can be pretty boring, but actually I love the whole experience. Ultrasounds are boring to me because pictures of bladders and femurs can get pretty tedious and I get sick laying on my back for so long. However, the NST is done in a really comfy chair in a well lit room.

The first thing we do is a quick ultrasound to check the position of the babies so the tech can know where to put the heart monitors. The twins are still in a ying yang position.
Here is a view of Baby A's head profile. Take a close look at the white line under her chin. That line is one of Baby B's femurs. Yep, she is basically sitting on her sisters head.
They hook up one monitor for each baby. There is also a monitor that measures any contractions I may be having. I didn't have any today, but I did have a few on Tuesday. I couldn't even feel them so the nurse told me not to worry about them.
During the 20 minutes of the test the results are displayed on this monitor. I think Baby A is red and B is green. I'm the blue line at the bottom.

Baby A had been moving around a lot before we got everything set up for the test. She fell asleep as soon as the monitors were hooked up and recording. Then Baby B woke up and started having a party. We watched her line dance up and down as Baby A's stayed constant. We were able to see that B's heart rate reacted correctly to movement. Since A appeared to be asleep the nurse said that we would have to wake her up. She got out a little stick that vibrates quickly. She put it next to where Baby A's head was and turned it on. We watched as Baby A's heart rate quickly increased and then went back to normal. We tried 3 times to get her to wake up, but each time she quickly fell back asleep. I guess that compared to her sister sitting on her head all day a short little buzz really didn't matter.

Eventually, the nurse was able to see what she wanted from Baby A so we were given the all clear until next Tuesday when we will be back to do it again. We will do this twice a week until the babies come. Here is my ever patient Brandon hanging out with me during the test.

This is totally unrelated, but here is a peach pie that Brandon made while I was visiting teaching the other night. Do I have an awesome husband or what?

Ultrasound and Silver Lake

Here I am at 31 weeks. I am constantly told that I do not look like I am pregnant with twins. We'll see if that changes during these last two months.
Tuesday was my 7th ultrasound. I brought my mom along so she could see the girls. It was kind of hard to see them since their bones are more calcified and so it's harder for the sound waves to pass through them. Also they are getting bigger and so they are more squished.

Still she was able to see their cute faces and parts of their bodies. They are in kind of a ying-yang position right now. Baby A's head is down by my cervix where it should be and her body goes up the left side of my body. Baby B's head is up right under my ribs on the right side and her body goes down. She is basically sitting on Baby A's head. During the ultrasound we could see Baby B stick her feet in A's face. Baby A put up her hand to block the feet. It was super cute. (I should mention that the babies are separated by a thin membrane, but I'm sure they are very aware of each other.)

After the ultrasound we had my first Non Stress Test, which I actually enjoyed. I'll take my camera with me to the next one on Friday and I'll blog about it then.

After leaving the hospital Brandon and I went up Big Cottonwood Canyon to Silver Lake. That's where these next pictures were taken.

Baby Shower Invitation

Here is the official invitation for my baby shower. I will also mail out invitations, but I'm sure I will forget people. I wanted to make sure you all know you can come - even you blog stalkers. If you are planning on coming please RSVP to the number on the invitation. You can also RSVP on the facebook page for this event.

Here are the links to the places I'm registered at.

Target

Shopko

Brandon and I got a little silly when we registered so a lot of these things are "suggestions" rather than absolute necessities. Also I am totally open to hand-me-downs and homemade gifts.

Thanks for all your love and support. I'm looking forward to seeing you on October 9th.

Oh by the way, Brandon drew the little feet on the invitation. Aren't they adorable?

How we found out about the twins (the first time)

I was going over old blog posts from May and I realized that I never went into a lot of details about the first ultrasound that showed the twins. I want to write this down before I forget.


Brandon and I went to the doctor for the 10 week ultrasound. After getting checked out by the nurse we were left alone in the examination room for several minutes. While we waiting for the doctor I picked up a baby merchandise magazine and started flipping through it. One of the advertised products was a pillow for nursing two babies at once. I remember thinking, "well I wont need that."



The doctor came in after a while and talked with us for a minute. He checked my breathing and everything else that doctors do. Then it was time for the ultrasound. He inserted the probe thingy and we could see a lot of black and white images on the monitor. After some adjustments we saw a very distinct image of a baby. It was suspended in the middle of the monitor and was wiggling its arms and legs around. It looked kind of like a gummy bear and it was so cute.



The doctor asked, "what do you see?" And I said, "A baby." He said, "yes this is a baby, but what is this over here?" He pointed out a nondescript blob to the side of the baby. I said, "I don't know . . . is it the placenta?" The doctor fiddled with some things and said, "well we have a baby over here, and we also have a heart beat coming from over here." My very first thought was, "My baby's heart is outside of it's body!?!" For a split second my mind raced over what this could mean. Before I could imagine the worst the doctor said something like, "you have two babies in here. You're having twins."


He was able to zoom in on the second baby. That one was also wiggling while appearing to be suspended. I remember being so amazed that the babies were moving. I hardly remember anything else from the ultrasound. I was still getting used to the idea of being pregnant. Let alone with twins.

After we left the Doctors I was supposed to drop Brandon off at work and then go to work myself. Instead we sat in the car and kept repeating, "we are having twins, we are having twins." We called our parents and siblings and shared the news. No one could believe it. I told Brandon that I didn't think I could drive so he drove me to work and dropped me off.

I went into the office and hadn't even made it to my desk before people started asking me about the ultrasound. I quickly clocked in and then started showing the ultrasound pictures. Within seconds there was a crowd of people around me. I spent the next hour walking around the office showing people the four little pictures of my two babies. I never got tired of saying, "well here is one baby and here is the other baby." And then hearing the excitement as they asked, "you're having twins!" It was one of my favorite days at work.

Eventually I made it back to my desk and started working. Thank goodness I wrote myself a to do list the day before or else I wouldn't have had a clue what to do. One of the ladies in the office teased me and said, "you seem happy today." I told her, "my husband graduated last week, I'm going on vacation tomorrow, and I just found out I'm having twins. You'd be happy too."

That was almost 20 weeks ago. I finally have wrapped my head around the fact that there are two babies inside of me - and that soon they will be born. I love feeling them kick and move. I joke that they learned the macarana dance a couple weeks ago and haven't stopped doing it since. Often one of them will kick so hard that you can see my stomach jump. It's so fun to see.

I'm looking forward to meeting these two little girls within the next 11 weeks.

6th Ultra sound

Here I am at 29 weeks.
We had our sixth ultrasound on Monday. We didn't get a DVD or any new pictures so you will just have to use your imagination. Baby A is measuring at 2 pounds 8 ounces, and Baby B is at 1 pound 15 ounces. Both babies are a little small for being 29 weeks along, but they are within the okay range so no one is too worried.

We brought Brandon's mom along to the ultrasound. It was fun to watch it through her eyes. She was about as far along as I am when she first found out she was expecting twins.

All in all it was pretty routine.

Not what we had planned, but better

The past 6 months have gone by really fast and I wanted to take a minute and write down an overview of what happened. At first I thought I'd wait to recap all this when everything had a happy ending. But this is life and how many times can you really say, "And they all lived happily ever after." So instead you get this version.

Back in March Brandon and I were facing a dilemma. He only had three more classes to take, but hours more of flying left to complete. The way the USU flight program was set up he had to complete the flying to be eligible to graduate with his degree in Aviation- Professional Pilot. We'd been trying to complete the flying, but we were running into problems with the organisation (or lack there of) within the flight department. It looked like it would take another year at the least to complete the flying.

We fasted for guidance of what to do next. That fast Sunday a friend of ours got up and bore his testimony. He talked about when Nephi was tied up by his brothers. Nephi prayed that he would have the power to break his bands. The Lord answered his prayer by loosening the bands enough for Nephi to get out of them. Our friend said that sometimes that is how our prayers are answered. We want to do something cool like burst our bands, but usually they are just loosened. Little did Brandon and I know how much our bands would be loosened.

The week after we fasted Brandon met with his academic advisor to discuss his options within the program. He wanted to know if it would be possible to transfer to another school or something like that. She suggested he meet with the advisor over interdisciplinary degrees. That advisor looked at Brandon's transcript and told him that all he needed to do to graduate was write a paper.

So suddenly we realised he could graduate. It wasn't going to be the "cool" way of suddenly winning over the flight department and racing through all the flight requirements in a few months. Instead it was the humble way of receiving a "made up degree." It only took us a few days to officially change his major to an Interdisciplinary degree in Aviation and Management. Then we had to decide what to do next.

We quickly decided that we wanted to get out of Logan. Neither of us had ever really loved the city, and we had been wanting out for years. Plus we needed to go somewhere where Brandon could fly. That somewhere turned out to be the Bountiful Sky Park in Woods Cross. There were only two things that would be hard to leave, our apartment and my job - and neither one of those were good enough to keep us in Logan long term.

At first we thought that I would be able to work from home for the company that I'd been with for 2 1/2 years. However, the at home team was being discontinued. (Ironically one of the major reasons for ending the home team was because of errors I found while auditing their work. So in some sense I put myself out of a job.) I figured I could get a better paying job in the Salt Lake area so this wasn't a huge blow.

In the middle of all these decisions we found out that I was pregnant. And then we found out I was pregnant with twins! This news sent all sorts of shock waves through our decision making process. The biggest question was should I stay at my job until the babies were born? We didn't have time to think about these questions for long because 6 days after we found out about the twins I went through what I thought was a miscarriage.

After the initial shock and grief wore off Brandon and I were sure of one thing. We wanted to get out of Logan and on with our lives as soon as possible. This resolve was further backed up when our landlord told us that he had found renters for our apartment and so we needed to be out by the end of June. So we found a new apartment in Bountiful, packed up our stuff, quit our jobs, and lept out into the world. We didn't have jobs yet but we were young, childless, and had a little over two months of savings in the bank. We would be okay.

We moved in and started looking for jobs. We also found out I was still pregnant. Sometimes I wonder if we would have had the courage to quit our jobs and move if we'd known the babies were okay. Or would we have clung to the security of insurance and income. I don't know what we would have done, but I'm glad things worked out the way they did.

Brandon was able to get a job as a ramp agent with Frontier Airlines within a month of our move. It started out as part time, but as of today he has worked up to full time. I applied a few places, but didn't get any job offers. We decided that it was best if I focused on taking things easy and keeping the babies healthy. So far this pregnancy has been very easy. I wonder if it would have been this easy if I was still working full time.

Brandon wrote his final paper over the summer and received an A. We are working on building up our savings again and then we will have him start flying. He met with the flight director for his new flight school and he was very impressed. They treated him like he mattered.

So here we are with deeper testimonies of savings, food storage, prayer, fasting, love, and the Lord's guidance. It's been an interesting 6 months. I never would have thought any of this was possible when we fasted back in March, but I'm so glad it happened. I am interested to see what happens in the next six months.

Dividing by Fractions as a Fertility Treatment

Brandon and I are sometimes asked how we ended up pregnant with twins. People want to know if we were using any sort of fertility drugs or treatment. The official answer is no, we were not on any fertility drugs. We were not undergoing any In-vitro treatments or anything like that.

However, there is a silly theory for how we ended up with twins. It's pretty funny, but first you have to understand a basic math principle. When you divide whole numbers by fractions the numbers get bigger. For example 3 divided by 1/3 is 9. For those of you who are more visually oriented than math oriented here is a visual example. Imagine you have 4 cookies. Now divide each of those cookies into fourths. You will end up with 16 cookie pieces. (4 divided by 1/4 equals 16).

Okay now that you understand this principle you can hear the rest of the story. Brandon has two sisters. The older one got married about 10 years ago and wasn't able to have kids for several years. The younger one got married about 7 years ago. Brandon's Dad made her a homemade bed as a wedding present. Within a few months she was pregnant. The older sister wanted a bed too so Brandon's Dad made her one. Within a few months she was pregnant too.

Brandon and I got married about 3 years ago and it took us a while to get pregnant. Sometimes we would joke that it was because we didn't have a homemade "fertility" bed yet. All we had was two mattresses on top of a box spring. It worked well for us in our tiny apartment. When we moved to our townhouse style apt we ended up with a huge bedroom. I wanted a headboard to make our bedroom seem more complete.

We built a headboard out of an old futon. Here is the post about how we did it. We probably should have made a whole bed frame. Because apparently when an Illguth builds half a homemade bed it acts like dividing fractions. 1 fertilized egg divided by 1/2 a bed equals 2 fertilized eggs.

The really ironic thing is that we joked about this as we put together the headboard. I remember saying, "hopefully these homemade beds aren't affected by fractions or else we are going to end up with twins." Little did I know how right I was.

And here is what I look like at 27 weeks along with those twins. I think the shirt in this picture makes me look bigger than I really am, but maybe that is just wishful thinking.
The babies are doing well. They are kicking a lot. Sometimes they kick so hard I can see my stomach jump. I'm doing well too. Last week I had to take the 3 hour version of the gestational diabetes test. (I'd failed the 1 hour version) Thankfully the results came back that I do not have gestational diabetes. So this later half of my pregnancy continues to be a lot less eventful than the first half.

It's been two weeks already?

Monday was my most boring ultrasound yet. Boring is good because it means the babies are doing fine. But it's still boring. Brandon told me, "I want to play with our babies, I don't want to just look at them."

There weren't any cute pictures or moments. Thank goodness a funny doctor came in to interpret the ultrasound or else I might have died of boredom. Here are some pictures to illustrate why having an ultrasound every two weeks isn't as cool as you would initially think.

This is a picture of the thin membrane that separates the sacks that the twins are in. They are in separate sacks but they are sharing a placenta. This round thing is a cross section of baby A's belly. Her stomach (or maybe her bladder- I can't remember) is the black circle in the bottom.

This is a picture of Baby A's brain.

Here is a picture of the umbilical cord. They use the Doppler effect to figure out which way the blood is flowing.

And here are two little feet. There was good news at the end of this ultrasound. There is no indication that these girls will develop Twin to Twin transfusion (that's where one twin starts giving nutrients and fluid to the other twin- crazy). So now I only have to go in for ultrasounds every 3 weeks. I can't tell you how happy this makes me!

Here is what everything looks like on the outside. I've 26 weeks and 2 days in this pic.

I spent the last couple afternoons working on these dresses. Sewing for two is actually really easy. You only have to figure out the pattern once.

I just need to buy elastic and bias tape so I can finish the neck and the sleeves.

I'm getting excited for my little girls.

24 Weeks and another ultrasound

While researching twin pregnancy stuff I read that at 24 weeks with twins I should look like I am 32 weeks along with a single baby. This is my first pregnanacy so I don't know what I would look like at 32 weeks, but here is what I do look like at 24.
On Monday I was 24 weeks along and it was time for another ultrasound. Baby B got lots of attention this time. Two weeks ago she was in an awkward position and so the tech couldn't get all the pictures we needed. This week she was much more cooperative and so we got all the pictures. This pic was taken in the first few seconds of the ultrasound. I love profile pictures. Most of the pictures were of things like her brain and bladder - cool to see, but not that cute.

These are her legs. You can see her leg bones the fibia and tibia. It looks like she enjoys stretching out.

The highlight of the ultrasound was when they tried to get a picture of Baby B's feet. Baby A was apparently feeling left out because she stuck her feet in the picture too. It's easier to tell what is going on in the video, but I don't have a editing program that will make the video short enough to upload to blogger. This still shot will have to do. This is looking at the bottoms of four little feet. Picture them moving around and you will see why this was so cool.

Most of the ultrasound was spent looking at the placenta to determine if it really is one or two placentas. So baby pictures weren't a priority. However we were able to see both babies near each other. In this picture you can see several body parts for each baby. Don't try to see anything resembling a cute baby - its just stomachs legs. It does give you an idea of how close to each other these babies are.

After searching for several minutes the ultra sound tech was able to find the thin membrane that separates the babies into separate sacks. However, she couldn't find any proof of two placentas. So we are still treating the girls like they are identical.

It's important to know if the babies are identical because there are more complications that can develope with identical twins than with fraternal. Basically identical twins can have a hard time sharing the placenta equally. That is why I go for ultrasounds every two weeks - to make sure both babies are growing correctly. So expect more pictures in two more weeks.