Week 13 - Expect misery.

It has been another busy two weeks, especially considering we're supposed to be on summer vacation here.

We saw the perinatologist for the first time and got another ultrasound and some video of them bouncing around!

Their nuchal scan was perfect and they're measuring 13 weeks (on Friday), so they're still ahead by a few days. The doctor was really great. He was really honest and told us to literally "expect misery" after 30 weeks. But it wasn't in an asshole way. It was just a statement of truth and we appreciated that. Too often doctors sugar coat things. He was really thorough too and answered all of our questions. They're more familiar with IVF than at the regular O/B. I guess because so many multiples come from IVF. But it was nice to be able to explain to them how we got there and have them understand what we were talking about.

We've started getting some baby furniture. My mom's goal is to get one big piece a month until they're born, or until the nursery is furnished. This month was the bassinets. They're really cool and apparently the cats think so too because they totally made themselves comfortable the moment we put them together. We had been expecting this and had talked to the vet about it last time we were there. She said you have to let them explore the new stuff. You can't ban a cat from anything, but you can make it so they're not as interested. We now filled them with a bunch of backpacks and shoes and Guitar Hero stuff so when they jump in it's not comfortable and it's their decision to jump out. It worked and neither of them has tried to jump in for days now.

I also painted the babies' room. We were going to go with yellow, but decided on mint green instead. It will look great with the dark brown furniture. We don't have much in the way of decoration decided yet, but my lady did make this cute button rainbow to hang on the wall.

One of the biggest things we did this week was to see a lawyer. We've never had any kind of legal documents made before, mostly because we've never really had anything worth protecting before. But now we've got the house and two kids on the way. While we do have the domestic partnership, we found out that it's basically toilet paper, legally. It really doesn't give us any kind of rights. The lawyer is going to do estate planning for us, which basically is our wills and declaring each other power of attorney (and a secondary should some misfortune befall both of us at the same time) for medical and financial decisions. She is also going to set up a trust and appoint my brother and sister-in-law power of attorney secondary and custodian if we both go before the kids turn 18. And lastly she is going to look into how we stand with parental rights legally. She was really interested in our situation but she wasn't familiar with the legality so she said she is going to look into it. Ideally we both want to be able to sign the birth certificate, but we don't know if that is an option. If not, we might have to do a second parent adoption after they're born.

We went to our second Mothers of Multiples meeting. There were a lot more moms than last month's meeting and some brought their babies. One had a 2-week-old. She slept the whole time (the baby, not the mom). I like that in a baby. Another had 10-week-old identical twin girls and they were adorable too. It's still too intimidating for me to hold other peoples babies, but I was very interested in just observing them.

We don't have quite so much planned for the next two weeks, but things have a habit of popping up, so who knows.

Week 11 - This Is Really Happening

10 weeks, 5 days

We saw the doctor again on Thursday and we went armed with a notebook full of questions. But first we had an ultrasound. Normally we wouldn't have had one since we just had one last month, but you know...twins.

The ultrasound tech is so nice and bubbly, but not in an annoying, fake way. She seems really, genuinely happy. She must have the best job, showing people their babies all day. She got lots of good pictures for us. Heart rates and gestational development are perfect, a couple of days ahead actually. They're really moving around in there now. Baby B was bouncing around so much she had a hard time getting a good heart rate measure. But she got a super cute picture of his little feet.

We got some clarification from the doctor on some things. The fertility doctor had her on a lot of medication and restrictions. She takes a very cautious approach since her patients are typically there because of problems getting or staying pregnant. Some of the restrictions are no baths or swimming, no lifting more than 12 pounds and no woohoo. The OB said we can swim and take body temperature baths, and lift no more than 20 pounds. So our orange cat Bailey is good, but Tyler is still too fat (tipping the scales at about 22 pounds). We'll be done with the medication at week 12. She is also sending us to a perinatologist, which is an OB that specializes in high risk pregnancies, which twins automatically is. We'll be seeing them both alternately and they'll be doing more ultrasounds than with a single pregnancy. It gives is peace of mind, really. It was hard waiting a month between appointments because it gives you time to develop all kinds of worries. Now we only have two weeks to freak ourselves out between appointments.

We visited with my mom for the 4th of July. It was a really nice day. We took advantage of the swimming thing and the water was perfect. Then we went to lunch and Babies R Us and picked our furniture. We decided that although we have the room, the babies are going to share a bedroom. So we picked out two cribs (they're both the same),

a dresser with a changing station,

 

and two bassinets (also, both the same) for the first weeks (or months) in our bedroom and they convert to mini-playpen like things as the babies grow.

We also got most of the registry done there and online later. The time is going to go pretty quickly. My mom and aunt are planning a Halloween baby shower, which I think is awesome. So many cute ideas for it and my lady found the most awesome shirt for it.

All this really makes me realize that this is happening for real. It's crazy, but pretty awesome. Two little babies. Who would have thought.