1 Month

The babies are healthy and doing well. Charlotte is now 7lbs 5oz and Nathan is 7lbs 1oz. They are still on the small side, but that is to be expected being a month early. They've met their weight milestones and Nathan survived his circumcision. They've had their first shots, first baths at home and made it through their first month of life.

They already have very distinct and very different personalities. Nathan is very calm and patient, but he is super strong and determined. He holds his head up during tummy time like a champ already. He also has my love for sleep. Charlotte earned the nickname "princess" in the hospital. On the second night she would not sleep and wouldn't stop crying unless someone was holding her. This might not have been so bad but we had another baby to take care of also. Anyway, sometime during the night the nurse came to check on us and we were all in tears, She took pity on us and took Charlotte to the nurses station for a few hours, even though their policy is that the babies stay in the room.

I thought we had a pretty good idea of what we were getting into, but this month has been about 10 times harder than either of us imagined. As much as we tried to prepare, talk to people, go to classes, very little has gone the way we had hoped it would.

As I mentioned before, a c-section recovery is terrible. Combine that with newborn twins and it's a real shit show. I don't think I can really get into some details because they're pretty personal, but believe me when I say it was rough for both of us.

We had a lot of visitors when we went home and our cousin stayed with us for a week, which was great. She helped us get into a routine and it was nice to see her for so long since she lives in Denver and we usually only get her on holidays. It took a few days before she could get up and down the stairs comfortably so we stayed downstairs. We're in the bedroom now but we're getting some furniture for the loft and that will probably be where we set up permanently. It's hard living in a bedroom.

The babies are sleeping in the room with us in bassinets. We know the rules about not having anything in the cribs, but they simply won't sleep at night in anything but their Podsters. So they sleep in their Podsters in the bassinets. When they sleep, that is. Mostly they sleep during the day and they would sleep upside down on the hood of the car and nothing would wake them. Night though, they just don't want to settle. They're too young to know the difference between night and day and newborns are nocturnal so we've just got to deal. It's been hard not sleeping, though. And I haven't been able to do the whole "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing during the day. More on that later.

One thing other mom was looking forward to was breastfeeding but that hasn't gone well either. The babies were so young they couldn't latch. After a lot of work she finally got Charlotte to do it sometimes but Nathan just won't. We've been told by several nurses that it's harder for boys and after all this time we think he may never get the hang of it. So she's pumping and we're giving them about 50/50 breast milk and formula.

After she was feeling a little better we were able to start going out with the babies and doing things. We've been able to go to Target and to dinner in addition to our doctor's appointments. I never anticipated how much attention they would draw. Before we could have been gum on the sidewalk for as much as people paid attention to us, but now random people come talk to us wherever we are. For me, this is just about my worst nightmare. I'm a woman of few words to those who know me well and to strangers they're lucky to get a grunt and a nod to most questions. Fortunately for me my other half is the opposite so she's been doing the talking. But man, I don't get it. If I saw some poor new mother at Target with her hands clearly full with twins, I might pass and smile but I would never think to go bother her and strike up a conversation. Maybe that's just me.

So, this month has been pretty rough. Everyone keeps telling us we're doing well, but they really only see the best of us and the babies. Alone it's very different. Just to speak to myself, I've been having a lot of really bad feelings and I'm not sleeping or eating well at all. For a variety of reasons there's not much I can do about it right now so I've been trying to just accept that this is life now and try to pass the time until it gets better, Everyone also says that these times will just fly but maybe that's just in retrospect because this past month has felt like 10 years and I think it's aged me that much as well. I'm trying to look for things to enjoy but it's just so much work that fun is just not there for me. I also got shafted on my leave at work and I actually have to go back in a week instead of in April like I thought. It's a long story and it sucks, but it is what it is.

Here's to month 2.

The Birth Story

Sunday December 28, 2014 started off like pretty much any other day we had been having. She felt miserable, but having been told by the doctor several times that misery was to be expected, we didn't think much of it. I went to the grocery store and we spent the day in bed watching football and me writing lesson plans.

We watched the Patriots get embarrassed by the Bills and settled in to watch the Broncos/Raiders. She is a Broncos fan. Well, she's a fan of Emanuel Sanders anyway. She had just laid down and commented that she had finally found a comfortable position. I went on with my work and a few minutes later she said her water broke. I asked if she was sure and after seeing the sheets, we were both sure.

We had the bag mostly packed and threw in a few last minute things, fed the cats and we were off. We're not too far from the hospital so it didn't take too long. We got there and they took us up to labor & delivery. We didn't even go through triage since she was still leaking so they knew the babies were coming.

Our regular O/B wasn't on call so we had a different guy. He was nice enough, I guess. They gave me disposable scrubs to wear and took us to the operating room. Both babies were still breech so there was no chance of a vaginal delivery, but we already knew that. I wasn't allowed in while they prepped her and did the spinal, but she said it actually wasn't bad. When I finally did get to go in, they told me not to touch anything blue since it was sterile. I wasn't about to touch anything anyway. But as I sat down, I noticed music was playing. I had heard it in the hall but I didn't pay much attention since I thought it was just hospital hall music. But no, they pipe in music in the operating room! And what songs were my children delivered to, you ask? "You're the One That I Want" from Grease and "Shake, Shake, Shake...Shake Your Booty". I kid you not. It was really bizarre and hilarious, especially when the nurses started singing.

They said I could watch the operation if I wanted, but I wasn't particularly interested. Not that it grossed me out, I just didn't care to see it. It was surprisingly short. They were born a minute apart. Since she wasn't quite 36 weeks yet, they took them to the NICU. But they said they hoped it was just for transition and that they wouldn't have to stay long. See, before we got there triplets were born and the level 3 NICU was full. So if ours needed to stay, they would have had to transfer them to the hospital across town.

I'm not sure what I thought it would look like, but it was a bunch of baby beds and monitors. And ours weren't in beds near each other so I stayed with Charlotte for a while and then went to Nathan. I took some pictures and took them back to the recovery room. She was doing well and told me to go back to the babies. Both babies sugar was a little low so they fed them and watched them. A few hours later they were cleared to leave the NICU and we went back to the recovery room.

By this time it was getting late so we didn't have any visitors. The nurses showed us where everything was and basically left us. There is no central nursery and all the babies "room in". They basically slept for a while and every hour the nurses came to check on us. They told us newborn babies are sleepy and have to be woken to eat, and they did mostly sleep. Sometime around 2:00 in the morning a nurse came and gave them a bath and the next morning we were moved out of the recovery room and into a regular room.

We stayed in the hospital for 3 days and would have stayed longer if they let us. We had no idea how hard a c-section recovery would be. I would have to devote a whole other post just to everything that entails. But on New Years Eve we cleaned up and packed them up to go home. What was really cool was that it was snowing and we rarely get snow. It just doesn't happen here, but it made the trip home memorable.

It's been 4 weeks today and what we've done and learned in that time can fill a post on its own too.

A Couple of Late Christmas Presents

(left) Charlotte Sue              (right) Nathan Henry
Born: 12/28/14, 4:02 PM       Born 12/28/14, 4:03 PM
5 lbs 15 oz, 18 inches           5 lbs 3 oz, 19 inches

A little earlier than expected, but they're here. Both are healthy and everyone is doing well. We spent the full 3 days allowed in the hospital but are home now. I will write more about their birth story later. Can't believe they are real and actually here.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Week 35 - Change is in the air

Officially 3 more weeks to go, but that's assuming we make it to 38 weeks.

At the growth scan last week the babies are measuring 5 pounds 6 ounces each. So that's almost 10.5 pounds of baby. They're past the point of needing preemie clothes so we threw them in a donation bag. They're at the point that if they were born now, they'd be fine even though they'd spend some time in the NIC-U. 38 weeks has always been the goal, but these little overachievers have been measuring ahead almost from the beginning. So there's a chance they could come even earlier.

At the last couple of appointments the doctors have hinted around to start watching contractions carefully and monitor movement even more. Everything is getting more uncomfortable, which partly comes with carrying the weight of twins. But at the same time, we are getting close.

If we make it to 38 weeks, then the date will likely be January 13, which I think would be a cool birthday since it would fall on Friday the 13th some years. We're going to try our darndest to keep them in that long. We are seeing doctors 3 times a week now. Today at the perinatologist the nurse suggested we have the O/B check her cervix next week just to see if anything is going on. Hopefully nothing is.

Our out-of-womb preparations are mostly done. The room is done and bags are mostly packed. We've got most of what we need to get them started in life and a bunch of people that are excited for them to come and meet them.

We bought baby books as well. They are really cool because they're customizable and come with extra pages. So we were able to take out the "Daddy" pages and put in extra "Mommy" pages. One of the pages asks us to write our hopes and dreams for the babies and it made me think about all the tragedies in the news recently with people being shot and killed. And it made me think "I hope my babies, especially my son, look white". I'm biracial (black and white) and the donor is white so I think they will. I was raised with the white side of my family so that's really what I identify with, but that's not how the rest of the world identifies me. This might sound sad, but I don't want my children to grow up fearing police and other people in positions of authority. But the fact is that racism is still a major problem and I feel if they look white, they'll have better opportunities in life.

Anyway, enough of that. It's Christmas and that's supposed to be time for peace on Earth and goodwill towards all men (and women). So I end on that note and wish you a happy holiday, whichever one you may celebrate. Or if you don't celebrate, then happy Thursday this week.

Week 32 - The Final Stretch

I write you today from a magical place called 'vacation'. You may have heard that this place is just a myth, but as someone who has seen the fabled land, I can attest that it does exist.

Last Wednesday was my last day of work for at least 5 weeks. I had been debating whether or not to tell my students I wouldn't likely be coming back and I thought I had settled on no, but at the last minute I decided to tell them after all. I have a really decent class this year and I haven't been able to say that for a while. I put up an ultrasound and asked if they knew what it was. They all gasped and raised their hands. After that I had to explain what a surrogate was and that I couldn't have babies of my own. But I didn't get into the lesbian stuff. They were all super excited so I'm glad I told them.

In all actuality, I probably will be back for a week after winter break. Things are going well and the doctors fully expect them to make it to the week of the 12th. I'm actually kind of glad because that first week back is our parent conferences and I can't have a sub do those. Plus that will give me some time to adjust them to the changes in the classroom that will come with having a sub for 12 weeks. At the end of March is spring break and then the two weeks after that is my second track break and then I'll be back for good.

In the meantime, we start monitoring twice a week this week. And we registered with the hospital and did the maternity tour. It was really interesting. The hospital we're having them at is a 'baby friendly' hospital. This basically means that they encourage breastfeeding and immediate skin-to-skin contact. And they don't have a central nursery, like you see on TV and movies. The babies stay with you in the room...all...the...time. They're of the mindset that welp...you made them, you deal with them. Not to say that they don't help you out, but it's not a week long vacation in the hospital like you might imagine. Actually, they said you stay 36 hours max for a vaginal delivery and 3-4 days for a c-section before they send you on your merry way.

Oh, one other cool thing about the hospital is that all babies get tagged with a security bracelet so if they get anywhere near an exit, an alarm sounds. And we have to wear an ID bracelet for each baby. The maternity ward is locked down and visitors have to check in by video before they're allowed in.

We've been taking classes this past month. We did baby basics, which was interesting. The instructor complimented my swaddling. We also did breastfeeding, which wasn't exactly what I expected. That instructor was super preachy and anti-formula, but people sign up for that class with the intention of breastfeeding so I feel like she wasted a bunch of time telling us how great breastfeeding is instead of telling us how to do it. I figure we'll get some better help from the lactation consultants at the hospital. We are taking a childbirth class too, which might seem pointless as we're having a planned c-section. But the class goes over c-sections too and they teach you how to recognize early labor (just in case) and anyway, we're curious to learn new stuff. And we are getting the car seats installed by professionals so we know it's done correctly.

For a while we were super concerned with getting the hospital bags ready, but it turns out you really don't need to take much. They give you pretty much anything you need. And the hospital isn't too far from where we live so if there was anything we wanted or needed from home, it would be a half-hour trip at most. I plan to stay at the hospital except for when I need to go home and tend to the cats. And when I need to eat because apparently they don't feed me and I'm sure I'm far too picky an eater to eat hospital cafeteria food.

I actually do have stuff to do this first week of vacation. It's not going to be all Skyrim and picking my nose in my underwear just yet. I have a dentist appointment because I realized I hadn't been since we moved. I realized this when the appointment card was forwarded from the old address. I also have to get the rest of my vaccines and I actually do have to go to work one day because I didn't get my FML paperwork until the weekend and my principal has to sign it before I take it to the doctor. Other than that, I'm going to tidy up the joint and enjoy our new TV. We've never had one in the bedroom before but we figured that after the semester ends we'll be spending a lot of time resting in bed (and me prepping stuff for my sub). And eventually we'll move it to the loft anyway.

That's it for now. Lol, I know that's a lot and I say 'that's it' like it's a short little anecdote. Sorry, we don't have any good ultrasound pictures. The last few have been just the tops of their heads and I don't  know that they'll get any better as the babies get bigger and have less room to move and turn. We'll see, though.

Week 28 - Time Flies, Time Changes

So, as it turns out, I simply have less time to blog now that I'm at work. My weekdays are basically work, doctor's appointments, home, sleep. Maybe eat. Our weekends have been packed with a variety of activities, though those might be over now. The weather is getting colder and she's just getting too uncomfortable to go out much. We've been trying to take it easy. Last Saturday we spent literally the whole day in bed with the laptops. It was great.

Yesterday my mom and aunt threw our baby shower. The timing worked out great to have a Halloween themed party. It was pretty awesome. We invited all of the same people from my birthday and more, so it was quite the affair. My costume was probably the second best. I was the bad guy from the Cobra Kai Dojo in the old school Karate Kid movies. The best...my trainer dressed as an 80's aerobics instructor.

We got a lot of great stuff for the babies and a bunch of gift cards and cash for the other stuff we still need. And everyone had a really good time. There's still Christmas coming before they're born (hopefully) so we should be pretty well set. Well, at least for material things anyway. I've been working on baby laundry mountains this weekend and putting the rest of the nursery together with all of the stuff we got.

This weekend we had to go and have the glucose tolerance test. It's one of those things we had heard many different stories. "Oh, it's not that bad" or "You don't have to fast" and so on. Well, our doctor was clear that it is a fasting test and they confirmed that at the lab. Fasting is hard because she's used to eating first thing in the morning and gets sick if she doesn't. So we wanted to get it out of the way as early as possible. The first draw wasn't bad and she said the drink wasn't bad either. Lemon-lime, though it probably would have been better chilled. I thought we would be able to leave for the hour in between, but no. We had to sit in the lobby watching HGTV.

An hour passed and we went back for the second draw and it did not go well at all. They couldn't get anything from the arm vein and I don't know why they tried poking the same vein again. Anyway, they went to the hand and she started to get really sick and actually passed out. I've passed out from different things before but I've never seen anyone pass out and it was really scary. I was thinking I should call 911 but the lab tech didn't seem too worried. I guess they must see that a lot. She finally came back around and after a few minutes she told them to go ahead and do the draw so we don't have to do this again.

After that they let her lie down for the next hour and did the final draw laying down. It went better and we were finally able to get some food, go home and relax for the day. It was rough one.

That brings us to November and daylight savings, which I find incredibly dumb but I am glad for the extra hour of sleep. November is going to fly by. Between staff development days, where we don't have students, Veteran's Day, which is a two-day holiday for me, and then Thanksgiving, I figure I only work about 8 days or something like that. And then I go on track break! I'm at a 12 month school so we go through the summer but we get 3 weeks of vacation 3 times throughout the year. My first break starts right after Thanksgiving and then runs into everyone's Winter break at the end of December. If these babies are born in early January I won't have to go back after Winter break. If they keep them in there as long as the doctors want, I might have to go back for a week or two.

I'm taking the full 12 weeks off and the way the calendar falls, that will take me to my second track break in April and then Spring break. So, my students likely won't see me from Thanksgiving until after Easter. That's a long time to be without their regular teacher, I know. But I've got to think about my new family. And I'll find them a decent sub.

Now, they don't have subs for college so the lady has a different situation. She only has 8 weeks of sick days, but her department chair worked out an awesome arrangement where she will actually get the entire semester off. So she won't have to go back until next August. He said he wants her to be able to spend time with her new family, which is pretty much the opposite of how they feel at my work. My boss didn't even acknowledge the babies until very recently. It's not that I'm looking for a ticker-tape parade or anything, but a simple 'congratulations' would  have been nice.

Although November is a short month, we've got a lot going on. Besides the usual appointments, we're also touring the hospital, I have a 5K and our Mothers of Multiples group is hosting the new MOM's tea. Plus Thanksgiving! She has really been looking forward to pregnant Thanksgiving. After all that, it's vacation time and the final baby countdown!

Week 23 - Matching Shirts & Matching Bellies

Is this a commentary on my girlfriend's style
or my cat's fat stomach?

Wow, I hadn't realized it had been almost a month since my last entry. Not that I don't have anything to say, but I guess I've been busier than I thought.

The first weeks of work are always busy, but this year has been crazy because of all of the changes. It's teacher stuff and not particularly interesting to anyone else, but we're hoping it calms down after next week and the final staffing changes are made.

In the real world, things are going well with the babies. We're at 23 weeks now and at one of the last ultrasounds they were finally able to confirm the genders. We were pretty sure since we had PGD, but we wanted to be completely sure. It is a boy and a girl. And they're movers. They move so much that they have a hard time getting a heart rate. So I think we're in for a couple of handfulls. They also had their cardiology scans and everything looks good in their little hearts.

We will be meeting with the regular O/B every two weeks starting next month. I guess that means we're getting close. She asked us if we had thought about a pediatrician and in truth we had thought about it, but that's about it. We don't know anyone with babies in our part of town. All of the mothers at the multiples meetings live on the opposite side of town, and we'd rather have a doctor nearby. So the doctor gave us a list of ones they suggest. We'll probably go with one of them if our insurance covers them.

Before

I was thinking about how similar raising babies is going to be to raising cats. See, we let our cats do all sorts of things we find cute. And then they don't end up being so cute anymore. Take the bassinets, for example. We thought it was adorable when they jumped in there but not as adorable when they wouldn't get out. And even less so when Bailey started scratching the sides. But we've got his number now.

After

Cute

Not so cute

And the stroller. Cute when they sat in the seats, and Bailey really made himself at home. But not so cute when I realized it was getting covered with cat hair that I had to vacuum out and put a blanket on it because that can be washed easily. We make all these modifications and adjustments and try to get them to do what we want and I wonder how much of that will transfer to parenting.

I don't know. They'll probably find ways to do what they want anyway...just like the cats do.

Week 19 - Happy birthday to me

Well, happy late birthday here. It was actually on the 20th but I had to work. What's the point of having a summer birthday if you have to work? And I don't know how, but my birthday always seems to fall on the staff development days before school starts. So I usually spend my birthday-day listening to my principal read a 42 page meeting agenda. Ugh.

This year we had a party. Normally the family gets together and gets food from somewhere. We've found it's easier than going out to eat. This year we invited friends too, which is a big deal for us. We've never had a party this big, but we felt we were finally settled into the new house well enough to finally have people over. It was great. We had Olive Garden, they do party size trays of most of their dishes. And cake from Costco, which isn't as great as I remembered it. It was good, don't get me wrong. But it was a bit on the sweet side. And we played Cards Against Humanity. If you've never played, I highly suggest you find someone with a set. They're kind of hard to find though, but there is an online version too. It has the same rules as Apples to Apples, but the cards are random, offensive and just hilarious. It was a little weird because one of my friends brought her son and he's 12. It's an age where you know he knows what the cards mean, but it's weird to admit that you know. It made me think, would I let my son play in 12 years? Probably and he would probably get the "dem titties" card.

We've both gone back to work now. My year has started off well. I was scheduled for 25 kids. 20 showed up and one told me on the first day they were moving out of zone the next week. Then on Friday another told me it was her last day. My school is in a highly transient area and so around the end of any given month when people's leases are up, we see a lot of movement. So I'm down to 18, which is unheard of for a fifth grade class here. Of course, we always expect a lot of new ones after Labor day so I doubt it will stay that low. But if it does, it's possible we could lose a position at count day. It wouldn't be me as I have the most seniority, but it's not something anyone wants to deal with. She has had a good first week too, though it has been tiring. But fortunately she only has classes Monday through Thursday so she gets to just rest on Fridays.

We both found out about our maternity leave options. I asked our office manager and she said FML will send me a packet 30 days before the birth. I fill it out, send it back and they verify my eligibility. I'm not worried about it as I have over 150 sick days accumulated so I should be able to take the full 12 weeks. I think I have a sub lined up too. She only has about 8 weeks accumulated and they said she could take unpaid time too, but we just can't afford that. They don't exactly have substitutes in college so they just cancel her classes for the semester. Then when her sick days are up, they give her administrative work to do for the rest of the semester. Hopefully it's something she can mostly do from home. After both of our time is up, I don't know. Day care is really expensive for little ones that young and you don't get a discount for having more than one.

18 Weeks

We've seen the doctor, I think three times since I last posted. Twice with the perinatologist and once with the regular O/B. Everything is fine. The babies are growing and moving around a lot now. At the next visit with the perinatologist they'll do the cardiology scan to make sure all the chambers of their heart are developing correctly. The O/B said we need to be up to date on our vaccinations, which is something I hadn't considered. I had shots for school, of course. And I had to be up to date for college, but that was like 15 years ago and vaccines do expire. And I have to get a flu shot, which I usually don't do. You would think I would, being around kids and gross people all the time. But this year was the first time I ever got the flu as an adult so I think I have a decent tolerance against it. But if the doctor says I need it, I'll get it.

Lastly, we've made a pretty big baby related purchase. My girlfriend has driven a Toyota Yaris for the past 7 or so years. When we found out about the pregnancy she considered keeping it, though it is really small. But since it's twins, we knew it would have to go. There was no way two car seats would fit in the back of a two-door hatchback and the jogging stroller we picked was way too big for the trunk space it had, unless we put the back seats down. It's actually too big to fit easily in my car too. She's been looking at safety ratings and stuff and had her mind made up on a Mazda 3. We went down today to see what they had as far as Labor Day sales and ended up with the CX5. So now we have a pretty cool mom car.

Crazy how life changes. We were just talking about that, about what we would say to ourselves in 2002 if we had a way-back machine. Well, lottery numbers excluded anyway. Every year I've been writing a birthday letter to myself on Future Me. Maybe I'll write to myself in 10 years this time. If the next 10 years changes as much as the last, I have no idea what our lives will look like.

Week 16.5 - A beautiful cervix and luscious veins.

There has been much excitement this week. Today we saw the perinatologist for the level 2 ultrasound, also known as the anatomy scan.

The important thing is that we were able to see the genders. We were pretty sure what they were since we did PGD with the IVF, but there's always that chance (however slim, it's still a chance) that it might have been wrong. Baby B is for sure a boy. The tech could see his little dinker donger very clearly. Baby A was a little shy, but from what she could see, the tech was leaning towards it being a girl. So we're calling it at that. Now that we know for sure (pretty much), I'm happy to finally share the names we picked. We've had the boy's name picked for years because that's what we initially wanted. The girl's name was a little harder because we hadn't even considered having a girl and we couldn't agree for a while. But we are both thrilled with the names we picked. Allow me to introduce you to Baby A, now known as Charlotte Sue and Baby B, now known as Nathan Henry.

Like I said, we had Nathan picked for years. We both just loved the name from the beginning. We chose Henry for the middle name because it's a family name on both of our sides. We knew we wanted the girl's middle name to be Sue, after my mother. But the first name eluded us for a while. We considered Emily, Emma, Delilah, Hannah and some others but none of them seemed perfect. We had considered Charlotte but I realized that some family friends of ours have a boy and a girl, named Nathan and Charlotte. I thought it would be weird, but they were cool with it so we decided to go for it. We haven't had any second thoughts at all, so I think that's a sign that these are the perfect names.

Now, on the chance that A does turn out to be a boy after all, we have a second boy's name picked and that would be Noah Joseph. We don't need a second girl's name since we know for sure one is a boy.

They did some bloodwork today for the MSAFP test. This tests for elevated protein in the blood, which could indicate a problem. If there is a defect in the spinal cord or brain it could leak alpha-fetoprotein, which would show up in a blood test. The doctor did say they looked perfect on the ultrasound and they are growing well, but after all we've gone through to make these babies, we'd rather be on the safe side. He also said my girlfriend's cervix looked beautiful and the phlebotomist said her veins were luscious. So we're looking pretty good so far. We have two more appointments in two weeks. One with the regular O/B and another with the perinatologist.

We got some more exciting baby news. Not for us, of course. But for our friends that just moved into the neighborhood. I don't know if I've ever mentioned that. When we were buying our house, one of my friends that I work with kept seeing my pictures on Facebook and asking me about it. It's the guy that helped me pick up the baby dresser, actually. Anyway, one day he asked us to take him to the models. The next day he took his girlfriend out there. And shortly after that they had a picture on their Facebook of her putting the "Sold!" button on the map. They bought the same model as us on the next street over.

Well anyway, soon after we moved we did the embryo transfer and when it worked, his girlfriend told him it's time for them to start making a baby. So they did over the summer and it worked! She's about 10 weeks behind us, but our kids will be in the same grade in school and grow up together. This is really exciting for us because for one, we don't have many friends to begin with. I have very few at work because people come and go so frequently, I try not to get attached. But I really like this guy and now that we're neighbors we'll be friends even if one of us changes schools. And we have very few friends with young children. Most of our parent friends around our age started way before us so their kids are like in middle school. And I wouldn't really call the moms from the multiples group friends, at least not yet. But now we'll have parent friends with kids the same age as ours and in the same neighborhood. It worked out perfectly.

Week 15 - Our cat drinks out of the toilet

I was showering and I accidentally forgot to put the toilet seat down before I got in. I look over and I see him with his head and front paws in the toilet. Mind you, we give them filtered water because of Tyler's pee-pee issues. But this little asshole would rather drink out of the shitter.

Anyway, these past weeks we've been taking care of more legal business. We signed the wills and powers of attorney but we decided to meet with a family lawyer to get some real answers to what exactly our legal rights will be. Ideally we both should be able to sign the birth certificates and that is what the first attorney suggested should happen. This lawyer said the same thing. She said that more and more same-sex couples are having babies and we shouldn't have any trouble both signing the birth certificates. After they are born, we will file for adoption just to make it extra legal. She did have some concerns in making sure the donor is truly anonymous and can't come back and claim custody himself, but we have the paperwork and the sperm bank's policy on anonymous donors so we should be covered there.She said this is all very new legal ground and that makes things tricky. This lawyer is also going to elaborate on our wills and do HIPA forms for us. It's a lot going on, but I guess that comes with being an adult.

We saw the regular O/B and weren't expecting an ultrasound because they schedule those separately (they're billed separately to the insurance) but she wheeled in the old ass machine and did a quick one. Shit was so blurry we couldn't see much, but we did see two heartbeats so they're both still in there. The doctor said the goal is to get to 38 weeks but most of the moms we've talked with got to about 36-37 weeks with their twins, so that's what I'm mentally planning. The next appointment is with the perinatologist and they're doing the anatomy scans then, so we should find out the sexes for sure.

We got some more furniture, the dresser and attached changing station. The dresser was already assembled so we had to have a friend with a truck help us pick it up. Then we had to have my cousin help me get it up the stairs. It's always been really hard for me to ask people for help. But I read something recently, how when you have a baby you really have to adopt the "it takes a village" philosophy. And when you are having twins, that is doubly true. So I've been working on that and was proud that I asked for help. Anyway, the dresser is really nice. It's probably the nicest piece of furniture we own now. And it's for the babies, how funny. We figure when they get old enough to want their own rooms and stuff they can pick out new dressers and we will keep this one ourselves.

This week I'll be going back to work. School doesn't start until the 25th but I have several trainings in the next couple of weeks. I don't even know what most of them are for, just that they're paying me for them. I can't believe summer is almost over and it's basically my last summer for a while. My school is going year-round this year, so I've got to enjoy what's left of this summer before it's over.