summer 2008

by the time august rolled around, it was super hot and i was super uncomfortable! i had been told to stop working the first week of june and two weeks later i was put on "home bedrest" which meant i was only supposed to go/up downstairs once a day and wasn't allowed to be on my feet for longer than an hour a day. i was only 22 weeks and was dilated 2 cm. so basically i wasn't able to drive, walk the dog, paint (i stand at an easel) or anything else other than lay on the couch and "grow babies".

needless to say...i watched ALOT of harry potter and read tons of books and magazines. i found it was really hard to find much info on twins though. i read all the usual books like the "baby whisper", "pregnancy for dummies", "week by week pregancy" and i even had todd read "what to expect while expecting" paraphrasing what he thought i needed to know. i was warned about that book being told that it talked about EVERYTHING that could go wrong and tended to freak out most expectant moms. plus it only had a meager paragraph or two on mulitples and didn't prepare me much for the idea of two babies coming out! actually all those books only had a page or two on multiples really, and didn't tell me more than i knew already. just stuff like you need to rest more, eat more, and will be more sick cause theres two babies instead of one!

in july i really started freaking out about the idea of not only having two babies come out of me, but taking two babies home from hospital and what we were going to do! todd even made me stop reading baby books and made me go back to harry potter for a couple weeks to calm down.

finally, todd's mom came across a book called "twin set" written by two very different moms of twins. i loved it cause they both talked about what worked for them while pregnant and beyond with real examples and advice. this worked out really well timing wise cause i ended up in the hospital for a few days cause i was having contractions at only 24 weeks...the first real week babies a chance to survive outside the womb. anyways, they were able to stop labor and gave me steroid shots to help develop the twins' lungs cause it looked like they were definitely coming early, just not that early! i was sent home, but had to go to the dr weekly to check the babies growth and well being.
by about 32 weeks, i was so big and pretty unable to sleep or do much of anything, the fear of the babies actually coming out started to be outweighed by actually wanting to get them out!!!

that photo was taken the week before i had them and my biggest regret was i didn't take photos every week of my pregnancy! i went back and looked and there are only a couple...i don't remember it, but todd says i was very anti-pictures most of the time...i do really wish i had taken at least one the day we actually went to the hospital and had them but it all happened so fast we weren't really thinking about me or that, just the idea that we were about to become parents, of twins!!!

Its a girl AND a boy!!!

after finding out i was pregnant, then finding out i was pregnant with twins we decided the fact that there are two was the surprise and couldn't wait to find out what combo of babies we were having!
from the second dr.'s appmnt and ultrasound, dr. shepherd said she thought there was a boy and a girl cause the heartbeats were pretty different. i also started having dreams around that time, and i kept seeing one of each too. just after mother's day todd was able to feel the babies move and when we kept talking about what they were, he felt they must be a boy in there cause the kicks were so hard! plus my main craving during may was cheeseburgers! i'm pretty sure i ate more cheeseburgers when pregnant than i did in the last 3 years!!! todd thought because i was craving so much beef, when normally i avoid anything beef, there must be at least one boy in there. plus, we have 3 nieces and another on the way, so we were hoping for at least one boy!
finally may 25th came and the ultrasound tech may us sign this thing saying we wouldn't sue if she was wrong and we held our breath as she looked at "baby a".
"well, baby a looks like a girl, yep! see there? i'm very sure this is a girl!" i remember squeezing todd's hand then and him smiling huge. it took awhile longer for "baby b" to move into position but when he did, he was definitely "all boy" as the tech said! a few tears formed i was so happy. so perfect! our family four pack!!!
on the way home we started discussing nursery ideas. we had started to register, but held off on "decor" cause we didn't know what we were preparing for!!!