I finally felt the babies!

I have been waiting (not so patiently) to feel the babies. In my weekly emails I receive from babycenter.com, it said that if you are carrying twins, you can feel them as early as week 14. Needless to say, I've been trying very hard to feel one of them move since then. I was beginning to get anxious as I'm 18 weeks today (and in my head I certainly should have felt them by week 18 and if not, something must be wrong!), so I was very excited to feel them on Monday.

On my way to work, I felt this little nudge on the left side of my belly. I felt it three times. After the first, I thought it was just my tummy growling or some sort of intestinal movement (I'm sure you wanted to know that!), but it just felt different. After the third little nudge, I knew it was a baby. It was very exciting and I will always remember it. Later that night, as Eric and I were watching TV, I felt it again. I grabbed Eric's hand so he could feel it. He was able to feel the baby nudge and confirmed that it couldn't be my intestines since it was not where they are located. We were both thrilled! I feel the same movement quite often now and it gives me so much reassurance that we have healthy babies. Grow, babies, grow!

Weird Dreams

Just so that I remember....
During the past few weeks, I've had a few vivid, weird dreams. I know it is completely normal to have weird dreams during pregnancy, but I just think they are so weird! I never dream!

They haven't been quite like Jenny McCarthy's as she described in her book, Belly Laughs (this has been one of my favorite pregnancy books-it's SOO funny!). In her book, she said she had recurring dreams that she would give herself a cesarean, take the baby out and play with him, and then put him back and sew herself up. At least I'm not doing that in mine!

Below are my weird dreams to date:

1. A few days before Eric and I found out that we are probably having two boys, I dreamt that we found out they were two boys and I started bawling hysterically while the tech was performing the ultrasound. This upset me so much when I woke up! I was so upset that I would have that type of reaction in my dream. Needless to say, I did not have that reaction at the real appointment.
2. Last week I dreamt that I gave myself an ultrasound so I could see the babies. This was also a disturbing dream as I could only find one baby!
3. Last night I dreamt that I had hair growing on my belly. It was like thick, man chest hair but was only on my belly. In my dream I was running my fingers throught it! I was freaking out because I didn't want to have to shave it off and because if I did, you'd be able to tell. I did NOT want any medical staff knowing that I was shaving my belly like a man shaves his face. A five o'clock shadow on my belly!

Halfway there! And the anxiety is in full effect....

This Wednesday I'm officially 18 weeks pregnant. Do you know what this means? I'll be over halfway through the pregnancy since average gestation for twins is only 35 weeks. Four more months!!! Eric and I have been dealing with this the past few weeks and are starting to widdle down our to-do list of things that MUST get done.

Last weekend, we finally finisehd painting the office so Eric can move his desk from the spare bedroom upstairs back to the office. He moved it before the Boards so he could lock himself away and have no disturbances (apparently I can be a disturbance!). We thought it was going to be an easy job; we wanted to paint three horizontal stripes and we'd already painted the middle section a few weeks ago. Well, apparently our ceiling isn't level, so when we tried to measure the lines from the ceiling, they were coming out wavy. The part of drawing off the sections was only supposed to take a little while and ended up taking hours. We had to borrow my dad's big ladder to paint the top section and in order to bring the ladder, we needed his truck. So, needless to say, as frustrating as it was to do this project, it had to get done last Saturday so we could bring his truck back and Eric could get his car! After working all day (and Eric and I both fighting off colds), we got the top section painted and I was able to finish the bottom section on Sunday.

Below are the fruits of our labor. I think it turned out nicely for us novices to try fancy paintwork!

And now we feel a little better and can almost check off the first thing on our to-do list: moving the desk downstairs.

Week 16 Belly Pics!

I am so much bigger now than I was at 12 weeks! Or even last week for that matter. Those growing pains I had last week resulted in big belly poppage! Below is a picture of me taken on Monday, where I was 16 3/4 weeks pregnant. I am waiting to feel them any day now!

These boys are growing!!

Week 16 Ultrasound Pics

Today was the week 16 ultrasound and OB appointment. We asked the ultrasound tech to let us know the sex of the babies if she could tell. She could definitely tell Baby A was a boy. Baby B was being very modest and didn't want to show the goods, but she also thought Baby B was a boy. How exciting! Two boys! Although they will confirm the genders at our Level II ultrasound next month, that's not going to stop us from looking at cute boy stuff now!

Both babies had good heartbeats at around 150 bpm and weighed about 5 oz. each. I just love going to the ultrasound appointments to see them. I think my favorite part of today's visit was seeing their little legs and feet. Sooo cute!

Below are some pictures we got to keep from the ultrasound.

Profile of Baby A (we think he has my nose and Eric's lips)

Baby B (the baby turned his head right when the tech took the picture so we missed the profile)

Growing Pains

I have had major growing pains this week. They haven't felt like the round ligament pains I had early in the pregnancy. These aren't as painful, but are rather just achy. I started back to work this week and haven't been drinking nearly as much water as I should be. I thought this was the reason for the pains, but even when I try to drink more water in the evenings, the aches still continue. I have now realized they're growing pains. I think this is pretty exciting as growing pains means a growing belly. And a growing belly means growing babies. Yaaay!

Also new this week is the lack of any major vomiting! I've gone a whole week! I'm slightly reluctant to say it might have been the end. I still get nauseous when I smell something I don't like (smelly Eric breath, mystery food being microwaved in the break room, etc), but no vomiting.

Since I've started back to work this week, I've had to wear real clothes and this is becoming more and more difficult to do. Rubberbanding pants to stay closed is just not comfortable! I am so grateful to have received hand-me-downs from my sister and a friend of their old maternity clothes. I pulled them out last night and tried them all on. What a difference they make! I think I'm officially a maternity clothes wearing girl! I've heard most women (with a singleton pregnancy) start wearing maternity clothes when they are around 20 weeks pregnant. Since I'm 16 weeks this week and a twin pregnancy starts to show a month earlier than a singleton, I think I'm right on track (at least that's my logic!!:) )

Our next appointment is on Monday. We are so excited as we will probably find out the sex of the babies and the shopping can begin:)

Baby Gender Poll

I have added a poll to the right hand side of the blog. Please take a second to vote on what you think Eric and I are having. We might find out at the next doctor's appointment on January 12th:)

Week 12 Belly Pic!

This picture was taken on December 21st. I was about 12 1/2 weeks pregnant and definitely have a bump! Although people said (at the time!) they could only tell I was pregnant because they knew, Eric and I both could see something forming. Since then, I have noticeably grown. I am definitely bigger now than when we first got to Chicago. This shirt hardly fits anymore!

Week 12 Doctor Appointment

I'm a bit behind on my posting since we've been in Chicago the past few weeks! I had my week 12 appointment on December 15th and both babies have continued to grow and develop well and everything looks great! Every time we see the doctor he has told us what good position the babies are in and that they are "the best twins you can have." How reassuring!
We inquired of the size difference that was noted during the week 10 appointment. Dr. McKernan said that it is very normal as they are fraternal twins. He did a quick ultrasound and thought that Baby A (the smaller baby) looked to have caught up with Baby B (yeah!!). We don't have any pictures from that ultrasound because the machine printer was broken, but the twins were so cute and remarkably different from the last time we saw them. Baby A (the twin closer to the cervix) was doing a ton of flips and was very active. Eric and I think this baby is going to be like me-very active and a type A personality. Baby B was just hanging out and only moved when the doctor probed him/her. We think this baby is going to be like Eric-only doing things when he absolutely has to!! :)
The doctor also suggested I take an additional folic acid and a vitamin B complex during my pregnancy. As soon as I started taking the vitamin B complex, I started noticing I had energy! It's been awesome! I still get tired after running errands or standing too much, but there is definitely a difference. Hallelujah!
Also, the morning sickness is still hanging around. I thought week 12 was a magical week where all the the nausea suddenly went away! It is subsiding a bit and smells don't bother me as much as they used to. I hope in a few weeks it's gone for good!