Weeks 18, 19, & 20

WOW....I have totally neglected this blog!!!! I am now 20 weeks pregnant as of tomorrow and will probably regret saying this but time is flying!!!!

Last week I had my 19 week ultrasound!!! First and foremost everyone (me included) appeared healthy which is a true blessing! Both babies were very active and already seem to enjoy tormenting each other as throughout the entire scan they continually jabbed, punched, and kick each other. Baby A was not shy and definitely let us know that he is a BOY! Typical guy, right? Baby B wasn't quite as ready to let us know but appears to be a Girl! Hopefully we will find out for sure in the next couple of months! Both are weighing in at a hefty 10 ounces a piece, which for their age is about where they are supposed to be!

Below are some pics of both of them and also one of Betsy Miller and I, she is the midwife that I was seeing! Sadly last week was my last appointment with her as she has transferred my care to one of the doctors due to the twin pregnancy! Betsy if you happen to read this, thanks for everything and please please please keep up on us and I expect to see you when these babies make their debut in the spring!

Baby A profile


Baby B who appears to already be a thumb sucker!


Betsy and I


Here is a few other things that we have been up to lately:

-Chad has been hunting, hunting, and hunting some more!!! No surprise there!

-I went to the Notre Dame/Pitt game with my brother Andrew and cousins, the game was so disappointing that we left at the beginning of the 4th quarter and missed all the action and I missed what I have been waiting for all season... a Golden Tate punt return for a touchdown! The Irish still lost and have had a very disappointing season, but I still love them!

-I saw the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes with my mom in Pittsburgh...one word AWESOME!!! I wanna be a Rockettes!!! LOL!

-Went to see New Moon-yet again AWESOME!

-I am definitely looking more pregnant as the days go by! I will post an updated belly pic soon!

-I am starting to feel the babies move which is a cool yet awkward sensation!

-Oh...I almost forgot! I have accepted a new job! As of January 4, 2010 I will begin work at Dr. Bonasso's office in Fairmont! I am really excited as this is a position in womens health which is something I have wanted to do ever since I set out to be a Nurse Practitioner! I will however miss my co-workers as TCHC dearly!

-And last but not least now that we know one babies gender for sure and have a good idea on the other one...what on earth are we going to name them? They can't be A and B for the rest of their lives! I have some ideas, but naming is hard business and is causing me major stress! Any ideas?

That is it for now! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Missi

Week 17

I am actually posting on a Wednesday.....imagine that!!!!

Today marks 17 weeks! Yikes!!!! This pregnancy is nearing the halfway point and that is just down right scary and unbelievable!!!!

Things are going well! The good book tells me that the babies could be nearing 5 inches and their weight is over 3 ounces! At this point I cannot tell you that I feel distinct movements which is normal but I do believe that I feel something going on! I get these weird sensations at different times of being elbowed from the inside! My belly is definitely growing in size and my clothes are becoming a bit uncomfortable, but most maternity clothes are still a little big!

We are anxiously awaiting November 17th!!!! This is the day of our ultrasound and next appointment! We are praying that the ultrasound reveals that they are both healthy and growing as they should! If everything looks as it should we are then hoping that we can find out if we will be dressing them in pink or blue or maybe one of each!!!!

I am not sure if this is related to pregnancy but I did experience my first "charlie horse" the other night, no make that early morning! Let me tell you, I was sound asleep and the next thing I know I am sitting straight up and my right foot is stuck in a flexed position with my calf muscles in a knot! I will admit that I let out a little yelp and if Chad would have been here it probably would have scared him! Needless to say I don't care to ever experience that again! Ouch!

This is the week that Chad is/was in Illinois hunting. He has been looking forward to this trip since booking it in late June! He left early Saturday morning and was not to return until this coming Sunday. Yesterday morning he killed the biggest deer he has killed to date with his bow! He is about as proud as he can be, you can't wipe the smile off of his face (he better act this excited when the Dynamic Duo arrive if he knows what is good for him!!!! LOL)! After harvesting this deer he promptly got in his truck and drove 9 1/2 hours home only stopping twice to get gas!
I will post a pic below...disclaimer if you don't want to see a dead animal don't scroll down!!!!!



That is all for this week! Hope you have a good week! The deer pic is below! Missi

Weeks 15 & 16

I had an appointment this week, everything seems to be going well at this point! I did learn something new, or maybe I will say had my memory refreshed. Since the first ultrasound showed two placentas that were fused or grown together I automatically assumed that indicated fraternal twins. Not necessarily true! There is a chance that they are identical! I still feel that they are fraternal due to the genetic hereditary component of fraternal twins and the strong history of twins in my mother's family. The only way we will know if they are fraternal in the short term is if one is a boy and one is a girl, other than that we will have to wait until they are born and studies are done on the placentas! We don't care either way, we just want healthy babies. Although Chad is predicting two girls (I think this is his way of putting a jinx on so that it really isn't two girls) and my gut says there is at least one girl!

At this point in gestation the babies weigh about 2 3/4 ounces and are about 4-5 inches long!

I do have a few pics to share, these are not the best and are done with a older machine. The only reason they are done is to assure that there is indeed two heart beats.

The top photo is Baby "a", and the bottom is Baby "b"! I call these alien photos!



Sorry for the short post, work has been CRAZY this week!!! That actually is an understatement! We are swamped with the flu!!! Hope everyone is having a good week and is healthy!!! Only two more days until the weekend!!! Missi

H1N1

So this is just random post, but hopefully it is informational.

Unless you are living under a rock (like one of my brothers who didn't know what H1N1 was) I am going to assume you have heard of H1N1 and the assoicated vaccine. I know a lot of people have a lot of questions regarding the virus and the vaccine so I thought I could share some info and direct you to some factual information.

As of about a week ago I have been vaccinated against both seasonal flu and H1N1. There is a lot of apprehension regarding the H1N1 vaccine which is to be expected since it is new. I will admit it is very nerve wracking to get a new vaccine, with questions like is this really safe, was it accurately tested, is it even gonna work, or will this have side effects later in life, all going through your head. In my case I was also saddled with the thought of how is this vaccine going to affect my babies who are very busy developing inside me!!!!!

Being a healthcare worker who works the frontline of acute care and also being pregnant I was at the top of the list to be vaccinated, so I had to do my research and do it quickly!!! Lucky for me my best pal Dennelle loves to do research and is always up on the latest literature so I picked her brain and she led me to some very informative resources.

I won't bore you with the articles, but I will share with you some of the data that is out there. Also, the cdc website is chalk full of information for patients that is not full of medical jargon and is meant for the consumer. The web address is www.cdc.gov also www.flu.gov . Obviously I found it in mine and my family's best interest to be vaccinated, this post is in no way intended to sway you one way or the other, just some food for thought! I truely believe that this a personal decision that each person or couple has to make for themselves or their family.

Here are some facts:

-76 children under the age of 18 have died since April 2009 with H1N1 nationwide, that is pretty close to the number that die in a typical year of the seasonal flu and we haven't even reached "flu season" yet.

-In most of the above mentioned cases, the children did have a chronic illness that put them at risk, but in 1/3 of the cases the child was perfectly healthy.

-There is a small amount of Thimerosal (what most people refer to as Mercury) in the multi dose vials, but they also make a preservative free vaccine and you can ask for that. (This is the one that I got)

-As of Oct, the H1N1 virus is now considered widespread in the state of WV. There have been at least 5 deaths and over 200 hospitalizations in the state

-This past weekend I worked at the walk in clinic and was overrun with patients with flulike symptoms. Most had fevers greater than 102 and most were kids. It blows my mind that it is Oct. and we are already seeing people this sick

I hope this has been informational...check out the websites they are very informational and helpful. It is a very stressful situation but it is definitely better to be informed.

I need to do another post, I have some new ultrasound pics!!!

Week 14

Okay...I am failing at posting on Wednesdays and it is fitting better in my schedule to do a posting on Sunday evenings, so maybe I will just start doing them on Sunday evenings!!!

Week 14 nothing interesting to note!!! The Book tells me that the babies could be up to 4 inches long now and they may weigh an ounce!!! It also tells me that I may need to be wearing maternity clothes by now, and I don't have to WoooHooooo! I am sure my day is coming, but I am going to try my best to find some stylish ones!!!! Since I don't have much to new news I am going to post a few pics of me and my belly or as Chad says non existent belly! Believe me you may not see it but I know there is a change!!!

This Pic is the before pic taken the morning after I found out I was pregnant! I was about 4 weeks.


This pic was taken this week, so I was 14 weeks and some change!


Enough about pregnancy I want to post some of my latest knitting projects!!! Over the past year and a half I have learned to knit and I LOVE IT!!! My Mom taught me and I just can't get enough! I have mostly made baby hats and booties because a lot of our friends were pregnant at the time and I love getting handmade gifts so I thought I would give some! I have also made some scarves, hats for myself and Chad, dishrags, and a baby blanket or two. So here are a few pics!

Baby hat and booties that were for our friend's son Porter!





And my newest adventure in knitting socks! This is my first sock ever and I am knitting it's mate presently, they are going to be a Christmas gift!!!


I hope you enjoy, and I am going to try to post on Wednesdays but if it doesn't workout Sunday evenings may be my new blogging time!

Have a great week, Missi

Week 13

So I have already failed at what I set out to do...post weekly on Wednesdays! I don't have anything really new to post I am feeling fine and my only complaint is that I cannot seem to sleep past 6 am for some reason!! This can go away anytime now, but I have often thought that maybe this is just preparing us (I say us because once I am up, I toss and turn and then Chad wakes up) for the sleep deprivation that is to come!!!

Since I don't have anything new and I am using this blog as a archive for myself I am going to post a some stuff about the babies development at the present time. My handy dandy pregnancy book tells me that our babies are about the size of a peach, could weight between 0.5 and 0.7 ounce, and are 2.6 to 3.1 inches from crown to rump. I do know at the ultrasound last week they were both already 2 1/2 inches long so they are on the curve!!!

My next appointment is Oct. 26, personally I can't even believe it is Oct it will be Christmas before we know it and this pregnancy will be half over (amazing)!
Stay tuned hopefully I will post on time this week and I am going public this week so if you are reading this chances are I emailed you to tell you about it! Also, there may be some exciting news on the job front for me soon, so keep your fingers crossed, and I hope to post some of my recent knitting projects!!!!

First Pics

This post has duel meaning...it will display the first pictures on my blog and also the first pictures of our babies! I hope this turns out right...it is all an experiment (this blog and having two babies...LOL)!

This is the very first pic we saw of both of them that let us know that there was indeed two!!! 9/28/09

This is Baby A on a formal ultrasound on 10/2/09

And we can't forget Baby B 10/2/09!


So how did we take the news that we are going to have twins??? I will be perfectly honest I think I was in shock! At first all I could do was laugh...I think to keep from crying! In my opinion Chad handled it much better than I did, at least on the outside! For two days I literally felt like I was living someone else's life and that this wasn't really happening to us! Not that I was not happy or excited...I was just scared, scratch that VERY SCARED! Scared for the babies health, scared for my health, and scared of basically the unknown and what is to come! After saying "What are we going to do?" to Chad more times than I can count, I finally took his advice, which was "We are just going to do it!" End of story. So here are a few of our thoughts that are keeping us sane....

1.We don't know what it is like to have one child...so two is going to be our normal. I figure that one would be a little less crazy, but our crazy is going to be two!!!

2.There are many problems that can occur during pregnancy that no one can explain why they happen to certain people. Twin pregnancies can up your chances per se for complications, but I am healthy and have no pre-existing conditions that enhance the likely hood of complications so this is good and I am thinking positively!

3.This goes along with thinking positively....I read a quote the other day that said "What you think about you bring about"...so after reading that I have decided that for the next 30+ weeks when it comes to this pregnancy I am a patient first and a nurse second....so I trying to block all my scary, unpleasant, sad labor and delivery experiences from my mind and just remember the good ones and when I actually think about it good experiences far out weighed the bad

The way I plan to work this blog is to do a weekly baby post maybe a pic of them if I have a new one, maybe just an update, or may a pic of my expanding self! I will try to do this on Wednesdays as that is the day of the week that I call my change day, or in other words the day on which I move into the next week of my pregnancy! Mixed in I hope to have posts on my knitting and maybe I will throw a few posts in about Chad and the big buck he thinks he is going to kill this year!