look ma, no stretch marks! (yet)

we're rounding the 18 week bend and doing great! we had another dr appointment last thursday and the boys are terrific. they are growing like weeds and as a result, so is my belly. it's the craziest thing to see dramatic changes in a matter of days. and i can also feel the sensation of my belly stretching. but i've been religious with slathering on my concoction of super-concetrated vitamin E lotion and cocoa butter, and so far, no stretch marks!


sometimes when i look in the mirror, i really am taken aback by what is happening with my body. imagine waking up one morning and looking like you swallowed a bowling ball! it all just happens so fast and it's truly a miracle what our bodies are capable of - let alone what is actually happening inside! it has been a serious lesson for me, however, to let go of things that i have no control over, as well as to respect the limits of my body now. i'm used to pushing myself physically, whether exercising or just always being on the go. that's not an option anymore, and it has been an amazing lesson to learn! to give you some perspective on my growth, two weeks ago i was measuring at 19 weeks (really at 15 weeks). now i'm measuring at 24 weeks (really at 17.5 weeks). here's me on my birthday (9/20) - i'm 32 now!


one of the more important points of having twins is to gain lots of weight early on in the pregnancy. this has been proven to prevent preterm labor, premature birth and low birth weight. they say if you're normal size, you should gain 20 - 25 pounds by week 20 (gasp!). i really didn't think it was possible for me, especially since i'm really not piling in the calories. well, i'm happy to report that i've officially met my goal of 20 pounds! don't ask me how i did it...

j and i love going to doctor appointments because it means we get to see the boys. i was shocked to see how big they were! we could see everything - their fingers and toes, their well-developed spines, and of course, their sweet skeletor faces! baby a is facing head down on the left side of my belly and he was showing off with upside-down 360s with his one arm behind his head (total diver-style!). baby b is laying horizontal above baby a, which explains why i've felt like there is someone laying on my lungs. he was using my uterus as a trampoline and bouncing up and down. here's his foot planting, about to spring off:



and just in case y'all need a little help getting in the halloween mood, here is baby a's face (the pirate eye patch you see on his top eye is actually the lens of his eye!):



our next appointment is in two weeks for our 20 week anatomy(s) scan. they'll look at all their organs and make sure everything looks the way it should. after that, i'll also start seeing a perinatalogist who specializes in multiples. i feel very taken care of!

birthday action

happy birthday j! my wonderful hubby is 32 today. we met right before we both turned 28 and i remember making him a batch of chocolate chip cookies for his birthday care package and burning my wrist on the oven. i still have the scar - now that's true love! i can't believe where those 4 years have gone. well, actually i can. it consists of a delightful whirlwind of moving across the country, getting engaged, married, moving across the country again, renovating a house, moving into a new house, and now having two babies. i know time moves a lot faster when you get older, but when i look back it seems like warp speed. like a whole lifetime squinched into a few years, but in a very good, satisfying way. and now with these two baby boys, i can't wait for our next life to begin!

speaking of the boys...they gave j the best birthday present by letting us feel them move today! over the past week i've thought i felt them move in the middle of the night, but it was hard to tell given my barely conscious state. but today it is definite and indescribably amazing. i first felt them at lunch (they must like tacos), sitting on the gallery porch with anne. by the way, it's a perfect day, clear and sunny and in the mid 80s with a glorious breeze. we are just sitting, talking, laughing and enjoying when all of a sudden i feel a flutter. almost like a gurgle, like when you eat something that isn't quite working for you, except this gurgle is completely harmless and on the right side of my projecting belly. and since lunch i've been feeling it more and more. i think it's just one baby, because it's definitely in one spot. and either he is wiggling his little butt all over the place, or he's flutter kicking his legs like he's swimming.

it's pretty wild to be sitting in my office with no one else, and realize that i am not alone.

gender spoiler alert warning!

we were cautiously optimistic we might find out the babies' genders at our appointment yesterday. while still being a little early (just over 15 weeks now), we heard with a good ultrasound and the babies in the right position...bingo! well, we got our bingo and the prize is two baby boys!

i think it's some strange right of passage for parents to publicize pics of their naked children (for proper embarassment, of course). this can be categorized as an "up shot of the bunz" with two chub legs on either side of the evidence. doesn't get much better than this:


it's really fun being able to rub my tum and say "how ya' doing boys?" it feels that much more real now! most of you know that i truly thought they would be a boy and girl. after the initial shock, i'm now totally loving the idea of our two lil' guys. hopefully it will mean less maintenance (no pig tails, dresses, etc.), less drama and more rough housing. i even have this vision of the two of them climbing on top of matilda and riding her around like a horse...definitely a texas-themed holiday picture in our future with cowboy hats and all! for now, they still look like skeletor:


so the boys are doing great. they did extensive measurements of just about everything (head, belly, femur, etc.) and both are growing the same and fast - 16 weeks and 2 days. boy b was in true form, flipping around and diving when the tech would try and get a measurement. boy a was pretty chill, wiggling his arms and legs but generally staying in one place. i wonder if these are their personalities developing already, or if boy a is a tumbler too, just not when we peek in on him. i'm really trying not to make assumptions based on what we see of them at ultrasounds - i'd hate to unduly influence one boy into being a nutball and the other to be passive! anyways, here's the one good shot the tech could get of our nutball:


i'm doing really well, too! the past month has been characterized by some good days interspersed with some pretty bad days. the bad days have just been extreme fatigue, no appetite, achey belly and back - just crumby feeling. but i think that i've turned a corner this week. i can feel that i have more energy during the day and my appetite is even coming back -even some meat is doable! maybe i've entered the fabled second trimester bliss? keep your fingers crossed!

the doc can now measure what's called my "fundal height," which is how big my uterus is getting. at a little over 15 weeks, i'm measuring at what someone with with a singleton would be at 19 weeks. this is reassuring to me, as the books say someone with twins typically measures 6-8 weeks ahead of schedule (yup, i had my second anxiety attack of the pregnancy after reading that one). so i feel like i'm growing in proportion to my size, but i'll probably laugh at myself for writing that when i'm 30 weeks along! here's a pretty dorky picture of me, my belly and a blurry mati:


sorry for the never ending post. i promise to update more often from now on!

sympathy

jordan here... so, good news to report, my belly is not growing! i've been reading this great book called 'the expectant father' and it has been incredibly helpful. there is this thing called couvade symptoms which explains my sleepiness, food cravings and splitting headaches. apparently it effects 90% of men during pregnancy so atleast i know now that i'm not losing it. watching tracey go through all these changes is really cool, but at the sametime i feel helpless at times when she's tired, feeling sick, etc. she is truly the most amazing person in my eyes and i can't believe that we have two babies inside her belly. she is going to be the absolute best mother in the world (no offense mama, no offense mama-alina). i am so excited and can hardly contain myself. but i am also scared and i pray everday for her health and our babies' health. this is such an incedible experience and i can't wait to meet the little ones.

13 going on...

i think the babies went through a growth spurt this week. i was VERY tired, kinda nauseus and all of a sudden my belly really popped. it still feels like i have a beer belly, but i think that's just because i'm not used to it yet. jordan is in love with my belly and thinks it's the coolest thing ever. here's me and our beloved matilda acting like the perfect pointer (as if you'd need it):

new visitors

we finally made it to the 12 week mark, which is a significant benchmark for many reasons. 1) in many circles it marks the end of the first trimester, which means the babies have passed their most critical development stage (now it's just a matter of growing like a weed!); 2) most problems happen in the first trimester, so if you make it past, you're likely in good shape; and 3) we set the 12 week mark as our date to tell the world - SO WORLD, WE ARE HAVING TWINS!

gosh it felt good to say that! you can't imagine how hard it has been keeping this a secret for the past two months. for those of you who are wondering how the heck we are having twins, your guess is as good as ours. it doesn't run in either of our families and we didn't do anything special (i.e. fertility stuff)...it just happened spontaneously. the doc is positive they are fraternal, which is actually a good thing for minizing prenatal complications. and honestly, as cute as identical twins are, they kinda freak me out a little.

so we had our 12 week appointment yesterday and it was an amazing experience. we heard both heartbeats - one was going at 155 and the other at 161, which is great. then we saw the babes on the ultrasound and baby a was wiggling around like crazy and kicking her legs. we even saw her little feet and toes! we could see baby b in profile and he was sucking his thumb - so unbelievable! we could even see the tiny bones in his hand and fingers. baby b is measuring perfect - right at 12 weeks, 5 days. the doc couldn't measure baby a 'cause she was squirming around so much, but thought she looked to be the same size. they are around 2.5 inches, which seems so small and so big to me at the same time. over the next three weeks, they head into their biggest growth spurt yet where they'll at least double their size.

here is a pic of baby a looking down at her. you can see her face on the bottom right side (she kinda looks like skeletor!).


















and here is baby b in profile sucking his thumb.














we go back in three weeks for another ultrasound and they will use a more advanced machine to measure the babes. yay!

10 week mark

not much new to post in preggo land, other than it's my dad's birthday today and i can't believe he is 72 years old. which means i'm going to be 32 later this year - yikes! a big happy birthday to dad for living this long and being in such great shape. it's a good thing because we've got great things in store for him when he visits us in austin, like changing lots of diapers and being agile enough to bounce two babies on his knee at the same time!

i have two new lovely symptoms to report - an occasional dull headache and a constant back ache, like in my sciatica. the back ache might be from moving stuff, at least i hope it is, 'cause it's WAY TOO EARLY for these babies to be giving me back grief! other than my constant, ravenous, must east every hour or i'll bite your head off appetite, things are pretty good. i'm tired a lot. i have weird food issues that make me even more convinced that i should be a vegetarian (any "whole" meat product - like steak, chicken breast, a pork chop - makes my stomach turn; on the flip side, any tart fruit is fabu). my belly is popping even more, and we'll have to take a picture soon to document. all my normal fitting clothing is pretty much not happening any more. good thing i have a few baggy items that i can still wear.

here's a picture off one of the zillions of pregnancy websites that shows what a 10 week old alien - i mean baby - looks like. now imagine two of these in my belly!



two more weeks until our next appointment and we can finally let this cat (or cats, i should say) all the way out of the bag!

wiggums

we saw action today! today was our 9 week appointment - an hour of questions about our medical and family history and four vials of blood later, we got to see our silver babies. we peered in on baby b first and he (i'll use one of each gender just because i can't bear to refer to them as "its") was all wiggly and moving about. at one point we actually saw his legs kick! here he his in aerial view. his head is on the left and you can almost make out his leg on the right.



baby a was sleeping when we peeked on her, but after a minute or so she started wiggling too, and gave us a perfect jiujitsu arm thrust. here she is in profile and you can see that her head takes up about half her length (she takes after her father).

here is baby a's close up (i swear i can see her eye and smile!):


both babes are measuring perfect for their age - 2.4 cm (about one inch) and 9 weeks to the day. they both had glorious heart beats. if you can imagine a big fat purple grape, that's about how big they are. we head back for our next appointment in three weeks, which will mark the end of our first trimester. i have to say, seeing both babies wiggling about was just about the most amazing thing jordan and i have ever witnessed. i fell in love with them immediately and it now seems very real.

we are also going to start documenting my belly, so here i am in front of our new fireplace:

8 weeks and counting

the babies took their first trip this past weekend. the three of us went to albuquerque for work and had a great time! we stayed at the beautiful hyatt tamaya resort in the mountains (http://tamaya.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp), ate lots of green chile-spiced new mexican food and visited amazing pueblo sites.

here's me at the jemez state monument, a 700 year old pueblo ruin with fransiscan church built on site in the 17th century:


I even got to stand in the shed where little boy was assembled at los alomos (freaky!). we had to get special clearance to go "behind the fence" of the high explosives area. i kept asking if there was any radiation risk and i was assured it was perfectly safe. it was pretty strange to drive past buildings that said "detonation testing" and the like. and the energy inside the little boy building - a totally unassuming and stripped down shed - was palpable. i feel privaledged and sad at the same time to have experienced this site that caused such devastation and completely changed the course of history. on to lighter topics...

my symptoms: at times i feel great, but most of the time i'm very tired, and some of the time i feel pretty sicky. good news though that i'm not throwing up at all (thank god!). my hunger is persistent and at times ravishing and i'm thirsty all the time. and i can no longer tease jordan about his pea-sized bladder because i can't hold it for more than 2 hours, which includes while i'm sleeping! other than that (i won't mention the more intimate symptoms), i feel pretty darn good! my belly is burgeoning faster than i imagined and it's getting tough to wear my regular clothes. it's funny how something like this will make you realize that every decent shirt you own is form-fitted! i'm down to wearing my low-rider stretchy jeans and a few pairs of pants that were big to begin with. i broke down and bought a few shirts at old navy that hide the bulge until i'm ready to share the news. and mom sent me a slew of darling maternity clothes that i can't wait to wear. honestly, they are way cuter than my normal wardrobe!

we move tomorrow to our house on the greenbelt and will be setting up all weekend. tuesday is our next appointment and ultrasound and we can't wait to see how our silverbabes have grown. until then!

holy cow, we're having twins!

j and i had our first ultrasound today and got the surprise of our lives - two babies with two strong heartbeats! i was a nervous wreck before the ultrasound and just wanted to see a heartbeat. when the doctor said, "i see one heartbeat, now let's look at the other baby" i started laughing hysterically and crying at the same time. it was the most amazing image i have ever seen - two flickers in two peanuts on a black and white screen. both babies measured exactly 7 weeks, which is exactly where they should be.

here's the very first picture of our babies:
baby a is on the right and baby b is on the left. the big dark blobs are the gestational sacs. the babies are the peanut-like solids and the round things with the dark in the middle are the yolk sacs. each baby measured .94 centimeters, which is about the size of a small blueberry! the doc thinks they are definitely fraternal because of the thick membrane between the two.

i don't know if it's quite sunk in for me yet, but i guess this explains why i've already developed a little pooch. the strangest thing is that i actually had a dream i was having twins and this past week i haven't been able to get the idea of twins out of my mind. chalk it up to mother's intuition.

jordan and i will be anxious to make it to the end of the first trimester, especially with twins, as there is a slightly higher risk of losing one of the babies. but after seeing two heartbeats, our ob (who we love) said we have a 90 percent chance of the babies being healthy. we go in for our next appointment on july 25 when the babes will be 9 weeks. in the meantime, i have a work trip for 5 days in alburqurque and then we move, which will be excellent distractions.

we've told our moms and my dad but we going to keep this a secret from the rest of the world until we make it to 12 weeks. it's going to be super tough now that we know what we know. TWINS!

why must i be so hungry?

i feel like an eating machine. never in my life have i felt such hunger. fasting on fresh-squeezed juices for days in undergrad - pishaw! the apple diet in high school - not even close! this is a hunger that feels like your stomach is nawing on itself. constantly. food will only satisfy it for a mere hour at most. it's the craziest thing i've ever experienced. the funny thing is, the websites say you don't need any extra calories in the first trimester, and shouldn't gain but a few pounds. yah, right.

from the start

i decided to create a separate blog to document baby silver. j and i took these fantastic classes with dr. carrie, a prenatal/perinatal psychologist, and learned all about the fantastic world of babies. from preconception to breathing air, our babies have amazing capacities that most of us take for granted, or are at least ignorant to. and while i've always been overambitious about journaling, this is important history for our little silverbaby to have access to. i'm committed!

we found out i had life brewing in me about 2 weeks ago - june 17 to be exact. so that means baby silver's conception was likely on june 5, 2006. go baby! i felt pretty great the first week or so after we found out - no crazy symptoms. and then last week it hit me. naseau, extreme hunger, bloating, fatigue, short fuse, crampy, light headed. lovely symptoms aren't they! but they also are strong, happy reminders that there is another life inside of me, which is completely overwhelming to me at this point. the hunger deal is crazy though. j calls me the garbage disposal. i can't eat enough food! last thursday i was so hungry for chinese food i thought i would die if it didn't inhale potstickers and moo shoo. today it's all about a burger and onion rings and it's 9:45 am.

so i'm 6 weeks tomorrow (they count it from the first day of your last period). we have our first dr. appointment on july 11 and they'll do an ultrasound. i'd be lying if i said i wasn't nervous - i pray everyday that baby silver is healthy and strong. we should be able to see a little peanut with a heartbeat!

here is what baby silver may have looked like last week:
and now!:it's pretty unbelievable to look at pictures of embryos on the internet. it's freaky and yet completely beautiful and miraculous. baby silver is not even as big as a blueberry!

this blog is a secret for now - we're waiting until we get close to finishing the first trimester before telling family and friends. it seems like forever, but i know in real time it's only about a month away. hopefully this blog will give me an outlet so i'm not too tempted to spill the beans.