names

okay, so many people seem interested in what we're naming these kiddos. fear not - you'll know soon. in the meantime, if you're just dying to know something, we'll give you some middle name info. you can call them by their middle names for the next 10 days (ah! 10 days!)

according to wikipedia, 1 in 3 american households own a scrabble set. we do not. why? because I am SO bad at it (and therefore do not like it!) but, although we do not like scrabble we do like games, so when a friend asked if we could give her the scrabble score of our names to guess from, I thought, "well that's sorta fun" :D

So, our girl's middle name has a scrabble score of 23. the boy's middle name will not get you as many points, its scrabble score is just 8. I promise you, you've heard of both of their middle names, and they're spelled normally.

now some of you are thinking, wait Dana, you've already told us the girl's middle name. and... that's true. no changes there. but hey, maybe some people will have forgotten, and this is a fun way to guess. so guess, guess, guess away. In a few days I'll let you know the answer :)

note: since I don't own a scrabble set, I relied on this photo here to tell me how much each letter was worth. it's a little hard to see, but I think I interpreted everything correctly! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scrabble_tiles_en.jpg

36 weeks

okay, are you ready? here's the last picture of twins in the womb from the babycenter website. the last one, they don't make them of 40 weeks. in fact, 50% of twins are born by 36 weeks. there's not a whole lot to say except that I'm excited i've made it this far. I'd like to make it one more week, but I think 36 weeks is pretty great. so hurrah!

35 weeks

all went well at today's appt. highlights include:

• I am now officially scheduled to be induced at midnight on Aug 8/9. crazy.
• this wednesday is my last ultrasound
• guess how many singleton-weeks my belly is measuring at. think think think. need a hint? last week it was measuring at forty-two, the week before at forty-three (apparently I shrunk a bit). this week... forty-five.
• I don't have any of the diseases they checked me for (hurray!)
• next appt is 7/28, then 8/3, then induction on 8/8! that is less than 3 weeks from today. whoa.

belly bump pics

So I mentioned that we had planned to take some prego pics last Sunday. It was going to be fun - we were using the photographer that Ev and Alyssa will use for their wedding and we were going to document the crazy-ness that is my body right now. But, alas, we had to cancel since we ended up visiting the hospital instead. So for a few days I gave up on having pictures. It was sorta silly anyways, etc. but I still wanted them... so then, when some friends w/ fancy cameras offered to take pictures of us after work on Friday I said "YES!"

So, thanks to Danielle and Dave (photographers) and Jackie (assistant, photo arranger, and "dana you need to fix your hair again / do you really want that hair band on your wrist for these photos?" person) ... we found ourselves the owners of 700 photos on Friday evening. Yah, 700. I've spent the rest of my "feet up" time this weekend sorting them, ranking them, etc. this evening I narrowed them further, and told blake to pic a few for the blog. here's what we got!

blake says this is his favorite of all. he always likes the ones where I'm making a face...

ah yes, the pose ideas for our photos came from my cousin's posting of her prego pics, the website of the photographer we were going to use, and a general internet search for prego pics. this pose is stolen from my cousin!

and a silly one to end - blake's belly is not as big as mine. :D

Our wiggly son

our son has been sticking his hand (I think it's his hand) out and it's CRAZY to see! very pointed. But blake keeps missing it. So I tried to catch that on film for him while he was working out tonight, and I failed. But, I did get a lot of rolling wiggling movement from our son! I can tell you that I also felt a lot more on the other side of my belly, but I can't see that part and neither can you from where I was holding the camera. But he was wiggling! I didn't narrate because what's there to say? Let's see if this works...

we're all good

today's appt went well. basically they think my upset tummy on sunday caused me to have an "irritated uterus" which is why it started having all those contractions. today however (after my bedrest and water drinking etc the last three days), they hooked me up to all the monitors again, and for the 25ish minutes I was hooked up we had happy (kicking and hiccuping) babies and only two contractions which I didn't feel at all. so instead of spending our time freaking out and talking about intervention, we talked about scheduling a delivery!
dr aryal thinks I'm all on track for a vaginal delivery. they still want the babies to come by 38 weeks (aug 10), so if they haven't come on their own before that, then they'll induce me. it's not scheduled or on the calendar yet, but she said probably a late night 8/8 induction for an 8/9 delivery (which does give them a pretty cool birthday!). we learned about steroid shots to help the babies' lungs develop faster if it seems like they'll come early, but she said that's really only necessary if they come before 35 weeks and at this point everything's looking good. she said I prob shouldn't go back to work "full time" but that I could do 2 days/wk for the next two weeks as long as it felt good to me. so hurrah! good news all around. thanks for all the offers to come and visit while I was on bed rest, but I'm really excited to say that I'm mostly off bed rest for now!

:)

checkin out the hospital

yesterday was a little more exciting than we had planned. the plan, you see, was not very exciting (well, it was fun, but not "exciting"). the plan was church, lunch w/ friends, prego photo shoot in the afternoon, and relaxed evening. really, the day went like this:
wake up, my stomach is upset. an hour plus later still not feeling well. thinking through what I ate the day before, am I sick, etc? but nothing seems quite right. so blake googles it (technically he did bing it actually) and discovers that an upset tummy like mine (I'll spare you the details) can be a pre-labor sign. so we call the doc, they say come in. so about the time we should be heading into bellevue for church, we're heading into bellevue to hang out at overlake hospital.
we spent a little over three hours there and had to keep cancelling our plans, which was sad, but obviously not the end of the world. I was hooked up to three monitors - one for baby A, one for baby B, and one measuring contractions. both babies were happy, w/ happy movements and happy heartbeats, but I was having a lot of contractions. now let me tell you, these were the lamest contractions ever. as in 90% of them I couldn't feel and the ones I could feel were much smaller than ones I've felt in the past. but they were there none-the-less and they were frequent (every 5 mins-ish) so they were hoping to keep me there and see them decrease. that didn't happen, but neither did they intensify, so they sent me home on bed rest until my next appt which is on wednesday. they'll hook me up to monitors again on wednesday, measure my cervix (which is down to 1.something now) and the girl's position (she was at station -1 or -2 the doc said) and at that point they'll decide what to do. I believe the options are anywhere from "you're fine, go back to work" to "stay on bed rest and here's a drug to slow your labor." obviously I'm voting for the "you're fine" plan, but we'll just address each new thing as it comes to us. we're doing a lot of prep and that's about all we can do. :) tomorrow is 34 weeks though so I'm feeling good about checking off one more week very soon. then we'll be aiming for 3-4 weeks more but i'm feeling lucky that we've made it this far with only a little bed rest so I'm optimistic that we'll still make it to week 36 and maybe even farther!

33 weeks

it is hot. summer has finally come. I am sitting here with my feet in a bucket of cold water. seriously. and two fans blowing on me at once. I'm melting...

but on the up side, my ultrasound and doc appt went well today. what did we learn...

• good things stayed good: both babies are normal-ish sized and vertex
• babies are more similarly sized now, the girl is measuring at 32.9 weeks, the boy at 32.6 weeks. this is the first time they've been measuring under their actual age but apparently that's still a very good size for twins, they expect their growth to taper some simply because they're running out of room. also, ultrasound measurements actually get less accurate as time passes because there is so much "stuff" in the way of getting a clear reading. my ultrasounds are definitely taking longer and requiring a lot more "roll to this side, now try this side, now try your back again" for them to get the measurements they want.
• my tummy is measuring at 43 weeks for a singleton (blake likes to guess before they tell us, and once again, he guessed right on. it was 40 week-sized two weeks ago)
• my cervix continues to shorten, but at a good pace. I'm happy about this because I didn't know it was shortening at all, and while it's all nice to have a "cervix of steel" (as the doc two weeks ago said) I didn't want to have one come delivery time! but apparently it's been shortening every time, but it's also shortening at a good rate - ie not too fast.
• heart rates are good, 138 for the girl, 135 for the boy. my heart rate etc is also good (means no preeclampsia which is a higher risk w/ twins)
• I'm on for weekly appts from here on out, with non-stress-tests (NSTs) prior to each appt. also ultrasounds every two weeks.
• the docs are still considering whether I get to try a natural birth. I hope so, but they are concerned about my lungs, so they're going to ask a perinatologist (super-special high risk baby doc) who specializes in moms w/ lung issues, what she thinks. if she says I can try a regular birth, great. if she says she wants me to go straight to c-section, blake and I will prob ask to see her ourselves and discuss further. but today we saw our third doc who suggested asking this other doc for her recommendation, so... we'll see. I will have an epidural, although they don't have to dose it high, but there are many things that can go wrong after baby A is born, but before baby B, and they need that epidural in place in case they need to do something fast.
• the carpel tunnel in my hands and wrists should go away 6 weeks after birth (probably). she suggested elevating my hands and feet and not bending my wrists (or typing - oops) to lessen the symptoms so I might try some of that...
• my other aches and pains are normal...
• I need to stay hydrated or it will trigger labor/contractions. so now that it's hot I am just going to be drinking, drinking, drinking...

and the best news of all - the doc said (we saw a new doc - dr. sekijima - today, we're trying to have met most of them pre-delivery so we'll know whomever ends up delivering) that if the kiddos were born today that they would require a lot of NICU time and would be jaundice and have a few other problems, but that they're far enough along now that if they were born, she would expect them to be perfectly healthy after awhile. how cool is that? still trying to hold out for 4 more weeks, until 37 weeks, but that's great to hear.

in non-me baby news: it was crazy to see baby Riley (my cousin's little girl) 's due date pass on my calendar. seems like she's been here forever already, and i've only met her in the blog world! how crazy. also, while my pregnancy is going so well, there are so many out there who aren't having the same experience. seems like every week somebody drops out of our twins class because they're now on bed rest. last night a friend in my book club was whisked in to the hospital and will go home to be on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy - until november. many of these stories end well, but the interim can't be fun. so, in your prayers, please both thank God for the easy road I'm traveling, and lift up those who are traveling a more rocky road.