Interesting Facts about Twins and Supertwins

In my TTMAC September newsletter, there was 28 Interesting Facts about Multiples. I am not going to record them all here, but just a few I found interesting.
1) One amazing mother in Chile gave birth to the last of her 55 children in 1981. Her children include 5 sets of triplets (ALL BOYS!). Now that mom has her hands full!
2) If you are super adventurous and want triplets, Nebraska or New Jersey is the place for you to make your home. Their rate of triplets is double that of the rest of the U.S.
3) Due to sonograms being more widely available earlier in pregnancy, it is now estimated that for every live twin birth there are at least 6 other "twins" that no one ever know about due to the vanishing twin phenomenon.
4) As if the woman in Chile did not have enough children, a woman in Russia in the 1700's gave birth to 16 sets of twins, in addition to 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quads!! Can you even IMAGINE!?!? That's 69 children in 27 pregnancies - yikes! That means that she was pregnant for 20 years if she carried them all to term. Even if she carried them to 8 months each pregnancy, it's 18 years. As far as I can tell, she didn't have any singleton pregnancies. Apparently her husband got remarried when she died and had more kids with his new wife - with some multiple pregnancies with her too!
If you want to check out more multiple facts, go here.

How Are Twins Made?

I got this sent to me by a friend as well as my hubby today...
I hope it made you smile too!

All Things Twin Related

I went for yet another ultrasound on Monday and an appointment on Tuesday with the doctor. Both went well - the babies did everything that they were supposed to in the ultrasound. We had been praying that they would both show signs of breathing, which apparently they need to know at this point and they did. I also got an ultrasound on my leg as I had a knot there by some varicose veins that I have developed during pregnancy. Apparently I have developed a small superficial blood clot in behind my knee on the right leg. The doctor isn't concerned, though I am going for another ultrasound on it next week to make sure it hasn't gotten any bigger. The babies were 3 lb 10 oz and 4 lbs 5 oz with heart rates of 142 and 131 at the ultrasound. At my OB appointment they had heart rates of 160 and 150. I have given up asking for the fundal height as the babies have begun to spread sideways so the measurement is off anyway. I keep meaning to get a measuring tape and measure around my belly as it is getting bigger and bigger. I have begun to rival a bus in size now, though am only 167 lbs. :) I did get some new clothes a couple of weeks ago that I feel good in, so don't feel quite so badly for outgrowing most of my maternity clothes. I have a pair of XL pants now and mostly LG tops. It still shocks me a bit after my maternity clothes with R were SM pants and XS shirts. Oh, the difference with multiples.
Last night we went to our first coffee party with the Twins, Triplets and More Assoc. They have coffee get togethers for the different zones once a month. It was nice to talk to some people who have been there and lived to talk about it. Poor DH was the only man there. Apparently the hubby comes when the wife is pregnant and when the babes are newborn, but after that they are usually the ones to stay home with the kids while it is a night out for the mommy. He got to talk to some ladies though and held a 5 week old twin. She and her sister were born at 35 weeks, only spent a day in the NICU and then went home. They are the second set of twins for their parents. Most people there had fraternal twins, though one lady had identical twin girls who were 10 months old. I did get asked how we knew that they were identical, which surprised me a little. I then explained about the one placenta and chorion and that they both had their own amnion sacs. The other mom with identicals said her girls were the same way. DH told me later that see, not even parents of twins know these things, because I tend to get frustrated with people not really understanding even after I explain things to them. Genetics was really the only unit that I liked in Biology, so all this stuff makes total sense to me and I soak it all in. I have to remember that not all people are that way. It does still make me wonder about people who say that we could have a boy and a girl after we tell them that they are identical. In my mind it is common knowledge that God made boys and girls different, and that is how we even have babies. :) I think people just don't think or know necessarily about the fact that identical doesn't just mean that they look similar, it means that other than their fingerprints, everything about them is the genetically same (according to my research only the fingerprints are not the same. I might have to rescind this someday, but that's what I am going with at this point.) They do not have to be the same weight of course. Our babies are presently 11 ounces apart and have been growing at the same consistent rate since March. The doctor is extremely happy about their progress and growth, which makes me happy.
The babies heart rates are still consistently 10-20 beats apart. They are so funny that way. I wonder if it is because Baby B is basically sitting on Baby A, therefore the heart rate is higher. Who knows.
I will update this post with bump pictures later - they are on the other computer, so I do not have access at this time. Check back again!

27 weeks!

I had my 27 week appointment at the OB yesterday. All is well and the babies are doing good. Both of them had a heartrate of 150 - something that had yet to happen so far. They are still head down and I don't think there is room for them to turn around so, hopefully they will stay that way. The baby on the right seems to be a bit of a space hog and push the baby on the left so s/he has to curl around the outside. My weight is now 154, so I have gained 21 lbs, and my fundal height is a laughable 35 cm! They kinda chuckle at me when I request that, but I really want to know how large I do get, because for one thing I want the bragging rights and for another I really want to be able to tell people who complain about how big they are getting that - ha, that's nothing, I got to __ cms with my twins! We are going to be going for an ultrasound on Tuesday while Michael's parents are here, so will see the active little peoples again then. All was well with the last U/S results, babies are doing good and growing well. They are still "mover and shaker", constantly on the move when I am at rest. It's a reassuring thing!
Only 10 more weeks to go (well, maybe 11 or 12 or 13... as long as they finish all the developing they need to!)

The silence is deafening

It has been many days since I have been on here. There are many things that I wish to say and to add to this bog, but I find myself so exhausted by the end of the day or when I do have time that I feel no creativity or words in me and so I just catch up on other people's blogs and that is it. So if there are any of you out there who are curious to know how we are doing, I am sorry.
Our house is still up for sale. We have had more showings in this week then we did the few weeks before. There have been more houses popping up for sale, but the encouraging part is that there are more and more C/S and Sold signs going onto those signs. So we are waiting. Our neighbour's house is apparently conditionally sold now, so there is no competition there - not that there was really as their house is a totally different model and about $15,000 more than ours. The house that we want is still for sale, so maybe God is holding it for us and we just need to be patient. We thought for sure it would be sold by now.
We bought ourselves a new van. Yes, it was a fast purchase, but once we figured out that we really wanted a Dodge Grand Caravan, for the Stow-n-Go seats, it was relatively easy to find one. A friend of ours works at a dealership here in town and we just let him know the years and how much we wanted to spend and the next day he called and within a day we were the proud owners of a gold 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan. It is just a base model, but that is all we needed for now. We already owned a portable DVD player, so didn't need that in the sound system. I was really unimpressed that it was gold, as 3 other families I know have gold vans and they seem to be everywhere, but what can you do with a used van when a deal comes your way. It's growing on me - certainly looks nice when it's clean and shining in the sun! Now we just have to sell our Subaru. Sniff, sniff!
I had appointments this week - one with the OB and one for an ultrasound. We are at 25 weeks now. Everything was fine at the OB appointment. Heart rates of 154 and 138. At the U/S they were 161 and 141, then later 148 and 138. These babies heart rates are all over the place! They weighed 1 pound, 7 ounces and 1 pound, 12 ounces, so a little bit different, but I am unsure how much is acceptable and until a doctor tells me, I am not going to worry. I have now gained 15.5 pounds, though it is all in my stomach, like I was with R. Oh, one of the babies is a bottom dweller just like R was. Head all the way down as far as it can get and hand right up by the head. S/he is curled up around on the left hand side and the second baby was curled up in a little ball - back to the sibling and limbs out in front of him/her. We were going to find out the sex - just for DH and I - but neither baby would show anything! Stinkers!
Today we went to the zoo in the morning - they had an Easter egg hung - sponsored by Cadbury, of course. We always love the zoo. It's a fun time. R talks about a certain animal all the way there, so we have to go visit those animals. Today it was the baby elephant, Malti. She's a cutie! I had to stand in line forever before we got in - DH and R went to look at the monkeys in the meantime. After naps, we had an early supper and then went to the swimming pool. Man, our boy loves swimming! I have been having troubles with a rash after swimming the past while, so I sat on the side and watched and took some pics - going to put those up on R's blog soon.
I should go for now, we are going to watch a movie now and then head to bed - might actually get into bed before 10:30 tonight! Why is it I'm always up later on weekends, even though we have to get up at the same time? Silliness, I tell you.
Happy Easter everyone, in case I don't post tomorrow.

I had a feeling...

I've been asked if I was totally shocked that we were having twins. I wasn't. I kind of suspected that this pregnancy was a twin one and have been trying to convince myself otherwise for about a month now. For one thing, I started showing at 2 months and while most women show earlier with their second pregnancy as their bodies know exactly what to do, I am considerably larger than what I thought other people I knew were on their second pregnancy. I was into maternity jeans in the middleish of December and when we got to tell people at 13 weeks I was so relieved that I didn't have to try to hide it anymore. Now that they know I am carrying twins, there have been a number of people who have said that they thought I was a little large for where I was at in the pregnancy. No kidding! :) My friend, A is three weeks ahead of me and MUCH smaller!
I also felt a lot of movement. Again people kept saying - DH, my parents, my Mom's group ladies - that you obviously know what it feels like the second time and therefore can feel more movement. But I was feeling movement (little ones) on both sides of my stomach at once. Not really a possibility for one little bitty baby.
I started to think that maybe I was off in my dates and was in fact a month farther along than I thought and had had a cycle for the first month, though I was in fact pregnant during it. Could explain the size and more movement than usual. So when she said that there was two babies in there, I was surprised, but not totally surprised. I kept telling DH in the ultrasound "I told you so." To which he would reply, "I thought you were joking!" Not so much.
I went for my 20 week appointment today - they had the results from the ultrasound and everything looks good with both babies - all said normal all the way down the list. There is one placenta, they are monochorionic (one outer sac) and diamnionic (two amniotic sacs) - therefore they are identical! Cool! No we don't know the sex of the babies - and don't ask when/if we do find out or try to guess because I hate lying to people and you will be forcing me to, 'kay? They also did all the measurements as usual - I have had a total weight gain of 6 lbs so far, which they said is normal. The fundal height is 25 cm, compared to my last appt at 16 weeks of 17 cms. I told you I was big! The rule of thumb is 1 cm per week of gestation so most ladies even though they might look bigger only have an average fundal height of 20 cm at this point. DH says we gotta start getting pictures because I am going to be as big as a house! If people comment though I just say that we are having twins and it is allowed. Oh, the babies heartrates were 154 and 145 beats, at the ultrasound they were 145 and 134, so they fluctuate all over the place - apparently normal as well.
When we get that picture taken I will put it on here and you can see for yourself!

Surprises

Please watch the video and then read the post - don't worry, it's not too long!


On Wednesday we went for our first ultrasound. A bit later than most people's which are at 18 weeks - ours was at 19 weeks - and many people are having an 11 week ultrasound these days, though they are done along with blood tests to check for markers for Down's Syndrome. We decided that we didn't want this early ultrasound as if there was anything wrong we wouldn't do anything with the baby anyway and the chances of a false positive are high and who needs unneccessary worry for the remaining 6 months or more of your pregnancy. All this to say that we had not yet had an ultrasound.
So I went in for the u/s and the technician asked if it was my first one with this pregnancy and I said yes. We got all ready and she put the wand on my tummy and within the first 30 seconds said "You really should have had an early ultrasound."
"Why?"
"Because there are two in there."
"WHAT!?!?!"
And she proceeded to turn the screen towards me and show me that, yes, there were two little heads and bodies there!

WE'RE HAVING TWINS, PEOPLES!

Two babies, dos bebes, deux bebes... it's exhilarating and scary any way you say it. We are feeling so blessed by this, yet all the things that you have to think about with one - the swing, the car seat, a stroller, etc. - are doubled when you are having two. As well as the fact that my new-to-me Subaru (which I love, have I said that lately? :) will have to be sold to get a minivan as there is no conceivable way that three carseats will fit across in the Outback. That is a must before the beginning of June. We also have to think about how long our house will work for us - we only have two bedrooms - R's and ours - which will work for the first while, but not in the long run.

On the other hand, we are pumped. I will be getting my three kids, which I always wanted. DH has always said we will take them one at a time, but boy, God had other plans! :) So I am back on track with my goals. (Ha, ha!) The great thing will be that we will have no middle child, really. It will be R and the twins. We do not know what they are, so don't ask, and if we do ever find out I will not be telling before they are born anyway. We are so excited about the joy that they are going to bring to us, tripling the love, laughter and love that we already have in our home and our family.

I will be moved from the Low Risk Maternity Care office that I have been going to, to an obstetrician who specializes in twins most likely. I am excited about this as well, as I will have all my care from one practitioner and he will deliver my babies as well. More personal - yeah for me! - I have been a little envious of the care that my friend has been getting with her midwife and now God has taken care of that as well. We would have gone with a midwife if we could have afforded it. And I couldn't go with a midwife now with a high risk pregnancy, so God took care of that too. He is good and there are so many things to be thankful for. Oh, and according to the doctor at LRM that I talked to the OB that they are referring me to (which I don't know if he will take me on yet, so please pray about that for me!) is Dr. Stephen Wood and two of my friends, one who was a delivery nurse in L & D with him and the other who worked in records at the hospital said he is so nice. In fact, C said that he is the nicest OB she knew from there. Another blessing. God is good, that's all I have to say!

To finish off, I will leave you with some pictures of our little people. The radiology office that we were at has 4D and you can get video, so we did. We won't with all our ultrasounds - apparently they do one a month with twins - but we did with this one. I guess we will be finding out all about twins over the next years...