7 weeks 6 days and we still have two healthy babies in there

I'd been a little worried, even though I knew it didn't "mean" anything, because I'd actually not had any morning sickness since Halloween weekend. Which I am completetly grateful for! But still it made me worry a bit.

What a relief it is to see that there are still two little babies in there.



We also got to see and hear both heartbeats. They're both nice and strong!





So lately my only symptoms are utter exhaustion and peeing all the time. Much preferable to nausea! And definitely preferable to puking! I'm hopeful that by continuing to only eat foods that sound and look really appealing will help keep the nausea at bay. And sleeping. I think that the nausea definitely gets worse the more exhausted I am. So I'm trying hard to get at least 8-9 hours a night if at all possible. Especially since I don't really have the opportunity to nap in the middle of the day at work. One afternoon I came home and went straight to bed for a good 2-3 hour nap, that was nice. And this week I actually went to bed at the same time as Nicky, about 8:30 and slept all night for a good 11 hours.

Food cravings haven't really hit, but I have been pretty picky. I'm only eating foods that sound good, and that's mostly been beef, preferably steak or roast beef, spinach, mustard, some cheese, peanut butter and banana sandwiches on whole wheat, milk and whole grain cereals. Really pretty healthy stuff. Well, not the peanut butter probably, but I've not wanted to eat any sweets, candy, ice cream or anything. I think that's really encouraging. Even pasta hasn't really appealed much.

So I'm all on track to have a pretty healthy pregnancy so far. I don't have to see the OB for 4 weeks; I go back December 3rd, and it sounds like he'll do another ultrasound then too. (Yay!) I'll get my Quad Screen and Glucose Tolerance Test around 15 weeks or so.

Oh, I did ask about my belly button. It's just never been the same after my first pregnancy, and particularly after the gall bladder surgery. He said it's a hernia for sure. He said it's no problem for the pregnancy though, and that I can have it repaired after the babies are born. I'm not worried about the cosmetics of it, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a problem for the pregnancy. So I'll just get that done later on.

And Nicky? He's thrilled about the babies. He talks to them and listens to my tummy to hear them "talking." He's going to be a great big brother! He had a ball Trick or Treating with Colin and another little girl this year. I have photos up under October 2009 in the Photobucket account. Here's my favorite!

Happy Halloween!

Nicky and I carved his and the babies' jack-o-lanterns this evening. He designed them both, but he had picked out which was his and which was the babies' days ago. Here he's posing with his masterpieces and wishing everyone a Happy Halloween!

Nicky and I are traveling down to see Nana on Saturday. She's making his costume again this year. Last year he was a pirate, and this year he's going to be a lion. He chose lion a while ago, but one day when I asked him what he wanted to be, he said "A lion. No. I don't want to be a lion, I want to be a PRINCESS!" I admit we were happy he forgot about that. I'd have let him be a princess if he really wanted, but back when we thought he'd be at school dressed up, we didn't think the catholic school would be able to handle that.

Speaking of the catholic school though, we actually withdrew Nicky a week ago. His whole nap time fiasco was starting to bleed over to the rest of his day, and finally it just got ridiculous. He was sent to the office one day for kicking the wall during naptime. Then the next day, he told the teacher he was ready to go to the office. Heck if someone tried to make me lie quiet and still for 1.5 hours when I wasn't tired I'd probably rather go hang out in the office too. The teacher wanted Tom's permission to call him to come get Nicky whenever he wanted to leave. I mean, what's the point of keeping him in school at that point?

It just became very apparent that the teacher and school were not interested in making any kind of accommodations for him. No book or toy to play with quietly on his mat, no going to another classroom during naptime, or anything. We got tired of their trying to pound our square peg into their round hole of a school. So we took him out. And you know what? He's happier. We're happier. And now that we also know we're having twins, we're kind of looking forward to getting that tuition money back. We have a lot of preparing to do!

On Monday when they were taking me to work, we passed by the catholic school. Nicky said from the backseat, "That's my old school. I don't go there anymore. I used to cry there." Which just broke my heart. I told him I was so sorry he was unhappy there. I'd thought it would be a really good school for him. But he didn't have to go back any more. We'd find a better school for him later. I think we might keep him home till Spring semester. Tom's interning 18 hours a week in the Spring, so Nicky will have to be in for some days. But we'll probably see about either O2B Kids again or an at home daycare environment. We'll see what comes up. And we'll try preschool again (probably somewhere else) in the fall. He'll be 4, and maybe more ready. Especially if we find a better fit for him.

And what do YOU see?

So here is today's ultrasound. Tell me, what do YOU see?



Yep, there are TWO babies in there! TWO! TWINS!

Oh my God, we're having twins!

We're so excited! We were able to see the fluttering hearts in both sacs, so that's good. Measurements are at 6wks1day and 6wks2days or something like that. Counting from my first day of the cycle I'm at 6weeks4days, so they're both measuring beautifully. I go to see the OB on November 5th, where I'm guessing he'll do another ultrasound.

We did see the OB in the hallway, and he looked shocked at the news. LOL, but he's happy for us. We really weren't having luck with the clomid/metformin combo this time. We'd tried about 5 cycles over the last few years with no ovulation. So it was awesome that it worked! Ideally he'd prefer I be having one of course, but we feel so blessed!

So I think this explains how tired I've been!

TWINS!

Tuesday is Ultrasound Day

Not much longer will we have to wait to find out if there are one or two babies in there. Last week was rough. The exhaustion was my main symptom, and I had a big paper due Friday, and then another assignment due Saturday. But now those are all finished and all I'm waiting for is the ultrasound Tuesday.

Saturday we went out for brunch with Nana and Nicky's Uncle Mike. He's actually Tom's mom's mother's sister's daughter's son. So I'm not exactly sure what that makes him technically. But Uncle Mike is a great guy and we had fun meeting up with him a bit over the weekend.

Anyway, so we went out for brunch at Perkin's and my stomach actually told me to get the buffalo chicken wrap thing, which was new because I've been totally turned off of chicken or pork or really anything but beef lately. So I got the chicken, and it was great. Right up till we were almost ready to leave and out of nowhere the nausea hit.

We tried going shopping for Nicky's Halloween costume afterward, but I was just so nauseated we had to head home. It took hours for it to finally subside, and then it came back that evening. Then again this morning when I first woke up it was really bad. I thought for sure I was going to lose it. But not yet. Today I've just been pretty drained, but no more nausea after this morning's bout.

So one more symptom is here. Nausea. Much better than puking though. With Nicky I had a lot of nausea, but I don't think I actually threw up until I was around 8 months pregnant. And then it was only 2-3 times I think. This nausea is more like motion sickness than the stomach flu or food poisoning kind. (And it can't hold a candle to the nausea I had with that stomach flu that had us in the hospital last fall.) So I'll be grateful for that.

This past week I did go ahead and take the last pregnancy test. Just for giggles. I did the same thing for Nicky's pregnancy. That time I was at 50 days pregnant. This time I was at 40 days. And this time the line was MUCH darker than last time. That may or may not indicate twins, but it was interesting! And it has us anxious to see how many are in there Tuesday!

We've already been thinking about names. Right now the front runners are:

Lilianna Elizabeth (was originally Lily, but this would give her more options for choosing a nickname. Not 100% sure of the spelling yet though.)
Rhiannon something (as our second girl name if girl twins)

Alexander Thomas
Benjamin (Yes I know it's one of the dog's names, but we REALLY like it. Is that bad?)
We still like Christoper, but I think we've ruled out Zachary.

I'm a little in love with Chris Rock right now, and some other guy.

And I think you'll see why I'm loving Chris Rock when you watch this video on Jezebel.

Here's a quote from the clip by Chris Rock:

I mean, come on...rape. It's rape," Rock said. "Rape's number two. Okay, it's murder, then rape. It's number two. In the United States, we want to capture Osama Bin Laden and murder him. We're not gonna rape him. That would be barbaric!

And one more video that I thought summed up my outrage well. I found this via MamaPop:



I actually don't know who this guy is, but for some reason, this video was the first thing I've seen that made me feel somewhat better.* I've been so angry about this. Everything else just makes me madder. For some reason, this clip made me feel validated in my anger. Not sure why.

*Update: I did a search and found out more about this guy, Jay Smooth at illdoctrine.com. He's worth checking out.