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.

A Reunion, Thanks to the Power of Facebook

Liz and I found several old friends from my senior year(her sophomore/junior years) of high school on Facebook this summer on Facebook. Liz set up a little reunion party at her house this past weekend, and we all met for the first time in 15 years or so. It was so much fun to reminisce and catch up. While we've all been busy living and have changed, in many ways we haven't changed at all.

We're hoping to get together again soon (not in another 15 years!) and this time we'll bring our kids. During this visit, Jackie and Alan left their 18 month old with his grandparents and I left Nicky with his Grammie. Nicky had a blast with Grammie, and I'm sure he wore her slap out, but she loved it.

I wish I'd thought to take photos of us all while we had the chance. I'll do it next time! Now I have to find some of the photos I have of our old group and scan them in. Until I have new photos, here's an image of our group back in 1991. That's Jackie, Alan and Bucky in the back (Bucky wasn't able to make this reunion), and me and Jason in the front. I'm thinking it was Liz behind the camera in this one.

Patience isn't my strong suit

Well my first appointment won't be until 10/27, two whole weeks! I hope they pass quickly. The bad news is that this is just the history appointment with the nurse, I won't actually see my OB. The good news is that I'll get an ultrasound though! They'll be checking for a few things, but one of them is whether there is one baby or two. I'm a whole lot more interested in that right now than I am in whether it's a boy or a girl.

Tom's already declared that we'll be finding out the sex. He has no patience. Poor guy. Lots of folks have already been speculating that this is a girl. I'm not sure either way. Naming will be easier for a girl since we still love the name we'd picked for a girl last time. But just to be safe we should be thinking of boys names too.

I spoke with the nurse on the phone today and found out that they have no intentions of doing the beta tests. Not sure why. She made it sound like they don't do them anymore, and since I know the first day of this cycle (September 11th- which is a little freaky now that I'm typing it) and have gotten positives on several home pregnancy tests they're content to wait till my first appointment. Seems a little weird, but whatever.

Just for giggles I took another hpt yesterday. I'm saving up the last one to take later. I just love seeing that second line. Plus it might help tide me over till that first ultrasound.

I know I know. The waiting has only just begun! I added a ticker up there in the blog header so that on any given day we can see how many days we have left to go. Right now it seems forever.

About 3 weeks

Well we were able to get ahold of the OB on call yesterday and get the progesterone I needed. Started taking it yesterday, so we should be in good shape. Tomorrow morning I'll call my OB and set up an appointment. I'm sure he'll want to send me for the beta tests first and then we'll probably have an ultrasound just to check to see if there is one or two in there. (That's a concern because of the high dosage of clomid that I was on this cycle.)

Just for fun I've done another HPT. I still have two more, so I'll keep doing them till they're gone. It's just so darn fun seeing that second line get darker and darker!



Yesterday I tried to calculate how far along we are. I think we're at 3 weeks on Friday, but I'll be more certain after seeing the doctor. So exciting!

Yeah, so there's this thing we've been working on

So yesterday I taught a class across campus, and after getting back to my office I was feeling really nauseated. Weird. I was also exhausted, enough so that I wondered if my cpap mask was leaking.

Again today I was just dragging at work, completely exhausted.

I came home and guess what...



I took a quick test right as I was about to walk out the door to have dinner with my Dad and stepmother. I could see the control line coming up right away, and so just set it aside as another negative without really waiting. Then I came back to the bathroom to help Nicky wash his hands before we left. And as Nicky was climbing up to wash up, I thought I saw that extra line. I picked it up and was looking at it and Nicky said "is there a baby?" I said "I think so. There might be."

I thought about being sneaky and waiting till I could retest in the morning to verify it and then tell Tom in some really cute way. But I really have no patience. Instead I took it with me to the den where Tom was showing my dad something on the computer and then smacked it down on the desk right in front of Tom. Tom said "Hey! That's a positive!" and promptly gave me a high-five. Poor guy, I guess that's the first thought for an appropriate response when you're right next to your father in law. He gave me a good smooch a few minutes later though.

So now we've told a bunch of people. Because we have no ability to keep a secret. Gayle, I'm calling you tomorrow morning! And then we'll test again in the morning to confirm it. I tried calling my doctor, but alas, Friday evenings aren't really a good time to reach a doc. So we'll just have to wait till Monday and hope that if I need progesterone supplements I can wait till Monday to get them. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Oh, and you know you have to see the obligatory inverted colors version too right? Hey, I know the TTC protocol. ;)



Update 10/10: Even more positive today!

My spluttering outrage of the week

Have you seen the story about Roman Polanski this week?

I've been so upset about this story all week. It just slays me, not even that he did it, because I know these horrible things do happen too often, but it just cuts my heart that people are backing him up!! WTF kind of screwed up world is this?

My first time was when I was raped at 17 by some 28 year old friend of the family next door. And even though it wasn't nearly as traumatic as what this 13 year old girl went through, it seriously screwed me up for a long time.

If what she had done to her wasn't "rape-rape" (which is just the dumbest thing I've ever heard) then what was done to me must have been a walk in the park with a side of rape-lite?

My mind is just blown. Obviously he's a criminal, and in my mind a pedophile. Who gives a shit how brilliant or rich he is? Why is that even mentioned? It doesn't matter! But any respect I may have had for these celebs who are saying it's not "rape-rape" or he's a great guy and this wasn't really that bad... is just gone. Gone. Poof.

Damn it! I'm just too mad to even make sense. Splutteringly outraged.

Thank you to HerBadMother for posting a coherent post on this subject so I can send you all there. If you read nothing else this week, please read this.

And then, if you have time to read one more thing, read this one.