Mom's of Multiples Meeting 7/20

My Friend Melody and I are going to our first Mom of Multiples meeting tonight! I'm really excited. We are hoping we'll be able to gather as much info as possible from other moms.

I'm starting to get back to normal for the time being. I've had enough energy to wash clothes, do dishes and all the other fun house wife chores. I still get sick in the morning but by mid day i'm usually ok. I have been having some bad headaches the past week that i sure hope subside sometime soon. I had to call the dr. on duty last friday afternoon to see what i could and could not take. He said i'm ok taking tylenol and sudafed. I think i knew that from last time...but just to be on the safe side i called anyway.

I've also be anxiously planning my sweet baby Hannah's 2nd birthday part. I can't belive that time has gone by soo quickly. She has become so independent. She helps with chores, helps feed her new fish "Betta" and has learned to put her shoes on all by herself. O yes, and she has the strength to open up the fridge which could pose a problem sometime soon! She knows a couple of colors, be predominately pink. Paul was shocked beacuase he gave her a bath yesterday and she specifically asked for the pink crayon to color in the bath. That's definitely MY girl! She loves pink, carrying purses and "bipstick/lipstick". She decided on Barney for her birthday party this year...so we went and bought all Barney plates, hats and everything else that went with the Barney ensemble. For her birthday we bought her a little plastic climbing/sliding toy. I think she will really enjoy this because she roams in the backyard everyday now...and doesn't really have anything to play with. NOW she has something in the back to keep her out of the dog water. I also bought her a tea set with 35 pieces to spread throughout the house. Paul was not happy about this, so i promised i'd buy a bag to keep all the pieces together in one spot. We also bought Hannah one of those gigantic blow up jumping things for her party. I think it's going to be a big hit for the kids...and maybe for me too! We'll see what the max weight is for the jumper.
Lastly, we're taking Hannah to the circus this weekend. We're meeting my sister and Hannah's cousing Allison. I think Hannah will have a blast...and to be quite honest, if she doesn't i know i will! :) That's all for now! I will attach some pics sunday after we go to the show.

Ultra Sounds, Ultra Sounds and MORE ULTRA SOUNDS!!! How many ultra sounds can one person have?

I was just wondering...how many ultra sounds can one person have during a pregnancy? I think with Twins EVERYTHING REALLY DOES DOUBLE! I've had THREE ultra sounds in 6 weeks. Crazy right? Considering when i was pregnant with Hannah i had a total of THREE(one at 8 weeks, one at 20 weeks and one at 38 weeks). As of now i'm already scheduled for two more ultra sounds. One on the 3rd of August...and we should find out the sex of the babies then. The best part is since they are identical there should be no second guessing the second if we know the sex of the first. :) Also, with my Bench genes working i'm sure they are girls...although i don't really care as long as they are healthy babies. The other Ultra sound is scheduled for August 30th...our THIRD WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! That ultra sound will be the big one, where Dr. P will check the spine, heart, etc... That one will take an hour and they only do those on Wednesdays so thank goodness Grandpa has agreed to come watch Ms. Hannah for the morning.

I'm happy to say everything went very well today. What i learned today at my appt was the following:
when they name a baby (A) or (B) they stay the same the entire pregnancy. And you may ask how a dr. knows which is which. My Dr. said because they stay in the same position the entire pregnancy. For instance Baby A is higher and Baby B is lower and they stay that way the entire pregnancy. Intersting right?

Anyway Dr. P said everything is going great and i proceeded to ask him what would happen if the babies ended up with twin to twin syndrome which was what he said we should start to watch out for now. He said i should stop reading all the bad things on the internt because the chance of this happening are very small and if something happens they are doing so many ultra sounds to watch close and make sure it doesn't happen. Mainly, if it does, we'll deal with it when we get to that. He said usually they just monitor it very closely and will induce early and as soon as the babies are viable if it gets really bad.

Crash course on twin to twin syndrome. It normally happens to monozygote twins, which are identical twins. It happens when the babies share a blood supply and one gets more blood and takes over and the other baby stays small. It's a very scary thing to think about but i really like to plan and research ahead. Anyway let's all hope and pray i don't need to research any further on this topic.

By the way i've gained 5lbs in 2 weeks! YIKES! Really i'm sure it's only like 3 because i wore some heavy jeans to the appt today and normally i wear skirts which are alot lighter in weight. I guess the weight is packing on now that i finally feel better...i eat better and i only puke in the morning for the most part.

Melody(my friend that is also pregnant with twins) and I are going to the Mothers of Multiples meeting next Thursday(7/20)! We are both really excited and hoping we can gather a ton of important information about anything and everything that has to do with twins! Here's a link to the group we are going to attend: http://www.nwhmom.org/ Also, we went shopping for twin stuff yesterday at babies r us! There is a large selection of strollers(by the way i'm still trying to figure out whether to get a double or triple stroller or BOTH!!?) but they don't have much of a selection of any other twin items...so if anyone reading knows of some special store in Houston, Texas that has a large selection of twin items please let me know.

Lastly, my friend Melody and i went to lunch yesterday. The lady waiting on us asked Melody how much longer she had left, because she is very big for 19 weeks. Anyway Melody told her she was having twins and that i was too. The lady looked at me and said your not pregnant with twins. She then came back a few minutes later and told me no one in the back believed that i was having twins... I can't figure out if that's good or bad? I guess it's good as i won't blow up like a beached whale like i did last time. But at the same time i'm sad because i was to look like i'm having twins...i guess i'm sure with time i'll regret saying this...but i really want to look pregnant now! :)

Here are some more pics of the twins(girls)...i don't really know the sex but my intuition says girls: This is baby A but you can also see on the left baby B's head..they are in a T Position right now...soo cute!


This is baby B: Isn't she just precious?? I'm already in love with both of them as so is Hannah...she kisses my belly and says "babies" all the time!



Here is a portrait of both together. I think they are butt to butt...how funny is that?

O yeah one last note. We had our first "belly" ultra sound. I graduated as of 12 weeks! WOW how nice that was for me. Anyway i forgot to add that the babies were moving a TON when he pressed down with the ultra sound wond. Paul said they looked like Mexican Jumping beans...they both totally jumped up and floated back down every time Dr. P would press down on my belly...i wish i had a tape of that...it was sooo cool! They are just soo active already it's great!

Hannah & Allison celebrate the 4th of July

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!!!

Well we had a great 4th of July this year. Despite the bad weather my sister had a 4th of july party at her house and the best part was that Allison and Hannah had a GREAT TIME! The played and chased each other around and even got to swim in Hannah's baby pool.

I'm going to attach a few pics














Aren't these some great pics...Hannah and Cousin Allison had soo much fun in the pool. The third pic of Hannah has her ma ma(grandma) and her playing with her favorite doll.

P.S. Allisons mommy promised to buy Allison a new swimsuit. She could barely get in on her yesterday AND when she finally did it looked like one of those wrestling outfits where the guys chest hangs out the top! :) I sure hope she buys her one soon or Allison is going to never forgive her when she sees these pics 10 yrs from now. Also, i'll probably be buying Hannah 2T again next summer since she's so tiny the 2T she has on this summer swallows her(My BABY WILL BE TWO AUGUST 1st...wow how time flies)! I can't believe the significant difference in size fo the girls...i wish Hannah would just eat some food so she'd put on a bit of weight.

For more pics please go to the following website:
http://flickr.com/photos/themyershouse/tags/
We still have themyershouse.com but the program we used to post those pics has not been upgraded and we can't add any more pics so we had to revert to a new program/website so we could keep updating pictures and keep current. Not all the pics are on this new website yet...we have a total of 7500 pics and you can only add so many pics every 2 months. Needless to say it's going to be a long process esp once the new babies come and we take tons of more pics...i don't know how long it will take to get them all back up on the website. Also, we have all the video clips we've taken of Hannah and puppies on line too. You shouldn't try to open this up unless you have at least a DSL or better. If you try with a dial up you'll be sitting around all day waiting for one clip to load! http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=myershouse
On another note: I'm still sick but only in the morning. I feel puky all day but only really get sick in the morning. I've been trying to eat protein at night(peanut butter and crackers) before i go to bed because i've read that helps you feel better when you wake up in the morning...it didn't work. Anyway i'm 11.5 weeks now and hoping the puky feeling will go away soon and i get some energy back soon. I go to the dr. in one week from today...hopefully i'll have some more portraits of the babies to show you everyone then.

Happy Wednesday!
Brenda

6/29 Update After a GREAT Dr. Appt.

The babies are doing GREAT! I went to the dr. today for another ultra sound. This is our second of many we'll have done. The dr. said with Twins you have a lot more ultra sounds and a lot more dr.'s appts. The good part about going to the dr. is that i always feel so nice and excited leaving the dr.s office. I know that everything is alright up to that point.

As i arrived at the dr.s office i felt a lot more nervous than the past times. I think i've read to many bad things about the disappearing twin syndrome. I've been a little nervous all week to say the least. I don't think i slept at all last night...worrying and thinking.

Anyway, the dr. appt went something like this. We arrived and they took me into the ultra sound room. My weight was exactly the same as before. They checked my blood pressure...which i was really surprised was normal considering my husband drove and probably almost hit 2 or 3 cars on the way to the dr.'s office. :) Then the ultra sound. At first all i could ask was are there still two there? He said yes...there is one and there is the other. I honestly don't know how he figured that out because they both look exactly alike to me. I did finally see two at once and felt relieved. Second of all i asked if both hearts were beating...he said yes they are...and did something so i could hear one at a time. They sounded so loud and strong!

Dr. P said they are definitely identical twins and that you could tell they are identical because the lining between the two is very thin and if you have fraternal twins the lining between them is very thick. Second of all he told me everything looked great and that now we have to really watch out to see if these babies share a blood supply. He said that is really bad if they do and that you can normally tell if they are because one gets bigger while one stays small. So our next hurdle is to hope that they don't share blood supplies....and i'm not really sure when he'll find that out.

here is the first image of one of the babies. The is the one where you can see the little half circle membrane above the baby...that is how the dr. said he knows they are identical.

This one is the second one of baby A: isn't it weird how they call them baby a and baby b?

Second to last and most importantly we are so lucky to have such a wonderful dr. He does not take my insurance anymore so we have to pay for everything and then get reimbursed for 60% by the insurance company and he knows what a mess the whole insurance thing has turned into for us and did not charge us to do this ultra sound. They can run up to 300 a piece and we need a lot more than normal. So thank goodness for such a wonderful caring dr.

Lastly, we have our next dr. appt 7/12 and since we can't find a sitter for this one and it's on a wednesday, which is not hannah's mothers day out day, we have to take her with us. I think it'll be kinda neat because she'll get to hear the heart's beating...just hope she doesn't throw a fit in the dr.'s office :)

O yeah and one more thing...he's a pic of(L-R) Cousin Allison, Uncle Jeff, Grandpa Bench, Daddy Myers & Hannah on fathers day at Taste of Texas. Boy what a fun time Hannah and Allison had that day. They are finally starting to have fun and interact together alot more than they did when they were small babies. I just love it how close they are in age...and how me and my sister compare notes on a constant basis about the girls.

Here is a first look at the twins!

The first weeks of my pregnancy

Well it's June 23rd and lots of things have happened since i found out i was pregnant.

First and most importantly we found out we're not only having one baby...but two! I was very surprised and shocked to say the least.
The dr. thinks they are identical but i think we'll know more for sure this coming thursday 6/29. We have another ultra sound this upcoming thursday and i can't wait.

Here's the info the dr. told us about last time to get us prepared.

He said we'd have more dr.'s appt's than last time with baby Hannah.
After 20 weeks to take everything slow.
They will definitely induce by 38 weeks and normally they decide they are ready around 36 weeks. My actual due date is 1/20-pauls' bday is 1/19! So subtrat 2 weeks and they will be here by 1/6 but maybe even xmas babies. I feel kinda bad because Hannah's xmas this year may be with her cousin, aunts, uncles and grandparents. We may be in the hospital. :(

My weight gain right now at 9w5d is 0 lbs. I think because i've been so sick and have not lost all the weight from my first pregnancy i just haven't gained any weight. Which i feel is good for me!

I've been having tons of sleepless nights...and lots of weird dreams. I'm also sick every morning...and tired all day!

That's it for now...now let me see if i can figure out how to post my first ultra sound!