Big Ultra Sound

Well we had the big ultra sound today. I'm happy to say everything went very well. Evidentally the nurse had booked the ultra sound a bit to early b/c he usually likes to do them around 19 wks...i'm only 18w4d. He was able to see all of baby A(Samantha) but Baby B(Sarah) was hiding out a bit, SO he'll re-check anything he couldn't see really great on Sept 20th. He did say Samantha was Breech, but we may be ok b/c they still have some time to flip before they get to big. Right now one baby is 7 ounces and one baby is 8 ounces, which is totally normal. Lastly Dr. P said he was 100% they were girls. We were actually able to see one of the babies privates...and it was definitely a girl. All in all we had a great appt and i'm starting to get excited about having two more babies added to our family.

One other very important note: the dr. said that he was pretty sure the girls would arrive somewhere between Christmas and New Years...i hope there's enough time to have a glass of champagne at midnight on new years eve!! HA HA...Just kidding! He did tell me he'd try to hold off till after Christmas if all possible. So hopefully we'll be home Xmas day and try to have a semi normal christmas for Hannah...although i'll probably be sooo big i won't want to get out of bed. The good part is that if they are here before the new year...we'll get TWO extra tax write offs! YAHOO!

On another note: we are scheduled to close on the house Monday afternoon! Paul and I are so excited about our new home. It's a great house to raise a family.

Here are some pics of the babies: (L-R) The babies mouth, the babies head and a pair of feet, 2nd row: the babies spine, babies mouth, 3rd row: face, babies head with a pair of feet(this is because they are breech

Hannah 2 year pics, News on the Homefront, NWMOM Update

Hello All,

First of all we finally were able to go get Hannah's 2 yr pics done. What a relief. She did NOT like taking them at all, so when i attach them you will see as she did NOT smile once. I think from now one we'll have to take her alot more often to get her used to having her pics taken. I'm sad she didn't smile and we didn't get any really good ones...but maybe the Christmas pics will be better.

Second of all, we have officially bought the house. We had inspections done last week and everything went very well. As of tomorrow, we are out of option pending and the only way we wouldn't get it is if the owner of the house back out for any reason(i think). We have been making big plans for our new house. We are having a "master bathroom" added behind the bedroom with hopefully 2 showers, having floor to ceiling windows put in the living room, a trellis put on the back patio with a fan and a couple of other small things done. Hopefully we'll get all this done prior to moving in althought it's always sooo hard to sit and wait when you know your new house is right around the corner and there's so much to do. I just can't wait till we actually close and get the keys to the house. I can't wait to show off the new house...it's really a georous house and soo big.

Thirdly, Melody and i went to the NW Mom's of Multiples meeting this past week. We had an ice cream social. YUMMY! It was a fun time and we met a ton of new people. I met this one lady who has twin fraternal boy/girl babies that are 5 weeks old. Gosh, i felt so bad for her. She was not getting much sleep and said that each baby kinda had their own schedule and she'd maybe get 2 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period! YIKES! I did get some great info and one lady said that she'd take a 5-6 hour nap when her hubby got home from work...Paul thought that was a great idea...and then i'd do the over night. We'll see how that works...i think i'll be ok as long as i get a real period of sleep somewhere in a 24 hour period. Another lady said that identical babies may sleep on the same schedules if we are lucky...boy would that be nice.

Lastly, we go to our 19 week ultra sound this coming Wednesday! I can't believe i'm almost half way there! WOW...i'm so excited. I'm really just ready to get over the first 9 weeks or so where the girls will be waking up at night. After that i think i'll really enjoy it alot more! I will update everyone after i get out of the dr.s office Wed. Please say a prayer that both babies are fine and everything comes out normal. I read the other day that 90% of twin pregnancies are normal and the babies are fine. I hope that we are in the 90%!

Here are some pics of Hannah:
The first one is of Hannah & Cousin Allison at Lunch last weekend...they had way too much fun. They were talking...but screaming at the same time. We scared everyone out of the room we were sitting in b/c of the girls :)
The second one was of Hannah putting on "bipstick" after she somehow found some hidden in the bathroom drawer! :) She was so proud of herself! Thank goodness she didn't get it all over the house!
The last three were the photos we took at Picture people. She just refused to smile...although i think they still came out pretty good! :)

OUR NEW HOME!

Well the GREAT news is we bought the house. We are sooo excited we can hardly wait to move in. We are going to do a couple of things before we move in but not much. The house is just lovely and perfect for our growing family. We will keep Ms. Hannah in the room downstairs by us till the au pair and babies come. Then we'll move Hannah upstairs with the au pair. I'm a little nervous about this just because my poor baby will be upstairs rather far away from me...but i think i'll get used to it. Anyway, we meet with the inspector today. We also have a fence guy coming thursday and a remodeling guy coming today to see if we can add on a bathroom and sun room and how much it would cost. I'll update the blog as soon as we have more information. O yes, we are planning on closing on aug 28th or 29th as the seller is moving to ireland August 30th. It's all just depening on the mortgage company and the title company.

We did meet the owner of the house on Saturday. We drove by on the way to lunch and they were all there cleaning and moving things out. Paul didn't want to stop and bother them, but on the way home i insisted he stop so he did. The owner of the house is such a nice lady. She is so calm and sweet. Paul just couldn't believe how calm she was considering she was moving out of the house she had lived in with her family for 17 yrs. I think i would have been a mess. She was so nice and inviting...welcoming us in her house and showing us all sorts of neat perks to the house. I really can't wait to move in. It's going to be so nice!

Also, Melody and i are going to the Mom's of Multiples group this thursday. We are both so excited. I hope she will be able to attend the next one but she is getting so big and starting to slow down a lot so we just don't know what's going to happen. I will update on the meeting after we get home Thursday night. I do know this meeting is a round table where you get the ask a mom that has already gone through pregnancy and birth all sorts of questions. I think this one will be very very informative. We'll find out soon!

Lastly, one of my relatives(not sure how we're really related) who i saw at the Bench Reunion had twins back in February. Well word was out that we were going to have twins and she called me a couple of weeks ago. I just got back to her yesterday and i was so happy i did. She was so informative and gave me lots of ideas once our kido's are here. She did say the first 2.5 months are going to be horrible...but after that it'll all be worth it. I still remember when we had Hannah and that's right about on target when we finally were able to get out of the fog and get a bit of sleep. She did say she seperated the babies and put them in seperate rooms after a month. I did NOT expect to seperate them until they were old enough to beg for their own rooms! YIKES! She said everyone is different and you just really need to do what feels right.
Also, she gave me this AWESOME website to check out: twinstuff.com talking about a ton of neat stuff and info. I love it and was on the computer almost all day looking at the site.

Will update ya'll more after we get more info on our new house!

BIG NEWS ON THE HOME FRONT!!!

Well we have big news on the home front. We had planned on building a new house as many of you know. BUT in the midst of talking to builders and meeting with an architect, a really beautiful house a block over went on the market and we have an appt tomorrow with the realator. . Here is a link to the house http://www.har.com/1009547 . It's older but big and looks really nice from what we've seen from the outside and the website.

I will update ya'll on what happens tomorrow after we meet the realator.

IT'S A GIRL!! AND ANOTHER GIRL!!!!

Well all signs point to GIRLS!!! I totally guessed right!!!! I just knew it. Paul is a bit sad because our plan had always been to have two and then if we had two girls to adopt a boy. NOW, there's no way we're adopting a child...we won't have room and we'll have to win the lottery to pay for private school tuition and then college and weddings, etc. When i reminded Paul about THREE weddings...he was a bit freaked out. I also just remembered that there is no one so far to carry on the Myers name. It's like a dejavu of my family, which had all girls too! The good part is that the girls can all share clothes and they will probably all love to sleep in the same room and maybe even share a big bed for a while. They will also hopefully be very close since they are so close in age. I regret that i did not have my oldest sister closer in age to me because we were never going to same direction...never hung out together and by the time she was in high school i was just starting elementary school.

Secondly the dr.s checked out the girls and they are doing fine. I had to sign my life away and tell them i didn't want to do any genetic testing b/c if they test for things like spina bifada there are chances of a false positive and it's higher with twins and then you could have to do an amnio to see for sure. The whole thing is weird and i do not agree with testing for these things because they only reason one might test for them is to do selective reduction if there is something wrong with one or both. So i said no to the testing and i'm happy with my choice.

Hannah came with us today to the dr. becuase i was still a bit nervous about her going to school today. She did really good in the dr.s office despite the fact that we had a REALLY long wait today.

I'm also attaching some pics of Hannah in her new bouncy play toy. This was the day after the party because we did not get any pics of her in the boucny on her bday.

Hannah's Birthday & the Mothers of Multiples Meeting

Sorry it's been a while since i wrote last. Hannah's been sick for the past two weeks...so she's been home with me on Mothers Day out Days. She is finally well from her stomach virus so she'll go back to Mothers Day out Thursday.

The mothers of multiples meeting was great. We met a ton of people and every lady had their own story. Most good and all ended good either way. Every lady had a name tag with little feet and birth date. They were printed in the either pink or blue and with the amount of babies they had. I couldn't believe it, but even a lady that looked like she was in her mid 60ish was there to socialize. Melody and i both agreed it was kinda like a sorrority meeting. They read the minutes and then they have a group called the sunshine group that keeps up with all the pregnant moms and updates on progress. What we also found out is that if we become a member, which we definitely will, they have a group that will cook food for you one night after you come home from the hospital OR 2 ladies will come babysit you babies and let you have a night out. I think we'll take them up on watching the babies for a couple of hours for a night out on the town...but we'll see what happens. The group also has breast pumps to borrow and a TON of books you can borrow from their library. All in all the group is great and we've both decided this may be our one night a month out after the babies get here.

Next exciting piece of news...Hannah's 2nd birthday party. Luckily she was not sick that day and had a GREAT time with everyone. She got a ton of toys and lots of money for college. We had about 30 people come to the party and i got take out papasitos for the occasion and it turned out great. We had lots of food, cake, non alcoholic beer and candy! Plus, Paul bought Hannah one of those big jumper things and her present was a climbing/slide so she had a ton of toys outside to play with until the rain came down.

Lastly, we find out the sex of the babies in TWO DAYS!!! I'm soo excited. I'm sure they are girls...but you just never know. I have to say, i will probably have a heart attack on the table if he sees a pee pee or two on the ultra sound machine. Not that i don't want boys, because i'd love boys. But just because i'm sooo sure that they are girls just because i feel the same way i felt when i had Hannah.

Here are a couple of pics from Hannah's 2nd birthday party!

Don't you love how Jaymie(far right) is entertaining all the kidos with playdough! Thanks Jaymes....I'm looking forward to the day when i get to buy finger paints and playdough for your kidos! :)

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!