Girls Gone Wild!!!

So, me and my two girls went on a wild shopping spree this weekend. Boy do they have lots of cute clothes now. I don't know how much I got...I may post that later just for laughs when I tally it up. How did this happen...well, the husband went out of town (camping trip). I don't think that it's going to be a good idea from now on for me to be left alone. What else is a wife to do but shop while her husband is away? I did buy on sale though, so that's always a plus. I bought various sizes too, so it's not like we're overloaded with preemie and newborn stuff yet either. The girls are still going to need more. In fact, we only have 10 preemie outfits (5 per child) and maybe another 12-14 outfits (6-7 per child) in the newborn size. Yeah, I don't think my washing machine will work that fast!

On another note, I had a doctor's appt today with my regular doctor. Things are great. My blood pressure, babies' heartbeats, etc. However, he said that he wants to start seeing me twice per month now. I was taken aback because everything is still fine, but he said this is just them being cautious. He also asked me again what I do for a living, my commute time, and stress levels. I think I'm OK to continue on my path as normal for now, but it sure seems like they may try to limit even my work one of these days.

So, with this doctor twice per month and the perinatal ultrasounds once per month, I'm up to three appts per month. I'm lucky that my regular appts are quick and they take appts around lunch. I was in and out in 1/2 hour today. Just add a little drive time and time to grab something for lunch to bring back to work, and that's not too bad. The perinatal doctors don't take appts around lunch time and those are generally an hour or a little longer. Those are obviously more inconvenient with work, but they're more fun because I get to see the two little ones. :-)

So, It's A Girl....AND....

Another girl. Yep, our 15 1/2 week u/s proved to be true. At 19 1/2 weeks this morning, they again saw 2 baby girls. Both are doing well and looking healthy. This doctor says that as long as everything keeps along this track (meaning my cervix is still long...a sign that I'm not going into pre-term labor which is great...and that the babies are both still gaining weight at around the same pace) that I'll continue to see him only once per month.

Then, I still have my regular doctor who, as of now, also only wants to see me once per month. He checks blood pressure, heartbeats, etc. So, it looks like I'll have 2 appts per month for a while. I'm sure it will pick up as my due date gets closer, but let's hope I can stay with just 2 a month. Anything more than that would be exhausting!

Anyway, the big news today is TWO GIRLS!!!

Our Bad Baby Luck (or is it??)

We went on a hunt this weekend for a stroller and car seats that I found online at the Graco website. Babies R Us has a fantastic selection of strollers, if you're having just one kid that is. For twins, their double stroller selection is severely lacking. I just couldn't see myself pushing my kids around in any of them. And I know the pattern isn't everything, but we had heard great things about Graco's duo glider, so I would have settled for anything acceptable in that model. No luck! So, I went out to Graco's website figuring that they must make more. In fact they do. You just have to figure out where to go to buy it. So, I got my heart set on the Central Park pattern in the duo glider.

After hearing that Graco discontinued the pattern for our Pack N Play that we registered for, I was extremely disappointed (among other emotions) to hear that they also discontinued the stroller pattern that I liked. I couldn't believe my luck. So, I started calling around as well as searching ebay and craigslist until I found that stroller and matching car seats. I found the car seats in Atlanta and snatched them up immediately. They were even marked way down since it was a discontinued pattern!!! But now I needed the stroller. A nice lady in Dallas, Texas was selling her used duo glider on craigslist and I asked her if she'd be willing to ship it at my expense. She was SO nice and actually wrote me back saying for that price I might as well buy a new one and she attached a website link where an online store actually still had brand new ones in stock!! Yeah! So, not the traditional way (since baby showers are ever popular these days), but I bought my own stroller and 2 car seats this weekend. :-)

Now, so you can see what all the fuss was about, I've attached a link so you can see the pattern. It's so cute...just black and white. Plain, simple, classic...

Here's the stolller

http://www.gracobaby.com/catalog/product.aspx?modelNumber=7951CNP&CategoryID=2

and the car seats at

http://www.gracobaby.com/catalog/product.aspx?modelNumber=8A02CNP&CategoryID=1

Oh, and just under 17 hours to go before the big ultrasound!!!

45 Hours, but Who's Counting???

The ultrasound appt is at 8:30am Monday morning and I'm SO excited to finally have confirmation on their sexes. We probably already know, but this will be the last word on the subject, so I can't wait. I'll probably be in to work around 10am on Monday morning and will update as soon as I get in to tell everyone what we're having!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Hoping that everyone has a great Valentine's Day today!!!

Whew....

Tri-screen results came back normal. I took it two weeks ago today. My doctor's office takes a lot longer than doctors of my other pregnant friends who got their results back WAY faster!!! I've called them three times over the past two weeks, continually expecting for them to finally have the results back. Well, finally they did.

YEAH TWINS!!! Hopefully everything else that they can't and don't test for will be normal when they're born too.

On a different note, the nursery is coming along. The bead board and chair rail were put up (by Mike...yes, he's handy) weeks ago. And now, we've got their closet in order. We took down the older crappy shelving and put up the nice wire shelving and added some cubbie hole type shelves to put various things. It's a poor man's version of a California Closet. Then, we moved all of our baby gifts and purchases thus far into the closet. It's so cute to see a closet with baby clothes hanging in it and booties in the cubbies. :-)

What's a Tri Screen

The tri-screen is a blood test. Took about 10 minutes. (Love those quick appointments.) From different hormones, etc in your blood, the doctors are able to tell if the baby will have a tendency toward down syndrome, spina bifida, and one other thing (hence, the "tri" part of the name). So, to boil it down, it checks for birth defects. If the blood levels are too high, then they send you for some fancy ultrasound (which I've been having already due to the fact that I'm deemed high risk) where they can look for certain things. One thing they check is the length of the bones in the arms and thighs. Apparenlty, down syndrome babies have shorter bones, so if the length comes up OK, then they can maybe determine that the blood test produced a false positive. My last ultrasound, I asked them if they could already see whether or not my babies were having these tendencies, but she said it was too early. So, if the tri-screen comes up positive, this next ultrasound will do more than confirm the sexes of the twins...it could give me hints as to whether they're healthy.

How To Comment

Many of my family and friends are new to blogging and have asked me if you can leave a comment. Yes, you can. At the very bottom of each post, there's always a footer. The footer includes a hyperlink for comments. It will say "0 comments" or "# comments" depending on if anyone has already left a comment. If you just run your mouse over this section, you can see that you can click on the comment link. It takes you to a pop up window where you can leave a comment. :-)

Thanks for reading!

Hope everyone enjoyed the Super Bowl last night and isn't too tired at work today. I'm glad to see Peyton Manning get a ring. He deserves it.

Nothing new on the twins yet. Still no results on the tri-screen.

Hello Internet

Alyson here...

I've been reading several friends' blogs for a while now, and it seems that our family finally has something to blog about. Hopefully this will work! So, hello internet...goodbye telephones. You know, I have found that to be completely true. Since my friends have started these blogs, I've noticed that our phone conversations diminish. I get all the information from the blog and then I forget to call to still just keep in touch. I hope any friends that read my blog will continue to call me...I love to talk on the phone.

Anyway, as you all know, Mike and I are expecting twins on July 14th. It will most likely be June when they arrive though. We had a 15 1/2 week ultrasound last week and believe that we're having two girls. We'll see...those things can change since it was so early, but I suppose there's a good chance that Mike goes to bed with five girls each night (you have to include our two dogs Minnie and Daisy to get to that number). Impressive!!! Not much more to say on that matter at the moment because we don't know much. I did have my tri-screen earlier this week but the results aren't back yet. Keep your fingers crossed.

Anyway, this first entry was just kind of an experiment. I probably won't update much until I have something to say. So, sorry to those who are addicted and check their friends' blogs several times a week like I do for the few I follow. (Oh, and you know who you are...update more often!!!) We have our 19 1/2 week ultrasound on the 19th of February, so I'll probably have something to say then...hopefully not sooner because that might mean that something was abnormal with the triscreen.