20 weeks, 1 day! Growing, growing, growing... (pics)

Expansion is the name of the game right now.  I've hit some sort of turning point and babies are making themselves far more known nowadays (with lots of movement- yay!- and by increasing this belly size!).  Went to the doctor for our 20 week anatomy scan on Wednesday and I had gained 6 pounds from our last appointment about 2.5 weeks prior!  So I'm now OVER my pre-pregnancy weight by a good few pounds :) She brought up the fact that, honestly, they'd like to see twin mamas be up 20lbs by 20 weeks...and I had that whole deficit thing, so keep eating!

 I asked about my "nutritional intake" and my worries that continuing to eat what sounds good all the time might not be healthiest for the offspring.  She disagreed for right now.  She told me to keep eating whatever, just get some good nutrition in, too.  I am doing that- I'll eat some fruit, veggies, and protein everyday (on top of lots and lots of carbs, junk food, and anything that sounds remotely good in the moment like french fries...).  We've held off on the gestational diabetes test because my nausea was so bad that she felt like I'd puke up that orange drink anyway so there'd be no point.  Now that I'm 20 weeks, we're just going to do it at the normal time of 24 weeks (even though I've had some tests before this pregnancy come back with hypoglycemic numbers and sky rocketed blood sugar numbers...not good).

The anatomy scan went FABULOUSLY!  I can't tell you how nervous I've been that we'd get news of scary things or that their growth would be delayed or...well the list honestly goes on far longer than I want to admit to.  But we got in there and they were kicking away, looking beautiful as always, and measuring amazingly. It was quite the experience- an hour of looking at our children...these tiny little lives who will take over every piece of our lives in just a few months...these little babies who will become kids, running and screaming and driving us crazy...these tiny things that will be our teenagers, our growing family- we'll watch them learn, succeed, make mistakes...change the world (at least to me).  They're just little luckies now, tiny little versions of humans...but - they're going to be us.

I love looking at them.  And ours are pretty fun to look at.  During the hour long anatomy scan, each baby flipped over TWICE making it pretty difficult for the tech to figure out what the heck was going on from time to time (and she's a good tech).  They're wicked active- she, of course, had to note that they're going to keep us on our toes as they start moving (in opposite directions I'm sure).

They measured their heads, abdomens, and legs.  They checked for all of the important 20 week scan pieces- cerebellum, heart ventricles, kidneys, stomachs...everything was present and accounted for, and looking healthy (times two)!

And then, my favorite part- they did the calculation for our little luckies' sizes.  I've been worried that with the hyperemesis and my lack of any nutrition in the first 15 weeks of their lives was going to come into play here.  Well, I should have known better. These are my children- they can gain weight with the best of them ;)  Little Lady is measuring right on track, maybe a couple days ahead (around 20w1d when we were 19w6d).  She weighs about 12 ounces!!  Big Bubba on the other hand felt it necessary to live up to his deemed nickname (do we know our fetuses or what?).  He is already measuring almost two weeks ahead and weighs just under 1lb!!!!  15 and a half ounces!  Go Big Bubba! I smell college scholarships...basketball? hmm (Not that I'm not already thinking of Little Lady and her future mad skills- B is 6'5", I'm 6'1"- I doubt she's gonna be "petite" per say.  We'll see what she does with those long legs!!)  :) I promise I won't be a scary team mom who pushes her kids too hard so that they hate the sport (or stage or whatever it is that they want to do).  My parents were awesome about that- pushing me just hard enough so that I knew I had their support and I knew I couldn't just quit because I felt like it one day, but they never pushed me to the point that I felt overwhelmed or tapped out. They're the reason I did what I did with swimming. Hands down. Love them.

Alright- now for some (disappointingly blurry and frustrating) photos!



Here's what's going on on the outside. This was 19w3d, so almost a week ago. (Sorry about the messy bathroom- B actually did a bit of a remodel on it this last weekend!!! Yay for new sink faucets!)



Little Lady (Twin A) 19w6d Can you see her little lips? So cute!

Little Lady's hand!



Little Lady's foot :)  She's gonna have long monkey toes like her mama (I wear a size 12 in women's, yikes. Sorry little lady)

 Unfortunately they only got two photos of Big Bubba, he was moving around so much it was hard to get anything.  We got a very blurry picture of sort of his profile and then a money shot of his bubba bits- but I figured one of those on the interwebs was good enough.  You're welcome Bubba- but you still will always be known as the boy with the hot dog!

I started getting quite a bit more "uncomfortable" in my own skin this past week.  More stretching, more back aches, and my tail bone feels like it's broken if I sit down for too long.  I have to sort of ease myself out of chairs...which is awesome after a meeting at work.  I try to kind of hang back so most people have left the room before they see me grunt my way out of a chair- and I'm only 20 weeks!!! I was telling B a couple days ago that I'm actually sort of afraid of what this is gonna feel like in 16 weeks (cuz we're making it to 36 weeks damnit).  I don't want to think too much about the BOAT I'm gonna look/feel like.  But every day I keep them in there is 3 days less in the NICU.  If we make it past 35 weeks, there's a good chance they will come home with us!  We're likely going to schedule a c-section for 37 weeks which will be right around 11/3/11.  We'll actually have to pick the exact date soon- any suggestions?  Do you like 11/3?  Is 11/2/11 better or should we go with the good ol' 11/1/11 (my only qualm is that it's the day after Halloween and I'm not sure if they'll like that or not like that...  thoughts? Doc might want us to go 37 weeks or later rather than earlier so it might have to be 11/3 or 11/4... (Not that I really think we're definitely gonna make it to that date- but doc said there's about a 50% rate that twin mamas make it to their scheduled c-section date).  If both babies are head down at that time, we'll try for a vaginal birth.  But if Bubba (the one who will come out last) is breech, we're not gonna do it.  We'll go for the c-section to avoid any added risk.

Ok, lots of updates today.  I hope everyone is doing well!