Belly Pics!

Time for some belly pictures! On our other camera I have some from 10 weeks, but I haven't downloaded those yet. These first two (pinkish-purple shirt) are at 12 weeks. Sorry the second one is so blurry. I guess that's what happens when you don't have a steady hand and you're taking pictures without the flash...

These next two (brown shirt) are at 15 weeks. I guess I forgot to do them at 14 weeks. Oh well.

This one my mom took at 16 weeks. I definitely have a little belly going there.
Now I just need to take my 18 week pictures. I keep meaning to and keep forgetting. I'll try to remember to take them tonight...

The house has been infiltrated!

With what I believe is the flu! Definitely not what we need in this house. Ben came home from work early this morning because he didn't feel well. I made him take his temperature and it was 102.3, or something like that. So he took some DayQuil and went to bed. I made sure he had some water, Gatorade, Tylenol and a thermometer by the bed and I left for work.

I didn't hear from him all day- I'm guessing because he hasn't been out of bed. I stopped by the grocery store on my way home and got some chicken soup to make Ben for dinner and I got him some NyQuil since that's what he wanted.

I checked on him when I got home. His temperature is now 102.7 and he's coughing and achy. Sounds like the flu to me. Yuck! He claims he's not getting out of bed for the next 3 days, but hopefully he'll start to feel a little better and at least get out of bed.

I guess I'll be sleeping in the guest room tonight since I don't want to sleep anywhere near him. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so I'll ask then if there's anything that I should or should not be doing with a sick Ben in the house. I really don't want to get the flu. It wouldn't be good for me or the babies...

16 week ultrasound

We went to the high risk doctor on Thursday for an ultrasound. We'll go every two weeks for now, so they can check the babies' sizes, fluids and my cervix. Anyway, the appointment went well. The tech really likes looking at our babies in 3D, so we got a bunch of good shots of them in 3D. See below...

The tech started with a vaginal ultrasound to check my cervix. It was exactly how it's supposed to be. She said it looked great. Thank goodness! Then she switched over to the abdominal ultrasound to take a look at the babies. It was neat when she was doing the vaginal one, though, you could see a little leg kicking. It's amazing that we used to be able to see both babies clearly with the vaginal ultrasound and now all we could see was one leg. They've grown so much!

Baby A was quite active during the ultrasound, as usual, while Baby B was calmer. It appeared to be shielding itself from Baby A at times. They're very close in there- to the point that they almost looked like their arms were intertwined, although we know they can't be.

The heartbeats looked good, they were both in the 140s, which is slower than in previous ultrasounds, but still good. She took a bunch of pictures of them in 3D and then went on to do the measurements. Interestingly, they measure the bellies of both twins at this point. They do this to insure that they're growing equally. Apparently, the first place you can see signs on twin-to-twin transfusion is in the bellies. But both of their bellies are measuring the same- YAY! They're both measuring almost a week ahead. We were at 16 weeks 5 days and the babies were measuring 17 weeks 4 days.

Everything looks good for now. We go see Dr. Hodges on Tuesday and then go back for another ultrasound in two weeks. Now we just have to decide if we're going to check on the gender at that ultrasound...

I went shopping with Beth and Mollie yesterday. I think we're going to have my baby shower on April 5th. That's not too far away. Ben and I really need to get registered sometime soon. We'll probably start that process next weekend since Ben doesn't have to work.

Daycare

Who ever knew daycare was so freaking expensive?! We've started looking into places and have gotten prices from some places. It made us seriously think about whether it's going to be worth it for me to keep working or not. Unfortunately, I think we're going to need my salary to afford everything- even with paying for daycare. We are trying to figure out if we can only send the kids part time to daycare, with the help of our parents.

We're VERY fortunate that our parents are nearby and 3 of the 4 are retired, so they can babysit for us sometimes. We are pretty confident that we can manage to only send them part time, it's just a matter of whether we need to send them 4 days a week or if we can work it so we only have to send them 3 days a week, which would be ideal.

Ben is going to have one day every 2 weeks off, so that day's covered. I think I'm going to talk to Chris and John about possibly only working 4 days and possibly working from home that other day. I may not get as much accomplished at home as I could at work, but I could still get some stuff done. And it would save us money on daycare. I just have to wait for a day when Chris and John are in a good mood to approach them about that one... I also should probably talk to Ben about it. We've talked a little about me working part time, but not too seriously lately.

On the topic of money- Ben and I are closing on our refinance of our house tomorrow! It's going to help us save some money, which will be very good considering daycare costs. We're pretty much trying to save money however we can at this point. We need it, but it's not easy...

To find out or not to find out- that is the question

We still have some time to make the decision, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Should we find out the gender of the twins or not? Everyone has an opinion, but I don't really care about other people's opinions, we need to decide this for ourselves. Ben wants to find out- he always has- I just can't decide. And Ben's really leaving it up to me. Ugh!

Before I was pregnant I always said that I didn't want to find out what we were having, but now I'm not so sure. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that it's twins. I'm so worried about having an emergency c-section and being drugged up when the babies are born. I want to be completely coherent when I find out the gender of my babies. I think that's a logical request. Isn't it?

But the more people tell me that we should find out, the more I don't want to find out. It's not up to other people, it's up to us. I don't care if it's going to drive my grandmother or my mom crazy to not know, they're our children- it's none of their business if we decide to find out or not. I'm tempted to find out, but then not tell people. Maybe we would tell our parents, but not anyone else. Would that be wrong?

I just don't know what to do. I'd really like to decide before our appointment next Thursday, just in case we have the option of finding out then. I'll be over 16 weeks, so we might be able to find out, if the tech wants to look. I hate making decisions like this. I know it's not a big deal if we decide for now that we don't want to know- we'll have plenty of chances to change our minds. But we can't go back to not knowing if we do go ahead and find out. Not that I think we would want to go back to not knowing. I think we'll be fine either way.

I just don't want frilly crap if they are girls. They're my girls, so they won't wear frilly stuff- I won't allow it, at least until they're old enough to pick their own clothes. I wonder if there is anyway we could find out and then at least not tell anyone until after my shower...