17 weeks pregnant with twin ________…

If you haven’t had a chance to watch the gender reveal video and you don’t want me to ruin the surprise, then I suggest you stop reading this post and go back to my previous post to watch the video first! This post will be all about our reactions to the newly discovered genders of our babies!

Okay, so now you really should stop reading if you don’t want to know the genders… I’m going to talk about what we’re having…

Starting now…

My thoughts after our gender reveal party

As most of you now know we are probably having 2 boys! I say probably because the ultrasound technician was a little unsure about the gender of Baby B, but she was pretty sure they were both boys. At first this news was shocking to both of us. The entire time I’ve been pregnant we’ve been imagining that we would have one of each. Of course my husband wasn’t shy about voicing his desire for two boys, but he still truly thought that when we cut open the cakes there would be one pink and one blue. I also had voiced my fears about having two boys, and I was not so secretly hoping for at least one girl.

Feeling guilty about my lack of excitement

When I cut the second cake and saw that it was blue I have to be honest that I had some feelings of disappointment. I tried to smile and be excited, but I don’t think I did a very convincing job of it. Plus there was the fact that my husband started patting my back and saying “sorry honey” so everyone could see I was hoping for a girl. I by no means want anyone (especially my unborn babies) to think that I am unhappy about having boys. I am so thankful for these babies, and I love them so much regardless of their genders. I just needed some time to adjust my mental images of our future family and get used to the idea of being a mama to boys.

My first baby shopping spree

The day after our gender reveal I went to Target to grab some last minute things for my trip to visit my family. I decided to walk by the baby section to look at the baby boy clothes. This was not my first time browsing baby clothes, but it was the first time I seriously looked at boy clothes. Since I’ve been pregnant I’ve always gravitated toward the tiny dresses and dainty floral printed onesies. This time I went straight for the blue section. I have never been a fan of the light baby blue color, I like bright, more sophisticated colors for babies. I wasn’t expecting to fine anything I liked but…

I did find some fun stuff including this little piece that I instantly fell in love with and had to have:

And then I spotted these little onesies and added them to my cart because I couldn’t resist their cuteness and I started picturing my babies posing for a photo shoot wearing them. Aren’t they darling?

And then after that I went a little crazy. I think I bought 17 items. Little outfits that included pants, a onesie and a hoodie, more onesies and rompers and itsy bitsy striped socks. As I added more items to my shopping cart I could feel my heart getting more and more excited to hold my babies and cuddle them in their new fuzzy footy pajamas. I left Target with three bulging bags full of all things BOY and more importantly with an overwhelming anticipation to meet my sons.

Why I’m excited to have twin BOYS

1. They will be brothers

2. They can share clothes

3. It’s easier to name twins of the same gender (I think)

4. I can dress them in matching outfits (maybe, occasionally)

5. They will be lifelong buddies, playmates, friends and confidants

I think there is just a special bond between two brothers that I can’t wait to see form between these two little guys. So yes, now I am so excited for the boys to arrive! And Baby B, if you ever read this post or see your gender reveal video please know that I love you and couldn’t be more thrilled that the second cake ended up being blue.

Of course there still is a slight chance that at our next ultrasound appointment we could find out that Baby B is in fact a girl (and now I think that would make me disappointed because I’m so excited for boys). For any of my future pregnancies and if you are planning a gender reveal gathering for yourself I suggest waiting until at least 20 weeks or until the ultrasound shows a super clear image and the doctor can say “we know 100% what your baby is going to be” before doing a gender reveal party. The uncertainty is kinda lame… so next time I think I’ll exercise some more patience and wait it out a bit longer.

But for now, I’m having boys and I’m happy about it!

Here’s my growing belly: 17 weeks pregnant with twin BOYS!

Week 17 belly shot

Twins Gender Reveal Cakes

Our predictions were that the first cake would be a boy, and the second cake would be a girl… if you haven’t seen our gender reveal video you can email me at growingpeeps@gmail.com and I will send you the youtube link. For privacy reasons we have taken down the video from the blog, hope you understand!

Growing taller during pregnancy

The strangest thing happened today. I grew! I was talking to my husband who is three inches taller than I am, but I felt like we were looking at each other more eye to eye than usual. I looked down to see if I was standing on something, but nope, we were both bare foot on the carpet. I insisted that we stand back to back and when we looked in the mirror I seriously looked taller than normal! We decided to find out once and for all if I had in fact grown, so we got out the tape measure, I stood against the wall and lo and behold I am now 5’8! I have always been around 5’7 or maybe closer to 5’7.5 but I’ve never been 5’8.

So thinking this was crazy I went straight to google and searched “women growing taller during pregnancy” and what do you know, there are some other women who have experienced growing up to 3 inches during their pregnancies! I’ve heard of people’s feet getting bigger during pregnancy, but never actually adding inches to their stature. As for me, I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens. At this point, I’m only 4 months along, and if I keep growing at this rate I could gain another inch!

Now that I think about it, I have been complaining of my legs hurting and feeling sore, as well as my arms, hands, back, feet and basically I just hurt everywhere. Maybe these are all just growing pains? I have also gained 11 pounds, so it’s probably more likely that my legs and feet are hurting from carrying around the extra weight, but who knows?

2nd trimester round ligament pain

Another new pain I’ve been noticing is a tightness on both sides of my lower abdomen/groin area (but mainly on the right side). I also googled this symptom and it sounds like it could be round ligament pain. I suppose because this is a twin pregnancy my uterus is growing a bit faster than it would during a singleton pregnancy, so the round ligament feels like it is definitely stretching and super tight! If I make sudden movements or turn from one side to the other while sleeping I definitely feel the sharp pain like I’m pulling a muscle. Has anyone else had similar pains during the second trimester?

My next ultrasound with Maternal Fetal Medicine

As for the second ultrasound I was supposed to have this week, that’s not going to happen. I called four different Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) offices and no one was able to get me in for another three weeks. I thought this was going to be a problem since my OB made it sound like it was necessary for me to get it right away, but she said I could wait till they can get me in (at 19 weeks). I was a bit frustrated that I spent so much time trying to get an appointment and the whole time I was worrying about the babies thinking there was something wrong that made the OB recommend the specialist. Anyway, I guess she was just being extra careful. Now I can relax a little and trust that the peeps are probably just fine.

The peeps’ gender reveal is happening tomorrow!

Even though we weren’t able to do a second ultrasound to confirm Baby B’s gender we are still going to go ahead with the gender reveal gathering tomorrow! We couldn’t wait another three weeks to find out, especially since they were able to determine the gender of Baby A, so at least we know for sure that one of the genders will be correct. The ultrasound technician did see Baby B but only for a few seconds and I think she just wanted to get another look to be 100% sure. We trust her guessing ability, so we’re going to go for it! However, if for some reason Baby B ends up being a different gender at our next ultrasound we will get a cupcake in the correct color so he/she doesn’t feel left out of the gender reveal party business!

Stay tuned for the gender reveal post sometime tomorrow evening!

16 week twin pregnancy update

Well, we had our 16 week ultrasound today, and the genders were not as easy to find as I thought they would be. The ultrasound technician was able to identify Baby A right away but Baby B was being modest and wouldn’t allow her to have a good look. So… as of now we have a sealed envelope containing the definite gender of Baby A and a guess at what Baby B might be. We’re not sure if we should go ahead with the gender reveal cakes until we can confirm Baby B though.

Getting a second opinion

After we had the ultrasound we had our appointment with the OB and she felt it would be good for us to see a MFM (Maternal Fetal Medicine) specialist to do another scan for us ASAP. (Not to find out the gender, but to look more closely at the babies and make sure they are growing properly. There was some concern that Baby B is a little bigger than Baby A, but Baby A was bigger last month so they want to make sure that Baby A is growing normally. This was a little unexpected for me, as I thought they were both measuring good- Baby A is measuring 16w5days and Baby B is measuring 16w6days, but they are about an ounce different in estimated weight (which is a lot considering that they are only 5 and 6 ounces.) So I’m glad that the doctor is being cautious and referring us to the specialist. Once we see the MFM we will continue to go to the MFM for all of our scans and then back to the OB for the regular checkups. The upside to getting a referral to the MFM is that we may get to have another look at Baby B and hopefully they can find out the gender. If that’s the case then the gender reveal will still happen this weekend!

16 week twin pregnancy symptoms

This week my symptoms were pretty much the same as they have been; still super constipated- and having cramps. I’m having a hard time deciphering what could be constipation pains vs. pregnancy cramps, so I’m hoping that I’m not writing off something more serious as constipation pains. I’m also still getting bad headaches 1 or 2 days a week not necessarily every time it storms, but when I get a headache it has always been on a stormy day.

I did experience something new- charlie horse cramping in both calves. This happened a few mornings in a row where I woke up with horrible cramping in my calves- from stretching as I was waking up. The doctor recommended that I take more calcium supplements. I have been eating tons of dairy, so I didn’t think I would need even more calcium, but I’ll try the supplements and see if that helps with the charlie horses! The doctor also recommended Miralax for constipation or Colace. I’m hesitant to take any medication while I’m pregnant so I’d been trying to fix the problem with prunes and prune juice, but my doctor said it would not harm the babies in any way- so I’m planning to give the Colace a try first. Anyone have any experience with either of the recommended medicines?

I’ll leave you with my 16 week twin pregnancy belly shot:

My 16 week belly shot

 

15 weeks pregnant with TWINS: feeling antsy

This week went by really fast, but now it feels like an eternity waiting for next week to come… because hopefully at our 16 week ultrasound we will be able to find out the genders of our babies! However because I thought finding out the genders during the ultrasound would be anticlimactic we decided to wait another 4 days to find out (because apparently one never ending week of waiting just isn’t long enough)…

Jumping on the “gender reveal party” wagon

The latest trend with pregnant couples these days is gender reveal parties. I know it’s already been done a thousand times, and I originally thought putting on these types of parties was an unnecessary production. Now that we are finally pregnant I kind of want to experience the surprise and excitement of cutting open a cake to see if it is pink or blue… or both!

So we’ve decided that we will join in on this trend and do a little gender reveal party of our own. The plan is that one of our friends will bake two cakes; one for baby A and one for baby B. When I first suggested having a two layer cake with each layer representing a baby my husband strongly disagreed. He was actually very adamant that each baby have their own cake. Since he doesn’t get very worked up over all of the pregnancy excitement very often I decided that we definitely needed to have two cakes. I think this is the first thing that the peeps’ daddy actually cares about, which makes me happy!

However, all of this gender reveal business ultimately depends on if the ultrasound technician can actually decipher the genders. Otherwise we’ll be waiting a whole additional month to actually find out what they will be! I’m hoping that the babies will cooperate so we can proceed with our little cake cutting gathering. Of course I will be posting the video on the blog so you can find out the genders too!

4 months pregnant belly or gluten belly?

I’ve been gluten free for almost ten years now because of a gluten allergy. When people ask what happens to me when I eat gluten I’ve always described it as getting really bloated and looking like I’m 4 months pregnant. Now that I’m actually almost 4 months pregnant I’d have to say that my description of my gluten belly was pretty accurate. Okay, so maybe my actual pregnant belly is a bit bigger and harder, and it doesn’t hurt horribly, but it looks pretty similar to my gluten belly. So here it is at 15 weeks:

Week 15 belly shot

14 week twin pregnancy update

Another week has passed and not a whole lot has changed. I’m feeling better every day so that’s nice! I have more of an appetite and I even cooked twice this week (which is the most I’ve done while being pregnant). Oh, and I guess my belly has grown a bit more since my last belly shot.

Week 14 belly shot

Pregnancy symptom or the weather?

One interesting thing I discovered is that the headaches I’ve been getting on a weekly basis might not actually be hormone related. I’ve been noticing that I’ve been getting the headaches when it is stormy out. Houston has been having some pretty intense thunder storms with drastic temperature changes, so I’m now attributing my headaches to the weather. Who really knows for sure, but at least it’s one less thing to blame on pregnancy.

How do you know what kind of baby stuff to get?

This past week I have also been doing some online research on baby stuff, and there is SO MUCH stuff available for babies! But how do you know what to buy, what you will need and what your babies will actually use? I’m truly asking for advice here because I want to know from other parents’ experience. What items do you recommend for first time parents. If you have twin recommendations that’s even better, but I’m seriously open to hear what you have to say!

1. What type of car seats should we get for twins?

There are infant car seats that can be detached from a base that stays in the car.  You can get strollers that hold the car seats so all you have to do is transfer the car seat from the car to the stroller (or directly into the house) without having to take the baby out of the seat. These make sense to me since it seems like it would be easier to carry the babies in car seats rather than trying to carry two babies in my arms to and from the car. (Unless I figure out how to do baby wearing with twins- questions on that coming up.) The other option for car seats is the convertible car seats that “grow/change” as your child grows. These supposedly work for newborns all the way until your child is in grade school. My understanding is that the convertible car seats remain in the car at all times though. Anyone love their convertible car seats enough to bypass the infant car seat? Any brands that you love?

2. What strollers for twins do you recommend?

If we went with a stroller for infant car seats at the beginning we would still need to get another stroller once the babies grow out of their infant car seats. What strollers do you recommend for twins? The side by side kind or the front and back kind?

3. How does baby wearing work with twins?

If anyone has a type of sling or baby carrier that they used with success for one or two babies please share your thoughts with me! I’ve read so many reviews and I just don’t know what kind to get. With twins I’ve seen ways to carry one baby on the front and one on the back, or both in front when they are still tiny. Is the ergo carrier worth the extra cost or are the other brands just as useful?

I’m sure I’ll have a lot more questions about other baby products by next week, but until then I’d love to hear some feedback from you on these three big items! Thanks in advance for your advice!