Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!

Come check out the latest of our goings on at http://davisgirls.wordpress.com.

Hmmmm

So, I don't think anyone is updating their blog rolls.

That's fine. I'll try not to cry myself to sleep at night.

I'll just giggle at the latest post over at davisgirls.wordpress.com to try to distract myself from my sorrow.

Takes a licking

NOTE: This post won't make sense without the pictures. Which are posted here.

My understanding is that most twins start noticing each other at about four to five months of age. Now, I’m certainly not going to start with the “my girls are already playing patty cake together!” posts. Far from it. In fact, I’m fairly certain they’re not going to roll over until they’re two, given the amount of interest they’ve shown in it thus far. So this isn’t a milestone post, it’s a “what are we in for?” post.

Because Bridey found her sister this weekend. Boy howdy, did she!

J had both girls on their playmat, and Marley was happily kicking things. And Bridey? Bridey was happily licking things. Namely her sister. On the side of her head.

We knew Bridey had a penchant for trying to eat her sister. This picture? Looks innocent, right? Except Bridey’s not headed in for a sweet nuzzle. She’s trying to eat Marley’s shoulder.

In fact, we have any number of photos of Bridey trying to eat things.

All cute in her Santa hat? Yes, until she leans over and tries to take a bite out of the ball dangling at the end.

Chilling with mom on the ottoman? Yup! But check out this face…she’s going after my hand while trying to look all innocent.

So, Sunday they’re on the floor with daddy, and J starts cracking up. I head over there to find my youngest daughter LICKING the side of her sister’s head! When I pulled out the camera she got all doe-eyed and innocent, but as soon as I put it away, she started in again. Poor Marley looked like a rather confused ice cream cone.

Marlowe actually had a matted spot on the side of her head the rest of the day. I probably should have brushed it out, but where’s the fun in that?

I thought this was a cute little picture of my newborns in the hospital. Turns out Bridey was already plotting against her sister.

No one’s safe in this house. Not the bear.

And certainly not her sister.

Charlie Brown, Darth Vader and Santa's Elves

We watched the Charlie Brown Christmas Special the other night. Well, Marlowe hung out in my arms while Bridey snoozed away in the nursery with Nana. It wasn't exactly a Hallmark moment in the making, but it did seem like a rite of passage. Good ol' Chuck is still my favorite when it comes to badly animated and/or stop-action Christmas specials from my childhood. I'm not sure if it's the fantastic music by Vince Guaraldi or that poor little Christmas tree that Charlie takes home year after year, but it's the special I always look forward to most.

Continue reading...

Twelve Weeks

Hmmm. Still haven't bookmarked the new site yet, huh?

There's more posts and pictures over there! You're missing out on all the fun!

The Davis Girls on Wordpress

We're in that weird transition time where I think it's time to quit counting the girls' age in weeks and start counting them in months. But we're still a week away from three months, so I'm going to celebrate the fact that at 7:14 and 7:15 tonight, respectively, my girls will have been outside babies for twelve entire weeks. 84 days. 2, 016 hours since my heart went from beating inside my chest to sleeping in cribs at night. (Well, the first few weeks they were actually in a Pack 'n Play at the foot of our bed. They were unceremoniously moved to the nursery due to Brigid's varied – and loud – nocturnal squawks. It's a good thing Marlowe's our sound sleeper.)

This morning I was ready to leave for work, and had already had a few hours of cuddling with a sleeping Brigid. I knew Marlowe was awake in her crib, because I had peeked in at her. About eleven times. Willing her to make enough noise to justify getting her out of the crib for a quick snuggle before I had to leave. Somehow it seemed wrong to pluck a baby contentedly chewing on her hands out of her crib just because I wanted to. But I did it anyway. And when I went in to get her, she turned her head and greeted me with a grin so huge it couldn't possibly fit on a twelve-week-old baby.

I told her if she could figure out how to say "pony" by Christmas, she could have one. That smile is going to be the end of me, I just know it.

It doesn't help that her sister has one to match.

Happy twelve weeks, my beautiful girls.

Marley Cups and B Giddy

*Note: This is a repost from the new blog. If you update your blogroll to the new address at Wordpress, you can not only read this entry, you get bonus pictures!*

http://www.davisgirls.wordpress.com

Let me start this post off by saying these girls don’t have a chance in this house. Other parents have cute nicknames for their kids like “Noodle” and “Peanut”. Our girls? They get gangster names. And gangsta names.

Marlowe was the first to contract a case of the ‘cups while in the hospital. It took us a moment to realize there was in fact NOT a mouse farting in the room, but that the sounds were actually hiccups emanating from one of our children. At first they were cute. Then they went on. And on. For years. I know hiccups are common in newborns, but Marls was taking it to a new level. And since every self-respecting two-week-old needs a gangster name, we kissed her on both cheeks and dubbed her Marley Cups. I’m not going to worry too much unless Brigid wakes up with a My Little Pony head in her crib.

Then there’s her sister, B Giddy. With the sounds that come out of that child (think baby pterodactyl), I have no doubt she has a future as either a rap star or a professional glass shatterer. She can thank her Great Aunt Sinead for the “Giddy” part, and her father for putting it together P Diddy style.

By the time they’re in kindergarten they’re going to be begging us to call them Snookums in front of their friends.

Don't Read This New Blog

That's it. I'm taking my babies and moving to WordPress!

The Davis Girls

The girls are here!

I went in a week ago Friday (37w5d) to have my amnio done to test for lung maturity. While at the Peri's having that done, my OB called to tell me my platelets were low and to go to the hospital for testing. At my Peri's they took my blood pressure (high) and I had started spilling protein.

Three hours later I was being prepped for a C-section. I was so swollen that the anasthesiologist was having trouble finding the pocket for the spinal block. He poked me four or five times, and apparently never hit it because when they made the second incision, I could feel everything. They had to dump a general into my IV line. I still don't know what the med was, but it was awful.

The good news is the babies are perfect. Marlowe Wilson was 6 lbs. 7 oz., and Brigid Lonergan was 6 lbs. 3 oz. No NICU time for either of them, and they mostly roomed in with us at the hospital. They put me on Mag for 24 hours because my pressure was so high but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

We were there for five days, but we're now home and doing great!

Holy wow

Okay, I'm almost 31 weeks, my shower is tomorrow, the nursery's getting close to being done...and I have two gigantic babies in my belleh! I have no idea how this all happened???

I've neglected my blog so much I'm surprised it's still here. I expected to find the online equivalent of a malnourished orchid left to wither and die, but alas it's still here!

So, new pictures coming this week. My appointments are getting more frequent. Had my first NST (both girls passed with flying colors!), and will have one with every visit to the peri from here on out.

Baby A is still breech, although it feels like she's hanging out in a hammock across the bottom of my uterus. It seriously feels like I have a three-pound trout flopping in there when she moves around. Baby B likes to play with my belly button (J says it's because I wasn't thoughtful enough to provide them with toys to play with in utero) and spends most of her time in a transverse position across the middle of my tummy, pushing out as hard as she can. It is entertaining to see my belly pop out by as much as an inch in places when she gets going!

I know that's not much after an eight week drought, but it's Friday afternoon and I'm ready to be done! I want to take my elephant ankles home, lay on the couch and do nothing for at least three hours. Then I'll go to bed. ;-)

Better hurry up!

I have an ultrasound to post, and I have to hurry because as of tomorrow I should have another picture! First of all, I can't believe that I've become so unbelievably bad about blogging that I'm going two weeks between posts. And second of all, I can't believe I'm going for ultrasounds every two weeks now!

This pregnancy is seriously flying by. Which is weird, because I mostly feel like I'm either sitting at my desk at work, lying on the couch at home, or sleeping in bed. My activities aren't quite that restricted these days, but it feels like it!

So, here are the girls. It's quite possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen. Baby B appears to be giving her sweet sister little smooches on her noggin. Either that, or she's whispering in her ear, "If you don't stop kicking me, I will put your bra in the freezer every single night until we leave for college!"

22 weeks, 5 days.

PIcture Friday

I just don't have a lot of words lately. The babies are still munching away at my brain cells, and I mostly use the ones I have left to keep myself awake at my desk. So, here are some pictures to fill in the gaps.

The belly at 20w4d:


















The reason why my belly looks like that (20w5d):


Definitely two little girls in there! Oh, and three fibroids. But my partial placental previa has corrected itself, so that's reason enough to have a little party!

Doc says everything looks good, and they're measuring right where they should be!

115 Steps

From my desk at work to the bathroom. I think that's entirely too far. And I have a feeling it's only going to get worse!

I have pictures from our Orlando trip this weekend. I'll see if there's a good new belly shot in the bunch. It's definitely bigger than it was last time I posted.

We have our next appointment with the MFM on Friday. Looking forward to seeing two healthy babies again, and hoping to verify that we are, in fact, having two girls!

One belly and one question

Okay, so I've gotten to almost 19 weeks and have posted exactly one belly picture. Well, what can I say? Here's another one, taken at just over 18 weeks. I still find myself holding in my abdominal muscles. I try to force myself to relax, 'cause it's obviously not doing any good, but there's just something about a big ol' belly hanging out that makes me tighten those muscles. Am I just a freak, or does this happen to other people as well?

The question part of this post comes from my husband. I am fully aware that everything I am about to type is going to make me sound insane, but he asked me very nicely to pose this issue to my faithful readers, and I promised I would.

The thing is, we have a ticklish couch. It's true. If J tickles the couch around me, it makes me squirm and giggle. We thought it was just me, but when my stepdaughter was here for her Spring Break, she reacted the same way when he tickled the couch with both of us on it. She is now trying to blame me (apparently she thinks she had a bout of sympathetic giggling??), but I'm pretty sure it's the couch.

J also tried tickling my MIL's loveseat when my stepdaughter and I were seated on it, and it didn't have the same effect. So, clearly it's our couch. Right?

Now, the part he doesn't understand is, all three of us (my stepdaughter, J and I) can tickle my actual belly (in an attempt to tickle the babies' feet, of course), and that has no affect on me whatsoever.

I believe his question is, how is this possible? How is it possible that him tickling the couch I'm sitting on makes me collapse with laughter, but him tickling my actual belly does nothing but make me smile?

I don't have an answer for him. If he doesn't believe that the couch is ticklish, I don't know what I can do to convince him.

I'm still here

I know, you all probably thought I took these babies and ran away to Mexico to live on a beach somewhere. Well, I didn't. The truth of the matter is, life is just percolating along, and I haven't taken the time to write. Since we've chatted last, we've started painting the nursery, bought a couple of cribs, and started a kick-ass art project that I can't wait to share with you when it's a little closer to being done.

We've also hosted out-of-town company, watched a few good movies and a few bad movies, eaten KFC's Double Downs (yes, really) and gone to the Farmer's Market.

But none of that is what I want to talk about today. Part of the reason I feel I have so little to post about during this pregnancy is that I still haven't decided what it's like to feel pregnant. I'm hopefully halfway done (if twins can make it to at least 36 weeks, that's great!), and the fact that I'm actually, genuinely pregnant still hasn't sunk in.

And that's all due to our struggles with infertility. Nothing about getting pregnant, staying pregnant or having a child will ever be normal for us. It just won't. And that's okay, it's just making for a unique experience over here.

This is National Infertility Awareness Week. If you know someone going through it, please read this article. If you think you might know someone going through it, please read this article. If you might ever have any reason to spend 30 seconds in an elevator with someone going through it, please read this article.

Thank you. And everyone who has, will or does struggle with infertility will thank you.

My poor husband is grossly outnumbered

As of today it looks as though we are adding two little girls to our household! Combine that with me, J's teenage daughter and our girly dog, J just doesn't have a fighting chance.

We had a long anatomy scan today at 16w5d, and both babies look great. Baby A is now 6 oz. and Baby B is 5 oz. I know I'm completely biased, but they are the cutest little alien-looking thingies ever! It amazes me that the same two babies can be perfectly adorable in profile, and at the same time look like the Scream mask head-on. The technician assured me that that will correct itself before they arrive.

Fibroids are still there but not getting bigger (excellent news), and Baby A is partial previa, but the doc doesn't seem concerned at all. She's got plenty of time to move up and out of the way of the cervix.

When the technician tried to count fingers on Baby B's left hand, she decided to play patty cake just to make things difficult. I thought I was going to melt. We also watched her make sucking motions (or gossiping with her sister?). Baby A was the perfect angel this time, snuggled up to her sister.

It's official. I'm in love.

Tomorrow's the big day!

Well, one more big day in a line of many big days. We're going in at 16w5d for our next ultrasound. We were assured by several people at our last appointment that we would learn the sexes of the babies at this appointment, should they choose to cooperate. Personally, I'm not holding my breath. Of course I would love to find out, but we have yet to have an ultrasound where they're both cooperating at the same time, so I'm not sure why they would start now!

Most of all I'm hoping to see two healthy little avocados in there. (Oh yeah, we're in the week where they're the size of avocados. This has been a particularly amusing week as I've been eating avocados like they're going out of style, and I feel somewhat like a cannibal!) This is the longest we've gone without seeing them, and I hate how nervous I get before each scan.

I have started feeling some little blips and flips the last couple of days, so I'm hoping I'm finally feeling movement. It's still too sporadic to tell anything from it. I know I will look back on this and laugh at myself when they're playing soccer with my bladder and rib cage in a few short weeks, but right now I'm ready to be able to feel them and differentiate them on a regular basis.

We never splurged on a home doppler, so it will just be nice to have a daily affirmation that they're both still squirming around in there! Until then, we'll enjoy our ultrasound tomorrow and our next peek into their little world!

Can it be done?

I'm going to attempt to go through an entire pregnancy without setting foot in Babies 'R Us. It's not that I have anything specifically against the giant, baby megastore, I just have a vague distaste for it, and I can't even tell you why. Perhaps it reminds me of WalMart on some level – this giant monster that sucks up everyone's money.

Or perhaps it's a simple as the part of my personality that abhors being told what to do. I don't want to have to go to BRU just because that's what you do when you're having a baby.

I am lucky enough to have a Buy Buy Baby about 45 minutes away, so that will suffice as my big baby store. Cribs are coming from Ikea, and I heart Target in a way that's almost unnatural, so I think I can do this.

What do you think? Can a modern, American family actually have babies without involving BRU? I'll keep you updated on how we hold up.

Starting the nursery!

Okay, I admit 15 weeks is early to be starting the nursery. But given the fact that my MFM has told me to take it easy between weeks 20-32, I'm simply not going to wait. I know I have plenty of family and friends who would be more than willing to help (and I'm sure I will have to take them up on it at some point!), but the simple truth is that I want to do as much of it as I can myself.

The wallpaper for the accent wall was delivered last weekend, which means I can now pick the paint color. Which means I can clear stuff out and start painting! I will post a "before" picture this weekend. I'm going to have to wait on fabric choices until we know what we're having, but I think what I've got planned so far can sway for any possible combination: b/b, g/g or b/g.

We shall see!

The bellah! (Both of them)

J insisted that we take a "Battle of the Bellies" picture, so here we are in all our glory. Of course, I'm sucking it in and he's letting it all hang out, but you get the idea! I'm going to continue to blame my ginormous belly on the fact that the two babies are sharing space with the two fibroids. Otherwise, there's simply no excuse for me looking like this at just under 14 weeks.

I may have to go to a wide-format blog layout by the time I post my 30-week belly. Lord help us!

I'm a slackin'

I can't believe it's been almost a week since I posted! It's not like we don't have anything interesting going on in our lives this week. My stepdaughter is in town for her Spring Break, and we've been having oodles of fun. She's 14, has her first boyfriend, but it's still cool to watch movies as a family and even partake of a rousing game of Pictionary Man in between texting friends (and said boyfriend).

She and I went on a date for sushi last night, as her dad had to work a little late. (Don't worry, I only ate cooked rolls.) This is where I finally learned about the boyfriend she's apparently had for a month, but was afraid to tell her dad about. I can't blame her; she's grown up being told she wasn't going to be allowed to date until she's 40.

I had my monthly doctor's appointment yesterday and got to hear Luke and Leia's heartbeats on a doppler for the first time. (We've heard them a few times on ultrasound, but this was the first time with the little stick.) I'm never going to get tired of that sound!

I'm gaining exactly a pound a week, which I've been told is spot-on for a twin pregnancy. My blood pressure was perfect, and other than my left ankle repeatedly swelling up like a balloon animal, everything's going well! Going to start with the belly pics this weekend. I promise. 'Cause there's definitely already a belly there, and I might as well share it with the Interwebs!

Tomorrow we're going to a theme park where I won't be able to ride any of the rides. And I couldn't care less!