Six Years, Six Thousand Miles, and Being Sick

On Saturday, Leila and Sarah turned six.  Who gave these girls permission to grow up?!

As usual, I spent their birthday reflecting on their birth.  I can still clearly recall the slight feeling of terror that I felt when I held them both and realized that I'd just given birth to twins.  I can also clearly recall the euphoria that followed when I realized that I'd just given birth to twins in my bedroom.  (You can read their birth story here.)

It's hard to believe that my baby girls are six now.  They are still the size of 3- or 4-year olds and they still sleep together in the same bed.  They still hold hands when they cross the street together and they still get scared of the dark sometimes.  I hope I will always remember these sweet moments.

In just a few short days we will be leaving on another road trip.  The timing is not-so-great, but that's pretty typical for us.  A few weeks ago I started having problems with my ear and throat and that culminated in a peritonsillar abscess that had to be drained.  Twice.  The infection made me feel like garbage, which was rough because the morning sickness already made me feel like garbage.

On that note, I do seem to be feeling better.  I'm just about in my second trimester and the fog of nausea seems to be slowly lifting.  I know that everyone is dying for me to have an ultrasound to see if I could be having twins again.  If I had to guess, I would say that there's only one baby in there.  I haven't had an ultrasound yet and I'm not sure when I'll have one, so for right now I'm just going with my gut.  And if I had to guess, I'd say the baby might be a girl.  I was never sick with Matthew or Joshua and I've been horribly sick this time.

As we get ready to hit the road again, Jason and I have mixed feelings about our trip.  Our family is in Virginia and the burden of traveling to visit definitely falls on us.  We don't mind the travel part (we actually love it) but the expense is a tough pill to swallow.  Dave Ramsey would definitely not approve of us going into debt to visit family, but we feel that seeing family once a year is not asking too much.  With gas prices being what they are, our 6,000 mile trip will cost a pretty penny.  I wish that there was a way to cut costs, but the majority of our expenses are just for gas since we eat and sleep in the RV.

I have heard from other military families that they don't travel to visit family and request that their family visits them.  Some even offer to pay for family to visit.  (Might be cheaper that way for us!)  If you live far from family, what do you do?  Do you travel to visit?  If so, how often?

My children (Matthew, especially) are disappointed that we aren't going to any "new" states on this trip.  I hate to tell them, but I doubt we'll be visiting those last 3 states anytime soon.  If I could drive to Hawaii, maybe...

The big ultrasound results

I'm feeling more and more optimistic as this pregnancy progresses!

On Tuesday I had the first big ultrasound. The babies are measuring close in size which is great news. One of the signs of TTTS is growth discordance.

The next bit of good news was that the doc is pretty sure that my placenta is moving away from the cervical os. He believes that it should move completely off of the cervix but is still concerned about the risk of accreta. The placenta is still over my cesarean scar and may not move away from it completely. I'm still thinking positive thoughts about it though.

An interesting note is that I have a band of scar tissue that runs across the side of my uterus. It's something I've never even heard of before so I know nothing about it other than what the doctor has told me. He said it can be a risk to the babies if they become entangled it it but he believes that mine is close enough the side of my uterus that it probably won't be a problem. It is the weirdest looking thing on ultrasound-it looks like a thick appendage hanging off of my uterus. Very strange.

Here's Baby A and a clear shot of the weird band of scar tissue. It's the thing sticking out right in front of the baby's face!

This is Baby A yawning. You can see the scar tissue again.

This is Baby B who was right beside Baby A. They were both positioned with their heads down, side by side.

This is Baby B's leg. We have this exact same picture from the girls' ultrasound when I was 22 weeks pregnant with them.

That's pretty much it! No news is good news, right? Both babies are big and healthy. My uterus is measuring 23 cm at 18 weeks. I've gained 19 lbs so I'm up to 151 lbs now. Hopefully I won't pass Jason's weight this time!

After going back and forth on finding out the sex, we decided to find out. If you remember, I had a weird pregnancy dream about quads-one girl and 3 boys. Then I had a dream about twin girls followed by a dream about twin boys. I haven't had any "signs" like I did in the past. I didn't have a strong feeling one way or the other. I also have no gender preference. I have always pictured myself to have a house full of boys though, and was very apprehensive about having the girls because I'm so not a girly girl myself. I relate so well to my boys!

These babies were feeling very cooperative! And yes, the glimpse I caught a few weeks ago was definitely what we thought it was...

Yep, those are 2 penises sticking out! Two very identical, very proud baby boys! I am over the moon right now!!!

Now begins the fun of choosing names. Jason is (shall we say) not very helpful when choosing names. I have a long list of boy names and several combinations that I would prefer. I think it will be awhile before we agree on anything though.

HURRAY FOR LITTLE BOYS!