Tuesday, June 25, 2013

17w Drumroll, Please....

And the babies are….

 TWO BOYS!

We’re so excited – both of our families are very girl heavy, so having boys makes things feel even more special!  Plus I am pretty excited for the (at least temporary) reprieve from all the complicated baggage that comes with raising a strong, confident girl in this crazy world.  Hopefully I'll get a chance one day, but I think I’ll be better prepared with a few years of parenting under my belt first!

Anyway, as an apology for not writing so much lately (three things happened at once: I got a promotion, we bought a house, and my pregnancy got really boring... and then we went on vacation), here are some ultrasound pictures of our boys!

Baby A

Baby A

Baby B

Baby B

Monday, June 10, 2013

14w6d: Reading Material

No big updates at the moment, but I just wanted to share this Washington Post Magazine story - I started reading it when I got to work, then had to stop because I was tearing up.  Then I went back to it while I ate lunch, and sure enough it made me ugly-cry at my desk.

For men, infertility often becomes a private heartache

It also comes with this absolutely gorgeous picture of sperm and egg, which really reminds you of how amazing and miraculous the whole process is.

Friday, May 31, 2013

13w3d: Shopping Time

First of all, my NT scan went great – before the scan, due to our ages, the babies had a risk of down syndrome of about 1 in 700.  Now, baby A’s risk is about 1 in 7,500, and baby B’s is 1 in more than 10,000.  So it seems pretty safe the say that we’re in the clear!  Risks for all of the other trisotomies are way down, too.  My only hope going in was that the risk of a problem after the scan would be less than the risk of miscarriage with an amnio so that we would know not to do the amnio, and I’m SO happy that it worked out!

The ultrasound was a little long, but spending an hour looking at the babies was fun – we even started to get a sense of their personalities.  Baby A is going to be our troublemaker; no matter how much the tech jiggled my stomach, she refused to get into the right position (at one point, the tech even thought she might be holding her feet in her hands!), and the entire time we were looking at her face she was opening and closing her mouth… I’m wondering if that means she’ll be hungry, talkative, or both!  Baby B, meanwhile, was super cooperative, and even waved to us!  Well, sort of… he made a hand movement that the tech described as “saluting” us, and Henry thought looked more like he was giving us the finger.  Haha.  And no, despite the fact that I assigned them genders here, the tech would not make any guesses on sex.  However, I get to go back in three weeks for them to start checking my cervix, and she said they will most likely be able to tell then!

This weekend I’m going on a very important shopping trip: maternity clothes.  It’s time; I pretty much exhausted my closet finding things to wear to work this week, and I’m doing only slightly better outside of working hours.  The point that I really need maternity clothes was really driven home this morning as I dressed for work.
 
I planned to wear a pair of khakis that have always been a little too big, but I hadn’t worn in a while.  I ironed them (and I almost NEVER iron so you know I was desperate) and proceeded to get dressed.  I pulled up the pants, tried to close them…. and a good three inches remained between the button and the button hole.  I considered it for a second, sucked in everything that can be sucked, and just managed to get them to close.

Great!  Until I turned around – there on my butt was the world’s most obvious panty line.  And could you even sort of make out the pattern on my underwear through the thin pants?  Yup, you could.  I signed heavily, walked over to my underwear drawer, and started searching for the pair of nude, no-line briefs I’d bought for a wedding with a thin bridesmaid dress, all the while wondering if I’d be able to button the pants again.  No luck on the briefs, but there staring up at me was another possible solution to my problem: my one and only thong.

I know some women love thongs, but I am not one of them; I’ve just never been able to get comfortable.  And this was a particularly evil thong, a cheap novelty thing I got as a gift at my bridal shower when my butt was at least a size smaller than it is now.  But, it was a light color and would mean my ironing efforts were not in vain.

So, that’s how I ended up walking around all day with pinching pants and a permanent wedgie from a too-small thong with the word “bride” emblazoned across the crotch.  I can’t wait to go shopping!