How about a cool picture? I like this guy (girl?), he looks like he's from Ants or A Bug's Life. :)

This week

This week has been alright I think. I got to work for 1/2 a day on Monday, then Tuesday was a blow out, had a relapse of sick I guess, Wednesday I got some errands done, then spent most of today at work. (congrats to me!)
Chris has gone off to help Denise's friend move to a new place. He just has a few things and the minivan comes in handy for moving items such as couches and mattresses. Unfortunately this meant we had to remove all the seats from the minivan and they proved to be heavier than expected. I ended up helping carry the back seat at least, despite Chris' protestations. I didn't bother to go help move though, cuz really I'm not supposed to be lifting stuff and my back is sore enough as it is. (yet another whine) Plus it was raining when he left. Who wants to move in the rain.
All the moving made me think about moving though. We are crazy to be thinking about moving right now, or any time in the next year, but I guess it's necessary. Last time we moved (to here) I mostly did it by myself. My friends Chris A and Armand helped out a bit but they had other commitments. Chris was only just flying back into town and didn't actually get home til I was almost done! So, it will be weird trying to move when I can't actually MOVE anything. I will just have to be the packer/organizer and the bosser of people...I'm pretty good at that I think. Hope whoever ends up helping has patience!!
After all this moving talk I don't want to give the idea a move is imminent. We have decided to stay here until there is an opening at a co-op in the vicinity. That could happen soon, or not until after the kids are born. Hopefully it won't happen right when the kids are born.
Anyway, enough of the rambling already...

movement from the monster twins

Felt my first real movement from the monster twins, although I think I've felt them before... Apparently it's quite common to feel movement this early and think it is gas or something (fluttery feelings or like bubbles)..I was lying with my hands on stomach Friday night and felt a definate kick type feeling, it was faint for a kick but an incredibly strong bubble feeling. :) Anyway, that's all just wanted to share.

New Van

This is the new to us Plymouth Grand Voyager. It's much more swank than the Tracker, if a couple of years older. Leather interior, CD player, Air Conditioning yada yada. We like it. Hopefully it serves us well. Rusty has mixed feeling about it. You can check his opinion out on his blog at www.myspace.com/cwd_odd

Ultrasound photo coloured

I was informed that the pictures were hard to make out so I figured I would colour them in. I didn't bother adding them all back on here, just this one, but I figured you could see the twins etc. in this one and then refer to the others for a larger image (if you were having difficulty.)

Ultrasound #2 Photos

Taken on March 17th @ 14wks

Twin A, Twin B (larger below)


Twin A and B, in each photo.
They were lying parallel but one head up and one head down..not that you can tell. (although you can tell a bit better in the 2nd photo who is bum up) You can make out the fine membrane between them (seperating thier amniotic sacs). And the solid grey above them is the single placenta.




Twin B, Face up











Twin A Face up (the body's more apparent in this photo)

They look like little aliens, I think, with the large dark eye sockets. They were moving quite a lot so I imagine it was hard to get a good photo.

Ultrasound appointment #2

Denise, Chris and I went for my ultrasound today. I had to wait for over half an hour, which normally might not be that much of a deal but I REALLY needed to pee!! The result of that was I was told not to drink so much next time because I had to go empty my bladder quite a bit before the technican was satisfied. :) Anyway, that went well. The technician is almost 100% sure we have identical twins. She is pretty sure there is only one placenta (meaning identical) but there is always the chance the placenta is fused. Besides that information the membrane (which you will see in the photos) is quite thin between them, if it's thicker I guess there is more of a chance they are not identical. So, It seems to be safe to assume at this time that they are identical. The ultrasound itself was pretty neat. I had no idea they actually had so much room in there. They were moving around quite a bit, able to stretch thier legs right out. We all really enjoyed being able to see them move around.

Anyway, as we have no scanner here the photo's won't be posted until next week. They look like little aliens right now though. She gave us 4 photo's, one of each baby's face and one from the top and one from the bottom (those two show the membrane).

So, the conclusion is yes I am high risk, higher risk than fraternal twins but not so high as identical twins who do not have a membrane (ie. share an amniotic sac). My type, if it is as they think, is that I am monochorionic/diamniotic...for those interested in technicalities.

Car Estimate

Got the car estimate yesterday, it's is actually a bit more than we expected so that is good. We should be able to find a decent vehicle with that money. Unfortunately the estimate cheque, voucher and the car plates are all in Coquitlam. We can pick them up there, or they will be transfered to the closer Kingsway claim centre on Monday. Hopefully we can figure out a way to get them before Monday though, and perhaps find a vehicle before Chris leaves on Monday, but who knows. Who knows if I will feel up to car shopping anyway. We'll see. We have got it in our heads to get some type of station wagon, hopefully we can find a good one.

Photo..

of my belly for those who requested it... I am apx. 13.5 weeks here...and NO I am NOT sticking it out on purpose, Chris actually double checked. Doubting Thomas.

And More News from the Doctor

She forgot to mention that the doctor was able to listen to the babies heartbeats and found both of them. That was really neat. One of the twins kept moving about making it difficult to find it's heartbeat. Obviously the more shifty of the two, gonna have to keep a closer eye on that one. Undetermined which side of the family that the shiftiness comes from but we will keep you posted.

Visit to the Doctor

So, Chris and I went to see the specialist today. I did okay, didn't throw up or anything (although I wanted to at times). It took us 1 1/2 hrs of waiting to finally see the Dr. and then it was a very short visit. It was kind of funny, as she hadn't read all of my files before seeing me, and was asking me all these questions and started to seem concerned with how I was doing...but as I was answering questions she was looking over my notes and then came across the 'twin' information. That changed things dramatically. So I guess it's good I got in to see someone when I did, as twins births are monitored much more closely, and as there is a good chance the babies are mono-zygotic (identical) the risks are even higher, so I guess I will be in for ultrasounds and various checks every two weeks, or even every week.... but I'm getting ahead of myself. I go in for an ultrasound on this coming Friday to verify if they are identical then we go from there.
She was asking if I would be able to work from home, so I will have to check with Arcas about that, but I am not sure how necessary that will be...All that is information for after this Friday.

Other news (of the good variety) I got today was that my brother Daniel (and his soon to be wife Natalie) are going to adopt my cat Simon. That solves that concern. yay.

Just have to find a new vehicle to replace our tracker (which turned out to be a write-off) and we are on a roll.

Anyway, I'm not feeling that great right now, but I'll keep you posted later as events occur.

More whine from Liv

Poor Rusty feels terribly neglected. Today has not been a good day for Liv's belly (and head). Good thing that dog has some patience.

Vacation

I liked this picture from Little Shuswap Lake we took in mid- February when Chris and I took off for a little time away. It's out in front of Quaaout Lodge. Rusty could play in that lake all day and not get bored it seems. It was pretty neat to see the water so far out.

So far so good

I've only been sick once in the past two days so I'm looking at that optimistically. If I manage to get through today and tomorrow with few 'incidents' I'm headed back to work. That's the plan. No plans for the weekend, especially with no car.

Photo

I figured there should be a photo of Chris and I on here. I thought this one from our wedding was funny.

Chris' car accident

So, I got a call yesterday morning around 10 am from Chris. He'd been in a car accident, and they were blaming him. He and his passenger, Charles Moore, disagree but you can't argue wih witnesses. I guess he was changing lanes when getting onto the highway out in Coquitlam and got rear ended. Pushed the back of our car up into the wheel so it wasn't drivable. Hopefully we can get that fixed soon. Her car was totaled. All persons involved were okay, thankfully. That will be the first accident to go on my insurance in 12 years. It won't knock my discount down too much. I'm just glad everyone was fine and I wasn't in the car.

Liv's whine for today

So, I figure why not, I'm sure everyone gets tired of listening to me whine so I can whine on here and no one has to listen.
Still sick, unfortunately a side effect of having twins means that 'morning sickness' is twice as bad as it might normally be, and often lasts longer, so despite the fact that I am 12 1/2 weeks there is no sign of things letting up. Some days are better than others but most days, especially lately, have been horrid. The good news is (if you choose to see it that way) is that I actually have a bladder infection. This may not seem like good news but considering that starting last Monday my 'sick' has more than doubled in intensity it was nice to find out there was another cause. I am now on med's for that, as well as the med's for morning sickness. Hopefully soon I will return to my normal sick, or perhaps I will even get over it all together!! Who knows.
Chris is in town until the 20th of March likely, instead of heading back up to Fort Nelson on the 15th so that will be a little bonus. It does help having someone look after you, or even just look after everything else, such as Rusty!! Our long awaited first appointment with the specialist is March 14th and we are looking forward to meeting the woman who will be taking us through the pregnancy and birth, but also to possibly hearing the twins' heartbeats.

Ultrasound

This is our first ultrasound done on Feb. 9/06. We were very surprised to discover it was twins! According to the ultrasound I was 8 weeks 6 days at this point in time.

For those of you not sure what you are seeing:
the two white 'blobs' to the right of the dark center, with the circle (placenta?) above them are the twins.

Next ultrasound will be sometime in April.