So many updates...

I have been the worst blogger. Ever.

So more than a month has passed since our last blog. I don't know what has happened with the time. Carlos and I have so much to update everyone on. So here we go...

Just after I wrote our last blog we received an email from Dr. Shivani. Our awesome surrogate had completed her diabetes test and unfortunately they found that she has a mild case of gestational diabetes. Of course, I went straight to Google -- the absolute worst thing to do. I read a ton about the condition and it made me worry even more than I already was. That said, everything has gone just fine since then and our surrogate is responding well to her daily insulin doses so I guess we shouldn't worry.

Since our last scan, we have had another scan, one surprise shower with friends and family and one virtual shower with everyone from the U.S. I have gotten my DNA test done (we used Chromosomal Labs in Arizona and I had my DNA collected when I was home in the US last weekend) and we have put together the cribs.

Our 28 week scan came just on time (two weeks ago). Pics aren't great, but here they are:

TWIN- I
Cephalic presentation
Approximate gestational age is 27 weeks 4 days
BPD - 69mm, HC - 259mm, AC -220mm, FL - 5lmm, EFW : l020gms

They still see the small echogenic intracardiac focus. Ugghhhh.

TWIN- II
Breech presentation
The approx . gestational age is 28 weeks 5 days
BPD - 75mm, HC - 268mm, AC - 239mm, FL - 50mm, EFW: 1169gms

Last weekend, we went to see friends in Chicago. Little did we know that they had planned a surprise shower for us and my dad and step mom flew in to surprise us as well! It was a great weekend and something we'll always remember and tell stories about for years to come. Oh, and the bloody mary bar was awesome. Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us and my family and friends for organizing it!

This weekend, we had a virtual baby shower with our friends and family back in the U.S. It was so great to see everyone and share our new pics of the nursery with them! Before the shower though, we had our day-long Caring for a Newborn Baby class here in London. It was just the two of us so we had our own personal teacher for the day. Most of what she went through was pretty straight forward and actually the material that she taught from was free material that anyone can access.

Literally, visit this site and go to the "Your Newborn" tab at the top, it has everything you need to know including a few videos. It was nice to be able to ask questions and try a few things out but really could have saved the money and just read most of this on our own. We did get baby and child first aid and CPR though, so that was a plus.

The shower was amazing. Even though it was virtual. We did it in the nursery so that everyone could see. Here are a few pics of the virtual shower and the latest happenings in the nursery (ignore the screwdriver on the floor and the little table between the cribs -- it's leftover from the guest room):

Looking Good!

Right on schedule, we received our latest ultrasound results yesterday. Everything appears to be on track. One of the twins is measuring about six days behind the other one, but guess a few days is nothing to worry about. There is plenty of time to catch up! That pesky small echogenic intracardiac focus is still seen :-/ I wish it would go away...

The pics that we got this time around weren't that great so you won't see much, but here are the details and pics:

Normal active and passive movements are seen.
The liquor is adequate .
Placenta seen along anterior and posterior wall , low lying, not previa, grade 0

TWIN- I
Variable presentation
The approx. gestational age is 22 weeks, 6 days
BPD 56 mm, HC - 204mm, AC - 18lmm, FL - 39mm, EFW : 540gms
Nasal bone is seen. The fetal head shows normal ventricular system. The fetal spine, limbs, cord insertion, 3 vessel cord, KUB, four chamber view, stomach bubble show no obvious abnormality. Small echogenic intracardiac focus seen.

TWIN- II
Variable presentation
The approx. gestational age is 23 weeks, 5 days
BPD - 59mm, HC - 220mm, AC -190mm, FL - 39mm, EFW : 594gram
Nasal bone is seen. The fetal head shows normal ventricular system. The fetal spine, limbs, cord insertion, 3 vessel cord, KUB, four chamber view of heart, stomach bubble show no obvious abnormality.

We went to the beach today since the weather was awesome and ended up popping into a store after lunch and walking out with a few more baby items.  We couldn't resist. Check out some of the super cute stuff they have in their new Baby Elephant Collection.

OH! And we ended up ordering our cribs last weekend! They are scheduled to arrive around September 20. That was pretty exciting as well. Here's what we ended up picking out:

OK. No more shopping for us. We now need to put all that shopping time into reading baby books so that we know what to do once these two new additions arrive. Seriously, if you handed me a baby right now, I'd have no clue how to even hold it. I guess that's easy to learn, right?

That was easy...

We're finally back from a few weeks of travel and I'm really excited to say that telling work was a piece of cake. I wasn't too stressed out about it but was definitely anxious to tell everyone and make it all official. My boss was amazing. My team was equally amazing. And colleagues that found out were super excited. I have to say, the fact that I work for one of the world's coolest company's makes this all so much easier. I'm going to take four months off -- the best benefit that we probably have as a company.

Last week I was in the US again for work and spent the weekend with my mom. We went shopping and bought a few things. She got the twins the cutest bedding ever. Check it out on Pottery Barn Kids. We got some more clothes, a few other small things, and I found the stroller that we want at Buy Buy Baby (LOVE this store) for about $300 less than it would have cost us to buy it here in London. So I bought it (Baby Jogger City Select). I should have taken a picture of me lugging a massive duffel bag and three large boxes back to London by myself. Thank god for car services.

Today, we're going to check out a few cribs and then try to get our list of stuff we need together as my step mom (P) and dad (ok, mostly P) is putting together a virtual shower type thing for us since we are all alone in London with the family being back in the U.S. and in Mexico. They are coming to visit in two weeks so can't wait for that!

One question, will just bringing two Phil & Teds Cocoons to Delhi be enough to get the twins around in and let them nap and stuff or do we need to bring something else like a stroller, pack and play, etc.???

This weekend all of our friends are hanging out in Chicago and we're kinda wishing we could be back there with all of them. Such a fun weekend in summer. Carlos and I were just talking about how nice it would be to be out on a boat with friends again. I think it's because we have this pic in the house from one of our last boat trips in Chicago before we left and it made us just a little homesick this morning. But alas, we have the Olympics. We saw the 3m men's diving finals on Tuesday and I saw the women's beach volleyball finals on Wednesday, where the U.S. brought home the gold. Guess I can't really complain.

Big Week

With just a few minutes until I board my flight back to the US for a week full of meetings, I thought I'd post a quick blog to say that this is the week I'm going to tell my boss the big news. I'm pretty relaxed about it and love the fact that this isn't stressing me out. We'll see how that goes after my meeting tomorrow morning!

Everything is going well with our surrogate and the twins. Following the last scan we had a cardiac specialist do an ultrasound to look at the twins' hearts. I was nervous about the small echogenic intracardiac focus that they saw on one of the twins, but continue to be told it's nothing to worry about. The cardiologist did a very in-depth study and sent through pictures and videos of both of their little hearts, pumping away. And found them to be in perfect condition.

Ok, I'm paranoid. But everyone who has gone through this or is going through this, knows why. You just never know what kind of news will come next. In our case, it has been all very positive news so far.

Last week, we actually gave in and bought some awesome clothes for the twins. They are super cute and we were super awkward actually buying clothes. We had fun with the family doing it though and that's what really matters. My mom simultaneously has bought a few things for the twins so it's getting more and more real by the second.

I think this is really happening. Oh, and did I say that my sister told us she is prego and just five weeks behind us?!?!  So crazy. Especially since it's just the two of us. Our parents are going from zero grandkids to three in a matter of weeks. Nothing like us going all out on this one.

Surprise Scan!

The past three weeks feel like months. While they have flown by, the only thing we've had to look at are the ultrasounds from the 16 week scan. The next scan was supposed to happen next week (20 weeks), but to our surprise an email came in from the wonderful team at SCI yesterday. It was our next ultrasound (at 19 weeks).

To put this all into context, the scans don't always happen as planned. It usually takes place within a few days of when it is supposed to happen. And that's OK.

The good news is that we are able to see the little twins growing away. The bad news is that we have to wait four more weeks for a new one.

Everything seems to be on track. The only issue that came up was that Dr. Jolly saw a small echogenic intracardiac focus in one of the twins. I've been told that everything is fine and that this usually disappears before the third trimester. I've also Googled the hell out of it and sounds like it can be nothing, but that it could also mean there is an increased chance of a problem. We're going with the "it's all OK" explanation for now -- which is what Dr. Shivani said.

The pics look amazing. Would love to know if any ultrasound experts reading this see anything in particular that we might not have made out. The 3D images are pretty cool. A little weird. But amazing to see.

Here is where we are at:

Normal active and passive movements are seen.
The liquor is adequate .
Placenta seen along anterior and posterior wall, low lying, not previa,

TWIN- I
Variable presentation
The approx. gestational age is 19 Weeks 4 days
BPD -46mm, HC -170mm, AC -150mm, FL -26mm, EFW:288gms
Nuchal Fold - 2.4mm
Nasal bone is seen.
The fetal head shows normal ventricular system. The fetal spine, limbs,
cord insertion, 3 vessel cord, KUB, four chamber view of heart, stomach
bubble shows no obvious abnormality. Small 'echogenic intracardiac focus seen.

TWIN- II
Variable presentation
The approx. gestational age is 19 weeks 0 days
BPD -44mm, HC -16lmm, AC -134mm, FL -28mm, EFW:260gms
Nuchal Fold - 2.8mm
Nasal bone is seen.
The fetal head shows normal ventricular system. The fetal spine, limbs,
cord insertion, 3 vessel cord, KUB, four chamber view of heart, stomach
bubble show no obvious abnormality.

16 Week Ultrasound -- Half Way There (sort of)

We keep asking ourselves, "Is this real" and "At what point do we need to admit that everything is good and on track and actually start planning?"

As most of you know, we've been hesitant to jump the gun and get too excited. But there was something about hitting this 16 week milestone that made this all real. Maybe it was seeing the report with the estimated birth weight, the actual measurements of the twins' heads and abdomen, or maybe just the pictures of the almost-human-looking babies growing bigger every week. Whatever it was, it has made this all real and we're now going to start planning. That said, we know that it is still early on and that we have a long way to go, but we have to focus on being excited and the positive -- which is what this scan was all about.

So I said that we are half way there, sort of. Here's what I think... Since a singleton is normally born at 40 weeks or so, and twins are usually about 3-4 weeks earlier, I'm guessing that the two (which we are convinced are one boy and one girl) are going to be born around November 18 or so. That means they will be born at about 36 or 37 weeks. If that's true, then we are just about half way there, with only about 20 weeks left to go. That's awesome.

We get the next scan in four weeks. Following that scan I'm going to make it totally official and tell work.

I'll quit rambling now and get on with the details and pics...

The scan took place a few days before we hit 16 weeks and the twins were both measuring perfectly!

Placenta seen along anterior and posterior wall, low lying, not previa, grade o 

TWIN- I (1st and 2nd pic on top)

Variable presentation 

The approx. gestational age is       16    Weeks    2       days 

BPD -33mm, HC-120mm, AC-102mm, FL-21mm, EFW:153gms

Nasal bone is seen.

The fetal head shows normal ventricular system. The fetal spine, limbs, cord insertion, 3 vessel cord, KUB, stomach bubble show no obvious

abnormality.

TWIN- II (last pic on top, first on bottom)

Variable presentation

The approx. gestational age is        16     weeks     2     days

BPD -34mm, HC-125mm, AC-110mm, FL-18mm, EFW:149gms

Nasal bone is seen.

The fetal head shows normal ventricular system. The fetal spine, limbs, cord insertion, 3 vessel cord, KUB, stomach bubble show no obvious

abnormality.

Patience is Overrated

So I've written a blog post with this title before. It's so true though. Patience is overrated.

For some reason C and I were thinking that we would have another scan this week as this weekend will be two weeks since the last one. I was wrong. At this stage, the scan happens every FOUR weeks, not two. How are we supposed to wait four weeks? That's an entire month.

I guess the good news is that everything is OK and there is no need for a scan every two weeks. But I got so used to seeing the updates, new pictures, little alien, peanut-looking things turning into what now actually looks like a little human. Oh well. Guess we have to wait.

Now that we are at 13 weeks, we're starting our second trimester, or ending our first, depends on what you read. Think maybe we'll start to think about planning now. Maybe even look at baby stuff. And we might even buy a book or something (any suggestions???) to start to learn more about what's about to happen come Nov/Dec.

On another note, could you please ask summer to return to London? I prefer sun and warm to rain an cold. Thank you.

I guess I'm not patient with the weather, either. Do you see a theme?

Congrats to our fellow bloggers Jeff and Kevin in DC who just had an amazing (and 10 lb!) little baby boy. It's so cool to watch other people who have been on this journey reach the point where all the waiting, all the emotions and all the dedication pays off.