Color is on the wall

Interesting

I put together a document with all the pictures of me pregnant. It's amazing to see how big I have gotten in 11 weeks and to think I have up to 12 MORE weeks!

25.5 weeks

Chris took the week after Christmas off and worked on the babies' room. He was able to empty the room, take down all the trim around doors and windows, remove wallpaper from the lower half of the room, and fill all the holes and uneven surfaces. Today the room was ready to start painting after sanding the plaster down. So far he got primer on the walls. Once that's dry he'll put up the color only on the top half because there will be wainscotting on the bottom. I can't believe I didn't take a before picture!

So here is a picture of me today...I look horrible but you can see my belly certainly growing.

Susan was home from Chicago for the holidays so she came by for a visit. She made girl and boy gingerbread "men" for us. They were so cute and delicious!

22 Weeks

Our 22 week ultrasound showed both babies still measuring perfectly and moving around. Madison was much better behaved. We even got a picture of her which we hadn't had before. It's still not great but better than nothing.
Both tenants are kicking away now. It is the most amazing feeling to feel something moving around in there! And to think they both started out as a single cell and are already big enough and strong enough to kick their mother (and eachother)! Other picture is of me at the beginning of 6 months of pregnancy.

Probably the scariest night of my life

Chris and I went to bed around 2:00am. By 2:30 I couldn't sleep and was keeping him up so I went to the living room to sleep on the couch. I was alseep for maybe 10 minutes when around 2:45 I was awakened by a noise that I couldn't imagine was anything good. In a matter of a second I went from thinking it was someone smashing my front door in (which was 6 feet away from the couch), to thinking it was thunder but quickly realized it was WAY too loud and shook the house WAY too much to be thunder, then thought a bomb had exploded. My heart was racing and I could hear Chris in the bedroom yelling for me to come in there with him which of course I was already on my way. A few minutes later we heard sirens going up and down 114 which confused us because they were going in different directions!! Obviously they didn't know exactly where the problem was either. In the next 30 minutes we heard about 5 or 6 more explosions but nowhere near as loud as the first. Around 4am the helicopters started. I didn't sleep a wink. Chris was able to sleep about an hour and a half (he's gone to work already). I just laid there and cried. My mind was racing with the possibilities of what it could have been. At one point I prayed that everyone was safe and at that point Chris was trying to make me feel better and he said "all we can do is pray that everyone is OK".
I just kept waiting for it to be light out so I could leave the bedroom! I was too scared to leave!! Chris's alarm went off at 6:30 so I turned on the TV and there it was all over the news...a massive explosion at a chemical plant 1 mile away from our house!! Many homes around the plant were leveled even a pizza place and a bakery that I went to with Olivia (the lady there loved Liv and gave her a cookie). I think the most miraculous thing is that EVERYONE was OK. Apparantly there are people as far away as Maine that felt the explosion!
It was a long night of not knowing what happened. The anticipation was awful. I just couldn't stop crying.

20 Weeks

Getting bigger and more uncomfortable by the day.

19 weeks

We saw the babies again on Monday. Growing perfectly.
Madison is still a girl! I was so relieved when he said she was definitely a girl. We also found out that in the video a few posts ago (from 13 weeks) that it is Madison that is jumping all around and kicking Leo. She is officially grounded. She again was CRAZY in this ultrasound and Leo was very mellow. We still couldn't get any good pictures of them.

18 Weeks

4 weeks later do I look bigger? I actually can't tell.
Not too much to tell. Time is flying by and I'm really trying to appreciate the time I have where I can still walk. From talking to other twin moms they all seem to end up on bed rest (due to physical pain when moving) around 28 weeks which for me is January 17th. EEK. I know everyone is different but I at least want to be mentally prepared as to what could happen.

I think I have officially gained 2 pounds. Before I would gain 2 then lose 2, but these 2 have been with me all week.

Ultrasound on Monday!! YAY!!!!

Names

Chris kinda messed this up. We weren't going to tell anyone names until they were born, but Chris's mother asked and he told. Now I might as well tell everyone. We will name our son Leo (Chris's Mother's Father's name) and assuming the girl stays a girl we will name her Madison (only girl name we could agree on).

We have decided to keep the middle names a secret for sure.

Just what we wanted

The doctor was able to tell that one baby is a boy. Chris was pretty relieved because he then knew it wasn't possible to have two girls. But then I was petrified he'd say the second one was a boy. He said he wasn't 100% positive but that the second one looked to him like a girl. He told us not to buy anything pink yet though. We'll find out for sure on November 13th.

He said that both babies are developing perfectly and there are no signs of any problems. He's very obsessed with the cervix being long. I guess the longer the cervix is the less chance you have of pre-term labor. He said at 19 weeks if it's the same size it is now I will have 97% chance of going past 32 weeks. He's very happy about that so I guess I am too.

I am definitely getting bigger by the day and am amazed at how uncomfortable I am already. With two in there I guess it's no surprise, but still. My back hurts if I stand too long, it's hard to get up and down quickly, and I get winded if I even talk too much!

Still haven't gained any weight.

OH, and no pictures this time. They just weren't facing the right way for that.

Me :-)

People have been asking to see a picture of me so here I am. Yes that's me showing very much at 14 weeks (last week). For those of you who don't think I should be showing yet (I've been wearing maternity clothes since 9 weeks), please remember I have TWO in there!!!! I am now 15 weeks and into the second trimester and I still have not gained an ounce so it's not like I just got fat. It's all babies (and sacks of water, and placentas, and a very enlarged uterus to house all this)

I am feeling great these days, which I though would never come even though everyone told me it would. That's how bad I felt in the first trimester.

Can't wait for next Wednesday the 25th for our next ultrasound. I will be 16 weeks and I'm HOPING the babies will cooperate and we can find out what gender they are!!!! If not we'll just find out at our 19 week checkup.

Video

I finally edited the video of the last ultrasound. It's an mpg file so it should work for everyone. Just click on the link below. There is no sound.

http://www.klgproductions.com/10-4-06ultrasound.mpg


it'll take a couple minutes to download to your computer so be patient.

13 Weeks

Ultrasound yesterday was great. Both babies are the same size which is good. The one on the top was behaving very well and stayed nice and still...although did move a little. But the one on the bottom was a little monkey hopping all over the place. The doc couldn't even get a good picture of him/her. You can see the spine though...the head is to the right. It was the first time I saw them move around. It made it a little more real.

Shingles?

Who knew pregnancy could weaken your immune system and reawaken that nasty chicken pox virus. I have shingles. Shingles only effects one part of your body and mine is only my upper face/head. I have blisters on my forehead, temple, eyebrow, eyelid and on my scalp but just on the right side. Aparently the blisters need to heal and then I'll be better which should be a couple of weeks however in the mean time the blisters feel like I was burned in a fire. Since I am pregnant I can not take any of the normal pain meds they would give a shingles patient. The only relief I get is when I am sleeping which is hard to do.
My OB assured me that nothing can happen to the babies which is a relief.

10 Weeks

Today I am 10 weeks along. I had another ultrasound today which was great because the babies went from looking like blobs to looking...ok not really human...more like hampsters. We were very relieved that everything is looking great. They are upsidedown in these images. Heads are at the bottom. You can even see their spines!

Pictures

The one above cracks me up. the "baby" on the right (if you enlarge the picture) looks like a gnome with a pointy hat on. Although I believe just his hat is the baby. The one on the left is still just that small rice size white bit at the top of the black circle.












These two were taken today at exactly 7 weeks. Today was our first appointment with the high risk OB in Boston that will be delivering the twosome. If you enlarge the images you can see the babies are inbetween the crosses that are drawn on the screen. We saw and HEARD the heartbeats today too. Wow...













This is our proud-parents-to-be fridge of photos so far.

Some of my most memorable moments of telling the family we are having twins was Chris's mother screaming and jumping up and down where she works and telling everyone that would listen, and when I showed my dad the first ultrasound of his "grandchildren" he said, "how do you know they're mine?"

Been feeling nauseous for sure everyday all day and nothing helps. Yes, I'm eating saltines and my heartburn is keeping Tums in business. Can't complain though right??

TWINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The doctor confirmed this morning by ultrasound that it is indeed twins in my belly.
He did say sadly that it is possible for one of them to vanish in the next two weeks even though they are both measuring exactly six weeks and both have great heartbeats (which we could see fluttering away on the monitor). So we have another ultrasound two weeks from today and if they're both still there he said we can "celebrate".

The babies are just the little white line inside the circles I drew. They're the size of a small bean right now.

Updates

Almost a month after my last post the contractor never showed up to finish up those few little things. They got a letter from our lawyer. They're pissed but they surely brought this on themselves. Out of 89 business days since the start of the project, only 29 days of work were actually done, and half of those days, a maximum of 3 hours were worked per day.

In case you didn't hear me shout it from the top of a building, I am finally pregnant. I didn't write much about this IVF round...not sure why exactly. But it went very smoothly...nothing like last time. We transferred two excellent quality embryos which was followed up by 4 days of bed rest. That was a saturday. The following Thursday my acupuncturist told me I was pregnant (they can tell these things right away, chinese medicine is crazy). The following Monday I took a chance and took a home pregnancy test and it was positive. I took another one on wednesday and it also was positive. Thursday I went in for my official blood test and it confirmed my home test. The nurse said that they look for an hcg level of 50-100. Mine was over 500. Two days later is was 1300. I don't go back again until Saturday where I hope to find the number at least quadrupled by then. The following saturday I have an ultrasound where they can see the heartbeat and will be able to see if it is one or two.

So far feeling great although I'm only just shy of 5 weeks pregnant. Just pretty crampy and i get shakey if I don't eat enough.

This was our very first baby gift from our friends Jenna and Tim.

On a happy note...

The plumbers were able to plumb our sink, disposal, and dishwasher. We have running water!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My mom and dad were here today helping us put the siding up on the outside of the kitchen so when we were done for the day, my dad came in and helped Chris move the stove into place! It's official...the kitchen is fully functional. There are still things that the contractors need to finish up and then there are the many inspections but I can actually cook a meal! (the excitement of that won't last too long)

Plumbing

Yet another bump in our road of contractor hell.
We were told today that our sink needed a vent up through the walls and out the roof. If the contractor had the plumber out for an initial consult (as the plumber says is customary) he would have told him that the vent needed to be done and it would have been put in our open walls and then plastered up. So now the only way for the plumber to get the piping done is to drill holes through our brand new cabinets, up a wall, through a punched out hole in the wall, into the attic, through a hole in the roof. Now we have rather large piping taking up space in our cabinets. We ended up having a conversation with the plumber about it and he basically said that the contractor was a bonehead and never should have done it this way. He suggested that we ask for money off since now we have a hack job. We are obviously very unhappy with our choice in contractors. It really seems like this was his first job he's ever done.

Oh. My. God.

The contractor came to work today to find a note from us asking that a few things be fixed that we weren't happy with. Well, aparently he wasn't happy about the note. He called the other guy and bitched about us for 20 minutes not knowing I was home and could hear everything he was saying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (although my car was in the driveway DUH!)
He said he was wasting time coming back and forth here fixing things (if you did it right in the first place this wouldn't be an issue). He said they were losing money because of how long this has taken (yes, he really said that). He didn't like that we had left a note, but in our experience, verbal instruction has been conviently forgotten so we thought this would be the "no confusion" way to do it. He complained about how i tried to fill in the gaps in the moulding that he did (I really should have taken pictures before i started filling). Said that the way i did it would make it look worse and people would blame his craftsmanship. Maybe if there weren't gaps in the first place this wouldn't be an issue.
He made a threshold that looks ridiculous and he's mad at us because we don't like it. What ever happened to making the customer happy??

Two appliances in!

Couple of days left

12 weeks. 12 weeks. yes, it took 12 weeks to gut and reconstruct a 9x11 room. craziness. but it looks great.
the baseboard mouldings went in today under the cabinets and along the one wall we have. and the rest of the cabinets went up, and the trim around the door. oh and the hardware on the cabinets.
the electrician was supposed to be here today but he called to say he was coming tomorrow (saturday) and aparently the plumber is coming tomorrow too to hook up the sink and hopefully the disposal and dishwasher but i'm not holding my breath.

Floors!!!!!!

This was a nice surprise to come home to today!

This makes me chuckle

Our contractor came over yesterday to patch up a hole in the ceiling that was not supposed to be there. My parents happened to be there so the contractor says, "so are you coming over for dinner on wednesday?". I thought the question was strange...wednesday had no meaning to me. We all realized at the same moment that he was saying that the kitchen would be done by wednesday. I said, "It's going to be done on wednesday???". He said, "yes". I said, "how are you going to put the appliances in when there are no outlets for them yet?". He didn't believe me that they weren't done yet so he quickly checked them all and soon realized that I was right. He said, "I'll have to get the electrician in too then.". I smugly said, "He's on vacation until friday" and continued to laugh hystically in my head. Not to mention the fact that we have a list of small things that we are not happy with and they need to fix. They're in for a big surprise if they think they'll even be done next friday.
I know it may sound funny that *I'm* not upset about the delay, but at this point who cares, plus i'm just getting a kick out of the fact that THEY'RE going to be inconvienced.

On a nice note, Chris sat at our new bar/counter all day on his computer while watching tv. He even ate his first meal in our new (almost done) kitchen.

Counters are in!!!!

Progress

The electrician came yesterday to install our light fixtures. The one we want over the sink is the one we had there before. When he went to put it up he realized the decorative screws were missing. Then he went to put up our large pendants. He opened one of the boxes to find one of the pendants was cracked. So he got most of the power outlets and switches done and one of the pendants hung.

The contractor was also there yesterday and the day before doing the trim work on the windows...it looks good. Now we just need to fill in the nail holes and paint it.

The white-ish patches on the walls is where the plaster needed to be sanded down after the plasterers were done. They didn't do a real fabulous job so now i need to go back and touch up the color...hopefully it blends ok.

Oh and the granite is ready already!!! They're coming tomorrow to install it!!!!!!! I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Granite

We drove in a monsoon today to Haverhill to pick out our Granite. The storm literally followed us from Peabody to Haverhill. Sadly all of the pictures I took came out blurry but you get the idea of the color we picked out. The overall picture is more the color. The close up looks more grey, but it's more of a cream color.

more pics

Cabinets