Guest Post From Puck:

Hunter-Gatherer: "I can't believe she tried to eat these rocks! It's a good thing I distracted her with my pants."

The twins have made 9 weeks and according to the latest ultrasound they are both 1 day further ahead than they were 2 weeks ago.  It would be completely irrational for me to try and take credit for a mere day’s worth of extra growth, but that isn’t going to stop me.

My newest token gloat:

“Yes, I’m the man.  I have stuffed my wife with protein and now the twins have picked up an extra day.“

Adding a day’s growth is not insignificant and it means extra fat on those kids when they are born which they will need to stay warm.

Our OB-GYN has upgraded us from the high-risk category to the pregnant with twins category.  Still not your everyday thing but not any scarier than any other twin birth.

Enter the Baby-Ninja

He also referred us to Dr. Hershey.  Dr. Hershey is like some kind of baby-ninja.  (Maybe a baby-doctor rockstar?)  He has the fancy expensive ultrasound machine and the birthing center seems to think he is amazing.  Reading the pamphlets about him makes him sound like he knows a thing or two about some stuff.

The gist is, “Dr. Hershey is very good at what he does.  Because you are a twin mommy you get special treatment and the really good doctor will do your tests.”

Why?  Well, with one kid lying on top of the other it’s harder to get good pictures with a regular ultrasound machine for one thing.  I don’t want to sound indelicate but there was some pushing and poking of Mary’s girly bits before we got two decent ultrasound photos for the blog.

We just got two new baby books in the mail:

• Twinspiration – This is nice because while still very thorough it is also funny and very calming to read.  It has a very “can do” attitude.  She usually takes the scary statistics and flips them to put them into context.  (For example, “This means you have a 99.9% chance of everything going fine.”)
• When You’re Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads, Revised Edition – This book is also very good with plenty of excellent advice.  (For example, which foods are better for which trimester.)  One of the authors also founded and ran a clinic specializing in births for multiples.

That gets us two more specific technical manuals for the bi-baby engineering.

We aren’t out of the woods yet and we take everyday as it comes, but right now the news is all good.

WifeWatch 2010

Food

According to the twin books, Yes… we are supposed to feed Mary an insane amount of food.  Because we found the twins at 7 weeks, we’re a bit ahead of the game on the food front and making good time.  Likewise, because Mary isn’t hitting much morning sickness we’re being able to really feed those twins.  Our next plan is to increase the number of meals per day.

Twin-mommy is being good and eating snacks during the day.

• Tonight, spinach and steak omelettes covered with cheese.
• Tomorrow, ham and beans in the crock pot.

Mood

Aside from her supersniffer and being a bit jumpy she is doing pretty well.  The occasional dizzy spell gets her and we tackle those with cold wash clothes on her forehead.

Last night when she got woozy, she tried reading in the tub but soaking in hot water isn’t good for her.  Instead, we tried warm water.  It sounds like a good idea, but it turns out that there is nothing so sad as a pregnant lady with her teeth chattering and shivering in the tub.

We got her out, dried her off and wrapped her up in warm sweat pants and a fuzzy bathrobe.  Once she was warm the pregnant lady was happy again.

Sleep

Right after lunch like clockwork Mary wants to sleep.  That is working great for us and I am routinely grateful that her teaching schedule worked out like this.

Babies Countdown – The Double Header

• Thursday, February 11 is Twin Week number 10.
• Thursday, February 18 is Mary’s appointment to get her blood work done.
• Someday in February Mary will have an appointment with Dr. Hershey the Baby-Ninja.
• Thursday, February 26 and our 5 week sprint ends which gets us to 12 weeks.
• Wednesday, March 3 is Mary’s Birthday which gets us to the second trimester.  At this point, we unlock the veil of secrecy and get to tell everyone.
• Thursday, May 7 and the twins become viable as early as 22 weeks.
• Thursday, May 20 and 90% of twins born at 24 weeks survive and that number only gets better from here on out.
• Thursday, August 12 and we hit our goal of 36 weeks minimum.  From here on the twins could come at any time.

Next goal? – I have started cleaining out the nursery.