the identical twinkies

we had another wonderful OB appointment this morning. I am almost 15 weeks along. the babies looked great and perfectly healthy, which is such answered prayer! it was sweet to watch them interacting together at this appointment. there is a small membrane between them that is not stiff so it moves back and forth as they are moving. they are constantly bumping into each other or curling up with each other. my appointment was early so they were still kind of sleepy and curling up with each other. it is still shocking to see that I have 2 babies in there! they have grown so much from the last time and there is less space for them in each of their sacks. I know it will get even tighter as the months go on. the other great thing that happened was I got to hear the babies’ heartbeats. this sounds ridiculous, but with charlie I just wanted to see him and check out how things were going, but at each appointment I was able to hear his heartbeat on the doppler. however, with all of the ultrasounds I don’t get to hear the heartbeats I just get to see them. so I mentioned to my OB that I missed hearing the heartbeats. he said would you like to hear them? I said yes! so he brought in a portable ultrasound machine that allows you to hear the heartbeats. it was great. hearing the quick little beats was precious. I also started to feel the babies move this week. I felt them a bit here and there from about 13 weeks on, but could never confirm it….but this week I can definitely feel them. so fun!

here are some of the stats and pictures.

baby A – heartbeat 150, 14 wks and 5 days, approximate weight of 4 ounces

in this picture you can see baby a’s profile. she is sucking her thumb, but you are only seeing a cross section of her hand which is why it looks like there is a small ball in front of her mouth.

baby B – heartbeat 145, 14 wks and 6 days, approximate weight of 4 ounces.

baby B is laying on her stomach so her head is cradled into baby A’s stomach which you will see in the picture of them together.

the babies together. you can only see the top of baby B’s head (top left) and baby A’s profile (right). baby A’s belly is the cushion for baby B’s head.

as for me, I am still doing well. I am not really showing yet and will try to post a picture later today or tomorrow. I am definitely feeling much better now that I am out of the first trimester. I got another stomach flu last week and was deathly sick. I had to go into the hospital to get fluids to help me recover. I am so blessed to have wonderful friends who took charlie for the day because I could not have parented that day. I am still working out and running a bit. definitely much less than I did with charlie. I am focusing on going easy on myself because I don’t want to end up on bed rest or have preterm labor later on because I over did it now. we are so thankful that our Lord is continuing to protect these babes. because TTTS can happen at any point I have to continue to have ultrasounds every 2 weeks. I go in 2 weeks from today and we will find out the sex of the babies at that appointment (just for clarification….we are calling these babies “she” just to give them a pronoun. with charlie we called him a he even though we didn’t know the sex).

at almost 15 wks...i am just getting "thick" through the middle :).