Holy vocabulary!!

The past few weeks Peyton has been blurting out new vocabulary left and right!! It just amazes me and is so exciting to watch.

Previously her vocabulary consisted of: go, hi, mama, dada, dog, all gone, bath, milk, shoe, no, nose, more, book....moo and various other animal noises

Well recently we have added: ready, eyes, brrr, monkey, movie, all done, please, Lily, bye, elephant, lion, elmo, doctor, potty, poop, Nana, babies, bunny, toes, me, hot....that's all that I can think of at the moment!  

I'm just so astonished that in a matter of weeks she learning so many new words! Guess it's time to start watching what we say around her!! ;)

In other news...Baby boys are doing great! I have started feeling little baby flutters and occasionally pokes and prods. It has taken a bit longer to feel baby movement because I have an anterior placenta....basically my placenta is like a pillow between babies and my stomach so I have to feel any movement through the placenta.  But these little boys are getting stronger by the day...I'm sure I'll be feeling them more consistently in no time!!

    Baby B is waving "hi" at 19 weeks!!

 

WOW!!!!

In exactly 4 days I will be at the halfway point....19 weeks!!! (19 weeks is currently our halfway point since the drs won't let me go past 38 weeks).  Man....I'm already BIG!!!  These boys are growing!

      Today....18 weeks and 3 days

      

      18 weeks

      16 weeks

      

           14 weeks

      
        13 weeks

       

           11 weeks

I was going to write an entire blog about my crazy out of control hormones but decided to save that for later...so instead you got the progression of the growing belly (sorry I haven't been super consistent with belly pictures....but I hardly took any with Peyton, so this is an improvement)!! 

I'll be the first admit that I'm SUPER nervous about how big my belly will get by the end of this journey!  Especially when I look back on my pregnancy with Peyton.  I was this size when I was about 26 weeks pregnant with Peyton!!

     

26ish weeks with Peyton!            Almost 19 weeks with twin boys!

       

Summer at last!!!

The rain finally seems to have subsided and summer is here (at least for a few days)! Nice weather has been Peyton's favorite....she loves it outside. When we play in the backyard or at the park and it's time to go inside or leave Little Miss gets PISSED!!!  But who can blame her....outside is pretty awesome! She is totally content just walking around out in the sun....no entertaining required.

Next week we get to start swim lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We did swim lessons last summer too but this year will definitely be different and hopefully more fun! I can't wait to see my little fish in action. 

We have also started working on room arrangements in the Houtchens' house. Peyton will be moving one room down (and will have an attached bathroom...lucky girl!) and the boys will be taking her room. Sounds easy enough....hahahaha.  So we have had to clear our the office/exercise room/junk room in order to make room for the extra bed, so that Peyton's new room is empty and ready.  Ugh!!! Peyton's new room is now ready to be painted...she even has her new big girl bed in there. 

Hopefully by the end of June her new room will be all ready for her and we can start that transition and begin working on getting the boys room ready! Should be easy...right!?!!? ;)

We had a dr. Appt today (17 weeks) and got to see our boys worming and squirming around.  Boys and mama are doing great!!

The dr said just keep doing what I'm doing....everything is looking good.  I was told that I can no longer sleep on my back....ugh!! I have never been a back sleeper but the past few weeks I have been so uncomfortable sleeping that sometimes sleeping on my back provides a little comfort...but oh well... I'll survive.  

My dr has also suggested that I start taking a calcium supplement, as twins tend to suck up extra calcium.  So in addition to the 4...sometimes 6 pills I was taking a night, I know get to take 2 more!! Blah!!! On nights I'm not feeling well it is hard to get those suckers down....but anything for healthy babies!

And our twins are........

BOYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bryce and I are so excited to get to add 2 little precious boys to our family!!! We know Peyton will be a great (and tough) big sister!!

We learned Thursday at our perinatologist appointment that Baby A was a boy!! While Baby B didn't want to show us his goods we knew, since they are identical, that he too was a boy!

However, yesterday we had a top secret source (names will not be mentioned so as to protect the said party from any job abuse for doing said ultrasound! 😉) who was more than excited to check out these twin babies via ultrasound for us! And within the first few minutes both boys were happily showing their boy parts without being shy!! And once again...a big thank you to the unnamed source! It was so awesome just get to see our little guys for fun rather than for medical purposes. 

Once we revealed the babies genders to our families the next obvious question was....what are we going to name them? 

We quickly had to bursts our families bubbles and let them know that both precious boys do have names...but....everyone will have to wait for their arrival to learn what they are!! 

I will say...they will NOT have "twin" names (e.g. Larry and Harry, Brandon and Brian, Jim and John). Nor will they be named after anyone....sorry folks, that's just not my thing!!

Profile views of both Baby A and Baby B. 

Baby B sucking his thumb.  

I've got a SECRET!!!

Today Bryce and I met with a Perinatologist AKA a high risk OB doctor.  We got an ultrasound done to further confirm that our babies are identical and sharing a placenta...which the Perinatologist did confirm.  It was so fun to see our little babies squirming around.  Though these babies may technically be identical...they already seem to have very different personalities.  Baby A (as he/she has always been labeled) is very much relaxed and just takes it pretty easy nuzzling inside me.  Baby B on the other hand is ALL OVER the place! This little baby has not held still for a second during our last 2 ultrasounds....and I'm not just talking wiggling a little bit.  NO...this little baby was literally running circles around baby A.  Needless to say baby B has already been deemed the trouble maker!

Anyways...both babies are doing great....leading me to the secret I have.......we got a little peek between these babies legs!! But.....we aren't sharing just yet!!!! SORRY!  We also have an ultrasound on Saturday to confirm the gender...it never hurts to double check! So maybe after that we'll share!

Because the babies are identical twins sharing a placenta our Perinatologist has suggested that we have ultrasounds every 2 weeks...HOLY COW!!!  It's exciting to know that we will get to see our babies so often but it's also exhausting because these appointments tend to average 2 hours.  The reason for so many ultrasounds is to monitor the babies and their growth and keep an eye out for the Twin to Twin Transfusion I spoke of a few posts ago (though our Dr today said that just based off his past Dr knowledge and experience he doesn't foresee that coming up...sigh of relief).  With so many ultrasounds coming up I think that it is also time find a babysitter....because taking Peyton to these long appointments is becoming more and more difficult!

Well friends, until next time!!

I couldn't do it alone

I feel as though I have so much to be thankful for this Mother's Day....my beautiful toddler and not one but TWO little munchkins baking away! 

It has been a rough few months for me (though exciting) with all of these extra hormones running through my body.  They make me extra crazy, irrational and emotional.  I often have minor anxiety attacks and feel overly sensitive about the smallest things....and through it all my wonderful husband has been here to hug me, hold my hand, pat my back, calm me down, validate me and remind me it will all be okay! I definitely could not be the mother that I am without him. 

Bryce works hard day in and day out so that I can stay home with Peyton and go to the zoo, aquarium, museum, so we can play all day at home or the park and more importantly...so I can watch her grow.  Being a mother is a hard job ( and the best job in the world) but it is not a job I could do without Bryce.  He is my better half!  I am the mom I am, because of him.  

Learning as we go...

The last month and a half has already been a wild ride. At 13 weeks, I look very pregnant! No hiding the baby bump for this mama!  I have been battling morning sickness AKA feeling like crap all day!! It has increasingly become a struggle to find things to keep that nausea tamed and the food down. So here's to hoping that as I enter the second trimester all this fun stuff starts to disapate. 

Yesterday we had our first Dr appointment since learning our family was growing by 2! And we got to not only see our growing babies but learn more about them. Both babies are growing great and measuring right where they are supposed to and both had heart rates at 160.  The big thing that we learned is that they are IDENTICAL!!! Eeek!!

So what does that mean? Well there are several types of twins (aside from fraternal and identical). Ours are di/mo (di amniotic/mono chorionic) twins....meaning, each little baby has it's own amniotic sac but they are sharing a placenta and a larger sac, called the chorionic sac. (Identical twins also means it's either 2 boys or 2 girls!!)

 

 

The diagram just shows identical twinning...where one fertilized egg splits ( fraternal twins being 2 completely different eggs). On the diagram the center column represents what our babies look like, di/mo twins. 

For random knowledge...fraternal twins or identical twins that share NOTHING are called di/di (di amniotic/di chorionic) twins...looks like the first column.  And identical twins that share EVERYTHING are called mo/mo (mono amniotic/mono chorionic) twins...looks like the last column. 

The best case scenario as far as risk goes is twins that share nothing. So since our babies do share a placenta there is some risk of Twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). TTTS basically, in simplicitest terms is where one baby takes more from the placenta then the other causing one baby to grow at a slower rate. (Obviously there is a little more to it than that, but we don't need to get into all of it). There is only about 15-20% chance of TTTS occurring and there is no reason currently for us to worry about it, as both babies are growing great.  But we will continue to be monitored for it. 

Enough about the twin babies....as exciting as they are!

Peyton is officially 16 months old and in full toddler mode...sass and temper tantrums included! 

A few weeks ago Bryce had the day off and it just so happen to be a beautiful day out. So we took advantage of it and spent the day at the zoo.  Peyton had an awesome time.  She wanted to walk the whole time and loved all the animals, she reached for each one...wanting to pet them like she does her puppies.  And it was great for Bryce to get to join us on an outing, since often times Peyton and I go by ourselves during the week.

 

Peyton also had her first toddler Easter! We went to my parents house and just hung out. It was pretty low key, but nice and relaxing.  Peyton even picked her own Easter bonnet to wear ALL day!!