Baby Boy and Baby Girl!

It's (going to be after fully cooked) a BOY and a GIRL!

They're both healthy and doing well!

Baby Boy A keeps his hands around his... well, you know. We'll have to have a talk about that at some point.  I know he's proud, but come on, dude.  He flips around and moves his legs a lot (all of that while holding onto his junk.) He's gonna be a soccer player, yes he is... he iiiisss! (Billy Madison reference)

Baby Girl B waves her arms in the air like she just don't care, and she also flips around a lot. When the ultrasound tech pushed down to try to get her to move and show her goods, she flipped around to hide her bum and shook her fist at us.  Fiercely protecting her modesty. Good girl.

(I'm totally projecting and making up personalities for them, but that's what people do, right?)

Obviously we're really excited. People say, "one of each, so you'll be done, right?" And yes, that's right, but we would have been really excited and "done" regardless.  Two kiddos is perfecto for our family, regardless of genders.

So I get to start the nursery planning (I'll start posting about that soon)! And registering! Actually I started registering yesterday - post on that (and the intense experience that was the breast pump aisle!) later.

(Almost) 18 weeks

A pic from a week ago, when I was 16.5 weeks along (and thus saying I was 17 weeks):

I feel big but I'm told that I haven't seen anything yet. (awesome)

Some stats to keep up with through the pregnancy:

Weight: Gained 10 lbs. Doc said we're aiming for 35 total based on my height. I think he's being conservative, but I "didn't go to medical school" so I'll try to take his advice seriously.

Cravings: Fruit. I could eat watermelon all day. Know when it's tough to find good watermelon? January.

Sleep:  Fantastic. 8-9 hours a night. No problems falling or staying asleep. Love it.

Mood: Exuberant. Not even being sarcastic. The babies were dancing around during their anatomy scan yesterday, and they're totally healthy, and I'm on top of the world. (More on the anatomy scan later)

Dreams: Lots of vivid dreams. Last night I dreamed that Zach had stopped paying rent, and we were going to have to find another place to live (and this is why I oversee the automatic mortgage payments myself). Zach had a dream that he had gotten a job at a carwash in LA and was moving us to LA. Similar moving dreams. Babies = change = moving?
I hope the puppy dreams don't come back. Babycenter says dreams with small cute animals are good, but I don't think it's good when you're dreaming that you have puppies that you can't keep track of, and one always dies. Thanks for the vote of confidence, subconscious.

Movement: I don't feel any movement yet, which is weird considering how much we saw them moving yesterday. Looking forward to feeling something.

Babies: Baby A is 9 oz (91st percentile for growth!) and Baby B is 8 oz (87th percentile!) They're both "getting the groceries" as the doctor put it, so that's good. I can't remember what their positions were, but they'll keep changing positions as long as they have enough room to continue their acrobatics anyway.

Husband: He's doing very well and being really nice to me (Allyn: remember this later when you're tempted to be mad at him for something that's not his fault). If he's panicking, he's keeping it to himself.

Dog: He is panicking, and he is not keeping it to himself. He follows me everywhere and demands to be picked up and loved constantly. He'd probably stop if I'd stop, but I'm waiting for him to stop first, so we'll see where that gets us.

And that's 18 (almost, close enough) weeks!

Day One: I'm finally blogging!

I've been talking about starting up a blog to journal the pregnancy and our life, but I just now found the motivation to begin since it's just two days until we find out the sexes of the twins.

So, some background. I'm 17.5 weeks pregnant.  (Yes, I am pregnant, "we" are not pregnant. We are expecting, but Zach is currently drinking a beer and probably inexplicably losing weight while doing so, so  I'm pretty sure I'm the only pregnant one.)

I now understand why women want to count in weeks instead of months; every week is worth mentioning. I even think every half week is worth getting credit for, although truth be told I start rounding up to the next week around the half week point anyway.

"Get credit for," you ask? I know, no one is giving out credit although dammit, they should be. Praise motivates me. Even when I've done nothing to deserve it.  When I'm at the doctor's office and he notes that my blood pressure is low or that my cervix is looking good, I get a triumphant smirk and look around to see if anyone else heard it. "Get that, nurse? My cervix is awesome. Make sure you write it down in my chart. Do you have any gold stars you could put by today's visit? I think my cervix deserves it."

There are days when no one tells you that your cervix, or anything else, is looking good though.  Or worse yet, your husband stares at your stomach and you can tell he's thinking (a) holy crap, she's pregnant for reals, and (b) there's no way that's ever going to look the way it was before.  Yesterday was one of those yuck days for me, mainly because I discovered that if I sit a certain way my belly button already pops out. Gross, right? Yeah, I know.

Despite grossness and feeling frumpy and not being able to drink wine, this is one of the happiest times of my life. I know, so cheesy. But I feel so content and emotionally stable ('how crazy were you before that pregnancy hormones help?' you ask in disbelief. Pretty crazy.) And of course I wanted this so badly. It's all still pretty surreal. I'm okay with everything that happens because I know in the end I'll have two beautiful little babies whom I will adore and who will love me, and then hate me as teenagers, and then be friends with me as young adults, and finally bring me soup when I'm old and in the home. Hopefully they'll put me in a nice home. They should probably start saving now.

And that was my first post. Good luck, babies! We're in this together!