Luck Favors the Prepared

As soon to be first time parents, we have been looking back at all of our experiences with babies and realized that they haven't amounted to a sufficient body of knowledge. This doesn't really worry us because of all the support we have in our friends and family. Nevertheless, when we feel nervous because of everything we don't know, we seem to collect another parenting book.

Most of these books talk about similar things such as feeding, sleeping, changing, scheduling and health. My personal favorite so far is The Baby Owner's Manual by Louis (M.D.) and Joe (D.A.D) Borgenicht. This book features a parts list and chapters titled things like "Feeding: Understanding the baby's power supply" and "Programming sleep mode." Male and female babies are referred to as different models, and the mouth "makes loud noises upon delivery." I recommend this book even if you aren't expecting a child.

If anyone who reads this blog has any advice to give or questions about any of the books we are reading, please add a comment below this posting. Thank you for all your support.

The Gaggle

Week 21 Ultrasounds

Here are the ultrasound pictures from week 21 as promised. I especially like the last picture in the slide show which has baby B in a full curl.

In other twin news our surrogate went to a concert the other night and said the girls were dancing. We are going to see her this weekend... maybe we will be lucky enough to feel them kicking, though they may be too small still.

Week 21 Update

The perinatologist in Portland (cover your mouth when you say that out loud) told us that it would be a waste of time for us to make every single doctor's appointment since most of them don't last very long and not a lot of ultrasound is done.

Today was one of the ones we missed. Our surrogate gave us the following update:

"I'm doing good. Girls are great and playing. They are 13 oz each. Everything is looking great."

She also has 8 ultrasound pictures that I will post just as soon as I get a chance to pick them up. In the meanwhile to hold everyone over... here are a couple of websites which give you an idea of what babies look like in the 21st week.

http://www.pregnancyguideonline.com/wk21.htm
http://3dpregnancy.parentsconnect.com/calendar/21-weeks-pregnant.html

We are doing great, the babies are doing great, our surrogate is doing good. Its a great day for the gaggle!

Shopping Burnout

Trying to find the good clearance racks in town can be fun but tiring. At least the kids will have cute clothes. I have become familiar with just about every baby store in the Seattle area.

What can we say though - buying everything in twos makes it a little harder to shop, but also more fun.

Of course we have registered at a couple of places, we will let everyone know where just as soon as we finalize our registries. Finalizing them is harder than we thought. I imagine it is that way for a lot of first time parents (especially the ones expecting twins). You ask yourself questions like "Do we really NEED this?" or "Do we really need TWO of these?" Stay tuned, its a work in progress.

We will also let everyone know the date and location of the baby shower soon. I apologize that its taken so long, but were just busy people. Soon to be busier :)

Welcome

This Blog is to keep all of our friends and family up to date on how our gaggle is doing. The girls (that's right, girls!) are now in week 19! Because were talking about multiples, they could arrive up to four weeks before the due date. This means that the ETA is (roughly) February 22 - March 22.

As many of you know, our journey to this point has not been an easy one, so needless to say we are THRILLED! Planning is under way, things are being bought, registered for, cleaned, painted, arranged and decorated. We are drowning in a sea of pastels.

Our most recent ultrasound was great. Everyone is right on schedule growth wise. Our surrogate is doing good (although a little sleepy). Check out the slide show below for the ultrasound pictures. It was a restless day so some of the ultrasounds are a little blurry. The babies are named "A" and "B" for now (located on the upper left hand corner of the picture).