McKinley Jane and Grant Alan

We had a check up with the OB this week and nothing has changed at this point except for my medicine not working so well. I've had to start taking it more frequently and even then I'm having some pretty good episodes of contractions. Dr. had warned me that the efficacy would wear off after a couple of weeks of using it and we would have to do a magnesium "wash". What that entails is checking into the hospital for 24-48 hours to be on a magnesium drip. It allows the sensors that terbutaline normally hits to rest and then hopefully we can restart the terbutaline and have it work better. She also says she doesn't see me making it to the 36 week mark. She said she's been proven wrong before though, but she has quite a bit of experience with twins. Her goal is to get us to 32 weeks and then everything after that is bonus to her. We'll see...anyone want to place a bet? Winner can baby-sit the babies when they come! Hope everyone is doing well and doing...

I'm 30 weeks today and I never thought we would make it this far so I'm extremely grateful. We had our checkup with the perinatologist and McKinley has caught right up with Grant, which was a relief b/c they were worried about her growth dropping off. She weighs around 2 lb. 9 oz and he weighs around 2 lb. 13 oz. Dr. was happy with their growth. We found out that Grant already has a full head of hair! Chad and I always joked that our kids would be monkeys if they had his DNA! Went for my twice weekly nonstress test to see how the babies were doing and they did great. Everytime I go they have me lay on my back, which in turn makes me contract so they made me go over to triage to get checked out. Once I was on my side everything calmed down, they checked my cervix which hadn't changed so they let me go home. I'm not counting that as a real triage trip though!! At last appointment with OB my belly is measuring 40 weeks and I'm starting to feel it. I would love to insta...

I'm currently at 28w2d and we had another check up with the OB today. Cervix hasn't changed since last week and contractions have been great since switching medications. All great news! All the tests on the babies went well earlier in the week and I have my second nonstress test for the week tomorrow to check in on them. Probably the most exciting thing for this week was we got to do our maternity photo session! I thought once I got put on bedrest I wouldn't be able to do it, but our photographer was nice enough to come out here and do them and spent her whole afternoon doing our pics with me either lying or sitting for the most part. She was so much fun and does all kinds of events so if anyone is interested her website is: www.mysisterssmile.com . If you want to check out the proofs of the pictures they will be available for one month. Click on this link http://mysisterssmile.com/OnlineViewing/session.php and for session ID enter HollyChad. I also have to give ...

We had a visit to the perinatologist this week for measurements and Grant is measuring in at approximately 2 lbs 3 oz and McKinley is a petite, little thing at approx. 1 lb. 13 oz. Heart, kidneys, stomach, etc was all checked and everything is still functioning as it should. On Friday I had my weekly visit to the OB and it ended up that I was a bit more dilated than previous appointments so she sent me over to triage to get monitored for contractions. When I first got hooked up I was just having small contractions, but those progressed pretty quickly into some very large and very painful contractions so they gave me the usual terbutaline injections x2 again (sound familiar!!). They had originally thought they were going to start me on a magnesium drip, which means I stay in the hospital, but I managed to dodge that bullet! The high risk OB came to do a consult and we switched my at home meds to terbutaline and they let me go home. I'm going to start doing twice weekly nonstress...

This past Sunday, Aug 3, we had our baby shower. It was a coed shower/BBQ hosted by my mom and Chad's mom. Even being on bedrest I had so much fun!! It was great to be able to catch up with people that I haven't seen in awhile. Thanks to everyone that attended or sent their well wishes. We really appreciated everyone taking the time out of their afternoon to hang out with us and I feel bad I wasn't able to make rounds and talk to some of you more, but again we were so glad that you were there to celebrate with us. And for what you all came for...the pics!! McKinley's cake made by a friend from work....those shoes are handmade! Grant's cake Jen and Katy Vafa, Brad, and Amanda Harley Davidson onesies from Chads's parents...Grant and McKinley wouldn't be part of the family without Harley gear Thanks to Ben and Amy for remembering our first "babies"...the dogs! They didn't want them to feel left out! One night at work before I was ever preg...

I finally found someone to scan all my ultrasound pics in so I could share a few. These 4D pics were taken at our last perinatologist appointment at 24 wks. Sorry for the quality. I haven't figured out how to crop, etc. The top one is McKinley and the bottom one is Grant. Grant is covering part of his face with his hand. McKinley definately has Chad's mouth and Grant has been blessed with my family's pug nose!

We're quickly approaching the 27 week mark and our second goal of 28 weeks. We had yet ANOTHER visit to OB triage at 26 weeks....I'm trying to set records! Since 22 weeks this will have been our 4 th triage visit. I was supposed to have an appointment with my doctor that morning, but started having contractions that just weren't slowing down and knew she'd send me over to triage anyway so we just went there directly. They got me hooked up to the monitor and sure enough I was contracting at least every 10 minutes so they gave me the magic Terbutaline injection to help slow them down. I ended up getting two injections that eventually got the contractions under control. They kept my at home meds the same for now. They also repeated the FFN (fetal fibronectin ) test, which had been positive at 24 weeks (for those of you that don't know, the FFN predicts your chances of going into labor within the next two weeks. A positive result means that you are at increased ris...