Dave and I had a very long, eventful day in Charleston yesterday.
We arrived at the doctor's office at 12:30. We went to Prenatal Genetics at the Prenatal Wellness Center at MUSC. After completing the necessary paperwork they informed us that we would meet with a genetics counselor prior to having our ultrasound. The genetics counselor was very nice and very knowledgeable. She took us to her office where we basically just sat and talked for about an hour. First she went over what having a high AFP level could mean. She was very thorough, even drawing diagrams of what the ultrasound technician would be looking for. After that she told me what my AFP value was and said that even though it was higher than average, it wasn't high enough for them to be super concerned about it. The average level for twins is 4, my first round of blood work came back as 4.81 and the second round came back as 4.72. She said she had seen a level as high as 6 for twins before and that it was good that the level was lower for the second round of blood work. After that she asked us about our family histories and sent us back out to the waiting room.
We arrived at the doctor's office at 12:30. We went to Prenatal Genetics at the Prenatal Wellness Center at MUSC. After completing the necessary paperwork they informed us that we would meet with a genetics counselor prior to having our ultrasound. The genetics counselor was very nice and very knowledgeable. She took us to her office where we basically just sat and talked for about an hour. First she went over what having a high AFP level could mean. She was very thorough, even drawing diagrams of what the ultrasound technician would be looking for. After that she told me what my AFP value was and said that even though it was higher than average, it wasn't high enough for them to be super concerned about it. The average level for twins is 4, my first round of blood work came back as 4.81 and the second round came back as 4.72. She said she had seen a level as high as 6 for twins before and that it was good that the level was lower for the second round of blood work. After that she asked us about our family histories and sent us back out to the waiting room.
We didn't have to wait long before being called back for the ultrasound. At this point we were nervous wrecks, knowing all that could possibly be wrong with our little ones (the list was quite long!). I laid down on the special chair and Dave sat beside me. The ultrasound tech was on my other side, of course, and there was a monitor mounted to the wall so we could see what the ultrasound tech was seeing. The ultrasound tech was very friendly and talkative. She explained everything to us as we saw it on the screen, pointing out the brains, bladders, kidneys, arms, legs, feet, hearts, etc of each baby.
She started with the baby on the left side, which is our boy. He is lying head down on my left side. He was very active and we got some great pictures of his face when she switched to 4-D mode. She said he weighs 10 ounces, which is good. She listened to his heartbeat, it was 149 bpm, which is also good. The funniest thing is when she switched to 4-D mode, you could see he had both hands behind his head and looked like he was just kicked back and relaxing... I looked over to Dave and he was sitting in the exact same position! Once she was satisfied with all of the boy's parts, she moved on to the other baby (our girl).
The little girl had her head right up against the boys but she was lying in a transverse, or sideways, position. She was not so active. In fact, she was kind of curled up in a ball and wouldn't budge no matter how much the ultrasound tech pushed or poked her. Dave says she's stubborn just like her mother. She said the girl weighs 9 ounces and her heart rate was 137 bpm, which were both good. After a while, the ultrasound had me get up and use the restroom, drink some orange juice (which makes babies move) and walk around the room a little bit. She didn't move much but just enough that we could view all of her parts and see her opening her mouth. We tried getting a 4-D pic of her face but ended up with kind of a profile view. We'll try for a better one next time.
The ultrasound tech left to show the pictures to the doctor who came into the room and said everything looks good. He did say that they like to monitor twin pregnancies very closely because of the increased risk of preterm labor. I will have to make a trip to Charleston every 4 weeks for fetal growth ultrasounds to make sure they are getting bigger like they should. Our next ultrasound will be on February 25, 2008.
After a HUGE sigh of relief we called friends and family as we drove to Babies-R-Us. Now the fun begins.... We didn't leave Babies-R-Us until 7:00 last night and all we got accomplished was ordering the cribs, dresser (which doubles as a changing table) and armoire! Who knew picking out nursery furniture would be so hard?
After leaving Babies-R-Us, we drove to my parents house, which was on the way home, for dinner. My mom, of course, had baby presents all ready for us when we arrived. Cute little tiny clothes for each of the little blessings! I hate to say that we ate and ran, but that's exactly what we did, arriving home at 10:00 PM, exhausted and elated all at the same time.
Thanks to everyone who kept us and our babies in their prayers... they worked!
Two Little Heads....
4-D Image of Baby Boy with his hands behind his head, just like Daddy.
Baby Girl didn't want to show us her full face, but here is her profile
Baby Boy's BIG foot.... again, just like Daddy!
Boy Parts....
Baby Boy's Profile
Baby Girl's little foot
Girl Parts....
Baby Girl's Profile
