Beyond beautiful photos all done at our home by the lovely Katrina Anderson.  These are some of my favs she made into black & white.  I’ll share the color favs soon…there are soo many good ones!  Thanks so much Katrina, what an absolute treasure! 

The designer and I met with our midwife Richelle last Wednesday for our 24 week check up.  It was the first check up since our ultra-sound, so there was much to talk about and plan.  One of the beauties of going to Richelle (or most midwives, for that matter), is that our appointments are scheduled for an hour.  Even when only pregnant with one, I felt the time filled quickly as I enjoyed the extra support and opportunity to ask a million questions.

After the typical pee, weight (8 lbs this month), blood pressure & temperature check, we settled into some prepared handouts Richelle uses for her clients pregnant with multiples.   A friend with twins had told me recently that twins develop faster than singletons…I hadn’t got to that part in the twin book yet, so I wasn’t sure if her doctor had just told her that to help for assurance with an early delivery…or if it was true.  Well, there it was in my pamphlet: 60 percent of twins are born prematurely, before 37 weeks, which is considered full-term.  From the moment we knew we were having twins, all Richelle wanted me to focus on was nutrition (a whole other post with which I’m working).  So those first few weeks I simply focused on eating and eating healthy…”no room for anything else”, she explained.   Well I can attest to this as I am tight as can be and need to eat often and not over-eat.  How do ladies fit more than 2 within I ask you?!!!

Back to early birthing…the pamphlet went on to explain that the average twin pregnancy lasts 35 weeks with a health care provider.   With the care of midwives, the average gestation is 37-38 weeks.  Richelle’s patients with twins have delivered between 35 and 40 weeks.  And she has another twin mom right now due about 3 weeks before ours…so cool, I hope she’s doing well!

Richelle assured us that she’d try to stop the twins naturally from arriving early up until 35 weeks, which of course made us feel better.  Though, she is convinced that with our previous children arriving at 39 weeks (the dancer), on his due date (the explorer), and 10 days past the due date (the builder), if I eat healthy and take care of myself, that there is a good possibility that they’ll make it full term.   So we’re preparing for 16 more weeks!

As I mentioned above, I’d gained 8 pounds this past month (grand total of 26 pounds so far).  I asked what a typical weight gain looks like for twins: 50 pounds…so we’re on track.  Though, I’m absolutely huge!  I keep telling people (shocked that I have so long to go) that this is me at close to full-term (with one baby of course).  Well what do you know, I measured at 37.5 weeks yesterday.  Again, no wonder!  (And yes friends, I do think we’ve passed the “cute” stage…it’s all going to get interesting and entertaining from here)!

The doppler picked up both heartbeats this time around (though they were both moving a bit, so I wasn’t worried).  Everything looks good.  Baby “A” is still head-down and deeper within me I feel, and Baby “B” is moving twice as much, as usual, and head up.  His feet have been tickling my leg when I sit.  It’s fun to enjoy their differences from the beginning.  Baby “A” is much more peaceful and easy going (like his dad).  When getting a prenatal massage a couple weeks ago, Baby “B” was going crazy, poking right back at me and clearly frustrated with what was happening.  ;).  Our sweet boys.  So excited to meet them!

I couldn’t be happier with these family photos…they were long over due.  Have you been family photo-shooting?  How was it?  We even had a blue tongue appear in some of ours…but you’d never know!  xo – katrina