13 Weeks Pregnant........A Really Cool Weekend!

THIRTEEN WEEKS!!!!  This pregnancy has seemed to fly by lately as my belly continues to expand a lot! I continue to feel great and am loving my round tummy as it continues to come in. I have started talking to Elijah about "the babies in Mama's tummy". Every time I do this, he tries to lift up my shirt and look. So I have to be careful to only talk about it to him in the comfort of our home. Heehee.

I had my 13 week ultrasound on Friday which is a pretty thorough one. Everything looks spectacular and both babies are measuring about 4-6 days ahead. Yikes. I told the ultrasound tech that I would love for her to guess gender and she said she was able to do so with Baby B however Baby A had cord covering the pertinent areas so she was unable to see any telltale signs of gender. There is also a new test on the market that detects gender in the mother's blood. This is not something I had heard about when I was pregnant with Elijah so I think it is pretty new. The test will detect some sort of hormone in your blood that is only there when you are carrying a boy so with twins, if there is no hormone, we will know it is two girls but if there is hormone detected, it could either be two boys or a boy and a girl. The test was surprisingly covered by insurance and they were taking my blood anyway that day so we went ahead and did it (results come back in a week or so) but we will still be doing our gender ultrasound in three weeks if a boy is detected to find out exactly who is in there! Everything else in the ultrasound looked great! All the measurements were exactly as they should be and both Petite Parishes were moving and grooving all over the place. In fact, Petite A was doing somersaults!

Here's a nice side by side of our sweet babies!

Petite Parish B all comfy and cozy

Baby A rocking and rolling

I love taking belly shots and am really excited about the addition of the fruit and belly shots for this pregnancy. This week the babies are peaches. The only peaches I could find at the store were huge! I picked the most average looking ones in size but they still seemed a little big. Of course, according to the ultrasound, the babies are pretty big as of right now so this fruit is probably pretty accurate! Now I have to admit that this first trimester due to extreme exhaustion, I have not eaten as I know I should.  Not bad but I was told by my doctor I need to be extremely careful about my weight, especially since our goal is VBAC, then there was vacation. Now that we are back (and not going anywhere for a while), I am getting more sleep (more on that below), and the first trimester is over, it is time to get serious about diet and exercise. I have stocked up on lots of protein and calcium (calcium is something I struggle with so I am back on dairy for this pregnancy) and I am going to try to start walking again. It is really tough to commit to that in the Houston heat. Really it must be done before 8am to be bearable otherwise you miss your window of opportunity. I plan to begin doing some yoga as well but I was really hoping to start the working out with morning walks with Elijah. That is my goal for this week. To walk at least 5 mornings!

My sweet little peaches.

13 Weeks!

A bump is my favorite accessory!

A belly full of babies and a heart full of love!

A lot of belly

Extreme close up!

Getting silly

Because of my struggle with OHSS and the additional bed rest at the beginning of my pregnancy, followed by lots of traveling on my part, Chip and I did not get a chance to really celebrate our pregnancy and how awesome it is to be carrying TWINS! Because 13 weeks (+3 days) marks the end of the first trimester, we decided that we would go out for a Mexican dinner (my craving this pregnancy) and celebrate the life within, Elijah becoming a big brother, us having a family of five and completing our first trimester! Once we were out, we realized how rare it is that we go out to dinner as a family of three. It was really a nice treat! I enjoyed some beef fajitas (sans tortillas!) and Elijah chowed down on some beans and rice, pretty much ignoring his tamale. That baby is a bean kid! It was really a fun night and I look forward to all the second trimester brings including lots of kicks (I can't wait until Elijah can feel the babies kick for the first time!), finding out gender, choosing names (though that is pretty much narrowed down), planning a nursery and celebration the completion of the second trimester in early/mid November!

Yay for a complete first trimester!

Elijah really enjoys our little photo shoots

Ready for some grub!

Love this little boy. Now let's go eat!

Good water!

Our little boy loves to share!

Love having dinner with my boys. 

Soon to be BIG BROTHER!

One more cool thing that happened this week was with choir. For the past several years, the choir at SBC has gotten to sing the National Anthem before an Astros game. Ever since I joined choir and saw this on the schedule,  I have been super excited about this opportunity. It was neat to have Elijah and Chip there to see us sing and it is really cool that this is a memory that will go in my pregnancy journal for the twins to see how they were there too! While we were at the stadium, I got to wear Elijah for the first time since I've been pregnant! I knew I missed it but how much he really missed it showed as soon as I strapped him on. I was given the okay to wear him by my RE but then we had the spotting scare so I have been nervous about it. I don't think I would be able to wear him for long periods of time but I am thrilled that I feel comfortable doing it here and there.  I used my Ergo because that is what Chip had (he was wearing him at the game) but I think I will do better to wrap him while pregnant because I can tie the wrap up by my chest where the Ergo or Becco goes around the waist. I really wish I had my Mei Tai but I am selling my Babyhawk because it is not comfortable and am going to have one made from a wrap but am still in the process of procuring the materials. ANYWAY, it was a really cool experience followed by such an awesome attachment parenting treat!

SBC Choir about to sing!

Love that my little boy gets to see Mama sing with choir

Wearing my baby for the first time since late May!