Duke...here we come

Last week when we were at the OB we asked about our records. Apparently, they had no notes that we had requested our records. If you remember this was a process that was going to take 2-3 weeks. The nurse we spoke with last Monday was very nice, and she made copies of what she could right there in front of us. This was very nice of her and has allowed us to get an appointment with Duke, which has not been a trivial task.

Duke's hours are 8am-3pm and they close for an hour or so at lunch. This makes getting a hold of them while you are at work a challenging. Then we couldn't make an appointment until we got the records. Then we couldn't make an appointment until they got the records and reviewed them. Ugh the rules kept changing. Finally, we were able to get an appointment for tomorrow morning. We assume they will do another ultra sound so they can see for themselves what is going on in there. We may get some more check point measurements etc. We are looking forward to a little peak inside again.

Joy and I have been getting very excited. Most of the fears that were placed in our heads 4 weeks ago (to the day) have started to subside. We still aren't comfortable enough to start buying stuff. We also hope people don't start to buy a bunch of stuff for us just yet. At least if they do, we hope they hang onto it a while longer. We both have an urge to start getting things ready, but are still a little apprehensive. We hope to replace and paint the trim in the nursery as well as empty out the furniture and replace the blinds. We figured we would hold off painting the walls a little longer since we don't know what color we want just yet.

We have been talking more and more about "when" they come rather than "if" they come. We both on occasion correct ourselves to if, but that is less frequent. I suppose it is a good sign that we are becoming more positive.

We are at 16 weeks 1 day and have about 8 weeks before viability (50% chance of survival and huge chances for serious handicaps). I mean think about that, 24 weeks is 16 weeks early! That is 4 months of precious time in the womb that they would miss. At 24 weeks they will weigh around 1.5 lbs a piece! I think I have held puppies bigger than this. At the 24 week mark everyday in the womb is vital for proper development. I read one blog post from a woman who went to Duke for momos 3 years ago. The writer said Duke told them every day past 24 weeks increases their odds by about 2%! That is a pretty big deal.

Joy has been doing well. She has started to take her generic Zochor (sp?) for nausea. This has prevented her from getting sick every morning. In fact, the first night she took it she got up and sprung to her feet. Then almost instantly went "Oh no!", while expecting that she would need to run to the ol' porcelain pot that she had been hugging every morning for 8 weeks. To her surprise she was just fine and trotted down stairs for breakfast.

There was another cute thing that happened this week. As I had mentioned in our last post, the doctor thought she had put on 5 pounds at our last visit. Which was really more like 2-3 pounds since pre-pregnancy. Well, Joy hopped on the scale Thursday night. I just caught her getting on and then hopping right off the scale in an almost panic like way. Her face was priceless with an "Oh Shoot!" expression which switched to this funny kid like grin. She had put on another 6 lbs. in just a few days! We both got a bit of a laugh out of that. Since then we have backed off on the daily milk shakes.

Joy is having a heck of a time swallowing her prenatal vitamin each day. She had too many "bad spells" after trying to swallow them. Now she almost gags at the thought of trying to swallow the pill. It is mostly a mental block. So we have been busting them up into a powder with a plastic baggy and rolling pin. If anyone knows of a gummie version of a prenatal vitamin please let us know. These things don't taste very good when mixed in ice cream, but at least she gets them down.

Oh goodness.....more has happened than I thought. We secured a spot at a nearby daycare for the twins. At the moment we have them down for September. We had to do this incase I don't get onsite daycare here at SAS. It was sounding like my chances of onsite were slim. However, friends of ours know someone who only had two years of seniority with SAS and was able to get the onsite daycare. The hours, would be a bit of a pain 8:45-5:15, but it would save us money to have them onsite vs. the off site subsidy. Plus, it would be easier to walk over to the nursery to check in on them at lunch time.

Ok....sorry for the long rambling post. I hope we have some news to share tomorrow after meeting with Duke.

Cheers....