A New Beginning

I am blogging from my new residence~ the hospital!  I am starting this blog to keep friends and family informed of the progress of this pregnancy and to document this crazy, unpredictable, and hopefully in the end joyful journey of bringing these two little girls into the world.


As a quick recap~ Korby and I found out that I was pregnant in February.  It was a TOTAL shock and surprise to us (Vivian was only 6 months old at the time!)  Our first appointment was normal, but it was too early to hear a heart beat, so 2 weeks later I went back.  That is when they did an ultrasound and I found out that we were expecting twins!  I was then referred to the Maternal Fetal offices for another ultrasound because my midwife couldn't find a membrane between them.  Korby and I didn't know much about what that meant, we were still trying to wrap our heads around having 2 more babies.  That ultrasound was 2 days later and it changed everything!  We found out that our babies are monoamniotic twins~ identical twins that are sharing the same amniotic sac (the 3rd picture down).  It only happens in less than 1% of twin pregnancies.  It is a high risk pregnancy because of the risks involved with their umbilical cords being in contact with each other, getting tangled and knotted up and getting compressed (cutting off blood supply and oxygen to the babies).

So, the normal proceedings in this type of pregnancy is being admitted to the hospital around 24-28 weeks, having the babies heart rates monitored from a range of 2 times daily for an hour at a time up to continuous monitoring depending on how well the babies are doing and if there are any problems.  And then if the babies can make it to 32 weeks without any major complications they will be delivered via c-section at that time.  Which means, at best, they will be born 8 weeks early (if not earlier) and will need to spend time in the NICU.  They have told us to expect babies born premature to plan on coming home close to their actual due date, which wouldn't be until around October 28th!

We are penciled in to deliver on September 3rd (Labor Day, appropriately named), but understand that in reality these little girls could be born at time in between today and our planned date.

All of that being said, and with soooo... many different complications and possible outcomes~ as of today everything is looking GREAT!  Both babies are growing well (last week they were 1 lb 9 oz and 1 lb 8 oz).  Still so tiny, but it is wonderful that they are growing at the same rate.  And so far their heart rates have looked great also.

We know so much of how well things have gone up until this point is a combination of a lot of prayers and thoughts on our behalf and a lot of faith and trusting that this is part of our Heavenly Father's plan for our family.

Hopefully things will be pretty uneventful for the next 6 weeks, but I've got nothing but a whole lot of time to keep this blog updated!