About that baby gender thing.

Feeling somewhat accomplished right now after spending yesterday getting a start on painting the girls' new bedroom. We are doing major bedroom swaps to prepare for the arrival of the babies... and I am freaking out a wee bit because this pregnancy is more than half over and the nursery... and the girls' room... are still in shambles.

A peek at what is to come in the girls' room... super excited for it to be done. 



We are in a state of emergency right now courtesy of Sandy... school is closed, local governments are closed, the federal government is closed... and people are freaking out. I have jumped on the freaking out bandwagon this morning and husband is out searching for water and such.

Clearly we are the king and queen of procrastination.

Ahem.



Payton and Addison are in such a fun place right now... Payton tells us quite often they are "best friends". Addison may be the forced bestie at this point... but it's all good. Ha. I have to say that adopting Addison has to be one of the best things we have ever done... for both of the girls. They are together all.the.time and they learn so much from each other.

So excited for what the future holds for these two chicks.



Payton's speech has really taken off lately... it is seriously entertaining and so rewarding to hear the things she comes up with. She has officially learned to tattle and can tell us in complete sentences why she is tattling. With each sentence... I beam. This is huge for us... slowly but surely, we are on our way.

We are slowly winding down the fall season of football and baseball. Playoffs are in a couple weeks and I am looking forward to the weeks of nothingness that follow.

For some reason... I get pretty emotional watching Mason play football. Yes... I am pregnant and yes... I have double hormone. Ha. But seriously... even though he has played tackle for a few years now, I think this year he finally gets it. In my mind... football is a big kid sport and to see him out there doing exactly what he is supposed to do to help his team... when I myself don't even really understand... it just makes me proud. 



Yeah, yeah... clearly I am a pregnant sap.

Pregnancy is going really well... other than a few sciatic aches, I'm good. I will be 22 weeks tomorrow. The babies are doing excellent... they appear healthy and are measuring ahead. And husband got to feel them move for the first time earlier this week... so sweet.


Baby A.

19w5d week baby stats...

Baby A: Measured 20w3d, weighed 12 ounces, heartbeat 141 bpm.
Baby B: Measured 20w4d, weighed 13 ounces, heartbeat 142 bpm.


Baby B.

So about that baby gender thing... the story goes like this...

We had IVF (in vetro fertilization) back in March of this year. Prior to starting our cycle, we learned about a genetics study through our clinic and we were accepted into the study. Not only did it help with cost, but we were able to get genetic testing done on our embryos for free.

Now... we historically were extremely conflicted about doing genetic testing on our embryos. We knew that our personal morals and values with regard to Down syndrome could be put at risk... and we were not sure we could handle finding out that one of our embryos had Down syndrome... and then be okay with discarding of that life.

On the flip side... we recognize that our plate is full and while we understand that any pregnancy brings risk of issues, we went into this wanting to add a typical child (Lord, I hate that term) to our family. It is what it is... and in no way takes away from our insane, intense love of Payton, Addison and their extra genetic material. 

That said... we were never going to spend the $6,000-$7,000 on genetic testing. But now we had a chance to get it for free... so we agreed. And when all was said and done... none of our embryos had Down syndrome... so thankfully we did not have to face the very thing we dreaded so much.

Moving forward... since we did a frozen embryo transfer, we transferred the two healthiest embryos we had sitting on ice. We were never given gender with our genetic testing results... it was not the purpose of the study.

But when I was around 9 weeks pregnant... our reproductive endocrinologist told us he requested the gender of our embryos from the genetics company. Well, of course we wanted to know... and we learned the two embryos that were transferred were one boy, one girl.

With 99% certainty.

Since the twins each have their own sac and their own placenta... it is assumed that they are di/di fraternal twins. When you add IVF to the equation... it tends to rule out di/di identical twins because that split happens around day 1-2 (20-30% of the time in natural twin pregnancies)... so they say. Our embryos were observed in the lab through day 5-6... meaning they would have seen if they had split... so they say.

So that rules out the theory that our girl did not implant... and that our boy split in identical twins. Both of our specialists say they doubt that happened. Our reproductive endocrinologist believes that the genetic testing was wrong when it came to gender. If true, this means that we fell in the 1% range of error.

All I can do is laugh. Because this crap only happens to us... I swear. And we definitely have two penises.



We really will not know for sure what happened until the babies are born... when we can test them to see if they are identical or fraternal. And if they are identical... this would be an extremely rare thing, to the point that our reproductive endocrinologist wants to submit our case to a medical journal.

Oy.

So all plans have been thrown out the window... and we have changed directions. Two boys... we are equally excited.