crazy 3D ultrasounds

Since I'm having twins the lovely medical personnel here have me come in every 2 weeks for ultrasounds. So we get to spy on our little guys a lot, which I enjoy. This week I had an intern practice on me which was very educational. Her instructor-nurse-lady walked her thru how to do everything, which let Nick and I learn along with her. I kind of wanted to ask for my turn each time the intern tried out something new.

Because she was learning it took a bit longer too and she had me laying pretty flat on my back, it actually felt like my head was lower than my legs, but that could have just been my perception. Anyway, at one point I asked if I could be raised up to an incline or something because I could feel all the blood running into my head and the instructor lady got all concerned that I was going to go down or something. I don't know, maybe I was, but she wouldn't be appeased until I rolled over so I was kind of on my side. That was interesting. At that point she took over to show my intern some things. One thing that I thought was really funny was that the whole time the intern was practising the instructor kept on saying "you don't have to push so hard...you don't have to push so hard..." I however was fine with the pressure being used on me. But this instructor lady, I tell you what, SHE pushed hard. She was crazy style all upon my belly. I almost told her "you don't have to push so hard" but I'm a little too mild mannered for that sort of thing.

So anyway, moving on, she pulled out the 3D ultrasound, which I wasn't expecting and took some shots of my li'l nudgers, as amy likes to call them ( I think it's amy, is it you amy?).
I was expecting aliens, but these turned out a little more baby like than I was expecting:

Baby A made us all laugh when he extended a nice and shapely pointer finger at his brother. Evidently he was letting us know that Baby B did it. That or he's number one, we can't be completely sure at this time, but I'm sure he'll let us know when we meet him.


Here's A's face (above), since you can't see it very well in the last shot. Woo hoo! I'm brewing up some cute babies! Does he look identical to his brother below?



Here's a nice one of Baby B, and I will admit that I think he's pretty cute, in a, you know, developing fetus sort of way.

So there you have it: Crazy 3D Ultrasound Technology. All those kids are contained in this, my 19-20 weeks-along-self. That means I'm 5 months pregnant, isn't that nuts?

Oh, they're in there. They like nudging and smacking me all day long to remind me about it.

Nick would like me to add that during the appointment he touched the viewing monitor and then realized there was a big sign on it that said "PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH MONITOR." But he was able to identify the 4 chambers of the heart.

4 days is as a minute to the Empey's

It all started with breakfast:
A delectable assortment of Frosted Mini Wheats and 2% milk followed by the scriptures. Breakfast was early this morning!

We made our way to campus, into the parking garage, and across the walkway:
It was a brisk morning. Not one that you lollygag around outside standing like a flamingo fishing in, if you know what I mean. We entered the building, talked to 3 receptionists, and found a couple of pleasant and large waiting room chairs. Nicole had to use the restroom:
The bathroom wasn't very far away from our chairs. Nicole was pretty sure that it was connected to an exam room, but nobody was using it (the exam room or the bathroom), so she was safe. They called our name and we went into the exam room. It was dimly lit so that we wouldn't snoop--they don't know us too well. There was a big machine with buttons and knobs and hardwired instruments and a viewing monitor. A lady came in and asked Nicole to sit on the big chair, and we saw the most amazing pictures come up on the monitor:















"Baby A" decided to show us his 1" long foot and then do a faceplant. Crazy little guy. "Baby B" decided to just chill out, relax, max out, and cool showing us his little handsome profile:
In the end we found out that there are 2 identical twin boys living inside of Nicole right now that weigh in at 1/2 lb each. Crazy stuff. Monochorionic diamniotic. They appear to be as healthy as can be. Nicole is doing about as healthy as can be. No sickness or nausea to this point. Nick is about as healthy as can be...he weighs 165 lbs. It's really cool to think that identical twins occur completely spontaneously, so no genetic factors had a hand in this--not that they would since twins don't run in Nicole's family. Although, it should be noted that Nicole's brother has identical triplet boys, which of course is also spontaneous, so family photos should be pretty fun. Thank you everyone for your prayers and rejoicing with us.

the reason why I started this blog in the first place:

Look very closely!

Here's the Story:

Once I found out I was pregnant, I waited for a little bit before I called the doctor to set up an appointment because I had heard they don't really see you right away anyway. So I finally called into a doctor to set up an appointment, and they told me I had to have a "New to Nurse Interview" before I could make appointments, so they gave me the number to call for that. I soon discovered that the New to Nurse thing was really just a big orientation and the next one wasn't available for two and a half weeks. I got nervous because by then I'd be 11 weeks along, and I wouldn't even be seeing a doctor. They seemed to think that was fine, so I said okay.

Nick came with me to the orientation. It was a 2 hour long introduction to pregnancy and such, and I had already read most of what they covered, so that made me feel pretty smart. They took some blood, made an appointment with the doctor for the following week and then sent me on my way.

Nick also came to the first doctor's appointment. They had told me ahead of time that I would get a pelvic exam and would be able to hear the baby's heart beat, so I was half dread and half total excitement. When we were there the doctor started by asking us a lot of standard questions and then started talking about blood types. She asked Nick if he knew his, and he doesn't because the poor kid has a hard time giving blood. In fact I could tell that he was getting a little queasy just talking about it. I love Nick.

So after a bit she told me to get undressed and put on the little napkin dress they give you and that she'd be back in. I did so. Then she comes in and pulls out this big machine and I got a little nervous. I asked what it was, wondering if they had changed the procedure from the last time I had a pelvic exam. She said, "Oh, this is an ultrasound." I was really excited because I thought we'd just get to hear the heartbeat. I looked over at Nick and the poor, poor boy was just completely green. Evidently he hadn't forgotten our previous conversation. So I stopped the doctor and asked him if he was going to be okay or if he needed something to eat -- I didn't want him to miss the ultrasound. Nick was really honest, as he usually is when he gets queasy, and said he did need something to eat. The doctor ran out and came back with some banana bread and a huge mug of water.

Nick got to munching.

She started with the ultrasound.

She pulled the screen toward herself at first and was fiddling around, I assumed to make sure everything was okay. Then she finally turned the screen toward me and was moving around and I couldn't see a thing that looked like a baby. Then she exclaims and says loudly "There's not one baby in here!" So all I hear is "there's not a baby in here - my worst fears confirmed." Then she points to the screen and I see these two blobs and I'm thinking, "what a horrible way to tell someone they've lost their baby..." and then she says "There's TWO!" Then I could see the little floppers doing their thing. The one on the bottom was flopping against the wall behind it and the one above was all over the place.

It was so surreal. I think I said, "Oh my goodness! This is nuts!" among other things. I looked over at Nick and he was sitting there with the banana bread frozen halfway to his mouth. He had much better color though. It was really fun to see, and I've secretly always wanted twins. I think it's so crazy though. It doesn't run in my family or Nick's. My brother also randomly had triplets with his wife, and it doesn't run in her family either! What are the odds?

We don't know the gender yet, or if they are identical, but we'll find that out on January 14th at 9:00am. I can't wait.

We feel really blessed. Please keep us in your prayers!