Halloween Spooks Outside Your Window

The title of this post is the first line of our favorite Halloween song, even Mitch is singing this year! It's so creepy and funny!! We had a good Halloween, despite Mommy being so out of it!! Thankfully Daddy pitched in and Mitch was able to enjoy so many fun Halloween activities at Preschool this year!! So glad he didn't realize how lame Mommy was this year in comparison to the years before!! He was able to do to a Trunk or Treat with my sister and his cousins and I wasn't going to take him to ours, but actually felt good that day so we ended up going! He loved it and I'm so glad it worked out!! Love watching him enjoy Halloween! It was the first year he picked his own costume and he was so stoked about it!!! We let him look at costumes online and he decided on the "Green Guy with a mustache" AKA Luigi from Mario Bros costume! ;) We love how excited he was to put it on for his first Halloween activity!! He kept saying, "I love this costume, I look so cool!!" He sure did!!

Our Cool Luigi :)

Making cookies with Daddy! ;)

Carving his pumpkin with Daddy!

The Preschool Halloween Party

We had an ultrasound on Halloween day and got the babies in on the action too! LOL!

12 Weeks And Bittersweet News

We decided to move on early at 8 weeks from our IVF office to our health care provider due to the high risk nature of this pregnancy this time, we didn't with Mitch till 12 weeks. We saw a regular OB and then were immediately scheduled with an excellent Maternal Fetal Medicine Doctor(MFM) at Kaiser who helps with high risk/multiple pregnancies and he wanted to see us right away! So we were to see him at 9 weeks! The day before we got a call from Seth's brother Ethan who works with a guy who's father is an MFM in another state and he told us that if we'd like, he would love to talk with us. Of course we jumped on that, we want all, the info we can get!! We had a great positive talk with him about our situation and what to expect. He had a lot of good advice and was telling us about a Dr he went to school with from Arizona who had just moved his practice to Orange County. AND he had delivered 2 sets of quintuplets last month, all healthy and doing well!!! So crazy!! He told us if we'd like he could get us an appointment with him, we really would have considered it, but we are covered through Kaiser 100% (no copays, no fees for hospital or NICU stays) so that makes us want to give this Dr we were already scheduled with the chance to help us first. He asked his name and I had just internet stalked the guy so thankfully I knew and he started laughing and told us that we'll be just fine with him too!! He went to school with him as well!! LOL! Made us feel so much better!! He told us to tell him he says hi and to call him or the other Dr if he needs any help! :) It was so awesome to be able to walk into that appointment and say, "Oh, by the way your friend says hi!!"!! Put us on a good page right away, but I know we didn't need that to get the care we're getting from him. He is so great and we are really happy to be in his care!!

At the first appointment with him he came in and just sat down and talked with us for 45 minutes!! Asked us what we were hoping for, talked to us us about our concerns and made us really feel comfortable! Then he started the ultrasound and became really quiet... for at least 5-10 minutes!!! It was super awkward for us, we didn't know what was happening because I had only had a vaginal ultrasound by that point and he was doing an abdominal, so it looked completely backwards to us. I finally broke the silence and said, "We aren't used to seeing the abdominal view, huh Seth?" SILENCE. He finally said "Sorry I'm so quiet, I'm trying to figure out what is happening..." FEELING OF DREAD!!!!! He kept talking and started counting the babies for us from left to right, pointing and saying, "Ok, 1 here in the top bunk... 1 here in the bottom bunk... 1 here in it's own room... the 2 identical over here in their own room... I think there is 5..." UMMMMMM WHAT?!!!!! Seth and I were in shock!!! I finally got out, "I told them to make sure there wasn't a 5th!!". He kept counting and going back and forth. And then he said, "We've lost this little one here tho." OK... back to 4. :( Sad to admit, but in that second I felt relief, cause I knew the odds of 5 for these babies. He counted a few more times and then finally realized he was counting the baby in the bottom bunk TWICE! It was the backside of one of the identical set!!! All that took about 15 minutes and after that to make sure, he did a vaginal ultrasound! So we now have 3 babies thriving and 1 little Angel. After all was said and done I was sad to have lost the 4th, but I know this gives the other 3 so much better chances. Longer gestation, less time in the NICU and we just can't ignore that. So glad we didn't need to make that decision ourselves because the baby wasn't thriving and causing the other 3 to suffer, Heavenly Father is looking out for us and has a plan for us. It's been hard with the ups and downs, but we're so glad to have 3 healthy babies doing so good. The Dr told us that our situation is unique and he's never seen it before, with the way the babies are placed in there - the twins in the middle and the singles placed on either side. And also the placentas are all right next to each other. He was able to see that the twins share a placenta, but are separated by membrane in their sac. Really good news!! Means that they won't get tangled up in each other's cords. They still have the risk of twin to twin transfusion by sharing the placenta, it's when one gets most of the nutrients and starts to outgrow the other. But with that membrane the chances of that are lowered by a lot, only 15% chance of that now and they are both on track and mirroring each other's growth! So bittersweet.

We've had appointments every week since the first one too and things are looking good! We are at 12 weeks now and so happy things are going well!! Here are some photos...

This is them at 10 weeks

  

Me now at 12 weeks looking about what I was with Mitch at 5 months!! HAHA!!

Baby A - One of the identical twins. Just chillin' with his arms propped behind it's head! This reminds me of Mitch! It makes me feel like the twins are boys!

Baby B - the other identical twin

Baby C - The lone ranger! ;)