Doctor update...

Went to see Dr. Adam today for my 16 week appointment today. Things are ok with the babies, but it looks like my cervix is shortening again, which concerns the doctor. So now I'm back on modified bed rest and can't go into work unless necessary. I also have to stay off my feet again as much as possible. "sigh"....

Oh and the amniotic sac on one of the babies is starting to possibly show signs of TTTS so have to keep watching it...

Basically, I'll be on modified bed rest through the pregnancy and hoping to stay off permanant bed rest as long as possible. I guess I'm taking "high risk" to heart...

Say some prayers that my body cooperates and the babies are safe inside me for as long as possible!!

Oh yeah...here's a belly shot (the first of many!!). This is my 16 week shot...

Vote for Baby B's name!!!!

Please vote for a name for our dear Baby B!! Right now, Baby A is planned to be named Kayla Anne Novilla. (Kayla is a name I have wanted since I was a little girl and Anne was my mom's middle name). Now we are at a loss for the second little girl's name! We have some requirements though!

1) It cannot end with an "a"...we didn't want it to rhyme or be too close to Kayla
2) It must start with a "K"...trying to keep a theme here...LOL
3) It can't be any of the following as we have friends/family with the same or similar names (Kelli, Kaitlin, Karen, Katherine, Kimberly, Kasey or Kailey)
4) It needs to go with the middle name "Grace", which is Kiko's mother's name
5) No funky, foreign names...we want it to compliment Kayla and not contrast it :)

So anyway...we have our favorite choices on the poll to the left, so please vote! If you have other suggestions that fit the above, let us know! LOL!

Thanks!! Baby B appreciates it!!

Hurricane Ike!

Well...I always said that I didn't want to be 8 or 9 months pregnant in the middle of the summer not only because of the heat, but also because of HURRICANES!!! Ike proved me right once again! As most of you know by now, the Houston/Galveston area took a beating from Hurricane Ike last week. I live in League City, which is less than a mile from Galveston Bay and I must say we were very lucky. At the last minute, Hurricane Ike made a jog to the east about 20 miles which spared not only my house from a tremendous storm surge, but also my work and the homes of many, many, many of my friends.

I'm from Florida and hurricanes don't usually worry me too much. I've been through SEVERAL of them and have only evacuated twice. Once when I was a little girl for Hurricane David in the early 80's I think...and three years ago with Hurricane Rita. A Cat 2 (such as Ike was), really didn't worry me too much, as I've ridden out LOTS of Cat 2 and Cat 3 storms. What worried me with Ike was the storm surge...they were predicting a storm surge equal to that of a Cat 4!! What was worse, being so close to the water and having only lived in Texas for 6 years, I had NO CLUE what the flooding could be like in my neighborhood. Further complicating matters were that Kiko had to work the day of all the evacuations and my city management stinks. They kept telling my city that we were not a mandatory evacuation zone. It wasn't until Friday morning when they finally said Zone A was Mandatory (which I live in), but the City of League City kept saying we were VOLUNTARY. Talk about confusing!!

So there I was, the morning of the storm's predicted arrival, trying to wake up Kiko and John (as Kemah is already starting to flood...less than 2 miles away) and get them to leave. We ended up "hunkering down" in a hotel room in the Medical Center, about 20 miles away as we didn't leave enough time to get further inland. We lost power at about 1:30 am and water about 10 am at the hotel, but the winds weren't that bad (even though there was a lot of damage...It wasn't any worse than I'd seen with Hurricanes David, Erin, Andrew, and several others I'd been through). What I was really worried about was if my area had flooded.

Saturday morning, we drove back and checked on the house and it was like a ray of sunshine! The house was perfect! A few small plants were blown over, my fence out back was leaning a little, and my pool was now a moat...but not a shingle was missing! My neighborhood was pretty banged up and a lot of friends were not so lucky with damage, but we were spared the devastation that Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston received. The only tough part was enduring no power...i.e...no AIR CONDITIONING....which to a PREGNANT woman is HELL!!! LOL! So Kiko and I loaded up the car again and drove out to Austin to stay with my Aunt and Uncle.

Of course, the day after we arrived in Austin, our power returned back to League City. LOL. So we turned around and came right back home and have been cleaning up ever since!

All in all, we fared very well and it was great practice for us to prepare for a bigger hurricane that we pray will never come. We appreciate all the prayers and we hope that all of our friends are safe and sound! Here are some pictures from my neighborhood...I haven't had my camera with me to take pics of surrounding areas in my town, but if you watch CNN I'm sure you've seen them!!

Here is my pool...which is now a moat!!!

Around the corner from my house...fences down all over the neighborhood...

Well, the news is in!!! We are having...

TWO LITTLE GIRLS!!!!

I'm so excited!!! I think Kiko is in denial...LOL. I think it's good for him...the world just couldn't handle two more Kiko's!!

Well, had my follow up appointment with Dr. Adam today and so far the babies are measuring on target and looking good. They are watching out for something called Twin Twin Transfusion Syndrom (TTTS), which is something that can only happen with identical twins like ours. It's a very serious complication and can happen quickly so we're under the watchful eye of my high-risk OB. Praying that we don't end up with this problem as my pregnancy will be complicated enough I think.

So that's our exciting news for the day!! Stay tuned!!

Well that wasn't any fun...

So I had my cerclage surgery on Wednesday and that was NOT FUN!!! First of all the cerclage itself was fine and the babies seem to be hanging in there so far...next appt will be Tuesday so say prayers that all is well with them.

The actual surgery ended up being very difficult...they did general anesthesia and turns out they had a tough time intubating me with the breathing tube. They tried three times and on the fourth try, they finally had to use a metal breathing tube and paralyze my throat and lungs to get it in. I didn't find this out till 24 hours after the surgery when I was in such terrible pain after the surgery. Felt like the worst case of whiplash, could barely turn my neck or swallow anything from the pain.

Anyway, all is better (after LOTS of vicodin) and I'm hoping the babies managed to make it through all my pain and pain medication with no ill effects. Let's hope I don't have to do that again!!

Bedrest stinks!!!

So Friday was my first appointment with my new OB, and I really like her. She's a no-nonsense doc which I love. So it wasn't the greatest first appointment as she had some sort of bad news. It turns out that I'm suffering from an Incompetent Cervix, which means that it is already opening due to the added weight of the twins in my uterus...that shouldn't happen for a while and if not fixed, I will lose the babies. So I've been scheduled for a cerclage to stitch my cervix shut on Wednesday. Not looking forward to the surgery, but will do whatever it takes!!

So now I'm on bedrest as my cervix is also shortening and I'm at high risk of losing the babies before then, so around I sit. And it's BORING!!!!

Anyway, say some prayers that I don't have any problems and can make it to Wednesday without any issues. Also pray that the surgery does it's job and keeps the babies nice and safe inside of me!!

12 week update!!!

Today was a wonderful day in Babies Novilla land!! I got to see the little ones and they were soooo active!! It was so amazing to watch them, I could have stayed there all day if it weren't so uncomfortable! They were squirming and moving all over the place!

This is the funny part. Because they are in the same placenta and only separated by a very thin membrane, it makes it more difficult to get measurements. So when the dr would zoom in on one of them, you would see out of the corner of a screen this foot come flying into the picture and push the one we were measuring down. I laughed so hard! Then when we'd measure the other one a hand would come flying into the frame. It was so funny! I guess with normal twins they are in their own sacs and at this early in the game, they aren't really that close to each other yet. But with identicals, since they are sharing the same placenta, they are pretty close to each other. I can see troubles with these two later if they are boys...why do I see a lot of wrestling matches happening...lol.

Here are the stats, I am so thrilled because they are both doing AMAZING!!! They have finally caught up in their size and their heartbeats were just perfect!!

Baby A: Measuring 12w0d, Heartbeat 158 bpm
Baby B: Measuring 11w6d, Heartbeat 155 bpm

I have my first appointment with my new high-risk OB on Friday!! I am very excited to meet the woman who will be caring for me and the babies for the next 6 months! She's up at Women's Hospital in the Med Center area, so I'm not looking forward to the drive, but supposedly she's one of the best high-risk OBs in town and I'm honored that she's taking us in!! On Friday, I will have some more testing done and get some more ultrasounds of the babies, so hopefully I will have some really great pics to post. The ones from today weren't that good because they kept moving around!!