- They are now nearly an inch long and their embryonic tails are gone. :)
- Their hearts have finished dividing into the 4 chambers and the valves are starting to form.
- They can all move their limbs - all major joints are working including their wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees, & ankles.
- Their eyelids are now fused shut and won't open until around 27 weeks.
- They have earlobes! ;)
- Their external sex organs are there - but won't be distinguishable for a few more weeks.
Next Appointments Scheduled! We also have our next appointments scheduled - which will be our first prenatal appointments with Dr. Lindauer! It was pretty funny when I called to schedule the appointments for myself and my sister. I tried to explain the situation real quick by saying something like this...."So I need to schedule some appointments for my sister and I. We're both pregnant - she's carrying our babies, too. We'd like to schedule the appointments back-to-back if possible - since we'd obviously like to be there for her appointments, too." But I think it was maybe too short of a synopsis, because the poor receptionist said, "I'm sorry - this is just really confusing..." So I took a few steps back and explained things in a little more detail - how we're both patients of Dr. Lindauer, how my sister already had two boys of her own with Dr. Lindauer, how we've had trouble getting pregnant and Dr. Lindauer sent us to Ohio Reproductive Medicine, how we tried in-vitro and put embryos in both of us, and now we're both pregnant with twins and ready to set-up appointments with Dr. Lindauer. After that, she responded with - "Wow.... congratulations! 4 babies!" She did say it may be tough to get our first appointments back-to-back, but that they would do their best to make it happen. Dr. Lindauer actually called me later that day to congratulate us and asked me if we ever thought all 4 embryos would take! I told her that we really didn't expect it at all - we were just hoping for at least one. Anyway, she is super excited for us and can't wait to see us. She actually cleared her schedule for April 29th to see both of us in back-to-back appointments - which is so sweet. Unfortunately, we weren't available on that day - because my husband and I will both be in Charlotte that Monday. Because of our travel conflict, I told them we were fine with separate appointments this month. So my next appointment is on Monday, April 22nd at 1:15pm in the afternoon. And my sister's appointment will be that Wednesday, April 24th at 8:15am. Going forward, they said they would schedule our appointments back-to-back. We are so thankful for them being so accommodating of our unique situation.
He Knows! Throughout this whole cycle we've been talking about how my sister's oldest son (4 year old, Wendel) may react to the news of her carrying our babies. We all agreed that he would accept things - as long as we positioned it from the beginning that the babies in my sister were his cousins and not a baby brother/sister. Earlier in the cycle, of course we were thinking the conversation would be more along the lines of, "Aunt Annie couldn't have any babies - so Mommy is helping her by carrying them her in her belly." That explanation doesn't really fly now that I'm also pregnant - which makes things a little trickier. My sister said that the conversation would now be something like, "Well, Aunt Annie didn't have room for all of the babies in her belly - so Mommy is carrying some of the babies for her and Uncle Joby." She's so smart, isn't she? ;) Since it's still early on, they haven't really talked to him about it - I think my sister was thinking they should wait until we start showing a little more. Needless to say with the excitement of everything, other folks (and even us 4) have talked about it when Wendel is around. The few times I've noticed that he's in the room - he never really seemed to be reacting to the news. But the Friday before Easter, when I was walking him back down to his house after playing with the neighbor kids - he let me know that he knew. Out of the blue he said, "Aunt Annie... I can't believe you're going to have 4 babies." My face would've been priceless - I'm sure. I was definitely caught off-guard and responded with, "What? Oh... you know? Did your mommy & daddy tell you?" And he said, "No, I just know." And I asked him if he'd been listening to what people were talking about. And he said, "Yes." Then I said, "Well, are you excited to be getting 4 more cousins?" And he said he was and started to count up his cousins - including some of my cousin's kids, which was super cute. I asked him if he thought we would have room for 4 babies in our house and he said, "Oh yeah - you just need to get 4 cribs." :) I told him that we were going to need him to teach the babies lots of stuff - he promised that he would teach them lots of cool tricks.
This should be an interesting scenario to explain to our older nephews and niece - JoJo (6), Lucas (8), Henry (almost 9), Keenan (10), Chloe (13), & Jack (14). I think that our one sister-in-law has mentioned that we're having babies to her 3 boys - but not sure if anyone has said anything to the other 3. I think they'll all just be excited to be getting so many cousins all at once. And somehow, I have a hunch that Oliver (almost 2) and Nicholas (1) will be cool with it as well. ;)
In closing, I'd like to shout-out a very Happy 1st Birthday to Miss Leah! :) And please say a few prayers for continued strength and love for the Robbins & Bowers/Watson families.