We're Sick

The whole family is sick. :-( Chana and I both have fevers--I have the chills and body aches, so I have to assume that she has them too. Dovid has a runny nose to end all runny noses, and Shmuel has a sore throat. I think Chana also has a runny nose, but it's not nearly as bad as Dovid's. So we had a pretty awful Shabbos. Chana was crying like nobody's business until we gave her tylenol, and Shmuel and I took naps because we were both exhausted. *sigh* Hopefully we'll all be feeling better before Pesach starts. AAAACK!

HUUUUGE Giveaway

For those of you who don't already follow my The Twinners Reviews & Giveaways blog, I wanted you to know that I have a HUGE giveaway going on there right now! I'm giving away a Samsung Q2 MP3 Player to one lucky follower once I reach 100 followers. We're almost up to 50, so I am pretty confident that we'll make 100 before the contest is set to end (April 30th). Go on over and enter right now!!!! http://www.thetwinners.com

I'm also going to be having a Family Game Month in April over on the giveaway blog. During Family Game Month I'll be giving away some classic games (like Monopoly and Connect 4). Once you follow my blog, make sure to check your Google Reader or sign up for emails so you'll be notified when that starts!

On another note, Dovid is now standing for longer and longer periods of time. I am SOOO proud of him! He even sort of took a step, but I think it was because he was catching his balance. hehe Chana is also testing her standing ability, but she doesn't stay standing as long as Dovid does without holding onto something. Go twinners!

Sugar Doll Award

My blogger friend Miriam gave me the Sugar Doll Award!!! Wow, thank you!

Now then, I have to say 10 things about myself and then give this award to 10 fellow bloggers. Here we go!

10 Things About Me:

1) I am considering staying at Roxbury Community College for their associate degree nursing program instead of going to much more expensive bachelor degree program elsewhere.

2) I cannot stand learning about photosynthesis and the electron transport chain. I would rather do housework (and I hate housework)!

3) I'm hoping that my eggs are paying attention in biology class and start learning how to do cytokinesis properly.

4) I'm freaking out that Pesach is next week, so I'm pretending that it doesn't exist and maybe it'll go away.

5) The smell of my husband's cholent dinner is making me gag.

6) I wish my extra stomach flab from the twins would just go away. At this point I do not like people thinking that I'm pregnant and staring at my stomach just wondering when I'm "due". *grumble* I'm not due anytime that I know of, dammit!

7) I hate it when colleges make you pay over $5 for an official transcript that takes them $.01 to print and $.44 to mail. It's highway robbery, and I should call the cops on them.

8) I love the TV show M*A*S*H, and if you didn't already know that then you obviously weren't reading my blog a year ago when I was watching it every single day... :-) My favorite character is Radar, and I like to pretend that he's still my age even though he's really old enough to be my father (and maybe even grandfather).

9) Now that I've discovered the wonders of shopping at Market Basket, I won't shop anywhere else (excluding what I need for kosher/Pesach food that Market Basket doesn't carry).

10) I hate thunderstorms. They terrify me, especially the really big ones when they say there could be tornadoes. EEP!

I give this award to:

Sarah R @ Andrew Tales (The Little Dragon)
Celia @ Breeder Beware
Gayby Rabies
J @ Just a Pair of Moms (in training)
Mrs. Gamgee @ Hobbit-ish Thoughts and Ramblings
Jess @ My Silly Monkeys: Reviews & Giveaways
Eileen @ We got hitched. We bought the 4 bedroom house. Now what???
Chelley @ This is the story of my life...and I write it every day.
Lisa @ A Day in the Life of Preachmans Wife
Jessi @ Talk Less, Dance More

Why I Love Being a Mom

Lately my son has been very nervous and clingy. For example, we went to the pediatrician for the twins' 12 month checkup and when I was trying to put him down onto the table so I could take off his clothes, he freaked out, started crying and screaming and grabbing onto my clothes for dear life. Today, we were out at the mall having their pictures taken and when we went to change his diaper he did the same thing when I was trying to get him to lie down on the changing table. And you know, I love it. I think it's the best part of being a mom having him grab onto me. I can almost hear him thinking "No Mommy! I'm scared, please don't put me down!! I'm safe in your arms!" *sigh* :-)

The other thing I love is having complete strangers come up to me and tell me how adorable my kids are. It's like I waited 2 years to get pregnant so now G-d is making sure I get extra attention for having cute twins. Although it was especially funny when someone didn't realize they were twins and actually thought I was mom to only one of them (and Ziva was mom to the other). Hehe oops! Anyways, these things just remind me why I wanted to become a mom in the first place and really make it real and amazing.

New Insight

I had an appointment today with Dr. Glatstein, my reproductive endocrinologist. I wanted to have a checkup with him to see what our plan would be for future kids and to go over what happened in the cycle with the twins. And now I know what happened...

First of all, of my eight eggs, here is what happened to them. One of them did not fertilize, two of them divided before being fertilized (it's a meiosis thing), three of them fertilized and then became multinucleated (this means that there is more than one nucleus in a cell, and the doctor will not transfer or freeze these type of embryos because of the high rate of miscarriage and abnormality), the last two are the ones that continued to divide and are now The Twinners. The doctor suspects that I have an egg quality issue which has been causing our problems. Why a perfectly healthy 26 year old should have egg quality issues, I don't know. But it is what it is and the doctor would not change our protocol at all (except for a minor change in medication because of what my insurance covers). He does not recommend doing any other kinds of treatments first (like IUI or clomid), since IVF is what worked and we think that there may be this minor egg quality problem. Also, he doesn't recommend ICSI or PGD because the eggs didn't seem to have problems fertilizing...only one of the available eggs didn't fertilize (the two that divided early weren't available so they don't count). Also, we don't have any known genetic issues, so there's no reason to do PGD. Also, we both agreed that we're only transferring one embryo at a time since I'm not allowed to have twins again. In order to make me feel better, though, we're going to freeze anything that's still cleaving (growing) on day 3 and I'll get to help choose which embryo to transfer based on how all of them are growing. Of course then I asked him if it would be possible for us to get pregnant on our own, and the doctor reiterated that it would be possible. It's a statistical thing...if I have decreased egg quality, there's just less of a chance of me getting pregnant in any given month (say 5% instead of 20%), and there's a higher chance of miscarriage if I develop one of these multinucleated embryos. That may explain my miscarriage on my first IUI! Anyways, I like now having some type of diagnosis and knowing what my next steps are. I need to have all of my testing done again (blood tests, semen analysis, SHG), and then I can start a cycle whenever I want. It most likely won't be for a while since we want to put about 3 years in between the twins and another baby and I'll want to try to plan for a delivery when it won't interfere too badly with school, and we'll get a chance to try on our own for a while. Then, if the statistics just don't go in our favor, we can start in on an IVF cycle when we're ready.

In other news, in case you hadn't noticed, TODAY IS THE TWINS' BIRTHDAY!!!! HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No News

No real news from here. The twins are each getting another tooth (Chana's 7th and Dovid's 3rd). It's quite cute. :-) Chana is starting to practice standing on her own. This means that she'll do it for about 3 seconds before sitting down or grabbing onto something, but she's getting there. Chana also sort of said "hi" the other day. I said "hi" to her and then she said what sounded like "haee" back. It was super cute! Ziva and I have been watching Shalom Sesame with the twins, too. It's fun for us, and I think the twins just like the moving pictures on the TV. It's educational!! But don't worry, we don't just plop them in front of the TV. We sit with them on our laps and watch for a little bit. Then it's back to play time!!

I'm really enjoying being back in school. I'm actually doing well in all of my classes, the homework is easy (as are the tests), and I like my professors too. Does this make me a nerd? Well, I was a nerd anyway, so I guess it does. :-D

Ziva, the twins and I will be going to NYC next weekend (without my hubby *sob*) since I'm starting spring break. My mom will be joining us there and we'll get to have a bit of fun on Sunday and Monday before coming back to Boston. Then my mom will be here for about a week, and my sister and brother-in-law will be coming to join the fun later that week to celebrate the twins' birthday!!! OMG...they're actually going to be one. I seriously can't believe it. I'll have to take lots of pictures for you to see how far we've come in a year. *sigh* My babies are growing up!

Another Post to Make You Smile

So the holiday of Purim is all about the fact that the Jews survived almost certain death once again. This time the perpetrator was Haman (booo) who wanted to hang Mordechai because Mordechai had refused to bow down to him. He also wanted to kill all of the Jews everywhere. But in the end, it was Haman who was hanged (along with his sons) and the Jews survived (yay!)

Now then, we delivered mishloach manot (bags of goodies that are traditionally given on Purim to your friends and family) all around our neighborhood on Purim, and while walking down one of the streets that has a very large concentration of Orthodox Jews, I happened upon this:


As you can see, someone put a gallows with a dummy up on his porch. Nice, eh? It was a prop from the girls' high school play. I nearly fainted when I saw it. I love it when people get in the Purim spirit!

Click HERE for more Hebrew & Yiddish word definitions

So Very Sad

I have some very sad news. My sister-in-law's (Shmuel's sister) husband passed away this morning in Israel. He just had his 43rd birthday a week or so ago, and it happened very suddenly. He wasn't sick, to my knowledge, so we are all shocked and devastated. It's such an incredible tragedy and my heart is breaking for Rebecca (my sister-in-law). She asked me today if I would please please please post photos of the twins for her to see, because it would make her feel better. So, these are pictures from Purim, which was yesterday, so Beh will have something to make her smile. I know that Jake ז"ל (her deceased husband) loved the twins very much and really enjoyed Skyping with them, so he would have also smiled seeing these.
המקום ינחם אתכם בתוך שאר אבלי ציון וירושלים

Bleeeh

Whee!

What are you doing Mom?

Yum...crib rails are delicious!

AHHHH!

Hey, Dovid...you opened the velcro on my costume. Oops!

I love stacking rings.

I love the stacker even better!

Hey, what's down there?

Hiya

Grin!!

Hmmm...

I'm really handsome.

Smile!

That's all for now, and I hope that it put a smile on your face.