Fetal development update

I haven't posted one of these in a while!! here's the most recent stage my babies are at. It should be about the same for twins, just picture 2 of them in there :)

here's the description from the website http://www.wpclinic.org/parenting/fetal-development/third-trimester/
There is a rapid increase in the amount of body fat the fetus has. Rhythmic breathing occurs, but the lungs are not yet mature. The fetus sleeps 90-95% of the day. At this point there the survival rate is above 95% if the baby is born.




And here is a picture of what twins looked like a week ago,



At 28 weeks your twins will have grown to about 15 inches/ 38cm from top to toe (10 inches/ 25.5 centimetres from crown to rump) and will weigh nearly 2 lb /875g each.

Their eyes open and close, they sleep and wake at regular intervals and they may suck a finger or thumb.

Your twins' brain growth is very rapid this month. The characteristic grooves on the brain's surface start to appear and more brain tissue develops. Nearly all fetuses react to sound by the end of the seventh month.

At about this time, your twins can open their eyes and turn their heads in utero if they notice a continuous, bright light shining from the outside. Their fat layers are forming. In boys, testicles descend from near the kidneys through the groin en route to the scrotum. In girls, the clitoris is relatively prominent because it's not yet covered by the still-small labia. These will grow to cover it in the last few weeks before birth.

Their skeletons are hardening even more. While your twins may soon slow down growing in length, they will continue to gain weight until they are born.

A pint and a half/around a litre of amniotic fluid now surrounds each of your twins, but that volume decreases as they gets bigger and have less room in your uterus.

29 week belly pic!

This is me, 29 weeks pregnant with the twins!

UPPING the Ante on the UHSE!

It just occurred to me with my overflowing HUGE box of my scrapbook stuff that i've downsized that i could offer a pretty rocking incentive for using my affiliate link to purchase a ticket to the UHSE!

I have been selling off much of my scrapbooking stash as well as my fabric stash. I have been making mystery boxes of scrapbook stuff, complete with high quaility brand name patterned paper, specialty paper, good textured cardstock and an assortment of embellishments including ribbon, chipboard, stickers, rubons, and more! i'm downsizing because we will soon have 2 new babies to share our bedroom, which doubles as my scrapping studio, so I need to free up some space. I take a flat rate postal box, the $10 ones, and stuff it to the gills with scrapbook goodies, and have been selling them at the INSANE price of $25 ppd. You get SO MUCH for that price. HOWEVER, I am going to GIVE AWAY, one FREE to the first person to sign up using my affiliate link. Just forward me your paypal reciept, and be sure to use my affiliate link! And the first person to sign up for the UHSE, either as an individual or with a friend, will get a box free! ALSO, for every 5 people that sign up using my affiliate link, i will give away another box, so if 5 people sign up, 2 of them will get a box, if 10 people sign up, 3 of them will get a box and so on!! This is an awesome deal!

PS, if you are a Sewing person and not a scrapper, or would just prefer fabric, i would be glad to substitute a mystery box of fabric. It would include an assortment of organic cotton fabric, hemp/cotton fabric, cute cotton knits, cute cotton quilt type print fabric, etc. I can't tell you what is in it, but i can tell you it will be good quality, cotton fabric.

SO, if you'd like to, follow one of the affiliate links below, and sign up for the UHSE, forward me your receipt to kvenvolden@comcast.net and I'll either send on your box, if you are first, or add you to the drawing, if you are 2nd or later!!

This deal is valid NOW, through next Sunday May 31st.

Ultimate homeschool Expo! wooohoo!!!

Ok, i did the order with a friend last year and so totally double/tripled/maybe quadrupled my investment with all the great freebies alone, not to mention great vendor hall deals, and the massive stash of audios that i STILL haven't listened to them all! Its so totally worth the investment. I used my audios primarily to walk with in the AM. Before i got pregnant, i had built up the habit of getting up at like 6 am and walking with my MP3 player. Walking is clearly the best kind of exercise for me, low cost, low ambition :-) However, its also excruciatingly BORING! So i bought a $15 mp3 player, i bought mine at graveyardmall.com but i'm guessing you could find cheap ones a lot of places. And loaded it up with a variety of seminar topics, and each morning i'd choose one to listen to while i walked. It made the walk go much faster AND i was building not only my body, but my skills as a homemaker and homeschool mom at the same time! I also find its GREAT background for scrapbooking. I'm a scrapper and one of my biggist problems is i tend to THINK too much when i create things. Using audios on Itunes, gives my mind something to do other than over-critique my work, which any of you who scrap can certainly relate to. There comes a point where the old noggin does more harm than good! Anyway, It KILLS me that i've not bought my ticket yet, but i only have $58 in mommy homework money, and it costs $100 regular price, so i'd be writing a whole lot of mommy homework before i could get it, Sooo... anyway, i thought i'd post my affiliate links here to bless you and me both :-) Thank you in advance if you decide to use my affiliate link! And even if you don't, You must know that this is an unbeatable purchase. The regular price is $100, and you can get your tickets for only $39.95 individually, or $59.95 for two!


Order your ticket

Or better yet,

Order with a friend

OH, and if you can't find anyone to buy a ticket with you, let me know, and i'll post here and see if i can find you a partner! Buying with a friend brings the cost down to only $30, totally a steal!

Do you use Apologia Botany or Astronomy?

If so, or if you are planning to soon, you should totally check out the giveaway that Jeannie Fulbright is doing right now!

She's giving away 4 of each book, you can see the details here http://www.jeanniesjournal.com/2009/05/botany-and-astronomy-notebooking.html

You can see the samples here

Botany and Astronomy
GOOD STUFF! i totally think it adds just the right amount of "oomph" to make the program a bit more complete.

a great marriage building blog

I came across this blog, and thought you'd all benefit from it. When you sign up, you get emails when there's a post and you get the free ebook, which is excellent! plus the blog is bite sized, a little each day, very manageable.

http://www.projecthappilyeverafter.com/

As you may or may not know, this last anniversary, October 15th marked a dramatic point for me of "**** or get off the pot" in my marriage. Something had come up and things had gotten twisted in ways i never could have imagined and I found myself with my own "eye candy man" as the ebook from the above source described. Now, really, that might not be the best descriptor because while he was attractive, he'd not be the guy you'd pick out on the street and say, "WOOHHWEEE! let's get a piece of THAT!" if you know what i mean. It was more a heart thing... he spoke to me in such a deep way that to say the least, it was REALLY hard to let go of a really twisted and WRONG dream that had developed in me, and hold on to my marriage and my family. But I made that choice, and i put my faith in God to help me get through the coming months and years and lifetime that would follow, and HOPE that dh would be merciful to me.

And i have to say, BOTH God and Andy have come through for me in profound ways. First God gave me the strength to keep on going when i felt like my life was OVER. Andy, instead of being bitter, angry and entitled, like "I" would have been, he was gentle, attentive, merciful, and went out of his way to pay attention to my needs and make sure he was being the best husband he could. It has been 7 months tomorrow, and there's still after affects that are difficult to deal with. But i have to say that my life has changed so much. There are definately scars. I don't look at men the same way, with the same innocence as before. I KNOW that ANY one of them has the potential to become an inappropriate relationship and as a result I keep my distance. However, overall, i've changed for the better, and my LIFE has changed for the better in ways i never could have comprehended. I mean come on! I'm expecting TWINS this summer!! "2" new lives that may never have existed had things gone differently. WOW! That totally blows my mind. Life is not easy now, not by any stretch, my budget makes me cry, my van is downright scary to drive sometimes, and i honestly don't know how i'm going to deal with the birth situation, but life IS exactly what it was SUPPOSED to be, and that gives me peace and strength.

26 weeks, 2 days!

And i'm officially measuring what i usually do in a singleton pregnancy at term :-)
my Moosey-ness is astounding, really, yet i've lost almost 25 lbs, and i'm thinking right now there's at least like 15 lbs of babies and placentae and other babymaking stuff, oh and my blood volume is supposed to be like 55% higher than usual, which i'm HOPING is what is accounting for my crazy high blood pressure! (its not high by normal human standards, but i run REALLY low, like i think the highest i've ever seen mine before was like 109/75 it's usally in the 90's over 75 and is right now 126/75 YIKES!) So i'm watching all my other stuff closely, making sure i'm not swelling up, etc.

I'm in the process of deciding whether to switch doctors or not. I found an AWESOME one, who has no problem with me laboring in water, birthing WITHOUT stirrups, and had confidence of my ability to do a natural birth. EVERYTHING seems perfect, to me, it seems like a no brainer. To andy, however, he's more hesitant. He had no problem with the doctor, although she did say the first thing she'd restrict if it looked like i was having issues with preterm labor would be SEX, which cracked me up because i KNEW it would win no points with andy :-) but he likes the other doctor a lot, despite his off color remarks during my hellish vaginal exam and my obvious need for a female doctor, for serious reasons... he just REALLY does not like the idea of switching midway through pregnancy. Honestly though, i'm on the brink and i really don't think i can deal with the fetal fibronectin test which is due 2 weeks from now, and would require that awful speculum... ugg... ok, so i need to stop stressing! Anyway, i really can't make this decision without him, and he seems to suddenly be MUTE, which for me, miss gab an hour, is like torture. WAAH! Praying that it all works out!

So, that's where i'm at. OH and i'm also contemplating cloth diapers, diaper service, how that will play out with diaper gifts i get when the babies are born, etc. Any ideas? feel free to leave a comment!
:-)
rebecca