Hearing the news - IT'S TWINS!!

When I found out I was pregnant, my husband and I were THRILLED. We had been trying for quite a few months and were one more OB/GYN appointment from going on Clomid. Not to mention the fact that I was sick (and tired) of people telling me to just relax.... "You have one child already so clearly you're capable of having a baby. Just relax and it will happen faster than you can imagine." UGH. I heard that so many times it was driving me CRAZY!! In fact, I was so stressed about people telling me to relax, that it's amazing that I did get pregnant.

Anyway, I was half way through my pregnancy when we went in for our 20 week ultrasound. I had been talking with a friend of mine at a neighborhood BBQ the previous day and we were joking about how I was gaining weight so quickly and just still feeling really tired, etc. She casually said, "You sound like I did and I was having twins!!"....Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha we all responded. After that conversation, my object for the ultrasound had changed from "tell me what gender it is" to "confirm for me that there's only one baby in there?!?!?"

The ultrasound tech was very calm and scanned to the right and scanned to the left with basically no comments or expression. Then she very calmly announced, "Looks like your friend was right. It's TWINS!!" She then immediately asked the assistant to call up to my doctors office and let them know I was going to be late for my OB appt which was scheduled for immediately following the ultrasound. The tech looked at me and said, "You're going to be there a while. We have two babies to scan."

That 30 second conversation changed our lives forever..... for the better ofcourse!!

Speech Therapy for Twins?

My twins were premies and our pediatrician told us that although they have development delays, they would "catch up" by the time they were about 2 years old. And with some early intervention help (which I will leave as a subject for another day), my twins did in fact catch up developmentally in most areas. However, now that the boys are in Kindergarten, we're dealing with the challenge of language and speech delays and the impact on the boys learning how to read.

My younger twins' wonderful Kindergarten teacher identified the fact that his mis-pronunciations were impacting his ability to properly sound out words. After she brought up the issue, it made complete sense to me, but it took her to point it out to me!! Another "guilty mother" moment. ugh!! What was I thinking? Why wasn't I more on top of this?? Have I failed my twins??

After my panic subsided, we pursued therapy through the school district. The therapist told me that my son would qualify for services NEXT year (he's only six now, but would qualify when he's 7?!?!?). It seemed ridiculous to me to wait until next year to get help for my child!!!!! My next option was to contact the pediatrician and ask him for a therapy referral, which we got within a week (note; we have a GREAT pediatrician too!!).

Now that my younger twin has been in speech therapy for 3 weeks, we're seeing great progress. We are working on "L"'s and "R"'s for now and my son is making great progress!! The moral of the story.....Be an advocate for your twins!!