Life

the girls: four month update

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I am amazed at how quickly time flies since the girls were born! I am sure that time feels like it has passed quickly because of the lack of sleep and mind-numbing schedule of feeding the twins every three hours.  I am happy to say that as the girls hit their fourth month of life, their puking has subsided to only a “special” occasion occurrence (Carrie puked “Happy Father’s Day” in vomit all over her daddy – how sweet!).

Their laughing and smiling has evolved into cooed conversations where both girls try very hard to tell us very important things.  I try to imagine what they are saying, “Mommy, stop breathing on me – your breath is horrible” or “You will never guess what I just did in my diaper!”

At their four month appointment, the doctor was very pleased with their muscle tone, shapes of their heads and neck strength.  While they are still a bit “bobbly”, they are getting stronger and stronger every day.

Since the girls are still not sleeping through the night (love me some Starbucks), our doctor suggested that now would be an appropriate time to start feeding them oat cereal (rice would give them even worse constipation than they already have).  Enthusiastically Frank went out and bought organic oat cereal with probiotics and we went about the business of learning how to feed our girls.

Oh heavens.  It was a mess!  We don’t have high chairs yet, so we set them up in their bouncy seats.  While you or I might know how to use our tongues to swallow food, our girls are more interested in pushing food around their mouth.  The result is more food caked around their lips than actually makes it into their tummies.  Every feeding gets a little bit better, though.

We are also trying to work on a sleep schedule.  We had been letting the girls sort of settle into a natural sleeping routine, but now we are becoming more intentional about it.  We have a bedtime routine and we have been slowly moving their bedtime forward so that we are getting them ready for bed closer to 8:30 or 9 p.m.

All about Ellie:

Ellie wearing a special Father's Day bib for daddy!

Ellie’s red hair seems to be here to stay!  I love to snuggle Ellie and tell her how luscious she is.  She has the most beautiful, healthy-looking cheeks and perfect little lips.  She wants to be entertained when she is awake and loves to play on her activity mat.  When I lay her down on the mat, she kicks her feet wildly and swats and grabs for toys.  She especially enjoys the activity mat with the blinking lights.  Ellie is a great sleeper and is now officially sleeping in her crib and not in her car seat.  I love going into her room in the middle of the night to see what position she has worked herself into.  Ellie seems to have a very sweet disposition and loves to have mommy and daddy time so that she can babble away.  At Ellie’s four month doctor’s appointment she weighed 14 1/2 lbs and was 24 inches long (approximately 50th percentile for four month old full term babies, and 95th percentile for two month pre-term babies).  Miss Ellie is certainly thriving!

All about Carrie:

Carrie in her matching "Chicks dig pilots" bib!

Carrie loves to laugh and smile!  Even in the middle of the night, she often grins when we walk in the room and giggles at us.  She is very chatty and will talk to anyone who will listen.  She does not like to sit still and is working very hard on rolling over.  Like her sister, she is also sleeping in her crib and travels from one end to the other throughout the night.  Carrie is also very amused by her activity mat.  She especially loves bright toys that she can hold and study.  Carrie is very strong and when held up with her feet on the ground, she will stand as straight as an arrow.  She is certainly a lively baby and makes her likes AND dislikes well-known.  We are fortunate that for now, her likes seem to outweigh her dislikes.

Father’s Day

This year was Frank’s first father’s day!  To honor him, the girls (via me) made matching bibs that said “chicks dig pilots”.  When Frank was in college, he was quoted in the collegiate newspaper as having said, “chicks dig pilots” in response to the age-old question, “why did you get into aviation in the first place?”  The reporter used that particular quote as a call out for her story on the aviation school.  Frank never lived it down and was tickled when he saw his own chicks wearing these matching bibs.  The girls also gave Frank extra-long neckties, a sports massage at a local spa and brag book full of pictures that he can share with flight crews wherever he goes.  As an added bonus, the girls and I also had the car washed inside and out – nothing says “Happy Father’s Day” like a tidy baby-mobile!

how to date like Frank and Emily

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You might be asking (although, probably not) how Frank and Emily keep the love alive after nearly 8 years of wedded bliss.  Although, you are more likely asking yourself what is for lunch, dinner or when the next season of Mad Men will start (sometime in 2012, sorry folks).  While I can only answer one of your other pressing questions, and I can suggest a myriad of restaurants and delicious recipes for your first two questions, I am able to give you a glimpse into a romantic interlude between my Romeo (Frank) and me.

First, let’s describe the setting.  While many of you are probably used to having dates that take place in the fading light of a romantic sunset (read: best lighting for making everyone look attractive), Frank and I enjoy seeing each other in the stark, raw honesty of late morning sunshine.  We scoff at all of you who fight for reservations to a hot restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night.  Fools!  You can get any table you please on a Thursday morning, as long as your desired restaurant serves breakfast items.

Surrounded by men in business suits having important breakfast meetings, catty middle-aged women gossiping about their non-present friends and elderly couples, Frank and I feel that the mood is ripe for romance.  And, oh, is it!  In between bites of hash browns smothered in onions and cheese and over-sized egg-beater omelettes stuffed with jalapeño peppers, we both come to terms with the fact that our food selections suggest that there will be a pious good-bye kiss at the front door.

But it is between being seated and paying the bill that the real magic happens. Dates are not just about having delicious food and wearing clothes sans spit up stains.  Dates are about the meaningful heart-to-heart conversations that, deep down, we all desire.

Me: So, yeah.  Not such a bad night with the girls, right?  I think this acid reflux thing is behind us.

Frank: Yeah, I think so too.  Thank goodness, I was tired of wearing a rain coat during feedings.

Me: So.  There’s that.  Hey, did you hear about the new animal that was born that is like half giraffe and half zebra? It’s called an okopi.

Frank: Really?  (Gets out his cell phone to verify that I am not pulling his chain.  We have a long history of telling each other things that aren’t true, just to see if the other one repeats it.)  Well, how about that.

Me:  Yeah, it even has the tongue of a giraffe, which is blue.  And super long.

Frank: A giraffe’s tongue is blue?

Me: Yep!  See?  (Now my cell phone is out and I’m showing him pictures of giraffe tongues.  He is impressed.)

If you really want to get hot and bothered, keep reading because our discussions about the logistics of taking care of twins are practically rated PG-13.

Me: OK, so you’re going to go running at 11 and then I’ll pick up the girls at the sitters and then I’ll go running and then you’ll watch the girls and then you’ll go up to the airport for work and then I’ll watch the girls.  But I need $30 (conveniently, I know that is all the cash that Frank has in his wallet at the moment).

Frank: That’s all the cash I have at the moment.

Me: I know.  (Sly smile)

Frank: OK.

(Ten minutes later Frank tries to hand me the $10)

Me: Um, you’re about $20 short.  Wait, why are you giving me the money?  Aren’t you picking up the girls?

Frank: No, you’re picking up the girls.

Me: I am?

Frank: YES!

Me: Oh, yes, you’re right.  You’re still $20 short.

Frank: Grrr.

And lastly, because every moment can become a fun game that annoys your partner to no end, I use these tactics (among many others) to keep our marriage fresh and exciting.  But, brace yourself, we’re getting into NC-17 territory

Scene: Getting ready for a mid-morning nap sans kiddos after our hot brunch date.

Me: … and so then in my dream last night the hotel wasn’t really a hotel after all, it was the house I grew up in and then there was…

Frank: uh huh…..

Me: (not missing a beat) a big picnic set up in the backyard but it wasn’t really a picnic because there wasn’t food there were PICTURES of food and my first grade teacher was there, or, at least I think it was my first grade teacher but she looked like my 7th grade English teacher with shorter hair.  You know, a pixie-type cut but a little shaggier in the back – kind of like a mullet, but not.  So yeah, my first grade teacher was there and she was like, “Um, Emily, you still didn’t turn in your homework.  You can’t graduate from college.” And then I was like, “What?” and then my mom was there and she was mad and my sister pulled my homework out of her MOUTH…

Frank: uh huh… are we almost done?  I really wanted to take a nap.

Me:  Oh, OK.  Fine.

Frank: Great.  Shhhh.  Sleepies.

Me: SHHHH.

Frank: Shhh.

Me: Sh.

Frank: Sh.

Me: (waiting a few seconds) sh.

Frank: (waiting a few more seconds) sh.

Me: (very, very quietly) sh.

Frank: (trying to be even quieter) sh.

Me: (even quieter than Frank) sh.

Frank: (laughing) OK!  C’mon!  Sleepies!

Me: (giggling) OK… (waiting a few seconds) Shhh.

Frank: ARGH!

Me: And then my DAD was in my dream yelling at my sister for eating my homework.  But it wasn’t my sister any more, it was Gwenyth Paltrow…

Frank: I can’t win.

So yeah, in a nutshell, that’s how you keep the love alive.

Smooches!

mother’s day

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When we were going through infertility treatments and struggling to get pregnant, this day was so bittersweet. I have a wonderful mom and a great mother-in-law. But the pain of feeling excluded from this day, because of the challenges we faced having a child, weighed on me.

This year is different for two obvious reasons and I am beyond grateful for our twin girls. They are smiling, cooing and starting to develop a little bit of personality.  It definitely helps make the long nights worthwhile.

But since I had the twins, a realization that had started to take shape when we struggled with infertility has continued to become more clear to me.

Motherhood does not happen to you, it happens in you.

Yes, it sounds totally cliché and trite, but bear with me. I did not magically become a mother on February 19th of this year. There was not a moment in the delivery room where a rush of hormones released a locked part of my brain, making me a mom.

Becoming a mom started a long time ago when I watched my own mom care for my sister and tried to imitate her with my doll I named Karen. It started in preschool when I pretended to be the mom when we played house. It continued to develop when I would babysit my siblings and neighbors. In my career, my instincts to mother grew as I learned how to nurture my coworkers and help those who reported to me achieve their goals. In volunteer work, I practiced and developed mothering skills with teenagers – one of the toughest and most rewarding groups to work with.

That being said, on February 19th when the doctors gave me my daughters to hold, I was filled with the requisite awe and wonder at our infant daughters. And while I loved them immediately, the moment was not transformative as I had previously imagined it would be. Sure, now I had the title, but it occurred to me that I had been doing the job, in one way or another, my whole life.

Am I saying that being a mother isn’t full of responsibility, challenges and difficulty? Certainly not. After being up most of the night with the twins, I have new appreciation for my own mother. I also have an even greater appreciation for my husband who was up with me, changing diapers, making bottles, rocking and burping.

But I also have a great appreciation for all the women in my life that have mothered me without having the official title. From teachers, bosses, mentors and friends, I have been fortunate enough to have a fantastic biological mother in addition to an army of women who have come alongside me and used their mothering skills to help me grow and flourish.

Mothering is encouraging, growing, nurturing, challenging, comforting, loving and caring for others, with little to no reward.  For the women out there who feel excluded from this day because they do not have children, I hope that this realization affirms the wonderful women that they are. It may not take away the pain and heartache of not having a child in your arms, but I want you to know that the amazing work you do in the lives of others is not, and will not be, forgotten.

And for everyone out there that has had the great fortune of having an army of mothers as I have had, I hope that you can take some time today to thank some of those outstanding women.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the women who mother – you are all a wonderful treasure!

the twins’ birthday: a day in pictures

/ emmykay / 25 Comments

About a week before the twins were born, Frank snapped my last pregnancy pictures in my super fancy, extra-large hospital gown.  What can I say?  I’m a trend setter!  For anyone wondering why most of my smiles look so pained, all you need to know is that I had a scary cervix.  A very, very scary cervix.

 

 

Then there was the morning of the twins’ birth.  The first picture is of my mom and me and the second is of my mother-in-law and me.

Grandma Mary Kay and me

Grandma Sandy and me

Then, after wondering if Frank was going to make it to the birth – he arrived!!  Hurrah! (note to self: pictures of me lying down are not the most flattering…)

Baby Daddy and me

After sitting around for about 90 minutes, the doctor determined that it was go-time!

Ready to have some bebez!

After pushing for about 20-30 minutes, sweet baby Elliana was born:

Baby Ellie

And then just three or four short minutes later, sweet little Carrigan made her way into the world:

Dad and Carrigan

In just under an hour, our little family of two became a family of four!  Mom holding Elliana and Dad holding Carrigan:

Our first family photo!

 

on being forgetful

/ emmykay / 3 Comments

I was reading Psalm 59 and verses 10-11 stood out to me.  They said,

God will go before me and will let me gloat over those who slander me.
But do not kill them, Lord our shield, or my people will forget.

And so I ran a quick search through all of the scripture, looking for passages that talked about forgetting, and it’s amazing how frequently the topic comes up.  It comes up in the context of forgetting our youth, forgetting our shame (more new testament than old, it seems), NOT forgetting our God and forgetting our way.

With so many passages admonishing us not to forget our God and the works He has done, it reminds me that we are a forgetful people.  That I am a forgetful person.

In a few months it will be spring.  A few months after that, it will be summer.  I know that most days I will drive to work, taking in the green grass, blooming flowers and green-budded trees and I will forget the waist-high snow drifts and bottle-necked roads.  And that is just the weather.

We are about to have our world rocked next month with the birth of our twins.  And I have a feeling it will become easy to get caught up in just getting through each day.  I hope that we will not forget the work that God has started in us.

100 joys (50-53)

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It seems like the days just get busier and busier as we get closer to the holidays – but that’s OK!  That is part of the hustle and bustle.  That, and 14 phone calls tonight from my brother regarding various Christmas present purchases that he is working on making.  Love it!

joy #50:

This is our nativity set.  I love our nativity set.  My mom gave it to us when we were first married and for our first three Christmases, it was the only Christmas decoration that we could fit into our small apartments.  I love it because of its sentimental value, but I also love it because of the story that it represents.  I love that it represents one brief moment of time where all of the people involved knew they were on the cusp of something important, but none of them could really imagine how it would all turn out.

 

joy #51:

I love this video.  It makes me smile and cry.  Holy hormones, Batman.

 

joy #52:

Tonight we received some sad news that a friend’s dad passed away.  In the era of the social media frenzy, her Facebook page was instantaneously bombarded with friends and family members consoling her, offering their sympathies and asking if they could do anything.  One friend wrote, “I am carrying you in my heart.”  I thought it was the most perfect way to express friendship in a time of trial because all too often, as a friend reaching out to another, it does feel like our friends are in our hearts.  And what a beautiful picture that creates – all of us carrying our family and our friends in our hearts, wherever we go.  That is such precious cargo!

 

joy #53:

Imagine a picture of something that says

“30 degrees fahrenheit”

right HERE.

I’ll try to find something that says that.  But I can’t right now and it’s super late and I NEED to go to bed.  I want to say, though, that today it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit and it was AMAZING.  I felt like I was in a sauna.

 

100 joys (18-31)

/ emmykay / 1 Comment

OK people, you know the drill!  Working on 100 joys STAT!  Had to take some time off – late night yesterday and the hubz needed some attention. Only 83 joys left to go!

joy #18

I love milk.  I love it in cereal.  I love it ice cold with Oreo cookies.  I love it alone, I love it with dinner, and I loooove it in hot cocoa.  Love. It.  I especially loooove Oberweis milk. It just tastes better.  No growth hormones, no other funny business – just 100% straight-from-the-cow deliciousness.  Yum.  When I drink milk, I am in my happy place.

 

joy #19

Computers make me happy.  Can you believe that there was a time when people had to TYPE letters on a TYPEwriter??  It blows my mind.  I’ve asked people who worked in offices before computers about what they did without computers and their eyes glaze over as though they are remembering a time that even their brain doesn’t want to recall.  “You know, we just, um, got stuff done.  I don’t know.”  Did people work before computers??

 

joy #20

Where do I begin?  Voicemail, email, text messaging, pictures, video, applications… what did we do without smart phones??  How, heavens to Betsy, did we stand in line at the grocery store without something to fiddle with so that we don’t have to talk to other annoying people standing in line?  But even more importantly, how developed are our brains that we can use just our thumbs with the skill and precision to get to level 22 in Brick Breaker?  I mean, we as the human species have really come a long way!  And just when I thought life couldn’t get any better, I got a new work phone and it has SODUKO on it!!!!!  JOY TO THE WORLD!!!

 

joy #21

Chocolate chips.  Yeah, you think I’m going to wax poetic about all the things you can do with chocolate chips, specifically Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate chips (cookies, flourless chocolate cake, peanut butter spoons topped with chocolate chips, chocolate covered Oreo cookies…).  But no, I’m not going there.  In our house, chocolate chips are certainly for cooking and baking and the spreading of happiness – but chocolate chippies are quick, sweet smooches.  Ahhh… joy!

 

joys #22-31

Sweet friends (from our Bible Study Cookie Exchange):

#22 – The sweet Miss Rosie-licious!

#23 – Ms. Tammy, always in action!

#24 & #25 – Baby Gianna and mama Dorothy

#26 – the always fabulous Toni!

 

Those were all the wonderful ladies that were able to make it tonight to our cookie exchange.  And they are a joy!  With our combined ADD, it’s hard for us to stay on track in conversations, but someone always remembers enough to help us find our way back to what we were originally talking about.  Not pictured were joys #27 (Allison), #28 (Kim), #29 (Nikki), #30 (Jackie) and #31 (Caroline).  They are such blessings and joys to me!

100 joys

/ emmykay / 2 Comments

One of my favorite Bloggers, Slightly Cosmopolitan, started working on 100 Joys which she found out about from Sarah Markley’s blog.  My friend Allison also saw a similar idea and is inviting our small group to participate via email.  It’s such a wonderful idea, I thought I would participate both on my blog and via email.

So here we go…

Joy #1

This little gold ornament was hand-decorated by my sweet husband when he was a little boy.  This ornament has hung on countless trees in his parents’ home when he was growing up and now hangs on our Christmas tree.  It’s hard to read in the picture, but the ornament just says “Frank” in glitter. It makes me smile!

 

Joy #2

The newest ornament on our tree this year was a gift from a dear friend, Meg.  She found this ornament while shopping with her fiance and they couldn’t resist.  It is a happy reminder of things to come in 2011.

 

Joy #3

Following in the theme of ornaments, this one is from one of my dear friends Erin.  She gave this to me when we were in college and somehow, between moving home, getting married and moving 4 times, we’ve managed to hang on to this ornament.  It makes my heart happy because not only does it remind me of Erin, but it also reminds me of all of the wonderful friends that I have made throughout the years!

 

Joy #4

What may not be clear in the above picture is that I am showing off my elastic waistband.  Elastic is one of my smaller, but still important, joys of the season.  I simply do not know what I would do without elastic considering my expanding waistline.  I love you, elastic!

 

Joy #5

We love the Chicago Blackhawks.  Love them.  Frank has been going to see them since he was a young boy.  We’ve been seeing the Hawks together for 8 years.  We’ve seen good years, bad years and awesome years.  We are not just-on-the-band-wagon fans, but rather long-term, committed fans.  I love seeing the Hawks play – win or lose.  I especially like it when the gloves come off and there is a great fight… especially when both players are trying to hold each other up while punching each other (cuz if they go horizontal, the fight is over…).  Nice.

 

Joy #6

There was a fantastic speaker at church a few months ago who talked about peace not being the absence of conflict, but rather, wholeness with God. I loved this concept and this season of the year reminds me of this all the time.  We live in a fallen world where there will always be conflict of one variety or another.  But we can have peace.  That gives me great joy!

 

Joy #7

Fundraisers where the kiddos sell cookie dough.  Talk about saving some time!  If that isn’t joy, I don’t know what is!

 

… Too be continued…

the things I just don’t forget

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Since we are having twins, our doctor wanted us to do the birth classes at our hospital early.  So at just 22 weeks, we are in a four week birth class at our hospital.

Our hospital is a large, sprawling campus.  It is the hospital that I was born at, that my great-grandmother (and namesake) died at, where they took my dad when he had his stroke, where one of my close friend’s mom passed away and where we went for the D & C when we lost Lily earlier this year.  There are so many entrances to this hospital and they are constantly expanding the hospital and building new wings and towers.  It’s easy to go there and not enter in the same doors twice.

On our second night in class, Frank and I ventured around the south side of the campus to see the new maternity wing.  Our adventure took us past the blue awning of the “Day Surgery” center.  The same blue awning that I came out of after our D & C.  Frank and I both looked at this awning at the same time.  I could hear the air going out of both of our chests as we looked at that sad, sad spot.  It was like walking past a grave for us.

I don’t remember what we said to each other, but it was just a gentle acknowledgement of that door.  That time in our lives when our hearts were both simultaneously broken.

If Lily had been a healthy little baby, she would’ve been born in late September, likely.  We would be getting her ready for her first Christmas.  I’d be going back to work in January after my maternity leave.

But Lily was not a healthy little baby.  Frank and I have discussed this – not extensively – but in brief conversations about her since March.  Things just seemed to be going so slow with her.  The doctors were always pushing the due dates back – she always measured small.  In a family where we’ve always measured well past the bell curve, this seemed strange – foreign – to us. She was a fighter, though – and she tried really hard.  But in the end, she just couldn’t do it.  And that’s ok.  It’s hard for us to have to wait so long to meet her, but we have peace that she’s with God in heaven.

All we have from losing Lily are a few early ultrasound pictures and a doily they gave us after the D & C to help us remember her by.  I put all of these items in a folder and I put them in a filing cabinet in the basement.  I’ve looked at that doily and the pictures since then, but only quickly and only to put them in a new location.

But driving by the blue awning of the “Day Surgery” center was a fresh reminder for us of the sweet baby we lost.  And in some ways, of the struggles we went through over 18 months in order to get pregnant.

I don’t take anything about this miraculous twin pregnancy for granted.  Sometimes I feel like I’m in an out-of-body experience – I see myself looking at baby furniture or picking out a nursery theme – and I can’t believe that it’s me.  I can’t believe it because in the either-or experience – either I’m pregnant or I’m not, either the baby is healthy or it’s not, either I’m ovulating or I’m not – I’ve been on the “or not” side with great frequency.  I have not had the experience of easily getting and staying pregnant.  I have not had the sense that “of course I am pregnant, why wouldn’t I be?”  Instead, I feel very frequently how delicate life is.

I read a blog called Moosh in Indy. Casey, the blog author, struggled with infertility for FIVE years.  She battled serious depression and tried a lot of medical procedures to resolve her infertility.

And then one day… she was pregnant.  Of course, there was so much rejoicing and so much happiness, but as she writes so poignantly about infertility in this blog post – “I can never forget where I came from that got me to this point.”

I also cannot forget all of my friends who are still waiting, hoping and praying to start or expand their family.  The notion that because we are pregnant, we can then forget the heartache of losing Lily and struggling with infertility is entirely wrong.

Life is precious.

To all of my friends who are struggling with various forms of loss and infertility, my prayers are constantly with you.  I have not forgotten.

22 weeks

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I was a little preoccupied with the holidays and work, and just realized that I hadn’t done a babies update in almost three weeks.  Woops!

What’s new with the babies: We had our anatomy ultrasound last week on Tuesday.  Just before the ultrasound, I almost decided to find out what we were having – but then Frank told me how excited he was about being surprised and how much he was looking forward to introducing the babies to me, and my heart just melted.  How could I say no to such a heartfelt request to keep it a surprise for both of us??  The babies looked great on the ultrasound.  Baby A is head-down, weighs in at 1 lb and had a healthy heart rate of about 149.  Baby B is breach and was VERY active that day.  Since Baby B is breach, his feet are next to Baby A’s  head.  During the ultrasound of Baby A’s head, we kept seeing Baby B’s feet jabbing into the picture.  Poor Baby A!  Good thing there is a nice membrane separating the two of them.  Baby B measured at 1 lb 1 oz and with a heart rate of 152.  All of the checks they do for the screening looked great, too!

The babies are getting more and more active.  I feel them moving around pretty regularly.  Times of day haven’t been super consistent for movement, but there are definitely times that the two of them go to town!

How I feel: I feel great!  I am tired, but managing to keep my napping to a minimum.  It is hard to work full-time and not come home at night and go to sleep at 7:30 p.m.  Fortunately, even though I am tired, I am also stubborn and determined to stay awake!  I am definitely showing (a  22 week picture will be posted tomorrow) now.  I also think the babies have shifted and moved further north, giving me a touch of indigestion.  I am sure that will only get more interesting as the pregnancy continues.

Other thoughts: I am super prone to stretch marks.  Like, epically prone to them.  I have them everywhere, just from growing quickly and being heavier when I was younger.  With that in mind, I embarked on a daily routine of using Vitamin E oil and the Mary Kay Toning Lotion during this pregnancy.  The Vitamin E is great at repairing injuries (ie. healing scars, etc) and is a major component of a lot of the Mary Kay products that I use.  The second item I use, the MK lotion, has Vitamin E, but is also meant to increase skin elasticity and reduce cellulite.  The result?  I am 22 weeks and measuring at about 27-28 weeks (thanks to the twins), and I haven’t had a single new stretch mark so far!  I’ve actually even seen an improvement in the ones that I already had!  This is HUGE for me considering how prone I am to the ugly red stretch marks!!