I forgot to share the ultrasound pictures from our appointment last week! I know many people can't make heads or tails of these things but I just love them. My mom has worked in the radiology department of a hospital all my life so X-rays and ultrasounds are something I saw more than most people. The ultrasound techs I saw throughout my first pregnancy were women who had known me since I was born and we were able to visit them again during my fourth pregnancy when my local techs couldn't tell me for sure if we were having a boy or a girl.
World, meet Lincoln Michael! It's always easier to see twin 2 because he can stretch out and move around to show us all sorts of good angles.
And this is Cooper James! Especially in 4d it's really difficult to get a good photo of this guy because he's snuggled tightly in the bottom. He has his little knees pulled up to his chest and his right elbow was up by his ear during this whole scan.
Our naming process is time consuming and elaborate but naming these two was actually the easiest of all our children. Maybe we work better under a time limit? As usual, I went through our huge book of baby names as well as various websites and added an app this time to make a master list of names I liked. I narrowed it down from over 110,000 names to a list of 93 that I liked and thought had a glimmer of a chance that my husband would like them. I even read the list to the three big girls and put a mark next to the ones that each girl said they liked. They each had different favorites and I don't think their opinions really swayed us either way but at least they were able to give some input.
Michael looked over the list, some of which were names I preferred as middle names, and marked 10 that he liked. There are times that I wish he could be this decisive but 10 felt really limiting when we had two babies to name! But the next step left me thankful that it was only 10. I took each of the final list and read it with each of the 93 names plus Michael and James. I then made a spreadsheet of the ones I liked the sound of so Mike could see them written out. It felt a little like wasted effort when we ultimately decided to go with James and Michael (as my momma suggested, thanks mom!) but at least we knew that Mike didn't love anything more than he liked those middle names. After he read all the options he told me his top three names were Cooper, Easton, and Lincoln.
Can you even?! That little foot! I have a feeling these guys might have gigantic feetsies like their big sister B. It was the first thing everyone said right after she was born.
The strange thing is, both Cooper and Lincoln had stuck out in my head the whole time I was making the last spreadsheet. I had no less than 4 people in the previous weeks suggest Lincoln to me and Cooper just struck a chord. Like I could almost see my tiny little Cooper. Coop (or CJ, which is a middle name that brings me fond memories) and Linc. Mike isn't sold on the nicknames and I'll probably never use them but I like that they'll have the option. I sort of feel like my boys chose their own names and we just had to figure out what they were. Neither are names we've ever come close to seriously considering before. Neither are names I even mentioned after we learned we were having boys until I set a time limit and we sat down to get it done.
So our babies have their names. Cooper is the donor and will probably be the first born but I think of him as the little brother. Hopefully things will go well and they'll both be about the same healthy size soon! Lincoln is the recipient working on processing too much blood and fluid for his little body. I posted a link over on the FB page to the hospital I've been referred to and their stats for the particular surgery we are being considered for. The statistics helped me to understand why the doctor wanted to wait a little longer and give the boys a slightly better chance. It looks like the further along the surgery is done, the better the survival rates for both babies. We're still not going to be in the most favorable group if we go down this week but at least they'll be one week bigger. In about 18 hours we should have a good idea how they are doing and where we go from here.
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