So what does step #1 entail? Well, it’s basically just sitting in a room with a Urologist (Dr. Edward Collins in my case) and listening to him explain the procedure itself, what the risks are, and what to expect post-op. We also talked briefly about the possibility of reversal (in case Bonnie leaves me for Brad Pitt and my new 24 year old supermodel bride wants kids) as well as what the next steps are to get the ball(s) rolling so to speak. Finally, Dr. Collins did a cursory “inspection” to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be and wrapped up with the classic, “turn your head and cough” hernia check routine. (Incidentally, the turning your head part is just so you don’t cough on the doc.)

So what is the procedure? It’s pretty simple. You can read all about it in the link above, but in short, after some local anesthetic, they just make a couple small incisions in your sac, cut the tubes that shuttle your boys up from your balls, and tie them off and tuck them away. By the time they’ve sewed you back up, about 30 minutes will have gone by.

As for potential risks and complications, they’re all rare and not particularly serious. The interesting one happens in about 1 in 10,000 when the cut tubes spontaneously rejoin. Then you’d be back in business without really knowing. Now that’s a scary one!

To mitigate this particular risk, they actually make you provide samples after you’ve had a chance to “flush out the pipes” in order to do a sperm count to confirm you’re actually “shooting blanks.”

I’m expecting to do the deed sometime before the end of the month so rest assured there will be follow up posts. Don’t worry, I won’t be posting any pictures.

First, in the looks department, Ashley is more substantial in almost every way. More hair, she’s longer and heavier, has bigger cheeks, fuller lips, chunkier thighs, etc. Amanda is catching up as her leg folds are becoming quite deep in their own right. But even so, there’s no denying that they look very different. I think in general, Amanda has more features from my side of the family whereas Ashley has more features from Bonnie’s side of the family.

As for personality and preferences, I don’t even know where to begin. It seems like there’s nothing they can agree on here. Ashley really likes to breast feed. Amanda never really breast fed and is just ok with bottle feeding. You would think that would translate to solid food as well, but it turns out that Ashley doesn’t really like solids whereas Amanda sits waiting with her mouth open. Ashley likes to crawl, but Amanda likes to roll.

(Here’s some video of Ashley sort of breast stroking her way toward some yummy Cheezits.)

2009 09 29 Ashley crawling from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Ashley likes to sleep on her stomach, Amanda likes to sleep on her back. Ashley hates her high chair, Amanda loves her high chair.

When you put something over Amanda’s face, she immediately pulls it down. Ashley waits for you to pull it off.

They are both sort of adequate at sitting up but still need help maintaining. Here’s a short clip of what they’re capable of:

And an even shorter clip of what happens when they weeble, wobble a bit:

Hmm, what else… Amanda likes silicone pacifiers, Ashley likes latex ones. Amanda likes to pick things up with her hands and seems to have more dexterity at the moment. Amanda used to be more vocal experimenting with sounds but now they’ve kinda swapped. Amanda sleeps through the night consistently, Ashley gets away with an extra full feeding most nights.

You get the point. It will be interesting to see how things change as they get older. As it is, it may be hard to tell they’re sisters much less twins!

Some of you know that I volunteer my photography services with the non-profit group, Moment by Moment (click logo above for details.). It’s little more than a some time and a few dollars for me. However, the organization is managed by a few very dedicated people who really put their blood, sweat, and tears into this endeavor. Unfortunately, blood, sweat, and tears aren’t enough to keep the lights on so to speak. So if you happen to be looking for a great group to invest your charitable contributions with, please consider Moment by Moment. As it turns out, they are actually having a fundraising event September 12 if you’re interested in attending (contact me for details.) Otherwise, you can simply contribute by check or credit card. For checks, please make payable to Moment by Moment (Tax ID 55-0896956) and mail to Moment by Moment 1499 Sunnybrook Road Alamo, CA 94507. For credit card, you can submit via fax (925-407-2737) with the following info:

Card Number __________________________Exp. Date ______Code_____

Signature __________________________Total Amount Charged $_______

As a semi-unfair tug at your heart strings, here’s a picture of Amanda when she was in the hospital a few months ago.

Why the sentiment you ask? Well, the main trigger is actually the final (I think) insurance claim from Amanda’s hospital stay. Although we’ve been outside our out of pocket maximum for quite a while now (pre-natal care is really expensive for high risk twin pregnancies), I still pay attention to the claims to make sure everything seems appropriate. And just last week, I saw a single claim that was in the hundreds of thousands. That’s right… hundreds of thousands. At first, I thought it was a typo as I had already seen tens of thousands worth of claims get processed for that two and a half week period. I even emailed the insurance company about it. But they assured me that it was correct and it had been paid for. Yay health insurance! All of a sudden, I don’t feel so bad about my premiums. Especially considering the additional prenatal care, delivery and hospital stay for the twins, all the other doctor visits we’ve had, and who knows what other medical services we’ll be using before the end of the year. But I digress. Ultimately, the reminder of Amanda’s dire circumstances from just a few months ago has put me in the frame of mind to try to take it all in for a little while. Also, Bonnie and I are realizing that we will probably not (99.999% sure) go through this stage of parenthood again so that’s contributed a bit to the sentiment as well.

Well, I’m way over my normal text to picture ratio for this post so I’ll end with a couple pictures from yesterday:

And one from when Alissa was about the same age:

Despite the plague, stress, sleep deprivation, and other “life stuff” going on, I figure it was time to post to the blog. I told myself that I would not be any less prolific with the arrival of the twins, but now I realize that was an unrealistic expectation. At least in the short term, while they are feeding every three hours 24 hours a day, it seems that my camera and my computer will have a bit of a respite.

That being said, I do have a few pictures to share today. As many of you with kids know, when the house is quiet for more than a few minutes at a time, you can be sure that nothing good is happening. Well, this afternoon, after one of said quiet times, I went hunting for Alissa, the #1 trouble maker and discovered this:

She had gotten into Bonnie’s purse and helped herself to some Burt’s Bee’s lip something or other. I guess she was feeling a bit chapped.

They say that if you write a goal down, your chances of meeting it increase dramatically. I also learned that goals should be S.M.A.R.T. Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time constrained. So, this is me, writing down my goal.

Get to 160lbs by September 1, 2008 by managing portions, eating healthy, exercising 5 times a week.

That’s pretty smart I think.

I’ll be posting updates here so check back to monitor progress if you’re curious.

6/11: Ran 4 miles
6/15: Played 3 hours of tennis

WEIGH IN: 171LBS
6/16: Worked on the yard for 2 hours
6/17: Worked on the yard for 1 hour
6/18: Ran 3 miles
6/19: Walked 1 mile, ran 3 miles
6/20: Ran 3 miles
6/21: 2.5 hours of tennis

WEIGH IN: 169LBS
6/23: Walked 1.5 miles, ran 2 miles
6/24: Ran 3 miles
6/25: Ran 3 miles
6/26: Walked 5 miles
6/27: Walked 5 miles
6/29: 2 hours tennis

6/30: Walked 4 miles
7/1: Walked 4 miles
7/2: Walked 5 miles
7/3: Walked 3 miles
7/4: Walked 2 miles
7/5: Rode bike 10 miles, Tennis 3 hours

WEIGH IN: 168LBS
7/6: Walked about 2 miles
7/7: Rode bike to BART for work
7/9: Rode bike to BART for work, walked 3 miles
7/10: Rode bike to BART for work, walked 3 miles
WEIGH IN: 166LBS WOOT! ABOUT HALF WAY THERE!!!
7/11: Rode bike to BART for work, walked 3 miles

So it’s been a month and I’ve lost about 5 lbs. My pants are starting to fit a bit better again but I still have a ways to go. The last 6 lbs will likely be a bit more difficult than the first 5 lbs. That being said, I think the biking to work thing will be a nice surge in activity and I’ve been pretty disciplined in not overeating. It’s not like I’m starving, I just haven’t been doing any of the random opportunistic eating that I have had a bad habit of doing. Anyway, time to kick it up a notch and make sure I can get to 160 by Sept 1 per my goal. That’s about a pound a week… doable, but I’ll have to stay focused. No lapses!

7/12: Ran 4 miles with Alissa
7/13: Rode 16.6 miles

7/14-7-17: Just been riding my bike to and from BART for work.
WEIGH IN: 164LBS
7/18: Ran 4 miles with Alissa
7/19: Rode 9 miles (to Ranch 99 and back)
7/20-7/24: Just been riding my bike to and from BART for work. A couple walks to the store and back.
WEIGH IN: 162LBS
7/26: Walked 1.5 miles, ran 3.5 miles with Alissa
7/27: Biked 37 miles

WEIGH IN: 160LBS!!!
So I officially reached my goal today a month ahead of schedule! The biggest difference I think has been not eating to extremes. I eat when I’m hungry, BUT STOP when I’m not. That’s a simple but not so easy thing to do I guess. I’ve been pretty good about exercise as well but it’s not like I’m hard core about it. Ultimately, it’s not so much that I’m on a diet, but more so that I’ve made a lifestyle decision to not overeat. I think I can keep it up although I may cheat a bit more now that I feel like I have some buffer. It’s not that I haven’t been cheating already. Pizza and dessert at the Chiang’s last weekend didn’t help. But even then, I could have eaten an extra slice of pizza or had a few more brownies.
Anyway, with a month left to go to the official “deadline” I think I may try to get down to 155. I’m pretty happy at 160 given my pants are fitting nice and loosely now. But I might try doing some more weight lifting in addition to the cardio to try to get a little stronger. Maybe I can get my gut to go away entirely at that point… although I think I’ve had this gut since elementary school. We’ll see. I’ll likely maintain this for at least the next month and then re-evaluate at that point.

7/28-8/1: Nothing serious, just biked to work and did some walking to the store.
8/2: Played three hours of mixed doubles (but then ate too much BBQ.)

WEIGH IN: 160LBS
I seem to have plateaued… slacking off after reaching the initial goal.
8/6: Ran 3 miles with Alissa
8/9: Mountain biking at Skeggs Point: 5.5 miles, 3000 ft of climbing, 1600 calories burned

WEIGH IN: 159LBS
8/15: I’ve been reverting back to some old habits but seem to be maintaining the weight. Time to inject some new vigor into my motivation!

9/17: Hmm… still slacking a bit on the exercise front but weighed in at 157 the other day. Eating habits are doing ok I guess. Went for a 25 mile ride today though, so that should help. Still think I can get to 150 if I just try a little harder. I’ll try to make that happen by the end of the year.

11/10: Well, I weighed myself yesterday and came in at 154.5. So I guess I’ve reached my goal. In all, I’ve lost almost 20 lbs which seems like a lot although I think I can probably get to 150. Not that I feel like I need to lose more, but it’s such a nice round number. Plus, I feel like I need a little “holiday buffer.”

11/27: 153.0 today! But that’s probably back up to 154.5 after today’s Thanksgiving dinner.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, here are a couple more pictures from the party.



This last one is a 2/3 preview of what I have in store for me. The other preview I got was watching Alissa spend about an hour chasing after all the little boys. Andrew seemed to be particularly fun to chase, probably because he’s closest in age to her. He was also the first boy to kiss her so that might have something to do with it. Of course, he was like 8 months and she was about 4 months or something like that at the time so I’m not sure if that really counts. Regardless, will be interesting to see how all these kids grow up together.

So after a brief rest at home, we made our way down to Deeann and Calvin’s place for a feast of a dinner prepared by Deeann’s aunt and uncle.

Man, such great food! It was like going to a fancy wedding banquet except the food was tastier! After stuffing ourselves while watching the Eagles lose a close game to the Bears (Boo!), we observed Alissa and Abigail play sort of together.

Alissa was really into the pretend tea party. Abigail was amazing with her letters. And otherwise, the two kinda played in parallel. Again, it will be fun watching them grow up together. It’s going to just get more hectic once we throw the twins in the mix along with whomever else happens to be born over the next few years. Remember that game, “Life?” I guess it’s not a game anymore!

Since we’ve known for about a month now but haven’t been able to share broadly, I’ve kept a journal on what’s gone through our heads.

Twin Journal
August 1, 2008
July 28, 2008 will now be notable date as the day that rocked our world with the news that Bonnie was pregnant with twins! Here’s the play by play:

Dr. Huang: Let’s take a look… try to relax, you’ll feel some pressure.
Bonnie: *Sharp breath*
Dr. Huang: Uh oh…
Jason: (I don’t like “Uh oh…”)
Dr. Huang: You’re having twins!
Jason and Bonnie: What?! Are you sure?!
Dr. Huang: Do twins run in your family?
Jason: Um no… how did this happen?
– State of shock and disbelief continues for the next few days -

My guess is that this kind of exchange happens with most people when they do not expect to be having twins. We don’t have a genetic predisposition for twins (my mom’s cousin is a twin but as it turns out, it doesn’t matter on the father’s side anyway), we weren’t doing fertility, and finally, we were not thinking we would have more than two kids. So over the last few days we’ve been slowly absorbing the reality, alternately forgetting and remembering that twins are on the way, and alternatively panicking and being super excited about all the things that we need to consider given this big surprise.

We told our immediate family and our best friends already as this secret was too big to keep to ourselves despite being only eight weeks along. Truthfully, I’ve been tempted to tell more people in order to share the excitement, nervousness, angst, and all the other emotions that I occasionally feel the need to offload. However, (so far) we’ve been disciplined and have not broadcast the news. Instead, we’ve spent a lot of time independently googling things like “best strollers for toddler and twins,” “nutrition when carrying twins,” “wiki twins,” and “probability of identical vs. fraternal twins.” We’ve even started batting some names around although we won’t know the sex for quite a while (week 20 I believe.)

As well, Bonnie seems to have more symptoms this time around as apparently happens a lot with twins vs. singletons. Nausea and heartburn are the two most bothersome. Also, although I don’t know this for sure, the fact that we’re having twins may have caused our confusion at the “pee on a stick” phase of our journey. We kept on getting one really strong first line (the test line) with a very faint second line (the control line). Since a “negative” is the absence of the first line but a strong second line, we weren’t quite sure what was going on. Apparently, if you have a lot of the pregnancy hormone, all the dye gets dropped into the first “test” line and there isn’t enough left to make a strong “control” line. We ended up taking three tests to make sure. This one was the most clear one:

Anyway, more to come as we continue down this exciting new adventure! We’re accepting donations on all fronts (diapers, double strollers… tuition) and would also welcome any advice.

August 3, 2008
We had Jeff and Xiao Yi along with Benita, Calvin, Deeann, and Abigail over yesterday for a BBQ. Bonnie did her best to seem like she had a good appetite and successfully evaded some questions from Xiao Yi about whether or not she’s “eating fish.” And we heard from Benita after the fact that Deeann was poking around asking about Bonnie “looking pregnant.”

Otherwise, we’re continuing our research into what we need to do to prepare for twins. Bonnie is doing her best to “eat for three” while taking her prenatal vitamins, folic acid, calcium, and Expecta supplements. Heartburn has been less of an issue lately but the nausea persists. Hopefully it goes away before the second trimester comes around.

August 6, 2008
With news like this, I’m anticipating lots of questions from folks. So here’s a quick FAQ that should take care of some of the items which we were wondering as well as some facts specific to our situation.

1. Do twins run in either of your families?
The short answer is no. Bonnie’s side of the family has no twins that we know of. My mom’s cousin is a twin and he has twin boys, but as it turns out, the father has nothing to do with the chance of having twins. (And I thought I had some kind of super sperm!)

2. If twins don’t run in Bonnie’s family, what are the chances of having twins?
Discounting the effects of fertility treatments (which we were not on, incidentally), the probability of a twin pregnancy is 1 in 89. That rate doubles if the mother is over 35 (which Bonnie is not). However, most of those pregnancies are fraternal twins which, as I mentioned previously, can be influenced by the mother’s genetics. Identical twins are apparently random events that are not influenced by genetics at all. The probability there is about 4 in every 1000 births… much more rare. Taking it to another level, the most common twins are boy/girl fraternal twins at about 40%. The least common are boy/boy identical twins (couldn’t find the percentage).

Interestingly, the probabilities are different for certain ethnic groups. For example, twins in Japan are much more rare. On the flip side, if you’re in Linha Sao Pedro, a tiny Brazilian village, you’re chance of having twins is about 10%! Also, if the mother is vegan, she’s five times less likely to have twins.

3. Do you know the sex and whether or not they’re fraternal or identical?
First, a primer from wikipedia:

fraternal twins = “two fertilized eggs are implanted in the uterine wall at the same time. When two eggs are independently fertilized by two different sperm cells, DZ twins result. The two eggs, or ‘ova’, form two zygotes, hence the terms ‘dizygotic’ and ‘biovular’.”
identical twins = “single egg fertilized to form one zygote (monozygotic) which then divides into two separate embryos.”

We won’t know the sex until the 20 week ultrasound which will be in the beginning of October. At that point, if they’re different sexes, they’re obviously fraternal twins. If they’re the same sex, we may not know ever since many fraternal twins look so much alike that they can pass for identical twins. I believe there may be some clues at the ultrasound that could potentially reveal what they are. For example, if they share one placenta and/or one amniotic sac, then they are identical. However, identical twins can also have their own placenta and amniotic sac in which case it would not be clear if they are identical or fraternal. Confusing, I know. Here’s the wiki if you’re interested in further reading.

4. Were you trying to have twins?
Umm… no. Actually, we had always joked about having twins. Before Alissa was born, Bonnie thought it would be nice to have one pregnancy and get a “two for one” deal so to speak. Then, we saw how much work twins were through my cousin Anna and decided that it was hard enough handling one at a time! We also had been debating about whether we wanted two or three kids at the end of the day. I was in the two camp, Bonnie was in the three camp. But in the first few weeks of this pregnancy, we were both in the two camp since Bonnie was having more nausea and heartburn issues. Who knows if Bonnie would have selectively forgotten those issues later on but for a while there, two was going to be it. Now that we’re having twins, that decision has been made for us and we’re actually both super excited about it! Of course, we’re still nervous at times and there’s a ton to think about, but at the end of the day, we feel very lucky.
On another note, I was joking with Bonnie that our kids reflect what she watches on TV. Before Alissa was born, Bonnie watched a lot of the reality show, “Little People, Big World” which is about Little People parents and their kids. As such, Alissa is in the single digits in terms of percentile height. Lately, she’s been watching a lot of the show “Jon and Kate, plus Eight” which is about a family of twins + sextuplets. And now, we’re having twins. Thankfully, she’s not a fan of the show “Jackass.”

5. Where are you going to put all the kids?
No idea… I’m open to suggestions! Actually, we’re considering expanding the house at some point. Not sure how much it would cost or how we would do it but it’s an option. There’s also the room downstairs that can be turned into a real bedroom but Bonnie isn’t a fan of that idea. For the time being, while the kids are young, I think we can get away with just the one room for a while. We’ll have to see how things go with public vs. private school and a bunch of other factors before we decide what to do.
We’re also glad that we opted for the Honda Pilot vs. the CR-V at this point. Although it may still be a challenge to squeeze them all in the Pilot, we’re far better off than if we had the CR-V. The Lexus will likely get even less mileage than it’s getting now but it will be fine once the kids get older I think. Besides, it’s not like we can afford to switch cars at this point anyway! Worst case scenario, we’ll just pull a Britney Spears and put the kids in our laps. KIDDING!

That’s about all I can think of at the moment. There will probably be additions later on.

August 14, 2008
We have our combination screening (screens for Down syndrome and some other genetic diseases via blood test and ultrasound) tomorrow at SF perinatal. We were there to get the cool 4-D ultrasounds when Alissa was about 20 weeks. (We didn’t do the combined screening with Alissa as it was not as standard a practice as it has now become.)

We’re both a little nervous as well as a little excited. I don’t know if they’re going to be able to tell us the gender or the zygosity (identical or fraternal) but at the very least we should be able to see their size and heartbeat. Assuming everything goes well, we’ll likely start telling more people. The big reveal will be at the big family BBQ August 24th. Bonnie already has the plan on how to break the news. Alissa will be wearing a shirt that says “Big Sister – x2.” It will be interesting to see how people react.

August 15, 2008
Well, our appointment at SF perinatal was fine but apparently, we need to go back in a week because the babies are just a hair under the size that they need to be for the results to be reliable. There are no indications that anything is wrong at this point though. And we were able to see a bunch of things while we were there. For example, both babies are about the same size (about 3.5 cm), and are dichorionic/diamniotic (di/di in medical-speak). In other words, they both have their own placenta and are in their own amniotic sac. Thankfully, di/di twins have less risk of complications so we’re lucky on that front. That doesn’t indicate whether or not they’re fraternal or identical however. (However, given the probabilities for di/di twins, my guess would be fraternal.) Also, it’s still too early to tell the gender. But it was cool to see them move and to see their heartbeats. And finally, last but certainly not least, it’s good to know that there are in fact “only” two!

The technology, as cool as it is, simply doesn’t have enough resolution to create very good 3D (excuse me, 4D) models. In talking with the staff, apparently the machine they were using is just a few months old and the latest and greatest. It’s made by GE and does seem to have some improvements vs. the machine that I remember when we there last for Alissa’s ultrasound. For one thing, it seems quite a bit smaller. Also, we were given a CD with the images and video (formatted for Mac by request even) instead of printouts. Finally, everything seemed to be a bit snappier. Switching views, zooming in and out, going from 3D to 4D, etc. (Sorry for the geekout – back to our regularly scheduled programming…)

So, long story short, so far so good! More to come.

August 20, 2008
We’ve started telling our family and close friends and are looking forward to the big reveal at the family BBQ this weekend with the accompanying blog post (this one). As you would expect, everyone has been very supportive and almost as surprised as we were when finding out about the twins. And it seems like there are babies everywhere! We have three sets of friends who are expecting babies before the end of the year. And another three who just had babies in the last month. Must be something in the water.

Rest assured, many of the pictures I post here in the next couple weeks will be made with this lens though.