Changed Theme

Sorry Misty, but I got rid of the brown/green theme! I did actually like that theme, but I decided to go with one that I can customize a bit more. This theme allows me to upload any image for the header I like. I like this idea because I get bored with these things quickly and this allows me to easily change out the image header on any whim I get. Maybe someday I’ll buy wordpress credits and dive into the custom CSS, but I’m not really ready for that quite yet. In any case, enjoy the new look! I may change it at any moment!

Two posts in one day! oh no!

In The Womb: Multiples

National Geographic Channel – In The Womb: Multiples

I watched this special last night. We tivo-ed it over the weekend and I finally got to it last night. Simply fascinating. After over two years of infertility, I can’t say I really learned anything new (well, not much, there were some twin facts and theories that were somewhat new to me), but the visualizations they had were amazing. They followed 3 pregnancies in this special – one with twins, one with triplets (a set of identical twins and a fraternal triplet) and, most amazingly, a set of identical quadruplets. The special went through the reproductive process for the typical singleton, for identical twins (and even quads), and fraternal twins. Most of that information I’d heard before, but of course they had neat graphics to show these processes. For the pregnancies they were investigating, there were 4D ultrasound images of the multiples interacting in the womb. It really was amazing. Additionally, they had some sort of computer generated graphics to more clearly illustrate what goes on in the womb among multiples. At the end they showed the births of all of these pregnancies. The woman pregnant with twins gave birth naturally, the triplets and quads had cesarean sections. All of the babies were born healthy and eventually went home. The special went through the complications of multiples, such as not enough room for all to grow to a full-term birth weight and the types of complications associated with that. They covered other issues, such as vanishing twin syndrome. Sometimes there will be two or more babies in the womb, and one just vanishes. This is apparently very common and is being diagnosed more often with earlier ultrasounds showing two babies, but later ultrasounds only show one.

Anyway, I highly recommend the program. I don’t hope for multiples, and certainly not higher order multiples. But this program was still amazing. Just seeing the graphics here was amazing to me. Not just the 4D ultrasounds, but the computer generated graphics really made things clear. According to the NGC link above, it looks like this will be coming on again next Monday night. I still have it on the Tivo too if anyone wants to come over and watch it.