a worry-some 15 weeks

By evidence of the picture, what do I have to be worried about? haha


Well, the 14th week ended with a bang. I dont know if I ate something wrong or just picked up a stomach bug, but it wasn't pretty. Poor babies, they thought there mama was trying to throw them up. Anyway, as I went along this week I didn't gain any weight (even went backward a pound or two) and the belly measurement = nada.

Enter Satan. He came right on over and filled my head with all sorts of doubts and worries. It was a hard week to be faithful in God's sovereignty. I knew it was probably due to the stomach bug but I was really worried that something had happened to one or both babies. Anyway, it has caused me to be in constant prayer and trusting that God already knows how long these babies live and what they do for Him (Psalm 139:16). Toward the end of the week I once again started gaining weight and we picked back up on our belly measurement.

I can only imagine this will be a continued cycle and battle but the Lord was faithful and was my Peace. So now we're off to NEW YORK with our dear dear friends. Pray for us, safety and i'll know my limits. I dont see a New York '11 trip happening so we want to have a good time with this one. Love to all!

14 weeks

Yea! Each week sounds better and better. We forgot to take a pic this week again...yikes, we are bad at this. But I DID remember to take a belly measurement, it helps my mind know we are gaining, gaining. In just one week, for the second week in a row, we grew an INCH. If I average an Inch each week in this pregnancy...well, its just not going to be pretty! haha. Pretty uneventful week this week, still exhausted and hungry - no nausea - no complaining from me!

Best of all, I'm coming to an end of our "Relay Season" at work...one day soon I will have a weekend to rest and relax again! I took Snuggle to one of our fundraisers, the Dog Walk and almost died of heat exhaustion! All is well, closer and closer to our big appointment - boy/girl , girl/girl, boy/boy!!???

13 wk Doctor's Appt

So I mentioned in an early post this awesome book I found. It is soley focused on preparing the mom through every stage of pregnancy to get to one goal. That goal is to go as far into your multiple pregnancy as you can, AND, have healthier, heavier, more developed babies whenever you do deliver...aka no NICU stay. I'm all in favor with any plan whose goal is for me to take home my babies when I go home! The authors really focus on what the mom needs to do early on, throughout and right before deliver in every day actions, but it mainly focuses on nutrition and weight gain.

Like I mentioned before, they too, have quoted and cited one billion studies that show the connection between the weight a mom gains directly affects multiples birth weight...even if they are a bit earlier than desired. Anyway, I read a good portion of this book while in Savannah, GA. It gave me a big dose of reality that I wasn't eating enough (certainly not on purpose, but just out of ignorance!). It has a very detailed chart based on BMI before pregnancy, height, how many babies you carry etc...to help you along your pregnancy so you can stay on track weight-wise each check up. I tell you all of this so you know this is what was in my head marching into the Doctor. I had my number in my head (the minimum of where I needed to be, by the way). All of my tests and labwork came back great except for one...you guessed it, my weight. I was 5 lbs under the minimum of where I needed to be. Helllo! Not going to have take home babies at this rate. Our U/S showed really big babies (from the last time I saw them!) which was a relief. We saw the spine, arms, legs, you name it. yea! Baby A has turned from head down to transverse and Baby B is being our handful still. Baby B has turned transverse also, but front to back (So the head is perpendicular to my stomach and the feet are pointing to my spine). The babies are essentially making an "L" in my stomach! How appropriate hehe.

Anyway, all was ok, just need to get the food / weight thing on track. Please pray for us on this subject. May seem silly and trivial, but it is very important to me now that I have hard data in front of me showing me what's best for the babies. Sure, I can go along the pregnancy at this rate and have "healthy" babies, but they will more than likely be staying in the NICU bed without mom and dad instead of coming home with us like they should in their own beds! I've been praying for weeks now against that NICU unit! Please join me :)

**Oh yea, forgot to mention the belly measurement this week had grown an INCH...an entire inch since last week. How can I not be gaining weight? :)

13 weeks and the SECOND TRIMESTER!

WOOOO HOOO. We were in Savannah, Ga the day I got to 13 weeks which meant we had made it to the Second Trimester! I woke up with alot of prayer and praise to the Lord for bringing us this far. I'm really starting to get excited and ready to plan for these precious babies! I'm definitely feeling the presence of being pregnant with twins. My back aches pretty frequently, you would think I just finished running a marathon with simple tasks and the naps continue with a furry. I have officially stopped sleeping well. It's now just a matter of how much sleep I get, not how well I slept. I suppose this is our practice leading up to what I'm sure will be chaos for a few weeks after they are here. We have reached the stage where we have invited 2 -3 extra pillows to our bed so I can get halfway comfortable :) Ryan is being a champ through it all .... snuggle is a little upset with lack of space when he gets to sleep with us, but this is just the first change in his world that is coming. haha.

It was so hard to come back from vacation, but the one thing that made it exciting is our Doctor's appointment the day after we got back! Ready to see babies and make sure everything is progressing as it should!

We didn't take a real belly shot this week, forgot again, but I think this pic gets the point across!

12 weeks

Yep...she's growing. We grew another .5 inch from last week. Good sign, at least i'm consistent? We had a good week this week...still exhausted every day when I come home...must take a 20 minute nap to make it through supper and the rest of the evening.

We celebrated 5 years of marriage on April 30th! wow it has flown by and we certainly had no idea the paths that lay ahead. So blessed to have traveled them with Ryan Little! We decided to take a trip to Savannah, GA as one of our last "getaways" for a while. I had to fore-go my trip to California and be a contestant on Price is Right....one day! Happy Anniversary Ryan! Here are some pics from our trip...






We stayed at the Mansion at Forsyth Park. Really nice hotel. We loved it.





Our room.SO nice.



Yea! Found the Savannah Candy Kitchen. More flavors of Licorice then I know what to do with.



Tybee Island for the day...had to get some beach time in or this was no vacation.



Fancied up! Night on the town..



Our hotel from the outside..and old restored Mansion right across the street from Forsyth Park...beautiful!



At Lulu's Chocolate Bar....HIGHLY recommend it! The babies got their entire pregnancy allotment of chocolate and caffeine hehe.



The pool at our hotel..swanky,huh?



The BEST book I have read so far about how to handle this pregnancy smart and healthy.



A 400 year old tree...oldest in Savannah...its very big!

11 weeks!

We're not in Kansas any more...this week was the first time I said and realized this. There is no hiding the belly anymore...full blown pregnant. No doubt there are many other things that complicate a multiple pregnancy, but I have found several blessings too! One being that you dont have that weird stage of "is she pregnant or just getting a little thick?" nope, we go straight to the pregnant stage. For my birthday last week Ryan took me shopping for clothes...maternity clothes. I'm not wearing any regular pants/ skirts anymore without the blessed belly band....LOVE that thing. Best invention in my life right now!

The Doctor told me I can walk and swim....end of sentence. That really limits things doesn't it. Considering I am NOT a swimmer that leaves walking. Its been really nice actually, we go for a walk just about every night - helps me, helps the Snug, and gives me and Ryan dedicated time to talk and catch up. Anyway, since 8 weeks or so, I've been having this tingling throb on the right side of my lower back when I walk. As soon as are done walking it goes away. Well, I'll say it again...we're not in Kansas anymore. This week, one night after our walk, the tingling doesn't go away..it gets worse!My entire lower back throbs and throbs all night. This is also the weekend where I officially over did it at one of my events. These two together = a pretty pathetic KC. I stayed in bed all day Sunday trying to ice / heat / stretch / rest / sleep...anything. Eventually it goes away...but lets not do that again. (you'll see it takes me a few times to learn things...a bit stubborn at times:) )

Other interesting notes: 1- we forgot to take a picture...oops! 2- I started measuring the belly circumference based on week 10. Oh my ...we grew .5 inch in one week. That's ok...that means babies are growing!

10 week stats

So when we officially hit 10 weeks, I started keeping track of more things as our base week to compare to. Here is our starting point...I have a feeling I'll be looking back at this picture longingly in a few months.




Due Date: So, our official due date, on paper, is November 10th. My Doctor will not let me go past 38 weeks (which is full term for twins) so that puts us end of October. 60% of twin pregnancies are delivered before 36 weeks so that puts us begining of October (10-10-10 to be exact!) That would be a fun Birthday. So we had been mentally preparing for October when my doctor shocks us by saying I needed to do whatever I could do to make it to mid-September. Excuse me? You just cut off another entire month. September is definately not ideal (putting me at 34 weeks) but a very real possibility. September means the babies stay in the NICU for a while and more complications to deal with. So our goal is still anything in October, the later the better.

Weight: I heard what every girl dreams of....my doctors exact words were that there was no upper limit...gain, gain, gain. Study after study (I feel I have read all of them) show that there is a direct corelation between the amount of weight I gain and how healthy / more developed the babies are at birth..whether born earlier or later. So no pressure, right? ha. The only thing I have to worry about is a minimum..not gaining enough weight.

Bed Rest: all up to me and how the babies are doing. I was thankful to hear they wont put me on mandatory bed rest, but it will be up to me to rest early in the pregnancy and keep the blood pressure down. If anything, she said prepare for end of August/ maybe September as being put to bed. We'll pray against that :)

Mandatory C Section?: I was pleased to hear that as long as one baby (the one closest to birth canal) is head down then I can try for a natural delivery. However, the slightest complication and off to the OR we go.

The Infamous 10 weeks!

Just happened to be on my birthday - April 14th. What a birthday gift :) I have prayed and prayed and at times almost begged the Lord to reach this day. We had a wonderful appointment with my Doc. We went over everything specific to twins and we talked in more detail about my timeline for twins. Quite a different world I"m beginning to realize. This is really happening and its happening very differently from anything I have heard or known from my friends or family!

We are really starting to get excited now. We have been eagerly awaiting this u/s to see the infamous 10week update. **on a side note, the devil had really found a loophole and planted in my brain that Baby B wasn't going to make it. It has always measured a bit smaller than Baby A and it just seemed out there on its own. Ryan had done his best to try to help me see things logically and realistically (his strong suite) but I just continued to really struggle. The night before our appointment, I truly believe the Lord gave me a dream. It was vivid and clear and I do not dream on a usual basis. I saw us in Rex Hospital with two baby carts in the room...one had a pink blanket, one had a blue blanket. I woke up from the dream with a peace that I believe "passeth understanding." I woke Ryan up and told him about the dream....there were TWO babies in the dream, they were both going to make it ! I went back to sleep and slept the best I had the entire pregnancy (still haven't slept that good to this day!) :)

So back to the U/S. She shows us the pic on the screen and there they are! So big she can't get them in the same shot anymore...all you see is their heads. Picture Below.




They are measuring exactly as they need to be for twins and get this...we see them move! We joked that they look like the little Mii characters on the Wii Game System.
They have stubbs for arms and legs but they were moving all around. We weren't expecting that at all! What a tremendous blessing!

Here is Baby A...head down (stay that way!) how cute!




And here is Baby B (after giving the Doc a hard time to get on camera!)




We left with our instructions on how to care for these precious babies. More on that later. Yea! Its time to sound the alarms and tell the world...before they start asking questions about this ridiculous belly I have popped overnight. We tell our Lifeclass at church which is something we had been dreaming of doing for years. It was SUCH a sweet time, we laughed and cried and praised the Lord together. So many of them had prayed alongside us the entire journey...it was our blessing to see the Lord answer their prayers too! Such love and support from that group...we love them to death!

9 weeks

This week we go for our first pre-natal appointment at my regular OBGYN. It felt so fantastic to be normal! Our poor nurse, when she found out we were having twins, it really threw her for a loop. Most of our questions didn't get answered with her...but we'll ask the Doctor next week. She gives us a bag of information and sends us on our way!

Only thing interesting I noticed different this week was at my event on Saturday for work. I...am...exhausted. A different exhausted...one I can't shake or explain. One of my event chairs says I'm getting "thick." This belly is getting hard to hide! Still wake up every morning thinking I have the worse cold / flu / sinus infection known to man. Still not nauseous yet though...so I really have nothing to complain about! We told our class of 12th graders that we teach at church...they were precious. Sooo excited for us! This is fun!

8 weeks...yes we made it!

Monday, March 29th was the hardest, yet most anticipated day in the pregnancy so far. It was our 8 week u/s. This was the u/s where we couldn't find a heartbeat last year. It was a full blown battle all week not to let the devil have any foothold. It took a constant state of prayer and referring to my verse and prayer notecards in my purse. Again, we didn't really say anything the morning of this appointment either. We prayed together in the room before the nurse came in. The Doc came in, again, I didn't offer any chit-chat...just wanted us to get to it! He throws the image on the screen we immediately see it....a heartbeat! Me and Ryan were trained at this point on what to look for. We both saw it and out loud breathed a sign of relief. Baby A had grown just as it should have...perfect! Over to Baby B and we see it, a heartbeat and a great measurement. The Doctor has nothing but positive things to say and says he is going to....release us from the fertility clinic! OH my! I have dreamed and prayed for this day for 18 months! It was finally here...although I love the care and compassion the nurses gave us,I was more than happy to say Good Riddance! As we walked out,I told Ryan I felt like we should have roses and "pomp and circumstance" playing in the background for our big graduation day. ahhahaha no such thing, but it was a wonderful day for us.

We felt more comfortable telling a few folks...I think we're going to have to soon...this belly is growing a litte faster than I anticipated!

Our babies...didn't they do a good job of growing!?





Baby A...





Baby B...

7 weeks and a Game-Changer!

Monday, March 22nd is the day of our first U/S. I didn't sleep for probably 2 or 3 nights leading up to it. Sooo much going on in my head. I had called and got the first appointment of the morning so we could get going! We went in and got ready for the U/S. Neither one of us said much, I think we were both praying silently in our heads to God to prepare us for whatever we saw on that screen and whatever the doctors said.

Its so funny how Doctors come in just like its any ordinary day. He was very talkative and was asking alot of questions. I was like "just stop talking to me and lets get the picture on the screen!". Eventually he did and there it was...a beautiful dark sac with a perfect little white blob in it. He was quick to see the heartbeat which immediately allowed me to breathe again. He measured the baby and said it was perfectly where it needed to be! Check! I was beginning to relax and feel good about everything when he said (almost haphazardly) that he wanted to take a look around and make sure everything else looked good. With one move of the wand and BAM! another black sac appears! We of course had no idea what we were looking at and again the Doctor, almost haphazardly says " nope, there's another one - your having twins!."

Ryan says "what?" several times. I say nothing for a second, then go into Mother-Hen mode and immediately start asking about heartbeats, is it measuring right, it is ok.... Yes, yes, yes! After a few more minutes of taking measurements the Doc leaves us in the room. We cry, praise the Lord, laugh, cry, pray again and giggle. For me at least, I didn't feel like anything in our life had changed in that point. That darn Devil just wont let you enjoy any of God's blessings for a second, will he? I immediately began thinking about the week ahead...we had to get past 8 weeks (last pregnancy) before this was really happening.

Below is the pic of both babies in the same shot. Baby B(on the left) is going to be out trouble-maker. It is VERY hard to get Baby B in any picture. I love this picture with all of my heart...look at our little babies!



We ended up taking the rest of the day off just to praise the Lord and enjoy our new news. We had fun telling our family and friends who were fervently praying for us all morning. If Ryan can do some editing down of the video, I'll post the video when we found out it was twins...you will be impressed with Baby B's magical dissapearing/ appearing acts!

6 weeks

Still not sick! But why am I exhausted? Really loving my naps and for some reason, every morning for the past 3 weeks or so it's like I have the flu...running nose, sneezing,coughing, stuffy nose...ick! It all goes away in about an hour, but very weird. Did NOT have these symptoms last time.

One thing to note. Ryan's best friend from childhood got married on March 20th. At the rehearsal I tanked an entire prime rib, cheese/crackers appetizer, salad, sweet potato and dessert...and was still hungry. Ryan looks at me like i'm an alien...

Here's a pic of us at the wedding...we have had a couple of folks tell us they suspected something was "different" about me. I wore a ruffly dress so nothing was too obvious...at least I thought :)

5 weeks

Nothing big happens this week...I keep waiting to feel grotesquely ill like everyone always talks about! We tell our parents and siblings that we have good news...they all know we should know something by now since they prayed for our procedure. But, we dont really talk or think about it (as much as we can help it)...feels like we can't get too excited until we see the munchkin's heart beating and feel out the doctors. We know how they acted last time when they knew something was wrong. The waiting continues....

Sleepless Nights

So the nurses had told me when to take a HPT based on the day of our procedure. That day seemed like 14 years but it finally came and I was too chicken to do anything! I convinced myself it was too early and I wasn't ready to see one line yet again. After 2 or 3 restless nights and praying to God for guts and strength to do it, I did. One morning I couldn't take it anymore so March 4th, 2010 I WATCHED those two lines appear instantly...no 2 minute wait period for me! hehe ( I guess we know why now.) Ryan had already gone to work for the day so it was me and the Snug. I cried, prayed, laughed, cried, praised the Lord for an hour or two at home before I could get myself together to go into work. I called the Doc and they had me come right on in for a blood test. I decided not to get too excited until they called with the results...after all, I had alot of hormones from the meds floating around in my body...maybe it was a false positive? No siree, they called back pretty quickly very excited (I had the best nurses at our Fertility Clinic...they really were rooting for us so it was special for one of my favorites to call me with the results). My HCG level was 494. Sounded good to me until I got home and looked in my journal from my first pregnancy. The first time, 2 days LATER, my number was 221. Hmmmm my number is almost doubled...earlier in the pregnancy than last time. This is the first time multiples came to mind but as silly as it sounds I immediately dismissed that and convinced myself this was just a healthy pregnancy. My numbers should have been this the first time. Ha! What I know now!

Quick side note: that day had been especially tough...a young girl in our Youth Group at church had become suddenly very ill and was facing very real, scary consequences if she did not get a liver transplant immediately. Ryan had been at the hospital all afternoon/evening so I still hadn't had a chance to talk to him! He came home, plopped on the couch and said "oh, what an emotionally exhausting day!" I just chuckled in my mind...just wait buddy! I told him to close his eyes that I picked up something for him that day to make him feel better. :) It did :) We spent alot of time that night praising the Lord, cautiously optimistic, and trying to establish our foothold against the enemy and the doubts he tenaciously started sending our way.

I went back to the Doc two days later for another blood test. My HCG was now 1,779.6 (my first pregnancy 48-hr-later test was 580). Yea! I said to myself, a healthy growing baby.hahaha.

Once upon a time

That's how most stories start, right? I couldn't think of anything else. :) Anyway, as I begin to catch up on the whirlwind of the past 10 weeks or so, it seems the best place to start is at the beginning!

As many of you know, the usual fun, exciting journey to start a family was anything but for us. It was full of alot of heartache month and after month, holiday after holiday etc... We had been seeing a Fertility Specialist for over a year (after we had tried on our own for over a year) by February of 2010. I had been on every medicine combination of pill, pill+shot, you name it. Infertility is a beast and it had worn down my spirit, my relationship with the Lord, my relationship with my husband, friends, family...everyone! Fertility Docs have a ladder approach to get you pregnant as quick as possible. You start on step 1, only stay on that a few months, then quickly move to step 2 and so on. After a year of staying on steps longer than they event wanted me to and having to take several months off b/c of cysts that had developed from the medication, we found ourselves almost to the top of the ladder (IVF)! We did not have peace on that particular procedure for our specific situation, (at least not at the time) so in my emotional roller coaster of a head, I felt we had reached the end our rope (or ladder). Silly me, looking back, how could I have confined the Omnipotent Creator of everything we know and do not know to a man-made medicinal ladder! That is just one of hundreds of lessons we have learned.

Anyway, after ALOT (and I can't explain what I mean by ALOT) of prayer and fasting and discussion, we both agreed on the IUI procedure. We agreed that if this did not work in one or two tries, then it was time to stop. My body needed break from the medicine, my mind needed a break from charting everything related to fertility and we just needed some time outside of a doctors office! So,February 17th we went in. I have to put in here that I was so discouraged when we went in because the medicine had only produced 2 follicles that month. In the previous months, I had had as many as 4! Since 4 didn't work, I was convinced 2 didn't give us a good chance. hehehe we will all see the irony of that in a few posts. :) Just another fingerprint of God showing us He knew exactly what He was doing. We endured the IUI (NO walk in the park) and spent the rest of the day together. We went to our church and prayed for a while in the Prayer Suite. Minus the physical pain and discomfort, it really was a peaceful day. Now began the dreaded two week wait.

Helloooo Blog World!

Yep, we did it. We have joined the blogging world. We always kind of wondered why it was almost an automatic part of having a baby...like it was on a check list somewhere in a baby book. But now we know! When you are surrounded by such loving friends and family members, they want updates! I think our situation has just magnified the support and love we feel from all of you. Plus, lets be honest, we want to shout to the world what the Lord has done for us, what He has led us through, where He is taking us, and in a few short months...we'll be showing off two precious little blessings!

Both Ryan and myself will post to this blog about what is going on with us and our growing fam. Not only will this be a place to update friends and family, but we want to be able to "document" everything that happens as we go on this journey. We can't wait to share with our little ones everything that went into them joining our family and to encourage them by reading our posts that the Lord has something incredible in store for their lives. I also hope this will serve as a "scrapbook" of sorts...show them all the fun milestones we reach as we wait for their arrival and the fun days after they come! (sorry Jamie, Mom, Caitlin and Bri...just can't commit to a real scrapbook times two! I think it will be all we can do to have clean diapers and fed babies hehe)

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. I'll be catching up in a fury on our first trimester so lots of post coming!