39 weeks strong

Pregnant with twin GIRLS!!!

My diary at 39 weeks:

{39 weeks???!!! THAT IS CRAZY! You, little girlies, are either very stubborn, or very patient! Let's go with patient ... it's a great character quality to have, one that I lack at most times in life!}

How big are the babies? Watermelons! Mini ones, at least! Mmm, watermelon sounds great right now!

Their big changes this week: They are just packing on weight still. What a life! :)

New news/blessings?

• Things are pretty much the same in most aspects and I am trying to soak in the last few days/week of pregnancy. Praising the Lord for this amazing journey!
• I had two Dr appts this week ... one on Monday (all was well and nothing was happening) and then again yesterday due to the impending storm we are supposed to be getting. He wanted to make sure I wasn't getting close and then stuck at home for delivery if it gets bad out. I am not close, however, my blood pressure was stinking high (154/108), which sent the place into an uproar! I had to have blood work and another NST for the girls. All came back just fine, and my pressure had gone way down by the time I left the office. I did get quite a lecture from my Dr, however, telling me that I wasn't taking it easy enough at home. The box of cupcakes sitting on his desk that I had made that morning (couldn't sleep, so I made cupcakes for him) was his proof, he said. Haha! I've never had someone so upset with me ... over cupcakes! He said a few things like, "I'm going to wring your neck!" and "You're going to lead me to drink, girl!" ... and finished it off with, "Get your butt home and on the couch!" So, here I sit. :)
• I put out a little contest on my Happy Sweets FB page for people to guess the date when the girls will arrive. The winner gets a dozen cupcakes! This has spurred people to hound me, however, with things like, "You have 9 hours to deliver so I can win!" haha! That, in turn, spurred me to put out a new msg that I will be taking a social media break til they arrive, haha! Oh my, the trouble I get myself into! :)

Weight: 203 (last week was 199 ... and at the Dr. yesterday it was 208!)

Total gain? 47 pounds.

Inches around? 49 (last week it was 46, but it has been up to 48 ... I think it must be they way they are layng when I measure?)

Belly button? An innie. I guess I'm just a non-popper!

Braxton Hicks Contractions: Slowed down, or maybe I'm just so used to them now I don't notice them as much?

New dance moves? The girls are pretty quiet today. Hmmmm, maybe it's the calm before the storm?

Things people say: "You're still here?" This has been a common one, especially at church. Someone said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but we keep hoping to NOT see you here on a Sunday morning!" Haha! I also got a "When are you due?" yesterday, to which I said, "In a week, and we're having twins." to which she responded, "Oh! No wonder you're so huge!" Haha, I have not heard that one this whole time! It made me smile, and laugh ... and wonder if she was crazy!

Silly nicknames for the bebes? Sweet{Ps} ... {P}Nuts ... oh, I love these girlies! :)

Complaints? None! (This will never change!)

Feeling in general? So excited! And beyond blessed.

{The Fruit Loops are due February 28th, 2013!}

mother nature

4-8 inches with blizzard-like conditions Thursday into Friday.

Hilarious.

Who has a dog sled and team of dogs we can borrow since we will most likely have the girls during that squawl?

Life. Always an adventure.

38 weeks strong

Pregnant with twin GIRLS!!!

My diary at 38 weeks:

{Happy Love Day, my little loves! Every day will be a "Love Day" when you finally are here!!!}

How big are the babies? Pumpkins! I have two pumpkins in my belly! I feel like they are kind of small pumpkins though! :) At an ultrasound this week they are estimated at 6lbs 14oz ... EACH. So crazy! I can't wait to see how big they actually are!

Their big changes this week: The last bits of vernix caseosa (the white goo keeping their skin moist) and lanugo (downy hair on their bodies) are slowly shedding now. I CAN'T WAIT TO HOLD THEM!!!! Their organs have matured and are ready to make a go of it ... hopefully soon! And, in that same ultrasound, the tech said, "Wow! Look at her hair! So much longer than last time! It's flapping in the breeze!" Haha! I don't know what breeze is in there, but I could see it moving as well! :) Have I mentioned, I CAN'T WAIT TIL THEY'RE HERE!?

New news/blessings?

• Miss Shirley has changed positions, yet again! The chiropractor had given me a few pressure points to work on to encourage her to flip, so maybe that's why she's moved? She is now lying vtransverse (sideways) across my belly (head on the far right, body swinging across with her bum under my left rib cage. Crazy girl! She does not stop moving! She has poor little Lavern totally squished in there! This is good though (the transverse presentation) because the other Drs who "wouldn't let" me deliever with her breech, will more than likely let me go with her transverse. So that's GREAT news!
• My Dr. says nothing is happening with me (no signs of labor or things "openeing up") and he just can't believe it. 38 weeks! With twins! There was talk last week by one of the nurses that he "wouldn't let" me go much longer with twins, but this week he said "we'd be stupid to induce you now" ... so good to hear that! I go back on Monday and we shall see if there's any changes. If so, I am considering some acupuncture to speed things up (if he's insisting I be induced, etc). What have I said? It's the pregnancy of needles!
• I have taken to sleeping while holding an ice pack for my poor, numb, throbbing hands ... seems to help greatly! Jerome woke up one night and thought I was holding a bag of string cheese though, haha! I told you I had a slight string cheese addiction!
• The girls are ramming into some pretty sensitive nerves in my pelvis area now ... holy cowboy, shockaroo!!
• Last night there was some major Kung Fu fighting going on in my belly! I'm wondering if it is because I've been eating slightly spicier food trying to get things going?
• Yes. Yes. Yes. I have been getting some (friendly) guff lately because I want to try and do things as naturally as possible! "No drugs?" "No C-section?" "Birth plan?" "Cloth diapers?" "Nursing?" "Not going to let them 'cry it out'?" ... I've heard it all :) And while I realize much is out of my control when it comes right down to it, I'm excited to hopefully do things the way I hope to be able to do them! This has been a long journey, and I am going to soak in the joy of these girlies as much as possible!
• I know I'm a weirdo, but I am SO EXCITED to nurse! And, babywear! Bring it on!

Weight: 199 (last week was 196 ... and at the Dr. it was 205!)

Total gain? 43 pounds.

Inches around? 46 (last week it was 46 ... my belly is low, low, low!)

Belly button? Still pretty much an innie. The top of it lips out a bit, but it doesn't "pop" out.

Maternity clothes? It's crazy to think that my time with my small maternity wardrobe is coming to an end! It has been fun, and a blessing to be able to wear them!

Braxton Hicks Contractions: They seem to have slowed down a bit. I have a friend who had her baby girl a week and a half ago and her Braxton Hicks stopped pretty much the week before she delivered. Ah! Could be soon!!!!

New dance moves? I had been told that towards the end of pregancy, movements really start to taper off ... this is not true in my case. Unless I'm not near the end, haha! They still move as crazy as ever, just more drastically!

Things people say: "Are you in labor?!?!" If I don't answer a phone call, text (immediately), or am just silent in general, people think I'm at the hospital! Haha, it's quite funny. When I call someone now, depending who it is, I often say when they answer, "Hey, not in labor, don't worry ... just have a question!" or whatever it may be.

Silly nicknames for the bebes? Still the same, Lavern and Shirley, The Girls, Bebes, Fruit Loops. I am so excited to finally be able to reveal their names ... SOON!!!

Complaints? None! (This will never change!)

Feeling in general? So excited! And beyond blessed.

{The Fruit Loops are due February 28th, 2013!}

maternity pics

We are so thankful we had these done when we did! It was the week before Jerome's surgery (which we didn't know was going to happen at that time!) and I was 33.5 weeks pregnant with our Sweet P{eas}. You may not be able to tell, but it was only 8 degrees out with a wind chill of BEYOND FREEZING that day! We sucked it up though and tried not to look too cold!

Special thanks to my wonderful friend, and Mommy to twin boys herself, Heather, for taking these beautiful shots!

I have a large head, and that hat only added to the issue! :)

<3 this!

I love "headless" shots ... it's artistic, right?

Love me a red barn!

At this point in time, Jerome was done with the cold!

For cute, right?! Normally, I am not a "let's put the silly dog in the family picture"
kind of person, but hello! When I saw this online I HAD to copy it! :)

Love this! And thankfully, this was about a week or two
before I got a bunch of stretch marks! :)

Precious!

©2013 Heather Welch Photography
www.facebook.com/HeatherWelchPhotography

four {cheese} alarm night

Via Wikipedia:

One-alarm, two-alarm, three-alarm fires, or higher, are categories of fires indicating the level of response by local authorities, with an elevated number of alarms indicating increased commitment of resources.

I've decided to rate my sometimes rather sleep lacking nights in a similar way that firemen rate a fire from now on. The more elevated number of alarms = an increased commitment of resources ... meaning, cheese. String cheese. At least in my case.

I have much to be thankful for, with such a relatively smooth pregnancy, but one of my little struggles again lately is sleeping. Or, not sleeping. Most nights, I sleep pretty great! Granted, I'm up numerous times to use the bathroom, but that is totally normal, and I almost always fall right back to sleep.

BUT, some nights, sleep just does not come back so easily and I'm up for an hour, two hours, three hours ... well, you get the idea. Most of the time I think part of the issue is either a) my hands throbbing from carpal tunnel, b) the burning, snake bite sensation I have on the right side of my upper belly, or c) my tummy is hungry. I have thankfully learned that point "c" can easily be resolved with a piece of string cheese.

On a sleepless night, when my tummy is to blame, you can find me walking around my house eating string cheese. Laugh all you want, I know the image is ridiculous! Me, wandering the halls, bare belly (two heaters, remember!), looking out the windows, all hours of the night, eating cheese. Yeah, it's funny.

Usually, one piece will do the trick, and I'm soundly sleeping again soon after. There have been a few nights where two pieces were needed. And then, the other night, one didn't do the trick. Two didn't do. Three didn't even work. That's right, I had FOUR pieces of string cheese over a few hour period of the night before I was able to fall asleep again. What a doozy of a night! That's what I'm calling a Four {Cheese} Alarm night.

I have a feeling my girlies will be slightly addicted to string cheese when they are born.

grow belly, grow! (take 2)

Here you go, again!

37 weeks strong

Pregnant with twin GIRLS!!!

My diary at 37 weeks:

How big are the babies? According to Babycenter.com they are around 6 1/3 pounds, and as long as a stalk of Swiss Chard. Swiss Chard? I really need to broaden my vegetable knowledge.

Their big changes this week: They continue to practice breathing and are just chilling out putting on weight at this point. I am quite happy with their size, haha! Too much bigger scares me! I was watching a video on YouTube and one gal had twins that were BOTH in the 9lb range!!!! Ah! And, when they are born they say that if they have more than just "peach fuzz" for hair that it can be anywhere from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long! Can't wait to see the little beans that have been growing inside me! :)

New news/blessings?

• My body is back to pretty much normal after recovering from Jerome's hospital stay, and my lack of sleep and mountain of stress worrying about him. I'm happy to say that if my girls stuck in their happy little home through that whole thing I should have no probelm going the full 40 weeks. Eeeeeek!!!
• My Dr. is very impressed with how far I've made it without any serious complications. He says to me each time I see him, "Wow, I just can't believe how well you're doing! This is awesome!!"
• I've forgotten to mention for the past few months that I'm pretty sure my girls have sucked all of the curl out of my hair! I chopped it back at the end of November and shortly after that, my naturally curly hair said adios! I have a friend that the same thing happens to when she is pregs ... her curl does come back after pregnancy though. Such a strange side-effect of pregnancy!
• One day, during Jerome's hospital stay, the girls got the hiccups at the same time! One side of me would feel a hiccup, and then the other side would answer back with a hiccup. It was hilarious and felt so cool! I love it when they have the hiccups, and that time was very memorable for me!
• I went to visit the chiropractor yesterday to help me with the "pop" in my tailbone. He said my hips are a bit out of whack, but nothing too terrible. He worked with me for a while and gave me lots of beneficial tips and some other excercises I could do to loosen up my hips. They haven't been hurting me quite as bad at night since I've started them, so that's nice.

Weight: 196 (last week was 193). I am always 5-7lbs heavier on the Dr.'s scale, so this week at my visit I broke the 200lb mark! It was crazy to see 201 pop up on the little screen! I gave a little, "Yesssssss!" when I saw it and the nurse looked at me like I was crazy ... "You're excited to be over 200?" I just responded, "Well, it's kinda cool to see it!" Haha!

Total gain? 40 pounds.

Inches around? 46 (last week it was 48 ... I've dropped a bunch, obviously!)

Belly button? Innie. Pretty cool though that now I can see almost the entire, tiny, stretched out scar that was totally INSIDE my belly button. It was from when I had an exploratory adominal laproscopy 10 years ago when we were initally going through our infertility journey. Amazing how the body changes/stretches ... it does go back though, right? :P

Maternity clothes? Still the same. And now, thanks to my masterful "spill everything on my belly" technique I have down, a few of my maternity shirts have stains on them that I just can't seem to remove. I know one of them is melted butter. Good grief. Right in the middle of my belly! Oh, I'm a sight! :)

Braxton Hicks Contractions: Nothing has changed much here. They are consistently consistent. Excited for the real deal here soon!

New dance moves? Remember that dream I had a LONG time ago where it looked like the girls could stand up and walk around inside my belly? Well, that was only a dream of what would come, I think! Sometimes at night, I wake up to a big mound of baby on one side of my belly! I might just have one that is ready to walk once she's born! Ha!

Things people say: "When are you due?" This is the common one now! I must FINALLY look like I'm ready to go any time! :)

Silly nicknames for the bebes? Still the same, Lavern and Shirley, The Girls, Bebes, Fruit Loops.

Complaints? None! (This will never change!)

Feeling in general? So excited! And beyond blessed.

{The Fruit Loops are due February 28th, 2013!}

a picture or two

My beautiful girls @ 28 weeks.

Thank you to my beautiful friend (and the first couple we adopted from) for snapping these shots at the drop of a hat before my baby shower two months ago. Love you, June! Sorry it took me so long to put them up!