Prayer Request

I have a prayer request. My sweet blog-friend, Sarah, really needs your prayers right now. You can click here to go to her blog. Sarah is 20 weeks pregnant with twins and in danger of losing them. Both babies are doing great, Praise God. However, Sarah has been having a lot of contractions and her cervix continues to thin out. She is on strict bed rest and will be admitted to the hospital for bed rest in a few weeks for the remainder of her pregnancy. Please pray for Sarah, her husband and these precious babies. Please pray that God will calm her uterus and that her cervix will stop thinning and become stable. The doctors are hoping to keep the babies in for at least another 6 weeks to give them a fighting chance.

My heart is absolutely broken for Sarah and her husband right now. I cannot even imagine the fear that she is feeling right now. Sarah and I have been blog friends since last year and she is just such an amazing person. She was so encouraging through our IVF cycles and has continued to support and encourage me through this pregnancy. I so wish that I lived closer so that I could go visit her and encourage her in person.

Thank you in advance for your prayers. If you have a moment, please visit Sarah's blog and leave her some encouragement too. It's always nice to know that people care about you and are thinking of you.

Almost 20 weeks

I completely missed getting a 19 week post up last week. Oops! So, in an effort to redeem myself I'm posting my 20 week update a few days early. :-) We had our first ultrasound and appointment with the Maternal Fetal Medicine Doctor this morning. He said that both babies look great and that he didn't see anything to be concerned about at this point. Woohoo! Both babies are about 11 oz now and measuring right on track. It was so nice to be able to see them again and see how much they've grown over the last month. I am just so thankful for a great report on both of them! We also found out that there are definitely two placentas, but that they are just fused together. The doctor didn't seem too concerned about that at this point.

Our little boy was moving all over the place at first this morning. I think he was enjoying the sugar high from the donuts and OJ I had for breakfast this morning. That didn't last long, though. After about 30 minutes or so he found a nice, comfy spot and decided to take a snooze. He absolutely would NOT budge for the ultrasound tech. She had me turn on my side, she prodded my belly, she prodded him with the ultrasound wand...nothing. He was comfy and not having any of this prodding business while he was trying to sleep. He definitely gets that from his daddy! :-)

Our little girl was a bit more cooperative, but she did keep pushing her little tush up into my ribs which made it really hard to get good shots of her lower spine. She has been hanging out around my ribs a lot more lately. Little toot! The ultrasound ended with us being able to see the two babies kicking each other's feet! It was so cute! The ultrasound tech said that our little girl's feet look so small compared to her brother's feet. Looks like our little boy has his daddy's feet! Chris is about 6'1 and had big feet when he was little. Poor thing. His family used to call him Thumper.

I can tell that my bones and ligaments have shifted around more because my back pain has gotten better at night (thank goodness!), but my hips are starting to ache. My feet began to swell the last few days from sitting for too long. I'm trying to keep them elevated as much as possible and to not sit for too long at a time. We'll see how this week goes at work. I sit at at a desk for 9 hours a day. My feet may look like giant puffs by the end of the week.

So far I'm really feeling pretty good. The belly continues to grow and grow. I have now outgrown both pairs of my maternity jeans that I bought in April and my work capris are starting to get too tight around my belly when I sit down. I will take it, though. I waited a long time to have this belly and I am not going to complain about it! I would love to just live in stretchy tank tops, leggings and tunics for the rest of the summer!

Here are some pics from today. Enjoy!

Kicking each other's feet! (Girl is on the left, boy on the right)

Our little girl's profile

Our little boy's profile

Belly Pics

I am 18 weeks today. Woohoo! I can't believe it's only 6 more weeks until viability. I don't want these little ones coming anywhere NEAR 24 weeks, but it will be nice to hit that milestone.

Here are some belly pics from the last few weeks. I swear I'm growing bigger by the day!

16 weeks ~ this shirt is still a little big on me

16 weeks

17 weeks ~ Bailey wanted to be in the picture too

18 weeks ~ please excuse the black bra and laundry room

Holy Hormones!

Wow, let me just say there is NO way to prepare yourself for the "crazies" that come along with being pregnant. My hormonal mood swings have been in full force these past two weekends and unfortunately my poor husband has been on the receiving end. The least little thing will irritate me and soon after I will find myself in the midst of a crying fit that lasts for at least 10 minutes. The first one happened in the church parking lot two Sundays ago and this past Saturday we experienced episode #2. These hormones are out of control!

Other than that, not much else has been going on. The belly continues to grow by the day and feels tight a lot. I can tell when my skin is stretching because it starts feeling super tight and I feel itchy all across my belly. I have a great body butter that I'm using but I've been really bad about forgetting to put it on at night before I go to bed. I feel the little ones move every now and then. I am SO ready to feel them all the time. I also can't wait for Chris to be able to feel them move too. Sometimes I'll try to eat or drink something that has some extra sugar in it just to see if I can persuade them to wiggle some more. Sometimes they cooperate and sometimes they're stubborn. I was really hoping the stubborn gene wouldn't find these two munchkins, but it looks like it already has. :-)

Yesterday I attended and hosted the first baby shower since we got pregnant. I was so grateful to be able to just enjoy the shower yesterday and not have to deal with all the anxiety and emotions from infertility. There were several other prego girls there too, so it was really nice to be able to chat with them and FINALLY belong to their group. Now I can't wait for our baby showers! They will both be at the end of July and I am SO excited. This time last year I thought I would never get to have a baby shower. Everyday I thank God for these two miracles and all the blessings He's given us. It still seems so surreal at times. I have a feeling that it may not actually sink in 100% that this is really happening until Chris and I are holding these babies in our arms. What an incredible day that will be!

I don't have any other updates, but I will try to post a few new belly pics. I may even get brave and let Chris take a bare belly pic within the next few weeks. We'll see. :-) I hope everyone has a great week!

Mama knows her babies!

We had our 16 week ultrasound and OB appointment yesterday. They were able to confirm that we are most definitely having a boy and a girl!! We are so excited!! God is definitely blessing us more than we deserve. The ultrasound took a little over 30 minutes yesterday and we just had so much fun watching our sweet babies. They were able to get really good shots of the babies' anatomy and their measurements yesterday. Our OB was very pleased with how well they're doing so far and she was also pleased with my weight gain so far as well. Woohoo! It was so reassuring to hear that that they're both growing well and that I'm gaining enough weight for them right now.

I've developed a few new pregnancy-related ailments over the last few weeks. I'm experiencing restless legs a lot and my back has really started to hurt. The heating pad has become my new BFF! We're going to buy me a Snoogle this weekend. It's a body pillow that wraps around you to support your belly and back. I can't wait to try it out! Even though it's not fun having restless legs or a sore back, I just keep thinking that as long as these babies are healthy and growing then I can get through whatever this pregnancy throws at me. It still seems unreal to me at times that we have these two, precious miracles growing inside me. I thank God for them everyday.

We didn't really get any great profile shots of the babies this time, but I'll see if I have any cute pics on the CD they gave us. I need to post another belly pic so I'll try to do that this weekend as well. I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Pictures - 13 1/2 weeks

Here are the pictures from our ultrasound at 13 1/2 weeks last Friday. I know not everyone is interested in seeing these, but our families read this blog and I wanted to add them since I'm using this as a means to document the pregnancy. Enjoy!

This is the tushy shot. You can see in this pic why they think Baby A (on the right) and Baby B (on the left) are a boy and girl! :-)

This is the profile of our little boy! We think he looks like Chris.

Here's our little girl! She was turned a little so we didn't get a very good profile shot. I still think she's pretty stinkin' cute, though. :-)

Better late than never...again.

I just cannot seem to keep up with blogging lately despite all my great intentions. I'm hoping that I'll be able to get back into the swing of things now that I have a little of my energy back. I am so happy and relieved to be in my second trimester! Woohoo! I feel like I've hit a major milestone with this pregnancy. We are still taking it day by day and enjoying every minute of this special time!

I had to make an unexpected trip to my OB last Friday. For a few days I had been feeling some dull pressure around my tailbone area and it would occasionally radiate to other parts down there as well. I was also having a lot of discomfort in my lower back and some mild cramping. I had a feeling that this was all just part of my body adjusting and stretching to accomodate these two growing babies but I called the nurse just to make sure. She talked to one of the doctors in the office that morning (my OB was busy delivering babies) and they decided that they wanted me to come in. Needless to say this sent me into an instant state of panic. I knew that they were just wanting to be cautious and check everything out, but I still couldn't shake the fear that maybe something might be wrong afterall.

Chris met me at the OB's office and once we were taken back the nurse immediately pulled out the doppler to find the heartbeats. Thankfully we were able to hear both heartbeats and they were nice and strong. The doctor decided that she wanted me to have an ultrasound to check my cervix instead of having a physical exam. Thankfully everything came back fine there too. She said that my cervix looked perfect. Whew! So, they decided that it was indeed just "growing pains" and that the babies and my cervix were just as they should be. This was such a relief!

After the sonographer checked my cervix she did an abdominal ultrasound to check the babies. Chris was able to see Baby A kicking at Baby B! She was able to get some really great profile shots of both babies and then we got quite a surprise. She was able to show us what they are! This isn't 100%, but she's pretty sure that Baby A is a boy and Baby B is a girl!!!! She printed out the still pictures of their little tushies and it's pretty apparent that Baby A has plumbing that Baby B does not have. :-) We were both SO excited! This unexpected trip to the OB that had caused us panic and fear turned into an appointment full of joy and excitement.

I'll have to update and post the pictures tonight because I'm writing this from work. Shame on me! The bump has definitely gotten bigger and other things are growing out of control too. :-) I hope everyone has a great rest of the week!