Tuesday, July 28, 2009

12 weeks + 5 days check-up!

Last Thursday, I went for my 12 weeks + 5 days OB appointment. It was thankfully a very low-key appointment.

Blood pressure: Excellent

Weight: Gained 3 pounds in 4 weeks

Blood work: Good (no anemia!)

Baby count: STILL TWO!

The darn internet had made me fearful of the possibility of "vanishing twin syndrome" where two babies appear on an initial ultrasound and then only one appears on all ultrasounds thereafter. I was so thankful to learn that they will do a portable (lower-quality) ultrasound on every visit because they will be unable to distinguish each twins' heartbeat with the Doppler. I was relieved to see two babies (who looked more like babies this time than beans!) and two flickering heartbeats appear on the screen. I told Dr. Moore before the ultrasound that I felt like I could officially get excited if he still saw two babies in there on the ultrasound that day. He was happy to point out the two babies with a smile. The picture below is very low quality, but you can see both babies. We *think* the one on the left is head up and the one on the right is head down. Or maybe they are facing one another? We did notice that one of them was bobbing his/her head to what seemed like the beat of some cool music!


Questions he answered for me...

1. Do I need to take any additional supplements? No, not at this time. He may give me an iron supplement later.

2. How can I avoid getting gestational diabetes? There is no avoiding it. Your placenta determines if you get it or not. I was relieved when he told me to just "be me" and not worry too much about it. I had gotten nervous based on things people had told me!

3. When will we be able to determine the sex of the babies? I will have another quickie portable ultrasound when I go at 16 weeks. I won't have the "big" ultrasound until 20 weeks, and it will be at that one that we will hopefully determine what we've got in there! After 20 weeks I'll go to the doctor every two weeks, and after 30 weeks I'll go every week. I told him he'd get sick of seeing me!

In other news, we had a successful garage sale on Saturday UNTIL the Code Enforcement Officer came by to check and see if we had a permit. (No, I'm NOT kidding!) I'm glad R answered the door because I would have come unglued on the guy! Does he not have anything better to do? Seriously. Luckily he only charged us the actual permit fee of $10 instead of the ticket fee of $100. Sigh!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The Great Meltdown of 2009

Okay, so it happened. What I first defined as a breakdown was later deemed a meltdown by the professional opinion of none other than my dad!


Up until last Thursday I hadn’t shed a tear of any kind after learning that our family was going to be growing larger than we expected. On Thursday evening, our sweet realtor came over and we filled out ALL the paperwork to get our house listed and on the market. R and I had worked super hard to get everything picture-ready and the house looked fabulous!




After she left and I started to get ready for bed, I began to feel the tears creeping in. I tried to ignore them, but alas, they didn’t go away! And once they started, it took a while for them to stop. They weren’t tears of sadness. They were more tears of anxiety and stress and just a complete feeling of being overwhelmed…Everything hit me all at once.




R tried his best to console me, but I really just needed a good cry. Things looked better Friday morning when I headed to pick up C at Gammy-Camp! R said he didn’t do a lot of sleeping on Thursday night because he was worried about me. In his state of unrest he came up with a new plan. After sharing his plan with me, we’ve decided to move forward with it. Here is the outline…




1. Our house was taken off the market.
2. We’re turning the former guest room into the twins’ room.
3. We’re turning the former computer room into a play room with a couch that folds out into a sleeper sofa. (This means that my living room will no longer be the unofficial play room! Yay!)
4. We’re having a large garage sale this weekend to get rid of superfluous items and furniture. The proceeds will go to the play room fund!
5. We’re having the back porch screened in and adding a dog door. This will be where the schnauzers sleep!
6. We’re buying a shed to have in the backyard that will house our lawn and garden goods so that both vehicles will fit in the garage.


So, all those plans make for much less stress for me. I’m actually very excited now about decorating the twins’ room and setting up the play room! Excitement is a much better feeling than anxiety and worry!




I began my 2nd trimester on Saturday (woo-hoo!) and will be going to the doctor on Thursday. I’ve got a list of questions waiting to go. He got off the hook easy last time since I was too stunned to have any questions!




Thanks, as always, for your encouragement through this journey! And here are the obligatory pictures of CLS taken on Saturday at my mom and dad’s house!


"Hello donkey! Hee-haaaawww!"


Up close and personal with 6 goats, 1 donkey and 1 llama--and not scared one bit!


Saturday, July 18, 2009

Spelling her name...

Here's one of the MANY things you'll learn after spending a week at Gammy-Camp! I could hardly believe it myself! (You may have to turn the volume up a little bit!)

Sunday, July 12, 2009

11 weeks, 1 day



Hello, friends. I had R take the above picture just to document my first official maternity wear of this pregnancy THIS morning before church. It isn't that I necessarily need it yet, it is just that my regular clothes are so uncomfortable that they seem to compound the nausea. You can see the baby pooch pretty clearly though. Or as R said, I've just been drinking a lot of beer when he's not looking.

Several of you have asked for an update, so here goes...

-My emotional state has evened out--Thank the Lord! I guess my body is learning how to deal with the hormones. My moods aren't as "all over the place" as they had been previously, and I feel like I've been easier to live with the past few days.

-I am still dealing with bouts of nausea. If my clothes are too tight around my middle or I get really hot or I don't eat enough or I eat too much or I ride in the car for too long...etc. then I start to feel really sick. It doesn't really go away unless I sleep it off. That isn't always easy to do, but we're managing.

-Our house will be going on the market tomorrow. R and my dad worked like crazy on Saturday to do tasks around the house and get it ready to go. The shrubs and flowerbeds have never looked so pretty. I am so thankful that my dad was able to help R since I'm pretty useless in that department right now! We are not looking for another house until ours sells. That is R's rule and I'm trying my best to follow it!

-Sweet C is spending the week with my parents. We call it "Gammy Camp"! They are having a blast. This is going to give me and R time in the evenings to get the house clean and looking its very BEST! And we know she isn't missing us! Her newest cute thing that she asks for is "chocolate milk". We've finally figured out that m&ms are "chocolate milk" to her! So sweet!

-Other than that, we've just been trucking along. I'll be in my second trimester one week from today (yippee!) and I'm praying that I'll get a little energy back as well as for the nausea to go far, far away. I go to the doctor again the week after next, so I'll certainly post an update then.

Everyone have a GREAT week!!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Beach Pics!

On vacation in Port A a few weeks ago, we had family beach pictures made. I'm going to post a few of my favorites! All pictures were taken by Amber of A. Leigh Photography!















Monday, July 6, 2009

We have NAMES! (sort of...)

Okay, so aside from all of the HUGE-life things we've had to consider since we got the news, we've also gotten to have a blast talking about names for two babies! I'm not the type to keep the names a secret until they are born, nor am I the type who will wait and "be surprised" by whether we've got boy/boy, boy/girl, or girl/girl.

My initials are CLS. C's initials are the same as mine. R's initials are RMS. It was my plan and goal to keep that up while continuing to incorporate special/family names as much as possible. These are the names we've pretty much set in stone.

If we have boy/girl...
Reid Michael: Reid because R loves Nolan Ryan, and I wouldn't go for the name Nolan, so his son is named Reid. Michael is R's brother's name. RMS.
Chandler Louise: Chandler because we both LOVE the name. Louise is my paternal grandmother's name. CLS.

If we have girl/girl...
In addition to Chandler Louise
Riley Marie: Riley is my maternal great-grandmother's maiden name AND my paternal grandfather's middle name. Marie is my maternal grandmother's middle name, my cousin's middle name, and BOTH of Ryan's grandmothers' middle name. RMS.

And if we have boy/boy...
In addition to Reid Michael
We aren't sure about this one. Hmmm.

Fun, fun, fun to think about them with names. It is continuing to get more and more real!

Friday, July 3, 2009

Rubber to the road...

Tomorrow I will be 10 weeks pregnant. As of yesterday, we have known about our impending "bundles" for exactly one week. What seems like a lifetime of thought has gone into the past week. As excited as we are and as much as we know what huge blessings are involved, we've both had our share of fear, stress, and even worry. There are some very practical concerns that come up when you "planned" to add an additional family member, and with one swipe of a sonogram you learn you'll be adding two at once. I've never been one to pretend things were roses when they were not. That is why I'm processing through some of my fears, stresses and worries on this blog.

1. I drive a Honda Accord. R drives a Dodge Ram pick-up. Both would easily accommodate another child. Neither will work for adding two more. We've begun the process of looking for a minivan. Thankfully, R has taken on this task because I don't have much patience for working with car dealers. There are very few late model minivans for sale. Which of our cars should we sell? How will it work to have one car that can accommodate the entire family and one car that will not? Is it silly to buy new? We think we've decided to sell the truck simply because it is the vehicle we do not own outright. We don't want to have 2 car payments. Should we try to sell it ourselves? How do you sell a car? What is involved?

2. When we purchased our home almost 5 years ago, we knew it was a great starter-house. It is just under 1500 square feet. We over-paid for it back then (hind-sight is 20x20), but have made improvements and kept it up really well. It would have been snug adding another child, but that was our plan. The thought of adding two more children to the small space makes my nausea return with a vengeance. We live in a very desirable school district and in a nice neighborhood. Should we try and sell our house? If so, should we try to do it ourselves (and increase our profit significantly) or let a Realtor handle the details (and take a huge chunk of the profit)? And of course, if we do sell it, where will we go? I don't need (or want) a house in the swanky subdivisions of our town. I'd be thrilled with an older home with more space and less claustrophobia. We desire to be good stewards of our money and would never want to move "just for the heck of it." We also desire to have space for our growing family. How do we know what we should do?

3. It has become a full-time job to keep myself fed. I'm working hard to keep my nausea at bay by eating regularly, all the while trying to keep my fears about gestational diabetes at bay. It is so hard when you know you have to eat, but you have concerns about every bite that goes into your mouth. Here's what I've eaten today...

2 scrambled eggs + 1 bowl Grape Nuts cereal + 3 strawberries (breakfast)
green grapes
2 slices Colby Jack cheese
a few walnuts
BBQ brisket sandwich + green beans (lunch)
Fuji apple
Walnut thumbprint cookie
Cheeseburger + sliced tomato salad + dill pickle (dinner)
6 cheese bagel bites
(And I'll probably have another bowl of cereal before bed because I'm already starting to feel hungry again!)

I'm trying to make healthy choices, but I'm eating CONSTANTLY. It is exhausting to think about planning my meals, snacks and drink choices ON TOP OF trying to keep my family well-fed and happy.

I'm not writing all of this so people will worry about me (mom). I just want to be open with my feelings and honest with myself. I covet your prayers as we try to make sound decisions for our growing family.

This whole process is a test of my faith. A test like I've never experienced before. Sure, I've had faith, but it is easy to have faith when you feel like you are calling the shots and know what is coming next. Before now, my faith has been like tires on a new car that have never touched the road. Looks nice, smells nice, deep tread. Now, I'm taking those tires on a cross-country journey and seeing what they can do. Rubber to the road.


Here's a picture of my "mimming" princess! This girl loves water SO much! We took her to the splash park near my parents house this week. I love that girl!