Bedrest Day 3

Well, not a whole lot goes on while on bedrest! At some in point in my life I probably would have thought laying in bed having all the time in the world sounded pretty good. However, its boring, and when everyone is at work there is no one around. And also, when it involves the possible well being of two baby boys, then its not so fun. I am still having some contractions, but not as many or as strong as before so we will see what they say about that at our appointment. I know having some once in awhile is normal, but I guess I am just a little nervous still at this point. For now, we are trying to stay as positive as we can for the babies (who I THINK we have officially named). I am just trying to count these days as each day that passes the babies are that much older and hopefully stronger!

Danny knows that I am really bummed about more than likely (I have to have a little hope, even if I know it wont happen :)  not being able to go on our annual memorial day camping trip with our friends and our 4th of July camping with the fam so he went and got a firepit to put on our patio so I can lay in our lawn chairs and pretend like I'm camping :) I think some friends are coming over this afternoon/evening so it will be nice to see them!

I know I have already said this, but we are SO blessed to have family around to help out and check in on me. I can't imagine still being in Seattle and not having them around!

The view from here...

Russell is glad to take part in bed rest

Thankful

Well, the babies and I are awake. They were hungry and I can't sleep. We go to UW Monday morning at 7:15, so you can keep that in your thoughts and prayers! When laying around you have a lot (too much) time to think. I find myself thinking about all the "what ifs". And while I guess it is okay to consider and be prepared that some of those things may happen I have to not let myself get caught up in what could happen. So these are a few of the things I am thankful for today:
- The little collection of baby stuff that arrived in my garage a few days ago. My auntie brought some things over from eastern washington and my Dad went and picked it up and delivered it to us. It was like Christmas morning when I went out there! We now have another crib, a changing table, bouncy seat, and a swing! We are grateful that people have passed things along to us that they don't need anymore!

- My dear hubby who works all day and then comes home and makes dinner and waits on his wife :) I love him and appreciate all he does so much!

- I am VERY thankful that we have family and friends around. I know I will need a lot of help, before AND after babies. I found breakfast delivered on my porch this morning - thanks mom! Christine, my sis-in-law also stopped by and dropped off a cute little basket of yarn, crochet needles, a word puzzle book and chocolate! We questioned our moving up here a few times and now it seems to be pretty clear that God had a plan for us before we knew how or why. There was a job opening for me, in the area I wanted to work in with the schedule that I wanted, so that we could move up here. We also found a house that was well within our price range the weekend that we started looking. Not to mention almost all of my family is within 5 minutes of our house, which is handy :) And now we are realizing that we are going to need them all close by!

- I am glad that I feel the babies moving. They move a LOT and its just a nice little reassurance.

- I am also thankful for netflix! We recently canceled our TV service because we never really watched it and we were trying to cut back. Netflix will probably be my good friend for the next little while!

- I am also thankful for my friends who check up on me, sweatpants, and Edaleen Dairy ice cream :)

Not What I had in Mind...

 I was planning a "hooray, 20 weeks, halfway!" post, and yes we ARE 20 weeks so hooray! The babies are moving a LOT and Danny even got to feel his first kick. I was laying on the couch the other day and felt something pushing so I felt my stomach and sure enough, there was a little baby part of some kind pushing out. I'm not sure if it was a head, foot, elbow or what but it was definitely there!
However, I went to my OB today and it didn't go quite how I had hoped. There is a small calcium deposit in Baby A's heart, which is the least of the worries right now, it usually goes away on its own. We had been with the ultrasound tech for almost an hour and she kept looking and looking and focusing on the membranes (the bubble) that the babies are in. So she looked some more and kept measuring and then she pointed out how Baby A has a wide open space full of fluid. Baby B's space is tiny, with not very much fluid. Then she said she needed to measure my cervix. I had been having some contractions after work a couple days ago but I figured they were just the Braxton Hicks people always talk about, even though I was having quite a few. And I knew I had the appointment the next day so I tried not to worry about it too much. So basically 1) They are worried about Baby B and the fact that he doesn't look like he has enough fluid. They think it may be twin to twin transfusion. The babies share a placenta and some blood vessels so what can happen is one twin is sort of a like a "donor" and one is a "recipient" so one baby doesn't get enough blood flow and the other gets too much and they can grow differently 2) My cervix is shortening and opening, which also isn't good.
For now, they are sending us back to UW next week to get more ultrasounds to see if it is twin to twin transfusion and to see if my cervix changes. Hopefully they can give us a better idea of what is going on and what the plan is from here on out. I am back in bed and not working, its possible that I may be done working for good. Definitely not the "everything looks good" I was hoping for. We are a little nervous, but hoping that bed rest (aaaaaaah) will help the babies continue to grow and stay in there until they are big enough to come out. We know that we will do whatever it takes for the babies.
At this point, I lay in bed and rest and pray that the babies decide to start behaving! We know that God gave us these babies for a reason and that he is in control. That is an easier thing to say than to live, but we are doing our best. We just want our babies to be okay. So, for now, I lay around, watch movies and eat and drink lots of fluids. We are trying to stay positive and hope that they saw this early enough that we can do what we need to to keep the babies growing.
It was good to see the babies moving around in there and it is reassuring that I definitely feel them moving around a lot. Both babies are head down, Baby A is on the left and Baby B on the right. I have some pictures that I will put up later sometime. Please pray for us, that my body will cooperate and be a good home for the babies and that the babies will continue to grow and stay in there a lot longer and that we will trust God to take care of us!

Easter Sunday - He is Risen!

Easter morning started off with breakfast at church and then the Easter service after. We came home for a quick rest and then went to lunch at Mom & Dad's. We decided to forgo the traditional Easter lunch and went for BBQ sliders and pulled pork, baked beans, fruit salad, and potato salad. Mmmmm.

The spread

The kids ready for finding eggs!

Chuck "helping" hide the Easter eggs (pocketing the candy)

Saturday Projects

We didn't get too much done around the house this weekend...Danny went to Seattle for his friend Andy's birthday. It is a "Cowboy & Indian" themed party so one of my projects was to make him an Indian costume to wear. Here he is trying on his outfit (and yes he knows I put the picture on here, haha).

He later added a bow & arrow to his ensemble

 Since tomorrow is Easter, Danny is just making a quick trip and is leaving early in the morning to make it back for church and lunch with the family. He has decided that the lawn is his project this spring/summer so he put some fertilizer on the lawn and then watered it. We'll see if it grows a little better!

I didn't do a whole lot this weekend, I did plant pick the weeds out of my little front garden and plant a few flowers. I also ordered the bedding for the cribs! It was a little expensive since we had to buy two sets, but we have gotten a lot of our other stuff handed down to us our at second hand stores so we decided on a little splurge. Plus, I really like it and its pretty neutral so if we have any more kids we can use it again!

The rest of the day I spent at Michelle's Easter concert at church, and then my friend Kim came up from Seattle so we went to the Lynden Dutch Bakery for strawberry rhubarb pie (yum). Then, it was SO nice out so we pulled the lawn chairs out of the garage and soaked up a little sun!! I finished the afternoon off with the first spring/summer BBQ at Karen and Josh's! Now I am ready for bed :)

Jordan waiting for the concert to start

Michelle getting ready to sing!

19 weeks

Time is starting to go faster now, we are almost halfway! An update for this week:
- The babies are the size of mangoes
- I have gained 20 lbs and my belly is 35 inches around :)
- People say I have started to waddle
- I have actually been feeling a lot better this trimester than last so that has been nice (besides being sleepy, but I like naps!)
- The little baby flutters have been turning into little baby pokes and I think Danny will be able to feel them pretty soon!
- We have an OB appointment next week to make sure the babies are still playing nice and sharing their food and growing the same and also to finish their anatomy ultrasound

 In other news: We went to Edaleen Dairy for the first time since last summer and they had birthday cake ice cream!!! I'm sure I will be spending a lot of time there this summer. Or maybe I can get them to deliver? :)

Saturday Projects

This week's Saturday (and Sunday) Projects included painting the babies room. The room was yellow (like the entire rest of our house) so we painted the ceiling white and the walls a light brown/tan. We have one crib from a consignment store and we are inheriting another one from one of my aunties. As soon as the paint is all dry we can start moving our little piles of stuff we are gathering into the room! And now that we are done, I hope we don't have to do any painting again for a long, long time.

I have also accumulated quite a collection of stuff from middle school, high school, and college so I have been working on putting the things that I want to keep in scrapbooks and then parting with the rest. I finished the high school book so I just need to make one for college and maybe one for elementary/middle school.

I also planted a few things for my garden. I probably should have waited a little longer since we just had snow last week, but i just put them in little starter pots and then I can move them later. I know I probably won't actually be doing much with a garden, if anything it will be more like a container garden, but when the sun finally comes out it makes me happy and I want to plant things :)

Our next projects will probably include:
- Extending our little patio out to the corner of the house
- Cleaning out the garage
- A fence...this one may not happen, we need to see how much it will cost. Right now we have a nice dirt/grass hill behind our house but they are rapidly building houses and I have a feeling we will have one right behind us sooner rather than later, so a fence would be nice.
Flowers in my garden :)

Twin Onesies

There are a lot of funny clothes for twins out there so just for fun, here are some of my favorites :)

 

18 Weeks and SNOW!?

Not too much to report this week, the babies are the size of sweet potatoes! I had to go up a size in my scrubs this week. I also had my first stranger ask me how far along I was and then a few days later a whole bunch of my patients were commenting too. I must have gotten noticeably bigger? Up until a few days ago nobody said anything and now lots of people are asking. I went to the dentist yesterday and the hygienist made a comment and when I said that it was twins she was so distraught. She kept telling me that everything would be okay and asking how much family I had around to help me because I would need them all. I think she was more worried about it than I am. I must have really made her frazzled because she was cleaning my teeth and I kept seeing water dripping from the ceiling and finally I realized that one of her tools was spraying water like a fountain all the way up to the ceiling! It was good entertainment at least. Poor lady, hope she doesn't lose too much sleep over the babies tonight!

In other news, we got paint for the room so we will probably be working on that this weekend. We haven't settled on any names yet and when we do we will probably keep them a secret! We have our next OB appointment in 2 weeks. It really has been nice to not go in every week, but we will also be happy to get to see our babies again. And, it SNOWED this morning!

Saturday Projects

Saturdays have become our work days since, as previously mentioned, I don't accomplish a lot after I get home from work (other than napping). So this weekend we finished painting the primer on in the baby room and picked out a paint color for the room.

And, since all last year Danny used one of these (that we borrowed  from Joel) to mow the lawn, we decided it was time for an upgrade. So off we went to True Value and got a brand new push mower. Danny got it all set up and away he went! First lawn mowing of the spring!

 I feel like we have been getting quite a few of our little projects done that we have been wanting to do for some time but never quite get around to (we have been talking about the lawn mower since LAST spring). It helps that the weather is finally (sort of) getting nicer and it is good motivation that we also have a little bit of a deadline to get some of these things done before the babies come!

And this wasn't a project of mine, but I do like to reap the benefits of fresh eggs! Mom got 24 new baby chicks and she stopped by so I could see them!

Twin baby chickies :)

Next up is the kitty door in our garage for Russell, who is beginning his transition to outside kitty. Right now he thinks the baby things we are collecting are his. We always find him sleeping in the bottom of the bassinet. I taught him everything he knows about napping :)

"Just for a Minute"

I have heard that in the 2nd trimester people usually start to get a little energy back. I'm not sure that has happened with me. I come home from work and tell myself I am just going to rest for a minute and then I wake up one, two, or three hours later...oops! I've always been a good napper and required a lot of sleep but now I am a really, really good sleeper! Let's just say I don't always get a lot done around the house after work

17 weeks

- This week the babies are the size of onions, around 5 inches and about 6 oz!
- I have grown out of the majority of my clothes and am officially wearing maternity pants
- My belly is 34 inches and I have gained 15 lbs. My belly button popped out! I have an outie
- I have been able to feel the babies moving around for the last week or so. I wasn't sure at first as it just kind of feels like a little bubble in there or little flutters.
- I switched from working four 10 hour shifts to four 8 hour shifts at work
- I really haven't been having too many weird cravings yet. I just want macaroni and cheese and chocolate milk a lot :)

We actually got some sun yesterday (my day off!) and it was SO nice. I really wanted to get outside so I went to survey the yard situation after the long winter. We have one little corner of the yard right next to the house that is shaded by the house and it apparently filled with weeds over the winter. I pulled all the weeds out only to find that there is no grass left there anymore! Just dirt and some patches of grass. Poor lawn! We might need to find some kind of plant that grows in the shade to replace the grass. Anyway, I am looking forward to the rest of spring! Normally I can't wait for summer, but it can take its time this year since I am going to be quite large and don't know how I will handle the heat.
And lastly, I have a wonderful hubby who knows just what I like. He came home from work with a gerber daisy and my favorite Haagen Dazs ice cream White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle!!

Accomplished!

After a slow start to our Saturday, we got a lot of things done today! We have had an ongoing list for some time that we haven't quite gotten around to since we've been a little busy lately. We started with a little housework and then my dad came over to put a door looker (peephole?) in our front door. It always drove me crazy that I could never see who was coming to the door, so now I can! Thanks Dad!

My mom and Karen were down the street painting my niece's room but ran out of paint and couldn't get more. They had extra primer and they were on a roll so they asked if I wanted them to come primer the baby room while they were at it. We weren't really planning on painting for awhile (we don't even have a color picked out yet), but I won't turn down willing help! So Danny moved his computer desk to the dining room where it was going to go eventually anyway, and we taped off the room. So the primer is (almost) all taken care of and now we just have to pick a paint color! We are starting to accumulate a bit of baby stuff so it will be nice to be able to put it in the babies room. We have a baby room!
Danny spent some time moving furniture, cleaning his BBQ, and fixing the headlight in his car.

We have started to get a few things for the babies from friends, family, and my mom finds a lot of good things at 2nd Chance (the Lynden Christian thrift store!). We got two carseats from another nurse who also had twins that have since outgrown them. So I spent a little time cleaning the carseats and a bassinet we also got. So those are all ready to go! I've always been a planner and someone who liked to be prepared. Obviously we aren't going to have everything ready, but I figure the more we can get ready in the next couple months the better! Thanks mom and Karen!

My last project was to finally, after 2 months, put up my curtains! I got new curtains but they were too long so I had to shorten them. I only got around to one for awhile so I finally finished fixing up the 2nd one! Yay!

After a hard day of work we had Danny BBQ some hamburgers on his new clean grill for the work crew. I am pretty tired, but glad that we got a lot of things done!!