My Poor Attempt to Update.......!

                                                               12 Weeks! (2 weeks ago!)
Tom and I are excited about our expectation of TWINS to our family but no doubt that this reality comes with a little anxiety at least for me!  When I think naively, as a new mom does, of having two little precious babies to cuddle I am very excited!  But when I think of all the work, as an experienced mom, I become overwhelmed in my thoughts of caring for two vs one and still wanting to be the best mom I can be to my first precious gift from God!  At times I have cried over the overwhelming thoughts of it and yet I don't want to be unthankful for these precious gifts!  My husband ALWAYS lovingly reminds that God has provided these two babies and blessed us in that and He will provide for us in our needs for them and our strength and our patience comes from God alone.  Another dear friend reminded me over tea that God would never bring anything into our lives that would be detrimental to Titus as I worry about being a great mom to him while caring for two infants.  It is funny to me how many women have told me "I always wanted twins!" and I think "Really?, the reality of it just seems a bit overwhelming to me!"  We both have always thought that twins is something that happens to other people but we wouldn't have them ourselves!

My pregnancy with them has been one of feeling great thus far!  My biggest challenge has been sleeping and I think from not getting enough sleep at times I seem to have minor headaches now and then.  But I have been blessed in both pregnancies to be able to eat what I want whenever I want and not suffer from morning sickness!  I am naively excited about getting a little further along when I can feel them both moving, I say naively cuz I am sure at some point the size of my belly will just be an unbearable discomfort and I will just want them to be born.  But I always have thought pregnancy and feeling that life in you is one of the most amazing gifts God has given to women!  I have felt them move now and then already, starting around 11 weeks was when I first knew it was them moving and not something else!

Titus continues to just grow up so fast!  He is gaining in his vocabulary with words like "ca" for car, "ball", "Pooh" when he sees Winnie the Pooh, "tee" for teeth and a few others but those are his most used!  He understands so much like "time to brush your teeth" and "time for a nap or bed", he runs to those places to 'do' those things!  Last night he slept with 3 balls in his crib with him!  He loves to watch both basketball and football, and practice those different 'throws'.  Even from watching hockey he likes to find something to push the balls around on the floor with like he is playing the game!  He loves to eat just about anything, veggies are his biggest struggle while fresh fruits are his favorite, but he will eat or try just about anything else you put in front of him!  I tried to get him onto drinking cows milk by putting Nesquik in it, the least amount I could and it still taste like chocolate and that lasted about 2 weeks and then he didn't really enjoy it anymore.  But he loves water so that is great!  I haven't even desired to introduce him to juice, he can discover that on his own, his Pediatrician said it doesn't really do anything beneficial for them and eating fresh fruits is much better because of the fiber than drinking the juice alone so we'll just stick with that as long as we can!

Well obviously we are going to have to move from our 2 bedroom place before these babies come!  We feel most comfortable and at peace continuing to rent a place, we already have to buy a car that will fit all of us with the 3 car seats we will have and with the twins coming this year we feel that those two things are big enough to take on without a house payment and all the responsibility that comes with owning!  We feel we would have a little more financial freedom if we continued to rent rather than own.  We have looked at a few places and none of them either seemed big enough even as 3 bedrooms or they are too old with things outdated that we are not comfortable with with small children around!  We have one lead that we are waiting and praying for!  A man in our church approached Tom about a split level house him and his wife rent out in a nice location of town near our church!  It has 3 bedrooms plus a bonus room with 2 bathrooms, a gas fireplace downstairs, a dishwasher and lino on the dining room floor!  We currently have carpeting in our dining room which is ok with 1 child but I don't think is so wise with 3 and I have not had a dishwasher in the last 6 years I've been in this place!  It also has a nice yard and is on a quiet street!  We haven't seen the inside of it yet and they currently get $1000 for rent plus the tenant pays all the utilities but he said they would be willing to negotiate on the rent!  Our current budget only allows for around $1000/month to put towards all of that and we would be living pretty tightly for a while til Tom gets a raise.  He was going to find out what is paid in the current utilities and set a time for us to look at it and then we can talk!  We probably wouldn't be able to move in there until July as the current renter is staying until school gets out for her kids.  So we are very hopeful on this place and looking forward to see what God has for us no matter where it is!

38 weeks & Progressing!

Well we are up to 38 weeks now and I did make some progress this week at my appointment. I got to see Dr. Burke which was nice because there were some questions we had since we are getting closer! He said I was still at 2cm dilated but now 90% effaced. And he said the baby's head was still right there along with my bag of waters right there too! He guesstimated the baby's weight to be around 7 1/2 to 8 lbs right now by gently palpating my belly :) So he actually said that if I make it to next Wednesday he would suggest that we go a week early to prevent the baby from getting too big for me to deliver as a first timer! Only baby knows how long it will be though, it may not even be through the weekend here! The days at work are getting long for me, I am still full time at the vet clinic and want to stay that way til the baby comes because I won't be going back. But the nights are even longer, getting up to potty four times in the night drags it out! I am so excited for the next season of my life to be a mom. It is amazing how God works and changes our hearts, we went from being in shock for about 2 months that we were pregnant so soon after getting married to anxiously awaiting our sweet little one's arrival. Actually I think I was in more shock than Tom, he has seemed to be excited from the very beginning. Now I am just anxious for the arrival to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl, most people think it will be a boy and part of me hopes it's a girl only because I think it would be funny if "they" were all wrong. But either way we are both very excited. Anyway I will go for now, if the baby comes sooner than my next appointment I will do my best to post before next week just because I know all will be waiting to see how cute the baby is! Oh and my toes were done by a nice girl at the Modern Beauty School, don't worry I couldn't reach them myself!

37 Weeks (FULL TERM!)

Well today is week number 37 which is considered full term even though my due date is 21 days away! I am going to get Daddy to coax the baby to come early because we are so anxious to meet the precious little life. He talks to the baby every morning before we get out of bed and usually again in the evening, I know that the baby will have no problem recognizing his voice once he/she is born. Aw, I am so excited. I had another check up yesterday but my Doctor was in surgery and his Nurse was going to just see me but not check me. But since I was expecting to be checked and Tom had come too she sent in the Nurse Practitioner to actually check me. She was really nice but I almost wanted to cry because she was palpating the baby in my belly as I'm laying on my back which already hurts so bad to be in that position when you are so far along. And then with the heartbeat monitor she was pressing that around on my belly to find the heartbeat and make sure she could hear it really clearly. Then she checked me and since she is a woman and is smaller than a man, she REALLY had to check me and at the same time she was pushing on my abdomen from the outside! I WANTED TO CRY! When she left I told Tom I would never ask for that again if it wasn't Dr. Burke. He is amazing when it comes to that just because he is so gentle about it AND quick.
On Tuesday night my sister in law, Carolyn, had planned a girls night/pampering session for me with her and two of my closest friends, Rachelle and Daisy. She made us a really good homemade soup and salad and Rachelle made the best cornbread muffins ever. We just sat at the table talking about baby/children stuff and we were laughing so hard I thought I was going to go into labor then but that would have been just fine according to a dream that Rachelle had about her and Daisy delivering my baby. Daisy was this amazing surgeon in her dream and just unzipped me like a pea pod and delivered the baby who was a boy with dark curly hair and with darker toned skin. And then Carolyn proceeded to inform me that there in a black person way back in Toms family! Oh my, we were all laughing so hard. Then they had brought some gifts for baby too which was really nice because as far as any outfits, we didn't really have anything yet, just some onesies basically. But now we are set for a little while till probably a shower comes along sometime after the baby comes.
Tonight I am going to a breastfeeding class that the hospital offers for free which I am excited about because well ya know when you haven't ever done something before it is nice to know ahead of time what to expect and I really want it to work for us because it is so much healthier for the baby and it is free food for the baby!

36 Weeks & Progressing!

Where has the time gone, pregnancy really does go fast you know. Maybe next week I will be singing a different tune but we are getting close and really the baby could come at any time! Yesterday at my check up, my cervix was checked and I am dilated (the amount that the cervix has opened) to 2 cm out of 10 cm and my effacement (the thinning out of the cervix) is 50% out of 100%! I wasn't really expecting to hear that because not much has been happening so it seems to me. I think Tom and I were both shocked and Dr. Burke said the head was right there and he was pushing on it! He said "You are locked and loaded and ready to go!" And if the baby decides to come he wouldn't stop it at this point. So our job this weekend is to get our hospital bags packed and clean out our cars so we are ready to go at anytime with the car seat and diaper bag. We still need to go get our diaper bag and the things that should go in it for the baby! Dr. Burke said he would just see me next week for my next check up if not before! Yikes!
I could tell the baby had finally dropped this last weekend when I was moving really slow and waddling a lot. I felt like everywhere I went I was the slowest person getting there! Tom was very good about adjusting his pace to walk with me :)
Well since my appointments are now weekly until the baby comes I am going to try to write at least that often with a picture so you can know and see my progress!

34 Weeks Today

Well today is the beginning of week 34 and my weekly email from Baby Center is telling me the that the baby is around 4 3/4 lbs. and about the size of an average cantaloupe! I think the baby is bigger, cuz my belly sure looks and feels bigger than that. I had another check up yesterday and all is good, babies heart sounded good and the doc said I looked good. He said that at my next visit (in 2 weeks) he would be checking my cervix! Yikes that means we are getting close! We still have to get the babies room ready, although when I was working on Saturday Tom did put the crib together! It has been sitting in the box in our hallway since it came and I came home from work and the box was gone and the babies room door was shut so I knew something was up! He put it all together, we just need to get all the boxes of "stuff" out of there. We got one of those 4 in 1 cribs that was rated well by consumer reports and I will have to take a picture of it when it is all complete with a mattress and bedding stuff. It is not only a crib, but a also a toddler bed, daybed and full size bed when converted. So it should last us a while til we need to use the crib again for the next baby Lord willing.
Today is National Day of Prayer and our church had a good time of prayer and worship tonight that we participated in after work and then they had a chili dinner afterwords. It was good to pray over the different things we were led through, our families & marriages, our schools, our church and our government. It was good to be reminded that when we participate in prayer we are showing our trust in God for those things. Even if it seems they are beyond help from our perspective, they are not out of Gods grasp or control.

32 Weeks Today

I had a check up yesterday again and all is good. Dr. Burke said my belly is measuring for 33 weeks but he thinks I look an average size. Lil muffins heartbeat sounded good. My good friend Daisy tried to come with me, she recommended Dr. Burke to me because he had delivered all her babies and yesterday was the first time that she had off work and Tom was not coming with. But we waited in the waiting room for 40 minutes together and she needed to go rescue the babysitter and then I got called into the appointment about 5 minutes after she left. They put me in the room with the ultrasound too and I bet if Daisy would have been with, Dr. Burke would have asked us if we wanted to see what the baby was up to. He did one time when my cousin Lauren came with me and never charged for it because he didn't print any picture or anything. Anyway I think lil muffin really likes the sound of daddy's voice, when Tom talks to the baby lately, he/she will start kicking and moving around. I love it, it is so amazing.
We are packing tonight to go on Spring Retreat this weekend with the high school kids. We are very excited, this is my favorite event with the students that we do all year. We always go up to this Experimental Forest that the University owns where there are old train car cabins to stay in with bunk beds and pot belly wood stoves in each cabin. You get cold by morning if you don't keep that fire going! Of course I am taking our queen size double blow up mattress to sleep on and praying for some sleep on that. I am sure the six girls in my cabin will be very attentive to lil muffin and I, they all love lil muffin. I will be sure to report early next week with the report of the event. We are praying for a refreshing, relaxing time for the students and for God to continue working in their hearts and this is the first event of the year where upcoming freshman get to come along to begin their transition into the high school age youth group. Pray with us.

Birthing Class!!!

Today we had our birthing class that we chose to take at Community Medical Cent. where our baby will be born. It came highly rec. from our OB, Dr. Burke. It was very informative Tom and I both thought and we practiced breathing and other techniques to relieve back pain now and during labor :) Which I experience a lot now in my lower back and today I found out why it is down there :) We also watched a lot of videos and got to see five births that were done without medication and got to see one with an epidural & a c-section! I have been adamant from the beginning that I am not getting an epidural, I hate needles & don't really like the thought of one going into my spine! Yikes! And you know all of those videos just confirmed my decision and as long as me and the baby are safe throughout labor I am going to stick with my decision. I believe I can do it and the Lord will give me the strength to do it. There were 7 other couples in the class and we were the only ones who has not found out the sex of our baby! Anyway that was the bulk of our day today, 9-4:30ish, a lot of information and we toured the labor and delivery where we will go when it comes time! I feel much more prepared now that I am informed of all my options. Some of the videos almost made me cry, when the baby comes out and is given over to the mother to hold and she is holding the most beautiful of all God's creation that she just did all that hard work for, wow God is splendid in His creative ability.
I wanted to take some good belly picks for you all this week since I just had an appointment on Tuesday. Which went well, everything is good thus far and now I actually start going every 2 weeks to see the Doc.! Getting closer!

30 Weeks and Counting

Today we are 30 weeks along in our pregnancy! We are pretty excited for our little muffin to arrive in about 10 weeks! This has been an exciting journey that the Lord has taken us on in our almost 9 months of marriage. God's planning is perfect though, the timing of the year to be pregnant with the different stages of pregnancy. And He has been good in just the blessing of the experience as a first time mom, I have had really no complaints thus far. Now I am just getting huge, I feel, and can't believe I have 10 weeks to go. With that comes discomfort in sleeping, getting in and out of the car & tying your shoes. But if that is my only complaint is my size, I will be able to tell my baby what a great baby he/she was before they were even born. I have been feeling increased movement this week, it is really quit amazing to experience the life inside you growing & becoming active.

Last Wednesday, the 31st, it was Spring Break for the students we volunteer with at our church high school youth group and some of the students were hiking the M in place of yg and Tom & I joined them! My unspoken goal was to to it without stopping but we got a little distracted by the fox & mule deer we saw up there. There are 13 switchbacks on this trail and your elevation gain is 620ft., I was pretty proud of myself since I have not been exercising very much during my pregnancy.