The Story of Two!

That's right folks, we're having twins. See below this post for pictures of the ultrasounds and a hilarious video Nathan put together last night. We're super excited...and not just a little overwhelmed! But wow, what a blessing! And now for the story that led up to us finding out about this kiddos. Night before last (Monday night) around 11:45 I started bleeding, so Nathan picked me up from work and took me to the ER. We were there for about 3 hours while I got poked and prodded, which was just a ton of fun. When the ER doc was examining me, she felt my uterus and said, "Dear Lord, your uterus is HUGE! Are you sure you're only 9 weeks along?" I assured her I was and none of us really thought about it again.

All of the tests were inconclusive, my pelvic exam looked good, and the bleeding had stopped so the doctor sent us home (at around 3 am) with orders to get an early ultrasound and see my OB in the morning. So off to the radiology department we went at 9 am (I had only slept about 2 hours by this time) and as soon as the tech started doing the ultrasound, he stopped, chuckled, pointed to the screen and asked, "What do you see?". I looked up and saw a couple of round circles that looked like two fried eggs next to each other, but didn't have a clue what that meant. He said, "Those are the crowns of two heads." TWO?!?!? Yep, twins. You can see exactly what we saw in the first ultrasound picture Nathan posted.

After that the xray tech examined my belly from every angle, and we got to see each baby moving its arms and legs and got to hear each of their heartbeats. Which, by the way, had to have been one of the most profound and moving moments of my entire life...actually, two of the most profound moments, one for each heartbeat. I just remember how terrified I was that something was going to be wrong and that I wouldn't hear my baby's heartbeat. Then to hear two heartbeats, both going strong, and to see my children's arms and legs moving. If your heart can break from happiness, that's surely what happened. I never thought I could fall so in love with something on a computer screen.

This would explain, however, why the heck I am already starting to show right below my belly button, why I've been so hungry non-stop, and why the ER doc exclaimed over my HUGE uterus. When our OB walked in the room after seeing the ultrasound pics, all he could do was grin and all we could do was grin back! Too much fun! He said that some slight bleeding is normal between 8-10 weeks, just as long as I don't start again. There's going to be a lot of planning to be done in terms of getting ready to have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery of these two kiddos and we're going to start meeting with a doctor at St. Luke's in Boise because the chances are pretty high that we will have to be life flighted there if I go into preterm labor.

We won't be able to find out the genders until around 20 weeks, but Nathan and I are hoping for either a boy and a girl or two boys. I mean, can you imagine having two girls going through puberty at the exact same time?! (shudder) But of course we will be wildly excited about whatever they turn out to be, as long as they stay healthy.

So yeah, I have twins...the girl who never even considered the possibility that I might someday have twins. Evidently Mom and Dad warned me that this was a possibility because of our family's history, but I think they told me that on the day I found out that I was pregnant and it just didn't sink in. According to my dad's mom, there are three sets of twins on her side and a set of twins on my grandpa's side. And evidently Nathan's grandma (dad's mom) has a brother who had twins. So we were "doomed" from the start!

As you look at the ultrasound picture of the top of both of their heads together, Baby B is sitting right below my belly button and Baby A is sitting right below Baby B. No, that's not what we're naming them, that's how the medical community refers to them. When we got to see each of them from the side, Baby A was the mover and shaker, constantly waving its hands and feet around. Meanwhile, Baby B was just hanging out, relaxing, only moving a little bit. I wonder if that is just a hint of things to come.

Wow...twins. Nathan and I just say that we like to do things differently, that's all.

TWINS!

Stress is EEEEVIL!

I honestly try to keep my posts on here as positive as possible, if for no other reason than to remind myself how good I have it. But the next two weeks are literally going to resemble Hell on Earth. Between now and May 25th, I am literally going to have 3 days which don't have anything scheduled in terms of work, rehearsal, performances, or Young Life.

This week's schedule consists of: Rehearsal & work Monday night; map training for work, rehearsal & work Tuesday night; rehearsal Wednesday night; work first day shift Thursday night and then rehearsal; fitting for my costume on Friday; yard sale fundraiser for Young Life on Saturday; church and a chance to breath on Sunday.

Next week: work Monday, rehearsal here in Baker; on Tuesday work, drive to Elgin (70 min away) for rehearsal, then drive back; on Wednesday is a dental appointment in the morning, then drive to and from Elgin for another rehearsal; Thursday, same as Wednesday without the dental appointment; Friday work until 4 pm, drive to Elgin, perform, drive back; Saturday same as Friday; Sunday I just work 6 am to 6 pm.

After that, it gets a little better because we only have two rehearsals and everything is here in Baker. Problem is, now I feel like the gal who does our scheduling at work is a little miffed with me, because I've had to request a couple of hours off here and there in order to go to these rehearsals/performances. And on top of that, I have my husband breathing down my neck, asking me why I need to go to these rehearsals, and no matter how I try to explain it, he doesn't get that I NEED these rehearsals. Otherwise I am not going to know my lines, my cues, my blocking, or my songs. You can't just stare at music or a script and have it all translate smoothly to the stage.

A big part of my stress is the fact that I feel like I am going to get up on the stage and draw a complete blank because I've missed so many rehearsals. We are 11 days (7 rehearsals) away from the play opening and there are still parts of the play that I haven't been been told the blocking on and songs that I have yet to hear! That may not seem like a big deal, but it's a HUGE deal.

The funny thing is that today started out as a wonderful day, even though I only got about 3 hours of sleep. I got laundry done, I did dishes, the sky was blue, it was about 70 degrees out, and I had a chance to finish the movie we started last night which I feel asleep 20 minutes into. But then my traitorous mind wouldn't let me stop thinking about my songs, my lines, work, and whether my husband is going to completely give up on me by the end of this whole extravaganza. All I can do is pray that we both get out of this with our wits intact. Afterall, after May 25th, life is (hopefully) going to be smooth sailing for another 6 months. And then our lives will change dramatically again when the kid shows up.

Maybe we should just think of this as training for the stress of having an infant in the house. Somehow I think I'll enjoy the infant more.

Woohoo!

So today I am exactly 9 weeks along. Which means that our baby has officially graduated from 'embryo' to a full fledged fetus!!!

Yes, when you're pregnant it doesn't take very much to get you completely giddy. Oh, and now the baby in my ticker on the right is looking decidedly more human like and less...alien. Excellent! According to "What to Expect When You're Expecting", the baby is about 1 inch long and is starting to develop its muscles this week.

This month holds a lot of anticipation...as if the entire pregnancy doesn't! Anyway, at the end of this month, we will get to see our first ultrasound, hear our baby's heartbeat for the first time, and I will finish my first trimester. Very exciting!

Sometimes it's incredibly overwhelming to think about all the things we need/want to get done before the baby comes in 7 months. But I try not to dwell on it too much, we'll get as much as we can done.

Anyway, Nathan should be up soon, at which point I get to go to bed. Have a great day everyone!

First OB Appointment

Hey everyone, sorry for the long wait between post but I've been waiting for something momentous to happen with the pregnancy and so far everything has been smooth sailing. I've only had two or three really small bouts of nausea, all right after waking up and none sticking around for very long. Usually it just takes a couple of saltine crackers to make it go away. Other than that, I'm still just knocked out by my constant fatigue. Seems like the only time I'm not exhausted is when I wake up at 2 am on my nights off, wide awake and unable to go back to sleep until about 8 am. Ah well, I guess that's for the best since I'm still on graveyard for another week and a half.

Yesterday I had my first OB appointment with Dr. Dan Smithson. Nathan took some time off and came with me, which was great. It was nice to have him there, although I sent him back to work before the oh-so-fun exam. This was the first time either of us met Dan (that's so much faster to type than Smithson) and I know I liked him right away! He's very relaxed and funny, which helped me relax. I got to ask him all of the questions that had occurred to me in the last 4 weeks, and he answered all of them. One of the questions was whether it would be safe for me to go on a small rafting trip with Nathan and my young life co-leaders when I'm at about 15 weeks, and it turns out that he is a big rafting fan too. Excellent.

The best part was when I asked him about the Bradley Method, which is a different approach to natural birth. Carly had mentioned it to me and when I did some research on it, I liked what I read. It's very focused on keep the birth as natural as possible and aimed towards avoiding c sections unless it's absolutely necessary. Don't worry, it's not so against drugs and c sections that it puts mom and baby in harms way if those things are necessary. But the method really focuses on keeping mom relaxed throughout the labor and listening to what your body needs. It also teaches the fathers to be coaches during the whole process, helping keeping mom as relaxed as possible. When I mentioned this to Dan, he first asked me what I knew and then told me that he has been involved in a lot of births using the Bradley Method and that he thinks it hits the nail on the head in almost every way.

He then went on to say that he is incredibly liberal when it comes to letting the mother decide what she wants to be doing during labor. The OB wing of our hospital is only 3 years old (brand new for Baker) and has things like birthing balls (basically just those big air-filled exercise balls), squatting bars, and even jetted bathtubs. Which is great since water relaxes me so much and has been proven to relieve a lot of labor pains. Dan said that they only hook the mother up to the monitors once an hour or so, and the rest of the time mom can be walking around, in the tub, pretty much wherever she wants to be. Evidently he is all about mom listening to her body and has even allowed moms to give birth squatting or on the birthing ball, with all his equipment laying on a sterile cloth on the floor.

I know this may all sound pretty strange and abnormal to some of you, but it very strongly resonates with the things I want and feel for my pregnancy and birth. I want to be in control of my labor and birth process as much as possible, and it sounds like Dan is going to let me do that. I want to be able to listen and work with my body, not fight against it. I want Nathan to be my partner and helper during this process. I don't want to be stuck on my back in a hospital bed attached to monitors for my entire labor. I realize that I have a pretty high probably of needing a c section, but if there's any way to avoid that, I believe this is it. And the fact that, in Baker, there's a doctor who is willing to let me do these this is nothing short of miraculous. So needless to say, I am extremely happy. If Nathan and I decide to do the Bradley Method, it will require us to travel to Ontario once a week for twelve weeks towards the end of my pregnancy, since that's where the closest classes are, but I think it will be so worth it.

The rest of the appointment was just as good. After getting the history questions out of the way (yay for having a clean medical history!) and finding out that all my labs came back normal, Nathan went back to work and I got to be examined. It was blessedly short, if incredibly uncomfortable and fairly painful. My next appointment is on May 21st, which will be when we get to hear the heartbeat of our little one for the first time! I'll definitely be counting down the days!

New Art

Hello Everyone this is Nathan. Thought I would share some new Photoshop art I am exploring. Enjoy! I think it has a printmaking kind of feel.

Just Have to Say...

My husband rocks! Would you look at that backyard?!?!?! He did it all by himself!

You're awesome, baby!