25+ weeks

I have officially been pregnant longer with this little girl than I was with the twins.  Those two sweet babies arrived at 24 weeks 6 days which was last Thursday for this pregnancy.  It was a strange day.  I felt excited to have made it that far, but also very nervous and anxious that I might go into labor.  Thankfully I had my 24 week doctors appointment that day so hearing that everything was going very well from my doctor helped ease my worries.

Baby girl had a heartbeat of 140, I measured 25 weeks and have been feeling great.

While I want her to cook as long as we can (hoping to make it to 37 weeks) I am starting to get overly anxious to meet her.  I can't wait to see what her face looks like.  Will she look like Birk or Addy?  For now, I'm trying my hardest to enjoy this pregnancy.  Being pregnant isn't the most fun, but does have some amazing moments that I want to make sure I savor and take in while they are happening.

P.S. Bring on the fall weather... this Mama is DONE with heat!  :-)

Bedtime routine

Every night since I can remember each and every night we are with the kids we follow the same bedtime routine.  It doesn't even have to be the same time of night... its just the same routine.  We get our jammies on (if we haven't been in them all day or we didn't put them on earlier), we brush our teeth, read a book or two if we have time and then get in to bed and start snuggling.  Nick will usually start with Birk and I start with Addy, then we switch.  When we have enough snuggles we get up and Nick and I both tell the kids...

'I love you, God Bless you, Goodnight!' 

Both reply to us saying 'I love you, God Bless you, Goodnight!'

Then it's lights out, close the door and we head to our room or downstairs.  What we've discovered if we stay around their room for a bit longer after closing the door is that we will hear sweet voices saying to each.....

Birk:  'Goodnight Addy.  I love you!  Sleep good.' 

Addy:  'Goodnight Birk.  I love you too!  You sleep good too!'

This happens every night and each night I feel a giant lump in my throat.  I hope that their bond lasts a lifetime.

Finding out #2

This round was VERY different than how we planned and found out we were expecting the twins.  With every day, doctors appointment, medication, procedure... we knew that we were working towards something.  This little one, however, came as a total surprise.  Read on to find out how we found out we were pregnant AGAIN!

It was sometime late March and I started feeling off.  I noticed I had less energy on my daily runs (I was logging some serious mileage and feeling great about myself).  I noticed I felt like I could go to bed at 7pm and most all food sounded horrible.  Nick had jokingly asked me to take a test, but I blew it off and went about my business.  I guess I just attributed it to the change of seasons.  Fast forward to April.  Still felt very crummy.. I even made it to Easter Sunday without even giving why I felt like this another thought.  I, however, must have spoken of it complained often enough that finally the night of Easter Nick put some serious pressure on the idea of taking a home pregnancy test.  I didn't agree, but also didn't disagree.  That Monday following was a tough one for me.  I had extreme nausea and just couldn't figure out what was wrong.  So that evening when Addy and I were at
Hy-Vee I decided I'd sneak over to the pharmacy and get the cheapest test that they had to offer (Hy-Vee brand which comes with 2 tests for a whopping $5.99).  The boys were at baseball practice and since I KNEW what the result would be I decided to go ahead and just take the test.  You see, I had taken many of these tests in my life, often with EXTREME HOPE, that it would be positive, but never saw a positive result.  This time the blue line INSTANTLY came through.  I stood there looking at it dumbfounded.  I texted Nick and asked him to call me right away.  A few minutes later my phone rang and I answered saying 'it's positive!'  On the other end Nick goes... 'what's positive?'  So I came clean.  I told him I bought a test, took it because I knew it would be negative and clearly I must be reading it wrong because I think it says positive.  I told him I'd take a picture and send it to him for him to read.  He would obviously know better! 

So the picture was sent.  And I waited.  Poor Nick was helping coach at baseball practice.  So he was feeling anxious about seeing the test... and having to wait until a good time.  I finally received a response back that said 'it seems pretty obvious to me!'  Well, I wasn't convinced yet.  I clearly had purchased a faulty test.  So when the boys got home I dragged Nick upstairs to witness the reading of the 2nd test.  SAME RESULT... and JUST AS QUICK.  So now, I knew that Hy-Vee tests weren't good quality and I needed to drop a little more money on a more quality test.  I ran to Walgreens that night, but decided to wait until the morning to take it.  I woke up nice and early and took the test... and you guessed it... POSITIVE!! 

It took some time to adjust to the idea that we were pregnant.  And we got pregnant ON OUR OWN!  No medication, NO doctors, no tearful nights spent wondering if it would happen.  It just happened.  God works in funny ways sometimes.  You see this time we were now faced with emotions of shock, disbelief and even worry... the twins are 8.  We found ourselves asking if we could do this?  Can we go back to the baby stages?  The answer is yes.  We are thrilled to experience another miracle. 

God is GOOD.  All.  The. Time. 

Attached pictures
The first picture is the one I sent to Nick asking him to read it, and the second is all the tests!!! 

 

Finding out #1

I realized the other day that I am not sure I have ever blogged about finding out how we were pregnant with this sweet little girl... then it got me thinking, have I ever told how we found out with the twins?  I haven't... and I have a good excuse.  In some ways maybe I felt embarrassed at the adventure that we had with the twins.  So, here goes...

Nick and I had been married for 3 years or so.  We knew we always wanted kids, but also knew that we might run into some issues.  We started 'trying' knowing it might take us a while.  About a year into trying, we knew that we weren't having much luck and quite frankly were becoming very discouraged.  So we began to seek help.  We worked with my general doctor, then my OBGYN... both of which had things we could try, but nothing worked.  Finally, we knew if I was going to carry a child that we would have to go further.  We began seeing Dr. Cooper at Mid Iowa Fertility.  Dr. Cooper had a few quick things to try, but ultimately laid out the plan for us... which would include IVF.  We started with oral drugs, some small procedures to help stimulate our bodies to work together.  Nothing worked.

So we moved to more advanced drugs... and then we got the call.  The call that forced us to make one of the toughest decisions... and quickest decisions of our lives.  The drugs worked.  I had ovulated... and ovulated a lot.  Dr. Cooper said we had one of two options.  Either do nothing and stay away from each other for a while... or we could convert to IVF.  Essentially he would take all the eggs I produced, find the best most viable ones and fertilize those with the strongest of Nick's little swimmers.  We didn't know what to do.  Where would we get the money?  Were we ready for IVF?  I mean I had ovulated... we had success... did we want to go this far this soon?  We called my parents who we knew would help us make this decision.  As I was telling my mom the story and frantically telling her we had one hour to decide (because anyone who has ever done any sort of fertility treatment knows that time is of the essence) my Dad yelled over to her and said the words that I will never forget.  'You convert it.  Those are your babies!'  So we called Dr. Cooper and within an hour we were back in the office and we had begun the process (also, it was a Sunday night.. that is how dedicated these doctors/nurses are at Mid Iowa Fertility).

To make a very long story short... here is how the next month or so played out....

• Wait 5 days to let the eggs become fertilized
• Get a call with the # of eggs that were viable.. (We had 5, 2 of which were STRONG, 3 not so strong)
• Implant the 2 strong eggs (with the hopes that at least one will take)
• Wait TWO WEEKS (longest 14 days of my life) to see if I was even pregnant
• Go to the office on a Saturday morning for a pregnant test
• Wait a couple hours for the results
• Receive a call (while your packing your husband up to go tailgate in Ames) where the nurse tells you that you are pregnant and your numbers are strong.  

Receiving that call was the most exciting thing I had ever experienced.  We wanted this SO BAD.  We didn't plan for it to be this path, but it made sense and about month later we would again have good news telling us that we were pregnant with twins.  BOTH EGGS TOOK!  

So there it is.  It was a battle we fought together with many tears, many moments of not knowing what we were going to do.  However, God works his miracles through the doctors who supported us along this journey.  The times we cried together thinking we'd never get pregnant.  The moment we heard those words 'you're pregnant.'  

God is good.  All the time. 

Stay tuned for my next post on how we found #2....