And Then There Were Four...(part 1)

I always said that when I have children, I would have a natural birth. Why? Because my tolerance for pain is so high- it would be a snap!

However, that high tolerance for pain is what landed me in the hospital at only 30 weeks into my pregnancy.

For a couple of weeks I had been working long hours at work and going to meeting after meeting after meeting. I was exhausted and noticed that the long hours were taking a toll on my body. I also noticed that I seemed to be losing control of my bladder (or so I thought) because I would often find that my pants felt wet while going to my next meeting. It was totally embarrassing- so I never mentioned it.

Around Memorial Day weekend, we found ourselves still unpacking and moving into our new home and also putting together nursery furniture. It was a lot of work and by the time the nursery furniture was built- I found that I was so uncomfortable that I didn't think I'd sleep again until I finally got the babies out of me. Luckily, I had a scheduled visit to the doctor the day after Memorial Day- so I could ask the doctor then for something to help me sleep.

Once I arrived at the doctor he came in the room, took one look at me, and told me that I was having extreme contractions and that I was not wetting my pants- I had been leaking fluid! Here I had been going weeks thinking that my tight belly and loss of bladder control was just a part of being pregnant and instead I was in labor!

Thus began Desmond & Amélie's Wild Ride as Matt called it.

From that moment on everything was in fast forward. I was sent to the hospital, had a sonogram to confirm that Amélie had indeed ruptured her sack, admitted, and put in a room in L&D where I was strapped to all kinds of equipment for hours and hours until they were able to make the contractions stop. I was asked time and time again, "Didn't you feel the pain of labor?" and all I could say was, "Well...I've never been in labor before...I guess my pain tolerance is pretty high."

I was told I would spend the following month on bed rest until July 1st when they'd take the babies early at 34 weeks.

I was beside myself.

I spent all of my time looking up 34 week old babies on the internet and seeing how long they'd be in the N.I.C.U. I researched every abbreviation I'd see on my sonograms. I researched head growth and the chances that my babies would have to wear helmets. I made myself sick, but eventually convinced myself that my babies were troopers and would come out ready to come home and not have to spend time in the N.I.C.U. It's amazing what you can convince yourself to believe when you're sitting alone in a hospital room for days and days.

When I wasn't researching premature babies, I spent my time reading People magazine, doing crossword puzzles, and educating the food staff on food allergies. It's puzzling that I was the first person to enter the hospital that is allergic to dairy... (this is what they told me after poisoning me several times with whey...it's obviously not true).

Every 2 or 3 days I'd once again go into labor and have to get shots that would make me forget practically everything to get the contractions to stop. It was a long vicious cycle, but finally on June 17th Amélie rolled over and unplugged the hole she had poked in her sack and the rest of my water broke. Once again things were in fast motion and I found myself hooked up to all kinds of machines in L&D to try and get the labor to stop, but eventually at 5am on June 18th, the on call doctor made the decision to do a c-section and take out the twins.

The sweet relief of not having babies rolling around in your stomach without fluid was great. I know now why women scream like crazy down in Labor and Delivery- their water had to of broke.

I mustered up all the cheer I could to pose for a few pictures so that Amélie and Desmond would look back on these pictures and think that it was a happy and easy experience.

Cheese!

Matt really liked his scrubs.

First came Amélie.

3 lbs 13 oz
16.5 inches

Then came Desmond

4 lbs 2 oz
17 inches

One glance at my babies was all I got until the next day. I only thought the hard part was over. 

Twins Belly Progression Part 2

I'm very behind on posting these pictures due to moving into a house, being in the hospital on bed rest from May 31st through June 22nd and then living at a NICU nursery with the twins from then until July 27th.

Below are the rest of my belly progression photos!

19 Weeks

20 Weeks

21 Weeks

22 Weeks

23 Weeks

24 Weeks

25 Weeks- Look new background! We moved!

26 Weeks

27 Weeks

28 Weeks!

29 Weeks

30 Weeks- Officially on bed rest at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas due to Amélie rupturing her sack.

31 Weeks

The babies were then born at 32 Weeks, 4 Days.

Ending pregnancy weight: 129 pounds

Maximum weight reached during pregnancy: 134 pounds

Time it took to lose all of that weight afterwards: 10 days

Being pregnant was a lot of fun. I wish I could have done it a little longer, but I have a new found appreciation for the human body and how well it goes back to normal afterwards.

Twins Belly Progression

I'm halfway done, so I thought I'd put up the first half of my belly pictures.

Throughout my whole pregnancy I've been looking online to try and find someone pregnant with twins that is my size so that I can compare my growth to them, but it has been pretty hard to find someone with the same build, height, and situation as me. So- I made my own. Hopefully these might help someone else one day.

It has taken a while to grow, but since this is my first pregnancy and since my torso is so long,

they said it is perfectly normal.

Starting weight after all my rounds of shots: 108lbs.

Height: 5'3"

Original Waist: 22"

4 Weeks- Waist has thickened.

5 Week- No change

6 Weeks- Nausea starting hitting harder causing me to throw up 3-4 times a day for the next 10 weeks. My stomach almost always looked sucked in from all the ab work I was doing over a trashcan.

7 Weeks

8 Weeks -(Tucker wanted to be in this shot)

9 Weeks

10 Weeks

11 Weeks

12 Weeks- Started hitting the sugary drinks and soda (caffeine free of course) a lot to try and gain some weight- I know that's not good, but you do what you've got to do.

13 Weeks

14 Weeks

15 Weeks

16 Weeks

17 Weeks

18 Weeks- Duplex renovations have started and boy does it HURT! I feel like my ab muscles are being ripped open!

Current Weight: 118lbs

Waist: Unknown until I find my missing tape measure...

Nausea: About once a day

I think I'll finally have something for the doctor to measure next time I go in for an appointment!

Let the Shopping Begin!

I told myself I wasn't going to buy anything until the very end of my pregnancy, but I finally broke down and bought a few things that I just had to have.

Below are my awesome finds:

Des and Amélie go together like..

...Peas and Carrots...

or....Peanut Butter and Jelly! Ha!

Then I've had my eye on these Trumpette socks for-ev-er. I think I was still a teenager when I vowed that my kid would one day have some of these socks. It was so hard picking just 3 styles, but I eventually settled on:

T-Straps

Pixies

And Skater Johnny for little Des.

I also made one serious parent purchase and found our Angelcare Baby Movement and Sound Monitor on Amazon.com for a steal of a deal. We originally thought we'd have to buy 2 of these at the store, but I found this one unit with 2 pads and saved a whopping $174.00 + tax! Cha-ching!

Thank you Amazon!

Matt has already read the entire owners manual and we both know we're going to sleep a lot better at night with this.

Hopefully I have now gotten my splurge out of my system and I can begin saving for these two once again...

Fortune Cookie Baby Prediction

Fortune cookie fortunes don't always come true...but sometimes the back of them do!

These fortunes came out of my cookie weeks before we knew what we were having. I just knew I'd end up with 2 boys, but the cookie knew better. The cookie knew....

What It Takes To Grow A Family

Here's a quick glance at some of the things that we had to do in order to grow our little family.

First a couple of baby photos:

16 Week skeleton face babies. Spooky!

Okay- to get started: You've got to buy a heap of medicine.

And just when you think you've got enough...you have to get more...and more...and more...

Then you have to do a lot of this early, early in the mornings...

And this as soon as you get home in the evenings...

You also need one of these bad boys full of smokey ice to keep your babies frozen on the car ride from one doctor to the next. It was kind of cool. It made me think of Jurassic Park.

Then you've got to do this a few times. :o(

And when that's over you have to have plenty of these containers to fill up with insane amounts of needles after your husband sticks you in the butt with those needles like lawn darts. Yeow! Sometimes you'll feel like an Intervention junkie.

And finally, you've got to go to the doctor.....A LOT....

But the most key ingredient to make it all work:

A loving husband that keeps the excitement high and the mood always positive.

Adventures In Infertility

Last year I began to document my daily thoughts as Matt and I strapped into the emotional roller coaster for a crazy ride of infertility treatments.

I soon found it too hard to press the publish button at the bottom each time I wrote and have kept it all to myself until now.

I decided to save this first draft I had started because it summed up a lot of my feelings all in one without being too negative.

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Over a year ago, we found out that Matt is unable to have children naturally. Immediately we fasted, prayed and scheduled a surgery in hopes to correct this problem. Unfortunately the surgery did not work, we were out a heap of money, and we were brought back to square one.

We followed up with his doctor month after month, put Matt on copious amounts of medicine, and yet there is still no hope.

This unsuccessful result is the hardest on me because it rests the decision of when and how to have children solely on me.

We were given only a few options of how to obtain a family and sadly, none bring the type of joy that everyone else in the world gets to experience when they first find out they are pregnant and starting a family.

I will never pee on a stick and then stand around with my husband in the bathroom to see the result.

I will never surprise Matt about a pregnancy by making him a meal of foods that all have the word "baby" in their title like Aunt Becky on Full House.

I will never have a fond memory to look back on how and where my child was conceived.

After months upon months of crying myself to sleep, crying on the drive to work, crying on the drive home from work, staying awake for days at a time, sobbing and wanting to throw the computer across the room every time someone on facebook posts a picture of their baby or a status update of how happy they are, feeling like I'd been punched in the stomach every time someone walked into church with their 3 kids and giant pregnant belly and after reading blogs, news articles, studies, and reports about every negative option of conception, I finally came to a decision of how we would attempt starting our family.

If you know me, you know that I am very opposed to modern medicine. As a teenager I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and it took months of going to the hospital, losing the ability to walk, and becoming a guinea pig for the doctors to figure out what it was and never in the meantime did they care for a second to try and dull my pain. After switching to taking only herbs I regained my ability to walk, use my hands, write, and sleep through the night.

If you know me, you'll also know that I survive on a vegan diet and drink an insane amount of water each day to keep myself flushed out and as healthy as possible. My weight has not fluctuated in years, my complexion is clear, and I truly believe it is due to how strict I am with myself.

With having lived this way for so long and intentionally creating a perfect, pure, and fertile baby factory, it was the hardest decision of my life to decide to take the route of IVF + ICSI. After all, I am a Fertile Myrtle! I can get pregnant perfectly normal, why should I be pumped full of drugs? But of all the other options, this really did seem the least risky when the outcomes were weighed.

The fact that day after day I will be injecting myself in the stomach with needles and chemicals that are completely foreign to me and only have a 75% chance of even working is beyond frightening.

The fact that any of these medicines could trigger an allergic reaction, like so many other medicines have in my body, is terrifying.

And the fact that most of these very costly medicines will without a doubt jerk my arthritis out of remission and result in the possibility that I will not even be able to use my hands to hold my baby the day it is born is one of the saddest things that will ever happen to me.

These 3 fears are so overwhelming that the fact that we are also using all of our saving that we have saved for a house, going into debt yet again, and having to move back in with my parents to recoup from these costs is the farthest thing from my mind. Not to mention the extended drive to work from my parents will cause us to have to go into debt further by forcing us to get a new vehicle. Thank you very much fancy Oil & Gas company in which I work! Your wonderful benefits that will pay for tummy tucks and lap bands, but couldn't even pick up a single bill for infertility costs has forced us into a life of well... hell.

But here we are. The decision has been made and the process will be beginning in a matter of weeks.

Although the shots are a huge mountain to climb, the biggest mountain will be to stay positive and not stress my body out with thoughts of, "Am I changing destiny? Am I playing God? What if there was a reason this wasn't supposed to happen? and What if it comes out really mean and angry because it wasn't meant to be?"

Buckle up, this will be a really bumpy ride.

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It is now over 105 shots, 12 blood tests, and 2 VERY sore butt cheeks later, but I'm happy to announce that it all paid off.

Meet embryo Desmond and Amélie our little twince and twincess.

Just a few tests to see if it worked before our first post surgery sonogram...
Des and Amélie at 6 weeks.

Des and Amélie at their 12 week sonogram.

We have been truly blessed to have such luck on the first round of IVF and hope our luck continues throughout the entire pregnancy. We will need lots of prayers and advice from everyone since we're a little late getting into the parenting game. We know everyone else will have plenty of great tips for us from all of their experiences so far.

Our due date is set for sometime in mid July.