Sometimes the smallest things...

Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.

Dear babies of mine,

You are 10 weeks old today and you are each just the size of a prune.  You already have your arms and legs and fingers and toes and you each have such strong little heartbeats.  Your heads are about half the size of your body and I think that is a sign that you are going to be two smart little nuggets!  Not a minute goes by that I'm not thinking about the two of you.  Today I can't stop thinking about how lucky I am to have you growing inside of me.  Ever since daddy and I heard your little hearts beat our lives have felt so much fuller.  Daddy can't stop talking about things he wants to do with you when you get here.  He wants to teach both of you how to play baseball.  He will give you ding bumps and throw you up in the air and hold you until you fall asleep in his arms.  He already loves you so much and I know he can't wait to meet you.  I know because he takes good care of your mommy.  Your daddy makes sure I am resting enough so that you two can grow big and strong.  I can't wait to hold you and give you kisses and little hugs... but I think I might have to just hold you one at a time. :)  But don't worry, you two are coming into a really big family and there will be lots of people to hold and love you.  

You get to live right next door to your Grandma and Grandpa Barney.  You are going to love them!  Grandpa is so silly and loves to make all of the grandkids laugh.  He will probably act like a dog and chase you around when you are old enough to walk and it will drive Grandma crazy and only make it funnier to watch.  And Grandma will probably sneak you some diet pepsi and other treats when I'm not looking.  

Your other Grandma and Grandpa live in St. Louis and they can't wait for you to get here!  Grandpa Pope is a doctor and he likes to tell all of his patients that he is going to be a Grandpa soon.  Grandma Pope doesn't think that she is old enough to be a Grandma yet but she is so excited for you to get here that she is going to come and spend two whole weeks with you!  The two of you will also be the first two great grandchildren on my side of the family.  My Grandma Pope will be your Great Grandma Pope and she could just burst from excitement.  She can't wait to meet you and hold her in her arms. :)  There are so many people that haven't even met you yet that already love you so so much.

Daddy and I are going to get your room all ready for you after Christmas is over.  We already know how we want it to look and we think you will love it.  We won't know what colors to put in until we find out if you are boys or girls or one of each.  We are going to let you share a crib until you are 6 months old so that you can have lots of bonding time with each other.  {Plus I think it would be hard to be away from each other since you are probably so used to being with each other every second of the day.}

Oh!  And you aren't considered embryos anymore.  You two are officially little fetuses.  :)

I love you my little bean sprouts!

Love,

Your mom

Finding an OB

How is it possible to be so tired all the time?  I need to have at least 9 or 10 hours of sleep each night in order to function the next day.  I got 8 hours last night and I feel like I might pass out at any given moment.  Seriously.  Jammies and my bed sound like heaven right now. :)

I have an appt. with my family practice dr. tomorrow to get a referral to an OB-GYN.  I think I may have found one that I will like.  The one I really wanted doesn't participate in the group I'm in for my insurance, and then the next dr. I found that I wanted only accepts PPO ins. plans.  Boo.  I never realized why people were so picky about their OB's until now.  For me, I want a male dr. that specializes in high risk pregnancies and has a history of delivering twins.  I also want him to deliver at Huntington Memorial Hospital {they have a great NICU}  I'm learning that everyone's experience with pregnancy is totally different and that there are doctors that work better for certain situations than others.

Anyway, so far the winner is Dr. Shawn Grady and I think he might be a good fit for me.  He graduated from Harvard and got his medical degree from USC.  He's been in practice since 1993 and delivers to Huntington Memorial and a couple other hospitals.  He has experience with high risk pregnancies and with delivering twins.  From the reviews that I've read on him he seems to be very knowledgeable in what he does and he's open to whatever birth plan a mother wants as long as it is safe for the baby.  Apparently he always seems rushed {I think that's normal for an OB} but he does answer whatever questions you ask.  I called his office to ask how often appts. have to be rescheduled due to him being out of the office for a delivery.  She said a lot, but that the appt. is rescheduled for that same week and that high risk pregnancies are a priority to be seen.  Anyway, based on everything I think that going in with hearing the good and bad will really help me make my own judgement..  I've heard the positives and the negatives and I honestly think the positives outweigh by far.  So we'll see!  I'll get my referral tomorrow and will be in to see him the beginning of January. :)

Week 9 ultrasound and graduation

I had my very last appointment with Dr. Wilcox today :(  Next week was supposed to be my last appt. but he said that everything looks so great that there's no need to see him anymore.  I know this is a good thing... but it makes me sad.  I LOVE going to visit his office every couple of weeks.  The staff there is so so nice!  Anna and I have really bonded and I'm going to miss visiting with her every week.  Even the lady that draws my blood is awesome.  I'm going to miss seeing my little babies every 10 days.  Dr. Wilcox said I might have ultrasound withdrawal and I think he's right!  I've so looked forward to being able to see them so often and I'm bummed that I'll only see them once a month for the next few months.

Good news, is that the fluid in my uterus is almost gone.  It should be completely gone within a couple of weeks.

Here are the babies :)

They are measuring pretty close to the same size and are right on track at about 9 weeks.  Their little heartbeats were nice and strong too, they were definitely awake today!  One of them has the loudest heartbeat ever, I think he/she will be an active little monkey.  Actually, I'm pretty sure they both will be.

So far pretty much everyone we know is hoping that we have a boy and a girl {including Dr. Wilcox!}  Jared has said that he would like to have a boy and a girl too because then we'll have the best of both worlds, but he thinks it would be fun to have 2 boys too.  Not so sure about 2 girls though.  Two teenage girls would be DRAMA, haha.  I know me and my sisters fought a ton... but I think 2 girls could be a blast.

I have at least six weeks until I'll be able to find out the gender of our babies.  In my mind, that will be the next big checkpoint.  I can't wait!

*Estrogen Level was 4256.6
*Progesterone Level was 87.23

Two months

Today I am two months pregnant.

So far...
I'm definitely starting to get a belly, but it's not a cute belly yet.  I just look like I've gained weight. 

I am still considered to be one of those 'lucky' pregnant ladies that has not had to deal with morning sickness.  I still get a little nauseous after I eat but as far as feeling sick goes, that's about it, and it's not as bad as it was a few weeks ago.

Food is still not appealing to me in almost any form.

I eat two scoops of ice cream every day just so I get all the calories I need, haha

I have lost 2 lbs., but I think it's from eating out less.  Fast food sounds like the worst idea ever now.  But I'm sure I will pack on plenty of lbs. the last two trimesters.

I hate spotting.  Worst. Ever.

I pee about every 1.5-2 hours, including night time.  I woke up to pee 5 times last night.

I'm starting to be able to distinguish the difference between a cramp and my uterus stretching.  The stretching feeling, although isn't the most comfortable thing in the world, makes me smile because I know my babies are growing big in strong inside their momma.

I'm still tired All. The. Time.  It's like I can't get enough sleep anymore.  I go to bed around 9:30 and get up anytime between 7 and 8.  Yeah.  I NEED that much sleep.  Especially with waking up every two hours.

I bought my first maternity shirt the other day.  It's from Old Navy.  They've got some CUTE prego clothes :)  But I can't wait to go back to STL for Christmas because I'm going to go on my first official maternity clothes shopping trip because I don't know how comfortably my pants will fit in a few weeks.

I have learned that I have the best husband ever.  He's stepped up times a million and keeps the kitchen {mostly} clean and is okay that we will probably be getting our clean clothes out of the laundry basket that's still sitting in front of the dryer for the next {at least} seven months.

I have also learned that I have the most overprotective MIL.  Thank goodness I work for her!  She is so understanding about me being late to work almost every day.  When I am cramping she let's me go home and put my feet up so that I don't hurt myself.  She is okay with me missing work to go to my doctors appts.  And she tells me constantly all the things that I should or shouldn't be doing.  Sometimes it can get a little annoying, but that's because I have a hard time letting go and allowing other people to do things for me.  I'm what you would call a little bit of a control freak.  I know, hard to believe, haha j/k

Seven months left.  I have so much to do before the little ones get here!

8 week ultrasound

Disclaimer* This post probably has TMI.  

You have been warned.

Last Friday I had my 8 week ultrasound and I have never been so scared in my life.  Let's back up and I'll explain why.  The day before I had some cramping earlier in the day and I reassured myself that everything was just fine.  Dr. Wilcox said that cramping during pregnancy especially early on is very normal.  Okay.  So moving on.  That night around 10 pm I was getting ready for bed and I started spotting.  It was pink so I didn't worry about it {apparently pink or brown is okay}.  Two hours later I woke up to go to the bathroom again {which is a common occurrence nowadays} and when I went to the bathroom the water turned pink and I was spotting a darker pink.  2 hours later, pink water and bright red spotting.  This is the point where I REALLY started to freak out.  Bright red blood is BAD, and up to this point I had never ever ever spotted this much.  This continued every 1.5-2 hours and as the time passed the color went from the bright red to a brownish red to more of a brown color.  Needless to say I didn't sleep well that night at all and felt sick to my stomach when I woke up.  All I could think was, what if I miscarried one of the babies?  What did I do yesterday that could have caused this to happen?  Jared gave me a big hug and told me that everything was going to be just fine and that we would see and hear both of our babies at our appt. and that they were going to be healthy.

So we headed over to our dr.'s appt.  It took a long time to get over there because a wind storm had blown through the night before.  Winds in Pasadena had gusts of up to 100 mph and several cities around us declared a state of disaster.  Trees were down everywhere, electricity was out all around us.  

Thankfully we did not lose our electricity and did not have any damage from the storm.  When we got to HRC they were running late so we waited for about an hour before we were seen {which is like 4x longer than what we normally wait}.

When we finally got to see Dr. Wilcox I explained to him what had been going on and so he got right in on the ultrasound to see what was going on.

Both of our babies were still there and had strong heartbeats :)  One was 158 bpm and the other was 160 bpm.  However, I have fluid in my uterus.  {It's that little white line just above and to the right of the two babies}  It's not a lot, but it's the reason for my spotting.  The dr. doesn't know why it happened but it's definitely not something that he wants to see.  He didn't put me on bedrest, but I'm not allowed to do pretty much anything.  I can't do any cleaning or grocery shopping.  I'm allowed to work still, but when I get home at night I'm either sitting or laying down.  If I get more fluid in my uterus it could threaten the pregnancy, so I am 100% behaving so that my little babies stay right where they're supposed to.

I feel so bad for Jared because he has to do everything in the house right now.  Luckily he's being a pretty good sport about it.  He put up the Christmas tree and I helped a little with the decorating but not a ton.

I think it's beautiful! 

And now it officially feels like Christmas in our home :)