Tiny Dancers...

It’s been a minute since I’ve had the opportunity to update everyone. I saw the doctor on the 21st. He informed me that the results of my 20-week sonogram were good. Everything looks great with both babies and they are growing as they should. This was fantastic news to hear. I am also doing great carrying both babies. The doctor no longer talked about me going part-time in November. I see him again on November 11.

Back-tracking to the 18th, Matthew and I were spending a quiet evening at home watching the University of Texas football stomp Missouri. Well, it might not have been a quiet evening. I tend to get a little rowdy over UT football. Anyhow, Matthew got to feel the baby on my right kick for the first time. Both girls were all kinds of wiggles in my tummy that night. I told Matthew it must be that our girls are also going to be UT fans! He didn’t think this was funny. He’s too much of a Texas Tech fan…I guess we’re going to have to work on converting him! Hehe! Really, how many sets of batting eyelashes can he resist?!?!

Matthew moved the furniture out of the nursery, and we got rid of a bed and recliner to make room for the babies and their new furniture. My parents painted the nursery last weekend. Matthew and my dad will install the new floor and chair rail next week. I can’t wait to get the furniture in there and get the room decorated! It is definitely going to be a little girls’ room. I am going to put my crafting skills to work this weekend and work on making cute letters that spell their names to hang on the walls. I’ve been looking forward to adding my personal touch to things since I wasn’t allowed to paint the nursery.

My tiny dancers are more active by the day. Sometimes one of them lets out such a big kick it startles me and makes me jump! That’s a little embarrassing when you’re in a meeting and then everyone stares at you! Getting used to the babies movement has definitely taken some getting use to. At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. It was weird and unlike anything I could even compare it to. Now, I welcome the kicks and jabs, and if they haven’t moved in a while I worry that everything is okay.

I’ve noticed my energy level draining by the week. Some days I believe I must have a guardian angel that guides me home as it is a wonder I don’t fall asleep at the wheel. I miss having energy to go all the time and I really miss working out. I look forward to when I can return to the gym.

Baby Shower planning has been in full force. Invitations went in the mail last week. My shower will be on November 15. Registering was the biggest task ever. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired after walking through a store and mind boggled. It’s like a whole new baby world out there! Yikes! Matthew and I have much to learn. We are going to take a Saturday birthing class at the beginning of December. I’m sure this will either answer a million questions we aren’t quite ready to face, or scare the crap out of both of us! Either way, it will be interesting!

I’m posting a picture of me at 22 weeks, 0 days. Matthew actually took it this morning.

A Sea of Pink!

Today I had my 20 week sonogram, even though I’m 19 weeks and 5 days. Wow! Really, I have more to say than that, but it’s unbelievable! First of all, we found out that we are definitely, 100% having GIRLS! (The proof is in my pictures!)

Matthew got to hear the heartbeat of both babies for the first time today. Baby A (left side) has a heart rate of 140 bpm. Baby B (right side) has a heart rate of 152 bpm. Both babies have all four chambers of their heart.

We also got to check out their brains, which look good, stomachs, bladders, kidneys, and diaphragms. The technician measured each one and estimates them to both weigh 10 ounces. Everything looked good. I see the doctor again next Tuesday. He is receiving a copy of my sonogram and will probably go over it in more depth then.

Both babies were exceptionally wiggly. The technician had a hard time getting Baby A to turn over and smile for the camera, but at last she finally gave in! I have been feeling them move in my tummy for the last couple of weeks. It’s the weirdest sensation. When I eat, they get really squirmy!

Oh, and in other interesting news, we have to wait until they are born to find out if they are identical or not! Ha! Yeah, that chance has not been ruled out.

19 Weeks, 1 Day

My heart stopped...

...today when my husband told me over the phone that the dogs were missing. He went out in the backyard to make sure they had enough water and the back gate was open. Matthew spent an hour and a half looking for Jack and Izzy with no luck. Of course he calls me around 1:00 to relay the bad news, but I don't get the message until 1:30.

I literally felt my stomach lurch and had to tell myself to keep breathing as I'm yelling at him over the phone and asking why he didn't call my mom and have her continue looking when he had to go to work. I felt like I had lost a child. All I could think about was living in BFE and all that could happen to our pampered pooches.

I called my mom and she was quick to head out to our house with my aunt and cousin in tow. By sheer luck of a miracle, someone had found our dogs and put them back in our yard and closed the gate. Matthew left it open in case they came back. They let the dogs in and got them squared away in their kennels and headed back into town.

By the time my mom and I made it back out to the house, the back gate was open again. Obviously the dogs hadn't figured out to unlatch it because they were in the house. It was a stiff push to get the gate closed back tight and latched. Anyhow, Mom chained and locked all four of our gates.

I have never been so thankful to see a poop covered Izzy and dirty Jack. Yes, that's right, Izzy relished her freedom by rolling in poop. Jack and her were both punished with baths. They spent the rest of the night sleeping. I can only imagine what kind of adventure they had together. I'm just glad they are safe and at home.

Oh, and the stupid bastard that keeps opening our gate...don't you know you'll get your ass shot in the country for doing shit like that?

Baby x 2 = Update

Today I had my third prenatal checkup. I am 17 weeks and 5 days along (almost 4 ½ months). Matthew had to work so I took my mom along for my visit since I knew the doctor was going to do a sonogram.

The babies are so much bigger now that he can no longer get their entire body in the picture. They both look great and very healthy. Their spines are straight. We even saw their ribs and diaphragm. It was amazing to see how much more developed they are in three short weeks.

Both babies have a strong heartbeat. I got to hear this for the first time today. It was fast and loud! I am so thankful that they are growing and developing as they should.

I go in for my Level 2 sonogram on Tuesday, October 14. This sonogram will go over all the health aspects of the babies. We will know then for sure what we are having. In the meantime, the doctor looked between legs today and didn’t see any little pickles. He is 80% sure that both babies are girls.

Right after I found out I was pregnant I had a dream that I was pregnant with twins and that they were both girls. Maybe my intuition was right after all. Kinda freaky to think about!

Anyhow, my cervix is holding up, but the babies are putting pressure on it. The doctor has decreased my workout activity to a quarter of a mile. He said that is like walking once around the block. He said I can no longer bend and lift anything. I’ve gained three pounds. He sees me again in three weeks.

He also told me ideally it would be best in November if I only worked part time. Not sure what’s going to happen yet, but it looks like I could end up on bed rest a lot sooner than expected. I’m going to talk to my principal and see if my mom can volunteer in my room and do my walking back and forth to the office for me. That might prolong my chance to stay working longer.

The main thing is keeping these babies in as long as possible. I’ll do whatever it takes to give them the best chance and start to life in the outside world.

Bug Guts!

The last couple of days have been spent driving down the road trying to find a clean place on my windshield to see out. My windshield was loaded with smeared bug guts and no washer fluid under the hood to clean them off with! Unfortunately, driving past the local feed yard on my way home every day lends itself to bug suicide on your windshield and grill. I'm not kidding when I say I bet on a calm day I can kill a hundred or more bugs in the two minutes it takes to drive past the stink yard. (I've never thought about this until now, but apparently bugs like poop, or they can't smell!)

So today as I was leaving work, I noticed that I didn't really need to put the sun shade in my car this morning. I seriously had enough guts to block out all UVA/UVB rays. I also noticed that my car is flat out the filthiest int he parking lot! I decide to take it through the car wash. I pull into Quick Quack and get my car all aligned in the the runners that pull you through. Three guys surround my car and start the process of debugging. One of these guys in particular made me laugh so hard. He stared at the windshield and grill of my blazer with monumental disgust. If I could have read his mind, he would have been thinking something like..."Geez, when is the last time this girl washed her car? Does she drive around looking for bugs to murder?" He was appalled and it was written all over his face.

It took these guys three tries with the bug juice (the stuff that's supposed to take the bugs off your windshield when they are dried and baked on) and three go overs with the scrub brush before they finally hit the switch to let me continue on with the rest of my car cleansing process. I laughed the whole way through the car wash!

Baby Names and Cribs, Oh My!

For those of you that have never named a baby, it's a lot harder than it looks! If you think it's hard coming up with a first and middle name for one baby, try two names for two babies! This increases your names when you don't yet know the sex of the babies to eight names!

When we found out I was pregnant, we began looking at names almost immediately. We started a list and realized that agreeing on a name was going to be difficult pretty quickly. We even purchased a baby naming book that claimed it had over 50,000 names. (It was overrated. Unless you're into really weird names!) The list of boys and girls names got placed aside and we slept on it...a lot!

Once in a while over the last four months I would look at the list of names and cross some off. They no longer sounded as appealing for whatever reason. That's okay though, it was narrowing our list of 40+ names down a bit. I think the job of naming our babies was especially difficult for me because I've taught school for 5 years. You can't help but think of some little hellion from they past! Unfortunately, lots of names go down the crapper when you're a teacher!

Saturday night we finally decided to get serious and lock in some names. Surprisingly enough, we narrowed down boys names quickly. Girls names on the other hand took some time. We were patient with each other, even when my husband decided to spout of every decidedly ethnic-sounding name and my quick retort was NO! With that being said here are the names we picked for our little ones...

Carter Grant (first choice for a boy if we have a boy and a girl)

Daniel Ellis

Addilyn Kate (first choice for a girl if we have a boy and a girl)

Ella Grace

Oh, and in other news, I was informed that cribs take 16-20 weeks to get in. Matthew and I ordered one of our cribs this weekend from JCPenney. It is back ordered until October 25. I assume it will ship after that. We can hope anyway. We will order the other crib next month. If we do have a girl, it's definitely going to be a girly piece of furniture! In the meantime, if the second crib isn't in on time, the babies will be small enough that they can share until it does come in. Now, we just need to paint and install the new floors in the nurseries!