And Then There Were Two ...

God does have a sense of humor sometimes. 

He wrote this incredible story and put us on this amazing journey. 

All along, I said that I did not want April Fools babies.

He had better plans. 

Although April Fools is a day of pranks and jokes, we received neither that day, but rather within two quick minutes, we were a family of four plus our fur baby.

We happily introduce our sweet blessings from God!

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We prayed for three things during this journey. 

That we would make it to 38 weeks. 

That we would have healthy babies that would not go to the NICU if all possible. 

And that breastfeeding would go well. 

We made it to 38 weeks 3 days. 

We had healthy babies where we got to experience skin to skin and immediate breastfeeding. 

We are still working on the whole nursing thing, but it did go well the first few days! 

We are so thankful for these sweet blessings! 

Weekend Highlights

For the past couple of weekends, we always felt that it may be our last before we celebrate being doubly blessed into parenthood.

We have constantly heard that twins come early, so gracious, being the preparers that we are have had everything ready to go for weeks now. 

I am now officially 38 weeks and 2 days and hoping to see our babies soon. 

So this past weekend, we did the things that every homebody enjoys. 

Friday night, we made a mad dash for dinner to bring it home and watch Dateline, our favorite Friday night show.

We stayed up late doing things that I can't even remember, but 6:00 a.m. came early and I was bright eyed and bushy tailed. 

Tootsie was too, demanding her food, her outside time, and her treat. In that order because she is routine like that. (Oh, boy, all that is about to change!)

Ken and I spent the next couple of hours looking over, changing, and dreaming of house plans that will not be built for a couple of years while still snuggled cozy in bed. 

Oh, technology! You have come a long way since dial up!

After a very nice blueberry pancake breakfast by the sweet husband of the household, we did what any couple would do while waiting on babies. 

We threw ourselves a party in the living room where we napped, watched movies, and read books all day long. 

It was wonderful. 

We stayed up late again (this will be our reality in a couple of days) and then went to the early church service where the babies were competing on who could bust the best move or show the most body parts. 

Seriously, the beautiful service was on being blind, but yet, we were wide eyed watching these babies do their thing for 20 minutes. 

Praises for these sweet movements and wonderful moments! 

We will have to work on our church manners in the near future, though!

We came home, and I napped while Ken and Tootsie worked in the yard. 

We then went out to lunch, ran a few errands, and walked through a local nursery because I just had to see some flowers and dream of getting my hands dirty.

Middle arrived and brought some banana bread which we dove into along with good conversation. 

We ended our Sunday night with sweet maternity pictures out on our land and a delicious meal at home. 

I am thankful that I have a sister who doesn't mind sharing her talents to capture last minute moments before our world is rocked! 

We had the best weekend- full of laughs and love. It may not have included a fancy meal or a night out on the town, but it was exactly what we enjoy doing. 

I hoping that our next blog post will be an very big announcement! 

Happy Monday, friends!

The Calm Before the Rainbow

Last night, Ken, Tootsie, and I sat in the nursery and discussed our hopes and dreams for the future.

Well, we did mostly. Tootsie was counting down her days as the only baby in the house and made sure her head was in my lap.

We sat until the sun went down and the night lights came on.

I love talks like that.

Ken smiled and said, "It is the calm before the storm."

I couldn't help but laugh, because it is true.

At 37 1/2 weeks pregnant with twins, we are anticipating their sweet arrival at any moment.

I have so enjoyed watching my bellying doing the "wave," trying to figure out all the bumps that suddenly appear, and feeling them go crazy anytime I type.

Apparently, typing is their jam.

Friday was my last day at work for this school year.

No one could say the word, "bye."

I will be back in July even if all four of us are at daycare, crying.

I am thankful that I work in a school and community where everyone supports and helps everyone else.

Our babies are so loved, and they don't even know the half of it.

We are cherishing every moment before they arrive, because we know things will be different once they are here and bags under eyes will be highly attracted.

We so look forward to the coos, grunts, cries, smiles, and screams.

Ken looks forward to dirty diapers for the first time ever in his life.

(Which reminds me, I need to go and get some vapor rub for him.)

Snuggles and story time and laughter and first experiences are in our very near future.

We know that we will not get everything just right the first time, but memories will be made.

We can't wait to share these precious blessings from God with you all!

It will not be long before some rainbows appear!

Infertility Confessions

This is the story that God has written for us in our journey to get pregnant. 

It is not always pretty, but we were able to find beauty in the good, bad, and the ugly. 

We give praise to Him for His blessings. 

Part 1 - The Announcement

Part 2 - Fertility Treatments

Part 2 1/2 - You Never Know Who You Will Meet

Part 3 - Preparing for IVF

Part 4 - Mountains and Valleys

Part 5 - Let's Try this Again

Part 6 - Doctors and Heartbeats

Infertility Confessions - Part 6 - Doctor's Visits and Heartbeats

So at four weeks pregnant, we had to go in for blood work just to check the numbers. 

I thought we would get an ultrasound at 7 weeks, but to our luck, we got one at 6 weeks. 

Google can be your friend or your own worst enemy.

I tried to use it as my friend. 

I knew at 6 weeks that we could see heartbeats, but not always. 

We didn't even know how many we had at this point either, but I had not shown any signs of miscarrying. 

I can remember pulling up to the doctor and just wanting to throw up, because I had no idea what to expect and was not expecting the best.

O' you of little faith.

So we enter the room, and our precious Christine is there as well.

We were all on pins and needles.

It seemed like it took forever for the ultrasound, but on the screen were two precious little heartbeats.

We could see them and hear them.

The little bodies had huge heartbeats!

There was not a dry eye in the room.

From then on, we had great doctor's visits every single time.

It was amazing to see these sweet babies grow before our very eyes.

It has been so much fun watching movements and personalities emerge.

At every visit, Baby B seemed to be our wild child, while Baby A was laid back.

At 9 weeks, Baby B even waved at us!

We loved finding out that we were having a boy and a girl. Baby A is our sweet Wesley and Baby B is our sweet Selah.

To say that we have already started a photo collection is an understandment.

We have memories from every visit with the latest one being the non-stress test where the laid back Wesley was so good and his heartbeat was steady.

Wild Selah waited until the nurses left to wiggle her way out of the monitor as we watched and laughed causing the nurse to come in and ask if we were having a party.

She finally found Selah and put her back on the monitor where she said until the end.

Through this journey, we have rediscovered that GOD is amazing always, and that His story for us is perfect in the good and the bad.

We are so blessed to be apart of His story and hope that this story will help others who are on an infertility journey.

That has always been our prayer.

Thank you family and friends for sharing in this journey with us.

We cannot thank you enough for your prayers and encouraging words.

We cannot wait to celebrate with you these sweet blessings from GOD!

Infertility Confessions - Part 5 - Let's Try this Again

So we went through IVF again.

Since we had already done this once, our doctor knew what worked and what did not. 

He was able to change our meds up.

Ken is an excellent nurse gave me, yet again, many shots. 

There were only a couple of times that I had to give myself shots. 

I prefer someone else to do it. 

The day finally came for my egg retrieval. 

I was still so numb and just went through the motions. 

We got a call later on with healthy numbers, and we praised GOD.

I had been through this before, so I still could not fully celebrate. 

We just took each phone call as it came, not allow ourselves to go in either direction. 

We also had a great cheering section, who with every update, gave praise and continued to lift us up in prayer. 

We went in a few days later to have our egg transfer. Our doctor had initially discussed putting three fertilized eggs in, but when we got there, he was only going to do two. 

Only two, because our eggs were the best of the best. We were so thankful. 

It is amazing to watch this process and just watch these sweet, small blastocysts enter your body and cause such great wonder. 

You can feel the prayers going up in the room from everyone involved. 

You go home happy and then have to face the two week wait. 

Thank goodness I started my new job and was greatly distracted with that. 

It came time for the pregnancy test, and we decided to just do blood work and wait for the call. 

You must know at the point, my nurse saves her best phone calls for last. 

I can totally understand that. 

So I got my pregnancy call at 12:00 p.m. and not the normal 3:00ish. 

I just started crying because I knew what the answer was. 

Christine laughed and said, "YOU ARE PREGNANT."

She gave me my numbers and they were 10 times better than they were the first time around. 

So much hope! 

But you still are waiting for the shoe to drop, so celebrating was limited. 

Infertility Confessions, Part 4 - Mountains and Valleys

After miscarrying after having so much hope, I felt that darkness surrounded me constantly. I was in a valley, looking up into the mountain tops, so wanting to make my way to happiness and freedom again.

There were moments that I would get to the top, only to fall down again.

It was during this time that I thought I would put my One Thousand Gifts Devotions by Ann Voskamp to use.

It became my haven and help me to realize that as children of God, if we can give praise for the blessings, then we can give praise for the not so fun parts of life.

This was one of my favorite quotes in the devotion that really resignated with me.

There is no greater mercy that I know of on earth than good health, except in sickness; and that has often been a greater mercy to me than health ... It is a good thing to be without a trouble, but it is a better thing to have a trouble, and know how to get grace enough to bear it. ~ Charles Spurgeon

It took several months for me to finally feel that I had grace enough to bear it. I gave GOD praise for all that we had been through and for the heartbreak.

Once I finally did that, I felt a huge release of negative and look forward to the future.

I am not saying that I thought I would get pregnant or have a family. I still couldn't go there, but day by day, I began to celebrate the gifts that God gave me.

I was able to record them in the back of my devotion and found that the more I celebrated, the better I could accept the fact that things happen that you may not like.

It is those things or times that you are gaining strength, and you don't even know it.

After determining that we would not go through IVF again, Christine convinced us to do it.

Even though, I felt so much better, I still looked for all the negative signs that said we didn't need to do IVF again.

I mean the $6,000 in medication alone was a HUGE "Don't do this" sign.

However, our angel came to our rescue again, and we only had to pay a fraction of that price.

So for every negative I saw, God was working through Christine to have a positive.

Never in my life had I felt so neutral about something.

I couldn't even think of hope. I was so neutral in my mind that I would not allow myself to get my hopes up nor think the worse.

During this time, GOD gave me several distractions to focus on - opening up our booth at a local hip antique mall, changing jobs, and buying land. 

And this all happened at one time. 

I needed that. We needed that.