21 Weeks

Nothing new to report. Little Miss has started moving around quite a bit and has even let her daddy feel her kicking and moving :o)

Cody's dad came up last week and spent the ENTIRE week being our personal handy man/child entertainment. He helped us out so much taking care of little things around the house and the twins were loving having their Papa at their disposal.

Here is my 21 week picture...I think I'm getting bigger faster this time :o) eeeeek!:

20 Weeks

I am halfway through my pregnancy! Whoa...when you have two kids to take care of instead of getting to day dream all day about caring for two kids your pregnancy seems to zip by :o)

I am feeling really good. Since my morning sickness went away around 9 to 10 weeks, it has been smooth sailing for me. Don't get me wrong, I still get the occasional aches and pains from pregnancy such as when you move to quickly and feel this stabbing sensation or feeling a bit more tired after a day of chasing the twins around. God has a way of making you forget all the negatives about being pregnant. It seems like when they hand you your beautiful baby all the aches, pains, leg cramps, contraction pains...are wiped from your brains and then when you get pregnant again you're like "Oh yeah, I remember this."

I can feel our little miss move a little bit everyday. It is usually when I'm lying still or really focusing on feeling her move. We are 95% sure we have picked a name, but we aren't going to divulge it that easily. We are waiting a bit longer before we start monogramming burp cloths :o)

My appetite has picked up in the last week and the main thing I generally crave is salty.  Yum!  Anything salty generally makes me happy.  I have the occasional sweet tooth, but mostly I want salty...or strawberries :o)  I'm haven't had to buy any maternity clothes yet and can still wear/button my jeans, but we'll see how much longer that last

I have been terrible about taking pictures this pregnancy and I can also assure you that there will be un-clothed belly pictures this go around. Here is the first picture I have taken at 20 weeks.

I Just Wanna Dance...

Here are some of my favorite videos of Maddox dancing...

Single Umbilical Artery

In the midst of all this change, chaos and excitement, it has become exceedingly hard to "feel" pregnant. I'm at the stage in pregnancy where I don't feel the baby move often and I only look chubby NOT pregnant. I can still wear my same clothes they just fit a little, different.  We have been so busy with a hundred other things that we haven't had time to sit down and enjoy the moment of expecting our 3rd child.

Cody and I had an appointment to receive a sonogram at 18 weeks.  My new OB refers all his patients to a Perinatologist for their complete sonogram.  It is crazy to me that with one baby you generally only get one sonogram.  I had 1 every two weeks with my twin pregnancy.  I had seen a Perinatologist & an OBGYN my entire twin pregnancy because I was "high risk" and it seems things haven't changed for this one as well.

Before I get into the details, I would like to start by saying we are having a little GIRL and couldn't be more excited.  I know, I know, I know...we said we were NOT finding out BUT when the sonogram tech put the little tool on my belly she just so happened to be on the BUSINESS (or lack thereof).  I immediately felt that we were having a girl.  Like 99.9% sure it was a girl, because when we saw the area with Lukas....we knew immediately we were having a boy.  The tech didn't tell us what we were having, but when she left the room and while we waited for the doctor, I told Cody I was sure it was a girl.  He kept telling me I didn't know for sure and what if I thought this entire time that it was a girl and it turned out to be a boy then we were even more shocked because in my mind I was mentally prepared for a girl.  When the doctor came in and asked us if we knew...we caved and said we wanted to know for sure!  VOILA...we are expecting a beautiful baby girl.

I digress...so when the tech was doing our sonogram, I noticed that she kept going back to the heart over and over which made me really nervous.  She said that little miss was laying in an awkward position and that she was having to look and listen to her heart through her spine, which casts shadows on the picture.  She said that the heartbeat was 153 and was good and strong.

When the doctor came in he quickly told us that I have a Single Umbilical Artery (SUA)...also known as a two vessel cord.  Generally, your umbilical cord has 1 vein and 2 arteries..mine has 1 vein and 1 artery.  They aren't sure what causes the anomaly, it just "happens".  We asked if this was common and didn't really get much of a direct answer. (Dr. Google would later tell me that this happens about 1% of the time in a singleton pregnancy)  He told us before the use of sonograms the only way they even knew someone had a SUA was by inspection of the umbilical cord after delivery.  He then went on to say since the use of sonograms they have been able to link SUA with other "complications".  What complications?  He told us that our baby girl is at an increased risk for kidney, heart or genetic abnormalities as well as an increased risk for Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR).  IUGR is basically where the baby stops growing accurately because she isn't getting the nutrients she needs from the placenta (a term we are familiar with from our twin pregnancy).  The doctor thoroughly checked her heart and kidneys and said that he didn't see any problems with them and they looked completely healthy.  He even went on to say that he thought there was a less than 1% chance that there is something wrong with those two organs.  He also told us that he didn't see any "markers" that would indicate that there was something genetically wrong with the baby girl BUT we would have to do an amniocentesis (think big needle inserted into belly) to be sure.  He said plenty of woman with SUA deliver full-term healthy babies.

He will follow up with us my entire pregnancy and I will have to be monitored the same way I was monitored with the twins to ensure that our baby girl is growing as she should.  Even though the news isn't terrible, in fact, it has been mostly positive, I can't help but burst into tears when talking about it.  Mostly because I'm a worrier and this gives me something to "google" and worry about.  However, even Dr. Google is pretty positive when no other "markers" are present on your sonogram.

Cody and I can't decide if we would like an amniocentesis or not.  We see both sides of the coin.  While the results wouldn't change anything for us,  it would be nice to know for sure what we were facing or to know that everything was okay.  Some of the genetic disorders that are linked to SUA are life threatening and it would be nice to know that ahead of time.  At this point, we are going to discuss the issue further with my OB this week and wait until our next sonogram to see if anything has changed in our doctor's mind.

It now comes time for faith, prayers and patience.  We know that our baby is the hands of the Great Physician and he wouldn't give us anything that we couldn't handle.  We can't wait to meet our baby girl and if it takes extra monitoring, worries, & prayers to get her here safely...bring it on...because we have a faithful God who has had our backs in pregnancy trials before.

Thanks for listening and if you get a chance, send a prayer up in our direction. We could use a few extra shout outs right now :o)

"Cause what if Your blessing come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights is what it takes to know You're near?
What if trials in this life, Are your mercies in disquise?"

A Not so Quick Update

Life here has been crazy. On September 16th, we closed on our new house and the next week the kids and I were moving up to finally be with Cody! It has been a crazy two weeks, but we have quickly decided that home really is where Cody is :o) Cody's family (mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, uncle, grandma, & nieces) all helped us with the move and helped us get everything to a manageable state of crazy. We are so thankful that they were here, we couldn't have done it without them!

In the weekend we moved houses, we also had our new house entirely painted (every room, kitchen cabinets, deck and a few ceilings)..not to mention that we had the carpet ripped up and replaced! We didn't realize how awful the carpet was until the previous owners had moved their stuff and it quickly became apparent a steam cleaning wasn't going to do the trick! The prior owners had several dogs and the carpet installer said it was so covered in urine stains that he slipped on the mat...DISGUSTING! So before we moved in, my Papaw told me to pick out the carpet I wanted and him and my mother would pay for it! THANK YOU!! If you can see a trend here, we are exceedingly lucky to have such a wonderful, supportive family!

Last week was a harder week for Cody and I. Lukas had been waking up every night crying but would quickly return to sleep when we rubbed his back. At first, we attributed the night wakings to the new environment. Maddox and Lukas have their own rooms and the change of environment on top of no longer having a bed partner probably made it a big adjustment. However, I couldn't shake that "mommy feeling" that something wasn't quite right. I made an appointment with our new pediatrician and sure enough Lukas has an ear infection. We started Azithromycin last week and let me tell you that has been a fun experience. Lukas HATES that medicine and we have to fight tooth and nail to get him to take it. Luckily, we are finished with it and hopefully on the mend.

My daddy & my Patti came to visit us this past weekend. Patti and I got to go shopping for the twins some winter clothes, while the boys watched the A&M game (gag) and the babies. It was a relief to get to get out of the house and enjoy some adult time with Patti. My dad cooked us some amazing steaks on the grill and the twins slept in until 8 am on Sunday. We were rejuvenated and were thankful for a much needed restful weekend!

THANK YOU GRANNY & GRANPA for the CUPCAKES...and cookies...and M&M's...and suckers!!

NEW CLOTHES..

Our new nanny, Michelle is AWESOME. We love her and feel truly blessed to have found her. She has a two year old son that she brings with her everyday. He is such a sweet boy and he loves Maddox. (Time to teach Lukas how to regulate...we figured he should learn early) I cannot tell you how nice it is to be able to watch the twins play outside as I type away on my lap top. They love Michelle and she is so good with them. When the kids are down for a nap, she picks up the house, sweeps, folds laundry...basically goes the extra mile to help out around the house which is something we could get used to :o) Takes excellent care of our children AND helps around the house = BIG BONUS for US :o)

We still have a TON of stuff to unpack and at times feel like our house is in shambles but we are slowly making progress and should have everything whipped into shape in no time!

We would like to send out a special thanks to several of our friends (not mentioned above) who helped us out in the move:

1) Katie J. came and visited me several nights to keep me company and help pack. I enjoyed all of our late night chats and miss them already!

2) The Durans' & The Pauls' were gracious enough to let me do laundry at their house when our washer gave out!

3) Richard, Royce, Jessica & Katie all came to my "packing party" and helped me pack up the final "little things".

4) Missy & Travis spent the large part of a Saturday morning helping us pack and breakdown beds. They also let Cody borrow an air mattress our last night in DFW.

5) My boss at work, Blake, has been super helpful letting me take time off from work as well as working with my crazy schedule the last month!

6) Anita watched the twins for 3 weeks during our transition time. Jonahs even gave up a Saturday morning sleep in to watch the twins so we could pack ;o)

7) English dog/house sat for us on every trip I had to take to OK, hetook my mom to the airport at 6:00 am & picked up Cody from the airport.

Ultimately, we feel truly blessed and thankful to have the set of friends we have in DFW. Several of our friends offered to help, but we were just too busy to come up with things for them to do. We miss everyone already and pray that we can make friends half as good as the ones we left!

Thanks for checking in on us!