Another day in paradise

Good morning my faithful followers! Sorry for the delay in posts, everything is fine with the girls! My good and bad days have shifted to good and bad hours of the day, so I thought I would spare you all from a venting session over the weekend. I had wonderful family visitors this weekend- my parents were here on Saturday and my aunt and cousins came on Sunday while my uncle helped Dallas again at home! We are so blessed to have such great families who help us so much.

Had a bit of a breakdown last night. I received my dinner and it was pretty gross and that apparently was the straw that broke the camel's back because the tears just started flowing. We have A LOT going on right now between the move and me and the babies and my hormones lol.  It is so frustrating (I know I keep using this word, but I don't know how else to explain it) that I can't be at our new home seeing everything come together. All I want to do is decorate for fall, light my Apple Pumpkin Yankee candles, and pretend like we have seasons here ;)  You hear about pregnant women that get the urge to start "nesting" - well I think that's part of it all too. What better time to nest than to be pregnant with a new home?! I want to decorate and clean and set up our babies' nursery-- just normal things- but I can't. Every little thing is bothering me in my hospital room.  I want to clean it- the dust on the window blinds is driving me insane. I might ask the cleaning ladies to do that today, I just don't want to seem rude :/

So after a rough night, this morning I wasn't so cute-my eyes were swollen and I didn't feel like getting out of bed early like I normally do. Usually I am presentable and reading my kindle by the time my doctor comes in around 8-830.  Not today. I was still in bed with something over my eyes to block the light.  So my doctor walks in with a little extra pep in his step today and very sarcastically says, "well good morning sunshine!" Ha  

Sometimes this dry, very brilliant man is really funny. 

I'm not sure when my next ultrasound is but it should be soon. I can't wait to see how big the girls are.  It feels like 2 hulk hogans inside me. The pressure and their movements are so intense and they don't make it easy for me to breathe- that's for sure.

Friday the 13th

Nothing much to report, doc says everything looks good with the girls which is such a relief every morning, you can't even imagine. These last couple of days with not much sleep is really wearing on me. Hopefully I will crash soon. I'm on bed rest in this hospital but I really got much more rest when I was at home! I'm pretty anxious and not having control over my own daily routine is really frustrating me. I am missing the normalcy of being home with just my husband and puppies. I was also just informed I won't have AC tonight from 1-7am. Awesome, just what I need.

 Looking outside my window today, I thought how nice it would have been to be sitting somewhere on the water with my husband having my favorite glass of champagne - then I received this amazing delivery of my second favorite thing from the Lucas family... Delicious fresh fruit and literally the best chocolate covered strawberries/bananas/apples I've ever had. THANK YOU Nicki & Steven, you made my day-- the girls loved it too :)
Look how pretty...

Hope everyone has a nice, safe weekend! Have some champs for me :)

28 weeks!

We are 28 weeks today and very happy our girls are still cooking!  The cleaning lady from the hospital came in my room today and said "your belly is big" haha thanks for the reminder. The bigger the better here! Keep on growing babies and I'll blame my size on the steroids ;)

On another note- look at all these faces I'm missing so much at home. My heart doesn't feel as full being away from my family. I miss all their love and kisses. Diesel is dadda's big baby for sure. 

My beautiful Yoly came by today. I miss my friend :( this woman saved my life in Loxahatchee and has been the best friend I could ask for. She's also the reason my Christmas cards turn out so well :) best photographer around! Too bad she couldn't photoshop my 2nd chin out of this image. Love you!

And here's a shot with my 2 angels on earth! Poppy & Grandma (from Dal's side - but I'm blessed to call them my family now) these 2 generous and self-less people are the reason we are surviving right now. They have packed our entire old house and moved us into the new one. I can't even begin to list the amount of work they have done for us over the last month. They take care of my hubby and puppies for me and are spoiling them like crazy! Their hearts are bigger than anyone's you will ever meet and I could never thank them enough for all of their love, support, and dedication to our family.

Look how cute my last little visitor was... Thank you for the beautiful gifts Yohana xoxoxo

This is one tired mama...thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers. We are so appreciative of you all.  I HAVE GOT TO GET SOME REST. goodnight!

Twinning

Wasn't planning on posting anything today because I've been sort of a grouch :) didn't get much sleep last night so I thought today would be the perfect afternoon for napping on this rainy day. But apparently they've had a lot of deliveries between last night and this morning so the floor has been loud and busy all day with non stop nurse calls over the intercom -which I can't control the volume on -so napping just didn't work out.  Saw my specialist this morning and he said everything still looks great. I'm so happy with my girls. Baby A was a little giddy today so we had to put a pillow case in between the monitor & strap in order to put more pressure on the monitor & hear her heart a little better. Oh these contraptions...

Baby B was on a mission again today. Earlier this morning I didn't feel them moving around like I usually do so I was anxious to get on the monitors and hear those heart beats. So of course, as soon as we got her on the monitor she threw a fit and was kicking and moving all over the place. The nurses need a steady hour of both babies' heartbeats tracing on the monitors for my doctors. So after an hour and a half, and 2 nurses trying to get her locked in, we surrendered and tried again after lunch. I just had to hold the monitor down and follow her a little as she tried to escape but I was able to keep her on it for the most part. My wild child :) my OB stopped by while they were on the monitors and she was like "wow are they always this active?" I'm like oh you have no idea... Hopefully they are just staying out of the way of their cords. Lets see if this video will work...

I had a surprise visitor tonight - my twin! Katie and I met in high school and figured out we were born on the same day, in the same hospital, 2 hours apart. We were roommates all through college and we've always called each other twin- oh the irony now :) I'm so excited for her to move closer to us.  Not only is she beautiful but she is a smart little cookie- she is a physicians assistant and accepted a job up here closer to where we live.

Now the challenge is finding a place for her to live that will accept my nephew, Harley. Seriously who wouldn't want this face?! I do!!!

Week 1

It's been 1 week since my husband brought me to the hospital- what a bad day that was. I was a wreck. Today I can say that I am adjusting well and in better spirits. The girls and I are getting used to the schedule and I like seeing my doctors daily.
Today has actually been sort of busy lol .. After breakfast, my OB came in and chatted with me for a while which was nice. She told me her and my specialist ordered my steroid shots. I had one today (OUCH!) and I will have the other one tomorrow. That should be all I need, we will see. Hopefully that will give our girls a little boost, but they need to stay in mama's incubator for another 6 weeks and I'll be happy happy happy!
Then my dad brought me lunch and visited for a while. We had some quality Daddy-daughter time :)
He said he saw a People magazine and he thought I would want to read about "how Katie Couric found love again" haha thanks daddy.
On a serious note, I LOVE you all for bringing me my favorite guilty pleasures to snack on, but come on people--- between the bed rest, hospital food, and now steroids...mama needs some grilled chicken salads from now on! Ha
Time to get back on my monitors xoxo

Then Jen stopped by to try and teach me how to crochet... That's a work in progress ha, but we WILL make baby headbands. 

How awesome is this shirt.. "Does this baby make me look fat?"

Look at how cute this Nethercote family is. They brought me the famous Loxahatchee Pizza Barn for dinner last night :) love you guys 

Reflections

Dallas and I have had 20 weeks to absorb and accept all of this information about our type of pregnancy but still, there are times it does not seem real. It's not something we have or ever will take lightly. In fact, we have been quite defensive about it all.  And if you know me, you know how defensive I am about my animals, so you can only imagine what I am like with my girls! Mama bear. 

It has been a daunting journey thus far, but being in the stage of a viable pregnancy and living in the hospital has given us a slight feeling of relief knowing I am in the safest place for my family right now. I also know that looking back, this will all be a glitch in time compared to the beautiful chaos that we have to look forward to...

In the beginning of my pregnancy, I didn't want anyone to know about it because I never wanted to have to tell anyone bad news being that we had a 50% survival rate. There has not been a second in my life that has gone by that I have not been acutely aware of what is happening inside of me. I constantly worried every second of every day that my girls would strangle inside of me. I was completely terrified and cried all the time - every single day- because of worry. I couldn't breathe.  I have not known anyone personally who could relate to anything I've felt. It has been a very lonely experience, and it is not easy for me to be so candid. 

Dallas traveled a lot during the beginning stages of our pregnancy which just made it that much more difficult on the both of us. After I was hospitalized the first time @ 19 weeks for pre term labor contractions, his company allowed us the privilege for him to stay local and work; that is something that I am eternally grateful for. It saved me. He saves me. 

 Mono-chorionic, Mono-amniotic pregnancies account for only 1% of twin pregnancies. It was a hard thing to believe that we could be that 1%. To put it into perspective, my egg split at the last possible stage before our babies would have been conjoined...

I remember being 9 weeks pregnant and talking to a friend of a friend who recently had twins and she was so sweet in trying to comfort my fears and told me - "don't worry about that, they found my line separating the girls at 10 weeks- that situation is so rare, it won't happen to you. They will find the line it's just a matter of when".  Still waiting...

Another friend of mine sent me a thoughtful card that just said "Expect Miracles". I have told her, but not sure she realizes how deeply that affected me.  It was a turning point. I had to stop the constant worry and just expect our little miracles would survive. That's what we have focused on: success and love and faith. 

So although this blog may show another side of me with humor and smiles, just know that it has been the most difficult time in my life but I know and believe our girls will be the most rewarding outcome that we will cherish for the rest of our lives. Xo

Manic Monday

Grandma sent me this sweet photo of some clothes hanging in the girls' closet already (the rest are packed bc we are still in the process of moving)
It's funny because I go day to day listening to the girls heartbeats and feeling them move, but then I see something like that and it sort of hits me- wow, we are going to be bringing home TWO baby girls. That's pretty insane. And to think - I was the anti-pink girl ;)

Last nights monitoring session wasn't pleasant. After an hour of the nurse trying to get baby B to just stay put, she let me off the hook because my skin looked like it was on fire from all the straps and monitors rubbing against my skin with the gel they use that turns to a dry sticky substance. So she did it again at 6am before she left for the day in hopes to catch baby B while she was still sleepy. It worked :) The nurses keep saying how baby B is difficult and she is crazy and all over the place so I think baby A was missing out on the attention because when the day time nurse tried after breakfast, both babies were in a tag team match to escape from the monitors. They totally shifted sides and were putting so much pressure on my insides- wow was that uncomfortable. The nurse asked if my children were always this difficult...haha what in the world is in store for me?! She laid me all the way back in the bed which just adds pressure to me and makes it beyond difficult for me to breathe. Then proceeds to shove the monitors into my already tight and stuffed belly and pull the straps so tight in order to get a better reading of their heart rates--not a happy mommy! 45 minutes and 2 nurses later, they got a steady read of both hearts- so then the monitoring could begin - but then I had to pee. Hahah

The girls look like they are doing well, so that's all that matters. 

Here are just a few thoughts I had...

Things that make me feel like I'm in an insane asylum:

1.) standing at my window looking out at all the people who are free to drive by

2.) the electrical outlets don't work in the bathroom. I have to blow dry my hair in the room

3.) the toilet paper roll needs a key in order to change toilet paper. Which is really unfortunate bc an empty roll on the holder is one of my biggest pet peeves 

4.) the tiny white cups they give me my vitamins in. Reminds me of the movie "girl interrupted" I'm just waiting on someone to have to watch me shave my legs...

On second thought--I wish someone would just do that for me at this point because it is becoming quite difficult to reach the lower part of my legs!! 

5.) staying in one room allllll the time. I walked down the hallway to get my own water - which felt like a field trip - and one of the nurses told me I need to stay in bed. The more I move, the more the babies move, the more chance of entanglement. Ay yi yi 

6.) the monotony 

A physical therapist came in to show me some "exercises" to do while on bed rest. The exercises consist of raising my arms, flexing my calves, turning my head, and squeezing my butt muscles.  She then proceeded to ask if I wanted her to write that down so I can remember. Haha I got it, thanks. All I could think was, did I just pay for that??? I am going to need some serious personal training after this. I figure I will have 2 car seats I can do some bicep curls with and hold both babies while doing squats :) Grandma Judy's cookies probably aren't helping either, but man are those things good ;)

In much more exciting news--- I got a new bed!  Just like the contraptions around my legs that I have to sleep in every night, the bed raises and decompresses to help blood flow while I'm sleeping. This ought to be fun and really help with the new motion sickness issue I have since I've been pregnant.