Pregnancy #2, Baby #3

I feel a little bad that I haven't been documenting this pregnancy as much as the first.  I'm 37 weeks now and this is the first that I am really writing about it.  This pregnancy has been a bit different than my first.  Obviously, the biggest difference is that I'm only growing 1 baby this time, instead of 2!

Check out these belly pictures:

This one was taken when I was 34 weeks along with the boys.

And this one was taken last week, at 36 weeks with our single baby #3.

Even though i'm a couple weeks ahead of where I was with the boys in this latest picture, I am definitely not as big as I was with them.  

People constantly ask me if I'm having twins.  Or if I'm way past my due date.  People are hilarious.  The things they say to pregnant women are hilarious.  If I were someone who took offense easily, I might be offended sometimes.  But I find it humorous.  

"You must be overdue!" 

"Are you sure there is only 1 baby in there?"

"your belly is sooo big! You could not possibly get any bigger."

"I bet you're ready for that to be over with!" 

And my replies (AKA things I say on a daily basis):  

"It's just 1 baby in there"

"My 40 week due date is in a few weeks, but I'm considered full term now, so it could be anytime."

"yes, I know my belly is enormous, but I was even bigger when I was pregnant with my twins"

"yes I'm ready to meet my baby, but I actually enjoy being pregnant, and am enjoying these last few days/weeks that I have with my baby inside me."  

What can I say?  I grew 2 babies the first time round...my body knows what to do and how to grow to make room for a baby or 2.  

This pregnancy has been similar and different to my first.  

Similar things:  

-No sickness/nausea/vomiting

-Really tired during the 1st trimester

-craving orange juice & spicy things

Different things:

-I can feel a lot more movement from this baby.   I guess since there is only one, he/she has more room to move.  With the boys, they were so squished they didn't have much room to flip and flop a lot.  

-Some heartburn

-Not near as much weight gain

-started showing a bigger belly earlier, but overall not quite as big

-craving anything coconut

-WE Don't know the gender!

-planning a home birth

I'm 37 weeks now, which is technically full term, and am very excited at the prospect of meeting this little babe here very soon!  I've been having tons of Braxton-Hicks contractions, but nothing that shows true labor is starting yet.  My 40 week due date is November 5th, but I hope to go into labor around 38/39 weeks on my own.  We are planning a home birth with an awesome midwife who has 30+ years experience with delivering babies at home.  

The nursery is just about complete, co-sleeper is set up on our bed, car seat is in the car, all our supplies for our home birth are sitting out ready to go, and our birth pool is here and ready. 

We're ready to meet you baby!   

The Best of 2011

2011 has been a crazy and exciting year for us, and as we near the new year, I can't help but think that every year from here on out will be so different and crazier than any of our past years.   We have made so many changes in our lives, including a new house and 2 precious little additions to our family!  Here are a few things from each month this past year that were especially memorable for us:

January:

We found out we were having twins!!  That early ultrasound had both our jaws to the floor.  Tears and laughter filled the room.  Never would either of us had expected that we would get pregnant with twins!  I often think back to my high school or younger self years and try to picture that girl, all grown up, and now with twins.  It completely blows my mind.  

February:

The month that I started this blog.  I wanted to start writing.  To somehow keep track of important events in our life, with words and not just pictures.  I wanted to write also about the emotions of all of it, which aren't always seen through pictures.  I wanted a "journal" so to speak, that others who were interested could share in with our lives.  It's been fun to blog so far, and I see it continuing for as long as my fingers have we have the means and my fingers have the dexterity to do so.  

March:

We bought our first house.  It turned out to be a lot better than we had hoped.  It was a fairly quick and painful process, surprisingly.  I love how we have made this house our home, and how it will turn into the comforting place where our kids will call home one day also.  

April:

As soon as we found out we were having boys at our Gender Reveal Party, we started working on the nursery.  We went with the theme from the book, The Giving Tree.  I painted murals and got tree/apple accents.  I'm very pleased with how it all came out, and love that it wasn't a theme that you could just easily buy stuff for.  It was original, and that made us have to be creative.  

May:

My belly keeps on growing and growing (and this pic is around 24/26 weeks I believe...it got much bigger!).  I never thought my belly would get as big as it did, and every week I would be amazed by how much it grew.  I just kept thinking, "I don't know how I can get much bigger", but it kept happening.  Big belly housed 2 little boys for 9 whole months!  

June:

All my sweet friends threw us a baby shower!  We were given lots and lots of neat and useful gifts for the boys!

July:

The most anticipated day of 2011:  the day our boys arrived!  Although the delivery was entirely disappointing, my boys were completely healthy and I could not have been more excited about their arrival out of my belly and into my arms.

August:

Our boys' first photo shoot at one week old.  A huge thanks goes out to Marissa French of Rylan's Riches Photography for photographing our precious little dudes.  She has also done their 3 month pics, and will also do 6, 9 and 12 month photo shoots!

September:

We took our boys on their firsts outdoor adventures, to both Percy Warner Park and Radnor Lake.  They very much enjoyed the gorgeous Tennessee fall weather, as did we, while toting them around in our carriers.

October:

The boys' first halloween!  They went as Thing 1 and Thing 2.

November:

We had some more photos done...the boys' 3 month pics and also some family photos!  3 month photos done by Rylan's Riches Photography, and family photos done by my talented friend, Lane.  This month was also the boys' first trip to Michigan, and first plane ride, which they did awesome with.

December:

The boys had their 1st Christmas, and we sent out our 1st Christmas card!  The boys had no idea that it was even Christmas, but we had fun with them, dressing them in little elf outfits, opening presents to each other and then taking them for a cold tour of Nashville's ICE! exhibit.  1st Christmas success for sure.  Man o' man do I feel old now, sending out Christmas cards and all!  

This year has been beyond amazing, and we are so unbelievably blessed to have these magical little boys in our lives.  Here's to many more great years full of bliss and excitement ahead.

Peace & Love to you in the new year!

Belly Growth

Watch me grow!

37 weeks...right before delivery

And out pops 2!

Our Labor Fake Out

Jeremy and I both spontaneously woke up the other night at 3 am. We were both completely wide awake and unable to fall back asleep.  It was a full moon that night.  As we lay in bed talking, I realize how hungry I am, and all of sudden begin to notice that my belly is rock hard.  This isn't something out of the ordinary for me.  I have been having braxton hicks contractions for a while now, also known as "fake" contractions.  They are a painless tightening of the uterus in preparation for the contractions that will happen during actual labor. 

At first I thought nothing of it.  But as I was sitting up in bed eating fruit, I realized that these "fake" contractions were beginning to become much more intense then normal.  Not only could I feel tightening, but there was also a whole load of pressure in my pelvic area that is usually not there.  I told this to Jeremy and he said, "Is this it?  Is this why we both randomly woke up in the middle of the night?"

We both got super excited and decided to go on a walk to see if this was actual labor.  Yup.  A walk around our neighborhood in the dead of night.  The moon was so bright that it didn't even look like night.  With normal braxton hicks contractions, they are suppose to go away with position changes and activity.  Mine didn't go away.  My belly continued to stay rock hard and the pelvic pressure continued.  When we finished our walk a long while later, I decided to try and time these contractions.  It's hard to explain, but it was tough to time them because I could not always tell when exactly they started and ended.  I did the best I could and was getting roughly 15 mins between each one, and each one lasting about 30-45 seconds.  I kept getting distracted and bored while trying to time them, so I finally just stopped.  Since we were still wide awake, we decided to make some breakfast.  We ran to walmart, grabbed some food and made a delicious breakfast.  Afterwards, we both then got really tired and went back to bed.  (dead end story, I know.  Sorry).

I don't know if I was having actual contractions that night or not, but I sure hope so.  A lot of people say "well they weren't real contractions if they didn't hurt".  Did you know my mom pushed out my brother naturally without any pain?  She just felt "weird", went to the hospital, and delivered my brother an hour later.  No pain, no nothing.  Awesome.  I would LOVE for this to happen to me (as would anyone, right?), but I'm not expecting it by any means. :)

I hope that our sleepless, anxious night a few days ago is a foreshadowing of what may be to come here in the next few weeks/days!!  I'm so excited!!!!            

Pregnancy

My pregnancy so far has been amazing.  Much much better than I could have ever imagined.  I have had only 1 occurrence of morning sickness.  1!  That's crazy!  I don't know how I got so lucky to have missed all that, but I bet I am going to pay for it with my future pregnancies.  I love to watch my stomach grow and know that my little boys in there are getting bigger and staying healthy.  Apparently my belly measures to be the size of a 28 week single baby belly.  Whoa.  By the way, twins grow and develop at the same rate as a single baby would, so as of now, they are no smaller, but they will be born earlier (probably and hopefully) which will make them weigh less at birth.  

It wasn't until about a week ago that I have been able to feel the little guys move.  I had been waiting for it for a long time, and am so excited whenever I feel them!  I went to an Avett Brothers concert last weekend and that is where I really could start to feel them.  They were going crazy-dancing, to the assume tunes I assume.  Now that I know what it feels like, I feel them all the time.  So the other night Jeremy and I were sitting on the couch, and he wanted to feel them move.  With his hand on my stomach, we were sitting there watching, waiting for one or both of them to kick.  They did and not only did we feel it, but we saw it!  Their little feet or hands shot up and made my stomach move!  We simultaneously screamed.  Now I sit around on the couch sometimes with my shirt up, just waiting to see them again.  It's really entertaining.  

I have had some inservice classes that I have had to go to for work this past week.  While sitting the classroom, I would feel Judah and/or Foxx moving and would just start to smile.  People probably noticed and thought I was crazy for smiling so big while listening to topics such oscillator ventilators, but I couldn't help it.  I love finally being able to feel them.  I'm pretty sure they wrestle in there sometimes.  I can feel kicks and punches on opposite ends of my stomach, at the same time.  And on every ultrasound that I have had, they have always been jumping around like crazy and hitting each other.  I cannot wait until they get here and I finally get to meet them, but I don't want to rush it and am just trying to enjoy every moment while they are in there growing.

Here are a few videos of them moving in my stomach.  It's a little hard to see on video, but look closely just a little below my belly button, around second 4.  Sorry if these creep you out!

This one is a little better...bigger movements.  Watch under the belly button right as the movie starts and around second 8.

Baby Bump.

Well, it finally happened.  Someone who did not already know that I was pregnant noticed that I have a belly!  I have been able to tell for a long while...and close friends have been able to tell pretty quickly as well.  But yesterday was the first time that someone who was not looking for a belly noticed that I had one.  It was very exciting.  I don't know if it's this exciting for everybody, but I was pumped!  It was also kind of awkward because after this person noticed my bump, they continued to squeal and then touch it. It was a little strange.  But at least it wasn't a boy right?  That would be totally weird.  I was walking into Kroger and there were some girl scouts outside selling cookies.  One of the girl scout's mom said to me as I was walking toward the cookies "What kind of cookies would baby like?"  I said, "well, actually, the babIES would like..." and then she flipped out.  She is a midwife, and had apparently just delivered a set of twins at an office call the other day.  So, yeah.  All that just to say how excited I am that somebody I didn't know noticed my belly.

It's so weird to know that 2 little humans growing inside me.  I feel like I have just gotten kind of fat, but then when I actually touch my stomach, it's not squishy and soft like fat is.  It is hard.  So strange feeling.  When I run, it just bounces along.  And when I bend over, it doesn't really move.  I feel like I'm trying to bend over on top of a little basketball.  That will be fun (not) and probably impossible when I'm huge.  I can't feel the babies moving yet, but I am anxiously waiting and very excited for that day.  Jeremy and I often take out my stethoscope and try to listen for their little heartbeats and kicks.  We don't hear anything unfortunately : (  I'll expect to be feeling them move here in the next few weeks.  I have no idea what it will feel like, but it will probably freak me out, and then I'll get really excited.

So we found an ultrasound machine in the NICU where I work the other night...totally pulled it out and got to look at my babies!  It was so cool.  We tried to determine the sex, and thought that we saw something, but none of us really know what we are doing, so I'm not banking on what we saw and will wait for my 20 week ultrasound at the doctors.  The twins were soooo active!  They were both jumping around like crazy and wrestling and hitting each other while we were watching them.  I am so surprised that I can't feel anything yet with how much they are jumping around in there.  I could see all their little toes and fingers and even noses!  So cute.  Both their little hearts are still beating great : )

This is a plate that Jeremy and I painted the other day...haha, we think it's cute.