When God provides

When I got pregnant this time around, I figured we were covered on all the baby stuff.  Caedon will be almost three, done with all the baby stuff, hopefully figuring out potty training.  All that fun stuff.  THEN we found out it was twins and well.....that requires a bit more.  For one thing, we'll need double the diapers so I'd better increase my efforts to stock up on those when they're on sale and I have coupons!  Plus we'll need a double stroller, a second car seat, extra everything.  Thankfully, we bought a new crib when Caedon was born and we still have Melissa's in the garage so we don't need to worry about that.

Several days ago, Brian's aunt sent him an e-mail and asked if we had gotten a double stroller yet.  She saw one on sale that she wanted to get if we didn't have one.  We e-mailed back and told her how much we appreciated it but would she mind giving us the link so I could look at it - I wanted it to be able to hold both infant car seats at the same time AND wanted it to be compatible with the infant seat we used with Caedon.  Do you know that when she e-mailed back and told us which stroller she was looking at, it was the EXACT stroller I had already selected at Target!  Not only that, but it was no longer available in stores or at target.com so I was sure I was going to have to find a different one that met our needs.  But God took care of that for us, through the generous love of family.  I love that.


God is also protecting our sweet babies and we thank you all for your prayers for our little ones.  We know that there are more people praying for them than we can even imagine and we so love that you are all passing on our requests to others so that these babies can be bathed in prayer.

When we went to our perinatologist appointment this week, we got confirmation that Brian IS positive for the little c antigen so that scenario I posted about before - Brian passed little c on to Caedon and, at some point during my pregnancy/delivery with him, his blood mixed with mine and my body created the antibodies against little c - seems like it is exactly what happened.  Even though we know for sure that Brian has little c, we still can't know for sure if he has passed that on to one or both of these babies.  During our sono this week the babies looked great, no problems with anemia for either of them and they are growing right on track, wiggling and looking cute!  We will now visit the peri every two weeks to check on the babies and make sure things are still going well.

ALSO at this visit, the sono tech was able to see the genders of both of the babies!  I so wish I could tell you who these little people are but....I don't know yet!  We had her write the genders on a little card I had made up and she put the card and the sono pics that showed gender in an envelope.  It was mailed off to my wonderful friend, Chara, who will be throwing us a gender reveal party on December 29th.  My kiddos woke up this morning saying, "5 days til Christmas!" and I woke up saying, "9 days til I can call my babies by their names!"  We are so excited to find out their genders with our family and friends here with us.  It will be so much fun....but I'm having such a hard time waiting!

Keep an eye on my Facebook page and this blog because the news will be posted in both places as soon as possible after we have our reveal party! 

Both babies, with their profiles set side-by-side :)

Baby A

Baby B

Growing Up

It's always bittersweet watching my kids hit new milestones and make transitions.  I love watching them learn and grow but I always miss that little bit of "baby" that they lose every time they learn something new. 

Caedon has several transitions to make in the next 5 months before the twins come - getting rid of paci, moving to a toddler bed, moving into Kyler's room and (hopefully!) potty-training.  Yesterday he decided to take care of one of those transitions on his own without any encouragement from Mommy!

Caedon just a few weeks ago, sleeping sweetly with his paci

Yesterday morning when I went to get Caedon from bed, he handed me his pacifier and said, "Throw it away."
I said, "You wanna throw your pacis away?"
Him, "Yeah, put it in the trash."

So he took the two pacifiers he had in his bed and put them right into the trash can.  And then at naptime there were no tears.  He didn't even ask for paci.  He just sang and talked himself to sleep.  At bedtime and again at naptime today he did ask where paci is but I reminded him that he put them in the trash and they're gone now and he didn't fuss about it.  He's still in there right now talking and singing but I'm hoping he'll be asleep within the hour!  

I am just amazed at how easily he made the transition to no paci - and that he did it on his own without prompting!  After the nightmare of a time we had getting Melissa off of her beloved paci, I was not looking forward to it with Caedon.  Relieved mommy over here!

It seems that he turned into a big boy overnight!  Where's my baby go?

Perinatologist appointment

In my last post, I had just had my blood re-drawn to send it for antibody screening.  Obviously, I got the results of that test since then and it was the same, still positive for antibodies.  My midwife referred me to a perinatologist so that we could find out exactly what the antibody issue was and how it could affect me and baby.  Yesterday I had that first appt there.  First of all, I have to say that I really liked the doctor.  He was great at explaining what was going on and where we go from here and he was very helpful and kind. 

Brian went with me to the appointment yesterday and when we got called back, the first thing we did was have an ultrasound.  The tech put the wand on my belly and then pulled it off really quick. 

The following conversation went something like this:
Tech: "Have you had an ultrasound yet for this pregnancy?"
Me:  "No, this is our first."
Tech:  "Was this a spontaneous pregnancy or did you have help?" [ie fertility treatments]
Me:  No, it was just us...
Tech:  "Well, the reason I'm asking is...[and she puts the wand back down]...there are two babies in here." 
Me: "Are you JOKING???"
Brian:  [Sitting next to me spluttering] 

So....yes, we're having TWINS.  We will have FIVE kids!  I'm pretty sure I'm still in complete shock but Kyler and Melissa are THRILLED.

After that, she continued to check over the babies and take measurements, listen to heartbeats (TWO of them!  Oh my goodness!), etc.  All that fun sonogram stuff.  When she finished, she left and we waited for the doctor, talking about our surprise over the addition of two babies to our family instead of one.  I know at one point I turned to Brian and said, "Nobody will ever want to baby-sit for us again."  :)

When the doctor came in, he discussed with us the antibody issue.  There are tons of different antigens and antibodies and certain ones can cause issues in pregnancy.  Basically, my blood naturally does not have a certain antigen (called little c) but at some point it was introduced into my blood and my body recognized it as a "foreign object" and so my body created white blood cells to attack the little c antigen. So the antibody issue is that my body is now "on guard" against that particular antigen and IF one or both of the babies has the little c antigen and my body recognizes it as something it's dealt with before, it could cause my body to create mass amounts of white blood cells and send them across the placenta to attack the baby's blood. It can cause serious anemia issues (and even lead to death of the baby).

The doctor had us do a blood draw on Brian as well.  IF his blood work comes back completely negative for the c antigen, then our babies are in the clear.  Since I don't carry little c and if Brian doesn't carry little c, then the babies would not possibly have little c in their blood, which means my body would have no reason to attack it.  Make sense?  This would obviously be the BEST case scenario.

However, my honest guess is that Brian DOES carry little c and he passed it on to Caedon.  Sometime during Caedon's pregnancy or birth, some of his blood mixed with mine and introduced that little c to my body, causing my body to create antibodies against it.  Just a guess, but it's an educated one and a very likely scenario

At this point, it's just a waiting game to see if the babies will be affected.  I go back at 18 weeks (the earliest they would be able to intervene if the baby/babies have issues) and they will do another ultrasound.  Each month (I THINK he said once a month, there was a lot of info to take in) they will do the ultrasound and keep an eye on the blood flow of the babies by checking the blood vessels in their heads.  If the baby or babies start having any anemia problems, they can start doing transfusions to the baby/babies through the umbilical cord.

We would LOVE your prayers.  Please pray for the babies throughout this pregnancy, that they will BOTH stay healthy and strong and are not affected at all by the antibodies.  Please pray specifically for the next 5 weeks.  Until they are 18 weeks, they are too small for the transfusions.  If one or both of the babies start having trouble in the next 5 weeks, there is nothing to do for them.  I had no idea before yesterday that there were two babies on the way to join our family, but now that I DO know, I want to bring BOTH of those sweet little people home to join us.

I'm okay with an uneventful pregnancy

Pregnancy is fun and wonderful but it's not really something that you want to be too exciting or eventful.  That likely means you're having problems or baby is having problems and that's NO FUN.  I'm good with uneventful.

Yesterday my midwife called me and asked me to come in to have my blood work redone.  My first set of tests came back showing that I have antibodies in my blood, which can cause some serious problems for the baby and would require more in-depth care for me and this little one.  It was odd that it showed up but I've never had the issue with my previous pregnancies.  She wanted to rerun the tests, hoping that it was an error.  I went in yesterday afternoon and had more blood taken and now I'm just waiting to hear back.  Of course, she told me not to stress about it but, well....I did dream about it all night last night.  I am trying to remember that this baby is in God's hands.  He loves him/her more than I do and just as much as He's loved all three of my other sweet babies.

I was 9 weeks yesterday, still feeling nauseous much of the time, although there are days when I feel okay for alot of the day.  Today I woke up feeling good but tonight has been rough.  Just going with the flow, hoping it'll only be a few more weeks of feeling sick!

Anyway, going to try to keep busy this weekend and keep my mind off of the tests until I hear back on Monday.  It shouldn't be too hard to distract myself since we're making a trip out of town to celebrate my father-in-law's 70th birthday!  Wow!  The kids are super excited but Melissa said, "I didn't know old people had birthday parties!"  :)

Pregnancy

I like to record pregnancy info in my blog to have later (I've already referred back to my posts with Caedon to see if I could find out how long my morning sickness lasted in his pregnancy!) so here's an update for ya!

I will be 8 weeks pregnant on Thursday.  My all-day sickness started 2 weeks ago (Brian asked how long I've been sick and I said two weeks and he said ONLY TWO?  It's seemed longer....).  As has been the pattern with me, my sickness is much worse this time around.  It's gotten worse with each pregnancy.  FYI, I'm DONE after this one.  I don't want to see how much worse it can get than this time!  Thankfully, I still don't throw up much.  I did throw up for the first time this morning but mostly, it's just nausea all day.

I've lost about 4 lbs....but....my pants are already starting to feel a bit snug!  I think I'm going to be showing even earlier with this sweet little one!  I'm very ready to get from this stage of pregnancy into the FUN part - feeling and seeing the baby move, finding out gender, picking out a name, planning for and dreaming about a new little life!

We're hoping this baby is a girl. Melissa really wants it to be a girl b/c that means the baby will eventually move into her room and she can have BUNK BEDS!  Yes, this is her main motivation for wanting a sister....  I just really want to do all the pink girly stuff again.  Melissa doesn't let me pick out her clothes anymore and I miss dressing a little girl!  Plus....we already have a girl name picked out and can't agree on a boy name :)  We will, of course, be thrilled with either gender.

Anyway...pray with me that my sickness is gone by Halloween.  Or at least takes a break for that weekend. :)  I'm going on my scrapbooking retreat and I REALLY want to be able to eat all the yummy food all weekend (I can start working on gaining back that bit of weight I've lost!).

That was an unintentional blogging vacation

Okay, so my last actual blog post was for Caedon's first birthday.  Sorry 'bout that.  Really, I just post everything on Facebook and neglect the blog.  :)

In the year since I posted, Melissa turned 6 and finished kinder and started 1st grade.  She LOVED kindergarten but she says she doesn't like first grade because she gets too many color changes.  I'm trying to convince her that this is not first grade's fault and that if she would just stop talking when she's supposed to be quiet, she would stop getting color changes.  My little chatterbox.

Kyler turned 8 and started 3rd grade.  I think he's really enjoying it.  He wasn't sure about starting back to school this year - he's like me and has a difficult time with change - but he likes his teacher and he hasn't had ANY color changes yet this year.  He's very proud of that!

Mr. Caedon just turned 2 last month!  He loves Veggie Tales (Beh-buh-bulls) and Super Why (Wuhwuh Why!), he adores going to school to see his friends and he's learning to talk more all the time.  I just love hearing his new words and sentences.  My favorite of his new phrases is "Ow!  Me me me!" which translates to "Ow!  That hurt me!"  :)  He also really likes to sing and dance!
 

Caedon helped us announce some exciting news this week - we're going to be welcoming baby #4 in May 2014.  I swing between pure excitement and excitement mixed with a little bit of "am I CRAZY?  How am I going to handle FOUR kids???"  :)  Right now we're talking about how soon we should move Caedon out of his room and crib.  His bedroom will become the baby's room and Caedon will be moving in with Kyler.  This is the first time I've needed to have one kiddo make a transition for the purpose of using their room/furniture/space for a new little one so we'll see how that goes.

I'm only 5 weeks so it's still very early and we've got a long way to go!  Melissa is beyond excited and says she CAN'T wait until the end of school to meet this baby.  We're hoping for a VBAC at the birthing center in Rockwall and Melissa says she wants to be there to see the baby be born.  Kyler is just as adamant that he does NOT want to be there. :)

I'm feeling fine right now but my morning sickness has gotten a little bit worse with each kiddo so I'm just waiting to see if this one will be the worst of all.  I've got ginger ale and saltines on stand-by.  I am super tired but considering that that was the first symptom of my pregnancy with Kyler, I'm not surprised.

Perhaps with a new baby coming along, I will keep up this blog a little better.  Maybe.  Stay tuned.