16 Weeks with babies number 4 & 5

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Well, I was waiting until today to post the gender reveal because today I had my ultrasound at a local ultrasound center this afternoon. I was supposed to find out yesterday but they had to move my appointment to the next day because of a family emergency with the technician so I was SO EXCITED to find out today! We had already found out one of the genders a couple of weeks ago at my doctors appointment and today was the day to find out the other baby! Unfortunately, they looked for 15 minutes but couldn't get that shot they needed, so we got to see that sweet little baby move a lot but we couldn't see between the legs where we needed. So, they rescheduled me for next Friday, so Lord willing, I will hopefully know both genders next week. I had been feeling better and only had 4 nausea pills left so I decided to stop taking them and see how I did but the next night I threw up again, so trying to figure out what to do there. I heard its a hard couple days being off the meds but then things get better. Excited to start feeling the babies soon :)



(left, pregnant with Jack Henry and Hadley and to the right, Walker)
Total weight gain: +8
Sleep: Sleeping great
Best moment this week: Confirming the one gender we already know and seeing two healthy babies on the ultrasound. 
Movement: None yet
Food cravings: Nothing specific but starting to be able to eat veggies again! 
Symptoms: Sciatic pinching , still a little nauseas. 
Wedding rings on or off?
 on! 

Looking forward to:Finding out the other gender, Lord willing, next Friday. 

Finding out I was expecting twins again...

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Finding out I was pregnant was an incredible and thrilling moment filled with overwhelming joy, just as each my pregnancies have been. This is my 5th pregnancy, Jack Henry and Hadley were my first pregnancy, I had a miscarriage when they were 20 months, Walker was my third pregnancy and first rainbow baby, and then when he was 18 months I had my fourth pregnancy and lost that one too, so this was my 5th pregnancy and was no less exciting than any of the others. It took us exactly a year to get a successful pregnancy each time we have tried, so they are always so welcomed, prayed for and celebrated. 
This was my fourth month on medication (lowest dose of Femara) and it was the same meds I took to get my Walkie, so with a less than 2% chance of twins, twins truly were not on my radar. I remember it was a Saturday night at I could test in the morning so I tried to get a good night sleep but of course I woke up around 3am needing to pee and felt like a kid on Christmas Eve. I tried to ignore the urge and go back to sleep because I knew if I went to the restroom in the middle of the night, then in the morning my urine wouldn't be as concentrated and not as ideal for early pregnancy testing. So of course, I tested... At 3 am...like a crazy person. As I waited for the result, I closed my eyes and began to pray, just talking very openly with Jesus. Lord, this is the desire of my heart, and I know you know that, but God you are GOOD if its negative just as you are GOOD if its positive. I kind of just kept repeating this over and over and my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest. After a couple minutes had passed, I looked down and immediately saw to dark and pink lines. POSITIVE!!!! I began to cry and rejoice and PRAISE him. Luke had a crazy morning planned at church, having his first interest meeting for our church's new campus so as BADLY as I wanted to wake him and tell him, I let him sleep. I stayed on my phone for about an hour, figuring out my due date and downloading pregnancy apps and just kept praising God for this perfect gift! That morning when Luke was up, I didn't plan anything special, I just walked up to him in our bathroom and showed him the test. He of course was thrilled and we hugged and thanked Jesus for this perfect gift and we prayed for protection. 

I kind of thought the lies were very DARK for such an early test and a week or so later I had bloodwork done to check my progesterone and my HCG levels, and I noticed my levels had almost tripled, instead of the normal doubling, but I know lots of high level pregnancies that were just a really healthy singleton, so again, my brain thought, high levels and dark lines? Could it be twins? NO WAY! I didn't even give it a second thought. 


At 6 weeks and 0 days, the nausea hit FULL FORCE and I didn't get a break for months. You are supposed to have worse nausea with twins, but again, I was never nausas with my first twins, so I didn't think anything of it. I was starting to feel blue, feeling SO sick and SO exhausted, I felt like I could barely mother my kids, so when my sister in law called me and told me that her middle child, Hayes, age 11 told his other aunt, that his aunt Kathleen was pregnant with twins, I laughed and thought it was a cute story. I said something like "ha ha ha, well we will see next week on my ultrasound, but I HIGHLY doubt he is right" She then told me that she and her sister in law both received it as prophetic and from the Lord and that I needed to be preparing my heart. I then began to panic and spent the next 5 days leading up to the ultrasound, on the verge of tears, fearful and panicked! I went to church that Sunday and was so so scared, barely able to get my kids ready for church, we got on the shuttle to church where Jack Henry was having a meltdown on the bus and I was SOOOOO nauseas just thinking HOW WOULD I HANDLE TWINS ON TOP OF THIS!!!! I got to church and told a few friends what my sister in law had heard, and I began to cry right there in church. People probably thought I was nuts. I told my friend Kayla and she advised I brought an adult to the ultrasound as Luke was going to be out of town for the appointment.  This was  great advice and I asked a dear friend and elder's wife who is a nurse and works at a pregnancy crisis center to come with me lol, I knew she handle good news, bad news or twin news. I told my community group girls who all assured me it wasn't going to be twins and if it was, I would be just fine. 

Fast forward to the appointment, with my friend Sandra and all three kids in the exam room, we looked up at the sonogram machine and I INSTANTLY saw TWO sweet babies. I began to laugh and asked my doctor, "there's two isn't there?" He got a huge grin on his face and said there sure were! He also told me that in his 25 years of practice I was the second woman he has had to have 2 sets of twins. We heard the amazing heart beats and I immediately called Luke and my mom and family to tell them this CRAZY and exciting news.

The next couple weeks were weeks of processing. I completely broke down with my friend Heidi at church when my husband was preaching and said "what do you need to let go of? Come up front and we have people to pray with you." I was a blubbering mess! I needed to let go of FEAR. Crippling FEAR. I saw Heidi up front and I knew I needed to get to her but was too embarrassed with all my tears to go in front of people so as soon as church ended, I found her and we went backstage and she heard my heart, and loved on me and prayed with me. She has been such an encouragement texting here and there through out my pregnancy.

I had SO many thought in my head.
HOW would I do this?
ONE more, no big deal, TWO more... OH MY GOODNESS HOW?!
HOW am I going to go through another twin pregnancy taking care of three others?
Im going to have FIVE KIDS 5 AND UNDER!!!
Im going to be THIRTY with FIVE KIDS! Hey, I kinda loved that actually. Young empty nesters!!!

The very next week, I had told hardly ANYONE and my friend Amanda who makes my favorite earrings, check them out at The trend shop, texted me and told me she had a DREAM I was pregnant with twins!!! She didn't even know I was pregnant!

It was an INCREDIBLE feeling to know the Lord was reaching my loved ones to encourage me that these babies are part of his perfect plan!

God has truly been so good giving me PEACE and JOY. And while this may not have been a part of my plan, I would have loved to enjoy my babies one at a time, I know its a part of HIS plan, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Knowing how special the experience of twins were, make me excited to do it again. It also makes me treasure Walker, my "rare" single baby lol.

God is SO good. He has always known my heart for a large family and I'm having 5 kids with only 3 c-sections. Most doctors don't like you to have more than three sections, so this is an incredible way of achieving our dream of a larger family. I also think part of me might have wimped out at 4 lol. This is His funny way of saying, you aren't done yet. 

We are THRILLED to be welcoming these two babies into our family and trust he will carry us through all the crazy times which I know are coming. But we wouldn't have it any other way. 
  

15 weeks pregnant with babies #4&5...

Sunday, August 20, 2017

I am 15 weeks now and week 14 was definitely a turning point for me in the right direction!! I am feeling much better! I would say I am functioning at 80% as far as nausea goes and the exhaustion is sill there but not as debilitating. I cooked more this week and have been way more like my productive self. I am so so happy to be into the second trimester now! Here I am with these sweet babies... One of whom we already know the gender!! Im keeping it secret until we find out the other one next week :)
Babies are the size of avocados which is normally my favorite thing on the planet but I've been totally averted to this pregnancy. 

Total weight gain: +6-7 still
Sleep: Sleeping great, still sleeping some on my back but I don't feel like I am big enough yet to put on bad pressure yet.   
Best moment this week: Starting to feel better/more normal. ALMOST wanting a salad.
Movement: None yet, I don't think. I think I might be feeling things but then always convince myself its just by stomach.
Food cravings: Food is still not super craveable at this point yet. 
Symptoms: Getting sciatic pinches on one side and still pretty tired/sleepy. 
Wedding rings on or off?
 On

Looking forward to: Gender ultrasound, Next Tuesday! I already know one of the genders from lasts weeks ultrasound :) Cant wait to find out the other baby!!!!

Our road to getting pregnant with babies #4&5...

Monday, August 14, 2017

Hi friends! If you have been reading my blog for a while now, you know that we have had an incredible journey of trying to conceive, fertility problems. and pregnancy loss. You can read about my other two pregnancies HERE and HERE and you can read about my miscarriages HERE and HERE
I will say that with each loss and each time of trying again, it hasn't been easy but it has certainly been easier this time around, already having three happy and healthy babies. I feel SO blessed to have the three babies that I do, and I know that my body IS capable of pregnancy and carrying full term babies. Not ever having kids and wondering if its something you'll be able to do was a much harder thought to grasp. Having already walked down this road, you just have a more seasoned approach and  a deep trust with God but please know there were several teary and weary days. I feel like I am blessed beyond measure with my three, but always have felt like we weren't done and no matter how few or many children you have, every woman yearns for more babies until her family feels complete. 
I knew Walker would not be my last baby, or at least we didn't want him to be our last. So last June 2016 we began to not prevent. He was 13 months and we thought it would probably take a year just like our other pregnancies did (and it DID) in October we discovered I was pregnant for the first time without any medical help! We were thrilled but ended up loosing the pregnancy and I had a D&C on November 1st. We tried a couple more months and since I continued to have no periods (from my PCOS) we decided we needed some meds to help me ovulate and get cycles once again. Without this incredible medicine I do not ovulate at all. 
With the twins we took Clomid which has anywhere from a 5-10% chance of multiples (we were in the 5-10% minority and with Walker we took femara, a newer drug to help you ovulate but has less negative side effects and a small chance of multiples 0-4%, some doctors say no increased chance. We took this with Walker and got our singleton! So when it was time to try again, my doctor put me on the lowest dose of femara again, and we were sure we would get just one baby. We tried three cycles in a row on the femara and were unsuccessful each month. I got pregnant with Jack Henry and Hadley on my third medicated cycle. I got pregnant the first medicated cycle when trying for Walker, but lost that baby and tried 4 more months and got pregnant the fourth time with Walker. So when I was going into try for the fourth month this time around, I began to worry, if I didn't get pregnant this time, it would be the longest I had ever tried with medication. My doctor told me it usually takes 3-6 months so I began to wonder, if I make it month 6, without any luck, then what? Will he let me keep trying or cut me off and send me to a reproductive endocrinologist? I couldn't even think about drastic measures like IVF for baby number FOUR. I felt like maybe I would accept the three that I have and maybe adopt if that was what God was wanting me to do. I tried to not let my mind go that far, but there were nights where I went there. 
Month four came and I began to feel weary. But THAT was my month!!! It is incredible that each time I felt like I couldn't do it anymore, I was blessed with a baby. I can't wait to share with you finding out I was pregnant and then finding out it was twins. Thats my next post.
Please weary sisters, know there is hope. If you look at me having 5 kids (5 and under) theres no way you would know I deal with infertility and loss but I am living proof of a miraculous God who answers prayers and who is so so gracious. Not everyones prayers will be answered in the ways mine was. And there are days where I am like, WOW Lord, this is A LOT! But Jesus is helping me through every hard day, and if you have PCOS, there is HOPE!
I am 30 years old and have figured I have spent 3 years (10% of my life) trying to get pregnant, and friends, it is HARD. But God is so so good. This is very very likely (unless God changes our hearts after these babies arrivals) our last pregnancy. We feel like our family will be completed. I am soaking up every moment of this pregnancy but am also okay putting this chapter behind me. Trying and trying and trying for babies. Now my husband and I can now practice all we want without the pressure of baby making, just fun :) More soon friends!

13 weeks with babies #4&5

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Its been a while since I have blogged, so if you don't follow me on any social media, we are expecting twins AGAIN! There is so much to say. I plan on blogging our road to getting pregnant again, more about my very difficult first trimester and just processing twins again, making us a family of seven :)
But for now, I am quickly going to post my week 14 here. I am OFFICIALLY in the second trimester, which is VERY welcomed and I feel like I might be turning a corner out of nausea land! Here I am 14 weeks pregnant with babies number 4&5...



Total weight gain: 7 lbs (CARBS and no moving at all my first trimester, yikes)
Maternity clothes? Yes. Trying to wear as many non maternity dresses (like the one I am wearing here) while I still can. But all my pants are full on maternity.
Sleep: Sleeping hard and often. First trimester was EXHAUSTING.  Naps every day.
Best moment this week: Still just enjoying my ever growing belly

Movement: I feel like I might have felt movement but then convince myself its just my tummy rumbling. 
Food cravings: Food has not been enjoyable at all. Sour gummies and any carb. NO fruits and veggies. Have been totally averted. 
Symptoms: Starting to get sciatic pinches here and there. Still not feeling myself, but beginning to feel a little better each day. 
Wedding rings on or off?
 on

Looking forward to: Gender ultrasound/reveal, August 29th, a little over two weeks!

14 weeks with Walker...

And 14 (it says 13 oops) with Jack Henry and Hadley... 




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