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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Ultrasound and Silver Lake

Here I am at 31 weeks. I am constantly told that I do not look like I am pregnant with twins. We'll see if that changes during these last two months.
Tuesday was my 7th ultrasound. I brought my mom along so she could see the girls. It was kind of hard to see them since their bones are more calcified and so it's harder for the sound waves to pass through them. Also they are getting bigger and so they are more squished.

Still she was able to see their cute faces and parts of their bodies. They are in kind of a ying-yang position right now. Baby A's head is down by my cervix where it should be and her body goes up the left side of my body. Baby B's head is up right under my ribs on the right side and her body goes down. She is basically sitting on Baby A's head. During the ultrasound we could see Baby B stick her feet in A's face. Baby A put up her hand to block the feet. It was super cute. (I should mention that the babies are separated by a thin membrane, but I'm sure they are very aware of each other.)

After the ultrasound we had my first Non Stress Test, which I actually enjoyed. I'll take my camera with me to the next one on Friday and I'll blog about it then.

After leaving the hospital Brandon and I went up Big Cottonwood Canyon to Silver Lake. That's where these next pictures were taken.





Saturday, September 25, 2010

Antelope Island

One thing I loved about Logan was the fact that it was less than an hour away from Bear Lake. Brandon and I went to Bear Lake every summer. This year we didn't have time to go before we moved and we didn't have money to go after we moved. So we decided to try Antelope Island as a substitute.
We drove out there Monday afternoon. The cost is normally $9, but our state park pass covered all but the $2 causeway fee.
The lake level is low so we had to walk a long way from the parking lot to the actual beach, but it was worth it.

We had a picnic dinner on the beach and then played in the water and the sand. Of course Brandon had to go into "big brother teasing mode" and get me soaking wet. We had fun sitting in the water and feeling the small waves move around us. Here is a siloette of my pregnant belly at 30 weeks.

Of course there was the smell of brine shimp, and a few brine flies, but overall this was a great substitute for Bear Lake. And the sunset was beautiful.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Baby Shower Invitation

Here is the official invitation for my baby shower. I will also mail out invitations, but I'm sure I will forget people. I wanted to make sure you all know you can come - even you blog stalkers. If you are planning on coming please RSVP to the number on the invitation. You can also RSVP on the facebook page for this event.

Here are the links to the places I'm registered at.



Brandon and I got a little silly when we registered so a lot of these things are "suggestions" rather than absolute necessities. Also I am totally open to hand-me-downs and homemade gifts.

Thanks for all your love and support. I'm looking forward to seeing you on October 9th.

Oh by the way, Brandon drew the little feet on the invitation. Aren't they adorable?

Friday, September 17, 2010

How we found out about the twins (the first time)

I was going over old blog posts from May and I realized that I never went into a lot of details about the first ultrasound that showed the twins. I want to write this down before I forget.


Brandon and I went to the doctor for the 10 week ultrasound. After getting checked out by the nurse we were left alone in the examination room for several minutes. While we waiting for the doctor I picked up a baby merchandise magazine and started flipping through it. One of the advertised products was a pillow for nursing two babies at once. I remember thinking, "well I wont need that."



The doctor came in after a while and talked with us for a minute. He checked my breathing and everything else that doctors do. Then it was time for the ultrasound. He inserted the probe thingy and we could see a lot of black and white images on the monitor. After some adjustments we saw a very distinct image of a baby. It was suspended in the middle of the monitor and was wiggling its arms and legs around. It looked kind of like a gummy bear and it was so cute.



The doctor asked, "what do you see?" And I said, "A baby." He said, "yes this is a baby, but what is this over here?" He pointed out a nondescript blob to the side of the baby. I said, "I don't know . . . is it the placenta?" The doctor fiddled with some things and said, "well we have a baby over here, and we also have a heart beat coming from over here." My very first thought was, "My baby's heart is outside of it's body!?!" For a split second my mind raced over what this could mean. Before I could imagine the worst the doctor said something like, "you have two babies in here. You're having twins."


He was able to zoom in on the second baby. That one was also wiggling while appearing to be suspended. I remember being so amazed that the babies were moving. I hardly remember anything else from the ultrasound. I was still getting used to the idea of being pregnant. Let alone with twins.

After we left the Doctors I was supposed to drop Brandon off at work and then go to work myself. Instead we sat in the car and kept repeating, "we are having twins, we are having twins." We called our parents and siblings and shared the news. No one could believe it. I told Brandon that I didn't think I could drive so he drove me to work and dropped me off.

I went into the office and hadn't even made it to my desk before people started asking me about the ultrasound. I quickly clocked in and then started showing the ultrasound pictures. Within seconds there was a crowd of people around me. I spent the next hour walking around the office showing people the four little pictures of my two babies. I never got tired of saying, "well here is one baby and here is the other baby." And then hearing the excitement as they asked, "you're having twins!" It was one of my favorite days at work.

Eventually I made it back to my desk and started working. Thank goodness I wrote myself a to do list the day before or else I wouldn't have had a clue what to do. One of the ladies in the office teased me and said, "you seem happy today." I told her, "my husband graduated last week, I'm going on vacation tomorrow, and I just found out I'm having twins. You'd be happy too."

That was almost 20 weeks ago. I finally have wrapped my head around the fact that there are two babies inside of me - and that soon they will be born. I love feeling them kick and move. I joke that they learned the macarana dance a couple weeks ago and haven't stopped doing it since. Often one of them will kick so hard that you can see my stomach jump. It's so fun to see.

I'm looking forward to meeting these two little girls within the next 11 weeks.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

6th Ultra sound

Here I am at 29 weeks.
We had our sixth ultrasound on Monday. We didn't get a DVD or any new pictures so you will just have to use your imagination. Baby A is measuring at 2 pounds 8 ounces, and Baby B is at 1 pound 15 ounces. Both babies are a little small for being 29 weeks along, but they are within the okay range so no one is too worried.

We brought Brandon's mom along to the ultrasound. It was fun to watch it through her eyes. She was about as far along as I am when she first found out she was expecting twins.

All in all it was pretty routine.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Not what we had planned, but better

The past 6 months have gone by really fast and I wanted to take a minute and write down an overview of what happened. At first I thought I'd wait to recap all this when everything had a happy ending. But this is life and how many times can you really say, "And they all lived happily ever after." So instead you get this version.

Back in March Brandon and I were facing a dilemma. He only had three more classes to take, but hours more of flying left to complete. The way the USU flight program was set up he had to complete the flying to be eligible to graduate with his degree in Aviation- Professional Pilot. We'd been trying to complete the flying, but we were running into problems with the organisation (or lack there of) within the flight department. It looked like it would take another year at the least to complete the flying.

We fasted for guidance of what to do next. That fast Sunday a friend of ours got up and bore his testimony. He talked about when Nephi was tied up by his brothers. Nephi prayed that he would have the power to break his bands. The Lord answered his prayer by loosening the bands enough for Nephi to get out of them. Our friend said that sometimes that is how our prayers are answered. We want to do something cool like burst our bands, but usually they are just loosened. Little did Brandon and I know how much our bands would be loosened.

The week after we fasted Brandon met with his academic advisor to discuss his options within the program. He wanted to know if it would be possible to transfer to another school or something like that. She suggested he meet with the advisor over interdisciplinary degrees. That advisor looked at Brandon's transcript and told him that all he needed to do to graduate was write a paper.

So suddenly we realised he could graduate. It wasn't going to be the "cool" way of suddenly winning over the flight department and racing through all the flight requirements in a few months. Instead it was the humble way of receiving a "made up degree." It only took us a few days to officially change his major to an Interdisciplinary degree in Aviation and Management. Then we had to decide what to do next.

We quickly decided that we wanted to get out of Logan. Neither of us had ever really loved the city, and we had been wanting out for years. Plus we needed to go somewhere where Brandon could fly. That somewhere turned out to be the Bountiful Sky Park in Woods Cross. There were only two things that would be hard to leave, our apartment and my job - and neither one of those were good enough to keep us in Logan long term.

At first we thought that I would be able to work from home for the company that I'd been with for 2 1/2 years. However, the at home team was being discontinued. (Ironically one of the major reasons for ending the home team was because of errors I found while auditing their work. So in some sense I put myself out of a job.) I figured I could get a better paying job in the Salt Lake area so this wasn't a huge blow.

In the middle of all these decisions we found out that I was pregnant. And then we found out I was pregnant with twins! This news sent all sorts of shock waves through our decision making process. The biggest question was should I stay at my job until the babies were born? We didn't have time to think about these questions for long because 6 days after we found out about the twins I went through what I thought was a miscarriage.

After the initial shock and grief wore off Brandon and I were sure of one thing. We wanted to get out of Logan and on with our lives as soon as possible. This resolve was further backed up when our landlord told us that he had found renters for our apartment and so we needed to be out by the end of June. So we found a new apartment in Bountiful, packed up our stuff, quit our jobs, and lept out into the world. We didn't have jobs yet but we were young, childless, and had a little over two months of savings in the bank. We would be okay.

We moved in and started looking for jobs. We also found out I was still pregnant. Sometimes I wonder if we would have had the courage to quit our jobs and move if we'd known the babies were okay. Or would we have clung to the security of insurance and income. I don't know what we would have done, but I'm glad things worked out the way they did.

Brandon was able to get a job as a ramp agent with Frontier Airlines within a month of our move. It started out as part time, but as of today he has worked up to full time. I applied a few places, but didn't get any job offers. We decided that it was best if I focused on taking things easy and keeping the babies healthy. So far this pregnancy has been very easy. I wonder if it would have been this easy if I was still working full time.

Brandon wrote his final paper over the summer and received an A. We are working on building up our savings again and then we will have him start flying. He met with the flight director for his new flight school and he was very impressed. They treated him like he mattered.

So here we are with deeper testimonies of savings, food storage, prayer, fasting, love, and the Lord's guidance. It's been an interesting 6 months. I never would have thought any of this was possible when we fasted back in March, but I'm so glad it happened. I am interested to see what happens in the next six months.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

So this is where I live

We've lived in our Bountiful Apartment since the middle of June. However, it took until about 3 weeks ago to really start feeling like home.

Now that it feels like home I thought I'd put the pictures up. Give me a call if you would like a personal tour.

This is our bedroom. It is smaller than our last bedroom, but I like to keep bedrooms simple so I don't mind. As you can see we have a tree right outside our window. I love that tree!
This is the second bedroom. It is still "under construction." We are working on dejunking and decluttering. I've spent many afternoons going through boxes and throwing away stuff. It is so liberating!
This blank wall is where we will put the babies. We are still deciding on what combination of cribs and/or bassinets will work the best.
Brandon and I each have our own separate desks. It's fun to work on separate projects, but still be near each other.
This is the hall way that connects the two bedrooms. I turned it into a little family picture art gallery.
Here is our kitchen. The door with all the coats on it is our front door. This is the biggest kitchen we've ever had and it has the most counter space, but somehow it has the least amount of cupboard space out of any place we've lived. As a result we've had to be pretty creative about where to store things.
And here is the kitchen from a longer perspective. I love that the living room and the kitchen are connected. Our last apt had a wall between them and it was hard to prepare meals when company was over.
Here is the living room from the kitchen. One day we will put curtains in the window, but for now we love looking at the leaves. Once the leaves fall off the tree I'll dig out the curtain rod and curtains.
It was kind of tricky to find a space for our bookcases, but we made them fit.
I love this long wall. It is great for pictures.
One of my favorite things about this apartment is the patio. Brandon and I eat out here a lot. We also cook out here too.
The tree provides a lot of privacy too.
Here is what the patio looks like from below. We wanted an upstairs apt to prevent people from stealing our stuff.
And here I am at 28 weeks. (Honestly I don't know what is wrong with my hair - it looks great in real life but it never looks good in these prego pics.)
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