36 weeks and beyond...

So I have quite a lot to catch you up on. As you guessed from the lack of posts since 35 weeks, the babies are here. On Friday, October 21st I started to just really lack energy and could just not get comfortable. I by Saturday morning I was really feeling it, but thought that maybe it was just from an eventful morning walking around downtown Naples taking Christmas photos of one of my best friends Melissa and her beautiful family. Maybe "walking" isn't the right term. Waddling and acting like I wasn't exhausted is much more accurate.

So Saturday afternoon I napped and sat in the yard with the dogs watching Nate do a little planting. Suzanne (Nate's grandmother) stopped by and brought us some yummy cookies and visited for a while. Shortly afterwards I went back inside and took my blood pressure. It was much higher than normal and I was starting to feel a little nauseous.  I called the doctor on call and they said if it went any higher to go to the Birth Place for monitoring. Terrified, I went right to bed and laid on my left side and proceeded to down water and snack. Nate packed the baby bag that I had been procrastinating and then we relaxed together watching movies and talking about the babies. My blood pressure stayed around the same - fluctuating here and there.

I decided if nothing was better I'd call my actual doctor on Monday morning and check in.

So Monday morning, nothing was the same. Sent a note to my boss saying I'd be in a little late, that I needed to check in with the doctor. I heard back from my doctor a little later and she said go in to the Birth Place to get monitored. She assured my I'd be there for about an hour - maybe at the most overnight. Nate quickly added some music to my iPod (Gungor <3) and then off we went.

All hooked up on the monitors, we found out that 1: yes my blood pressure was high and 2: I was having contractions. Who knew? So that was kind of fun. I was still thinking we'd be home that day. After all, the doctor had been saying the whole time I'd go to 40 weeks and deliver them myself. No photos from this monitoring will be shared, but looking back on them is hilarious.

Roughly an hour later my OB enters the room with a smile and says "who's ready to have babies today?"! Umm.... really??!! OK. So the whirl wind began... checked in to a room upstairs and around 5:30 was prepped for a c-section. My thoughts - not sure. It was just all so surreal. Mom and Becky both came to keep us company until it was time.

Finally, after a story you should never share with someone going in to have a c-section given by the student aesthetician,  the doctor came in and off we went to the operating room.

That in it's self was an experience, and not a pleasant one. They had me climb up on the coldest table ever in a room that was literally 50 degrees and no one even paid attention to me or told me what was going on until it was time for the spinal epidural. "Look down and don't move" is a lot easier said than done and it is NOT a little sting. It hurts really bad. After they got me all situated in came Nate.

He had my iPod and stuck one of the buds in my right ear and sat down to the left of my head. Gungor's "Beautiful Things" was playing and two minutes later out comes Addisyn Grace with her little "meow" cry weighing 5.5 lbs, 18 inches long at 6:35 p.m. - Gavin Harwick was next at 6:36 p.m. weighing 6.5 lbs, 19 inches long. That was the amazing part. It is incredible that  you can automatically love something when you just hear its voice.

Addison Grace

Gavin Harwick

Sweet babies

Needless to say, born at 36 weeks exactly, they were both perfectly healthy, happy babies and we are so thankful for God blessing them in that way. They did not have to spend any time in the NICU.

Nate was beyond amazing in the hospital! I can't even tell you what a wonderful daddy he has been. He paraded the babies all around, showing them to everyone at the hospital and getting lessons from all the nurses on swaddling, changing and anything else he could think of.  He also did an amazing job taking care of me, and I am so blessed and thankful that God has blessed me with such an awesome, Godly man who is so loving and caring.

Our family - October 24, 2011

After the c-section I was put on magnesium sulfate for 24 hours which was horrible. The nurses on the observation floor were about 100 times better - but for most of the time I had double/triple vision and really don't remember much. Including some visitors and conversations with nurses. Some of our photos I'm not even looking in the right place. I was happy when they took me off of that stuff and moved us up to the recovery floor. We had a few "head-butts" with one of the nurses... but it was overall nice to not be woken up every 30 minutes for check-ups and move to being examined every two hours.

On October 27th both the babies and I were discharged to come home. I've gotta say it was a little nerve racking to come home with both babies not really being able to move around very much, but at the same time it was nice to finally be in our own environment doing things our way.

Heading home!

When we came home, my mom and Becky were here to help us. It was so nice to have the support of our families. The babies were so beautiful. They were great sleepers, hardly cried and were pretty alert. They stayed that way until about 6 weeks - then that changed, but I'll save that for a later post. :)

Well, that's about all the writing I have time for now. Time to feed again.

More to come next time a get a few seconds. 

35 1/2 Weeks

Well, we are getting closer and closer! At our appointment last Wednesday everything checked out well. The babies were both 6 lbs each and a little over 18 inches long. My blood pressure was good too, so I'm trying to keep up relaxing and drinking lots of water and avoiding salt. Although you'll see by the photo below I am swelling a bit.

On another note, the doctor is still advocating for delivery, so it seems that we will be doing this naturally (but with drugs). Which I'm actually okay with. At the appointment we also found out that I am 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced. So the doctor thought I would be going in to labor within the next two weeks. 

I pretty much can only stand for about 10 minutes before I become super uncomfortable, and actually sitting is pretty uncomfortable as well. I suppose you have to get to this point though in order for you to be OK with delivery! You are so uncomfortable you don't care how they come out! LOL.

I have been having some contractions the past two days and have a sneaky feeling that the babies might make their appearances by the end of this week. Who knows though.

This is a photo from this weekend... I'm about 35 1/2 weeks here:

So overall everything is still going really well and we are so blessed by all the support! Most of all, I am beyond thankful to be blessed with such a loving and supportive husband! Nate has been AMAZING during this whole process and I can't imagine sharing this time with anyone else. He has tirelessly cleaned, cooked and created a beautiful nursery for the babies. He's has been more of a support than he will ever know and more than I could ever put in to words and I know he is going to be such a great dad to the twins!!

Thank you all for your continued prayers and hopefully the next post will be introducing the twins!!

32 Week Update

Well today was a full day of baby planning and appointments. Nate and I started the morning interviewing pediatricians... and had a hard choice between two of them. Ultimately, I think we are choosing Dr. Foley. So one more thing to check off the exceedingly LONG list.

After the doctors interviews we had an actual appointment to see the munchkins again. During the ultrasound there was a lot of measuring and everyone is doing amazing! Actually, they are growing so amazingly that they are each 5 lbs. each! According to the doctor, they are measuring as if I was 34 weeks along and not 32. "Yeah" for the babies... not sure how long it will be "yeah" for me.

Overall I'm feeling great. A little pain in my right hip here and there, and it is definitely taking a lot of effort to move around... but things have be OK so far.

We also toured the birthing center at the hospital today - which was a total waste and probably the worst tour either of us have been privileged to attend, but at least we got to see everything ahead of time.

On another note, some of my best friends threw a baby shower for us on Saturday! We received some amazing gifts from people and feel so blessed by all the generousity of some fabulous women. One of the most touching moments were when several of the women, including my mom, prayed blessings over the stages of life of the babies. It meant so much and was so touching... I should've known something "gushy" was about to happen when Melissa made sure I had some kleenex!

Well, that's about it for now... we're on weekly appointments at this point, so I'll try to give you all another update next week!

Thanks for the continued prayers and blessings. 

30 Week Update

Most of you know I'm seeing the doctor now every 2 weeks. Which is fun, because it is AMAZING how fast the babies are growing now. The down side is that the babies are getting so big it is hard to get a good shot of each of them in the ultra-sound.

The appointment went really well. It was a “testing” one where they checked their lungs, liver and movement, etc. Which I wish I knew ahead of time so I could've given the babies a pep-talk, but no go. It's okay though because they passed within ten minutes of the ultrasound so the tech just messed around and got us pictures for the rest of the 20 minutes. 

Addi has a full head of hair already and Gavin is completely bald. LOL. Addi of course was sucking her thumb and napping and Gavin was hamming it up and posing all over the place. It was really the first time we got to really see him really well. We even got a few more 3-D photos of him. 

Nate and I were staring at the photos on the fridge last night while taking our vitamins and couldn't believe in just 8-10 more weeks we'll be holding the little faces that are in the photos.

Last week Addisyn woke me up from a dead sleep (Wed at like 3 a.m.) and I was like what the heck is she doing? It felt like she was climbing around in my stomach. I thought she had turned and the ultra-sound tech confirmed at our appointment that she did! So currently they are both head down and spooning. Looking off towards my left.

Dr. Brothers thinks that I will go at least 38 weeks – if not full term. She said the babies are doing amazing and that if she was going to let anyone deliver twins it would be me… so after a discussion as long as nothing changes, I will be delivering 2 babies which she still thinks will be 8 lbs each. 

Yup, that's right. 8 lbs. The babies are steadily growing at the rate of other single babies. Which is awesome and SUCH a blessing - but is going to get really uncomfortable for me quickly. I see a lot of laying around and floating in the pool in my future.

The only thing is my blood pressure was a slightly high so she wants me to get a blood pressure cuff and start keeping track twice a day. I’m also supposed to lay down more – especially for an hour in the afternoons. So I have started to half days at work where I come up in the morning and do all appointments, etc and then work the other half of the day at home.

Everything is coming along and we're still getting ready week by week. I think we're tackling crib skirts this weekend and I'm finishing up a few art projects for the walls!

Thanks for your continued prayers and I'll try to keep you all up to date!

Family Photos

I’m really excited to share our first set of family photos done by Esther Louise Photography while we were in Savannah for Nick and Shea's wedding.  She did a wonderful job and I am so thrilled with how these turned out!  Check out the full gallery here (password is Savannah).

28 weeks!

Today we have reached another milestone and move into the third trimester! We've been busy getting ready for the babies and I'll post an update on the nursery and more fun stuff later today after our doctor's appointment.

For now I thought I'd catch you up on what the babies are doing this week (as far as development goes) because they had a neat image that shows you fraternal twins at this point on the health blog!

By this week, your babies weigh two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to his and her heels. They can blink their eyes, which now sport lashes. With their eyesight developing, they may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. They're also developing billions of neurons in their brains and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world.
(from Babycenter.com)

Sneak Peek!!

So when we were in Savannah Nate and I had our maternity photo shoot with Esther Louise Photography out of Tampa, FL. Esther and Danielle are AMAZING to work with and so much fun. We spent the early morning roaming Savannah's downtown district which was both beautiful and HOT.

She's finishing up all of the photos now, so you'll have to wait for the full gallery, but here's a sneak peek for you:
http://www.estherlouise.com/blog/2011/08/a-savannah-maternity-session/

Enjoy!