Hormonal rant

Please read disclosure at bottom of post. 

When one is pregnant they are often greeted by friends, family and strangers with remarks such as this:

Look how cute your belly is!

You look great. 

Congratulations!

What a blessing. 

You will be a great mom!

However, when you are pregnant with twins the sentiment from friends, family and strangers is not as....warm.  If I hear the warm sentiments listed above, they are often times accompanied by "but.."; though many times I just hear things like:

I can't imagine how big you will be by the end. 

3 under 2?!?

You are going to need a lot of help. 

The face that says "Eeek" 

I hope you have help. 

I always wanted twins. 

Better you than me. 

First off, when Bryce and I planned to grow our family...it was by 1...not 2!! The 2nd baby of this twin pregnancy was quite a surprise and obviously not planned (though very much loved and welcomed).  Because seriously...who plans on having twins?!??!!? 

Second, having a baby is never an easy thing. You lose sleep, sanity and much more.  However, many mothers (parents) parent multiple children everyday!! I will not be the first mom to ever have twins with a toddler already on scene. Where is everyone's optimism and confidence in me?? I have it in myself, as does Bryce...why can't people just say "you're a great mom! You'll do great!"  But constantly having others...who have never raised twins themselves, mind you...tell me how hard it's going to be and how much help I'm going to need is rather frustrating...especially for a hormonal pregnant woman.  And to them I say:

Third, no pregnant woman...whether she's carrying multiples or not, wants to hear about her size. Guess what...I already feel huge and uncomfortable!! And have many thoughts...nightmares...about how big I'm going to get by the end of this! And while it's okay for me to make comments about it...you should not join in!

I know that this pregnancy is not going to be a cake walk...because...I'm experiencing it first hand!! I know that having twins is not going to be easy peasy, and there will be many tiring, exhausting and hard times. But I also have faith in myself as a parent and that in the end it will all be okay and will work out.

And so ends the rant...until next time!

**dear friends and family...If you have in the past made such comments please do not take offense to this post. It was not written with any one person in mind, nor was it written to offend or upset anyone. Love you all!

Growing Strong!!

This has been an exciting week in the world of baby(ies) growing!!  Yesterday I had a dr appoitnment at 21 weeks to finish up the anatomy scan....yes the anatomy scan has taken place over a few weeks.  Apparently double babies are trickier to measure! ;)  Both boys are growing amazingly and are still boys (;0 hahaha)!!  They have been growing neck and neck which is exactly what we want! Baby A was weighing in at 14 oz and baby B 13 oz.  Since these boys are growing so wonderfully I no longer have to go in every 2 weeks (until later).  So my next appointment is in 4 weeks, but we wont do another ultrasound until 2 weeks after that.  So that is 6 weeks until I see my boys again!! This makes me a bit nervous....as our original monitoring plan was every 2 weeks and I felt calm and reassured that every few weeks I got to see that my boys were doing well.  However, Bryce has sweetly reassured me that it's a good thing! That all it means is I'm such a good baby baker that the boys are growing perfectly and don't need to be seen as often.  So I will be constantly reminding myself of this...repeating it as a mantra...the next 6 weeks until I get to see them again.

the boys are fine! i make healthy babies.
the boys are fine! i make healthy babies.
the boys are fine! i make healthy babies.

Both of my boys flexing some arm muscles at 21 weeks!

I will say that I am put slightly at ease with not seeing them as often, knowing that I have really started feeling them squirm and worm around...it seems to be more and more every day.  Last night, Bryce finally got to feel some kicks too!

The obvious question I regularly get is: how does it feel with 2 moving around in there?

I thought I could tell who I was feeling....assuming baby A was on the bottom and baby B was on the top...until yesterday.  Yesterday, during our ultrasound, both boys were head down (on the cervix area) and feet up! ugh.....so much for my theory of one being toward the top and one toward the bottom.  Now I have NO clue who is moving when!!

I suppose, so far, the only way it is really different from one baby moving is that I feel it more EVERYWHERE and sometimes in multiple spots at once.  But I'm sure the differences will become more prevalent as they get bigger.  But for now I'm just relieved to get to feel them moving around.

Since babies (and mommy) are growing great....I have been reassured that all the aches and pains I've been feeling are totally normal and nothing to be worried about...my goal for the next month is to remain calm and not stress!  Last week I started a prenatal yoga class...so I will  be continuing those Wednesday nights.  It is nice to get away and have a little "alone" time to relax and stretch.  I definitely enjoyed the environment and look forward to my weekly stress-reliever (and hopefully pain-reliever) sessions.

Holy babies!! 21 weeks and measuring about a month ahead.  

Growing up is hard...on moms!!

Well....Last night was the first time that Peyton slept in her big girl bed! In fact, it's almost 9am and she's still sleeping in her big girl bed.

I have been nervous and anxious about getting Peyton's new room put together and her sleeping in it!  It's been a bit of a slow process....we have had her bed for awhile (it became a fun toy!) and then slowly got things painted and moved. The final thing we were waiting for before getting Peyton moved in was our new baby monitor ( daddy wanted to motion track her!!).  So yesterday we picked up the new monitor and got it all set up. 

Bed time hit and Peyton didn't want to go to bed...as usual.  But with a little bit of whining she let me lay her in her bed, I gave her all of her stuffed animals to cuddle with, covered her with her blanket and kissed her goodnight.  She cried a little ( she tends to do that when she's over tired) but she stayed in bed.  As I turned off the hall lights and walked down the stairs I began to instantly cry....I mean hysterically BAWL.  

Bryce met me at the bottom of the stairs askig what was wrong.  I was crying so much I could hardly get anything out.

I was crying because I didn't want her to be scared in a new room and I was sad that my sweet little baby was big enough to sleep in a bed and not her crib!  I wasn't ready for her to grow up yet! In fact...I'm crying as I write this! (I'm sure some of it has to do with the mass amounts of hormones I have running through my body right now). But regardless, the first night was a success. 

I'm watching her on her monitor now and she just leaned over the bed to pick up any fallen stuffed animals and is laying back down cuddling with them! How cute is that!?!!?

Ugh....I can't believe she's growing up so fast!!

Holy vocabulary!!

The past few weeks Peyton has been blurting out new vocabulary left and right!! It just amazes me and is so exciting to watch.

Previously her vocabulary consisted of: go, hi, mama, dada, dog, all gone, bath, milk, shoe, no, nose, more, book....moo and various other animal noises

Well recently we have added: ready, eyes, brrr, monkey, movie, all done, please, Lily, bye, elephant, lion, elmo, doctor, potty, poop, Nana, babies, bunny, toes, me, hot....that's all that I can think of at the moment!  

I'm just so astonished that in a matter of weeks she learning so many new words! Guess it's time to start watching what we say around her!! ;)

In other news...Baby boys are doing great! I have started feeling little baby flutters and occasionally pokes and prods. It has taken a bit longer to feel baby movement because I have an anterior placenta....basically my placenta is like a pillow between babies and my stomach so I have to feel any movement through the placenta.  But these little boys are getting stronger by the day...I'm sure I'll be feeling them more consistently in no time!!

    Baby B is waving "hi" at 19 weeks!!

 

WOW!!!!

In exactly 4 days I will be at the halfway point....19 weeks!!! (19 weeks is currently our halfway point since the drs won't let me go past 38 weeks).  Man....I'm already BIG!!!  These boys are growing!

      Today....18 weeks and 3 days

      

      18 weeks

      16 weeks

      

           14 weeks

      
        13 weeks

       

           11 weeks

I was going to write an entire blog about my crazy out of control hormones but decided to save that for later...so instead you got the progression of the growing belly (sorry I haven't been super consistent with belly pictures....but I hardly took any with Peyton, so this is an improvement)!! 

I'll be the first admit that I'm SUPER nervous about how big my belly will get by the end of this journey!  Especially when I look back on my pregnancy with Peyton.  I was this size when I was about 26 weeks pregnant with Peyton!!

     

26ish weeks with Peyton!            Almost 19 weeks with twin boys!