Happy 10th Anniversary, Jon!

Today is our 10th wedding anniversary!

Has it really been 10 years? In some ways, it seems like yesterday, but then I look back and think of all the things that changed with us and everything that we went through to get to where we are today.

Somehow, he stuck with me through law school. Somehow we got through infertility to bring 2 wonderful babies into this world and shockingly enough, a third on the way. There were many days that I thought I would never be a mother and now I will be the mother of 3 children! Somehow he stays with me though I can be a bit too emotional sometimes. I definitely seemed to have found a keeper!

Happy 10 years, Jon! Here's to many, many more!

Ultrasound picture

I've uploaded one of the ultrasound pictures to flickr (Jon has the other one so I wasn't able to scan it).

Falling Down

So I thought I would mention the little tumbles that Ben & Ella have had recently. They are actually more than little tumbles, I think.

First, the first night I’m back from Vegas, we are all out on the deck and in our yard playing. Ella thinks she can just go down the steps to the yard all by herself. I didn’t get to her in time and she tumbles down the steps – well, just one step – and faceplanted on that step. My poor little girl. She got a scrape on her nose, but that appears to be all of her injuries. I missed grabbing her by a split second. I’m glad it wasn’t much worse. You would think she might remember this incident and not go down the steps again the same way, but no.

Then Saturday night, when we had company over, Benjamin fell on the deck (not exactly sure what happened as I was trying to keep an eye on Ella). He bit his top lip and that started to bleed, and he also had a scraped up chin. I’ve never heard him scream so hard. My poor guy.

Things like this happen so quickly. My poor kids – and I’m sure, because they are kids, there is more to come.

In other news, it looks like Benjamin is starting with some separation anxiety. He apparently screamed when Jon took Ella out to the car first this morning. He doesn’t really like it when I bring him in first in the evening, then I go get Ella. But if I bring Ella in first, she screams even harder. It’s a no-win situation. I’ll have one child or the other screaming right by the door because they think they were left. It will be easier when I can trust them both to stay near the car and walk up (and down) the steps all by themselves and we can all go in the house together. Hopefully, that happens before # 3 arrives.

Speaking of #3, my husband doesn’t want to know the sex of this baby so it looks like we’ll be surprised in March. I have to say part of me is excited about not knowing and another part me knows I won’t be able to stand the wait (and well, it would be nice to know what type of clothes I should be buying since we gave away about 99% percent of the clothing we had). A support group friend said she would pass along some clothes she has since she also didn’t want to know the sex of the baby until birth, so she has a bunch of unisex stuff.

So I did tell my support group yesterday and so far have received wonderful responses. They are a wonderful group of women. I have only 3 in the group I haven’t heard from. I might tell my vanpool this afternoon – we’ll see.

u/s and ob update

All was well at the u/s appointment this afternoon. My fear was irrational...thank goodness. The baby measures 12w2d. At first, the tech could not do the nuchal fold measurements because this baby was just too comfy sleeping, thank you very much, so I had to "shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it" (much like last time). That got the baby to wake up and wiggle around. The tech, we learned, also has boy/girl twins - but hers are 17 years old. She asked me, while measuring my ovaries, if I was in pain. It turns out I have a cyst on my left ovary - she said that was most likely the one that ovulation occurred from. Hmm, the right tube was the one that was definitely blocked/twisted, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it was the left side that all this likely took place. The left side was just a little iffy. Have I mentioned how weird it feels to get pregnant without any medical assistance?

Anyway, after the u/s appointment, we headed to the bloodletting place - thankfully, all that water that I drank and wearing a sweater on nice day (to keep warm - why are bloodletting places always freezing?) helped this time and not only did they find a good vein on the first poke, blood actually came out...easily. Shocking, I know!

Then, we headed to the OB's office. I was supposed to see my OB for this visit, but that didn't happen. The OB's office gave me all these dates for all my visits up until my 42nd week, should I need it, but failed to record the first appointment in their calendar. Lovely. So instead of seeing my OB today, I saw one of the NPs - that isn't bad, but I wanted to see my OB! I was just a bit irritated - I wanted to be seen today - at least, have my urine tested for another possible UTI. Thankfully, they found someone who had 10 minutes to see me. Probably the one doctor or NP I have never met in that office.

Anyway, that's it. I'll post pics of the u/s as soon as I scan them. I am completely relieved that everything is o.k.

Twin Stories

Because I need to think of some cute things, I have some cute stories to share about my twins.

Ella - when she smiles, she scrunches up her nose sometimes. It is the most adorable thing to see. Of course, there are times she has her temper tantrums that are not so cute to see (like yesterday when it was time to go home from the daycare and she refused to give up the two plastic cups she was holding - we brought them home with us and brought them back today).

Last night, after reading the same book to Ella 3 times and another book 2 times as she sat on my lap, she went to go get another book and sat down by me and starting to "read" the book. How cute is that?

Benjamin - the other night, I gave them some grapes to eat after dinner and Benjamin would lift up a grape to offer to me only to quickly put it into his mouth as soon as I got close enough to get it. He did this many times in a row. Such a tease! And he thought it was hilarious each time.

Last night, I just smiled at him when he was on the other end of the room and he came crawling toward me so quickly with a huge smile and laugh. I love these moments.

Moments like the above remind me just how much I am glad that Ben & Ella are in my life and how wonderful it will be with #3.

Appointment Today

Caution - baby talk ahead..though there normally is on this blog, but just another warning.


In about 2 hours, I'll be at the ultrasound clinic for the NT scan. In about 2 hours, I'll know whether my fears are real or irrational. I'm hoping the latter. I pray for the latter. Every few days, I seem to have this fear that the baby isn't o.k. One day this past week, I had a breakdown convinced that the dream I had of losing the baby was real. And I wasn't where my husband was and I wished he was there to calm me down.

Lately, there have been some things going on with me (I don't feel comfortable going into detail here...not yet...trying to find the right words) that have caused me to not feel all that happy about things. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy about being pregnant again and happy about having another child. It just feels like...I don't know - where are the right words when you need them?

I think what makes this difficult for me to find the right words is because I'm not sure where I belong. I don't know if I can count myself in the infertile world anymore and yet, I don't feel like I belong in the fertile world either. So who do I talk to? Jon thinks I should visit a therapist and perhaps I should. I haven't seen a therapist since the first weeks of my support group (I plan to tell them today if everything goes well). Looking at my past posts, it seems one day I can be happy and so full of joy and the next, I'm at the opposite end.

Anyway, I hope everything goes well today. I have the appointment at 2:45 (really 3, but need to be there at 2:45) and my OB appointment at 4:10. I'll update as soon as I can.

Off to Vegas

Tomorrow, I head to Vegas without my husband and children. I'm going with a friend of mine. We come back Tuesday afternoon. It's my first time there. I'm looking forward to it - mainly the time away from work. I will miss my family a lot though...

Jon is going to watch the twins all on his own. It is supposed to be really hot tomorrow in Seattle, so hopefully, he does o.k. taking them somewhere cool.

Baby Talk

After we had the twins, people would ask us if we want to have any more and I always said that if it happened, it happened. We weren’t going to do anymore fertility treatments, so it would have to be a miracle for me to get pregnant again. Back when I said that I really didn’t think it would happen. After all, why would it? We tried for several years before turning to IVF – our last hope for a miracle. Now, not only do we have our sweeties, Benjamin and Ella, it appears another miracle is heading our way. It has slowly started to sink in that this is really happening. Tomorrow, I will be at 11 weeks.

(I do wish I would have known that this was going to happen – I wouldn’t have gotten rid of all those clothes and baby gear!!! I only have a few items that I kept for sentimental value (to remember how tiny Ben & Ella used to be). People tell me, of course, you were going to get pregnant after you gave all that stuff away! Oh, and after we bought the CR-V that won’t fit 3 carseats! I’ll be visiting some sales for clothing and baby gear, and we’ll be trading in our Civic for a minivan later this year probably.)

Anyway, as it is starting to sink in, I am just feeling such joy. I’m still freaking out about the money part of it, but I am just thinking of how wonderful it is to have Benjamin & Ella. I just love my children so much. The wait was definitely worth it. I can only imagine I will feel the same way with our new child – in fact, I already do feel that way. I love this child already. It definitely was once I saw that heartbeat. In only one more week, we’ll get to see our baby again for the NT scan.

Yesterday, when I was at the daycare to pick up Ben & Ella, they were asking me if I would mind being a reference as they have a woman who is due next year that is interested in their daycare. I told them I wouldn’t mind. Then, I became nervous because what if they gave all of their infant spots away before we told them of our pregnancy (at the time being, we are thinking of both of us continuing to work – we’ll see how that goes)? So I told them and asked if they had a spot available for our new addition, and they said yes – they’ll save a spot for us and without having to pay them to hold the spot (thank goodness). I didn’t ask them how much extra it would be – I was afraid to know.

In other news, at the daycare, they have an indoor slide in the infant room that has 3 steps to climb up before they can go down the slide. Ella successfully learned how to do it and is now loving the slide. Benjamin just likes to climb up the slide. Benjamin has learned recently about going through the tunnel at the daycare. He used to get so frustrated because he couldn’t figure out how Ella was doing it until he realized one day he just needed to lower his head. I guess he now goes through the tunnel a lot and finds it quite fun to do so.

That's about it for now.

Insurance Coverage of Infertility Treatments

I was just reading this blog entry on insurance coverage of infertility treatments. It does anger me a bit to read about such things. If insurance covered this, the whole thing would cost so much less money. It's frustrating. If clinics are willing to take so little, why can't they just charge that low amount instead of making us "bend over" as the blog author says.

And I'm sure it's like this for so many different types of other things that aren't covered by insurance or for those who don't have insurance at all to cover even the routine check-ups. Just crazy.

14 months!

Happy 14 months to Benjamin & Ella!

Ella was so cute last night. I was trying to change her diaper and her clothes into nighttime clothes. I got her daytime clothes off and so she figured that was enough and she got up and smiled at me then walked behind the couch and looked at me and smiled from the other end of the couch on the opposite side I was on. She did this back and forth several times. Eventually, she got close enough that I was able to get her diaper changed and got her into nighttime clothes. Her little smile was so cute and she laughed when I said "Hi Ella."

Benjamin knows there are buttons on the tv now. He has changed the station numerous times (we're watching the Olympics). I guess this morning, he turned on the tv. He is such a sweetie. He will just come up to me at different times during the day or night to come give me a hug and snuggle into me. It is so completely adorable.

Ella will come give me a hug, sometimes, if I open my arms wide enough. Sometimes, she just ignores me. Oh, another cute thing that Ella does is that sometimes she's feeling extra nice and will go up to give Benjamin a toy thinking, I guess, he wants that toy to play with. At least she's sharing when she wants to. They will still fight over stuff though (and I'm sure that will only continue).

Both Benjamin and Ella are good sleepers for the most part. I think we've been lucky with that. They've been sleeping through the night for quite some time now. I do hope Benjamin's night terrors don't continue though. We will need to make sure he gets his 2 naps each day and goes to bed at a good time (though last night, they didn't go to bed until nearly 9 - which is just 1/2 hour off of normal time).

I can't believe that my babies are now 14 months old. When I saw a friend's 3 week old baby, it was hard to imagine that Ben & Ella were ever that tiny (even tinier really - that baby was born at around 8 1/2 pounds). It's been wonderful seeing them grow up. It will be challenging, though, to have another infant in the house with twin toddlers!

Park Weekend

We had mostly a good weekend. We started out the weekend by going to Matthews Beach on Saturday in the little window of sunshine that we had that day. I think the kids had a good time there. Jon took them on a walk (they were in a stroller) and I stayed behind to read my book. Though we invited others, it turned out to be a family picnic.

I was a little anxious to even leave the house that day because I was feeling what felt like contractions – my tummy kept tightening. It was freaking me out. They stopped for a while, but were on and off all day. Trying not to pick up your toddler when they say “momma” to you and holding up their arms for you to pick them up is hard, but Jon felt I shouldn’t pick them up so my body would calm down on the contractions (or whatever they were). I think they were brought on lack of sleep and stress the previous night. Ella was fussy so we brought her to our bed and she has a cold now, so her breathing isn’t the best. I was just really nervous about her breathing so I didn’t sleep too well.

Anyway, when we got back home, it was starting to rain and Ella wanted to go outside. She would just get so mad that she couldn’t go outside, but it was raining pretty good for a while. Ella gets very angry when she doesn’t get her way. Benjamin is so much more mellow.

The next day, we were meeting with my support group at Magnuson Park. Thankfully, the day wasn’t too bad – it was actually quite pleasant. It was soooo wonderful to see these ladies again and with their children. Not all of us were there, unfortunately, but one of the newest (and last) graduates came by with her 3 week old daughter. It was so great to see her after so long. The last time I saw her was late November 2006. I could just tell how happy she was to be with the group again because she’s a mother now (note, we didn’t keep her away because she wasn’t, but those who have been through infertility know that it was her choice). Anyway, Magnuson Park has a nice playground – we’ll have to go back there again soon.

Oh, and Saturday night, Benjamin woke up screaming and yelling momma. His eyes were open, but he just wasn’t responding to us at all. He looked at me as if he didn’t even know I was there. After about 10 minutes of screaming, he made this shivering movement and was calm and definitely asleep. I felt so completely helpless. There was nothing I could do to console him. I looked up night terrors and I think that’s what he had. It turns out they can be brought on by lack of sleep and staying up late. They didn’t get good naps on Saturday and he stayed up maybe ½ hour later than normal.

Well, that’s about it for now.

Dreams & Twins

Last night I dreamt that my doctor wanted me to go back into the hospital...already. Not even 10 weeks and I need to be in the hospital. I guess I have that fear still that something will go wrong, and I can't seem to shake it. I don't see my OB and have an ultrasound for another 17 days, so I'll have until then to think about this and worry about this even more.

And now onto stories about Ben & Ella...

Ella has also learned a new word - outside. She will stand by our french doors and yell loudly with something that sounds like outside. She will bring you her shoes for you to put on her so she can go outside. She will give you her shoes, sit down in your lap and wait for you to put on her shoes. It’s rather cute.

Benjamin decided to climb up to the slide on the playset we have and go down headfirst. That boy is becoming more daring as he grows older. He is starting to walk and will just let go of whatever he’s holding onto and walk toward someone without them realizing what he’s doing until he falls into their laps. He thinks it is hilarious. He has been making great progress in his walking abilities so I don’t think it will be too long before he’ll be walking on his own.

Guilt

As I was thinking of our plans for the weekend, I just started feeling so incredibly guilty for leaving Ben & Ella for 3 nights and 4 days in a couple weeks to go to Vegas. I hardly get to see them during the week, so I try to spend as much time as I can with them during the weekend so it makes it hard to plan time with friends if those plans involve events that are not toddler friendly. This, of course, leads to me feeling as if I'm losing friendships and my whole life will be my job and my family and that's it. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore my children and I'm feeling good about having another child (anxiously waiting for August 22 for the NT scan). I wouldn't trade them for anything, but one needs friends too, I think. So I guess the trip to Vegas will be good for me.

This weekend, my plans include going on a date with my husband (something we haven't done in a while) - the date is during the day so I'll miss some time with my children. I'm looking forward to the date, but because of the date, however, my other plans for the weekend must include my children. I want to be around them as much as possible before they don't want to be around me anymore, and just a few hours on Saturday is all I can spare.

We were going to have a playdate on Saturday with an ex-coworker and her child, but unfortunately, she couldn't get together due to a last minute change in plans so the lunch date with my husband is now happening. Yay for lunch dates with hubbies!