NIAW (National Infertility Awareness Week)

I wanted to end NIAW with a post about our infertility because, as I look to my left and smile, and look to my right and smile, for two reasons I was beginning to think we would never have. I want people to know, who may be suffering alone and in silence, that you are NOT alone and that there is hope!

I briefly touched about our journey to parenthood in my very first post but I will recap a bit.

After only a few months of TTC (trying to conceive) I just had this gut feeling that something was wrong. We went to a RE (reproductive endocrinologist) in San Antonio and that's when we were diagnosed with infertility and told we'd have less than a 5% chance of ever conceiving naturally. I still remember that phone call like it was yesterday. it shattered my world. I cried SO hard-just bawling and screaming as loud as I could, all the while punching my couch with every ounce of energy I had left. There were women out there getting abortions because they were too lazy to use birth control or a condom, just throwing a precious life out the window because they were careless, yet here Paul and I wers, wanting to start a family more than anything, and we were just told we would have to spend $10,000+ at just a CHANCE of having that dream come true. I have never experienced a more "life is not fair" moment that after I received that phone call.

In all honesty though, we are lucky!! Although we dont have it easy as most couples do, in the infertility world, we had it easy. Yeah-months of pills, injections, 6 hour round trip doctor appointments every other day, thousands and thousands of dollars spent-and we're the lucky ones because after just one full round, those two embryos that we transferred are giggling and laughing right now and playing with their feet and going crazy in the jumperoo! So while I could sit here and feel sorry for us, I dont, because there are people out there that have been struggling for YEARS and spent tens of thousands of dollars and still have empty arms.

To anyone who may be suffering from infertility, whether newly diagnosed or not, please know that you are NOT alone. People ask me why I am so open with my story and it's because if I can reach out and help just one other couple, my vulnerability will all be worth it! There are SO many options with our amazing world that we live in, as far as medically technology goes. Please do not suffer in silence, and dont ever give up. There is always hope!

-Lots of love and baby dust to you-

It's In My Blood

So I was originally going to make this blog only about the twins, and life with twins, but then I realized that they do a lot of the same stuff on a day to day basis which would make for a pretty boring blog. I have decided to just write about whatever I feel like! So tonight, as the babies dream their sweet little baby dreams, I am going to talk ahout cake decorating! :-)

I have been licking star tips off my fingers since before I can remember. I have waited excitedly for the cake to cool so the rounded part could be cut off (to make it completely flat) and I could eat the cake scraps! I fondly remember the red tool box filled with every color of dye you could ever imagine. Closets filled with cake pans and bookshelves stacked with the latest Wilton cake decorating books! Every year, starting in October, I would browwe through the decorating books and careful select my favorite cakes. i would take some time to think about which one be be perfect for my birthday party and I would finally make a decision a couple of weeks before my birthday. There is one person, one VERY special person I have to thank for all these memories-Nanny. And because of that, I can proudly say that master cake artistry is in my blood!

She was in amazing woman in so many, many ways but she was also one heck of a cake decorator. She owned her own shop in Ellsworth for about 15 years but made cakes on the side for 30 or so years. She made so many kids happy with the PERFECT birthday cakes and so many couples happy as they ooh'd and ahh'd over their wedding cake! I had a cake made for me, by Nanny, ever year until I was 18. (And because of that, I vow to make every single one of my children and grandchildrens' cakes!)

I spent countless nights sitting at her kitchen table, watching her decorate and storing what I saw and suggestions she made or questions she answered, so when it was time for me to try, I would know exactly what to do! Which brings me to my latest cake! As many of you probably know, our best friends Nick and Nikki have a little girl named Abby and her current love is Doc McStuffins (from the Disney channel). I wanted to make her a Doc cake! I love cake decorating because it brings me to such a happy place, with memories of Nanny flooding my mind the entire time. I should know her buttercrean frosting recipe by heart, but I dont because I would call her up ever single time I needed to make a cake and ask her for the recipe. She would laugh and say "Why dont you write it down?" to which I would tell her that I looked forward to calling and chatting about my latest cake idea and her thoughts on how to go about bringing it to life. (I still dont know the recipe-I now call my mom for it each time I need it-Its sort of a tradition now!)

I dyed the cake batter two different shades of purple and swirled it together so Abby would have a surprise after she cut into it! I cut the top off (Paul and I ate the scraps-I cant wait till the boys are old enough to make this memory with me like I had with Nanny) and then I put a crumb coat on. I boiled some water and smoothed out my top coat and went to town with mixing all the colors I would need. Then I piped out the picture and finished it off with a pink and purple border! I always eat way too much frosting whenever I make a cake-but I cant help it-so yummy!! The final result was Doc McStuffins, Stuffy the Dragon, and Lambie the Lamb! I delievered it to Abby and she knew who it was the moment she saw it! Thats all I cared about.

I look forward to many, many years of cake decorating in my future and using the tricks and tips I learned from Nanny-afterall, she was the best!!      
  
* Love and miss you every day! <3 *

Birth Story

Make a bowl of popcorn, sit back and relax as you read the VERY LONG birth story (that was already previously written and I didn't feel like editing it for the blog!)

I woke up at 5:30 am to go to the bathroom. As I was getting back into bed, I felt a little pop and a small amount of fluid. Thinking it was just from me not completely emptying my bladder, I got back up to go to the bathroom and fluid continued to come out. Once I sat down on the toilet, I felt a huge gush and knew right then that my water had broke. My first thought was to call Paul and let him know. He was in complete shock and immediately got ahold of his flight commander to start the process of getting out of Altus. Meanwhile, I was feeling fine and (mentally) okay as well, so I took a shower and woke Cassie up. We made my bed, packed the rest of the hospital bag, let the dogs out, and called to see who the on-call OB would be. I was told that Bobby was coming on at 7:00 am and it was a huge relief to hear a familiar name as their answer. I texted Mom, Rochelle, and Celeste to let them know what was going on and continued to cry and feel absolutely horrible that Paul would be missing the birth. I went downstairs and researched plane tickets and tried to figure out the fastest way to get him home. His leave was approved and he was on his way to Dallas because that gave him the most flight options (instead of flying out of Oklahoma City.) 

We finally packed up the car and headed to the hospital, stopping at Dunkin Donuts so Cassie could get a coffee. I checked in at registration and we were taken up to the 7^th floor. I settled in to the labor room and was hooked up to the monitors, which were showing that I was having contractions but I wasn’t feeling anything. Cassie was supposed to have a mandatory meeting at Chilis that morning (and work a double shift) and when she called to tell them she wouldn’t be coming in for either, she was told that if she didn’t go to the meeting then she may not have a job. She was really upset and didn’t know what to do. Meanwhile, they started an IV on me and also did a cervical check-talk about painful! I was 5 cm dilated, 100% effaced, and +1 station. The nurse said I “labored beautifully”. That’s when reality set in that Paul definitely wouldn’t be there, as we (nurses included) had all hoped I may be able to hold off until that evening. Cassie was still going to go to the meeting (I insisted) but as she was leaving, she met Dr. Slate in the hallway and he said they were taking me on as soon as anesthesia got there. 

Ready to head into the OR.

Everything that happened from then on out was pretty quick. I had fluids running through my IV, signed consents for surgery and was on my way. Walking into the OR was so surreal. I sat on the edge of the table and received a spinal injection. It wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be. My legs almost instantly got heavy and tingly and the preparations began. All kinds of people came in (15-20), the drape was hung and Dr. Slate “tested” the effects of the medication and gave the okay to being Cassie in. I kept telling the anesthesiologist that I was afraid I would feel pain and she laughed and said “They already started!” Before I could really even wrap my mind around what was happening, I heard Ethan’s cry. Tears started instantly streaming down my face and I couldn’t wait to hear Wesley’s-except I never did. He was very quiet when he came out but I was told everything still looked okay. Ethan’s APGAR was 9/9 and Wesley’s was 7/8. 

5 minutes old.

Cassie went into the newborn nursery with them while I was getting stitched up. At one point they turned the radio on and started playing Christmas music. I was wheeled into recovery and spent about an hour or so there, drifting in and out of sleep but trying to stay awake so that they would let me go to my room faster. I was wheeled into room 716 but not before the NICU doctor stopped me in the hallway to tell me that Wesley was having a hard time breathing so he had to go into the NICU. I was still a little groggy at that point and wasn’t quite sure what to think. I got settled into my room and they brought Ethan in. The next few hours are very much a blur and I’m not sure who was in my room or what really happened. The next thing I know, Paul was arriving at the hospital. He sat in a chair beside my bed and his leg was shaking as he held/met Ethan for the first time. I later asked him if he knew it was shaking and he said it was from being a little scared and also the rush of emotions from becoming a father. We went into the NICU to visit Wesley and he was on a CPAP breathing cannula. They told us it was probably due to fluid in his lungs and that it should only take 12-24 hours to clear. 

Sweet Ethan.

Around 2:30 in the morning (Sunday), the NICU doctor came in to the room to tell us that he had unexpectedly taken a turn for the worse and would need a breathing tube. He was put on an oscillator ventilator which was only used with “very sick babies” as I was later told. I went to visit him Sunday morning and just started sobbing the minute I saw him. He looked so, so sick. That was when I was informed that his lungs were premature even though he was born at 37+ weeks. They didn’t have enough surfactant, which made them stiff, causing him to have labored breathing and ultimately tearing a hole in his lung, causing it to collapse and for him to need a chest tube. I remember going back to my room and hugging Paul and crying so hard in his arms. I told him that Wesley looked so sick and that this was not supposed to happen because I had done everything I could to keep them healthy. Paul went to see him in the NICU with Rochelle and said that he immediately started bawling when he saw him and had to sit down. We were scared, very scared, at the all too real possibility of losing him. His oscillator vent was hooked up to a bubble machine and as long as there was still a hole in his lungs, the liquid would bubble. When the liquid stopped bubbling, that meant that the hole had healed. We spent a lot of time looking at that box, wishing the liquid would stop bubbling.

This was what Wesley looked like when I walked into the NICU Sunday morning.

 In the following week, we enjoyed our time with Ethan and visited Wesley several times a day. He made remarkable improvements that the doctors and nurses couldn’t even believe. He was taken off the oscillator and put on a “common vent”. He spent a couple of days on that before being taken off and going straight to room air. Usually babies go to a CPAP cannula, then nasal cannula, and then to room air but Wesley skipped the two middle steps! He was slowly weaned off the Morphine (for pain), Versed (sedation), and Dopamine (low blood pressure) and we were excited to see his eyes for the first time and to see him moving around a little bit. He had lots of prayers being said for him and lots of people wishing him a speedy recovery. One of his nurses told Paul and I one evening, “Babies just don’t do this-they don’t recover as quickly as Wesley did. I mean, they are very resilient, don’t get me wrong, but his story is like no other.” In his time spent in the NICU, Wesley was on an oscillator, regular ventilator, and CPAP machine. He had a chest tube, two arterial lines in his belly button, several IVs (in his hands and feet), an air line in his mouth, and a feeding tube. After all was said and done, he spent a total of 13 days in the NICU and came home on December 13, 2012 (the day of the originally scheduled c-section).

Our first family picture at 3 days old.

The End. (Finally!!)

Once Upon A Time

Since all my friends have started blogging, I decided to join the band wagon and start one too! I may not post as often as I'd like but you will know the days when the boys decide to nap at the same time, or go to bed at a decent hour, because I will have had time to write a new post! This blog is going to be about my crazy wonderful life of raising twins, twin boys specifically, and my journey of bringing them up as "twindividuals". Basically, I want them to always have that special twin bond but to also be two separate people who are able to have their own likes and dislikes. I am going to back date this post, just to play catch up for those of you who don't know the entire story. Here's how it goes:

Once upon a time, 6 years ago, Paul was the "man of honor" in my cousin Misty's wedding and I was the maid of honor-cute huh? Anyway, fast forward to October 12, 2010 and we find ourselves standing in the middle of a gazebo in a park in Bishop Hill, Illinois, getting married by a family friend, in our jeans and sweatshirt. Our wedding cake was a low-fat pumpkin cupcake with cool-whip frosting. I know, I know-we outdid ourselves! The reason behind our oh-so-fabulous "wedding" was because I didn't have time to plan the wedding of my dreams in time before Paul had to go to officer school and then we would be moving to Texas. So we wed on that Tuesday afternoon, with all intentions of having the real deal on October 12, 2013-then life happened.

We started trying for a baby a couple of months before moving to Texas (for pilot training). Month after month of nothing happening clued me in to the fact that something was wrong-I just had this gut feeling. I went to the doctor on base and lied stretched the truth about how long we had been trying so that she would give me a referral for an RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist) in San Antonio. After just one appointment, we were told that our chances of conceiving naturally were less than 5% and that IVF (in-vitro fertilization) was our best option.

My baby-makin' concoction!!

After weeks of daily injections, multiple times a day, I went in for the retrieval on February 15, 2012 and woke up from anesthesia only to find that no eggs had been retrieved. Cue the tears! We started right back up again the next month and I went in for my second retrieval on March 28, 2012 (with 14 eggs retrieved-yay!!) and we transferred 2 Day 3 embryos on March 31st. I got my first ever BFP (big fat positive) on April 8th and obsessively peed on sticks for the next 2 and a half weeks. Not joking about that either, I had 37 pregnancy tests lined up on my bathroom sink because I liked to be reminded on a daily basis (sometimes 2-3 times a day) that I was FINALLY pregnant!! When we found out it was twins, I wasn't all that surprised as we knew there was a pretty good chance of it, afterall, we did transfer two rockstar embryos. See for yourself!

We lovingly referred to them, at the time, as Petri and Bubbles.

I spent the first 16 weeks of my pregnancy hunched over the kitchen sink or the bathroom toilet because I was so.darn.sick. I had to be admitted to the hospital for an overnight stay around week 12 because of hyperemesis gravidarum (aka extreme sickness that results in dehydration). The smell of boiling water was so repulsive that I had to wear a swimming nose plug whenever I cooked mac and cheese (one of the few things I could actually eat during that time). The thought of hamburgers would make me puke and I am just now starting to be able to eat them again. Paul and I went to Boston the middle of July and elected to have a gender ultrasound done there, and the u/s tech wrote the genders on a piece of paper. I gave the sealed envelope to a baker who made cakes that we cut into at the gender reveal party. Needless to say, there was lots of blue that day!

The cakes!

Baby A is a boy!!

Baby B is a boy!!

I thought for sure we were having a boy and a girl so imagine my surprise when I found out we were Team Blue!! I must admit that I was sad, and remained sad, for most of my pregnancy that I wouldn't have a little girl to take shopping or get nails done with or anything "girly" but now that I am 5 months into being a mother of boys, I couldn't imagine life any other way and I say bring on the dirt, dump trucks, skinned knees, and wrestling matches!! Be on the look out this evening for the boys' birth story. I already have it saved on my computer so I will just add some pictures and voila, two posts in one day! :-)