crazy kids

I'm finding it a little hard to imagine that literally two weeks ago, I was waiting to feel that little flutter coming from within. Now...the babes are at it full force (ok maybe not quite full force yet, but active none the less). Wow. What an amazing feeling. It certainly isn't a little flutter anymore and when I lift my shirt and look down at my tummy, I can see the jumping from all sides. Most of the time I can even tell who it's coming from. They must sleep with me during the night (which is nice they are not keeping me awake, for now) and are awake with me ALL day long. Cody has gotten to see it a few times and we both are just smitten!!

**My next appointment is on Wednesday, April 21st

Happy Easter

Happy moments, praise God.

Difficult moments, seek God.

Quiet moments, worship God.

Painful moments, trust God.

Every moment, thank God.

21 weeks

So here I am at 21 weeks, pregnant with twins. I never, EVER, thought I would be sharing my pictures for the world to see. But it seems like the further along I get, and the bigger I get, it is becoming more important to me that I document some of these life changing moments. And because I'm documenting them...I guess that means you all get to see too :)

I have felt like these last 5 days or so, I have just ballooned out and have felt very uncomfortable. Yuck. I have also been starting to notice some AWFUL pubic bone pain. Any activity that involves me lifting one leg at a time or parting my legs, lifting my leg to put on clothes, getting out of a car, bending over, sitting down or getting up, walking up stairs, standing on one leg, and walking in general tend to be very painful. Oh yeah, and turning over in bed is especially excruciating.

I also had my first "pregnancy leg cramp" last night...to be exact it was about 4:24am. I woke up screaming and it left me completely paralyzed. I have been noticing some mild cramping in my legs the last couple of weeks so I warned Cody and gave him specific instructions as to how to help me through a severe cramp. I was rolling over in bed when it hit me...and that's when I couldn't move. Cody took it like a champ. He woke up from a deep sleep, ripped off the covers, and was down at my foot to help me stretch within .5 seconds. What a guy!!

I am really looking forward to a few days off...5 if anyone is counting. Of course there are a million things that could be done around the house, but I am hoping for some time to just relax too. As I'm just finishing up, I can feel the babies moving around like crazy. I think I forgot to mention in my last post that I have now discovered their movements. It's still pretty faint, but I definitely know it is them, and I am definitely excited!!

new addition to the family

For those of you who don't know yet, I was blessed with a niece on Saturday, March 27th at 1:07pm. My sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Khloe Ann Krohn, weighing in at 9lbs. 8oz!

WE ARE SOO HAPPY SHE'S HERE!!!!!

Mom, dad, and baby have settled in back at home and are all doing well.

Welcome Little Miss

I must admit, Des Moines has now become WAYYYY too far away. I am addicted to this little girl and absolutely cannot wait to go back and see her.

LOVE THEM!!

I honestly can't tell you how lucky we feel to be able to get to watch our babies grow and check in on them every month...what a great feeling. They're getting so big!! Our ultrasound today lasted about 90 minutes. Yikes! That's kind of a long time to have someone pressing on your belly...but I must admit, we I kind of liked it. They finished the remaining anatomy measurements, but they didn't even do the echocardiogram today. We visited with the Perinatologist for a while and he thought everything looked great!  Always good news to hear. Some updates:

*we still are carrying a boy and a girl, definitely confirmed today :)

*baby A (girl) is weighing in at 13 ounces with overall development in the 54th percentile

*baby B (boy) is also weighing in at 13 ounces and in the 57th percentile of development

*i am currently 20 weeks and 1 day, and both babies are measuring at 20 weeks and 5 days

*my uterus is measuring as a 29 week singleton pregnancy

*baby boy gave us a big yawn today....he must have been feeling a little bored today like his daddy

Here are a few pictures:

*baby girl profile

*baby boy profile

*boy parts!!

*3D pic of baby boy (face looking straight up at us)

*3D pic of baby girl...don't you just love her beautiful smile!?!

Kind of an amazing day huh?

Oh, by the way....I'm still waiting to start feeling some movement. It amazes me to see how active they are and to think I can't feel that. It's gotta be any day now :)

a day for organizing

Seriously, some days I look around our house and wonder....where in the world are we going to put everything to bring two new babies home here???  And then I start to panic a little bit. So Saturday was a day dedicated to just that...making more room. I started in the kitchen. I emptied out all of our kitchen cabinets onto the dining room floor. We then put contact paper down on all of the shelves and in the drawers (thanks mom and dad!) and then found new homes for everything, making sure we had empty spaces for all of the babies needs. We don't have a lot of cabinet space, so everything just had to be rearranged to make it a little more functional for us. This ended up being an all day project, but I sure am glad it's done!!

**We actually ran out of contact paper, so a couple of the bottom shelves are not re-stocked, but it's close enough to being finished that I feel comfortable calling it "done" :)

half way point

Holy Crap....where did this time go???  I am 19 weeks today, and because my doctor won't let me go past 38 weeks, that makes us at the half way point. Yikes!! I know that it's been the easier half, but it literally feels like yesterday that we were given our exciting news. Things are continuing to go well for all of us. Besides currently batting a yucky sinus infection, I have been very healthy. We go in again for our next ultrasound next Thursday the 25th.  I can't wait! Unfortunately I am STILL waiting to feel something, anything!! I am starting to get a little impatient because I know how active the two of them are in there, I just wish I could feel it!

Cody has been very busy the last few days with all of this melting snow. The lift station pumps have not been able to keep up, so he has been trying to deal with that. Once he gets home from work, he heads out every couple of hours, including setting his alarm clock throughout the night to get up every 2-3 hours to check on it. With me being sick, and him coming and going all night, we are certainly not getting the sleep we need. I feel like this may be God's little way of preparing us for what's ahead :)

P.S. Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

March 8, 2010...marvelous multiples

Things are continuing to go very well for us. I wish I could come up with something to get on here and write about, but it just seems like our life is not that interesting right now! We did go to a class yesterday afternoon at Sanford called "Marvelous Multiples." I think we both took a lot out of it. We were only with two other couples who are also expecting twins, but we also got to meet with some others who were parents of multiples, hear their stories, and get their "advice." We took a tour of the birth place and also were able to walk through the NICU....wow, what an experience. It was kind of a shock to all of us. The nurse gave us the statistics that approximately 60% of women expecting twins will go into preterm labor, anything before 37 weeks. Any babies born preterm will go into the NICU. She also shared that, even if we go to full term (for twins), only about 20% of twins will go to the regular newborn nursery...the rest of them go to NICU. Again, a shock to us. So, we got the tour and a folder of information in hopes to prepare ourselves for what is most likely to happen. Although, we like to think positively and know nothing is 100%, so we will pray that everything continues to stay great and we are the ones taking our babies home with us!

I am absolutely amazed to think that in about a week, I will be halfway through my pregnancy!! It just doesn't seem possible. With that said....I told Cody, we must be kicking it into high gear around this house and getting things organized and ready for two new babies. I am still waiting patiently, very patiently, for these two kiddos to start making their presence known. I am sure I will regret this one day, but I cannot wait to start feeling them!! It should be any day now.

By the way, I am getting pretty close to becoming a first time aunt. My sister is due in about 4 weeks......and let me tell you, she is BEYOND ready to be done. She is miserable and ready for that baby to come out. She's a little nervous about the whole thing, but I am sooo stinkin' excited to have her here I CAN HARDLY STAND IT!!!  Come soon baby Krohn!!

February 24, 2010...It's A....

Nothing like making everybody wait all day huh?? Well I have been extremely frustrated with my internet as it has not been working well the last few days and I was not able to get on at all this afternoon until now.

We had a wonderful and LONG appointment today. They did an anatomy scan, and the babies cooperated enough so that we were able to see the really important anatomy (in our opinion).........

Yep, a boy AND a girl!!!!!!!!!!  We are sooooo excited!!!!!! I think Cody's brother Travis said it the best..."you guys are just receiving blessing after blessing" and we are. We are reminded of God's grace every single day and try not to take a minute of it for granted.

Baby A is the girl. She is on my right side with her head down and feet up. She is weighing 6oz. and has a heart rate of 153. In this picture, her head is at the top and she is looking off to the left. You can kind of see her ear and just underneath she has both of her hands pulled up to her neck area.

Baby B is the boy. He is more in the middle, but off to the left a little. He has his feet down at the bottom with his head towards my ribs. He is weighing 5oz. with a heart rate of 155 (we were very glad to hear that both babies heart rates had come down so significantly). Here his head is at the top with his face looking right towards us, however both of his hands are up right in front of his eyes. Notice baby A's head down towards his legs, just off to the left.

This next picture shows the two of them together. Baby A is on the left with her head at the bottom. You can follow her body up and then her legs are pulled in tightly at the top. Baby B is on the right with his head at the top. You can see his arm pulled up over his ear. They look to be very close, however they are separated by a pretty thick membrane where they are each in their own placenta. These pictures just amaze me. It's awesome to see how much they've grown since we last saw them. I feel very blessed that we get to see them once a month and actually get to watch them grow.

Both babies continue to be extremely active, and everything looked so good today! The doctors were very pleased. After our ultrasound we met with the Perinatologist. He specializes in high risk pregnancies and will keep an eye on us throughout the rest of my pregnancy. He discussed the fact that babies conceived through IVF have a slightly higher risk of birth defects, one specifically being a heart defect. At our next ultrasound, they will get the rest of the anatomy measurements that they were unable to get today, but they will also try to do an ECHO on each of the babies. This will help them to detect any type of heart defect.

Another thing that they will continue to look for, right up until the end, will be the length of my cervix. A big concern with carrying twins is having cervical incompetence. This is where the cervix gets shorter and shorter and is unable to tolerate and hold the babies. My cervix today was measuring nice and long so they said that looked great!! The doctor took a measurement of my uterus and thought I was measuring right around 25 weeks. This means, if I was carrying a single baby, my uterus is measuring at the size I should be at 25 weeks, even though I am only 16 weeks. So it's no wonder I feel like I am getting big soo fast!!

We must have misunderstood someone along the lines when we thought we were going to start going every two weeks. Today we understood that they would start seeing us every month. Our next appointment is scheduled for March 25th.

February 9, 2010...second trimester

I know, I know, I have been horrible about blogging lately. But honestly, there is really nothing new to share. This is the last week of my first trimester. It's amazing to think that tomorrow I will already be starting on the second...where has the time gone??  A little update to my most popular question "how are you feeling?" Initially it was awful. I was sick all the time with an overall feeling of nauseousness ALL THE TIME. I am glad that constant feeling has subsided, however I continue to be sick often. It's completely random though and I haven't really been able to link it to anything. Completely out of the blue I will be running to the bathroom to hug the toilet. Cody usually responds with "seriously? what just happened there?" I have been lucky though, and haven't had any spells during the day while at work. It usually happens in the morning or at night, while i'm able to be in the comfort of my own home.

Our next appointment will be February 24th. I can't believe how excited we are to be able to see them again. It feels like this has been such a long wait. I will be 16 weeks, and our doctor told us there MIGHT be a possibility we could find out the sex at this appointment. We absolutely cannot wait to find that out and are hoping they cooperate. If we don't find out this time around, it most likely will be the next one. We are excited to get rolling on the babies room and will feel much more organized once we know the sex!

January 28, 2010...game over!!

That's it, we're done. We did our last injection tonight...halleluiah!!!  Leftover medicine has been thrown. Leftover syringes disposed of. Sharps containers sealed up. D.O.N.E.  You may not understand the excitement on our end, but just the thought of my butt finally having the opportunity to heal...the lumps dissolving, the hives disappearing, the bruises fading, and the tenderness improving...yep, there are no words.

I must give huge props to my husband. My job was to freeze the skin enough to help ease the pain of the needle, his job was to avoid previous "hits" to help ease the immense burning sensation of the oil. Although he wasn't always 100%, he did a darn good job. Have I mentioned how much I love him?

January 21, 2010...first appointment

Just a quick update to let you know things are going well. We had our first appointment today with the OB.  A very long visit and unfortunately uneventful. We did get to hear the heartbeats again today, and they both have gone down from the last time, so that was good to hear. I won't have another appointment until I am 16 weeks. This will be the longest stretch we go before seeing the doctor again. After that point it sounds like I will be there every 2 weeks, with ultrasounds at every visit. I have really started feeling a lot better the last week or two. I have not been feeling or getting sick nearly as much, so other than my pants getting too tight I really don't feel pregnant very often anymore.  I don't think Cody has gotten used to the fact that sometimes out of the blue I just need to lay down and will actually end up sleeping for an hour. It was good for him today to hear the doctor say that it's normal for me to be tired, a new kind of tired, and will most likely feel that the entire pregnancy.  Another great piece of news for us (more for me though I think) is that we will be done with my progesterone shots in 8 DAYS!!!!  These last few days have been horrible, I think just because I can see the end in sight and I'm just done...I don't want to do them anymore! 

January 17, 2010...Game Day....Go Vikes!!!

repeat after me:

Our Favre-ther who art in Mississippi hallowed be thy name. Thy bowl will come, it will be won, In Miami as it is in the Dome. Give us this Sunday, Our weekly win. Give us touchdown passes, but do not let others pass against us. Lead us not into frustration, but deliver us to the Super Bowl. For thine is the MVP, the best of the NFC, and the glory of the Purple People Eaters now and forever.    AMEN

January 11, 2010...meet our babies

I honestly could do this every day. Our appointment went great this morning. Of course I had all the irrational fears...they wouldn't be able to find a heartbeat, one of them wouldn't be growing right, or Cody's favorite, what if they don't even see the babies AT ALL???  My fears were calmed when the screen was turned into our view. There they were. In my opinion, beautiful! But you can decide that for yourself. Really though, the ultrasound pictures do absolutely no justice to what we get to see live on the screen.

Here is baby A. I think this one looks a little "blob-ish" in this photo, with the head being on the right side.

Here is baby B. This one looks a little more "baby-ish." I know they are hard to see in these photos, but the head is at the top, so then you can see the arms and the legs as you move down. This little one was pretty active today. We actually got to see it "dancing" around. It was moving all over the place with the little legs just kicking away. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

Here are the two together!!

Both babies are measuring at 10 weeks. They are exactly the same size...which means baby A has already caught up from two and a half weeks ago when it was measuring smaller. The hope is that they continue to grow pretty close to each other. They both have their own sac, so they won't be needing to share any nutrients (which is a huge positive) and also means they are fraternal twins. We got to hear the heart beats today rather than just see the little flutter on the screen. Both of their rates were a little high today, but nobody thought we should be too concerned about that now. I was shocked at how much they have already changed since our last ultrasound. It's awesome to see them start looking more like babies. We are going to continue doctoring in Sioux Falls and my next appointment has been set up for January 21st. This appointment will be with the OB, so we are now done with everyone at Dr. Hansen's office....for a while anyway.

January 7, 2010...Snowed In

Wow...it felt a little different writing 2010 in the heading!! We hope everyone had a fantastic New Year. We spent our weekend out in the Hills snowmobiling with friends. Well, actually Cody was able to snowmobile but I felt it wasn't necessary to risk anything, so I stayed back in the room. But because I am still in need of a shot every night, I tagged along.

I was supposed to have another ultrasound today but obviously the weather didn't allow for that. I am planning on getting in on Monday. I was really looking forward to seeing those little heart beats again....there was nothing like that feeling the first time we saw them, and if I could, I would want to see them everyday. I am still feeling very pregnant...which is a good thing I suppose. Pretty nauseous all the time and I find myself frequently having to run to the nearest bathroom and hug the toilet for a bit. I will try and get the ultrasound pictures posted once we get another set on Monday.....You are going to love them, they are soo beautiful!!!!!