Life Lessons Learned

Two weeks ago I told my Bible study girls that it would be my last week there. It was getting hard for me to get there every week. I asked Val, our host home, if we could set up maybe a video conference so I could still tune in. Val was going to have her husband hook it up so that I could 'attend' from bed! After last Wednesday's news of Phillip having been laid off certain things began to happen. Him being around has allowed me to really rest during the day. He takes care of everything so my job has been to take care of these babies and hopefully have them healthy when they decide to make their arrival. When he was still working I pushed myself pretty hard everyday. I chose to do this and didn't have to. I like to be busy and I like to take care of my family. I was determined to not go on bed rest at 28 weeks.

Phillip has really taken on everything. He makes sure that I rest. If I need something and try to get up and get it myself he's the first to jump up and tell me to lay back down and that he'll get it. Emma is a Daddy's girl so whenever I try and do things for her since he's been home she tells me, "No. My Daddy will do it." This leaves me with not much to do. I've been pretty down the last week and it came to a head yesterday. Phillip went for a run. We took Emma to the park and I watched them play while I sat on the park bench. I cried to my Dad on the phone and I cried to my friend Kathy. I cried and cried and cried. Talk about needing to relieve some of my own stress. I have no way to do it. I can't even walk to the end of my street without my pants falling down around my ankles or getting stretchy pains at the bottom of my belly. (They aren't bad I just know that I need to sit and rest.)

This morning Phillip headed out to drop off some resumes and it left me by myself. Would I sulk alone or use my time wisely? I decided to head to the kitchen table and opened my devotional and my Bible. It's the study of Jesus and it took me to Luke 2: 48-50. Mary was looking for Jesus and couldn't find him. When she finally found him in the temple she asked, "Why would you do this to us?" Jesus replied, "Didn't you know to find me in my Father's house?" I thought to myself, I really seek out Jesus during my times of trouble. I'm not consistent in my quiet time. Maybe we are going through this so that we will grow closer to Him.

Friday at Bible study Mrs. Kay is teaching us on 2 Timothy and we were reading chapter 2: 8-10.

10Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.

Hmmm... So are we going through these trials so that others can see how we handle them and lean on the Lord so that maybe they will trust in God and choose to find their hope in Him? Pretty cool. I can think of a few people we've been praying for that we would love for them to find their hope in God.

My last 'Ah-Ha' moment I had today. I was driving to pick Emma up and thought to myself, "As a Christian and a Christ-follower we are not called to live a comfortable life. We are called to make disciples of all nations which in turn sometimes causes us to be persecuted. Christ didn't live a posh life nor did he have material things to make him happy. What was I thinking? Just because I'm a Christ-follower means that I shouldn't have trials in my life? That I should be entitled to "the perfect life" the "American dream?" WoW! Talk about putting things into perspective.

I'm very thankful for what I've learned today and pray that we have more positive days like this.

31 Weeks

31 weeks has been a bit uneventful much to my gladness! ;) Things are still progressing well. I got a bit more information about last weeks Dr's appt since I was so out of it. I actually gained 3 pounds last week. I think it's because I ate most of my birthday cake by myself but then again it's all I really asked for. Thought that since I was pregnant this would probably be the only time I could get away with doing that. But this week I had lost 1 pound so we'll put the total at only 2 pounds in the past 2 weeks. Grand total to 18 pounds over 31 weeks. Blood pressure is good. Baby A's hearbeat was 127 and Baby B's was 137.

Next week we start my NST's every week. These are Non-Stress Tests. It makes sure that the babies are not under any stress as they continue to grow. We also get an ultrasound sound! I bet we'll hardly be able to tell what is what since they will have grown so much in a month!

I really think I had the swine flu last Monday. Emma ended up testing positive on Friday afternoon. Poor thing looked pitiful. Once we got the Tamiflu in her she started feeling better really fast. She's back to herself now and making messes with the quickness. She's absolutely loving her Daddy being home and virtually has nothing to do with me. lol I think that Phillip should go back to nursing school because he's been taking such good care of us. He's been giving Emma all her medicines and keeping up with the times and dosages. He's done all of the housework and taking care of me letting me rest as much as possible. All in the meantime he's been feverishly looking for a job.

We know God has perfect timing and trust in Him. Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

Blog Title Change

I was driving down the road headed to Bible study and had a sudden thought about changing the blog title. "God's Work In Progress" popped into mind because of what we are going through these days. I realized...I'm never going to be perfect, my life is never going to be perfect so why do we all strive for perfection? I am a child of God. A work in progress by His hands. Every situation, every problem, every minute of my day is about being more Christ-like. Most days I'm not very good at it but I am trying.

It's very fitting for what is going on in our life right now. Most of you know that are reading this know that we have gone through years of infertility with both Emma and the current set of twins that I am carrying. Phillip and I both agree that we were blessed to have Emma and now will be doubly blessed with the addition of twins in our life. I've always dreamed of having a big family one day and the Lord has blessed us. Therefore we have agreed that we would not do infertility treatments again and if we were blessed with more children after that then wonderful! If not then we are completely happy with our family the way God has provided for us.

Being that I am 31 weeks pregnant and have 6 weeks to go we felt that we were home free. Not so fast. Phillip came home Wednesday having been a victim to the latest rounds of lay offs. We found ourselves in the same situation over a year and a half ago and God saw us through. We know that He has something GREAT in store for us. Our faith has been tested so much in the past two years but we remain steadfast and know that the Lord will sustain us and is our provider. We both are excited to see what He has in store. Don't get me wrong...some days are better than others but we are so lucky to have each other to lean on and it could all be much worse.

Speaking of getting worse...we picked Emma up from school today and she definitely didn't look like herself. She had puffy eyes, bright red cheeks and lips, glassy eyes, sleepy and lethargic. The aide said that she didn't have a fever but that Emma had chills in the classroom. By the time we got home Emma had a fever of 102.2, gave her Tylenol and put her in the bed. An hour later her fever spiked to 103.7! I was panicky and scared because Emma is hardly ever sick! Phillip put his swim trunks on and hopped in the tub and sponged Emma down. I was gracious enough to not get my camera out but it was the sweetest picture of love. This actually got her fever down a bit and we headed out the door for the doctors. Outcome...Swine flu. So we are quarentined until she feels better and we are armed with Tamiflu to help sweet girl get through this.

I'm looking above my head right now for the dark cloud! I'm just kidding. We do ask that you keep our family in your prayers and that God's will and plan be revealed. If you know of anyone looking to hire in sales or operations keep Phillip in mind.

Stay tuned to watch the Lord in action!

30 Weeks

I can't believe I'm actually sitting here blogging about my 30 week appointment the day of my 30 week appointment. This is because Phillip has ordered me on bed rest. Not Dr. D but Dr. P! We, like the rest of the south, are battling severe allergies lately. For me it's worse because I'm kicking the extra pregnancy hormones which makes my sinuses inflame 24/7 and then add allergy symptoms to that and I'm just miserable. I try to maintain it with Sudafed and when that stops working I move up to Mucinex DM and nasal spray. It finally caved this morning and I woke up feeling like I had a brick on my chest. All of a sudden it went from stuffy nose to painful breathing. Luckily I had my regular Dr's appt.

It started storming outside about 10pm last night and proceeded to last ALL...NIGHT...LONG! I'm the first to love sleeping through a good rainstorm but this was crazy. Woke up and it was still storming out. It made both me and Emma want to stay and bed and not move. I got to my appointment feeling pretty rough. Nurse R took one look at me and asked, "You don't look so good. How are them babies?" Thank goodness it wasn't them making me feel like poo. Listed my symptoms to her, stuffy head, ear ache, can't take deep breaths without having painful coughing, nausea and lower back was hurting, needless to say I was tired. I plopped in the chair while she took my blood pressure, temperature and weight. Didn't ask what any of it was except that I could see the temp window and thankfully did not have a fever. She shuffled me into a room where I laid on the table like a little baby in the fetal position. Dr. D came in and I rehashed everything with him. He listened to the babies heartbeats and measured my belly neither of which I asked the measurements for. Am I a bad Mommy? I figured if it was concerning that he would have said so. He then decided that I needed a flu test and handed me an antibiotic in case the flu was negative.

I was in the lab and the tech got out this serious looking box complete with two swabs a timer and who knows what else. She said she needed to swab my throat and handed me two tissues. Great! I gag just brushing my teeth and this lady is going to go all the way back to the back. I'm going to throw up all over her! I wasn't quite sure what the second swab was for but figured it might be for my nose. No, I think she wanted to make sure I really had brains back there. Yes mam, she stuck that long swab all the way up my nostrils up into my sinus cavaty. All this to say that the test came back negative and I do not have the flu. Thank the Lord!

I have no new updates as of today. No ultrasounds, no measurements, just a cold to tell you about. I am super excited that I've made it to 30 weeks without permanent bed rest nor any hospital visits...yet. Looking forward to reaching my next goal of 32 weeks!

29 Weeks

Monday's are my Dr's appt days. FYI... ;) I'm a little delayed in writing my updates.

My weekly visits started today. These are tedious and annoying but have to be done. I go so he can physically look at me. Check to see if I'm swelling, check my blood pressure, weight gain, babies heartbeats and to see if I am having contractions. Week 30-32 I'll start going down to labor & delivery to have 'NST's' done. Non-Stress Test's. They will strap a baby monitor on me to watch the babies and see if they are experiencing any stress.

This week I gained one pound bringing the grand total to 16lbs! I am very pleased at how much weight I've gained being that both babies are at or around 3 lbs or more each.

Baby A's heartbeat was 151 and Baby B's heartbeat was at 159. My blood pressure was "excellent" and I'm having mild swelling but you have to see me everyday to even remotely notice any. It's mostly in my fingers and today I've had a little swelling in my feet only which made me have to loosen the strings in my tenny's. So far the only contractions I've had were Braxton Hicks and that was only one night!

The round ligament pain has greatly decreased, Thank the Lord! It's still there but not nearly as bad. My friend Margaret passed on some information regarding restless legs and so I've started taking Citrical + D and Magnesium (Doctor approved.) Doc also suggested having a Vodka tonic minus the vodka at night. The quainine in the tonic is supposed to relieve the restlessness according to an old wives tale.

Other than that it's business as usual. Emma's back in school and so I try to use those days to really rest so I can spend time with her when she's home. So far that hasn't happened! I'm always finding something to do or catch up on and then Bible study has started back so I definitely don't want to miss that. I can't believe it's less than 8 weeks until I reach 37 weeks which is full term for twins. I actually pre-registered last night and realized that I may need to start working on packing our bags for the hospital.

Today I registered Emma for a 'Big Sister' class at the hospital! Phillip and I will go with her on Saturday. They will teach her all about new babies and the do's and don'ts along with her very own labor and delivery suites. (Luckily our room is an all in one deal.) I labor, deliver and stay in the same room the whole time. I'm really excited for her to see everything so hopefully she'll be prepared for the big day and it won't be a big surprise or shock to her. She's so excited about the babies arrival and is definitely looking forward to being a big sister. Anyone she comes across or passes by she stops them to tell them that she's gonna be a big sister and that we have a new mini-van now! It's hilarious and very cute.

Suffocating

I was told back in May that I could have acute sinusitus that would last throughout my pregnancy. :( It went away for a while and then came back. I thought it may have come back after I cleaned the chandeliers and knocked the dust off of them. Anyways, I started taking sudafed which only made my restless legs 'kick' (lol) into high gear. Doc, recommended I take Mucinex and add Claritin to it. Today was my first day adding the Claritin and so far my nose is completely stuffed up and I feel like I have a ball of snot lodged right behind my nose that I feel everytime I swallow. Feels like I'm suffocating slowly. Hormones are causing this and also me to be super grouchy and adding tired on top is not making for a nice Ashley.

28 Week Milestone

Monday I had my 28 week appointment with ultrasound. This was the big milestone where my Dr. told me to be prepared at any point after this to go on bedrest. Phillip and I were both nervous going in thinking he may say I need to go on bedrest even though I've been feeling pretty good. Even more exciting is that I have officially made it past the 27-week milestone. This is important because if I should go in to labor and actually deliver the babies would be viable enough to survive but having major hurdles to overcome. Each day and each week is important to make but we are excited to be moving forward and getting closer to the day we meet these sweet babies.

I've been battling anemia the last month or two and thank goodness my levels were back to normal range. I'm still pretty tired but that's totally due to not sleeping at night. I think it's God's way of preparing me for getting up during the middle of the night multiple times! Seriously, I get up at least 10 times during the night and do not end up falling into a deep sleep until 3 to 4am in the morning. Restless legs are seriously 'kicking' my butt. As soon as I start to fall asleep my legs start twitching. My newest symptom I've been diagnosed with "Round Ligament Pain." It usually wakes me up two hours after I go to sleep and it's a terrible pain in my groin on the right side, goes to my back and then down my leg to my knee. Dr. D said just to take Tylenol. Well, tried it and it doesn't work. What I have found is that if I take a bath before I go to bed seriously helps! I actually slept pretty decent last night and one night last week I took a bath and it eased up.

Back to the Dr's appt. My blood pressure was great and I only gained 1 pound! Grand total for 28 weeks is 16 pounds. I'm pretty excited about this. I still have 9 more weeks to go so things could change. Speaking of 9 more weeks... I am measuring what a 37 week pregnant women would be!

During the ultrasound she checked the fluids for both babies which was good! Baby A weighed in a 3lbs and Baby B weighed in at 2lbs and 15oz. They are only seperated by 1oz! I don't have the exact measurements but she did say that Baby B was longer than Baby A.

The best news of the visit...they are both head down!!! Everytime we've gone in she's been head down or sideways and he's been breech or head up! I am also being realistic knowing that this could change at any point. I would love to try and deliver normal but know that a C-section is most likely what we'll have. I'm ok with either one because they both have their positives and negatives to go along with it. As long as we all come out fine in the end we'll be happy either way.

I now start weekly visits so you'll be getting more posts from me. :)