Chomping at the Bit

I'm feeling anxious lately about getting things ready for the new babies. I want to get the cribs out and put them together; go through the baby clothes, wash them, put them away in the dresser; wash the baby car seat covers; etc. I keep telling myself to calm down and relax. We don't even know if we are having boys or girls or one of each yet. We still have MONTHS to go! I think this is the OCD part of me coming out. I want to be ready now, even though I know we still have a long time to wait.

I have a bunch of other craft projects that I want to work on, including repurposing some maternity shirts from winter to summer wear. But somehow I can't get myself motivated to do those other things. And so, I do nothing. I crack myself up! (Now, you understand by nothing I mean, taking care of my kids, house, church calling, etc. I can't actually do nothing.)

Morning sickness is lessening lately - I'm 14 weeks pregnant today. But I've actually been throwing up more lately. I guess I better ask the doctor if that is a bad thing when I see him. My hunger is continuing to increase, but food is still not looking too good. I have, however, managed to eat a little red meat lately. This is a miracle, of sorts! I ate one piece of tri tip on Sunday and had a hamburger for lunch yesterday. And it tasted so good! Granted, my stomach felt really funky after both, but I did keep them down. Wahoo!

Blue Moon

On Saturday we purchased our first minivan! It's a 2006 Chrysler Town & Country. I'm so excited! We found it at a used car sale hosted by our credit union. We initially intended to buy a foreign made minivan, but they tend to be more expensive. The minivan selection at the sale wasn't that big, and we stumbled across this lovely car by luck. It was a good deal, and only has 50,000 miles on it. I don't know about other parts of the country, but it's hard to find cars with low mileage in this area.

When we first looked at the minivan, it was missing a couple of the seats. We asked the sales guy if they had all of the seats, and he had to go ask someone else because he is not familiar with this type of vehicle. To our amazement--and my joy--this van has stow-and-go seats. The seats all fold down into the floor! The sales guys were really amused at how excited I was about this feature. The van also happens to have a DVD player, which is a nice plus for long trips with the kids. I have already laid down the law, though, that we will not be watching movies while we drive around town. Does that stop the kids from asking to watch a movie every time we get in the new car? Of course not!

We took the van for a test drive and then drove it around the lot to check out our other options. In the end, we decided to go ahead and buy it. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. At least I know that once these babies arrive I'll have a way to transport my whole family anywhere we need to go. The new minivan is a light, silvery blue, so Tobin has named it Blue Moon. This is a whole new world for us. Tobin would rather have purchased an SUV, but I didn't want to pay more for the vehicle and the gas right now. Maybe a few years down the road when we are independently wealthy . . . .

Cute Kiddos

I've been feeling much better lately, and I'm starting to have a little more energy. But somehow I'm throwing up more now than before. Yesterday, I was getting myself and the kids ready for church and suddenly needed to run to the bathroom. Peyton followed me and watched the proceedings. He was not at all grossed out. In fact, I think he was kind of impressed. After I threw up he said, "Wow, Mom! That was a lot!" He and Maryam were both concerned that I should stay home from church since I was sick. They didn't want me to get anyone else sick. So cute!

We had a great weekend, enjoying three full days in a row with Daddy. It was so nice to have busy season come to an end this year. Tobin works really hard, and we appreciate his dedication to taking care of our family. We also appreciate the days when we get to have him all to ourselves! Tobin and I were even able to go out car shopping on Saturday, and ended up driving home with a new (to us) minivan. I'll post about that later today once I've downloaded (or is it uploaded?) the pictures.

So Far, So Good

I had an appointment with the nurse practitioner today. I was going to post some ultrasound pictures, but they don't really look like much yet. Maybe I'll post some from the next appointment. Hopefully by that point the babies will have some distinguishable human features. I'm sure we could have gotten better pictures today, but that didn't really seem to be the NP's purpose. Oh well. I did get to see the heartbeats on the monitor. That is always reassuring.

The appointment today was a little strange for me. With my first pregnancy, I was referred to a perinatologist right after the fertility clinic. This time the fertility clinic sent me to my regular OB GYN, so everything is different. The NP made a comment about this being my first pregnancy. I corrected her and told her that I already have four-year-old twins. She looked at me like I was crazy! She said she saw the records in the computer, but assumed that my pregnancy in 2005-06 was a miscarriage. (Who would go back for more IVF, right?) We had a bit of an awkward moment while she tried to wrap her head around people wanting more than two kids. It was kind of awkward for me. Luckily, my appointments after this will be with my regular OB. At the very least, the NP could have pretended not to think I'm insane. Oh well. I figured I would get some reactions like that. Most people (strangers or acquaintances) here assumed we were done having kids when our first set of twins turned out to be a girl and a boy. It's amusing to me to see the way other people think.

I'm almost through the first trimester of this pregnancy. I'll officially be 12 weeks pregnant on Thursday. The allergic reactions are getting much better in the last few days. I think I only ended up taking Benadryl about 50% of last week. Yay! I'm really hoping I will start to like food again soon. So far I've lost about 2-3 pounds because food is really disgusting to me. But I'm getting so hungry all the time now that I really need to eat more. It's the strangest contradiction! Please share your ideas of foods that were super tasty while you were pregnant. I really need to find something that tastes good and doesn't make me want to run for the bathroom. :)

Our News

Well friends, I promised that I would explain my infrequent blog posting lately. I think you've waited long enough.

We have a big surprise to share.


Are you ready?



We are expecting another set of twins!! They are due October 21, 2010. Chances are good that they will really be born a few weeks before that, though.

This pregnancy has been pretty rough so far. We did IVF again in early February. As part of the process, I have to take a number of medications. One of them happens to be a daily injection of progesterone in oil. It seems that I am allergic to something about this medication. In the past, I've had itching at the injection site when I used it. This time I had major allergic reactions. The doctor changed the type of oil three different times trying to find something that I was not allergic to. We finally settled on olive oil, since it caused the fewest/least scary reactions. As a result, I've been on Benadryl pretty consistently for about two months. My allergic reactions have ranged from itching at the injection site to huge welts at the injection site to swelling throat and tongue to itching throat and tongue to hives to muscle aches. Seriously. I'm not even exaggerating. I got to finish taking the shots last week, and the allergic reactions are finally starting to diminish. I'm hoping to be a normal (pregnant) person who doesn't take Benadryl every day very soon.

Additionally, I had a bit of bleeding at six weeks, and was put on bed rest for about two weeks. Strangely, the timing was almost exactly the same as the bleeding I had when I was pregnant with Peyton and Maryam. Weird! The doctor was concerned about one of the babies for a bit, but at our last ultrasound everything looked fine. The women in our ward were fabulous about taking care of us while I was on bed rest. And my sister-in-law and her mom were fabulous as well. We are so blessed to have so many wonderful people who care about us!

I have another ultrasound next week--just a regular check up with the nurse practitioner. After that appointment I will be passed along to my regular OB GYN. We will get to find out the sex of the babies in early June. Stay tuned!

So far the regular pregnancy symptoms have been pretty normal. Of course, I'm sick to my stomach. But I haven't done much throwing up, so that is a blessing! I'm seriously tired! And the past two weeks I've become VERY, VERY hungry! I'm hoping that food becomes appetizing to me again soon. It's really hard to make myself eat when the food isn't really appealing. Overall, I think I may have lost a pound or two so far, but I'm expecting that trend to turn around pretty quickly.

So, that's my story . . . and I'm sticking to it! I'll post some ultrasound pictures soon. They're not too exciting thus far. But next week's pictures should look more like babies than blobs, I think.