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30 weeks and 5 days!

I almost didn't type this update, because I thought... people are so tired of reading about this twin pregnancy. But then I remembered.... there are only a few of you 'out there' that read this blog, (Hi, ladies! Love you guys!), and the whole point of writing is so that I remember for myself.

Had a quick little check-in with the doc this morning, and both twins are measuring exactly 3 lbs. 4 oz. They are positioned like ying-yangs in my belly. Keegan is head down/bottom up on my left, and Noelle is bottom down/head up on my right. So Noelle is 'breech' and Keegan is in 'birthing position.'

If Twin A (in my case, Keegan) is in birthing position, a vaginal delivery is usually considered safe. Even if Twin B (Noelle) is breech. Although there are many doctors out there that will only allow vaginal deliveries if both twins are head down. In my case... it obviously doesn't matter since we have planned a c-section from the beginning! Just thought it was an interesting tid bit of info.

The next few weeks are key in the babies growth and development. They will gain about .5 lb each week through the end of my pregnancy. Right now I have about 7 pounds of baby in my belly, and am the size of a normal person when they are about to give birth. Seven.more.weeks. haha!

I've mentioned that I've had a lot of anxiety during my pregnancy. It comes at weird times, and is about weird things. Well, last week I had an anxiety attack thinking that for some reason the twins weren't boy/girl anymore. And that I had washed all of these clothes and would be in shock to find they were both b/b or g/g. So today I told the nurse my fear and this is what she wrote down for me to hang on my fridge...



100% Boy/Girl Twins. lol.

Because I obviously have no shame...

Move over, Bloomies!

***Don't worry, I am also stocking up on the sweetest bow ties and suspenders for Keegan, but this post is all about girlie bows and headbands!

I am completely obsessed with Bloomies Handmade. I can't get enough. And they are always running specials, so I have picked up a few headbands and bows for Noelle already.

But, I've also been feeling really crafty lately. I've made countless crochet headbands in EVERY size and color imaginable for Noelle, and a bunch to send to her cousin, Molly, too! You can only have so many crochet headbands though. Sometimes you just gotta throw felt in the mix too. (That's where Bloomies comes in!)

Last night during our Homeland Season 1 marathon on DVD (yea, obsessed with this show too), I got inspired and started crafting up a storm. I used this pattern to make my own simple felt bows. Felt is oober cheap - only $.29 a sheet at Michael's, so I bought a ton to experiment.

I made about 6 last night, and cut out the circles for 20 more! I haven't decided what to add as the embellishments in the center, so right now they just look like sweet little fluff circles. My sister is coming to visit me this weekend, and she always knows just how to solve all of my craft dilemmas! Then, I will attach some to lace headbands, others to tiny pins, and a some to elastic stretchy headbands. I'll share pics when they are finished - not to brag, but they rival Bloomie's cuteness at a fraction of the price.

Look, you gotta save money where you can. Mostly because a Janie & Jack outlet just opened up at Grapevine Mills, and that's where my dolla bills are headed this week.

On a side note - update on our bible study! There are five of us in our bible study. It's super casual - we meet in comfy clothes on the couch of Amanda's house every Thursday night. And there is always food. Because three of the five of us are pregnant, and one has a 6 week old. (They all have one kid, about 2 years old - they met through a Mom's group, and I joined through Ashley). Their advice and encouragement has been invaluable during my entire pregnancy, and I so look forward to Thursdays!! We started the No More Perfect Moms book last week and its really hitting home even though I'm not a mom just yet. It talks about judging others, intentionally or unintentionally, and how there just is no such thing as being perfect. This book is a seven week series which will end the Thursday before the twins are due. Holy cow. Just seven more weeks....

29 weeks and 5 days!

Total weight gain: I don't weigh myself that often. But today I jumped on the scale and have officially hit 1.5.0. AH! :) It's all for those sweet babies, though, so I will keep on munching. (This means I have gained about 25 pounds, which is actually on the low end of where I should be? But I eat when I am hungry, and try to eat protein and vitamin-rich foods, so it's all good!)

Maternity clothes: So grateful for Gap Maternity and Old Navy Maternity. Reasonably priced and super comfortable.
Stretch marks: Still trucking along without any stretch marks. I have the Hubs check me on a regular basis! ha!

Sleep: Sleep? What sleep? I've hit the point in my pregnancy where apparently it gets tough. My hips ache because I have to sleep on my side, and the weight of the belly pulls. So I roll back and forth along (and get tangled in my preggo pillow).

Best moment of this week: Tonight! Bible study and starting our new session!

Miss anything: I miss my distressed skinny jeans.

Food cravings: This week baked potatoes and kashi granola cereal have been my jam.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope!

Have you started to show yet: Why, yes. Yes I have.

Gender: One sweet, handsome, Beau - and one sweet, precious Bow.

Labor signs: Nope! Doing great!

Belly button in or out: It's popped. And it reminds me on a daily basis to try to convince Noelle never to get her belly button pierced.

Wedding rings on or off: On

 Happy or moody most of the time: Happy, with occasional bouts of crazy thrown in.

Looking forward to: Finishing washing all of the little onesies and putting them away!

 

 

So long, Facebook!

I deleted my Facebook account. Well, I 'temporarily deactivated it' with the intention of eventually logging back in to save all of my photos to an external hard drive.

No, I didn't delete it because I am "one of those people who don't want to share pictures of their kids." I just don't need it anymore. And here's why:

1. Scrolling through FB on my iphone every morning, I probably go passed 100 people who I don't know from a hole in the wall. Yes, I probably met them and knew them in college, but really know them? Nope. So, I scroll right on past without even reading their status.

2. My pregnancy emotions have gotten the best of me. The other week I found myself stressing over whether certain people liked/didn't like my photos or status update. For real, Erika? Who needs that?

3. Politics. Enough said. And there is so much ignorance on FB. I value opinions, but only respectful ones.

4. I was being rude. Waiting for a table at a restaurant... taking a break while dinner was cooking... waking up in the morning and looking at my phone... all of these times I tapped open the FB app, I could have been having a conversation with my husband, instead of mindlessly scrolling past the aforementioned people I no longer know.

So, Facebook has been deleted and removed from the iPhone, blackberry, and iPad.

While I am making no promises that somewhere down the line I don't come back, the past week of Facebook-freeness have been so enjoyable, I don't see it happening.

Yes, the Hubs is off Facebook too. For same reasons listed above, minus the pregnancy emotions one. :)

I do LOVE Instagram, and can be found here: @lee_erika

Window Swag

Sitting down to write this morning before my first conference call, and my brain is all over the place. This post will probably be a hodge-podge of random clips from the past few days!

My parents were up here in Dallas this weekend and helped us finish the nursery. I'm not going to share too many pics, because I am waiting for my sister to come up with her camera and really capture the details. For some reason the iphone photos I snapped just don't do it justice. It really came out amazing! We're still waiting on just a couple more things too! (My mom and great friend Robin are hand-making Noelle and Keegan custom quilts for their cribs, and they aren't quite ready yet).

In addition to my dad and Justin making several trips to Home Depot for some 'building' stuff, my mom and I got a chance to make a few things for the room to personalize it. We made a fabric swatch garland using these instructions.  But, we left the strips slightly longer, and strung the finished pieces from twine instead of ribbon. It adds such an awesome pop of color across their white curtains on the window!

The bottom pic shows just a tad of the decor in the room. I am absolutely in love with the three deer pictures. They are actually drawings and are in vintage white/distressed wooden frames. I bought them in Canton back in November before I knew what the twins were, and they were my inspiration for the entire room. Close-ups and whatnot to come when I have better pics!

We have less than 8 weeks to go before the babies are here, and surprisingly I am not too frazzled yet. The thing I am most stressed about is all of the preparation before leaving work for 12 weeks. Not that the world is going to end, but we have such segmented roles, that I am the only one who knows how to do quite a few things. And our business just realigned last week, so the Business Unit I manage grew by 4 states. It's really just kind of a cluster. The Marketing VP jokingly asked me if I planned to be back the week after the kids were born. Funny guy.

Speaking of preparation - I am in full-on nesting mode. I started washing their blankets and preemie/newborn onesies this weekend. From what I have been told, they will live in those little snap or scrunch bottom outfits at first, so they are getting washed and put away. I have an obsession with Aden + Anais swaddle blankets right now. They have 20. The patterns are so adorable, I can't stop buying them. And after being washed with Dreft, they smell amazing.

Let's see.... what else? I still feel really great. Yesterday the DR told me I am the size of a 36 week pregnant person. With twins, you usually measure 6-8 weeks ahead, so I am right on track. Some days I think I look really big, and other days I don't really notice the belly. I am just used to it I guess!

This week my bible study group is starting a new series, and we're reading Jill Savage's book, No More Perfect Moms. It's all about the simple fact that there is no such thing as a perfect mom. Or a perfect house. Or a perfect husband. Here's her clip:

There are no perfect moms (just women who make a good outward appearance). There are no perfect kids (just kids who are dressed well and behave well just when you see them). There are no perfect houses (just ones where the clutter is cleverly stored!) There are no perfect bodies (just ones who know the beauty of Spanx!).

I am really looking forward to this new series, and continuing to spend time each week with the awesome girls in my group. (I will keep going until I pop!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hey. Newsflash. Babies cost mulah. Oh yea,  two babies cost extra mulah!

Definitely not a complaint, just a plain ol' fact! One that I wouldn't change for the world, might I add.

But, since the Hubs and I are expecting two mulah-requiring minions in just a few short weeks (8ish!!), we decided to go low-key for V-Day 2013. Our theme.... it's all about them. Gosh how sweet is that?

While I haven't had too many cravings during this pregnancy, I just really wanted queso. Unfortunately, my two favorite Mexican food restaurants on the entire planet (Lupe Tortilla and Guadalajara) are both 200+ miles away. The best Mexican restaurant we have in Dallas is Pappasitos. Which really is OK - I do like their fajitas and queso! So we decided to celebrate Valentine's Day a night early and grab some chips, queso, margs (for him), and pink lemonade (for me).

Um hello. Why would we ever not celebrate a night early ever again? There was ZERO wait. Did I mention Pappasito's is the best we get in Dallas, so there is always a wait?? We enjoyed every minute of dinner together, and then climbed into bed to watch The Middle and Modern Family V-day editions. Perfect night if you ask me.

The Hubs of course broke the no-gift rule, and bought me three new charms for my Pandora bracelet. A 'K,' 'N,' and a heart charm. Sweetest guy. I wrote him a mushy card, and picked him up these books. He's seriously going to be the very best daddy.

This bloggy, blog thing.

Obviously I'm not a professional blogger. I think in addition to my mom, there are about 5 people who even know this blog exists. I'm really OK with that, as for me this blog has really been a place to dump my random thoughts now and then. But as I start thinking about the babies who are quickly on their way, and the fact that I will probably have zero time to take and print pictures for a classic baby book, I think this could be a great outlet for me to document the new and exciting things coming our way.

That being said, I want to have it designed in a user-friendly way. Maybe even learn how this categorizing things works. (I mean, every post I have written since August has the same exact three 'tags'... I'm sure that is so wrong).

Tess, Emily, Marci.... suggestions to have a blog-redone and looking snazzy? I am willing to pay for it. Let me know whatcha think, and the price range I'm looking at!

Justin knows I 'blog' if you can even call it that, and ever since I started adding tags I have been picked up in google world. Probably by people like myself googling 'twin blog,' I assume. And I'm sure ya'll will think this is funny because true blogs pick up 10x this many hits, but he thought it was SO cool that my blog was 'viewed' 838 times this month. Ha! So, the hubs is on board, and its time to get this going.

And, I'm deactivating facebook today for a few different reasons, so I am looking forward to a different way to connect with social world.

Phew, Ok, now on to a quick twin update! 28w4d!

Total weight gain: 21 pounds

Maternity clothes: Most of the maternity tops I bought early on are getting too short to cover my entire belly. I swear I wake up every morning and it pokes out another inch! Lately I have been living in leggings and long H&M non-maternity sweaters.

Stretch marks: Knock on wood, but no, none yet.

Sleep: I'm sleeping pretty great lately, but poor Justin is not because of this pregnancy snore I've acquired.

Best moment of this week: The best moment of this week was being discharged from Presby Dallas WITHOUT being put on bed rest. That's my biggest fear.

Miss anything: For the first time last week a glass of wine sounded good. That feeling only last a couple minutes, though, and then I reallllyyyy wanted orange juice. haha!

Food cravings: I hate to sound like 'that pregnant girl,' but I haven't really been any extra hungry during pregnancy at all. Some days I have to force myself to eat more calories because I just forget. I started drinking protein shakes every day to get that extra amount in that I wasn't getting on my own.
 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Again, hate to be that girl, but I have only gotten sick two times in 7 months. I'm feeling really great!

Have you started to show yet: That's funny.

Gender: One sweet, handsome, Beau - and one sweet, precious Bow.

Labor signs: Read my scare from Sunday.

Belly button in or out: It's popped. No question.

 

Wedding rings on or off: On
 Happy or moody most of the time: Happy :)

Looking forward to: My bedding arriving from The Land of Nod, my mom getting here to help me finish decorating, and MOST looking forward to washing tiny person clothes and re-hanging them in their closet.

A little hiccup.

Well, we experienced our first little hiccup in the adventure of twin cooking on Sunday at 28w1d.

Saturday was busy - we ran errands, cleaned, organized tiny people things in the nursery and got a whole bunch of stuff done! I decided that I wasn't going to leave my house on Sunday at all. The hubs and I alternated between watching re-runs of The Walking Dead and taking naps. But Sunday afternoon I started noticing more frequent Braxton Hicks contractions. (I have been having Braxton Hicks since week 18, so it was nothing new, just a bit more noticeable than normal).

At 7 pm I started counting them. Six between 7-8 pm. So I drank a ton of water, laid on my left side, and counted them for another hour. Another six. This was my cue to call the doc. The after hours DR recommended I come in just to have things checked out, so I threw on some sweat pants and we headed to L&D at Presby Dallas.

They hooked me up to monitors to check the babies and contractions. The babies were crazy and  moving all over the place! I laid in triage for about 2 hours and probably could have fallen asleep right there I was so tired. My 'contractions' were described as uterine irritability, because they were only lasting about 30 seconds each, and a true contraction lasts 60 seconds (or so I am told). But in addition to monitoring me, they also did a test called an fFN - Fetal Fibronectin Test.

Here's where it gets real fun.

Basically, if the fFN test is negative, there is a 97% chance you will NOT go into labor in the next 2-3 weeks. Well, mine came back positive. The thing is, a positive test result doesn't mean you will go into labor in the next 2-3 weeks... it just means they can't tell you that you won't.

The doc decided he wanted to do an ultrasound to check my cervical length, as that is another thing that could determine whether or not I needed to be concerned about preterm labor. They admitted me for the night so I could have the US done first thing in the morning.

Side note: If my cervical length was short in addition to the positive fFN test, they would have done steroid shots to mature babies lungs quicker. So that was their 'be prepared and take extra concern mentality' - and why I was admitted.

But thankfully the ultrasound showed my cervical length is great! And I was sent home on my merry way with instructions to take it easy, and they will be monitoring me closely for the next few weeks.

We gave Noelle and Keegan a strict lecture and let them know they still need at least 8 more weeks of cooking.

Another side note: My mom and dad are coming to Dallas this weekend to help us finish the nursery! It is looking SO great, and I can't wait to add the finishing touches. We ordered bedding through The Land of Nod, and I am so in love.

Minion Monday

Our cribs came last week. I got home from running errands, and there were four huge boxes waiting for me on our front porch. I think I screamed out loud! They are white, sleigh bed style, and convert to toddler beds down the line. My sweet hubby already put them together, so our nursery is one step closer to being ready to welcome Noelle and Keegan home.

Let's see.... what else?

Last night we went to a SuperBowl party at our friends Amy & Eric's. They live in the 'north suburbs' where Justin and I will probably move next if we stay in Dallas, and have a beautiful, colorful home. Our other friends, Bonnie & Tyler, and their sweet baby boy, Carter, were also there. Let's just say that little chunk 6 month old never left my hip. (Or, whats left of my hip these days anyways...) It's actually really hard to hold a baby when you have a baby bump.

One of the babies had the hiccups this morning - and it was such a weird feeling! They move pretty non-stop, but are quickly running out of room. What used to feel like little jabs from their hands and feet are now more 'rolling' motions as they twist around. I find myself staring at my stomach multiple times a day watching it move around under my shirt. It's pretty bizarre.

No lie, I have about 15 baby books. I've skimmed all of them, but have only read a couple. Most of them are about 'during pregnancy,' and I found they gave me anxiety. They all talk about potential problems, things that COULD go wrong, and all of the scary preggo stuff. I'm not really into hearing about all of that. The only books we have about 'after pregnancy' are Babywise and Bringing up Bebe. Both have similar concepts... get baby on a schedule as soon as possible, and don't get up to hold them every time they make a peep. I'll probably read those two in depth this month - and then we are taking a Multiples class at our hospital in March. Besides that, I guess we will figure it all out when they get here!

On that note, that's about all I got this morning. Here is a crummy iphone pic I took yesterday afternoon before the Superbowl. 27w1d (and 10 weeks to go!!!)