B Names

We've had a few people ask if we are sticking with the B names....... YES!!!  When I was growing up and thinking about future children I never imagined we would have a specific letter. When we got Britney her name was her one constant in her life. She would even tell you if you called her a cute nickname (she was 34 mths) that her name was Britney. So we let that baby keep her original name and changed her middle. Before we even had the kids we liked the name Brady for a boy. As a child Riley was fond of a place he visited with his dad named Brady, Texas. So it was fitting. We had our little B & B. Then three years later we found out a full blooded sibling was to be born and how could we not give him a B name too. At first his name was going to simply be Ben but then everyone kept asking us if it was short for Benjamin so we decided prior to his adoption to give him the full legal name of Benjamin. We hardly ever call him that though. Mostly Ben or Benny. So now we have two little surprises coming and again how could we not keep up the trend??? We have a few favorites (including a long list) and once we find out what their genders are we will share. I can't wait! Two weeks to go from today!! What are your favorite B names?

15 weeks 4 days

I finally have a few minutes to check in :) The old B's started back to school last week, Riley went back to work and Ben went back on Tuesday. I spent the week picking up things I didn't get to over holiday break, catching up on laundry, shopping and really over doing it, lol. On Monday I had an appointment with my thyroid specialist and all my labs looked great. The only thing he wants me to do is add an extra Synthyroid on Sundays. That way I don't lack from what the babies take from me as I get further along. Everything seems to be going along nicely! Other than some pretty bad migraines (that end up with me vomiting a few times) that's really my only complaint (I hate to even use the word complaint). I still feel like they are weather related though because it always seems when I get one of these headaches we are expecting rain or a cold front to push through.

I'm so happy to have made it 15 weeks! Once a week we use the doppler my friend mailed me to check their heartbeats. Every time (at home and the doctor) they've been consistent in the 150's. It really gives us peace of mind between appointments! Only 17 more days until we find out what these little ones are! I am CRAWLING the walls and so excited!! I have absolutely no idea what I'm carrying. Friends have asked if I have any inkling but I really don't.  Lots of dreams about a little girl but I think that's just because I will have a disappointed little girl if she doesn't get a sister. We have also started gathering a few things. On one hand it seems a little soon because I'm still really early in this pregnancy but not wanting to live in fear we are trying to enjoy every moment. Which means planning and gathering things. So far we have picked up a double Baby Trend snap & go stroller. The price was too good to pass up. Found it on clearance at Target for $50 (reg. $99). Since I'm not doing a nursery I splurged on the diaper bag I wanted from  Vera Bradley in plum crazy. We've also started stocking newborn size diapers (and will prob. start on 1's) in the closet. I plan to cloth diaper (like I did Ben) once I have tandem nursing down. I bought Thirsties duo covers and 6 dozen pre-folds plus I still have all of Ben's Bum Genius. Lastly, I bought a Double Blessings double breast feeding pillow (in Mocha). Also, because I'm a planner I started a hospital list and started gathering a few things for my bag like Mother's Milk Tea, CJ Butter in Pink Sugar (diaper rash ointment and it smells so good!!), and Mother Love Nipple Cream. My thought was if I ended up in the hospital early, hopefully I don't, but if I do at least my husband or MIL could come pack for me. An old friend mail me a "mommy" pampering gift and it had this awesome belly oil in it from Mother Love! I LOVE it!! It smells good, not to strong and soaks in fast!

Well, I'm off. I promised my three B's I would watch a My Little Pony show with them. Riley just got back from the store with icecream because we also promised them huge ice cream sundaes later for doing good at school! Yum!!!!

I'm so behind!

I'm so sorry I haven't had time to update my blog since my specialist appointment. It's been a little busy here to say the least. The husband has been on vacation since the 5th of December (and doesn't' go back until the 2nd) and we did a lot of running around getting ready for Christmas and enjoying our time together. The kids got out of school on the 21st and it was a whirlwind of cooking, baking, wrapping and BAM Christmas was here. So I guess I need to back up a little...

December 18, 2012 - 12 Weeks 0 Days
I had my appointment with the fetal maternal specialist. It just so happened that Ben came down with a fever the night before which meant Riley would have to stay home with Ben since he couldn't go to school. We hated to ask my MIL to keep him because she had spent the last two weeks sick and I hated to take chance with her getting sick again. So she went with me instead. The appointment was super long. The first person we met with was the geneticist and she went over all of my history and possible birth defect risks. Afterwards they put me in a room for the sonogram and that's where I met Dr. T. Both babies were measuring right at 12 weeks and were both approx 2 inches long. He said everything was looking good. He said at my next appt. Jan. 29th he's going to do an ultrasound to check my cervix. He said if it's not closed he will take me to the OR for a cerclage (pray that it's nice and closed!!). I will be 18 weeks at this appointment and we will try to see the genders!!! I'm so excited to find out what they are!! He told me he didn't want me traveling more than an hour from home and that I'm to pay attention to any pains or contractions as I get further along. He did say, "You do realize that you won't have a July delivery?" So it's looking like we are aiming for the second week in June. He said that he didn't see a line on my sonogram for the heart shaped uterus so if the babies are in the right position they will let me try for a vaginal delivery but if they aren't it will be a c-section. Guess we will see what these babies do. Also, that night morning sickness started that night.

December 27, 2012 - 13 weeks 2 days
Ahhh, morning sickness, mid day sickness and evening sickness. Yup I've had it all. I've had some bad headaches and if I've gotten sick I've had a headache to go with it. I'm pretty sure they are sinus related as my bp has been good and a certain tooth hurts that is usual to my sinus issues. As long as my head doesn't hurt I haven't been sick. I've had more headaches than I can count though.  I'm not really showing. I can still wear all my pre-pregnancy shirts. Everyday this gets more exciting!! Cravings are funny. I haven't really had any Christmas cookies or candy. All I want is Popsicles.

11 weeks 2 days

My OB appt went good this morning! I can't express enough how much I really like my doctor. He said he wanted me to have peace of mind so he went to check with the ultrasound tech if she had room to squeeze me in. He came back and said she had five people waiting so instead he grabbed the small ultrasound machine. The picture quality isn't nearly as good but the most important thing is we could see their heartbeats and them!! We saw two sweet babies that were moving all over the place and their heartbeats were good! I told him how on Tuesday I "thought" felt them move because I felt small popping. He said that he wouldn't be surprised as much as they were moving around on the screen. He told me to bring my kids back in three weeks and he would do another sono so the kids could see the babies! I go back on January 3rd. I asked him about seeing the specialist on Tuesday. He said I would definitely have a big ultrasound with Dr. T on Tuesday and that he would be looking for that report. I am so excited I can't wait!

Riley and I have just been having the best time! Yesterday we went to Texas de Brazil and had a fabulous lunch! Our lunch came with free dessert so we opted for the Citrus creme brulee for lunch and then took home a Brazilian cheesecake for later. Later it was too when we dug into it and devoured every bite! Today we had our Dr's appt, finished up some shopping and then stopped at this hole in the wall pizza place. I had a fire baked artichoke, black olive and pepperoni pizza. It was amazing!!

Tomorrow night Brit had her ballet parent special. I can't wait to see her dance! Our sitter is sick so we are going to take the boys with us and then stop at Momma Mia's for an Italian dinner. Great start to the weekend!!!

Look on the sidebar!

I put up a poll for guessing the twins gender! Go vote! Today I am 11 weeks 1 day! Tomorrow we have another check up with our OB. I can't wait! Maybe we will get to take a sneak peak at them again. The last few visits I have been to the Dr, he has said, "Let's go take a quick look." I like that! Then my specialist appt is Tuesday and I "think" will have a more detailed sono then! Not sure when we will find out the genders but still thought it would be fun to guess. Everyone keeps asking me what I think. I keep going back and forth and I really don't know. One minute I am just convinced it's two boys. Then I like to joke with Riley it's two girls. He is convinced it's one of each. Guess time will only tell. Of course we will be excited with whatever they are but a little girl would be fun since we've never gotten to shop for an infant girl. I know Brit would have a blast!! Ok, I'll update tomorrow sometime about our appt! :)

10 weeks 2 days

I am sooooo excited to be into the double digits :) I am feeling so very blessed to have made it this far!!! We are less than two weeks from our goal of 12!!!  I have to admit this is the scariest thing I have ever done. It's hard to not get ahead of yourself and think about their delivery and HOPING and PRAYING I can get them as far as I can (even though it's really out of my hands). So I have to remind myself to take each day one day at a time and enjoy every moment of knowing right now everything is good! Everything has been good too!! I've not had any morning sickness (the two times I got sick, was so mild and drainage related), my blood pressure is stable, the sleepiness is wearing off, and if I do get tired I'm able to rest. My only complaints thus far have been my boobs are super sore and my hips ache after waking. I have been doing some light walking and stretching to work out the soreness. It's super weird not to have any children home during the day but it's awesome to be able to lay down when I need too!! I've not really having any food cravings although I am loving peaches with cottage cheese and the other day I was dying for fish sticks with malt vinegar. Fish sticks cracks me up because I haven't had those in years! Oh and let me just say they were great and the malt vinegar hit the spot, lol!

We managed to get our Christmas decorations/tree up last weekend. We didn't put out as many as we normally do but enough to make everything look festive.  I didn't want Riley to have to put up a ton of stuff by himself if I wasn't feeling well when the time came.  Honestly, I can't believe it's already December 6th. It feels like when I found out I was pregnant that time stopped and I've been a hase. We are so behind on Christmas shopping. Normally I am done but this year I will have Riley to help me! Riley's last day of work for the season is tomorrow (whooohooo) and we will have two weeks to ourselves until the kids get out of school!! We've got some shopping planned and some fun lunch reservations! We also have two doctor appointments, one the 13th and the next with the maternal specialist on the 18th . Hoping we get to see our babies!

I don't know how people go a full nine months and not find out the sex of the baby.  I wish I had a little window so I could see what they are RIGHT NOW! Lol!!! I keep having dreams I am having twin girls but I think it's because my good friend has twin girls and I see their pictures on FB. My MIL is dying too. We go into stores and swoon over all the cute little mary jane socks and pink/purple lovelys! Just a few more weeks and we will know something. I might need to put a poll up!! :)

All the kids are doing great! This weekend my MIL and I are taking Brit to go eat at the Cheesecake Factory and then some shopping. The plan is to eat dessert FIRST! Normally I make her a cute little outfit to wear for Christmas but I haven't had any time. So today while I was out I hit Old Navy and found her a pair of denim leggings and a pink sequin top (I got pink so she could wear her Hello Kitty pink glitter shoes). I'm loving Mr. Ben's Christmas list. He wants a purple Monster Truck (purple is his favorite color) and a new My Little Pony. He has so many ponies and it's a hoot to watch him play with them. He takes them in the car, for show-n-tell, sleeps with them in his pillow, puts them on the table beside him when he eats, and gives them a ton of kisses. He also has them carry on little conversations among all the ponies. Oh how I could bottle this up. It's adorable! I know he also won't always think ponies are so cool. He told me last night during tuck in that he has three babies in his tummy. Then he always wants to look in my mouth so he can see if the babies are coming out. I don't have the heart to tell him that it doesn't work that way! Brady is doing good too. He is in a running club sponsored by Nike at school. So far he has earned a metal and then a t-shirt! He's having some trouble at school doing a writing journal so I talked to his teacher about letting him bring it home. His problem is he is very technical (hands on, like building legos) but not creative with writing. So we sat down and worked on a writing web and then a paragraph about what he would want to talk about for his writing. His teacher wrote back and said he actually finished his work in class yesterday with the writing we did and that he was ready to publish his work and illustrate. He came home with such confidence!!

Lastly, I wanted to add. I've had lots of people ask me what I did to get pregnant. I have a long history of PCOS and not ovulating. Even on fertility drugs back in the day I didn't ovulate. Well, first I believe it was God breathed but I also believe Shaklee helped me! I had been reading articles on a product called Vivix helping PCOS and had even posted them on my FB wall. I started taking it in July (and honestly only 1/2 tsp opposed to the full tsp) as well as the Vitalizer vitamins. Well, in September I must have ovulated because as you know I am pregnant! I really believe it helped and I'm excited to share it because infertility is so devastating and maybe it can help someone else. If you want to check it out feel free to check out my webpage and if you have any questions feel free to message me on FB or through blogger. :) ****my side pictures will also take you to my website or my FB wall.

Milestone Tuesday

Every Tuesday is a new milestone! Today is 9 weeks!! My next goal is 12 weeks, then 24 and hopefully we can go to 36-38 weeks!! One day at a time though! I feel really good and have only had two experiences of morning sickness. One thing I have to keep in mind though is even if I feel good, to still take it easy. Yesterday I was feeling great and decided to do a little light Christmas shopping. By the time I got home, sat for a minute and started dinner...... I hit a BRICK wall and spent the rest of the evening feeling bad. That wall was HARD!! I made sure to take a nap today so maybe tonight wouldn't be the same. A friend asked me what my cravings are and they are nothing what I thought they would be. I normally LOVE sweets and crave mint chocolate ice cream. Instead though I crave the craziest things!!! Tuna fish sandwiches (my dr said I could eat one every two weeks, torture because I want one every day), tangerines, lemon water, and breakfast burritos. Sweets actually don't sound good at all, except for Popsicles. 

On Saturday we took the kids to pick out their annual Christmas ornaments at Hallmark. Brit picked out a Barbie Ballerina, Brady a 1960's Ford Truck and Ben a Chuggington train. Afterwards we ran to Kohls to look at the maternity clothes. Talk about disappointment!!! They only had a small wall of clothes and nothing I could even fit my right leg into. By this time the babies were telling me it was time to EAT so we headed to Chipolte. I could eat Mexican food everyday not pregnant and pregnant well EVERYDAY for EVERY MEAL! lol. There was a Babies R Us down the street so we ran in to look around and see what we needed. We are trying to keep things on the most needed list for the time being since our house is quickly going to be smaller when the babies get here. I've had a lot of people ask me when we are moving or adding on. Neither of which will be happening! We will be staying put and def. not adding on for a while (well not adding on but going up, as we have a room upstairs we can finish out and put in a staircase). We've also been asked how we will arrange the rooms. I really have no idea right now. A lot of it because we don't know what the babies are yet. If they are one of each, it will be more manageable but if it's two boys or two girls, then that's were things get a little crazy. Then we prob. won't do any of that until the babies are much older. Ben spent the first 18 months in our room and I'm ok with that for these babies as long as they sleep good. Ben loved to sleep, but again something I won't know until they are actually here. Also, my SIL had a great point, if one's a girl, how will Brit feel about sharing a room with a five year old when she is 16?? I don't know, I've never had to do this before. All I know is that our family will make it work and God must have thought we would handle such a task. I have to admit though I get a little stressed out when I think about house space (even though  my house is 2200 sq ft and I only grew up with a family of five in approx 1600-1700sq ft), having to purchase a new vehicle and purchasing two of most things. I'm thankful I started Shaklee because the extra I make will def. help with buying baby stuff. Thankfully too the money that I have saved for Port Aransas (which won't be happening this year) can go towards supplies! Speaking of vehicles we will prob. wait until March or April to purchase a vehicle. I told Riley I wanted to have everything purchased and ready to go by April. That way we could rest and enjoy the kids last month of school before the babies come.

 I can't wait to find out what the babies are! I want to shop so badly (even though it's still early) but since I have no idea what they are, I hate to buy anything. Although if truth be told, I did buy the cutest pair of pink booties that I couldn't resist. I figure if they end up being both boys, I will hold onto them for a baby shower gift.  Oh and I went ahead and purchased Thirsties due wraps and 60 cloth-eez prefolds (cloth diapering). The sale was too good to pass up and if something happens I can sell them as a set. I clothed Ben and thankfully saved my diapers! The plan is to use pampers while they are newborns and while we are getting breastfeeding down. Then once we get that down move to the cloth diapers. It will really save us a ton of money!! As soon as the holidays are over I plan to get started on nursing pads and then once I find out the sex of the babies making burp clothes and baby shoes!! I can't wait, I'm so excited!!! The kids are so excited too. A few nights ago when I tucked Brady in he said, "I love you babies" to my tummy. Awwwww, I could have melted!!!