10 Things I Can't Do That I Could With My Previous Pregnancies

This post is not meant to complain, but to remind myself that it is important to view things with a sense of humor sometimes and not take things so seriously. The other day somebody told me that I looked like a beached whale. I was not offended in the LEAST BIT because a) it was from someone that I am very close to who knows EXACTLY how I feel, also being a mother of twins and b) it is a very good description of how I actually feel. I probably wouldn't make it through the day if I couldn't see the humor in my many discomforts and annoyances. And looking at it from this perspective reminds me that I am blessed. The pain of being pregnant with twins is not a punishment, but an absolute gift from God that I am truly thankful for. 

So here it is, my list of 10 things that I can't do that I could do with my previous pregnancies:

1) Put on and take off socks

I actually CAN put on socks but it depends on the kind of socks, the time of day, and whether or not I can manage to hold my breath at the time. However, a friend from church gave me an occupational therapy care package complete with a sock putter-onner and a sock taker-offer (or what we call a "getter"). I'm sure they have other names but I don't know what they are. So now I can manage! I also have an amazing husband who literally gets a thrill out of putting my socks on for me. I guess it has something to do with me needing him. :-) I wonder how he'll feel when I ask him to cut and paint my toenails tonight. 

2) Drive

I can still manage to squeeze into the van to drive but the car is definitely off limits. With how fast these babies are growing, I'm sure I won't even be able to drive the van by my next OB appointment! 

3) Eat whatever I want

Yeah so I couldn't exactly eat whatever I wanted in my previous pregnancies but I never really had to worry. I ate well and managed to gain the minimum amount of weight in both pregnancies, but I didn't have to calculate every little thing before I even took a bite. "How much is a serving? Woah, a half of a cup isn't very much at all. How many carbohydrates are in this? How much of that is sugar? Does it have fiber in it? Okay, 23 minus 5. That's doable. Now I need something with protein. Protein. Protein. What has a good amount of protein in it?" This literally goes through my mind before I eat ANYTHING. And I didn't have to poke my finger 4 times a day! 

4) Bend over

Any woman who has ever been pregnant can tell you that bending over always gets difficult towards the end of pregnancy but I could still manage to do it with some discomfort. However, it has been a couple of months since I have been able to bend over without feeling lightheaded. And now the pain in my back, hips, and pelvis is so severe that bending over is just not really an option. I'm thankful to have willing little servants helpers who can easily bend over and pick things up for mommy! 

5) Special time with hubby

Impossible. Enough said. *blush blush*

6) Go out in public

I have never been so worried about germs in my life! I caught the swine flu when I was 37 weeks with my first and was SO sick! I ended up having to stay a night in the hospital. When my husband got sick a week later, I was so worried that we would be bringing our baby into a house of death. I can't imagine going through that while pregnant with twins! Now the chance of bringing germs into the house is much greater with two young children. The chances of having babies with compromised immune systems is also much greater with twins, so we are trying to limit contact with the outside world. I guess Amazon will be my buddy for the foreseeable future!

7) Make it through the day without crying

Whether it's broken glasses, almost late library movies, a sweet moment with one of the children, a kind gesture from my husband, a bad blood sugar reading, pain, lack of sleep, a sappy movie (or commercial), inability to find a shoe or my purse, or even the cat attempting to get on the kitchen counter, I can guarantee you that I will cry pretty much every day. 

8) Speak to my children calmly

I have no patience with the kids and I am constantly on the verge of exploding. I have been praying for patience and self-control but boy, those are hard to come by these days! 

9) Hold my children

This has been a tough one for me. I've never been big on carrying my kids around everywhere and only used some form of carrier when necessary, like when baby girl was always fussy when I was trying to make supper, but what mother doesn't enjoy holding her children on her lap and reading them a story or just giving them cuddles? I'm too big and uncomfortable for that now! As my son said the other day, "Mommy, your lap is getting buried." 

10) Get comfortable...ever

Yes, everyone knows that it is impossible to get comfortable at the end of pregnancy, but having more than one baby in there brings discomfort to a whole new level. And as my OB said at my last appointment, "It's going to get worse before it gets better!"

On the bright side, I know that it is all worth it. Soon we will have two new beautiful little blessings to add to our growing family. And I can only imagine how much easier future pregnancies (if there be such) will be! This has been a struggle and I know that the struggle will not end with the birth of our babies, but it is my prayer that God will use this experience to transform me into a more self-controlled,  patient, kind, mature, organized, and disciplined woman with a stronger desire to have a better relationship with the Lord. 

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4

eMeals

Have you ever heard of or tried eMeals? In case you are unfamiliar, you pay a small fee to receive a weekly meal plan with a grocery shopping list. They offer a variety of categories of meal plans- low calorie, budget friendly, low fat, paleo, gluten free, slow cooker, diabetic, kid friendly, simple gourmet, and many others. Most people who try eMeals seem to like it. We tried it about a year ago and really loved it. I mean, if Dave Ramsey endorses something, it must be good, right?? It helped us to save some money by having a meal plan and shopping with intention. We planned out each trip to the grocery store and didn't buy a bunch of extras that we would never eat. We used it for 3 months then decided that we had learned enough about meal planning to venture out on our own. It worked for a couple months, until I went back to my old way of meal planning- remembering at 4:30 that I have a family to feed and trying to scrounge something up at the last minute.

When I found out that I had gestational diabetes, I was at a loss for what food to eat! It wasn't like I could gradually change my diet, I had to change it immediately for the health and safety of myself and my babies. I really didn't know how to eat. I knew that I could manage for breakfast, lunch, and snacks but supper is always the most stressful meal of the day. Making something that a) everyone likes and b) is well-rounded and healthy can sometimes be a little tricky, especially with my style of last minute cooking.  So we decided to go back to eMeals and use their diabetic plan and figured that would at least help me with preparing a supper that the whole family would enjoy and that I could eat. 

So far we have used about a week and a half's worth of meal plans because of Christmas and spending time with family, but we have found some very interesting meals that we will definitely be making again. Our surprise favorite was Pineapple Glazed Meatballs with brown rice. The recipe called for whole wheat couscous but since we are trying to SAVE money, we decided to just use cheapo brown rice. I ate my meatballs on a very small helping of rice and it was so delicious! I gotta tell you, we aren't exactly known for our adventurous eating habits in this family, so this was a little out there for us and we weren't too excited to try it. But we all really liked it and my husband asked me to make it again sometime!  

So lesson learned. Just because it seems unusual to me, doesn't mean that it won't be good. It may just be my new favorite! I'll check back with more interesting meals when we come across them. For now, it's turkey chili leftovers tonight. Yum!! 

Major Update!

So I'm not very good at this. As you can see, it's been a while since I wrote a new post! A lot has happened in that time and I have had many ideas of what to write but never managed to make it to the computer with them. I wish I could say that I've just been too busy with Thanksgiving and Christmas and all that goes into the planning and preparing for both holidays, but I haven't actually been that busy since I decided to only leave the house out of absolute necessity a few weeks ago. I have just found other things to do with my time. Plus I have the memory of a peanut, making it difficult to remember to sit down and get to work.

So here is a not-so-quick update:

Our 5 year old son had surgery in mid-November to fix an intestinal issue. It was the most stressful and nerve-racking experience in my five years as a mother! However, he healed remarkably well and has had no other issues. Praise the Lord for a full recovery!

Right before Thanksgiving we were blessed with a beautiful mini-van for a very low price. The owner of the car lot goes to our church and gave us a fantastic deal, better than anything we could ever imagine! We are so thankful for him nudging us towards something that was a little out of our price range but that was completely worth it. It is the newest and nicest car that either of us have ever owned! We are living a debt free lifestyle so we paid cash and the van is officially ours!

We spent Thanksgiving with my husband's family then took off the day after for a trip to the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky for the weekend. We had a great time and learned a lot about God's creation! The kiddos did really well on the trip and we really enjoyed taking the road trip in our new van.

Where else do you get to ride a triceratops? 

Little girl LOVED the moving, roaring dinosaurs!

Shortly after returning from Kentucky the lovely ladies at my church threw me a baby shower! It was beautiful and fun and I feel blessed beyond measure that my church family was so thoughtful. We won't have to buy diapers for quite some time!

Our favorite time of the year is Christmas time and we really enjoyed taking part in our annual Christmas traditions! Decorating, looking at lights, baking, making gingerbread houses, singing Christmas hymns around the piano, and opening presents. We love celebrating the birth of Jesus by doing a nightly devotion with our Advent calendar. If it wasn't for our sweet boy loving that tradition above all others, we would have forgotten! My husband's family Christmas will be next weekend so it isn't quite over for us yet.

Our beautiful children

Our five year-old's first gingerbread house 

The boy loves setting up his own nativity scene

We are big fans of Christmas lights and were thrilled to have enough lights to put on the outside of the house this year!

My husband, son, and I worked together to make these cookies on Christmas day. A sweet woman from our church gave us the kit to make them, otherwise we never would have thought to do it!

Two very excited children on Christmas morning!

I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes in mid-December. I was so disappointed and remember crying the whole day I found out! I had never had issues with my blood sugar before and felt like it was the end of the world. I was quite dramatic about it. I had NO IDEA what to eat and the prospect of poking my finger with a needle four times a day for the next couple of months was quite daunting! However, it turns out that I have a pretty mild case and my doctor and I are hopeful that I can manage it with diet and stay off of medication. It has been difficult to retrain my brain from what I thought was good, healthy food to what is actually healthy for ME. Breakfast is the hardest meal of the day but I have been eating a lot of eggs and breakfast wraps. We joined eMeals with a diabetic family plan and have been able to eat some new yummy meals that everyone likes. I will be sharing some of my favorite meals on here in the future. My husband's family Christmas breakfast is oysters cooked with Bisquick and cinnamon rolls but I don't like oysters (or any seafood really) and I can only eat about 1/8 of one those delicious cinnamon rolls. So this week I am going to attempt to make my own diabetic friendly cinnamon rolls using almond flour, almond milk, applesauce, and Splenda. I'll update you on that venture!! 

I am currently 32 weeks pregnant with my sweet little twinnies! Despite being head down for most of our ultrasounds, they are currently head up. Baby B enjoys banging around inside the bottom of my rib cage and Baby A has decided that my bladder is a soccer ball. My back, hips, and pelvis have been more sore than I could imagine and I am waking up every hour at night to hips that are screaming in pain. Heaving myself to a different position is no easy task and it usually takes a while for me to fall back to sleep. I have contractions daily, although they are few and far between so I am not worried about pre-term labor (yet). At my last appointment I had a slightly high blood pressure which put the doctor on edge but since it went down a little bit after taking it again 15 minutes later, he said that we won't worry about it for right now. If it's high again at my next appointment then we'll go from there. My doctor is really great and believes in taking hurdles one step at a time and not dwelling on things that haven't happened yet, which cuts down greatly on the worry. But despite those things, the pregnancy is going well and we are praying for two healthy full term babies! 

Out of all the many ultrasounds we have had, our sweet girls have only had their heads apart once. Every other time their heads are right next to one another. I can't wait to see them sticking together after they are born!

This is me at 30 weeks with a tummy about as large as full term with my other two children. :-)

Pregnancy Brain

These crazy hormones are seriously messing with my mind! About a month ago I cried for an hour because my glasses broke then the next day I cried because I ALMOST forgot to bring movies back to the library. And it's not just my emotions, I feel fog headed and spazzy most of the time. For example, tonight I turned the burner on to make mashed potatoes and about 10 minutes later we noticed a burning smell. I made sure that there was nothing touching the burner and figured it must be something down in the stove that was burning because I didn't see anything that could possibly be making that smell. A few minutes later, I noticed that the potatoes in the pot looked a little funny. I stared at it for a long time before I realized that I had forgotten to put water in it!! The potatoes were burning! Hopefully I can make it through the rest of this pregnancy without burning down the house!

Do Not Worry

When I found out I was pregnant with twins, I immediately went to my trusty iPhone and started googling. I found a TON of information about twins. I spent countless hours on the internet absorbing everything I could find. I knew that twin pregnancy was difficult and complicated but I had NO IDEA just how complicated it could be! I was in shock for days, maybe even weeks, after finding out. So I joined a few Facebook support groups for parents of twins to learn more, straight from the source.

One group was dedicated to monochorionic-diamnionic twins (mono-di), which means identical twins who have separate amniotic sacs but share a placenta. I wanted to know as much as I could about what to expect in the coming months. However, I was very overwhelmed with the complications that could arise and found myself staring at picture after picture of babies in the NICU because they were born so early. Almost every post was about twice monthly growth scans and fluid levels and twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). The ladies in this group talked about how their babies developed TTTS in a matter of days and they discussed in detail the laser surgeries that they were having to fix the problem. There was a very lengthy group document about how to advocate for your twins and insist that you be seen by an OB or maternal fetal medicine specialist (MFM) every two weeks from 16 weeks on. It was so overwhelming to think about! I had been seeing my high risk OB once a month since 16 weeks and had never even seen an MFM. I felt so confused and behind and I felt like I wasn't being a good mother because I didn't insist that I have two ultrasounds a month. 

I finally called my OB to talk about my concerns and he set my heart at rest. I don't remember exactly what he said to me, but I knew through that conversation that he cared about me and my babies and that I could trust him. He sent in a referral to see an MFM, which he was planning to do anyway, and reassured me that my babies were growing well and that I had nothing to worry about. I continued to follow the mono-di support group because it wasn't all scary stuff and I enjoyed looking at pictures of strong and healthy twins. I knew that all of those complications were rare and that I would most likely have healthy babies and reading the scary stories would only make me worry unnecessarily. But after voicing my opinion about feeling comfortable with my once a month visits for now and getting lectured, I left the group. I felt that it was an unhealthy environment for me to try to gain knowledge in all things "twins."

The lesson that I have learned from all of this is that while it's important to do research and find out what to expect, there are good and bad ways of setting out to do it. It's one thing to learn about the complications so you can be ready, but it's another to dwell on those things and seek out detailed information on every aspect of those possible complications. It is so easy to do and it just about drove me crazy with worry! 

So, my challenge to anyone who just found out that they are expecting multiples is to STOP googling anything and everything you can find about possible complications and STOP worrying about what can happen so that you can START planning and preparing for their arrival.

-Pray for God's protection over your babies, for strength and health to carry them full-term, and for your healthcare team to have the wisdom and knowledge to help bring healthy babies into the world

-Find a good high risk OB in your area and set up an appointment right away to discuss expectations

-Make a list of items you think you'll need

-Make a list of ways to prepare your house for the arrival of two new babies

-Prepare some meals to put in the freezer

-Make something crafty for your babies

-Think of good, strong names that really mean something to you

-If you have young children, teach them how to be a little more independent

So many things can go wrong in any pregnancy and while multiple pregnancies have their own set of risks, it's important to remember that there is no reason to worry. Occupy your mind with better things and remember to pray and ask God to fill you with peace and cover your pregnancy with His divine protection. He has a plan, and it is good. :-)

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7

A Solid Foundation

I'd like to take a minute (or two or twenty) to introduce myself and my family and share my vision of where I want this blog to go.

First of all, I am a born again Christian and have chosen to live my life according to God's holy word. As parents, God has given us an important role in our childrens' lives to teach them about Him and to raise them up in the way of the Lord. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." By the way, I can hear the children singing this in my head from my son's Steve Green CD and I'm sure it will be stuck in there for the rest of the day! I believe that God has blessed my husband and I with this wonderful yet often scary task. Yes, we will make mistakes along the way but that is why God's redeeming grace is so important. It is our job to lay a foundation for our children to give God an opportunity to work in their lives. He doesn't NEED us to accomplish this because Almighty God can do anything, but He CHOSE to include us in His great plan for our children. Children are a blessing and I am very grateful that God has chosen me, a habitual sinner, to be a mother to each of these beautiful little gifts.

My husband and I met online nine years ago and will have been married six years in January. We have a five year old son, a one year old daughter, and are expecting twin girls in early February. We plan to homeschool our children, just as my husband and his siblings were, and I always wished I had been. Currently, we are renting a house in the city but it is our desire to one day live in the country and have enough land to give our children room to run, have a large garden, and raise some animals. We would like to be as self-sustaining as possible but we are still a long way from accomplishing that goal. Everyone has to start out somewhere and we are happy with where God has put us for this stage of our lives.

Okay, so I have two reasons for starting this blog, which by the way, I hate calling it a blog but don't know what else to call it. I get a lot of questions about my twins. "When are they due?" "Are they identical?" "How are you feeling?" "How are you going to manage?" "What does it feel like when they move?" "Do you have everything you need?" "Wow, you're going to have your hands full!" Yeah, so that's not a question, but I hear that A LOT. It's amazing how many questions I get but I know that those questions and statements will only increase with the birth of the twins. I think that it would be nice to have a place to answer some of those questions for those who are curious.

I would also like to use this new-found "celebrity" status as an opportunity for ministry. I know, it sounds weird to say that but I feel like everyone wants to talk to me and meet me once they find out I am having twins. I am sure that going out in public after they are born will draw a lot more attention as well. I used to see this as one of the annoying things about becoming a mother of multiples, but I am starting to see it as a tool to be able to share that children are, indeed, a blessing from God and that I love the job that God has given me to raise my little ones to be followers of Christ and productive members of society. I have read a lot of blogs and articles about twins and mothering in general and have noticed a theme in a lot of them. This theme is that children are difficult and you have to simply survive them the best you can until they are old enough to venture out on their own then you are free. You love them, of course, but you have to try to find ways to fit them into your life. It seems to be such a common idea in this world that most people don't notice this philosophy forming in their minds and how damaging it can be. Even to those who view children as a blessing from God! I honestly didn't notice the impact that it had in my own life until a very wonderful woman whom I respect and love dearly pointed it out to me recently. I want to be able to remind people that even though parenting is hard, it is the most rewarding and amazing and incredible job anyone can have. I do not want to simply fit my children into my life, I want to create a life around my family. A life that is devoted to God and living out His principles, and it is my prayer and hope that this can influence at least one person to start to change the way they view parenthood.

"Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him." Psalm 127:3