05/17/11: Checking in...

Still not much going on with me. Not much to blog about when all I can say from day to day is "still growing babies".  But that really is about all I got.  And I'll take it.  I love it!  No news is good news, eh?

So the last time I blogged was May 6th.  Yikes.  I used to blog nearly every day and now I am not even averaging one a week.  What can I say?

What has happened in the last eleven days?  Let's see.  A weekend, a week, and another weekend.  The first weekend included Mother's Day.  I claimed it as my first even though some still call me a "to-be".  I've thrown my whole life and body into these babies, so I think I'm a mom.  Not getting into a whole variety of motherhood things, yet, but my life is forever changed at this point.  So I claimed it and it was great.  My MIL and Step-FIL came to visit that weekend and Hubby and I were pleasantly surprised to learn when they left that we did not want them to go.  WHAT?  What happened?  We've had great visits with them in the past - but were still happy to see them go.  We've had miserable visits with thism in the past, too - and were ecstatic when they left.  But this time.  They could have moved in and we'd have loved it!  MIL brought me flowers as a mother's day gift and Hubby treated us to a wonderful breakfast with chocolate covered strawberries afterwards on Mother's Day with cards placed neatly on our plates.  It was super sweet.  He also bought me flowers - my faves, tulips.

Funny thing happened with the flowers.  MIL bought me roses.  The roses were all but dead dead dead on Sunday night.  One little rose was hanging in there, though.  So I threw out the dead ones and took that single rose and cut it down to fit in a bud vase.  Well, while trimming the ends of my tulips, one single baby tulip fell out of the bunch.  It had a short stalk so I put that single tulip in with the single rose.  One white tulip and one pink rose.  The tulips hung in there for a few days.  But here we are, a week and a half later, and the single pink rose and single white tulip are still growing/going strong in their little bud vase.  And yes, they both grew.

I consider them one for each baby.  And I'd love to think that my pink rose is my baby girl and my white tulip is my baby boy.  We, by the way, are absolutely convinced that we are having a girl and a boy.  Won't know for sure for awhile, just the feeling we both have.

Anywho, so that was my first Mother's Day.  It took the sting off of what May 8th was. 
(If you didn't see my last blog, May 8th was the 7th anniversary of my mom's death.)

So then it gets into last week.  Nothing eventful on Monday.  But Tuesday.  Now Tuesday was eventful!

Tuesday, May 10th, was our 3 year anniversary.  The best 3 years of my life!  I am more in love with my Hubby than ever before - and we've spent the whole 4 years together in love.  He is my best friend and my greatest ally.  He is the person that I can't wait to get back to.  The last year has seen some trials as well as some celebrations and through it all we are stronger than ever.  I love my Husband so very much!

So this isn't all sap.  We also had our NT Scan on Tuesday.  What's an NT Scan?  If you don't already know...it's a Nuchal Translucency Scan.  It's an ultrasound meant to check for genetic disorders.  It's done in conjunction with bloodwork to give you stastical probabilities for something being "wrong".

Well...we've been nervous about our two little beans.  Were there still two?  Were they growing ok?  Were both of their hearts beating strongly?  Was everything ok?

We miscarried last time at 9 weeks and this time, well, we made it past 9 weeks...and we knew I was still pregnant, morning sickness being the dead giveaway...but we didn't know if we still had two babies in there.  I feared a vanishing twin, I feared many things.

We had purposefully set this appt to be on our anniversary thinking we could make a great day better.  But I realized two weeks ago, damnit, Lori, we could have made a great day bad.  Sigh.  Impossible to change the appt by that time, these NT Scans have to happen within a certain window and my doc and ultrasound tech are booked weeks in advance.  So we were praying that our anniversary, May 10th, could stay a great day.

We went out to lunch before our appt and had a nice anniversary lunch.  Then we went to our appt.  And

ALL WAS PERFECT

It really couldn't have been better!  There are still two babies.  The "little" one, Baby A, who measured three days behind last time, caught up and measured perfectly for the gestational age this time.  It wasn't a worry last time, she was still within range, but it's nice to think she is right on target, now.  Baby B, who measured one day behind last time, also picked up a day and is perfectly on target as well.  Their little hearts were beating strong and well, their growth, is good...and THERE ARE STILL TWO BABIES!

We think Baby A is our girl and Baby B is our boy.

Hubby and I were both so incredibly relieved!  We feel so much peace, now.  Of course, we know things can still go "wrong" but it all just feels so ok at this point.  My doc was thrilled for us, too.  He was beaming ear to ear.  He told us our chances of a miscarriage at this point are next to nil, our chances of genetic disorders are less than 1% and our chances of cardiac defects are less than 3%.

We left the appt dancing on air.  It was awesome.  A great day got better!  From there we went home to take a nap and promptly spent the remainder of the afternoon calling those closest to us to share the great news.  Finally, we headed to FIL and step-MIL's neck of the woods to see our niece graduate from Kindergarten then had a family dinner with almost all of that side of the family.  That was a great way to end a great day!

So what else?  Not much else from last week.  This past weekend was a 65th birthday celebration for one of our dearest friends/neighbors.  She has done so much for us so we opened our home to help host her out of town family.  We had a full house and it was wonderful.  She had a cookout to welcome all of the out of towners on Friday and we finished that off with a splash in our pool Friday night.  Then her daughter threw a formal birthday party for her on Saturday complete with an Elvis impersonator and all (she is still Elvis' No. One Fan!).  We followed that with an after party at our house with people enjoying our backyard and pool.  I love having such great ways to entertain!  Sunday was a down day for me as it's been go-go-go-go-go lately and, well, these babies don't like me when I try to be my normal self.

And that's about it.  Life is good!  I pray that it can just stay this way!

05/06/11: Howdy

I seem to rarely blog nowadays.  It seems a common thing among the pregnant bandsters to still blog on occasion, but not like pre-pregnancy.  I mean, I can't add much to the world of weightloss with a band.  And I don't know if y'all want incessant drivel about what consumes me nowadays - my babies.

I don't know that I ever really declared that this is a lap-band only blog, though.  And I am tempted to make it be more than just bandster - which it really is anyway. 

Anywho...

Things are good.  We just got back from Las Vegas.  We went for five days and stayed at Planet Hollywood for three nights and Mandalay Bay for two.  We had our hotel rooms upgraded to suites in both cases and comped, as well.  Apparently we gambled "enough" last year.  :)  We love Vegas, that's for sure.  This time we got ourselves a car, too, and that was incredibly nice.  We did some exploring that we would not have even attempted to think about let alone do if we hadn't had a car.

And now it's nice to be home.  My "morning" sickness is not yet gone although, luckily, it gave me a break in Vegas.  And by break I don't mean that it went away just that it wasn't what it normally is.  I am still having to eat literally "what sounds good" and if I attempt to eat something other than what strikes at the moment, I'll pay a price.  So long as I go with that strikes at the moment thing, well, I can manage.  I have also figured out, now that I am back at work and in the land of the alarm clocks, that alarm clocks make it worse.  On weekends it's not as bad.  And the whole time in Vegas, sans alarm clock, not as bad.  But come workdays with the danged clock beeping me awake...yeah, "morning" sickness sucks.  And no, I don't think it's a mind over matter thing, to be honest, I think it's a making my body do something outside of it's natural timeline thing.  Without the alarm clock I'm still up early.  It's just that the alarm clock gets me up about 30-45 minutes earlier than my body wants to.  Without the alarm clock I feel well rested and ready to go.  With the alarm clock I feel groggy and dizzy and icky.  That 30-45 minutes makes a big difference and the morning sickness seems to go from there.

Funny stuff.  I can say, it does seem to be getting better.  It was the worst last week. I'm now in week 12 and it is definitely subsiding.  So hopefully soon it will be a thing of the past.

What else.  Well, it's barely Friday morning and I am already ready for this weekend to be over.  We have visitors coming and while I love these visitors, I would so much rather have this weekend to be down.  Two reasons.  One - 5 days in Vegas.  Two - Sunday, May 8th is the 7th anniversary of my mom's death.  And it just so happens to fall exactly on Mother's Day this year.  I'd much rather not have to entertain people after an exhausting week on a day that's incredibly personal to me.  But I wasn't given a choice.  Our visitors said "we are coming, it's the only weekend we can, so you guys can shift things around if it's a problem" and that was settled, in their minds' anyway.  The theory at the moment is that they will get going early on Sunday which would leave Hubby and I with the day to ourselves.  I really hope that's how it works out - because that is the ONLY thing I want.  And while I'm still a mother to be and not yet really a mom, I'm still claiming this as my first mother's day.  So for my first mother's day to be packed with such a punch...well...sadness.

Of course, being pregnant, there is OH. SO. MUCH. I wish I could be talking to my mom about right now.  I know a lot about her pregnancy with me.  She just talked to me like that.  But now there are things I am experiencing and I want to call HER and say "did this happen to you?"  I don't want to call my aunt or my grandmother or my MIL.  I WANT MY MOM!

So this is kinda a tough weekend.

What else.  Not much else.  We are getting ready to re-carpet the house - and paint paint paint.  I say "we" but, really, I'm just helping to pick out the colors and Hubby is really handling it.  We have our nursery colors picked out and will probably paint in a couple of weeks.  We have guests this weekend as well as next (although next weekend, they are literally just sleeping there because "they" are family of a neighbor who just needed more bedrooms than she has).  We will probably paint the weekend after that.  And somewhere in there we are buying a new car, too.  Yeah, we have a tiny little Honda Accord Coupe.  Love the car.  But the car cannot even remotely handle two babies.  If we were having a singleton, we'd make the car work.  But with twins, yeah, the car has got to go.  Sadness. Kinda.  I mean, I love the car.  And I will miss it.  It's fun to drive.  But I REALLY love the reason why it's gotta go. 

So kinda a crazy month for us.  Lots of ducks and we are starting to get them into a row.

I hope all is well out there.  I am reading...but not commenting much.  But I am reading, that I promise.