Happy Thanksgiving! (a little late)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Iowa last week with the Rooney and the Winn families. Ethan had the time of his life running around with the cousins, playing in the first snow fall and swimming in the hotel pool. He is still talking about playing with Kayla, Eva, Logan, Zach and Jake. He wants to know when they can come to our house to play. :)

My body being as temperamental as it has been for the past 6 months wouldn't allow us to have a smooth, worry free vacation. I had a little pregnancy scare the night before Thanksgiving, sending Nick and I to the ER at St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids at 3am. Vomiting and loose stools brought on by some undiagnosed GI virus caused me to become severely dehydrated, thus bringing on contractions. The contractions were strong, frequent and a little scary so we rushed to the ER where they were able to hook me up with IV fluids and stop the contractions by 10am. Luck for us, we went back to the festivities, had a little nap, and were ready for the feast by dinner time!

Today we had a doctor's appointment and ultrasound check up.
The babies are growing right on track for 24.5 weeks weighing 1.5 lbs each with strong heartbeats. The best news of all was hearing that my cervix is still long and closed! Who would have thought someone could get so excited about cervical news! My orders are to rest, rest, rest and stay hydrated. Oh, and she wants to make sure we have a plan in place for Ethan should I have to go on bed rest.....I guess we should start thinking about that.

23 weeks

Keeping up with my food intake can be tiring. Yesterday I wrote down everything I ate in order to check my calorie intake. I'm supposed to consume at least 2700 calories/day. Here is an example of my daily diet:

Wednesday 11/15
8am- Special K cereal, banana & OJ
9:45am- English muffin w/PB&J
11:15am- Oatmeal
12:45pm- Two cheese tortillas & whole avocado
3pm- Yogurt & apple
4:15- Asparagus quiche
6:45- Spinach stuffed pasta shells
9pm- Ice cream

Plus, I always drink about 90 ounces of H2O daily.
Wow, that's a ton of food! Now you can imagine how often we do the dishes.

Here I am at 23 weeks...

Happy B-day Solomon

Solomon turned 6 years old yesterday. We got Solomon almost 6 years ago from my old work in Boulder- The Humane Society of Boulder Valley. He was picked up as a stray at 4 months old (already weighing in at 45lbs). I met him for the first time when I went into his cage to vaccinate him. He peed all over me becuase he was so excited for the attention. It was instant love.

This is what they really think of the party hats...

Right on Track

Even though this picture is dark, it shows that the first week of construction has been eventful! All the walls have been taken down to the studs and if you look closely at the picture you can see me standing in the far room. Sorry, no lighting in this part of the house for a while.

Check out the JOB SIGN in our yard!!!! REUTER WALTON construction!

Here is a close up of Nick's FIRST job sign! Nick will be the owner of Reuter-Walton Construction starting next week!!! CONGRATS Nick!! I'm so proud of you.

As for me and the babes, we are in the 22nd week and growing, growing, growing. Nick had to help me put my socks on today because it's not easy to reach my toes anymore. It looks like I'll be wearing slip-on shoes all winter. I promise to post another belly shot soon.

Moving Out

As if we didn't have enough going on in our lives, we are moving out of our house for the next 3 months in order to take on a huge home improvement project. After all, what would a pregnancy be without some remodeling? And, with a super-sized pregnancy comes a super-sized project.

The timing is just right. Nick's parents just left for Mexico on November 1st for the winter (Hi Bob & DR!). We are moving into their townhouse this weekend and hope that the project will be done in time to allow us to move back home before the twins arrive in February.

What are we having done? We are ripping out the kitchen, spare bedroom, and TV room in the back of the house. This new space will become our brand new, much larger, kitchen and living space. Plus, we will be putting in new (safer) steps to the basement and having our basement finished as a family room/play area. We are SO excited!

Here are some BEFORE pictures:

This is a picture of Ethan hanging out with one of our foster animals in our spare bedroom. This room was often used as our "foster" room for kittens and other critters when we didn't have guests staying with us.

This picture shows our "T" room. This was the TV, train, and toy room, right next to the spare bedroom.

Lastly, our hallway to the back door, which happened to be our kitchen. This kitchen is not family friendly, and we were always tripping over each other, or toys, while cooking or using the back door. I can't wait for this kitchen to go!

Stay tuned for pictures of the progress. Demolition day is Monday!

The frequency of posts may slow a little as we don't have internet at the Walton's house. I'm sure we'll be stopping home regularly to check on things and visit neighbors, so I'll sneak in some internet time as much as possible.

Picture Phone Fun

Just a having fun with the picture phone...

Three Strikes

Today I've been forced to come to terms with the fact that I'll be on my anti-nausea medication (Zofran) for the entire pregnancy. My doctor has already told me this, but I thought I was making progress and might be able to stop taking the meds. The dose is very small now and I'm only taking one pill per day. Over the past 6 weeks I've attempted 3 times to stop taking that one little pill. Each time the result has put me back on the bathroom floor. My third and final attempt was on Saturday. My body managed to go without the drug for 48 hours this time before breaking down and putting me in the bathroom this morning. At 20 weeks along in the pregnancy now my hormones have hit their plateau and will remain at this level until I give birth. Then they will go back down to normal within 7 days after the twins are born. My only drive for stopping the medication is thinking about unknown long term side effects the drug may have on the babies. But, I guess I have to weigh the positives and negatives. The drug is allowing me to eat and stay hydrated, which directly effects the nutrition and growth of the twins. Therefore, three strikes and I'm officially staying on the Zofran.

Emotionally, I'm just hanging in there most of the time- not great, not horrible, but just trying to maintain a somewhat normal state of being. Obviously, if the hormones are so high they're causing me to vomit still, they are also messing with my mind. In a given week I'll have 6 good days and the 7th day will be very hard. On the 6 good days my head is up and I'm happy and feel grateful for the gift of having twins. On these days I'm able to control the nausea, hang out with Ethan and Nick and maybe get out of the house for an errand or take Ethan to preschool. Though on the 7th day of the week I'm exhausted from working so hard to be positive and control the sick feeling. This day is my "pity party" day, and all I can do is wallow in my misery of sickness, sadness and isolation and wish for the time to pass faster.

I am really looking forward to the upcoming holidays- family, friends, food and a wonderful distraction from the daily life to help time pass a little faster.

THE BIG SECRET!!

Our big "20-week" ultrasound was yesterday (although I'm only 19 weeks). The babes are perfectly healthy. Baby A weighs 11 ounces and Baby B weighs 10 ounces. They both measure right on track for 19 weeks. The ultrasound was 2 hours long (an hour for each baby). We went over every little bone with a fine tooth comb. We measured parts of their brains, watched their kidneys function, watched the blood flow through the chambers of their hearts, and even looked at the irises of their eyes! And guess what....

WE KNOW THE SEXES OF THE TWINS!!!!!

Is it 2 boys? 2 girls? Or boy/girl??

You'll just have to wait another 4 months to find out!
Only Nick and I know, and we're not telling a soul. This is SO exciting! We have already declined a $250 bribe, so unless you can come up with a much larger sum our lips are sealed. :)