Zoe and Nora are here!!

I will post a real post soon.....but we are still here, doing great!! Our girls were born Monday April, 22nd and are perfection. Zoe was 7.2 and Nora was 6.8. It has been the best week of our lives. It's very surreal and we are so thankful for them. We are also a tad tired and working on getting this nursing two babies every couple hour thing down. But I will post tons of pics of our little munchkins soon! Life is good!!!

So cute!!

I saw this on a site today and thought it was so cute! Sometimes I wonder if we should "set her apart" with things like this. But honestly, this is just too cute and sweet to pass up. Plus, she was/will be born in Africa so why not acknowledge it right? Anyway. I am thinking this design in pink and gray. And of course arrows from Ethiopia to Houston. Crazy that we will be doing another little girl nursery soon. Like, truly crazy in my opinion. I'm sitting here while my two "belly babies" seem to be trying to jump out of my body and do a little dance, and dreaming about my little Jane Jordan and her sweet self curled up in her bed. It's very surreal. Yet, also all starting to seem very real in a wonderful, terrifying, exciting, blessed way!

34 weeks pregnant and officially lopsided! :)

I saw this on a friends blog and though...why not? So here are some preggo updates on little Zoe & Nora

How far along? 34 weeks 3 days

Total weight gain: not sure.....I don't look! But I think almost 50 pounds...wow!

Maternity clothes: I love my maternity clothes. I actually went and got some really cute spring maternity clothes and then got put on bed rest and don't get to wear them. It actually makes me really sad....sporting the big preggo belly was so fun and it got cut a month short!

Stretch marks: I have a few, not too bad at all. We still have some time left though so I'm cautiously optimistic!

Sleep: Oh my. Sleep is not great. I can't really lay flat anymore unless I haven't eaten in at least 5-6 hours because of heartburn. Turning is really very difficult too! However, I have developed a new "sliding" method for turning over at night which consists of a lot less drama! But generally I wake up about every hour with heartburn, drink some milk, take some TUMS and then can go back to sleep until the next hour when it starts over again. Fun fun! But since I'm on bed rest it doesn't matter too much since I can sleep during the day. But I am SO excited about being able to sleep "un"pregnant soon!!

Best moment this week: Wednesday doctors appointment when we got to see our little girls! They looked perfect and it made me very happy! Plus, the doctor is my only outing each week so I really look forward to being able to walk around and get out of the house for a few hours!

Miss Anything: Sleeping, eating, exercising, and just being able to move around with ease. Worth every second no doubt....but it's gotten a little bit hard. Probably made a bit worse by being forced to sit all day. But this to shall pass and we will have TWO baby girls!!

Movement: Yes....these two love to squirm around. Nora's little head is literally up in my right rib cage and it wiggles around all day!

Food cravings: I've been craving sweets lately, but food has unfortunately lost it's appeal all together. Its really hard for me to keep anything down and the heartburn following meals is just too bad.

Symptoms: Each month has brought it own little challenge but aside from the heartburn thing....it's be wonderful!!!

Happy or moody most of the time: Happy I would say. I feel like a broken record....but aside from all the throwing up that comes from eating now....I'm just so happy and excited!!

Have you started to show yet: haha....I'd say so!

Looking forward to: seeing the girls faces!!! I really CANNOT wait!!!

In other general preggo updates, the girls are looking great! Since I am being monitored for preeclampsia we go in every week for non stress tests and ultrasounds to make sure the girls are doing ok and to make sure my blood pressure is still ok. So far so good. However, 37 weeks is the absolute longest we will be. So we won't be pregnant for any longer than about 2 weeks from now. But hopefully we make it to 37! At exactly 34 weeks we got to see them both breathing and everything looked great. They estimated them to weight 5lb10oz and 6lb2oz which seemed huge to me for 34 weeks. Especially since hypertension in pregnancy often results in low birth weight (so they told me). But I guess that's good because if we make it to 37 weeks they should be a good size!!

Anyway. Looking so forward to saying goodbye to pregnancy and hello to our little munchkins!! It still feels SO far away!! I know two weeks isn't far...but it seems like I couldn't stretch another ounce. But I'm sure I can!

For those of you who think I look "small" it's because you have only seen pics from the side. But it's actually huge when you look straight on! Both girls are transverse meaning both heads are over by my right rib cage and stretch across my body and I am TOTALLY lopsided! It's really funny/extremely uncomfortable! :)

These pics represent my days right now. You will find me sitting on the couch. Chilling. Counting down the days! And please take not of the lopsided belly!

Cloth diapers

Bed rest has given me some time to readdress our decision to do cloth diapers with the girls. We decided a while back we were going to do it and then I kind of stopped thinking about it with all we have had going on the last several months. But now I have nothing going on and figured I would be a little more productive while on bedrest and give The Office re-runs a rest for a while! :)

So not that anyone probably cares too much...but hey, why not blog about it right?

I have been crunching numbers and doing budgets for months now looking to see where we can cut costs. I hope to only work 2 days a week and am motivated to really do my best to make our money stretch as far as possible. From a financial standpoint I found that most people spend about $800 on diapers in the first year of their child's life, which would equal $1600 for us....woah! Add in our little Jane in the next few months and well you can do the math, lots of money of little booties! :)

After reading about lots of different diapers it looks like the only thing that would really be a change for us is that some parts of the diapers need to be hung to dry. I am not a hang dry kind of person. It all just goes in at once. However, luckily I married a man that seems to have an odd love for laundry so I think figuring out the whole line drying thing will be a perfect job for him.

Anyway, from what I can tell there are newborn cloth diapers and then one size adjustable cloth diapers that will last your child throughout the entire time they are in diapers. We have decided to skip the newborn cloth diapers and do disposable. It's looking like our girls are going to be preemie anyway and I didn't want the added expense of getting tiny diapers that would hardly be used and I didn't want them in cloth diapers in that super newborn phase when they poop a million time a day. So our plan is to implement the cloth diapers around 3 months or so. I'm also planning to mainly use cloth when we are at home. I don't think I am going to take wet bags on play dates or road trips and stuff. I think I will also use normal wipes. So I guess we will be a hybrid cloth diaper family. :) However, my plan is to use them at all times if we are at home or just on short errands. The more I read the easier it looks. You just stick in the insert, dump out the poop and wash. There is special detergent and I figure we would just do a few extra loads of laundry a week for diapers. To me a few extra loads is worth it if it gets me more hours at home with the girls! Over $6000 saved on diapers over the course of having 3 in diapers for 2-3 years is motivation enough for me!

Ill post again once we get going on this and let you know how we are doing. However, I think it will be ok! Oh, and the ones I am getting are called Bum Genius. I have heard great things! If you are reading this and do cloth diapers please feel free to comment! I would love any advice! :)

Getting ready for the munchkins!

So bed rest week one has passed and we are half way done with week two. It hasn't been awful. It hasn't been fun, but I have developed some tricks to help the days pass. I stay up really late reading and sleep in, my mom usually comes over to help with baby prep stuff and then I write thank you notes or watch movies and wait for Lance to come home. People have bringing food over too so it's been nice to have visitors.

The worse part is monitoring my blood pressure. I so desperately do not want this high blood pressure to turn into preeclampsia and it stresses me out to monitor it. It is creeping up a little each day and It kind of scares me. I have lots of questions about if they will give the babies steroid shots if my blood pressure goes too high or what the plan would be. I'm having a hard time really getting a clear picture from my doctor and I know it's because he probably has a plan and has his eye on it. I love my doctor though, and need to accept that even the best doctors can't predict the future. But I have a long list of questions for my appointment Tuesday.

I now go weekly for ultrasounds and non stress tests to make sure the babies are still growing and developing safely. This past week they got a 10/10 meaning all ten things they were looking at came back normal and they are still safe and growing. They told me I will stay pregnant as long as the babies are safer in than out and as long as I'm safe with my blood pressure. Apparently 34 weeks is a big milestone so I think I will be able to relax a bit once we get to Tuesday! Everything is great except my elevated blood pressure, which they call pregnancy induced hypertension and sometimes it can affect the babies. I'm praying to get to 36 weeks....but only God knows when these little girls will arrive! :)

Since I can't really do anything I literally have to boss everyone around from the couch. It's kind of hard for me since I like to be up and around and do things myself. But lance, betho and especially my mom have been so great at helping me get the baby stuff together. My mom has got things looking great, we are just about ready to have babies living here. Lance comes home too every night and gets my dinner ready and cleans whatever needs to be cleaned. He even clipped my toe nails last night! I'm SO SO lucky to have such a gigantic support system around me. Friends bringing me food, family dropping everything to help me. I feel very loved and these babies are very loved too!!

So if you need me...I will be here. Sitting on the couch. Feel free to come by and catch a movie! :)

Enjoy my large 33 week photo and another picture of Zoe. Nora continues to be hiding behind her sister and we cannot catch a glimpse of her little face for a 3D picture. All these ultrasounds though are a positive part of needing to be monitored closely! :)

Bedrest

So it looks as though my last weeks of pregnancy are going to be a bit dull. I am officially on bed rest for pregnancy induced hypertension. I noticed I was feeling weird at work last Thursday and had a nurse take my blood pressure and it was pretty high. I called and they told me it was ok as long as it didn't go over 140/90. I figured I would be totally fine because I have really low blood pressure and high for me has been around 120/80 during this pregnancy. Well, sure enough it kept going up...an up...and up and today was almost 155/95. I blamed it on my long walk into the office and the small flight of stairs I took in and rushing and no breakfast. But to no avail....I left today with a note for work saying my maternity leave is effective starting immediately and I am home bound. Well pretty much couch/bed bound. It's odd because when I am sitting its perfect but the second I move it goes up. However, from what I have read high blood pressure and pregnancy do not mix. They even explained to me today that if it stays up they will have to take the babies early and we are only 32 weeks and that would NOT be good. We need them in for a minimum of 4 more full weeks. Preferably 5-6 more weeks. So I will sit here like a lump for the babies but man I am not excited.

It's crazy how fast things can change. Up until now all I have heard is how great I am doing, how good my babies look, how good my blood pressure is and how it's great that I can still work with no problems. I have definitely gained weight but nothing too crazy and my diet has been ok. My only consistent "pregnant" bad habit has been ice cream, but its not like I have been eating it every night. All that to say I don't think I could have avoided this. My doctor said a Nobel prize would go to whoever could figure out what causes hypertension in pregnancy. Bethany developed this too at about 36 weeks and I guess I got to start early since its twins. I have been told all along that this is much more common in twin pregnancies. But it just really stinks. 

it's a perfect example of me thinking I can control everything and God just sometimes says no.

I had lots of plans to go see friends, maybe go on a little Houston staycation with Lance, and just enjoy things like weekends with friends and church on Sunday and small group as a family of  2. Plus it's hard to put your hubby to work the second he comes in from being gone for 12 hours....but a girls gotta eat! I'm sure we will find a routine. And I would hang from my toes for the next month if that was what the girls needed. But still, it's a little hard for me to wrap my mind around. 

Especially the financial aspect. We had a budget and that budget included me working 3 more weeks. So as you can see I am in the "wrapping my mind around this/accepting it" process and I'm sure ill get there. The #1 most important thing is the girls and I want them to be safe. The fact that I have to keep this blood pressure down for another month minimum worries me. But hopefully it will all be ok! I just have to trust. And I do. Please pray with us that these munchkins can keep on cooking until they are ready to meet the world!! :) I look forward to what God is going to reveal to me in this gift of time. Happy Monday. Feel free to pop in and say hello if you are bored....seriously....not kidding ;)

Baby shower & updates

Thought I would catch up a bit here. I am trying to be really good about "chilling" when I get the slightest bit tired and/or the Braxton hicks set in so I thought blogging was a good thing to do! :) To be totally honest, the idea of preterm labor is starting to worry me just enough to take the fact that I am carrying 7+ pounds of person in me and I'm not quite at 31 weeks yet very seriously.

I went to a nursing class and after learning about how it all works I was reminded how much easier nursing full term babies would be than teeny tiny babies. It's out of my control I know, but I want to do everything I can to keep them in until about 37-38 weeks.

We had our monthly ultrasound at 30 weeks with the baby doctor and everyone looked great. Babies are growing at just about the exact same rate and are both nearing 4 pounds. I think Zoe was in the 65% for size and Nora was 70%. So no growing problems...hoping when we return in 3 weeks everyone is still great! They measure fluid and all kinds of things to make sure that my body is still a good place for babies to grow and things were perfect! The one downside was that now we don't have one but TWO breech babies! I told the babies in the shower the night before to flip their little tooshies up and heads down but they apparently ignored their mother. :) Since they are so squished up we were told they were probably going to stay happily breech until delivery and that a c-section should be expected. Not thrilled...but have come to terms. :)

In the middle of the scan they were just looking at normal stuff and the tech said..."Oh this is a good angle for 3d" and switched the machine and there was Zoe's little precious face. She was so squished up....but it was such a wonderful surprise to see that little face. Nora was not as cooperative....but we will try again in 3 weeks at the next ultrasound! :) I thought she looked just like Max, then like a mix of me and Lance and now I am thinking she definitely favor's Lance. I guess time will tell! Eeeeek, exciting!!!

In other fun news, I had my church baby shower a few weeks ago and it was just the best thing ever!! Some of my sweetest friends worked so hard to make it perfect and it meant so much to me!! I cried all the way through church that Sunday completely overwhelmed with how blessed we are. Lances parents came in town that weekend and helped us with some house projects and we had a great time with them. I am so thankful for help because things are a lot harder for me than I anticipated at this point. I would die without Lance and my mom right now constantly seeing things that need to done and just doing it without me even asking. I am VERY lucky!!

Odd things have been getting hard for me. Like church. I don't know why but I am 100% exhausted when I leave church. It's probably all the standing to sing and stuff, but 2 hours at church without fail is much harder for me than a day at work. On the topic of work, I am now officially part time at work and don't work more than 4 hours a day. It's been great, because honestly I'm not sure I could do much more than that. But really my body is feeling pretty good. If I get tired I sit and then usually feel better soon. No big complaints like backaches or anything like that. Smooth sailing so far!

But here is my #1, terrible, horrible, no good very bad pregnancy symptom.....HEARTBURN!!!!! I'm not talking a little burning in my throat. I am talking 100% debilitating horrible burning pain that is now incurable! I take all the medicine I am allowed and it just doesn't do the trick. I was told that progesterone causes the muscles in the digestive system to relax causing heartburn and since I have double the hormones, I am just unfortunately going to just have to deal with double heartburn. But it is bad. I have to go to sleep every night sitting up. If I accidentally fall asleep laying flat, I wake up without fail chocking and throwing up on reflux. I have modified what I eat in the evenings and even stopped eating on most nights by about 5pm. Nothing helps. The worst part is that this is me and Lances last few weeks to sleep uninterrupted together in our room and I have to sleep in the recliner now to avoid (sorry to be gross) throwing up on him on accident. Not a pretty sight. I know people who have been pregnant with twins that never deal with this...but I guess I am just prone to this particular symptom. But again, I'll take it! Its all part of the fun right!? ;)

Other than that I am just stretching away and we are getting so excited about meeting these girls! It's all either of us can seem to talk about. And Jane of course, she is always in our conversation too. We are equally excited about that little munchkins joining the Agan fam!! We held tight at number 5 this month on the adoption. Not that the wait list is all that relevant at this point because we will be putting off our referral for a little while. But no conversation about life with all these girls goes by without talking about all 3 of our girls. Especially on the side of their father. We left my cousins little girls first birthday party and the first thing Lance said when we walked out was, "we need to have a HUGE party for Jane! We will do something fun for the twins but lets save the over the top huge party for little JB (that's what he calls her)". I love it and pray we can keep all this enthusiasm up amidst the exhaustion that is quickly coming our way. That's pretty much all that's up with us.

Enjoy some pics from my shower! I have "puffy" and "not so puffy" days and unfortunately my shower fell on a pretty "puff" day! Oh well. It was just so amazing and we are so lucky! :)