32 weeks!!

It is such a great feeling to have made it this far in this pregnancy, we were not planning on making it this far and the fact thta we have is such a blessing!

This thursday will mark 3 weeks of hospital bedrest, and about 10 weeks total of bedrest. I think its safe to say that I'm ready to be done, but I know these babes need more time cooking. 

Since being in the hopsotal I have had all the Magnisum they want to give me, Magnisum helps contractions and also helps the babies brains but it makes you feel "wierd" thats the best way to discribe it. I have been given 2 rounds (4 shots) of steroids that will help the babies brian, lungs and bowls develpoe quicker, so hopefully with all that if these babies come now that would mean less NICU time.  

We had an ultrasound yesterday and the babies look GREAT!! 

Baby A: Boy is breech and is about 3 lbs 12 oz, almost 4 pounds!

He has been breech the whole pregnancy but since I'm so far dialated I think is bum is pretty stick and even if he tried I dont think he could wiggle out at this point. 

Baby B:Girl is transver and is about 3 lbs 14 oz. 

She has been transvers about the whole time too, I think that she has made herself at up in my ribs!

I have gained abou 20 pounds, and have noticed that my weight hasn't moved for about a week. Im trying to eat all that I can and keep these babies gorwing but its hard when all I do all day long is lay in bed.

The specialist said that if I reach 34 weeks they will send my home and let me go into labor whenever and they wont stop the babies from coming! That is only 12 days away!!

Its going to be a little nerve wrecking to go home, becuase I am so far dialated that we wont have time to waste to get to the hopsital because it can happen so fast!

Here I am

Here I am over a year later, thinking that maybe I should start blogging again to help remember these times. Honestly I don't think I am any good at getting my feeling down on paper/blog because I feel like I have so much to say and when I try to type it out, I never comes out right. I'm going to work on getting over that fear and just try to journal my life right now, because someday I wont remember these Crazy days and I'm going to wish that I had done something. So blogging is what I'm doing because than I don't have to try to perfect my handwriting at the same time and there is spell check. ha ha

Right at this moment it is May 17th 2017 and Its snowing here in Utah! And the kids have baggies full of ice cubes, hey if it keeps them happy I'm not going to stop them (even if they have blue lips!) Maybe I should get them a towel at least to dry there hands. Sophia just tried to cut one in half with a toy knife and it slide behind the T.V stand, Kade took the batteries of the remote. These kids never STOP!

Sophia had her last day of Preschool today and they celebrated by having a pajama day at school and watched a movie! She did pretty good, considering she is only 3 and you usually go to preschool when your 4. I put her in early because I felt like I didn't the ability to have one on one time with her without the twins trying to get my attention or trying to do what we are doing. The 1st couple of weeks she had a hard time, she would cry when she had to leave and cry when she got there. I was really hard to send her on her way when she was crying like that but I know that it was good for her and she needed some friends others than her brother and sister. 

The twins are just regular 2 year olds and are busy, busy, busy! Most of the time they are really happy but other times they are little monsters and fight with each other! Just today while Sophia was at preschool they both needed my attention and fought over who gets to sit in my lap, I tried to show them my lap is big enough for the both of them, but they let me know real quick that it wasn't big enough today. I love having twins but sometimes it really hard because I just don't have enough hands or a big enough lap. ha ha

I am a staying home still and I love it, I do have 2 side gigs to keep my hands busy as if I'm not busy enough. I have an Etsy shop (check it out) https://www.etsy.com/shop/HoweCuteCreations?ref=search_shop_redirect and I LOVE it, its so rewarding and I love that people think my stuff is worth buying. I also go stock coffee at a near buy Sam's Club, once a week. I just recently stopped babysitting for a family with 4 kids, I loved it and the kids but it just became to much. Now I have time to start blogging again! 

I am going to finsih a quick blog about my pregnancy with the Twins

Hospital Bedrest

Oh man things have just gotten straight up CRAZY since my last post!

So on Wednesday 1/28, I went to go see a specialist at the U of U to get things double checked because my cervix had shortened a ton in just a 1 or 2 weeks, like I said it has been crazy and I don't remember all the details. Well they are doing the ultra sound and find I'm just a bit shorter than I was a week ago. My cervix measured 1.8 at my OB's and now it was a 1.5cm so not much of change but they did notice that I was funneling pretty badly even being on bed rest for a week. So the specialist that it would be a good idea to check me and see what was going on, I ended up being dilated to about a 1 1/2 so not bad at all. They decided to me a shot of steroids to help the babies brains, lungs, and bowls get a good jump start.

As we were leaving I felt worried but at the same time I was thinking "hey we are doing pretty good, only dilated to 1 1/2 and that's common with twin. WE GOT THIS!" little did I know...

Later that night at around 4am I was woken up by alot of contractions, I started to keep track of them and noticed they were coming about every 2 minutes and lasting about 30 seconds. I gave it an hour hoping every time I went to the bathroom it would help... yeah NO. Around 5am I woke Breon up and told him that we needed to go get checked out and see what was going on. So we called my mom and by 5:30 we were out the door. 

Once they were finally able to get both babies on the monitors, they checked me and I was dilated to about a 3 and like 70% thinned. So they get the IV in and hook me up to Magnesium, magnesium is suppose to help the contraction and the help the babies brains but it makes you very lethargic and just uncomfortable. At this point they decided to give me a dose of steroids and a shot of...(I cant remember right now) but it helps contractions too. It was about an hour until they were able to get them under control. 

We are were so nervous and very unsure of what was going to happen, Its great to know that if the babies really decided to come that day that we have the medicine and proper skills to keep them alive. Thank goodness we didn't have experience that. 

On Sunday the hospital and my OB decided that I could go home and do strict bed rest at home instead of being in a hospital. I wont lie I was so nervous to go home, what if something happened and I didn't get here in time to stop the babies from coming? 

My Labor is pretty easy, contractions to hurt... sometimes I wouldn't notice unless I was touching my belly at the time. But it was amazing how nice it was to be home with my little family, It was definitely harder because I wanted to play and hold Sophia all the time and clean up. So it was a challenge but it was worth it to be home.

The next day I had an appoint with my OB to check in and everything was going good, so we set up an appoint for another week with an ultrasound.

Thursday 2/12 

My mom took me to my OB appointment and I was feeling so good, I was doing good on bed rest and I wasn't feeling any contractions so I was thinking this was going to be a good appointment.

We went in for the ultrasound and the babies looked AWESOME!! Thank she mentioned my cervix... yeah not the greatest news, in two weeks it went from 1.5cm long to .8cm long.

My OB was pretty nervous about that so he called a specialist and the specialist recommend on checking me because that didn't seem like it could be right. We he checked and I was dilated to a 

4-5 and right than he said I am going to the hospital again.

I got to the hospital and come to find out that I was having some crazy contractions, perfect for having a baby but we didn't want to have babies! So they got them under control again but this time everyone decided it was best for me to stay here until the babies come.

Bed rest is hard and even harder when you have a 14 month old at home and you cant be there to play, hold, help, kiss, cuddle with. Its so hard and I don't wish this upon anyone, because your life is just kinda a mess and you don't have a say in much of what goes on around you. I have loved all my nurses and am learning alot about each one. We have such great families that have been able to help with Sophia while Breon works, and have taken such good care of her.

I get to see her everyday but it is still difficult. 

Leaving my husband and Sophia while I'm here has been so hard but I know there is no better place for me to be right now. I need to take care of our little ones and keep them cooking for as long as possible so they can be healthy and come home soon after they are born. Every day is a blessing that they stay put. 

We have been so blessed to have made it this far in the pregnancy, and I know that Heavenly Father had been answering our prayers and we take everyday as a blessing.

Quick update 26 weeks 4 days

Last week we had an appointment with a specialist, my OB thought it would be a good idea 

to get a second opinion on my pregnancy because of my history.

The appointment started off a bit rough just because I passed out on the ultrasound table. I have never passed out before so i didn't really know what was going on, I just couldn't catch my breath, there was ringing in my ears, and my arms felt... fluffy. So the tech had me sit up and that's all I remember, I woke up on my side with a wedge behind me and the room had a few extra people in it. 

But the ultra sound showed big healthy babies they looked great and so did my cervix, they are keeping a really eye on that because mine is a bit short to begin with. The Dr said that I was looking great and there was no reason to wrap myself in bubble wrap. It was such a relief to hear him say that everything looked great and he wanted to see my in 4 weeks, so he thinks we will make it at least 4 more weeks.

I had an appointment with my OB yesterday and got an ultrasound that looked good to me, but when I went in to see the OB he said that my cervix had gone from 3cm to 1.8 cm in a week... That is NOT good news. He said the ultrasound could be wrong because she had a hard time seeing my cervix but he doesn't want to risk anything, so we wants a second opinion on my cervix.

 I am now on bed rest until I see the specialist again next week and see what he says, we are praying for good news we want these babies to keep cooking as long as possible! If they come now that means a lot of NICU time and I don't want to do that again. 

23 Weeks

23 WEEKS!!

I had an appointment and I'm happy to say everything is going good.

I don't know if i mentioned this last time but my original OB has retired and I have been to see a few other OB's and haven't felt every confident in them. I decided to stick with the OB who delivered Sophia, he is in the same office and knows about my history with preterm labor.

The last time I went to see him, he didn't give me any useful information. I was really worried that he wasn't taking this seriously, so the past 4 weeks I have been writing down any question big or small to ask him at our appointment. 

So today was great because I got some questions answered!

He has put me on light bed rest that means, no shopping, cooking, house cleaning, safe to say we are taking it very easy from here on out. I feel good about that decision because I am exhausted and 

feeling huge!

I will start seeing my OB a lot more often now, we are going back in 3 weeks, 2 weeks, and than every week.  In two weeks we are going to see a specialist for high risk pregnancy's, I'm nervous about but relieved to see someone who specialises in this. We will be getting ultra sounds every time we go now, to check that everything is going good.

 

We are hoping to make it to make it as far as 34 week, I am crossing all my fingers and toes that we can make it to at least 36 weeks.  

So far the pregnancy has been pretty easy and low key but with this appointment everything is becoming very real and very fast! Today at the appointment he measured my belly and it is measuring 33 weeks, 10 weeks ahead of where I am, so I think its safe to say that it is only going to get harder. I can't believe we could only have 12 more weeks till we meet these sweet babies!

 

The babies are moving and kicking like crazy, its so different than with Sophia I had a rest for little kicks but now if one baby is moving the other starts moving. 

 

Sophia's 1st Brithday countdown

 This year has been the most amazing, exhausting ,blessed, rough, rewarding, hilarious year of my life and it's all thanks to my beautiful little girl! 

Everyone told me when she was younger to enjoy every minute of her being small, and to take advantage of all the cuddles, and messes because they will go by to fast and you will end up missing them. Well they are right! Don't get me wrong I love seeing her grow and learn stuff on her own, but I do miss the days when she would lay on my chest all day long. I am going to brag a little Sophia still loves to cuddle and be rocked to sleep, and I love every minute of it! 

I have been so blessed to be able to be a stay at home mom, because I have the hardest working husband out there.

She is starting to walk and it is so cool to see her everyday get better at it, she is so close! All she does is walk along our furniture and with her push along toy, she is never on her back or bum anymore she always has to be on the move to explore anything she can. I'm hoping she will be walking by her first birthday!

Its only her 1st birthday and I can already tell its going to be rough having her birthday so close to Christmas, I now am starting to understand what my mom went through for the 24 years. I am already getting her gifts messed up " Now was this for your birthday or Christmas?"

It is going to be hard but I think we can do it and make her birthday her very own special day! I think a couple of years will do a little birthday on her half birthday so snowing on her birthday.

She will always be my little girl and I am so thankful for her in my life because she makes me a better person and she teaches/reminds me things all the time, I want to be the best mom I can be for her.

She has my heart

Twins 20 weeks

I can't believe we are having TWINS!! 

Some days I understand that there are two babies in belly and some days I don't believe it.

We were surprised to find out that we were pregnant, and shocked to find out it was twins! 

It was just Sophia and I at the ultrasound because Breon had to work, and I really wish I had recorded it because I think my reaction was priceless! It went something like..

OH SHIT and then there was laughing and crying and more laughing and than silent because I was thinking about Breon and what he was going to say.(It was better than my reaction) 

Its really weird because the day before our appointment I mentioned to Breon that I thought my tummy was already bigger than it should be. Surprise, Surprise

When I got home, I was trying to contain myself from running around the neighborhood screaming "WE    ARE HAVING TWINS". I sat and waited for the next 4 hours for Breon to get home so I could share the big news with him! He was definitely not expecting to hear TWINS and I think it sent him into a shock, he didn't say much for the next little bit but the longer it set in the better he was acting. (haha)

So we are having Fraternal Twins, that means there is two of everything and they don't share anything. 

BABY A is a BOY 

 BABY B is GIRL

We were hoping for either two boys or one each, so we were pretty excited that we are getting a little boy, and another sweet little girl.

Right now I am 20 weeks! That is over half way in a twin pregnancy, we are counting down!

This pregnancy has gone by so fast and I don't feel we are nearly ready for these babies to come yet.

I am planning on getting a hospital bag packed within the week so we are ready for whatever happens.

Both babies are looking GREAT! They are each about 10 oz and as long as a banana. They are both right on track for where they need to be, baby B is just a little big smaller but its nothing to be worried about. The babies are 20 weeks and my belly is measuring 27 weeks, so its safe to say that I am huge already and I still have (hopefully) 18 more weeks! Its safe to say that I am being very careful this time around and listening to my body, if I'm tired I try to lay down as much a I can with a 1 year old running around.

This is how I told my Husband that we were having twins

It was so fun to make this and see his reaction!

Sorry these are not the greatest pictures its almost impossible to get this girl to sit still!

This is how we told our friends and family!

This is how we told the world, in the corner I wrote " We are adding 2 little pumpkins to patch coming April 2014"

I will try to get pictures of  the belly more often and I'm going to work on updating the blog every two weeks. If there are any moms out there for advice on twin pregnancy let me know, or what to pack in my hospital bag that you loved with your c-section or just something you wish you had for twin delivery. Thanks!!

NICU #2

The moment Sophia was born everything in my life changed, I knew that it would but I never expected it to change this much. Its the best change that has ever happened to me, but it is also the hardest and most stressful thing I have ever experienced. 

Motherhood such a blessing and I am so thankful for this amazing journey that I get to experience. Breon is such a proud daddy, he comes home and wants to hold her all night. He loves to make her smile, and he wont admit this but her likes to get her dressed up and is so proud of his mix matched outfits! We are such nervous and sleep derived new parents, but we wouldn't change a thing about our live.

When Sophia was in the NICU it was really difficult, and probably one of the hardest experiences I have ever been through. Giving birth was hard and tiring but at the end all i wanted to do was to hold my baby girl, I held her for a few short minutes and then it felt like they had to rip her out of my arms.

I had this amazing idea in my head of how everything was going to be, how the last month of pregnancy was going to be, rushing to the hospital because I was having contractions or my water broke. I was excited to see Breon rush to the hospital, to give our baby her very first bath, and most of all to be wheeled out to our car with balloons and Breon carrying our baby, you know what you see in movies and commercials of the perfect image of new parents leaving the hospital. I know that Heavenly Father has reasons for why things happened the way they did, but during those 2 weeks I was upset that Heavenly Father would allow my baby girl to go through all that she did. 

I don't think I have been at physically and emotionally drained as I was those 2 weeks, Breon and I lived at the hopital. I would try to be there for every one of her feedings during the day, I would get there at 8am hold her for an hour and then come back at 11am, 2, 5 and 8pm that made for some really long days. I would walk into the NICU and not even see her yet and I would start to cry, I would hold her and I would cry, the nurses and Doctors would tell us something good or bad and I would cry, we would have to put her down and kiss her goodbye for the day and I would cry, we would drive home and I would cry.

The NICU sucked, but I know now that it was the best for her. Because she was early she missed out developing the suck, swallow and breath. There were a couple of times when we were feeding her that she would forget to breath while she was sucking her bottle, we didn't know she wasn't breathing because she was still sucking until her monitors started beeping and the nurses rushed over. That was so scary!! I didn't want to feed anymore after that, because I was so worried that I would do something wrong. I learned to get over that pretty quickly but I will tell you that I watched her monitors so closely after that.

As a new mom all I felt my job was, was to keep her safe and to take care of her. As of right now we don't know why I went into labor so early, but I was mad at myself for not noticing that I was in labor and that I couldn't keep her from coming. I should have known and if I knew I would have done anything to stop her from coming, I let her down and because I couldn't keep her safe she spent her first 2 weeks of life in a hospital bed instead of in my arms in our home. I know that there was nothing I could have done but I was really mad at myself for not taking care of her. As I said earlier I know that Heavenly Father has a reasons for her coming early, and I wouldn't change a thing, I just hope to never have to go through that again.

This trial was the hardest one I have ever had, I have become stronger as a woman and an extremely protective mother. I am so thankful for my AMAZING husband that still loves me, even with my out of whack emotions and me being overly protective. I am so blessed to have a healthy baby, that surprised everyone with how well she did for being so early. I love my little family, and blessing they are to me.

I want to thank our families and the love they have shown us through this new chapter of our lives.

A huge THANK YOU to all the NICU nurses and Doctors that took care of little girl, and helping me know that our little girl was in the best of care while she was there. I loved every one in there, they were all the sweetest people and they helped me better having to leave her every time.

 Proud Daddy

 This is how Sophia plays games with daddy! haha 

We would straighten her up but she would just go right back to this!

.She was so tiny when we got home, we couldn't help but take a picture!

NICU

Many of you may already know that Sophia spent some time in the NICU 

after she was born. It was really rough and I didn't want to post a lot about it because is was a stressful and personal time in our lives. Now that she is home and doing really good, I thought that I would write down our experience.

For all those pregnant women out there hoping that their baby comes early... I hope that baby stays put until the due date. I hope that no one has to go through having a baby in the NICU.

       Sophia was born 12/23 and she was six weeks early, after she was born we

 got to hold her for about 10 minutes and then they rushed her off to the NICU. When I was being wheeled into the recovery room they wheeled me through the NICU so I could see her again, it was great and at the same time not so great. It was not something I was really ready for to see her connected to all these 

monitors, and have an IV in her.

Lucky she didn't need any help breathing, she was doing that all on her own!

                         I couldn't walk the rest of the night so I didn't see her again until the morning. In the morning we had plans to go see her when we woke up, but by then the NICU put her on an eating schedule and asked us to please wait until her next feeding at 11am. It was difficult not to be able to go see our baby girl when ever we wanted.

 They have what they call "Cluster Care" they did it every 3 hours and its when they would feed, change, and hold the babies. Sophia's schedule was 8, 11, 2, 5 and so on. They recommend that we come at those times to hold and feed her.

                       When we went in to see her, she had an IV in her head and was under a heat lamp, and had wires all over the place. It was really difficult to hold her without feeling like we were pulling on wires and hurting her. We were able to feed her and hold her for an hour and than we had to say good-bye for and couple of hours. 

I can't not tell you how miserable it was to see our baby hooked up, I think about it and I still cry. 

The next 2 weeks where the most emotionally draining weeks of my life so far. I would call the NICU all the time and ask how she was doing, how much she eat before they had to put it in the tube that was in her nose. 

Seeing her while we were still in the hospital was hard but it was easy because we were still there and she was just a walk down the hall. 

I got discharged Christmas day and that was one of the hardest days of my life, I had her with my for 8 months and there is nothing like finally having her in my arms, and then having to put her down and leave her. I went to the hospital with her, and I left without her. This is not what I had planned, I didn't have time to prepare myself for how hard this experience would be.

Sorry I will have to finish this another time, Sophia is hungry!

Sophia Clara Howe

Sophia Clara Howe decided she wanted to here for Christmas this year and not wait till next year.

Sophia was born December 23, 2013 at 10:07 pm

She was 5 lb 3 oz and 17 3/4 inch's long

I hope you are all in the mood for a long story with a TON of pictures.

About a week before she was born I was having some back pains, but didn't think anything

about it, I figured it was the uncomfortable back pain I hear about all the time.

Saturday my lower back was killing me! 

The pain would come and go but it was slowly getting worse,

I had heat packs and stretches I was doing to try to relieve some pain, but it just kept coming.

That night I tried to sleep but I had menstrual cramps, at this point you would think
that it would hit me that this is probable not normal... It didn't.

Sunday morning we went to church and I was still having back pains, but they would come
and go and then sometimes they weren't so bad.
We had a family Christmas party Sunday night I just had a hard time sitting and my back
really started to hurt.

Monday morning came and I got up and went to work, by noon I asked if I could go home
for the rest of the day because my back was just killing me. Thankfully I have a wonderful boss
and she let me go home.When i got home I tried everything nothing seemed to relieve my back pain.
By 4 I was done, I called the Dr. and asked if this was normal and they said for
me to come in and get checked out and put on a monitor.

I called Breon to let him know what was going on, I told him not to stress out about leaving work because
they were just going to monitor me and send me home, to get some rest. Little did I know!

The Doc. gets me all set up and lets me sit in a room for 20 mins to give it time to monitor me. To my surprise Breon was able to leave work and was there in 20 minutes! ( He drove really fast!)

The Doc. came back in and was surprised to see that I was having contractions, a lot of contractions! He decided it was a good idea to get check out and make sure I wasn't dilating. So he does the check and looks us, and says I am dilated to a 7 and 100% efaced. And that we are having a baby right now!!!!! WHAT?!?!

Breon and I were in a daze, we were so surprised, excited and scared out of our minds. We are not ready for this yet, she isn't suppose to come for 6 more weeks!

What is so nice about having an OB's office connected to the Hospital is that it took 3 minutes to get to our delivery room.

Just got to our room, it was HUGE

5:30 pm I am hooked up to everything and just getting comfy, by this time my back pain was getting a little worse, I guess it gets worse once they broke my water.

6:45 pm I got my epidural. It really was not as bad as I thought it would be, the numbing shots were the only thing that hurt. The worse thing about it was the weird pressure at the beginning when they put it in. I was so annoyed with not being able to feel my legs!! ugh
9:50 Breon went out to get a nurse to come check on me and the baby, nurse checks and she can see the head, its time to push
10:07 pm Sophia is here!!!!

 She's here, she's here

Don't mind my messy hair, I did't really have time to make it pretty

 Breon is the most AMAZING husband, and daddy!

 I love this man!

 Baby is here! YAY

 She was bigger then anyone was thinking she would be!
The Doc thought she would be 4 1/2 Lbs. Surprise almost a pound Bigger

 Our first family photo

No words can express my love for this man and the life we created
together. These two are my everything.

33 Weeks!!

Well I was thinking that today is a better day than any to sit down and update the blog.

I am constantly telling myself that I need to update this thing, but I have a hard time 

sitting down and finding the time. 

Well I am now 33 weeks pregnant and counting down the weeks till this little one gets here. 

This has been the most amazing experience of my life, other than marrying my husband! 

Here is a quick recap of everything really quick.
We found out we where June 4, 2013
We were SO EXCITED and yet really nervous, we just moved into a house and
were still getting everything put together. But we were ready, we had prayed and we felt it was the right time to start a family.

I am going to brag for just a minute and say how blessed we have been through out this pregnancy,
I have heard so many horror stories about being pregnant that I was so nervous
but non of them really happened to me.
I never really got morning sickness, and when I got sick once I was so happy because that meant
our baby was doing good.
I can still wear my wedding ring, I can kinda still touch my toes.
The hardest thing thing for my has been the weight gain,
I worked my butt off after high school and up to the point of getting pregnant to lose and keep
the weight off, but now I have gained what I lost and more.
Safe to say these last few weeks I haven't felt very pretty.

The most amazing thing so far, has been feeling her move and feeling how much big she is! A woman's body is the amazing for being able to do this!
Oh for all those out there that are now just getting pregnant, and people asking if you feel the baby or telling you they felt them at around 12-13 weeks, for me I didn't for sure her till I was about 19 weeks.
People told me it would like butterflies, but I never got them.
And then 18-19 weeks I felt a real kick, non of this butterfly stuff, It scared my half to death!

I have loved being pregnant!!

 Yep that's 3 tests, I just couldn't believe it was positive!

Sorry its not the greatest pic, but I love looking at this one!
 Her face is so cute I cant wait to kiss it !!

Look at those legs! They are always kicking my ribs!

Thanksgiving 2013, I am so thankful for my amazing husband!

 Week 17

 I love this man!

 Our pink cake for the family, to tell them we are having a
GIRL!!!

 19 Weeks

 21 weeks

 24 weeks

 28 Weeks

33 Weeks