Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice!

Wow! What an eventful 3 days Will and I have had!

On Thursday, we went to Nashville 4d baby to get the genders of our babies.  I honestly could not even begin to guess what we were having.  I haven't really had a whole lot of symptoms.. no morning sickness, no major cravings or mood swings, nothing totally out of the ordinary that would make me think one way or the other.  Of course, Will has been saying 2 boys from the very beginning!  I was thinking either 2 boys or one of each, because I heard girls make you very sick and have crazy symptoms, which I didn't have.  So, the 4d ultrasound place was amazing!! They had a huge projector screen, couches, music.. the tech told us to close our eyes when she found the genders.  Our 15 minute ultrasound ended up being an hour because the tech was having so much fun watching the babies!! Baby A (just like at our 14 week) was super active the whole time.  She was stretching all the way out, flipping, kicking, smiling and waving!  She was kicking baby B the whole time!  Baby B was asleep at first, but after being kicked in the head a few times she finally woke up too.  Once again, she had her arms behind her head and her legs crossed, just like at our 14 week ultrasound.  It took forever to find the gender of baby B because she was crossing her legs, the cord was between them, and then she put her hand down there so the tech couldn't see!!  When she finally figured out the gender, she was cracking up because baby A was kicking B in the butt while she was trying to get a picture.  It was so much fun.. we will definitely go back when they are older and look more like little babies.. but it seems like we DEFINITELY have our hands full!!  When we were finished, the tech gave us all of the pictures except the gender ones, and the front desk lady wrote the genders on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope.  Now the wait was on for Saturday!!

Saturday was our gender reveal.  Pretty much everyone picked "boys" or "one of each".  We were trying to eat and wait for everyone while we were all staring at the gender boxes!! Everyone was SO excited to find out what was inside!! SO finally Will and I take the boxes outside.  We literally could not be more shocked to see nothing but pink balloons!! NOBODY thought we were having 2 girls.. especially not us!! I'm pretty sure Will almost passed out for a minute.  It looks like we will be having 2 little princesses (and daddy has to shine up his guns)

Little Zoey Jane and Piper Lin will be here before we know it!!  They are going to be beautiful, smart, sweet, and SPOILED ROTTEN!!

  Gender Reveal Video

Hello Second Trimester!

Hi everyone!  It feels like it has been forever since I have posted on here.  It feels so weird to go from checking in on me and having appointments pretty much every other day to not hearing anything for 3 weeks at a time.  I must say I am not a fan.  The last time I had an ultrasound at 11 weeks the doctor said we would not need another one until our 18 week anatomy scan!!  I have spent the last 2 weeks wondering if everything is going okay.. I haven't had any bleeding or cramping or anything, but since it was twins I was nervous that I would only get symptoms from one and not know if both were doing okay.  I think I am just so used to being babied at NFC, plus I am used to things going wrong (thanks 3 unsuccessful years of fertility treatments..), plus after so many years it is hard to convince yourself you are actually pregnant without hard evidence for reassurance!! So all of these things led to a frantic call to my doctor begging him to do another ultrasound to make sure everything is progressing appropriately.  He said that was fine, but he wasn't sure insurance would cover it.  What's $225 for my sanity?! Just add it to the $40,000 these babies have already racked up. 
So today we went for the ultrasound!  We found out that they are opposites already.  One baby is super chill.. he was kicked back, stretched all the way out, with his legs crossed and arms over his chest.  Just stick a tv in there and he would be good to go.  The other baby was literally turning flips so much that the doctor could not even keep the heart monitor on her!! He said she was quite the gymnast.  That is probably the little stinker that makes me so nauseous!  It was so cool to see the heads, bodies, arms, legs, even little fingers and toes.  The doctor said they seem to like laying butt-to-butt.  I wonder if they will do that after they are born.. Heartbeats today were 158 and 155, so a lot slower than last time!  Probably because I have cut back so much on caffeine.  Anyway, everything is fine (praise God) with both of them, despite my crazy paranoia!  Our next ultrasound will be our 4d to find out the genders.  We go on October 16th, then will have our big gender reveal party on the 18th. 
Here is a picture of our babies!! The one on the top right is the lazy, low key one, while the one on the bottom left is the wild child!! We could only catch the top of her head mid-flip!! Then there is another one of the relaxed child, where you can see little arms and legs :-)

11 Week Ultrasound

Hey Everyone!! Sorry for the late post (again) but in addition to being newly pregnant, we are also moving houses! So today was our first appointment with our regular OB and it was quite the roller coaster..
I left work early to drive all the way to Gallatin for our appointment.. we basically toured the entire hospital before we finally found the women's center.  A nurse helped us find it, but on the way she said "You said Dr. Holt is your doctor?  She isn't here today...." So of course I get all stressed out and plan to cuss out the poor woman at the front desk for messing up my appointment.  Come to find out, my doctor apparently didn't come today and they tried to call me but had my phone number wrong!! They said they could "work me in" with a doctor who was about to do a c-section in the next 20 minutes.  So at this point I am happy to be seen but aggravated at the situation and really wishing I could be back with my people at NFC!!
Finally we get to go back! The nurse weighs me and writes down 153 instead of 135 which I QUICKLY corrected.. then she starts going on and on about all of these tests we are doing today and asking me a million questions.  She obviously did not read my chart, which clearly stated I have already completed ALL of these tests.  Then she tells me we are just going to do a pap smear and bloodwork and be done. No ultrasound... which I have waited and agonized about for 3 weeks.  At this point I am trying really hard not to cry and Will is looking like he is about to punch this girl in the face.....
A different doctor comes in and seems like he has actually read my chart.  He starts asking me a bunch of questions and I answered them with quite a bit of attitude.  Then he said "Do you have any questions for me?" and I said "Um, yes.. if we are not doing an ultrasound I need to leave and go to another doctor because I have already done all of these stupid tests.  So are you going to bring me to the ultrasound room or not?" ... After he got over his initial shock, he said he would take me to do an ultrasound today and then look over my charts from NFC, and let me know if I need to come back next week for more tests.  This whole ordeal wasted about 15 minutes and got my hormones all flustered so I am so ready to see my babies!!
Now for the happy part :-)  After the embarrassment of almost taking my underwear off for what I thought would be a transvag ultrasound (It's all I ever had!!! Thank God he didn't notice) he out the gel on my belly and we got started.  The office had a big TV screen to watch and it was the first ultrasound I could actually enjoy because I wasn't in excruciating pain from the transvag one.  We saw the two heartbeats right away, as well as their little arms and legs.  Neither of them care for ultrasounds too much.. they kept flipping away from it so it was hard to get good pictures.  Baby A heartbeat was 178 and baby B 180.  Both measured perfect!  He said our next ultrasound would be at 20 weeks for an anatomy scan, but we have a 4D one scheduled at 16 weeks (Oct. 16th) during fall break, so we can have a big gender reveal party that Saturday :-)
So, overall today was a pretty emotional appointment.  Being shuffled around and forgotten about and not listened to is definitely NOT something I am used to, but in the end we got to see our two sweet babies.. so all is well.  Here are some pictures from today!

Last Day at NFC :*-(

Well, today was our last appointment at Nashville Fertility.  It's so exciting that we are finally pregnant and can move on to the next phase, but after being with them for 3 years, they have become such huge supporters of us and it's so comforting to have people that understand what we went through to get here and can appreciate what a huge deal this is for us.  I was sad to say goodbye to them and move on to being just another new pregnant patient that is seen once a month for routine check ups. 

When we got to NFC we could tell everyone felt that same way we do!  Everyone said "so this is your last day?" "Are you really leaving us?" "We are so excited for yall but we are going to miss you!"  We went in to the ultrasound room and I was so nervous!! I was scared we would have a "vanishing" twin or one that did not make it or there would only be one sac.. thinking the worst (of course.. I have to break that habit!!)  But when Patty began the ultrasound she said "yep, this baby looks good, and that one looks good too.. cute babies!"  Then we got to see both of their heads and heartbeats.  Twin A measured 7w6d with a 164 heartrate and twin B measured 8w0d with a 170 heartrate.  She said they would never match up exactly, but as long as they were less than 5 days apart there is nothing to worry about.  We even got to hear their heartbeats!! It was so surreal.  She gave us pictures of both babies, gave us a big hug, and told us to come back in 9 months so she can see them.

After we finished the ultrasound, we talked to a nurse I had never seen before about all of my symptoms and medications I am taking.  Dr. Hill came in next and said he was so excited for us.. then he already started talking about our frozen embryo and how we can try that in a couple of years!! I doubt we will want to do that with 2 crazy kids.. but you never know.  He said he wanted to get my progesterone and estrogen level to see if I could stop taking the progesterone shot (Please God!!).  He said I should be able to since I have two little placentas making plenty of it already.  So I am hoping to be done with that awful thing!

We go to a regular OBgyn September 2nd at 3:15.  I am going to be so lost.. I have never been anywhere baby related except for the fertility center so it is going to be very strange!  I am 8weeks1day today.  We found out our due date is March 24th!  Will keeps saying they are two boys.. I think I may have to kill him.  What do you think?

Powell twins!

Phew! Sorry it took me ALL day to write this post.. I know many of you were anxiously waiting, but you will understand after you hear the day we had!

So, our appointment was not scheduled until 12:45.. but Will has really been wanting to trade his truck in and get something with better gas mileage (since he drives to Nashville everyday and 17mpg just wasn't cutting it) and that was in better shape than his truck (it has 158k miles on it and is literally falling apart.. we have invested $600 in it this month, not including the ridiculous gas money). So we figured since he had today off we would go to the dealership and at least see the trade-in value of his truck, plus he has been researching for about 4 weeks and found a crazy deal that the guy was even mad about because it was wayyy too low.  blah blah blah SOO we stopped at chevrolet in Rivergate to scope out this equinox that Will really liked, and when he was getting ready to pull out onto Gallatin Road.  Well this girl was letting us out, but apparently Will "took too long" to pull out, because when he did she GUNNED it and hit our front end!!!!!! So then we pull over and get out and exchange information.. turns out her and Will went to school together and she was really cool, so we all sat in the Wal-mart parking lot and chatted for an hour until the cop showed up to file a report.  It literally just left one tiny scratch on the truck and a little dent in her bumper.  So then she was like "it was good running into you Will!" and I said "..literally" and then we left.  I can't make this up.

At this point it is too late to go to the dealership but we are 2  hours early for our appointment, so we drive to Nashville and shop around Kroger for a little while, then sat in the car for another hour before it was finally  time for the appointment.  We get in there and the ultrasound tech (Patty) calls our name and she is seriously about to start skipping because she is so excited.  She said I am only 6w1d today, which is not as far along as I thought I was, but at least I know for sure now.  We start the ultrasound and right away she says "well I for sure see 2 gestational sacs" but then as she was manipulating the wand it was sooooooo painful.  Like it was awful.  She was looking and said "it's really hard to see because your uterus is tilted straight back and you have some cysts on your ovaries thats making them really swollen, from your egg retrieval"  Cue freak out mode.  So I'm all "Is that bad?!" "What does that mean?!" "Are they ok?!" scariest thing ever. So She quickly said it wasn't bad and didn't mean anything except that she couldn't get a good picture or measurements or anything unless my uterus started cooperating (you had ONE job uterus).  After about 4 attempts to "lift" my uterus and me feeling like it was getting ripped out of my body, she goes "am I hurting you, hon?" Umm yeah, your only lifting a part of my body up out of its cavity.  But I only said "yes" and she said she was going to get the doctor.  Turns out my doctor is out of town, so a doctor I had never seen came in and was able to find the two gestational sacs, two yoke sacs, two fetal poles, and two heartbeats.  One was a good heartbeat and one was more of a flicker, but we came in so early they really didn't expect to see any heart activity at all, so it was good.  So then we had to go in the conference room and wait for another hour for the doctor to come talk to us more.  She said both sacs are a good size, which means both are likely to stay growing.  She did talk to us about possible spontaneous reduction, in which one baby just stops growing, but she said that only happens about 10% of the time and they really only worry about it if one of the sacs is way smaller than the other, and ours are relatively the same size.  She said not to really tell a lot of people about twins yet though, just in case... (Not a whole lot of people read this.... right?!...) Then she said to keep taking my regular meds, I have to take the progesterone shot for a little while longer, and I have a second ultrasound scheduled for August 13th at 8:45am.  I asked her about the cysts and gigantic ovaries and asked her if they would affect the fetal development and she assured me it wouldn't, and that since they are only a product of the egg retrieval that they will get smaller and eventually go away.  She said they should be cyst free and back to normal no later than 12 weeks gestation.  So that made me feel better, knowing that my ovaries weren't taking over and squishing the pea-sized humans.  We got a little picture to take home and we were on our way.  (After we paid the $50 copay.. totally didn't realize we weren't on the "flat rate fee" that we already paid [$14,500 to be exact] thing once you actually got pregnant)

After we left there, we decided will REALLY needed a new car.  A blue pickup truck that didnt even have 4 full doors and no room for a wheelchair just wasn't going to cut it now.  So we drove all the way to cool springs to look at this crazy deal of a car that he found, and long story (3 hours later) short we traded his blue pick up truck for a 2010 silver chevy equinox (such a nice daddy car!) I got to drive it home and it is amazing!! What's more amazing is a $100/week gas budget as opposed to a $300 budget and not spending an extra $100+/week on maintenance crap!!

So after 11 chaos filled hours (not really, probably 6 of those hours were just spent sitting around waiting for something) we are finally home, and I am exhausted!! I didn't have my usual nap today (sooo tired these days) so I am tired and cranky!  I just keep thinking to myself.. how am I going to do this every single day starting next week when school starts again!! GES friends, if you hear screaming and scary sounds coming from my room, please make sure I'm not asleep at my desk)

Here is a picture of our little babies at 6 weeks!  Praying all goes well for both of them as the doctor expects they should.  Now, I'm going to bed!! Phew!

Beta #3

Today was my third and final beta test.  I got there at 10:30, they drew my blood, and then I left!  Usually they call between 12-2.. but of course today at 3:30 I still had not received a call! I was going nuts.  You can't just tell a person who has been trying to get pregnant for 3 years that they are pregnant and then leave them hanging in the balance waiting to see if the pregnancy is progressing properly or not! So I was driving myself crazy letting my mind run wild until I finally called them to let them know I was still waiting!
So finally my nurse called me at 3:45.  She said my beta was so high they actually had to dilute it a little bit (?!) but the number was 2,964.  She said everything is looking great and to schedule my ultrasound for July 30th.  Then she told me that because we were scheduling it a little early that we may not be able to see the heartbeat yet and my doctor may have me come in the following week anyway (which is the first week of school, defeating the whole purpose of going in early) but we would at least be able to see how many embryos implanted and if the sacs were growing appropriately.  Then we will schedule another ultrasound 2 weeks after this one. SO then I call to schedule my ultrasound and Dr. Hill is not in the office that entire week?!! So I explained the date situation once again to another person and she talked my nurse into letting me keep the July 30th date and just let me consult with a different IVF doctor.  sheesh! Today has been quite a headache, but the good news is our betas look fabulous and we have our ultrasound July 30th at 12:45 to see our sweet baby/babies for the first time!
I forgot to post this last entry, but after my second beta the phlebotomist handed me this nifty little brochure with all of the do's and dont's of being pregnant.  Is it weird that it felt exactly like getting a diploma?! So exciting!!

Beta #2

Hey everyone!  I went in for my second beta today.  She said she wanted my first number (250) to double so I was hoping for anything over 500.  I walked in to a completely full waiting room and this new receptionist asked me what I was there for today.  I quietly said "second pregnancy test" and turned around and saw about 20 pairs of eyes shooting daggers at me!! I was on that side of the road such a very short time ago.. I blogged about it less than 2 months ago! So I sheepishly walked to my seat and muttered an "I know.. sorry.." and silently cussed the receptionist for THAT little stunt!!

So then they called my name and said "hey!! you're back!!" and we all did a little happy dance before they drew my blood :-)  Then I talked to my nurse because if Monday's beta comes back high, we will schedule an ultrasound 2 weeks after.  Well, the problem with that is that it is the very first week of school.. and my GES friends know the craziness that will surround that week with a new principal, new assistant principal, a bunch of new staff, and new little firsties who have no idea what bus they ride, what their car rider number is, or where they live.  So I told her getting to Nashville anytime during that week will take an act of congress, and I asked her if we could possibly do it on a Saturday or figure something out because I would hate to have to wait for an entire extra week for an ultrasound!  And because they love me (or because I am a frequent flyer who has surely paid for at least 2 staff members cars) she said I could come in a little earlier than they like, on July 30th.  So I was excited about that!

My HCG level today was 681.. so it definitely doubled!  I will go back on Monday for one more beta test and then schedule our ultrasound for July 30th!

Side note:: today is my mom's birthday!  I sent her a text and said "happy birthday mom/meme!" she cried. best present ever!!