I have several things to discuss...

1. VEINS! What is up with all the blue veins in my belly? I look like a road map! No one ever told me that my skin would become see through and that every vein and artery in my body would show through! What is up with this?!?

2. For some reason I have this strange feeling that July 10th will be the day that I deliver. So today while I was looking at the calendar I counted how many weeks it was until July 10th and it is only 15 more!!!!! YAY!!! Although, it would be nice to have only 15 weeks left....how cool would it be to have them on July 4th? That way their birthday would always be a celebration.....so maybe I should pray for July 4th!

3. I rode a motorcycle yesterday! Well, not on the street obviously, but I got on the back of one with Ryan and we drove about 15 MPH down his parents driveway and back. The worst thing about this is that I have always been against street bikes, but now I am DYING for Ryan to get one! I think we might go to the Harley dealership this week sometime to go check them out.

4. I ordered new carpet for the dining room and nursery yesterday. Hopefully by the end of the week we will have new carpet installed. Although we just built this house 2 years ago, Claire(our beagle) had decided that the area around our dining room table is "grass". She has peed all over it and it is ruined. I also started looking at the room that will be the nursery and it isn't much better. So my next project is to buy some gates so that Claire isn't allowed in those rooms anymore!

5. I turned 20 weeks yesterday. Here is the newest picture of my belly. I hate it because I am so fat and white, but HEY--what can ya do?!? After seeing how white I am, I have decided that I am going to start tanning. *YES, don't panic-you can tan while you are pregnant. It doesn't go past your skin layer and its completely safe for the babies...I just have to have help getting out of the bed because I have no waist these days and I can't bend!!!!*

Oh My Aching Back

This week I have gotten so uncomfortable. I can't breathe, I can't lay down, my back hurts, my sides hurt, I can walk across a room and become winded! I haven't had a good night's sleep in days. If I lay on my stomach and finally get comfortable, one of the babies will kick and I feel like I am suffocating her, so I turn over and become uncomfortable again! I just turned 5 months(20 weeks) today. As close as 3 1/2 months sounds....it also seems like a lifetime away! Hopefully the second half of this pregnancy will go as quickly as the first half did! To date, I have gained 21 pounds. The doctor said in order to have more of a chance to go "full term" I should gain 24 pounds by my 24th week. Looks like I better slow down on the bean burritos!

my "innie" is becoming an "outie"

So I went shopping yesterday to find some new clothes to wear. I am in the dressing room checking my (big) self out in the mirror, when I see this little dot through my shirt. I can't help but start laughing at the fact that my belly button is beginning to turn inside out! I have always heard that it is possible, but NEVER did I think it would actually happen to me!!

Kicks

In the wee hours of March 17th I think I felt my first kick. I was just over 18 weeks. I couldn't feel it inside me, but if my hand was on my stomach I could feel a little thump! The next morning, I was able to feel them without putting my hand on my stomach. They woke me up at 6AM for 2 days in a row! It makes it feel so much more REAL now.....I actually have 2 little humans in my belly!

Dresses, shoes and bows galore!!

March 17-18th my mom and I took a trip to San Marcos to go shopping. MY OH MY, did we spend some money! They have their wardrobe for their first 18 months pretty much taken care of! We even found the dresses that will be perfect for their 1st birthday party! We bought them of course and are planning to do the color scheme for the party based off the colors in their dresses! It will be amazing, I just know it!

Weiners or Hot Dog Buns?

At 16 weeks I took matters into my own hands and went to Ultraview Imaging to see if we could see what the sexes of the babies were. Dr. Greve was holding his ground on not letting me know until I was 20 weeks.....but I couldn't wait any longer. I HAD TO FIND OUT!!! I had a feeling they would both be boys, but we were actually hoping for a boy and a girl. Keep in mind I was still coming out of the morning sickness and headache stage, so I swore I would never have kids again...one of each would be ideal! Boy was I wrong! They were both girls....GIRLS! Ryan is going to be out numbered so bad! But shopping will be so much fun!

Could they be Dwarfs?

February 21, 2009: So everyone I have bumped into keeps saying, "you are so small to be having twins"...."you are so tiny". So I just started wondering.....could they be dwarfs? Maybe the reason my belly isn't getting so big is because they are so tiny?!? What if they are born and they are only 10 inches long? I cried to Ryan about it. That was really my first hormonal emotional pregnant lady episode. He laughed at me and told me that they were normal size. The next morning I woke up and I felt fine....like my crazy dwarf fears never even happened!

Morning sickness and headaches

All I can say about this is that I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. They call it morning sickness but it literally lasts all day everyday. Blowing beats for no reason(sometimes in the pantry or car) is never a good thing. I had to take barf bags with me wherever I went! I learned that sucking on Jolly Ranchers helped with the constant urge to upchuck and dry heave. It started at about 5 weeks and lasted until 13 weeks....but then the migraines got bad. They say it is due to the fact that my hormones were double as high as a normal pregnant person. Dr. Greve prescribed me Esgic for my headaches and it was the miracle drug. I took the pills for about a month or so....now Tylenol is taking the edge off just fine!

How many are there?!?

On January 7, 2009 we had our first appointment with out doctor. I was about 8 weeks along already so we also got to have our first sonogram. Several weeks prior to this appointment, I had a strange dream that I was going to have twins. I told my family and friends about it, but we all thought it was a long shot that a dream would turn out to be true. Well, it was true! During our first sonogram, the technician only had the screen up for 5 seconds before she announced that there were 2 babies! Ryan and I just died laughing. First, a semi-unplanned pregnancy and now TWINS?!? We should have played the lottery that day as well because we were the luckiest couple on earth! As we left, we were both on our cell phones calling everyone we knew to tell them that there were 2! No one believed us until I posted pictures of the sonogram on my Myspace page!



A couple of weeks later, the reality of it all set in and I got a little freaked out. Not about having 2 babies, but about what it was going to do to my body! I am 5'1 and 119 pounds....I was going to look like a walrus! The doctor said I would gain about 60 pounds......YIKES! I am worried about bedrest, preterm labor, what will happen to my business if I can't work....I am afraid of pretty much everything!

Our second appointment went pretty smooth. I came in with a list of 26 questions for the doctor about all the "what if's". Dr. Greve's eyes got big when I handed the list over and told him to answer all of them. It was like a book report! He spent the entire appointment reassuring me that he would be up front and honest with things. If he wasn't worried about something, then I shouldn't be worried about it either. I felt much better when we left. OH! We also got to hear the heartbeats for the first time....it was so cool!!

PREGNANT!

Ok, so I am starting this a little late(5 months to be exact) but never-the-less I am starting it!! I am going to begin by letting everyone know exactly what has happened over the last several months and then we can add day by day from there!

On December 5, 2008(Ryan's birthday)...I realized that my "monthly gift" was a day late. I had already been suspecting that I might be pregnant--intuition I guess. Ryan had left early that morning to go play basketball with some friends, so I decided to go to CVS while he was gone to get some tests. Since we weren't technically planning on getting pregnant just yet, I wasn't sure how he would take a positive test result, so I took the test without him being home. LOW AND BEHOLD IT WAS POSITIVE! I will not write exactly what I screamed out loud in the bathroom....but I just covered my mouth with both hands cried, laughed and stared at myself in the mirror. I planned on wrapping up my positive test and giving it to Ryan for his birthday gift. The more I got to thinking about everything, I started wondering if this could be a "false postive" result so I took 3 more tests...all of which turned out positive!! I quickly wrapped everything up in a box and wrote a quick poem and waited for Ryan to get home................
There he sits on the fireplace with me videotaping him(he HAD to know something was up). I turned on the camera and told him to unwrap his gift. He read the poem in silence and just sat there looking down--no emotion. I asked him if he knew what the present might be----he looked up at the camera and said, "are you pregnant?" That was the end of the video, because I could see that he was a little freaked out and didn't want to be on camera!! After we talked and got over our laughing and crying spell we went to both of our parent's houses and showed them our video....they were shocked, but thrilled! Then we went to Hooters for a "romantic" meal of wings!!!