The story of the twins: Part 1

I am posting these updates retroactively.  It's actually August 1, but I feel like this is an important part of my life to share.  These posts were originally on a message board, but since my blog is something like my journal, I wanted to have the story here as well.  Also, I'm sure I'll mention these events in the future, so I want the background available.  And, just maybe, my story will help someone else who is going though the same thing.

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I lost one of the twins two days ago...  

Shayne, Ethan, Alex (my step-daughter), and I were on vacation with my mother.  We'd rented a cottage near Lake Michigan near Northport and were just planning on sitting on the beach, eating good food, and chilling out for a few days.  I'd still been spotting and having weird pains, but I talked to the nurse practitioner at my midwife practice before I left, and she had said there's really no reason not to go; we weren't sure why I was having complications, but I'm so early that there's not much to be done anyways in the event of problems.  I figured a little R&R would be a good thing, and hopefully I'd get rested up and start to feel a little better.  I just haven't felt good since I had that flu about 2 weeks ago.

We got there, and everything was pretty much business as usual til the second day.  I had a big gush of fluid at about 6 pm.  Looking back, it was amniotic fluid, but I'd been having so much else going on "down there" that I sort of dismissed that thought.  I did mention it to Shayne, but said I wasn't positive.  But later that night I started bleeding more and had two small contractions.  I gave birth to Baby A at about 2:30 am on the 19th.  

We went to the hospital and took the baby with us.  They checked to see if they could determine gender, but he (I'm just going to call it a he) was so small that they couldn't be sure.  They took little impressions of his feet and photos for us and put it all together in a memory box.

I had an ultrasound there, and Baby B appeared to be doing fine.  There was still a heartbeat and plenty of amniotic fluid.  My cervix was also closed, which was a good thing.  I didn't appear to be in imminent danger of losing the other baby, but the doctor said that the prognosis just isn't good.  I guess when you lose one and actually give birth to it, the chances for having a successful pregnancy with the second baby go way down.  I'd heard of vanishing twin syndrome (and was oddly worried about it since finding out I was pregnant with twins), but I've not really heard of losing and birthing one but not the other.

I'm on my way home now.  We have an appointment with my midwife and ob tomorrow, then they'll decide whether or not they still want me to keep my specialist appointment that I had already scheduled.  When I spoke to the nurse practitioner on the phone, she said that she has heard of a successful, full-term pregnancy after the loss of one baby, but we just have to be very careful about infection.  I'm also worried because the hospital doc said I wasn't likely to lose the placenta until after I gave birth to the other baby (whether that be sooner or later), but I'm pretty sure I lost one piece on each of the past two nights...

I feel so strange.  I'm so sad about losing Baby A, but grateful that Baby B seems ok.  But I don't want to get my hopes up.  Even if everything still looks okay at the appointment tomorrow, I know I'll spend the rest of the pregnancy paranoid.  My weird pains are gone, and there was really no pain at all from the birthing process - not at all like my first miscarriage.  I'm still spotting, too.  It's like just waiting for the other shoe to drop.  *sigh*  I hate being pregnant...  I wish there was some way to know if my other baby will be okay.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Happy solstice!

It's officially summer.  Shayne and I celebrated by doing a bunch of yard work this morning.  We had a big tree limb come down about a week ago after a semi truck bumped it.  Luckily, our neighbor has a chainsaw, and he came over to help out.  We gave him the cut-up pieces to use as firewood.  Then, two days later, about a quarter of the tree came crashing down.  It's been struck by lightning several times, and I'm guessing that the shock from the semi was just the straw the broke the camel's back.  This section was HUGE, and we had to call a tree trimmer.  Thankfully, the trimmers cut everything into small-ish pieces, and Shayne loaded them in the truck and took them to a friend of ours.

We finished mowing, trimming, and cleaning up the front, then I went out to work on the garden.  There was tons of crab grass mixed in with the onions, but I think I managed to only pull grass and no bulbs.  The tomato bed was surprisingly weed-free, and the bed with the cukes and sweet potatoes only had a few.

The chickens are about a month old and pretty well feathered.  I've been letting them have the run of the coop, instead of confining them to the hen house.  Today, I'm allowing them to venture outside.  They're staying right by the coop, happily eating bugs, mulberries, and grass.  I worry that they'll get eaten, but I feel bad if I keep them inside the coop.  I suppose that even if they are killed, at least they've lived happy lives just being chickens.  However, I want them to live long, happy chicken lives, so I'm keeping a close eye on them.

Much of the rest of the yard looks like a jungle.  The mosquitoes have been terrible, so it's been hard to get out there to take care of things.  We are seriously considering spraying, even though I'm generally against that kind of thing.  Now that the chicks are running around, I'm even more hesitant.  We'll see.

Strawberries have finally come in, and I've been gorging myself on fresh fruit.  My local eating has gone out the window a little bit; I've bought pineapple, cantaloupe, and watermelon so that I could make a fruit salad.  I'll use pregnancy as an excuse.  I don't want to eat many veggies, and fruit just sounds soooo good.  I've been having a hard time with food, so I figure I'll just eat what I want, when I can.

I found a bread machine on ebay for about $25 last week.  I can and have made bread without, but I figured I'd give it a go to see if it's easier.  Since the bread we buy is almost $4 per loaf, if I can quickly and easily make my own, the machine will pay for itself in a week or two.  I thought it might be a worthwhile purchase that will help us save money when I'm off work.

We still have so much to do before the babies get here.  I'm 12 weeks along, and it seems like this pregnancy is just flying by...

Ever since finding out that we're pregnant with twins (TWINS!!), any sort of progress on just about everything has ground to a halt.  I'm tired, cranky, nauseous, and all-around pathetic.  I can barely go into the kitchen without vomiting, and not because of the awful wallpaper and nasty ceiling tiles.  It's all I can do to keep up with Ethan right now, so everything else is just on hold.

I have managed to get the garden planted, though I bought all my plants from the nursery.  We have 40 roma tomatoes, about 50 spanish sweet onions, 4 peppers, 8 broccoli, 2 cucumbers, and 2 sweet potato vines.  I would have liked to grow some lettuces, but the idea of salad right now makes me feel sick.  Maybe in the fall.

We're also trying to plan out how we'll get by on one income.  Thankfully, our mortgage payment is fairly low, our car is paid off, and we have no debt.  Unfortunately, our car just needed $1400 worth of work.  Also unfortunately, before we knew we were pregnant, we bought my step-daughter a car.  We did pay cash for it, but it still put a sizable dent in our savings account.  But now that she has reliable transportation, hopefully she can find a job and support us (ha-ha!).

The problem with living frugally is that when you need to, there aren't many places left to cut.  We've already ditched cable for Netflix, we unplug all our electronics when not in use, and we buy almost everything secondhand.  Granted, we also live way below our means, but when you're looking at cutting your income by more than half, it's still a little intimidating.  We're obviously trying to save as much between now and when I quit working as possible.  We're still eating out more than I'd like, since cooking (or even going into the kitchen) is almost certain to make me throw up.  I'll be rectifying that as soon as my hormones settle down and I can cook again.  We cut our trash service to the bare minimum, since I doubt we'll be renovating anything any time soon.  We're also working on building up our food storage further as things go on sale or are in season.

While part of me is scared to cut our income by so much, part of me is intrigued by the challenge.  It will be interesting to see just how far we can get Shayne's salary to go.  And since I'm taking a leave of absence from work, we still have a safety net.  When I was on maternity leave last time, I was amazed at just how little money we spent.  After all, there's no eating out with 2 newborns and a toddler!  It might be a bit rough, but it'll definitely be an interesting ride!

"New" prairie-style front door

After languishing in the corner of the living room for about 2 years, my mom paid for the 9-lite, prairie-style front door we had found at the ReStore to be installed.  Our carpenter has turned out to be a bit flaky, and it's been 4 months since he picked up the door to flip the hardware.  But today he came by and installed it!!

I'm so excited.  It just absolutely makes the living room.  The 60's-style door is gone, and the prairie-style door feels like it's been here forever.  I'm especially excited because the carpenter managed to keep the original hardware.  We still need to refinish the door so it matches the woodwork, but for now, I'm ecstatic just to have a door that suits the house.

But boy does it make our screen door look awful....

Oh. My.

I was hoping my next post would be about how I worked through my family vs. career issues in a sane and rational manner, providing hope and insight to women everywhere.  Yeah.  Not so much.

I went for an ultrasound on Monday, after becoming extremely worried I was going to miscarry.  I had been horribly nauseous, but it suddenly vanished.  That's about what happened when I did miscarry, so I was concerned.  My midwife was very understanding, and after talking to me about it on the phone, managed to squeeze me in for an ultrasound that afternoon.

I went there prepared for the worst.  But once there, the tech immediately found a little 7-week-old nugget with a perfect heartbeat.  Everything looked great, and I was so relieved.  "Oh, but wait," the tech said, "there's another one!"

Twins.  I'm pregnant with twins.

I think I've gone through every emotion imaginable in the past 5 days.  I'm totally shocked, excited, terrified, and disappointed, all at once.  I'm so very glad that the babies appear healthy, but worried about what two babies are going to mean for my future.  I know it sounds terribly selfish, but we just weren't expecting this at all, so all my plans have suddenly flown out the window.  I'm definitely a planner, so I feel very lost now.

I don't know if I'll go back to work.  I enjoy my job, but with two newborns and a toddler to care for, I'm not even sure if it will make financial sense.  We'll easily spend one of my paychecks just on a nanny.  And a part time job would be able to make up the difference and allow me to stay home and raise my family.

So... Everything is still way, WAY up in the air.  Maybe we'll figure out where we're headed sometime soon, but I think it's going to take a while.  Like I told Shayne when we first started talking about moving, "I think we're going to live in this house a long time."