Bed rest update and girls June birthday party...

Bed rest hasn't been quite as bad as I thought it would be, we are now 3 weeks in with 3 to 4 weeks remaining, lots of couch time these days.

Last week we got a positive on our FFN test. A negative test (which is what we want) means we have a 99.6% of not going into labor within the 2 weeks following the test. A positive test means our chance of going into labor increases to 1 in 7... luckily that is still a low percentage but a negative result would put my mind at ease!

My doctor went ahead and let us stay home this past week even with the positive FFN, however, we have a sonogram on Monday and if the sonogram shows that my cervix has shortened from our last measurement 2 weeks ago I go straight to the hospital for the next 3 weeks of bed rest. At this point we are at 30 weeks and 4 days, our ultimate goal is 35 weeks but 34 weeks will put us out of most developmental dangers. Every 2 weeks starting at 30 weeks gives us less time in the NICU and increased baby development.

The baby belly at 30 weeks


Last weekend Lauren came in town from Houston for my baby shower and on Friday we had a birthday party at our house for all our June birthday girls... everyone turned 30! Finally, catching up with me!

Lauren, Kelli, Nic, Macey, Shelley & Courtney



Birthday girls... Kelli, Shelley and Court (Kel & Court got matching boots and Shelley got a beautiful Stella & Dot necklace).

Pictures from the baby shower to come...

More sonogram pics and a bed rest update...

More sono pics from this week, I am sure you guys have seen enough! The good and bad thing about being pregnant with twins... you get to see the babies a whole lot but you might have a sonogram picture overload!

So we had our follow up sonogram and OB visit from our hospital trip last week, unfortunately my cervix has shortened even more... we are now at 1.7 cm. Bummer... even with all the bed rest it is getting shorter. My OB said that it could continue to shorten up a little more or it might level out and stop at a certain length. But as my friend Shelly Hunter knows, you can carry to full term on an extremely short cervix...

Luckily, it doesn't change my bed rest location. Since we are past 28 weeks (29 on Wednesday) we will continue to do bed rest at home because they can't do anything for us at the hospital that we can't do here at home. We will be visiting the OB every week to check my cervix and do a NST in labor and delivery to monitor the sweet babies. Sonograms will continue to be every 3 weeks. Our ultimate goal is 35 weeks, after that anything else is just gravy... right now we just need to make it to 30 weeks, then 32, then 34 and finally 35. At 35 we are back to business as usually just waiting for Linley and Caden to join us!


Miss Linley Grace's profile


Caden Ryan's profile

Miss Linley again...

New Sonogram Pictures and Bed Rest update...

Unfortuantely, the following pictures represent my new day time home... yes, that is right, I have been restricted to bed rest for the next 7 weeks! Yuck... but it is definitely better than having our babies arrive early. So, we are at 28 weeks and we have to make it to 35 weeks on bed rest before they will release me to a normal activity level again. Until then, you can find me parked on my living room couch! Good thing I already work at home, makes the work transition quite easy!

Below are the beautiful sonogram pictures of our babies that we got to enjoy before finding out my cervix had shortened 2 cm... after we were admitted to the hospital only to find out I was having contractions every 2 minutes. They gave me a shot to stop them and kept me overnight until they could schedule the FFN test to test for the FFN protein on the cervix (a positive outcome increases the chance you will go into labor within the next 2 weeks). Luckily it came back negative so I got to go home on bed rest rather than stay in the hospital on bed rest. Both stink, but I would definitely rather be at home for the next 7 weeks. Keep us in your prayers that my cervix stays where it is and that my 2 week FFN tests don't come back positive.

Here is our little Linley Grace

Here is a profile of Caden

Another of miss Linley Grace

And the last of Caden

Memorial Day Weekend... Babymoon

For Memorial Day Weekend, Trip, Byron, Sherry and I all met up in San Antonio at the Hyatt Hillcountry Resort for a BABYMOON!

We had a fantastic time, Sherry is due at the end of September with baby #2 (one month behind our original due date, before we found out we were having twins). They are having a little boy, so sweet Caden will have a playmate his age... Casen Hayes Wilkinson (we hope). Trip spent the entire weekend calling their little boy Casen so now we are wondering if it took?

Byron & Sherry are our favorite traveling couple! We have the best time together and have yet to get sick of one another (thank goodness). We have been to Europe, Playa, Cabo, Austin (Hurricane refugees) and San Antonio to name a few. Soon it will be more family trips rather than couple trips, hopefully though we will still have time for the fun just us excursions (Hawaii, Switzerland, St. Thomas anyone???).

Trip requested everyone switch partners (of course he picked Byron)!

We were introducing the babies...

Boys are silly... I think they were singing London Bridge is falling down...

They were playing "Planet 51" on the big screen outside at the resort... lots of kids, it was cool.

New Sonogram Pictures

We are now at 25 weeks and 4 days, 2 viable babies (past the 24th week milestone), 3 week sonogram appointments to watch their weight and 2 week OB appointments to make sure everything is progressing with me. So far, so good!

We have 2 sweet babies weighing in at 1 lb 7 oz (Caden) and 1 lb 9 oz (Linley). Caden is head down, ready for show time and my little Linley is breach, apparently she likes having her butt in her brother's face and vice versa. We really hope she is planning on turning around in the next several weeks as she is starting to run out of time; if she doesn't flip around we will be scheduling a c-section rather than a regular deliver (notice I didn't say natural). And for those who know what it means, my cervix is an excellent 4.4 cm which basically means it is extremely long at this point. The shorter it gets the greater the chance I would be put on bed rest in some form or fashion.

As you can see below, the belly is definitely getting bigger! I am measuring in around 29 weeks for a singleton pregnancy, so I look 3 -4 weeks bigger than I actually am. Oh, and I had my first cervix check on Wednesday, not cool, definitely not cool.

This week Linley decided she wanted to pose for the camera quite a bit... she got 4 shots, 2 profiles and 2 frontals! Caden only has one profile pic this week, :(.

Linley sucking her thumb... above her you can see the wall that separates their individual sacs.

Linley sucking her thumb from the front.

Linley's profile, sac membrane and then yes, those are Caden's legs in her face.

Linley's frontal view (top left), looks like she is sleeping peacefully with her eyes closed! She wasn't, she was kicking up a storm.

Caden's profile, can you see his spinal cord on the right?

Last night Gabe, Shelley, Quinn, Trip and I went out to Taste of Addison and enjoyed the outdoor festivities. We ate a little Greek food, some awesome cheddar fries, Kettle corn and fresh squeezed lemonade. Quinn got to ride on several of the rides at the carnival (Trip and Gabe got to be his co-pilots) and then we went and listened to a few songs by Luke Bryan on the main stage.

It was a lot of fun!

This was before Gabe surprised Quinn with a flashing light saber, he was in heaven!

23 week update... on to week 24

We are back... sorry for the delay in posting but we have been pretty boring the last couple of weeks. However, today the excitement is back!

Our baby furniture was delivered this morning, it looks so great! Thank goodness it fits, we knew it was going to be tight with 2 cribs but it works.

You can also see that we painted the walls (stripes on top, solid on bottom)... THANKS MOM & DAD, they helped paint a couple weeks ago! I am sure that is what they had in mind when then came to visit us for the weekend.

Still working on wall decor, but contemplating the mirror over the combo dresser. Although, now that I am looking at it, it might be odd staring at myself while changing diapers... hmmm, gonna have to think about that one.

AND... we had a chair rail installed last Friday, we have the best handy man!

I also made the decision today that I didn't like having 2 different bedding sets, so I returned the girl bedding and ordered a second set of the boy bedding. Guess I will have to start calling it the twin bedding since it is now gender neutral. Now I have to wait for it to come in :(. Hopefully, it will be as fast as the last time!

I can't believe I haven't posted a belly pic in several weeks, just never seemed to remember to do it when I haven't already settled into my PJs for the evening. No reason to memorialize myself in footy pajamas on a blog :). We are definitely popping out these days, I saw Shelley yesterday and she was amazing at how much bigger I got in one week. Thankfully, we are right on track though according to my OB on Monday... measuring in for a singleton pregnancy at 27 weeks (4 weeks more than I actually am). Everything looks great though, we start our 2 week appointments this month so instead of 4 weeks, I will be headed to Frisco every 2 weeks and Plano every 3 weeks for our sonogram.

Sonogram 4.7.10

First, let me begin by telling you how much I love our new MAC... there are so many cool things you can do with it!!!!

We had our 4th sonogram today... 19 weeks, 1 day into week 20. Our sweet babies are doing fantastic, and yes, we still have a boy and a girl. No surprises there. In fact, they both bared it all today as you can see below.

Very apparent little boy parts...

(looks like a rocket sticking out and look at the cute little buns)

No little boy parts to be seen...

Both babies are weighing in a at a whopping 9 oz... right on schedule!

Trip said we should change the baby boys name to Pele though as he is kicking up a storm... I started feeling it regularly last week but today, wow, he did not like being poked and prodded by the doctor. I got several solid jabs in my left side. He is definitely the more active of the two. In fact, I felt one of the kicks on my hand when I was holding my stomach... definitely getting more powerful. Trip is super jealous though, no kicks for him yet... he has missed all 3 of the really powerful ones.

Baby boy profile...

So, back to my original point... I love my Mac! The doctor forgot to print us a shot of the baby girl this week so I made a short video of clips from the sonogram for everyone to see using my new Mac software... (very quickly put together but still very cool). The round gray circle that pops in during the second and third videos, those are the other babies head bobbing around in the background, they are so close together. Trip says they look like skeletons right now so he isn't sure whether or not they are cute yet... ha, of course they are cute!

Just wait till I really put some time and effort into it.