thinking out loud...

Happy wednesday my sweet sweet angels. I hope you are doing great and continue to grow strong and healthy. Mommy and Daddy love you both so much and grow more and more excited each day that passes. You are due 12/21/12... but since there are two of you growing in my belly I think you will come early. Daddy and Papa share the same birthday. They were both born on 12/7. If you two decided to arrive on that day it would be the best present ever!!! But really you will be the best gifts ever regardless of the day you arrive! 


I have been feeling really good for the most part. I still lack energy and am tired a lot, but since Mommy has always been a hard worker it hasn't been too terrible. I just learn to power through and cat nap where and when I can. Work has been busy but the good news is that I finally hired someone to be my assistant! It will be wonderful once I have her trained and she is able to help lighten my load some. She is really sweet. She also has a little boy and a little girl. She is a wonderful Mommy and shares stories a lot with me about her kids. It makes me really excited to create our own stories with you. 


Daddy has been doing amazingly well as always. He is almost done with school which will be so nice, then he can focus on spoiling me, and us:) A Mommy can hope and think about that stuff. Daddy will work his last hospital rotation this week. He has truly enjoyed his time in the hospital. He is now a pro at starting IV'S, intubating someone, doing CPR, giving medications, and multi-tasking. The most beneficial lesson I think he got from his hospital time was respect. Respect for Mommy and for all nurses. We truly do work hard. We are the eyes, ears, and mouths for our patients. We advocate for their care, we ask Doctors to do what we think is in the best interest of the patient and we follow up on them. We work long and very hard hours. Our feet throb at the end of the shift and often we are really hungry. We work 12.5 hours and only get one small 30 minute break. Its a crime. Daddy got to see first hand what I do and did in the hospital. He was able to respect me more and understand why I was so tired when I got off. Daddy would ask me to stay up with him, but I was always mentally and physically exhausted, not to mention the dread of having to repeat the day again! phew its hard work!!! Daddy will start his field work soon. I am so excited for him. He will be in a fire station with fellow firemen and paramedics. He will get to work on scene and see first hand the day to day lives of a firefighter/medic. I am excited for the possible experiences and possible job positions. Daddy has not only been busy at school, but he has been applying and testing many places. Tomorrow he has a job interview at Brea fire department. Praying that goes well and that he gets good experience. He's such a catch:) Then Sunday Daddy will do a fitness test in Newport Beach as step 3 of 5 for their hiring process. I hope he kicks butt and gets and interview. That would be the absolute dream job, although at this point I think Daddy would be happy with any fire/medic job. We are all so proud of how hard he works for our family. He is already such a great Daddy!


So I have been really missing Oncology, a lot lately. I constantly find myself wishing I were there with my sweet loving, beautiful, spirited kids. I loved them all and felt true satisfaction and joy in my job. Here there is satisfaction but I'm not in love, I like, but its not my dream. Last night I was really thinking about what I want to do when you are born. Dr. Potter told me he wanted to move me into a more superior position, which is great yes, and a huge honor, pay increase, blah blah blah, but to Mommy that isn't important. What matters to me is that I have genuine patient interaction, and that I am happy with myself and my job at the end of the day. I was thinking and I thought about how Dr. Potter has a program where he works with hospitals that have patients with cancer. We try to help preserve ovaries or do egg harvesting, sperm freezing for future use after treatment. Then it dawned on me. My dream job. I want to be the person who knows the in and outs of each procedure. I want to know how soon we can do something once a patient is diagnosed with cancer. How much everything costs. What the procedures entail. Then I want to be the one to pitch us to hospitals, doctors, patients. I want to meet with the patients and explain the process, answer any questions they might have, heck I know about cancer and about fertility I have worked both fields and have first hand knowledge and experience in fertility treatments. I want to reach as many oncology patients and hospitals as possible. I think that would be my dream, my calling, my happy job. I know I would be educating, which I love doing, working with kids and adolescents or young adults with cancer which is a population I not only love but admire immensely, and also working in the fertility field, which without it we wouldn't have you two. I'm going to bring it up tomorrow to Dr. Potter and see what he says. Wish me luck:)


I love you both! Mommy has her first OB appointment on Friday. I am so excited. I have met the Dr. and he seems very knowledgeable, friendly, and approachable. We will see what he says about our vaginal birth plan. He might laugh, but I've heard twins can be born vaginally depending on size and position of babies. So work with Mommy please. I get to spy on you two tomorrow. I can't wait to see you both! Here are some of the most recent pictures I have of you two. You are both growing so quickly. I love watching you grow. 


Today is your Uncle Ian's birthday. He is going to have so much fun with you. When Ian was little he was my little baby. We did everything together, naps, walks, pool time. It was so fun to grow up with him. We also had Matty and Ryan then too. Now we have Chris you are going to have so much fun!

Grace this is you

I think you were mooning Wyatt

Wyatt you were covering your eyes and looks like you were giving it right back to your sister. You both had your cute feet showing and your buns in the air. Maybe you were doing air fives:)

Sunny day

Hello my sweet babies! 
I hope you are both growing strong and are both healthy. I love you so much and am so eager to see your development Tuesday. Today the books say you are the size of a prune! So basically I have two sweet prunes growing in my belly. This week you gave Mommy a fright. I woke up on Friday with some brown discharge. I of course was very concerned. Brown was the only reassuring thing. Brown means old blood, not new, not fresh. I had some mild twinges and pulls in the lower abdomen area, but I think a lot of that is you growing. I went into work and looked in on you. You both looked beautiful, you were both waiving your arms around. It was so sweet! We were able to hear both of your little hearts beating away, it made my heart dance! It was so nice getting to see you and hear your song.


Friday night Mommy had dinner with a group of good friends. It was really nice. We ate a lot of yummy food, and I had a fargarita. Fake margarita. Not many people know you two exist yet, so I have to fake a lot. I made a martini with orange juice and water. I hope it wasn't too much sugar for you two. 


Friday night Mommy was texting a good friend Erika, she was about to go into labor but we didn't know quite then...well it happened. She had her second baby boy Asher at 4am! He was such a big, sweet, and healthy baby. I am so excited to meet him and even more excited for you to get to meet him, Noah, and their parents:)


Saturday Mommy and Daddy got to have dinner with Grammie. Papa was at work. He is a teacher, but he also works at Dodgers stadium. He loves baseball. Daddy grew up there and we both shared summers working with grammie and papa. It used to be a really fun place to work. Saturday we told Grammie that we wouldn't be able to make the trip to Hawaii. Grammie was really sad, as were we, but you are worth more than a trip to Hawaii. There will be many more trips, ones that we know you will have a blast on and enjoy. This trip we are sitting out because we know you will be young. You will be too young to go on an airplane, and too young to introduce to so many new germs. As your parents its our job to keep you safe and if that means getting to keep you home this winter we are doing it! I hope Grammie and Papa understand. 


Grammie said something that made me a little sad Saturday, OK it made me a lot sad. Grammie asked me if I was happy about you two. My heart instantly hit the floor. I was crushed. How could anyone who knows me and Daddy think that we aren't over the moon excited about you two? We are so thrilled. We have so many things for you both already and we talk about you constantly. I know you are small and probably can hear or feel me yet, but I always talk to you, and always always rub my belly. I am so in love with you both already. Our excitement for you has been played down more so by me. We are not telling many people quite yet, and I think many people don't understand why we are not standing on a roof top shouting to the world about you. I  think people also don't understand why we are anxious about every day that passes, about every stretching sensation, about the brown spotting, or the upset tummy, about having been blessed with two of you! We are so so excited, but from our past sadness we are more reserved, more guarded, more inwardly hopeful. We want to have each other to lean on, to comfort, to say nothing at all when its right. We don't want to hear people tell us things that they think will make us feel better but really don't. We want to enjoy you on our own right now. We don't want to have any pressure or undue stress. This is why we are keeping you a secret for so long. Also Mommy has lost two babies before and it was really hard for me. People say they know how you feel and so on, but really they don't know how you feel. No one is capable of knowing how someone else feels, each experience is different and unique. It is very hard for Mommy to open up and share how I feel. To let others know how nervous and anxious I am. How vulnerable I am, how weak I feel at not having any control. How hard I am working at keeping you safe, how I haven't been walking, or doing many things. How I have been trying to stay as calm and relaxed as possible. It has been hard. We told Grammie and Papa and they were so excited about you. We were so excited about sharing you both with them, but now I'm afraid that we told them. I hope that fear goes away and I will feel excited about sharing you both with them, but for now Mommy is nervous. We don't want to share you both with everyone just yet and Mommy is nervous that Grammie might slip and tell someone. Its so hard to tell just a few people about you, but Daddy and I thought it was the right thing to do. Only time will tell. This I know without a doubt my sweet babies, your Grammie and Papa really love you.


Today was so nice! Daddy had the day off and we got to take Harvey to the beach. It was such a beautiful day. Mommy hasn't been able to walk much but I was able to make it down to the beach. Daddy did all the fun work there. I put our many towels down and Daddy and Harvey played in the water. They swam and Harvey chased his tennis ball. They went for a few nice jogs, and Harvey came back to dig. He always digs right where we are sitting and I always get a face full of sand! That little monkey:) Harvey is going to have so much fun with you when you arrive. He loves kids, and he will love you both so much! On the way home we stopped and got a yummy Jamba Juice! so yummy. Then we came home and took naps. It was really nice. After nap time we got up to do some house work. Daddy folded all the laundry and brought the plants in and I made dinner. We ate black bean burritos. I hope you like them. They are a little spicy. I eat a lot of spicy food, but I think you like it, at least for now you seem to. 

Tomorrow Mommy is going to work in Newport Beach, there is a surgery Dr. Potter wants me to scrub in on. It should be fun. Its my first uterine surgery so it will be cool to see. I hope it goes smoothly. After work I am going to have dinner at my friend Allie's house. She just moved to Huntington Beach. It will be fun to see her and Harvey will have fun with his friend. 


I love you both so much. Keep growing strong and be sweet to each other. We are so proud of you both! 


Love you!

Scavenger Hunt

Hello my sweet angels

 I think this is you Grace, you are at the top left corner of your sac. so beautiful

 Here you are together so sweet and snuggly!

i think this is you Wyatt. you are on the right side of your sac:)

Mommy has been so busy lately. I'm sure you can tell. I have been running non stop. I have been working so much. I really hate it. I don't want to work 5 days a week, I have been working a minimum of 10 hour days and the pay isnt that great! Im so over work. I'm ready to go back to 3 12's and 4 off!!! time with you and time with Harvey! 


You are both beautiful. You are growing so big! we could see your head, arm and leg buds. Your hearts are getting so strong. It melts my heart to hear your little hearts beating away. I keep praying that you are healthy and growing well. 


Daddy has been the best as usual. He has been so loving and so kind. I had a fever last night and Daddy brought me cold wash cloths. This morning he planned a scavenger hunt for Harvey to do during the day while we were gone. Harvey loves to find hidden bones and treats, at the end of the day he has a huge pile to show us, and he is so very excited! 


Today we will go visit June, I know you have heard her and about her, she is our neighbor. She is moving in with her son so she wont be our neighbor anymore which is really sad:( we will miss her a lot but maybe she will visit us one day!


I love you both and am so proud of you for growing so well. I have been feeling pretty great aside from being crazy tired. Today was the first day I had nausea. I still experience twinges and pains that make me cringe, but I know you are doing well. Stephanie a friend from work scans me twice weekly so that I can see you. We check you Mondays and Fridays! I feel so lucky to have her willing to do that. 


I love you both. Grow safely and strong. Muah!