Half-way Update!

We are half way (well, hopefully over half way) done with this pregnancy!  By the calendar today I am 21 weeks pregnant with our embryo adopted twins.  Time seems to have flown by since the first trimester unpleasantness lifted, I'm sure the holiday season helped with that.  The photos that follow reflect the typical half way point of 20 weeks, but twins can be early so I may have as little as 15 weeks left!!  And I do believe some growing has happened since then!

20 Bump!!  Babies are growing!

We had our 20 ultrasound last Monday on exactly 20 weeks.  It was a LONG appointment with over 180 pictures taken.  Babies are both individually within the "healthy" range.  Heart beats were strong (141 and 136), and all organ and brain pictures looked normal.  Praise the Lord!!

Here is twin 'A" looking for its hand.

And twin "B" full profile (you can even make out a leg bone curled up!)

While everything individually looked great, there was a significant amount of size difference between the 2 babies.  Normal growth range is anywhere between 5% and 95% - with 50% being perfect by the calendar growth (which is pretty rare).  Baby "A" measurement averages put it at the 84% range (20 weeks), while the average measurements for baby "B" were in the 18% range (19 weeks).  At the 20 week point, it is common to be perfectly healthy with baby measuring 18-22 weeks in size.  Sooo long story there to say we are waiting for a call from a specialty maternity ultrasound clinic in Eugene to make sure that "Big baby"isn't stealing nutrition from "Little baby" and to make sure "Little baby" keeps growing.  We have been waiting for the referral call for a week now - so there must not be too much concern.  With the amount of movement felt and with all other scans looking perfect we really aren't concerned.  They are after all different people and have permission to grow at different rates.

Tomorrow I meet with the OB again to check everything out and hopefully she will have more of an update for me.  A heart beat ultrasound will once again be done as well as water level check.

While we do have A LOT of good news...we have had a recent loss, sigh:

"Youngest daughter" can no longer reach all the way around to give a hug.  She had been "measuring" daily and it seemed to disappear overnight.

And because we were in the mood, here are a couple of funnies to leave you with:

Lastly because we know you are asking - we DON'T know what we are having :).

Many thanks for following our adventure.  Please note the e-mail, t-shirt, and funding information in the side bar to the right.

Thankful Reflection

17 weeks and 2 days pregnant with our twins!  God is good.

Odessa's embryo adoption pregnancy update for week 17:  Things are going great...most days.  About once a week there is still a bad day, but this is usually following a day where I may have over done it.  Babies are moving and felt almost everyday internally, the rest of the family is still patiently waiting for stronger kicks.  This last week we had another ultrasound and both babies looked great, had a great view of one of them trying to suck its thumb (so cute!).  I recently started on some natural, gentle body cleansers and stabilizers in hopes of having normal hormones after so much hormone therapy to prepare for transfer and carry the first trimester safely.  They seem to be working, and most likely aided in the last bout of feeling nasty!  But afterwards it was worth it to feel and look so much better.  I can't believe we are already almost half way done with this pregnancy!  This time last year I never would have dreamed this is where I would be today, but I am so glad we took the huge step of faith to start this adventure.

On the first day of 2015 we wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on the roller coaster of a year that we have had.  After all, it was only in January of 2014 that we found out about embryo adoption even existing.  Outside of the adoption we also had a quite eventful year.  We have much to be thankful for.

Top 10 highlights of the year:

1.  Oldest Daughter competed in her first organized sport!  She finished her cross country season strong by breaking the personal goals she had set for herself.

2.  Youngest Daughter graduated from Kindergarten and we are now in full elementary school mode!

3.  Odessa's brother got married .

4.  Jeff's brother and his wife had their first baby.

5.  Oldest Daughter participated in a regional level spelling bee, math olympics, and speech meet.  

6.  Jeff survived totaling a car and a deer.

7.  Our tax information AND credit card information were both stolen, but no major results happened.

8.  The current family car rolled 300,000 miles and keeps on going!

9.  We had an 'advanced gardening' first and are now eating a small amount of meat raised on our property!

10.  Jeff coached the first ever MVCA Lego Robotics team.

Bonus: We feel very blessed to be ending our year with ALL adoption, with related travel and medical, expenses  100% covered and paid off!!!  What a great way to start 2015.  

Our next area of focus will be locating and purchasing a minivan for the family, hopefully in early spring.  This is needed not only because of the high miles on the current family car, but also because it doesn't have enough seat belts for our family after the babies arrive.  We are humbled in asking for assistance on this, but we do still have our gofundme account set up, and the sole purpose will be to purchase a vehicle.  Thank you for reading and your continued support of our family.  We have truly been blessed by the support we have received during our embryo adoption adventure.