My heart is so full....

I am sitting at my in-laws, looking through pictures.  Wishing I could share all of them with all of the world.

I suddenly realized that I have not shared any of our journey in a long time.

I need to blog again. So, I am here. Typing.

My family grew by two beautiful baby boys on Feb 19th.

Theo Jameson  and  Arley Wynn

My little dudes.

I am so sad that I didn't keep up with the blog... you didn't get to see how big I got...
So, I will share now...

I carried these fellas for 38 weeks and 2 days.

Theo was born at 9:36pm at 7 lbs 4 ounces.
Arley was born at 9:38pm at 5 lbs 14 ounces.

I had the happiest husband (happiest daddy) in the world...  SEE....

In this instance, my heart was filled...

I am excited to be writing again.   I hope you will continue to read and hope you enjoy hearing about our journey.

I am going to back track and catch you up... so it will be like I never stopped writing.

For now, have a good night.  : )

The DR office from you know where.

It's a bit of a story but we had to change OB/GYNs.

          By now, most of you have read the post about the HIV test catastrophe. Well let's just say that when we started out at the new OB office that was going to be seeing us the rest of the pregnancy, we were slapped in the face with that whole nightmare again.

See, the in vitro place recommended a DR office for us. So, thinking that they knew what they were talking about, we mindlessly called and set up an appointment.

      The first appointment was the regular routine, blood work, pee in a cup, quick ultrasound, and talk to the Nurse Practitioner.  We had a couple more visits all within a few weeks time. Nothing special, just filling out and answering questions, yada yada.  Then, they schedule me to do another round of blood work.  A few days later, the Nurse calls me and says they need me to come in THAT day and get some more blood work.  I asked her why and she wouldn't tell me. She claims she wasn't able to talk to me about it over the phone.  I immediately knew what it was about.  So I told her (I had already told her about the chaos we went through at Jones with the HIV on the first meeting we had) that I knew what it was about and that I already had the confirmation test to prove that I did not have this disease.  She demanded that I needed to have yet ANOTHER test.
I made an appointment to go in. Up to this point... 5 visits in... we had not actually even seen a DR let alone spoke to one.  So, I figured, I would go up there, ask to talk to a DR and have them explain to me why the last test, which was supposed to be a do-all-end-all test, "doesn't count".  I got there and asked to talk to a DR.  They refused to let me talk to one. Now I am on the verge of punching someone in the throat.  That day the Nurse wouldn't even come speak to us.  We walked out without giving blood.   (there are some funny bits in this part of the story, but I don't know if i could portray them as well as they played out that day) Just know that we left extremely frustrated and kinda ticked.
Later that day, I got a call from one of the desk nurses telling me that they made me a consultation  appointment at EVMS Maternal Fetal Medicine.  So they could "explain to me the implications of not having this test done".
          **SN... EVMS MFM is the secondary OB office that I had to go to because the place that Jones  recommended was not capable of supporting a high risk pregnancy such as TWINS.  (I AM HAVING TWINS... WHY WOULD JONES RECOMMEND THIS FREAKIN PLACE???)

Anyways, I thought about it for a couple days and talked it over with John and we both concluded that I didn't need to have a consultation.  I am educated enough to know what the implications for these babies would be if I did in fact have HIV.  So, I called the DR office and asked them if they would cancel they consultation with MFM. The desk jockey said she would have to talk to the Nurse and call me back.  OK i say.

I got a call back within the hour.  Desk jockey tells me that if I cancel the appointment that they will drop as a patient.

WHAT!?!?!  They would drop me over a consultation visit?

Then she decides to tell me that I was supposed to be going over there for THEM to draw my blood.  That didn't sound like a consultation to me.

Ok. We went to the appointment.  As soon as we got called back an actual DOCTOR came to talk to us.  We were in shock.   Anyways, we laid out the scenario and tried to give him the quick, quick version of how we got here.

As soon as we were done, he agreed with us in thinking that ANOTHER HIV test seemed like over kill.  Well, we walked out of there (our first visit ever) feeling like we made a poor choice in OBs.
He did write me a prescription for another test. He said he was going to talk it out with some colleagues and make some calls to Labcorp (the place that has done all my blood work at this point) and then let me know if he thinks we should go ahead and do the test.
OK, at least he gave us some kind of reassurance that it wasn't "just because".

After a bit of talking, John and I decided that we no longer wanted to be seen at the DR office from Hades. We go in and request all of my records and tell them bye.  I guess it happens often, because they didn't seem too worried about it.

We have never been happier with any decisions that we have ever made.  The staff and doctors at MFM have been absolutely wonderful.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

    **SN...  Dr Hill (my DR at MFM) did recommend that we do one more round of blood work.  So I did.  It came back negative, just like the other one.  He apologized but said he just wanted to be on the safe side.  I didn't care at this point.  I just wanted to end this nightmare with the HIV testing.  Come to find out....... get this....  the hormones and fertility drugs that I had been on for two months prior to getting pregnant, are some times responsible for creating a 'false positive' for an HIV test.  I don't understand why they couldn't have taken that into consideration.   But anyways, we are happy now.

A little catching up.... (Ashley)

Well, I'm back.

28 weeks and 1 day.

I apologize for falling off of the map for a little while.  It's been a bit of an interesting past few months. 

I went to have my 28 week ultrasound today.  Every time I see those tiny little bodies curled up and moving around, my heart melts. 

These two tiny little souls that we created.  Growing and moving inside of me. 

I want to share this stuff with you.

Every time I get heartburn. Every time my feet swell. Every everything.

The last time I blogged was when I felt these little miracles move for the first time.
I can definitely say that we are a bit passed that.

Goodness, I don't even know where to pick back up.

Well, we know what we are having.  Mr. stubborn over here reluctantly gave in at the very last minute of our "discovery" ultrasound.  Just a side note... he teared up when we found out.

Over the last 13 or 14 weeks, these two have been upside down, right side up, butts in faces.

At one point they had planned an escape.   I believe the plan was to kick an escape hatch through my belly button. : ) They were unsuccessful.  I do give them kudos for trying.  Relentlessly.

I look like I am smuggling a basketball.  This belly is so big.   I imagine it should be.  These rascals weigh in at 2 lbs 11oz and 2 lbs 10oz.

Goodness goodness... so much to catch you all up on.

I am still at work.  They have turned me in to a desk jockey. FUN.  No, not really.
We are about to go out for Christmas shutdown.  That will be a nice break. 2 weeks of no work.

Oh, and my mom will be here next weekend.  : )
Have I ever mentioned how selfless she is?  WEEEELLLLL she is.
She put her life in Oklahoma on hold and is moving out here to help me with babies for the next year or so.    I am ecstatic.
I think she is too.  She will be with her first granbabies everyday. What else could a granma want?

So much catching up to do.

I still have to tell you what the genders are.  I know some of you already know but for those of you who don't....  you have to wait till the next blog.

I will tell you how I revealed it on FB.  ( I know, sounds corny, but a vast majority of my friends and family are divided all across the US, so it makes it hard to do any other way)

Well guys, I will pick this up later.

BYE... from all three of us. : )


oh and PS... I told John he has to start blogging too. I don't want this to be one sided.

2:41 AM (Ashley)

It's dark in the room.  The only light is the soft glow from my alarm clock. "Great! 2:41. At least I slept for a couple hours this time."

I have to pee, bad.

I roll out of bed. Carefully choose my walking path. Even in my sleepy haze I know where not to step in order to avoid a painful battering of my toes.

I open the door to the bedroom and am met, almost instantly, with a dachshund nose straight to the crotch.  "well hello to you too Bean" (it happens every time)

I pee.  Of course it happens to be with an audience, but non the less, I pee.

Back to bed.

I have this thing that I do every time I lay down.  I place my hands on my belly and 'talk' to my babies.

I laid there for about 30 seconds or so ...

AND I FELT THEM MOVE!!!!

My eyes shot open and my heart jumped.

'Did that really just happen??'  I thought.

"Babe, they moved! I felt them move!"

"Do what?"

John rolled over and laid his hand on my belly... and waited.

HE FELT THEM MOVE TOO!!

I can't begin to tell you how perfect it was.

Make it another double, please. (Ashley)

So, since Mr. Stubborn over here had been so adamant about not wanting to know the genders before these two beauties grace our presence, I decided I needed to have 4 names picked out BEFORE I find out.

Done!

4 names.  Good ones, if you ask me.  To be quite honest, we put a lot of thought and heart in to picking out these names.  In fact, these names are soooooo good that....  I want to use them all. Yes, all of them.

SO.... that only means one thing.

We gotta have two more babies.  It's a must.

Yeah, John may have just passed out after reading that.  hahahaha.

Unfortunately, we had agreed that one pregnancy (whether we were blessed with one or two babies) would be all we were going to do.  FORTUNATELY... it's TWO.

I know some people with some really unique and loooong names... but I don't think I am going to do that to these little ones.  However the cookie crumbles and what ever genders they are they will have good names (my opinion). Maybe I can talk one of them into using one of the names not used for their children.

Well, a lot has been going on.  I have been wanting to blog a bit lately but haven't really made the time. I apologize for this and will try to do better.  

Stay tuned, I have some rants about the DR office that we were referred to, some updates about the latest DR visit, a story about a hammock and a pistol, and well, just more talking to do.  : )

But, for now, I'm calling it a night.

G'night all.

Appointment Update (John)

Well, as you know, we had our first OBGYN appointment yesterday.  We will still be making some trips to EVMS because of the high risk (twins) nature of the pregnancy, but at this point we are done with The Jones Institute.  Kinda sad, as we had developed some good friendships with the doctors and nurses there.  A wonderful group of people to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude.

Ashley was supposed to update you on the appointment last night.  But after 3 hours at the doctor's office, dinner, and a tub of ice cream she called it a night.  Such is the life of a pregnant Ashley.

Anyway, we have healthy, active, growing babies and everything checked out beautifully.  Measurements, heart rates, everything was perfect.  One of the twins even rolled over and gave us a wave during the ultrasound.  Priceless!

I have to tell you that, up to this point, this whole experience has seemed somewhat surreal to me.  Everything from the IVF to the confirmation of twins, despite the waiting, has been a cloudy, dusty, whirlwind.  Not anymore!  There's nothing like arms and legs, hands and feet, fingers and toes, and beating hearts to clear the air and drive home the reality.  Ashley didn't see it because she was mesmerized by ultrasound monitor, but my eyes were full of tears and my heart was beating a mile a minute when I saw those images.  Wow!  This is happening and it's happening fast.

Now, for the next big challenge we face.  All the talk now is about finding out the sex(es).  We can do it now with blood work, we can do it soon with 4D ultrasound, we can find out in a few weeks with normal ultrasound.  Wait just a stinking minute here!  I don't want to know!  I like surprises.  And the way I see it, it's the only reason for me to be in the delivery room at the end of all this.  Why else would I want to be in room for several hours with an angry woman, blood and guts, and sight and sounds that could scar me for life.  You see, I pass out at the sight of blood and guts.  Thankfully, I know this and readily recognize when it's time to lay down and put my cheek against the cold tile floor.

Conversely, any of you who know Ashley also know that she wants to find out if these babies are boys or girls or both.  YESTERDAY!  She could care less about a surprise.  So, the plan is for her to find out and not tell me.  Stay tuned to see how that plays out.  :)

Oh, and one last thing.  Ashley's been released for normal physical activity.  She's been taking it easy for about 3 1/2 months during IVF and the first trimester.  Couple that with her crazy work schedule for all of 2014, and we haven't had many opportunities to sleep in the woods together.  So the planning has begun for the next backcountry outing.  Soon we'll be strapping on the backpacks and heading deep in the mountains to take in the nature and solitude.  John, Ashley, the babies, mountains streams, campfires, hammocks...I can't wait!

Waiting... again (Ashley)

I'm finding that there are many instances during a pregnancy that you have to "wait".

Wait to get pregnant.
Wait to see if you're pregnant.
Wait to see how many.
Wait to hear a heartbeat.
Wait to see them babies again.
Wait to find out the genders.
Wait to watch them grow inside.
Wait to meet them.

So much waiting.  (did i mention that i happen to be the most impatient, patient person i know?)

Currently, I am waiting on John.  He's on his way home so we can go to our first official Dr. appointment since I've been cut loose from the In Vitro place.

I get to see my babies today!!!!  

Today I am 12 weeks.  I have been waiting for 5 whole weeks to see them again.  It's torturous, actually.

Dang, seems like yesterday that we got this journey started.  I am so nervous/excited/happy/scared.

Two babies! WOW.  

I wish there was a way to explain the feeling I have right now.  It's so crazy.

I will post pictures of the babies later tonight when I get them!

Bye for now!!