No Pain, No Gain

I woke up this morning with a stabbing pain in my right side. I could barely move without doubling over. I always find it so hard to contact a doctor out of office hours, I feel like I'm interrupting something really important, and then I feel stupid when my 'concern' turns out to be something that anybody would know not to worry about. I made the call, and realized I had an awesome doctor when she called me back within 45 seconds. After a few questions she told me to lie down on the side that hurt and drink a bunch of water. After two hours if I was still in pain I needed to come into the office.
After two hours I still had stabby feelings. Oh no, I thought, this is it. My mind flashed back to my last pregnancy when came into the office to check on something. It seemed fairly harmless at first, except before I knew it I was admitted into the hospital and had a nighty shoved on me. I brushed my teeth slowly, and thought for a minute about grabbing some other toiletries to bring with me, just in case.
As I sat in the dr's waiting room I calmed down, breathed deeply, and just tried to think positive thoughts. "My body is capable of carrying these babies until September, my body is capable..." I suddenly realized I was talking out loud. The lady sitting next to me was staring at me, unblinking. I told her she didn't have to worry about calling the doctor, I already had. Luckily I got called in right then.
My doctor sat me down, checked everything out, and said I looked great. Then she told me that I had permission to call her 20 times a day, because we're all going to be a lot happier if I make a phone call rather than have my babies early again. Laughing shakily, I agreed. I felt kind of silly, but also relieved at the same time. She gave me a hug and I knew it was going to be OK. She's pretty sure it's ligament pain and said it would most likely be gone by the end of the day if I rested up. Good thing I didn't bring my travel bag.
Meanwhile Ian took a sick day and played with his boys while I rested. I've never seen them have so much fun together. They chased each other in the tunnels, read stories, took a bath, set up the baby picnic table that's been sitting around for weeks, and went to Jamba Juice. I am so grateful. Things could not have ended better for all of us!

Bye Bye Millers

On Saturday we said bye bye to the Millers. Actually, Caleb and Julian said 'bye bye'. (They've really gotten the whole bye bye thing down, they say it all the time even when someone has newly arrived.) The whole day was fantastic- the food was amazing, the company was killer, and we were at the beach with beautiful weather. Eight kids were running around and the ocean was just outside the front window. The saddest part was at the end when it hit me that Val was going away the very next day. Good luck in Tennessee! We will miss you guys!!!

Our Love Hate Relationship with IVF

We have some news. First of all, let me preface it with an interesting observation. For the most part, mine and Ian's lives were filled with fairly typical events up until a couple years ago. We got married in our early twenties, Ian went to graduate school, graduated with a good job and we bought a l'il townhouse, then we set about trying to fill it with the pitter patter of l'il feet. Yeah, you've met a lot of couples like us. Oh, oops, enter a little thing known as IVF, aka In Vitro Fertilization, in the fall of 2006.

Just so you know, IVF is a miracle procedure. It's the treatment of last resort for couples struggling to have biological children, and it has changed our lives dramatically when it got us pregnant with twins. However, like some kind of wacky sci-fi movie, this thing is not without some ugly downsides. Multiple pregnancies are one of IVF's popular and 'high risk' side effects. Our children were born waaay too early but are doing well now thankfully. We were extremely lucky. Another interesting side effect is that you become a lot more conscious of the mother's age at baby's delivery- doctors repeatedly pull out charts for you that show how increased age makes the success of IVF less likely (the closer to 18 the better, but what 18 year old needs IVF?) and the higher your age the greater the risk of birth defects. In most places 35 is the new 25, but 35 is like the new 45 in this place. So, as experienced IVFers we decided we better get on it so we could save time for one more try in a few years. But, since our last twin pregnancy was a nightmare we knew we had to get preggers with one baby. A singleton pregnancy, you know, the normal kind.

Now, a guaranteed singleton pregnancy is really tricky with IVF. Although it happens with most people it's sort of a fluke because just about everybody puts in more than one budding little embryo. Even still success rates are just under 50% at the best clinics. Most have lower than that. An IVF cycle is so emotionally, financially and physically taxing everybody will do just about anything to get it to work. I've never met anybody personally who only transferred one embryo- you just really need backup. But we did it, we transferred one embryo. It didn't work, so we tried again, and it didn't work. On our third try Dr. T told us... you know, it's only a 15% chance of having twins if we transfer two embryos. So we did it, we transferred two.

We're pregnant with twins.

I've had so many different emotions associated with this news, from sublime bliss to complete terror to major 'why me?' rage. Reactions we've gotten are along those same lines. My favorite one is my brother John who yelped for joy and told us it's the best news ever. My least favorite one was from a couple with one child who started hyperventilating.

I think the thing that's going to be hardest for us both is not going to be all the laundry and diapers from 4 non-potty trained children come fall, although that is going to be pretty horrifying. It's wondering if we're going to be able to have a healthy pregnancy after the heart wrenching experience of last time. Our kids were barely born within the realm of viability, they had surgeries and complications and lots of close calls after they came home. They continue to get some therapy and I still find it hard that they've got 'two ages.' We know what can happen with a multiples pregnancy gone wrong, and we know that we're lucky our boys are OK because we've seen much worse. On the other hand, many twin pregnancies turn out just fine.

So, after telling our doctor we weren't going to do selective reduction we're screwing up our courage from places we didn't know we had it. I have become a huge believer in the power of positive thinking, I believe focused positive narratives helped make our third cycle a success, I guess it just worked a little too well. So besides telling myself constantly that I can carry these babies to full term, every day I rest as much as I possibly can. I listen to my body and I don't try to be a hero when I feel something funny happening (this was a problem last pregnancy). Ian has been a stellar father as he's picked up the slack with the laundry, grocery shopping and cleaning. We've hired people to help us, we've gotten a much better doctor to guide us through the process, we're getting ready for strict bed rest at the beginning of June by lining up a bunch of volunteers to get us through the weeks, and we're upping our Netflix movie subscription.

Also, I've been watching a lot of 'John and Kate + 8'. It makes me feel better. They had two sets of multiples, and they got a TV show out of it.

Here's our sweet little babies. There was only room for one baby's ultrasound video here, but you can see his brother kicking him from the back. Oh yeah, did I mention we were having two boys? They're due beginning of October.

Coldwater Canyon

We go to two parks for the most part, Aidan's Place and Coldwater Canyon. When it's a bit chillier in the winter months we stick to Aidan's because the asphalt keeps everything warm, and that's the park that is walking distance. But that asphalt kicks out waaay too much heat come April so that's when we head to the summering grounds. Coldwater is driving distance, but it's a pretty drive along Sunset Blvd. and not too far. We were lucky enough to be joined by Auntie Rach, Auntie Linds and Nana this weekend for our inaugural visit. We also got to hang with Easton and Katie. Hurray for (manmade) creeks. The boys can't get enough...

LA FoodBank

Since serving as the Activities Committee co-chair of my ward I've stressed out a lot about how many people are going to show up at our activities. Normally, this isn't a cause of too much concern, but since we've been given a mandate to turn all of our activities into community service opportunities- most of which require a minimum amount of people to show up to get the job done- I've been a bit worried. Last month we did a Blood Drive. The success was... middling. The Red Cross wanted a minimum of 50 pints to make it worth the expense of sending in their nurse-troops. Even though we had a lot of people show up, we only wound up squeezing 30 pints (I'm glad every single one of those people came because 30 sounds better than 29). I was nervous about our next activity, loading up boxes of food for distribution to 5,000 needy families. About 10 people signed up on Sunday and I figured we were in huuuge trouble. But the day of proved me wrong, we had a fantastic turn out and a ton of fun as we completed all the assignments they had for us and more. The best part was the warm fuzzy that serving gives. aaww.

Our Sweet Little Guys

My friend Lindsay, who is definitely one of the most graphically skilled people I know (just check out her blog if you don't believe me), thought it would be a good idea to take a photo of all the little boys in our ward who are around the same age. I thought it sounded fun, but this was just about the most crazy and hilarious photo shoot in the history of mankind. I dare anyone to try to get a photo of 7 little boys, all well under 2, to sit still in an endlessly hilly, grass filled park. It was total chaos, but everything considering, they didn't turn out too badly. They sure have a sweet group of little friends!! I just want to squeeze all their little cheeks just about all the time...

Disneyland Rocks!

I wish we had some more photos of the boys momentous first day in the magical kingdom, and mine and Ian's first time in a long long while. Honestly, Ian, Caleb, Julian and I had so much fun with Ian's family that we just about wanted to work out a way to come back here every day. From the first moment I stepped through the gates and looked down Main Street to Sleeping Beauty's castle I got a big smile on my face. The boys had a great time too until we started taking them on rides. Their first couple rides were a little frightening. I didn't appreciate the fact that they're old enough to be scared. As we waited in line for Snow White- the first ride- I told Caleb to check out the witch cackling evilly in the display case behind us with green lights under her chin casting up all sorts of creepy shadows. I thought he would find it funny. I don't know what I was thinking. He was also a little traumatized during a few dark moments on Pirates and Alice in Wonderland, but by the end of the day he seemed to enjoy them- Winnie the Pooh and Buzz Light Year were great. Luckily for us we have annual passes- ah the joy. I really wish I had more photos- we're still working on getting a new camera.

VERTIGO!

I just want everybody to know that I have not abandoned my blog- for the past several weeks I have just been really, really sick. I kind of thought that I was mostly just exhausted from taking care of my little dudes because they just hit this really, really active stage. These guys are climbing, running, jumping, whirling and just overall into everything. I was honestly just getting really dizzy taking care of them. At about the same time the doctor stuck me on some crazy medications because we are getting all set and ready to do another fertility cycle... at some point. Anyways, Ian started getting home earlier and earlier from work as my list of things I could do started dwindling- I couldn't cook- it made me too dizzy. I couldn't do the laundry, it made me too dizzy. I couldn't vaccuum, I couldn't get on the computer (hence the long absence)... I basically couldn't do anything. Finally Grandma Louise graciously agreed to watch the boys for a week up on her, well, it's practically an acreage. The boys romped and played and had the time of their lives and I got to rest. After the fourth day of not being able to watch a movie, look at the computer, or even look outside because it made me too nauseous and dizzy I decided to try something really easy- I went to the Family History Library to check out some nice, still, archival microfilms. It made me feel a bit queasy but I thought I would be OK. Well, I wound up puking all over the floor. My friend told me that something was really not normal with me. It was true, I hadn't been able to stand for more than a couple minutes without feeling pukey. Anyways, I went to the doctor right away and he diagnosed me with VERTIGO! It turned out one of the crazy medications he had me on has a small chance of causing this Hitchcockian little quirk. Once he took it out I got better and better. Once I felt a lot better though I was so mad!! My doctor did this to me!! But the good news is that I'm feeling sooo much better. Today I was even able to put in a load of laundry and yesterday I was able to watch a movie all the way through. My next one will have to be... you guessed it... VERTIGO!!