A New Quest for the Quigley's...part 1

It has been a long time since December 2012. So long, I don't even know where to begin without overwhelming all of you readers!

I'll take you on a journey through the various seasons of our life! *Side note: While determining the timeline of events, I had a hard time with the year! Where did 2013 go?

January 2013 - June 2013

    I re-entered the work force after a 3 1/2 month maternity leave, thankfully my brother, Kenny, was able to watch the girls. The girls loved going to Uncle Kenny & Aunt Rebecca's house daily. It was a blessing having them love and care for our girls.
 
    My first month back to work was a whirlwind! I jumped right into data meetings, reviewing data, making game plans for FCAT, and working hard. Everything continued seamlessly when I returned.

    It was an adjustment making myself sit down and eat for a half hour lunch so that I could pump. However, I was able to successfully be a working mother and pump enough breast milk for my twin girls. The girls continued breast milk until April, when I got the flu and it dried up my entire supply.

     In May 2013, I had horrible cramping at work one day. I even remember telling a co-worker that if I seriously thought I could get pregnant, I would be having implantation cramping. But I brushed off my cramps as "Maybe I'm actually starting my period!"

    *Flashback - If you have read my blog, you know that we struggle with infertility. Since going off birth control in 2012, I never re-started my monthly cycle. We tried to conceive a child for 8 months prior to discussing fertility treatment. On our own,  we tried ovulation prediction kits, charting my basil body temperatures, different diets, foods, etc., everything you could think of. Then we spent 2 months using fertility treatment through Fertility C.A.R.E. and ended up with a successful twin pregnancy! So when I had cramping in May 2013, I thought this was my period coming back and my body regulating itself!

   Moving on to June 2013. Now, I'll be modest. After having my twins I lost a lot of weight, nearing the 70 pounds mark. I was wearing clothes I had not fit into since college. I bought new clothes to fit my new body (in sizes from college!). It was wonderful. I had worn several pairs of shorts in this spring and summer season that were looser fitting. One afternoon, one pair of shorts felt significantly tighter. "Weird, I know it's summer but I haven't been eating more than normal" I thought to myself. I told Brian I felt like I was gaining weight and as the comforting husband that he is, he said, "No you aren't, you look beautiful."

    I was bloated. Another interesting thing that happened, my palms were chapped and peeling. This was also a symptom I had when first pregnant with the girls. Strange symptom, I know. I drove Brian's car one morning while helping out with U-Games at Discovery. I needed to do this because I was leaving early and he was watching the girls. While driving, I noticed my hands were peeling. I assumed as this time that my hands were peeling because his steering wheel was sticky and gross. Again, I brushed this off when I arrived home that night and chalked it up to a disgusting steering wheel.

     Then, one day in mid-June, I began to feel sick. I told Brian that this was so abnormal for me to feel this sick and went straight to the bathroom. I told him I had to be pregnant. He laughed and said, "Yeah right, you haven't had a cycle since before we got pregnant with the girls. You aren't even ovulating!"

   That afternoon I had to run to the park to reserve the pavilion for the girls' one year birthday party. So I left the house and on the way home we agreed I would pick up a pregnancy test.

   When I got home, I took the test. I didn't even wait for "first morning urine." I figured there's 2 tests in there, if this was negative I could use one tomorrow morning. Brian was cooking dinner, I was taking the test.

   Not even 2 minutes later, I spoke. "Brian, I'm pregnant."

    He didn't believe me because of the way I said it. If you ask him now he would say I said it so nonchalantly and matter of factly that there was no way that I was pregnant. I showed him the test itself and said, "Yes, I am pregnant."

    I remembered we prayed right after, we rejoiced, we freaked out, we contemplated finances, and probably did more worrying then we should have. I mean, it was summer, I had at least 3 glasses of wine that week! AND, the kicker, we just purchased a box of Lakeridge wine! That's 12 bottles of wine just sitting in the closet for 9 months because of this new bundle!

     I don't remember when, but I know sometime between that night and the next 2-3 days, I called Genny. I had to get it out. She was away, but I had to tell someone and just hear from my best friend that everything would be fine.

   We told family on Brian's birthday in July, told my boss in August...and then went on with daily life. It's kind of funny because some people at work didn't find out until November, they just assumed I was getting larger. Haha.

   We were blessed with Gemma Josephine on February 13, 2014. Not my ideal day (because of its proximity to Valentine's Day and my birthday), but I will live with it.

Here are maternity pictures taken in November.

 
Here is Gemma Josephine and her sisters!

Gemma born at 9:22, 8 pounds 5 ounces, 20 1/4 inches long. 

All of the girls on Valentine's Day! 

So part 1 of our new quest...adjusting to a family of 5, with 3 children under 2! 

Stay tuned for part 2 of our new quest! 

20 weeks!

              Well, I am "about" halfway through my pregnancy! I will be 20 weeks tomorrow and surely, a lot has gone on! We have finalized a lot of our house to make way and prep for these two babies. Our last preparation comes today between 10-2...a new couch! :)

               I'll back up to after we purchased our Flex. We have been saving money as if we Dec 21, 2012 was right around the corner (haha). We put about 700-800 dollars in baby savings every month. Yes, we've been blessed by God to have that additional money every month. God truly has taken care of us in the financial field. We continue to tithe to Z Radio and Discovery, we give above and beyond when we feel called to, and God is gracious enough to pour out additional resources back to us in various ways.

            We know that our max out of pocket is around $4000 with insurance. We want to ensure that we have that money in our savings account plus an additional 500-1000 for any baby items we need, that we don't receive at my baby shower.

           Onto preparation, so we host a weekly bible study at our house for Young and Married couples. It's great, a wonderful mix of people. We have some newlyweds, some couples like us that have been married 3-5 years, and couples who have been married longer. We have some children that attend (2 to be exact) and of course, 2 on the way. :) Every week we see the children want to run and play with our entertainment center. Here's a picture of the old entertainment center:


See how open it is? Everything was at the children's reach, and the TV was low too. Brian's main complaint was that the television/satellite box was too low and you had to bend down to turn on the TV.

 Knowing the frustration with this, and the potential problem when we have walking toddlers around the house, we purchased a new entertainment center!  Our new entertainment center looks like this:



Pardon the blurriness of the picture. I snapped it really quickly.  But, either way, you can see now that everything is child-friendly, everything is closed in or tall enough placed. We absolutely love it because it opens up the room more!

Our next adventure in purchasing was a new couch! Our couches, though appreciated, was a hand-me down from my brother. He had the leather couch and chair/ottoman in his garage and he wanted to know if we wanted it. Well, surely, being newlyweds, we would take anything since we did not have the money to pay for a nice one. Being, at the time, 17ish weeks pregnant, getting off that leather couch was a nightmare. It is sloped so it takes double the effort to get up or a husband's hand to lift me. Either way, we knew we wanted a new couch.

So, then we discussed, where are we going to get the money? Well, being a teacher you have the option of taking a certain percentage out of your paycheck every 2 weeks and put it into a "Summer Deferred paycheck." I take out about 12% every 2 weeks. Being the planner that I am, I already looked at my summer finances and paid the bills. Brian's paycheck is a steady amount and then we would just tap into the deferred check when needed. Well, after all is said and done, all bills paid for and Brian's birthday celebrated (July 31st), we will have about 2900 left in my deferred pay. We discussed back and forth many decisions for this additional money. Everything from just splitting it with debt (the Flex loan) and putting it into baby savings, to spending it all on a vacation and putting some into a baby savings.

After many discussions, Brian and I agreed that we would spend 1800 of it on a vacation and 1100 of it would be placed into baby savings. Brian and I were set on this. We were okay with it because we truly have never taken a vacation together, outside of the Florida border. Next dilemma was our decision on where to go. After many troubles, we decided Philadelphia (for family and history) for the week and would stop a day in New York City (because it's the city, I've never been, and to meet his family for lunch/dinner). We started planning things that we would do, Monday - family day, Tuesday - Eagles stadium, Wednesday - historic viewing, Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, etc, Thursday - NYC, Friday leave.

Then, one crazy, hormonal evening, I blurt out, "Let's just buy a living room set and do a small vacation somewhere in Florida." Brian, being the fiscal conservative Jew that he is, said "Sounds like a great idea! I wanted to do that all along but I knew how dead set you were on a vacation and seeing your family." Now our new dilemma was to find the perfect, cream leather, reclining sofa and chair to fit into our living room.

We did some searches online and found minimal results. There was a piece here or there that was decent, but nothing that we were "sold" on. A few items from Ashley's Furniture caught our eye, but their website sucks and does not show the prices. So last Saturday, after running a few errands for Mother's day and our niece's birthday present, we decide to do some furniture window shopping.

Needless to say, we walked in, found the set we adored, they had a sale going on, we purchased a new couch. We just transferred money from savings into our checkings and cha-ching, it was ours. The sale was perfect, buy a reclining sofa full price, get the reclining love seat or chair for 1/2 price. The sofa was 700, the chair was 200 (after the 1/2 off) and there was 100 dollar delivery charge (that we could not get out of one way or the other :( ).

Now I am just awaiting the delivery of our furniture. Like I said before, it is coming anytime between 10-2 today. I'd also like to go to see "What to Expect when you Expecting" movie today, so I'm hoping they come sooner rather than later.

I feel as though our savings account is depleted, since our baby fund has been spent on items not necessarily for the baby but for the house. However, I know that I will get what I need through my baby shower and Brian said if we don't pay off the hospital bill right away he's not worried. The $1100 spent on furniture will be replaced in the baby savings account once I get my deferred pay in June. We found a great hotel to stay at in Melbourne Beach, with an ocean front suite, breakfast in bed package for $350. We are budgeting $250 for anything we want to do during our weekend getaway. And, once all is said and done, we will still be able to put an additional $1100 into the baby savings at the end of the summer again.

But I guess you really want an update on the babies huh?? :) :)

Well, since I last wrote, we discovered that Baby A is a Baby girl!!! We have our little Emily! :) Baby B was a very conservative baby at our last appointment and did not reveal itself. The technician took a guess and said girl as well, but not fore sure.

We will find out THIS Wednesday what Baby B is, how well each are growing, take a look at their organs. This is the big targeted 20 week ultrasound! :) We are excited and can't wait to share with everyone what they BOTH are!!

When we checked their heart beats Emily had a heartbeat of around 127, Baby B had a heartbeat of around 153.

I have been feeling them move more and more lately. At first they were little flutters, but now their more frequent and I feel them on both sides. I was hesitant to call my flutters them, but because I feel them more I totally know it's them. Baby B is more peaceful than Emily. Baby B doesn't often move, so when I get the opportunity to feel he/she move, I absolutely LOVE it! I know that Baby B is just more passive than Emily. :) Emily moves all the time. Flutters and rolls, it's fun!

I feel bad because I tell Brian that the babies are moving a lot and by the time he runs with his stethoscope over to me, it's too late. I want him to experience the fun in the baby movement, but he will have to wait a few more weeks I presume.

I am going to schedule our Lamaze class soon and our hospital tour. It is crazy how truly, our twins could come SOON! Of course everyone hopes to make it to 30+ weeks, but that isn't always the case. I'm not saying we WON'T make it til at least 36-38 weeks, but there are always possibilities of having the babies way too early. Either way, we are scheduling our Lamaze class and hospital tour for sometime in June (making me 24-26 weeks). I was also told that hospitals prefer if you're having twins to do all your classes by 28 weeks just for potential risks. With my Lamaze class I get 3 free additional classes. We are looking at a breast feeding class and a few others. :)

My mother in law, best friend, and sister in law are in cahoots about planning my baby shower. It's difficult since my best friend has a crazy summer schedule. I hope something gets worked out! :)

We are also checking into scheduling our 4D sonogram. We would like to schedule something for our 24-26 weeks time, but we shall see how crazy our June schedule gets! At least our vacation is being planned for July. :)

I'll check back in with you all after our appointment on Wednesday and let you know what Baby B is. And of course, tell you how everything is developing with both of them! :) I leave you with this:

12 weeks

         I'm so glad that throwing up is part of my daily routine now. LOL. Just kidding. But honestly, just when you think it's starting to go away, it comes back. However, it hasn't been a daily thing. This past week (between the 11 and 12 week mark) it went down to where I'd have 2 great days, then 1 bad day. I'll take that. :) Of course, as my symptoms go down I start to fret, thinking am I still pregnant? But I know God's in control.
   
     Not much has happened with me from the past 3 weeks. My stomach has gotten bigger, some bloat, probably some baby. I wake up with my bladder full and in pain until I use the bathroom.

    I just yearn to see my babies again. One week from today I get to see them again. I want to make sure they are good (I know they are), I want to know they're heart beats, their sizes. I want to see them wave and dance again. One week, April 3rd, and I'll see them again. Brian and I are crossing our fingers in hopes that they will share with us their predictions of genders. We would love that. :)

      I did forget to say: I don't have to use my progesterone or metformin anymore! Woo hoo! I started weening off of them on March 18th. That was glorious in itself. Going from 2 suppositories to 1 (not having to wake up in the middle of the night) and 2 horse pills down to 1 horse pill. Then my last suppository and pill was on the 25th.

     On Saturday, the 24th, Brian and I did some major baby prep! We broke down all of the adult furniture in the room, sold it to Seth (Meredith's brother), and then majorly cleaned the room. We cleaned out the closet (that had my sewing machine, Halloween costumes, an assortment of mess that we've collected). Then once the furniture was out of it and cleaned, we were able to get some dimensions and start planning out where we want stuff.

    My wonderful sister in law had 4 great coupons for 20% off one item at Babies R Us. So we are purchasing cribs in 2 weeks at a great price (cheaper than Target!). We're off to a running start with the babies room!            

  Well, that's my update for now. I'll be back next week with results from my next appointment! :)

The last month....

 Well, a lot has happened since we told our family and close friends that we were pregnant! Everyone we told was so excited for us to be pregnant! I'm so glad we told everyone around my birthday, it was the perfect timing.

Only a few people from work knew (3, 2 close friends and my sister in law), so I kept it quiet for some time longer. I didn't want anything to happen as we were still early in the first trimester.
Then 2/20 (President's Day Holiday), Brian and I had our first sonogram of the baby...

We arrive at Fertility Care, excited and anticipating what would happen. I was quite hesitant, because the night previous to our appointment I felt like I had miscarried. I just had this weird feeling...Well, the weird feeling was not correct. Prayerfully and Thankfully.

Dr. Trolice walked in, mind you the past month we've only been working with his nurse, thinking we were still only checking follicle size. As soon as he put the ultrasound wand into me he went, "Oh, never mind, you have a baby in there. Two babies." We said WHAT?!! And yup, he proved it right there. Two babies. Look at our first sonogram from the joyous occasion!

Baby A measured at 9mm and Baby B measured at 10mm. Both heart beats were beautiful at 144 bpm.

Immediately after our ultrasound and talk with the nurse, we called family. We were so excited to tell everyone that not only is there a grandbaby but there are GRANDBABIES! Everyone was so excited for us. We were still in shock up until about 8pm that evening. Then we were like, okay, ya, there's two. We told all of our friends who we told in person again that there were now two. We didn't want them finding out through the grapevine.

Then about a few days later we told facebook, with this picture:

We were also excited to tell my coworkers. Boy did that rumor-mill go around fast . I'm pretty sure 98% of the school knows, luckily I don't think the students do yet. I mean, I walk around with a barf bag, but haven't thrown up in front a student yet. LOL.

So these past few weeks have been an adjustment. I talked to an old coworker who had twins around my 7 weeks. Got some great advice and tips from her. Well, her story, she had uncontrollable morning sickness and had to take time off from work for it...Well up until that point I just had been nausea just never thrown up. The next morning, the start of my throwing up morning sickness. :(

I was fine with it, I knew the twins were growing then.

My symptoms from week 8 til now, morning sickness, tired, hungry every hour!! It's uncontrollable hunger!

Well, now I'm almost 10 weeks and since the Fertility doctor said we had graduated to our OB, we scheduled an appointment.

We had my appointment today at 1:40. :) We went into the ultrasound room and the ultrasound tech asked when my last missed period was. I told her I didn't know. She kind of hesitated and said how did I know an expected delivery date. I told her we did a medicated cycle. She was very confused because she was like well then you didn't do IUI or IVF so you wouldn't know. And I said, yes, we had a medicated cycle with timed intercourse. The Fertility clinic told us they expect conception to be the Saturday or Sunday in January, after our Ovidrel shot. She kept quiet and didn't question our EDD of October 7th.

Then she did our ultrasound. She confirmed there are still two growing babies in there :) Yay. She said we were about right on track with our due date, a little earlier. My app says I would be around 9 weeks 5 days, the babies measured between 9 weeks 3-4 days (one baby 3 days, another baby 4 days).

Then, the most adorable thing happened while were just watching the babies in my belly. Baby B started flipping around his hands and legs. It was like "it" was waving and putting a show on for us. It made my heart melt. I was like, what, it's alive, it's moving! LOL. Baby A had been quite still.  Then one last time, she went to Baby A for a few seconds...And Baby A joined it's sibling and started doing a little wave. My heart just fell deeper into love with these two beings. I think I LOVED that so much more than hearing the heartbeat. Just to see that they are not a blob being formed, or too small to do anything. They were moving for us!! Ahh, I wish we had it on tape!

 Brian and I agreed that we are SO glad we bought a 4-D sonogram that is taped and played to music. Because that little moment when they danced for us was just perfect. So to have an opportunity to see them when they're bigger dancing like that. Ahh, can't wait for it!!

Here's a picture of our sonogram today:

Baby A measures around 2.5cm and its heartbeat is 180 bpm. Baby B measures around 2.83cm and its heartbeat is 186 bpm. Still going great!!

Onto our next part of the OB appointment:
          The nurse, Gaye, then saw us after our ultrasound. She said "well..." and both of us were just happy. Not like jumping for joy we just found out we were pregnant or anything, just yay everything's going well. So I told her, "Yup, we're pregnant." She congratulated us and then I said, "It's twins." She gave us a big hug and was like "Obviously you guys knew because you aren't shocked or anything." We said nope, we knew from a few weeks ago and we're just glad that the babies are doing great.
  She gave us a few do's and don't's of pregnancy. She said my schedule may be a little different than a normal pregnancy, but primarily the same. She took my blood pressure (I presume normal, she didn't say anything). I got on the scale. It was actually about 16 pounds less than when I weighed myself at school in January. It's not a bad thing, because this will be my initial weigh and from now on they want to see weight gain. We got our welcome bag and a few more tips about what the next 8 months will look like (since I'm into my 2nd month now).
  Then we met with Dr. Merritt. I just love her. She's so easy to talk to and straight forward. She asked if I wanted Zofran for my morning sickness. I declined it. I'm not to the point where I need it. I throw up once or twice in the morning and then I'm fine besides nausea. She did give me a prenatal-like pill that has more B vitamins in it and some ginger in it. She said it should help and to take that for 2 weeks (and stop my prenatals until I'm finished with it). Also, if it wasn't working, she said, I should stop taking it. I can do that. :)

   And with that, we left. It was good. We were happy with everything. We go on Tuesday to discuss genetics of our family (which there is no problems). Then my next appointment is April 3rd. I'll be just about over my 1st trimester hump and in week 13.

The one decision we have to make is if we want to do a genetics screening. Now, that is different than an amnio. They don't see it necessary for that, but it was up to us for a genetics screening. We are still deciding, but of course, no matter what, we'd never terminate the pregnancy. SO, if you're pregnant and reading this:did you do a first trimester genetic screening? Let me know!

I should be 37 weeks around September 15th. I'm hoping to go that long, since a bulk of my pregnancy will be in the summer. Hence, I will be able to just relax and lay in bed from like week 20-week 32 or something like that! :)

Hopefully, I'll be posting more. I promise I'll try!

<3 -The Family of Four

P.S. The babies are the size of green olives! :)

The results are in....

The wait got the best of me. I tested early....
I tested on Saturday, January 21. And it was horrible. I was defeated and so you could tell the results....BFN. Big, Fat, Negative.

I was disappointed, but everywhere I looked said that testing THAT early was only 30% accuracy rate. I didn't even use first morning urine. Brian told me to wait until my test on Friday.

Well, the wait got the best of me AGAIN!

Brian said I could go ahead and test on Wednesday, 1/25. At that point it would be 13 days past ovulation, and the accuracy rating was over 80%.

Wednesday morning, I woke up. I had prepped everything the night before (got the cup, the test ready, ya know, lol)...And I take a hpt.

After a few short minutes (honestly, I would say it was seconds)... I got a.....

BFP!!! YUP! It was a light BFP! I woke up Brian, I hugged him, we prayed, we looked at the double lines! We rejoiced in this miracle!! Brian had a hard time seeing the faint line, but as the day grew on, you could see it clearly. It wasn't a line that you're like "uhm, I don't think there's anything there."

I was on cloud nine the whole day. Nothing could ruin my Wednesday! :)

Then, Brian wanted me to test again on Thursday. Why not, we had 3 tests, I had only used 2...we wanted to be 99% sure. So Thursday morning, I woke up, tested again. THIS TIME! It was DARKER! It was a beautiful thing!

Now, the only thing we needed to wait for was a confirmation from our doctor.

Friday AM comes around. We get to my doctor a little early (maybe 10 minutes), but they take us in right away. The nurse (not my nurse, but the nurse that draws blood) asked if we had done a hpt. We said yes. She said, "by the look on your face, it was positive." I said "Yup!." And she congratulated us. Then she said, well then the blood work should come back fine and then we'll schedule another appointment for blood work again next week.

 The crappy thing about it all, was that I went in, got blood work done, and was out by 8:03. My appointment time was at 8. I swear, they took us in at 7:55, and then bam done.

The second crappy thing about it all, was that they couldn't tell us the results right then,

So all day on Friday, I carried my phone with me. I knew what the results were...but I just wanted to verify and be ready for whatever they were going to tell me.

I got my phone call around 12:30. After a few times my phone freaked out and hung up accidentally, I finally got to talk with my nurse.

She told me, yes, I am pregnant. My hcg level was 81ml, which is good for a pregnant woman. I am not using my progesterone suppositories twice a day (oh joy, I loved sticking a wax bullet inside me nightly, now I have to do it nightly and in the mornings!) and I have to go back on Tuesday to check my levels.

My levels should be doubling every 2-3 days. So, 81 ml on Friday, 162 Sunday, 324 Monday, and anywhere between 324-648 on Tuesday.

My appointment is at 8:45 on Tuesday. Hopefully all goes well.

I'm counting any day from January 12-14 as the day of conception, which would leave me with an October 5th due date!

I had many symptoms....but I'm not sure if they were because of the progesterone suppositories or not. Such symptoms were: sore breasts, cramping, and nausea. What really stuck out to me, was Friday, 1/20, I woke up yelling in pain. I had such sharp cramps I couldn't control myself. Then, when I took the HPT the next day, there was nothing. I could have sworn that on Friday was implantation day. My body just needed a few extra days to produce hcg.

As of right now, according to babycenter.com, my baby is the size of a poppy seed (I'm writing this early, so I'm 4 weeks right now)...but when you read this, my baby will be the size of a sesame seed (you'll read this on week 5, after we tell family).

So, yes, I'm pre-writing this blog, but having it posted on Sunday, the 5th (today). Want to know why, well, we want to tell our family first.

It's been hard lying to everyone. This past week, we've had to tell people that the test was inconclusive, more tests were being done, we don't know anything...

However, today, when all the family is here...we are telling everyone! Want to know how we did it?

Well, here is the plan (and I'll share reactions later, once we actually tell them..remember pre-writing this blog)...

Gather everyone around to open my presents. I'll open everyone's presents, thank them, etc. Then Brian will say, "Hold on, I have one more present for you Kim." And I'll open it up. Inside is a t-shirt that says "First time Mommy" on it. I'll say, "Oh hunnie, this is soo cute" and hold it up for everyone to read! Then, after a few moments (if it doesn't click), I'll say, "I'm pregnant everyone!!!"

I'm hoping all goes well. Really, I am.

Then tomorrow, on the 6th, we're going to tell all my friends! I'm excited for that one...I'm even skyping in with my little sister, Sondra! I also can't wait to call my aunts, uncles, and cousins! :)

So, I'll let you know how the reaction goes and can't wait to share these next 9 months with you! :)