The Journey Continues...

Yesterday we had our first appointment with Dr. W, our new OB who specializes in multiples. We weren’t really sure what to expect from the appointment but I was excited to get more questions answered and meet our new doctor. Jeremy was able to get work off and met me there. We were crossing our fingers for an ultrasound so that we could just see those babies again! I wanted that reassurance again that they were still there and healthy.

The appointment seemed to go as expected at first. Dr. W answered a few questions and then we moved on to the ultrasound. I noticed right away that one baby seemed larger then the other but I waited for the doctor to tell us what we were actually looking at. He focused in on “Baby A” first. There was a clear outline of a head and body and you could see the heart beating. “Baby A” was very active and was moving around a lot. Dr. W said that although it made it harder to get good sonogram pictures, it was a great sign of a healthy baby. It was so fun to see what looked like an actual baby in there! I felt like I could relax a little bit. The heartbeat was normal at 160bpm and we got to see the baby’s arm and what looked like little feet too!

Then we moved on to “Baby B”. As Dr. W was searching to get a good view I mentioned that I noticed that at first glance “Baby B” seemed smaller. By his reaction I immediately knew something wasn’t right. He confirmed that he had noticed the same thing and then explained what we were looking at. There was really nothing about “Baby B” that looked like a baby. It was much smaller then “Baby A” and was in a much smaller sac too. There was no movement and Dr. W confirmed there was no heartbeat. He said that “Baby B” looked as though it has stopped growing at about 7 weeks and had miscarried.

At first we both seemed to take the news ok. I felt like I had known all along that this was a possibility so I guess in some way I wasn’t completely surprised. We had a lot more questions and Dr. W was great at gently delivering the bad news and encouraging us. He said that at this point we should expect that “Baby A” will be just fine. He wants to monitor me carefully over the next few weeks to make sure that “Baby A” continues to grow while the evidence of “Baby B” will shrink and ultimately will become what they call a vanishing twin. He also explained how, if all goes well, I shouldn’t experience the physical side of a miscarriage. If I do, that would put “Baby A” at risk of miscarrying also.

Here’s “Baby A”:

And here is “Baby B” (Notice the scale on the right side - this picture is zoomed in much closer then the pic of "Baby A"):

Once the nurse and Dr. W left the room, we both just lost it. We just sat there and cried. We had sonogram pictures of both “Baby A” and “Baby B” and we kept looking at them and the difference was so clear. I finally had to tuck them away in my purse so we could try and pull ourselves together enough to leave the office!

Needless to say it turned out to be a difficult night for us. We spent a lot of time making phone calls to our parents and texting people to let them know and ask for their prayers. It was not the kind of news we wanted to have to share. I am an optimistic person and always seem to find a way to look on the bright side of any situation or trial I am faced with. I kept thinking things like, “Well, at least I can look forward to a more normal pregnancy,” and “I guess this means we won’t need to buy a bigger car after all.” And of course I don’t want to overlook the fact that even though we’ve lost one baby, I’m still pregnant! But it felt weird to talk about good things when really I was just sad. I think my dad said it best. He said, “Honey, that’s a good trait to have, but it’s ok. It’s ok to be sad today. Tomorrow you can be happy but it’s ok to be sad today. And we’ll be sad with you.” I don’t think Jeremy or I has cried that hard in a very long time. Actually, I don’t think we’ve ever cried that hard together until now.

As I was writing one of my posts from a few weeks ago, I wrote this:

“Have I mentioned how good God is yet?! I love living a life dedicated to Him. It’s filled with so much more joy and excitement then I could dream up for myself! Sure there are trials and life is not always easy or perfect, but it’s so worth the blessings!”

I ended up taking it out of the post because it didn’t seemed to flow with the rest of what I had written. But I kept it because I knew I wanted to say it at some point when it would fit better. Jeremy has been my “blog editor” to help keep me from getting too long winded and to minimize my tangents (I’m a master at “spiderwebbing” in conversations!) After I told him I was going to omit that part we started talking about how easy it is to praise the Lord in good times, but that it is a true test of our faith if we can still praise Him during our trials. I told him how I had felt a little convicted after writing it because I wasn’t sure if I would still feel that way if we were faced with another trial. I specifically used the example of if we were to lose one or both babies. He gave me that look that said, “why are you thinking about that”, but he also agreed. We both agreed that would be our prayer. That no matter the circumstance in this pregnancy or anything else in life, good or bad, we wanted to be able to praise the Lord for His divine and perfect plan. Life is not always easy or perfect. I don’t understand why God decided to take one baby away. But what I do know is that God is still good and His plans for my life are still filled with more joy and excitement then I could dream up for myself.

My First Prenatal Appointment

I had scheduled my first prenatal appointment on the exact day that would mark Week 10 of being pregnant. Both Jeremy and I were so excited and we didn’t want to wait one extra day to get things rolling! Our doctor had been the one who had helped us in the beginning stages of diagnosing our infertility but he then referred us to a specialist so it had been a while since we had seen him. He is such a great doctor, an all-around nice guy and was so great with us when we were going through the difficult part of this journey. He has delivered many of our friends babies and he reassured us that when we did get pregnant that he would love to be our doctor. I couldn’t wait to share with him our story and have him as our doctor!

The appointment seemed to go just as I had expected. Dr. C was excited to see us there and answered all of my questions. One of the questions I asked was how he recommended preparing for labor and if there was a particular method he recommended. I just told him that I wanted to avoid a C-Section at all costs (surgery freaks me out!) He reassured me that only 20% of labors result in a C-Section and that we shouldn’t have anything to worry about at this point.

Then we moved on to the Doppler and ultrasound. Dr. C said he would start by listening for the baby’s heart beat and then we’d do the ultrasound to actually see what was going on inside! I couldn’t wait! This was the part that we both felt would really finally confirm that YES, we are pregnant! But once I laid back he changed his mind and went straight for the ultrasound. Jeremy picked up on this little switcheroo and thought it was odd but I was so anxious I don’t think I was hearing a word anyone said. He turned the ultrasound screen on and moved that wand around a few times but didn’t say anything at all. It seemed like 15 minutes of silence but it was probably only a matter of seconds. I just wanted to hear that confirmation that there was a healthy baby in there! All the sudden he said in a surprisingly calm voice, “Oh my goodness.” followed by more silence.

Not what I was expecting, nor what I wanted! Jeremy was holding my hand and I just squeezed it. Just tell me there is a healthy baby in there!!

He moved the wand over to the left side of my stomach and said “Are you guys seeing this?!” I actually wasn’t seeing it very well since I was laying back and of course I had never looked at an ultrasound before so I had no idea what I was looking for! Then he pointed to the screen and said, “Well, here is a baby. Can you see the heart beating?” Jeremy got excited and confirmed that he saw it. I couldn’t really tell. Then he moved the wand over to the right side of my stomach and said “And here is another baby and it’s heart beating!” Ummm, what?!

OH.MY.GOSH! We’re having twins! SHOCK.OF.MY.LIFE!

As shocked as I was, I do feel like there was a small part of me that knew that all along! My Grammy Carol is an identical twin and there was always conversation about whether there was a “twin gene” passed down in our family when I was growing up. My sister and I even talked about it and wondered if either one of us would ever have twins. There are also a few sets of fraternal twins on the Sanchez side. To some extent I think feeling like you might be having twins probably normal. The idea of twins seems so amazing and what could possibly be more adorable then a newborn baby… well, two newborn babies of course! But then there was that drawing in the book of the mother nursing twins that I pointed out to Suzie or the joke that I made to Jeremy about twins being the only explanation for how sick I felt. I even prayed one time when we were waiting on the Lord to bless us with a baby that He would use this circumstance in our life to clearly show himself strong so that when we finally did get pregnant it would be so obvious the work He did in our lives, even if that means twins! Really, I should have known all along. Even the title of this blog that I named back in December seems even more perfect now! When the Lord blesses, He blesses big!

So then came another round of phone calls. It was like announcing we were pregnant all over again, but this time with even more shocked reactions, screams and a lot of laughter! We couldn’t be more excited about our “double blessing”! I’m the most scared and yet the most excited I think I’ve ever been in my whole life. Turns out the doctor skipped the Doppler and went straight to the ultrasound because my stomach seemed a little larger then normal for 10 Weeks! I think he was silent at first because he was checking for both heartbeats to confirm that both babies were healthy before saying anything. I’m glad he did it that way! Dr. C also informed me as we finished up our first appointment that carrying twins means my chances of a C-Section just increased dramatically. But now I just don’t seem to care about that as much. He did have to refer us to a specialist since twin pregnancy (and higher order multiples) is considered high risk. I’m bummed to lose the doctor we were so excited to have in the first place, but the good news is, he’s a family practitioner, so once the babies (that is weird to say!) are born, he’ll be their pediatrician!

After this post I will officially be caught up to "real time" so I promise I'll start adding pictures, some non-baby related posts and I do my best to make them shorter! :)

Sharing the News!

It took days for the news to really settle in. Am I really pregnant? Is this real?! I was feeling a little guilty that I was so shocked. We had prayed with such expectation that God could do this so why was I so surprised when He did?!

We waited a day to let it all settle in, and then the phone calls began. That is when the chaos started and it has yet to slow down. It was so fun to tell our family and friends. We got some great reactions as I think everyone was just as shocked as we were.

Emma was the only one that wasn’t quite sure how to respond. She said she wasn’t sure if she was ready to be Aunt Emma just yet. And let’s be honest, at 7 years old, who is ready to be an Aunt!? Since I’m not due until the fall, I promised her she wouldn’t be an Aunt until she was in the second grade, just so she’d know she had some time to think about it!

We got to share the news over Skype with Traci and Toney and that was great! They were about 12 weeks pregnant themselves at the time and we had all been praying that just maybe the Lord would allow us to be pregnant together. Let’s just say there were lots of tears and screams!

On Saturday we walked over to Isaac and Suzie’s house to share the news with them. That was a funny moment! Their two older girls, Emmy and Joelle, were supposed to be in the middle of a nap but were having too much fun playing to sleep, so when we got there Isaac was upstairs with them. Suzie was in the shower and it just seemed like a bad time for us to stop by and hang out. But we couldn’t wait any longer to share the news with them! So Jeremy just blurted it out to Isaac, “Dude, we’re gonna have a kid!” (That seemed to be his phrase of choice in announcing the news!) He immediately went to get Suzie out of the shower. I think he said something along the lines of “You’ve got to get out of the shower right now and come downstairs. Jeremy and Natalie are here and have something to tell you!” Of course she figured it out right way and came racing downstairs pretty shortly after. We all just laughed and then Suzie shared her pregnancy “library” with me. She had all the books I could have wanted and I’m so thankful she was willing to pass them on! One of the first pages I flipped to in the book What to Expect When You’re Expecting was a page with a drawing of a mother nursing twins. I laughed, showed the picture to Suzie and said “Wow! That looks overwhelming!” If I only knew…

Sharing the news seems to be just one of the many exciting and fun parts of being pregnant, but along with the good comes the bad! Just as we had made all the phone calls to our parents, grandparents, siblings and a few friends (wow, that cell phone bill was out of control!) the infamous pregnancy symptoms started to set in. First came the exhaustion – extreme exhaustion – and then the unsettled rumbling stomach. (No morning sickness yet, and from what I understand, that is something to be thankful for!) I was feeling downright miserable and for some reason I felt guilty about it. Everyone that I talked to kept reassuring me how normal these feelings were but there was nothing NORMAL about how I was feeling! I kept thinking that maybe my body was just not responding well to being pregnant, that maybe I’m not cut out for this! No amount of sleep seemed to be helping and even just sitting upright was wearing me out! My house was quickly becoming a mess but I just couldn’t seem to function at all! Week 7 came and went, then Week 8 and Week 9 and I still wasn’t feeling good. People kept promising me that I’d start feeling better in the second trimester, at week 12 or 13, but that seemed sooo far away! At one point I jokingly told Jeremy “I swear my symptoms are even worse then anyone understands. I better be having twins because there is just no other explanation for this!” I couldn’t wait for my first doctor appointment at Week 10 to ask if there was anything that could help!

Our Journey Thus Far

As I mentioned in my last post, there were some personal things going on our lives that never made it on our blog in its short-lived beginning. Well, it actually started the summer of ’08 but I’ll spare you too many details…

We finally decided we were as ready as we’d ever be to expand our family. We had waited longer then we ever thought we would but we felt great about being able to buy our first home before taking the next step. But month after month went by and nothing changed. Still not pregnant. Growing up I always had this quiet fear that maybe I couldn’t get pregnant. I’m not sure why I thought that but I also thought it was probably a normal fear that any girl who hoped to one day be a mother might have. The longer I waited the greater my fear got, and the more I knew that I just needed to find my strength in Jesus. God promises that He will give us the desires of our heart if we seek after Him, but he never promises that He’ll give us everything we want in life, in the exact way and at the exact time that we want it. He was teaching me to be patient and to trust in His plans for me and not my own!

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

Once we hit the 12-month mark we started seeking information about infertility. I must admit that this was a low time in my life. Really, it was a low time for both of us but thankfully God used it to strengthen our marriage. This was definitely the largest trial God had ever placed before either of us. After many doctors appointments it was confirmed that I was actually perfectly healthy (a huge relief) and a simple vein surgery for Jeremy may be all we needed (this is where I’ll spare you the details!). Finding out what was keeping us from getting pregnant was on one hand such a relief. We had some answers, some specific things to be praying for and a plan of action. However, it definitely came as a shock and was an emotional time for us. Again, the Lord was teaching us to seek after Him and trust in Him!

Jeremy had his surgery in December ’09 and it was as good of an experience as you could hope for when it comes to surgery. What seemed like such a simple, routine outpatient surgery proved difficult in recovery but Jeremy was such a trooper! I’ll never forget one of the first things he said as the anesthesia was just beginning to wear off. After multiple times of opening his eyes with a look of panic on his face, trying so hard to lift his head and sit up only to quickly flop back down in the hospital bed, he looked at me and said in the sweetest voice “Can we have a baby now?”. Oh I just lost it! I sat down next to him and just cried. I couldn’t understand how I could be so blessed with such an amazing husband who had the desire to be a father almost more then I desired to be a mother and yet God was still giving us this trial! I wasn’t angry, I just couldn’t make any sense of it! I knew He must have something bigger for us then we could see. And that was my prayer. That when this process came to some sort of conclusion that God’s work in our lives and in this trial would be sooo clear that even our friends and family who don’t believe in Him would see it! I couldn’t wait to give Him all the glory!

But now we were back to the waiting process. We were told that it would take some time, that the odds were in our favor but that there was no guarantee that we would get pregnant. We were also told that it would take a minimum of 3 months before we’d see any improvement at all, and that most couples with this type of infertility don’t get pregnant until at least 5-10 months after surgery, if at all.

Then came February. It had only been 2 months so we weren’t expecting much, but in my heart I knew God was bigger then any of these trials and ultimately we would get pregnant in His timing (if it were His will for us), no matter what the doctors said about our “chances”. My cycle was running behind schedule but at first I didn’t really think much of it. There had been many months where this was the case and it was proving to be just more challenge in trying to get pregnant. They say timing is everything but it was impossible for us to predict! Once I hit day 41 I finally allowed myself to buy a pregnancy test. Most women would know they are pregnant if they reached 41 days but not me! Long story short, I got 3 negatives and even a negative blood test result! This was the first time I had actually allowed myself to cry after a getting a negative. It was also the first time that I really believed I was pregnant, which is why it took 3 negative home tests and a negative blood test to convince me that I wasn’t. This was the lowest of all my lows!

March rolled around making it 3 months since Jeremy’s surgery and he went in for another test to see just how successful it was. On April 1^st we got the results back. There were signs of small improvement, but according to the doctor, it wasn’t significant enough to get pregnant (at least not yet). The doctor was honest, but also encouraged us that this was to be expected and that we should just continue to wait and things should keep slowly improving. Although it wasn’t perfect news, Jeremy and I talked about it, prayed about it, and decided that we would try to be patient and give it a few more months before we would consider attempting any fertility treatments or adoption. I just really wanted to get pregnant and I really wanted it to be “unassisted”!

My cycle was late again, and 41 days late exactly on the day of that doctors phone call. That was nothing new for me though and I wasn’t about to even allow myself to start thinking I might be pregnant. I just went through all of that! A few more days went by and still nothing. I was starting to get upset that we might have a new issue to face in this journey of infertility and that maybe I wasn’t as perfectly healthy as they thought. So on Tuesday, April 6^th I sent Jeremy a text and asked him to pick up the cheapest pregnancy test from the grocery store on his way home from work. There was no way I was going to spend $7 on another fancy test just to tell me what I already knew… “Not Pregnant”. However, a small amount of hope was starting to creep in on me so I figured this was the only way to squash that and be back in reality. (Don’t ask me where this pessimism came from; I’m typically a “glass-half-full kind of girl”!)

Now previously, the few times I had purchased a pregnancy test I would race home and take it right away, anxiously waiting those 3 minutes for the results and they never seemed that clear. This was different though. I wasn’t taking the test to find out if I was pregnant, I was taking the test to confirm that I wasn’t. So, once Jeremy got home we ate dinner, watched some TV and got ready for bed all while that little box sat in the grocery bag on the counter. I had almost forgotten about it until I poured myself a glass of water in the kitchen and went to shut off the light. There it was. Jeremy was taking the garbage out so I thought that was the perfect chance to run to the bathroom and take it real quick. Last time he practically broke down the bathroom door while I was peeing on the darn thing because he wanted to see the results so bad! This way I knew I could take the test in private and then gently deliver the negative results so he wouldn’t have to wait impatiently like last time. The lines started showing up almost instantly. But I couldn’t tell if I was reading this stupid cheap test right. Was a plus sign positive? My heart was pounding and I was fighting back tears but I was sure I was reading this thing wrong. I knew I wasn’t pregnant, the doctor had just told us we wouldn’t be for a while! (In hind sight it seems pretty obvious that of course plus and positive go together!) I kept checking the diagram on the box and looking at the test back and forth. Why can’t I figure this out?! I heard Jeremy walk back inside and I just stood there in our bedroom, frozen and crying. When he walked in he was confused. I think he forgot about the test too. He was ready to start consoling me until I blurted out “What does this say?!” He grabbed the test out of my hand and proceeded to do the exact same thing I did… compare the diagram to the test back and forth, back and forth. I kept saying “I think that’s positive! Is it positive?”

Neither one of us was really sure, so Jeremy did the only thing he knew to do in a situation like this… call is older sister Jen in Seattle. (He also happened to call her on the second day of our Honeymoon to ask her a question… but don’t worry, that was about what he should do about the swollen eye that the gardenia I had worn in my hair had given him!) Of course Jen stayed calm and reminded Jeremy that it was hard for her to tell without looking at the test herself, but that it sounded like it might be positive. So, to be sure, he took a picture of the test with his phone and texted it to her! (I can’t believe we did that! Sorry Jen!) The text seemed to take a few minutes to go through so while we were waiting for Jen’s confirmation, we decided to drive to the store at 11pm and buy a different brand. Forget this horizontal and vertical line business, we needed to see that word “Pregnant” to know for sure. So I filled up my water bottle and starting guzzling as we drove to the store. I laughed at myself because I felt like I was experiencing first hand the opening scene from the movie Juno. If only I had some Sunny D!

While we were driving, Jen called back and said “Yep, that says pregnant for sure!” I couldn’t believe it! Was this real?! I had to see that word! So we bought the second test anyway and sure enough, we’re pregnant! And 6 weeks at that! Once again, God has shown Himself strong! His plan is bigger and better then any of our dreams! Why did I ever doubt that?

(So much for sparing you too many details, huh? I promise I did spare some!)

Back to Blogging

I started this blog back in December '09, when we first got our MacBook, as a way of practicing for the blog I planned to create when I started my wedding planning business (Blue Bird Event Design). Blogs seem to be a popular thing, especially in the wedding industry and since I really didn’t know how they worked I thought I’d try a personal one first. I never told anyone about it and that turned out to be a good thing because I had already abandoned it by the beginning of January! Journaling has never been something I’ve been good at nor consistent with so I’m not sure why I thought a public journal would be any different! Not to mention the fact that I just didn’t have much to say. At the time, our lives were busy with what seemed like the same old usual stuff (work, work and work), and a few personal things that we didn’t care to share on the internet. Nothing that seemed exciting enough to expect other people to actually take the time to read about. Well, things have certainly changed!

It seems like whenever Jeremy and I are at a point in our lives where change is on the horizon, God likes to shake us up a bit and remind us that it’s not about our own plans, but what He has for us. And He sure has kept His promise that His plans are much bigger and better then what we could even dream up for ourselves. It all started with us graduating from college together, getting married, moving to Utah and both starting new jobs all within 5 months time. Then there was a long calm before the next “storm”. Recently I quit my stable job and started a business. Shortly after that we found out I was pregnant! And let me just say, the surprises haven’t stopped since! (More on all that and why the title of this blog seems all the more fitting soon!)

So that is what brings me back to this abandoned blog. I figure no matter how horrible of a writer I think I am or how inconsistent a journal-er I have been, I just need to suck it up and document this crazy wonderful time in our lives. I know I’ll look back on this later and be so thankful for the preservation of memories that I can pass on to our children. Living away from our family is harder now more then ever as I so wish that you all could be more a part of this process with us. However, that just makes me even more thankful for the wonderful friends and “family” the Lord has provided us with here! So, hopefully this blog will help preserve some memories but also serve as source of information for our long distance loved ones (and maybe that will save us a little on our cell phone bill because our budget just got insanely tight!)