Welcome!

Welcome to our blog! Shew ... glad we finally got something going before the babies get here - I was afraid we wouldn't get it together and wouldn't be able to update everyone as much as we want to over the next several weeks.

Today has been a fast day and I'm thankful because today also marks the end of one month and the beginning of another. Can you believe that I've been here for a whole month already? Me neither. At times, it seems like forever and at others it seems as if it's flown. I was thinking yesterday about what physical things I've missed since being in here ... work, my house, my dog, going to church, cleaning, preparing for the babies, etc. But truly, nothing life changing has happened - except being here. And I'm being so serious about that. My life has changed and I'll never be the same. If you think I'm exaggerating, just spend a month only getting up to go to the bathroom and having hours upon hours to think and see what you come up with :) My perspective, my focus, my goals - all changed. And so I guess that's what I need to focus on - just being here and being content with being here.

At any rate, now that we've gone the serious route for a few moments, let's switch gears to talk about the events of today. As I said, it's gone pretty fast. For one, we took a tour of the NICU this afternoon and had a wonderful nurse explain what to expect when the twins are born. (For those of you who don't know our story, please feel free to read a synopsis at the end of this post.) So many tiny babies in a little separate nursery ... very humbling to say the least and it reminded us of why I'm here in the hospital. And praise God that I'm 29 weeks tomorrow! Another answer to prayer. They gave us all of the NICU rules, visiting hours, expectations, etc. I'm glad we did the tour because all of that information at once would be too much once the babies are here. This girl would have a serious breakdown if we didn't get acclimated to what's to come beforehand as much as possible. The only thing she didn't explain was the different machines and such - since we don't know what our babies will need, we don't need to know what every single thing in there is and I was thankful for that. That would have been definite overload.

We also went for our first weekly ultrasound around dinner time. Babies look good - again, they are both moving, practicing their breathing, heartbeats and dopplers are good (dopplers are the measurements of blood flow from the placenta through the umbilical cords to the babies). Baby A's fluid looks good and is back to normal at almost 4 cm. Baby B's fluid is still low, right around 1.6 cm, but this is better than last Thursday when they couldn't find any to measure. Obviously, hers tends to fluctuate a bit :) Doctors are still guessing that we'll make it to 32 weeks, which will be on April 14th (whose keeping track though, right?). Of course, there's no way to know for sure as anything could happen at any give time, but they will do another growth scan around April 9th. If either of the babies have fallen behind on the growth scale, then we'll talk about delivering them. If not, we'll wait some more. But from this point, the countdown is T - 5 weeks or less.

God is answering the prayers of his people and we are absolutely thrilled! Please don't take that to mean that if we hadn't made it this far that I would be indicating that God wasn't at work. I know he is working in our lives through this no matter what happens, but we just need to give him some praise for how he's growing our babies. We continue to be blessed by everyone who prays for us, sends cards, visits, etc. It would have been a lonely month without many of you!

And lest you think that I'm being crazy strong and don't struggle with being here, know that there have been many days when I've simply looked out the window and cried - for so many reasons. Because I want out, because I want healthy babies, because I want to know why, because I'm scared, because I'm thankful. You name it, I've probably felt it lately. I'm sure that Justin has had his own share of thoughts and prayers regarding the past few months as well. But each time God has met me here in this room and has reminded me of what he says in Psalm 62:

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

I don't say that to build myself up, but to say thank goodness God meets us where we are - otherwise what would be the point? He knows our deepest need and meets it every time whether we can see or feel it immediately or not. That's good.

Please continue to pray for Justin, myself and our babies. Justin has been amazing through all of this and such an encouragement to me. But he could definitely use your prayers as well as he continues to work away from the office quite a bit and stays here with me most nights. For the babies, continued growth and development. And at the moment, I need some patience. I snapped at the guy who came in this morning to take my temperature and blood pressure ... whoops!

Be blessed,
Kristi

As promised, a short timeline for any newbies:

October 2008 - found out we were expecting twins. there were actually three babies, but one did not begin to develop as the other two did. yeah, um, what?? surprise!

November 2008 - normal appointment and ultrasound

December 2008 - ultrasound showed low amniotic fluid for baby b and referred to hospital specialist for another ultrasound; given low odds for survival of baby b overall; spent one night in the hospital and five days on modified bed rest at home

January 2009 - more ultrasounds and things looking better; baby a and baby b growing; had some complications and couple of office visits which ended up being normal; scheduled regular monthly appointment

February 2009 - complications and issues beginning on 10th; stayed four nights in hospital and was put on bed rest at home after that; back in hospital two days later for same complications but released to bed rest at home after two days; five days later went for regular appointment and admitted to hospital on 23rd for remainder of pregnancy when I was almost 25 weeks along because my water broke

March 2009 - hospital stay continues and babies continue to grow despite water being broken and despite odds given for baby b way back in December - sweet!