the full scoop.

oh my stars.  thank you for sharing in our JOY about the twins.  i'm going to give the

whole scoop here to answer some of your questions & mostly because this is as close to a 

baby book as i'll ever get.  for any of our children. 

so.  i knew i wanted to switch doctors this time.  even though the last practice had been with

me through 4 [hard] pregnancies, i never felt like i had the kind of experience that i longed for.

namely, during labor.  some of that had to do with the their beliefs, a lot of it had to do with the

OB hospital staff.  i began questioning around what OB practice around was really naturally 

minded.  i kept getting the same answers of these 2 midwives about 45 minutes away.

formally being a registered nurse, it is hard sometimes to combine my medical brain with

my natural heart and i was really hopeful that they were that.  i called in january and couldn't

get in to see them until march!  i added up the weeks and would be 15 weeks by then.  it was 

worth it to me.  i'd done this pregnancy thing before and knew what to do these weeks of waiting.

so, we waited.

with my previous 4 pregnancies, i've had hyperemesis also.  hyperemesis isn't widely studied,

but one of the theories of why a woman is so sick is because her hormone levels are so high.

well, yes...mine have always been really high.  so, after that initial blood draw, they would 

send me right over for an ultrasound to check if it was multiple babies.  every time i've had

that ultrasound by 6 weeks and there was each of our little ones in there by themselves.

so even though i knew that the hyperemesis this time could be related to multiple babies,

i more just thought it was related to being me.

3 people this pregnancy have told us that we're having twins.  our pastor of missions and really

great family friend told matt at one of their church league basketball games.  when our family

was in uganda, the pastor came up to me during the well dedication and told us that we are

having twins.  and our sweet, little clayton has said for a couple months that,

mommy has one boy and one girl in her belly!

so, fast forward to last monday, march 5th.  we go meet this midwife.  i love her.  i

love what she has to say about the hospital staff and how my experience could

be there and i love that she doesn't think i'm crazy when ask about a home birth.  she says

that she'll give me names of who could do that, we could see them & then make a decision.

we do the whole interview/question thing and then go in the room for the exam.

she has already said that my ultrasound will be at 21 weeks at the hospital.

when we get into the room, i see an old ultrasound machine & after she leaves, i tell

matt that i wish she'd just peek really quick.

the midwife comes back into the room and is chatting while setting up her things.

matt casually says, 3 people have told us we're having twins this time.   she laughed

and said, well, let's just have a quick look.  she put the ultrasound wand on my belly

and i instantly saw 2 heads.  the midwife said, i'm not the best at ultrasounds, but that's

two babies!  matt says that here i screamed in joy!  i don't know what i said, but pretty

sure it was HOORAY!  i then proceeded to giggle and giggle and giggle.  

[the twins at 15 weeks. the picture closest to us is looking down on the top of their heads.]

 the midwife was laughing, too, but asked me to please stop so she could look again...

she couldn't do it with my belly bouncing everywhere in laughter.  i couldn't stop looking

at them and smiling.  then, suddenly, i began trying to do the math of how many kids

we were going to have.  it seriously took me a minute.  finally, i figured it out and turned

to matt,  babe! we have 9 kids!  he laughed and said that he knew and then he might have

[jokingly] asked the midwife if they served margaritas there.

it was a quick, little peek at them....but it was so fun.  i do remember waking up that morning

to get ready for my appointment and thinking to myself that it was the last day i would

wonder if it was two.  so, my due date is august 28th.  i was 15 weeks at that appointment

and measuring 20 weeks.  although we won't consider a home birth now, i'm still

hopeful for a really natural one & am thankful to be working with this OB practice.

[thank you, erin & sarah!]  we were not going to find out the baby's gender, but with

two now?  we totally want to find out.  we left and called our families.  that was fun.

matt & i went to lunch and just smiled and talked about it all. 

it is a LOT, but we couldn't be more excited and grateful.

when the kids got home from school we served them a snack with 2 strawberries,

2 grapes, 2 apple slices, 2 orange slices and 2 jelly beans.  we let them try to guess why.

after several guesses, chloe's face LIT UP and she guessed it right.  they all whooped and 

hollered in excitement....it was really fun.  they are all really excited about it and it's been

especially neat to talk with nico and jude about it.  nico remembers when jude was born and

a little baby so that has really been some sweet conversations.  honestly, i think God is 

hilarious, but never wrong.  we pray that He is, of course, working in each of our nine

children's lives & hearts, but also that He would use this double blessing in a very special

way for bonding & grafting together our family even more for His glory.

our family will have grown by 4 in less than a year!

[i'm giggling again.]

this is crazy.  and awesome.

16 weeks.