We are Having Triplets

You read that right. We are still processing this information, but if I think about it too much, I feel like I'm going to stroke out, so I try not to think about it. Too much. All the time.

But we have had time to process and evaluate and we are OVERJOYED! Overwhelmed about all of the planning and medical things we will face in the next 9 months, but excited about eventually coming home with our babies.



When last I left you, I had just been released from the hospital after a paracentesis. They were predicting that I would need to be drained again because Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome takes a long time to resolve (through the first trimester) and requires scheduled draining to maintain.

We found out during my followup from the paracentesis with my fertility doctor that we were expecting twins!! YES! Perfect. We didn't know if we wanted 2 or 3 children and the decision was made for us by God and we didn't have to go through fertility hell again. YAY!

I went back to Nellis for my follow up appointment with Women's Health and my next scheduled appointment with intervention radiology for another paracentesis. I was basically back to normal (only up 6 lbs from my original weight) and were able to determine that I did NOT need another paracentesis, much to their shock and surprise. They wanted to do an abdominal ultrasound to see if there were any hidden pockets of ascites (more fluid hiding) in my abdomen. The OB started the ultrasound and found a few very small pockets of fluid, but determined it was nothing to worry about.

Then she says: So, how far along are you?

Me: About six weeks, I think.

Doc: Oooooh fun! Ok, lets see if we can see anything in there!

At this point, a new airman entered the room to observe the ultrasound. She asked if it was ok to sit in, as she was new and trying to learn more about her job. Of course, I was cool with that.

Doc (still doing the abdominal ultrasound): Ooooh look! There's a sac! Ooooh and there's another one! Twins!

Me: Yeah, we found out a week ago. We're excited!

Doc: (pauses) Oh, wait a second. Do you mind if we switch to a vaginal ultrasound and get a better look?

Me (thinking nothing of it): Sure!! Maybe we can see heartbeats!

They leave the room for a few minutes while I "get ready."

They come back in and the airman is looking rather excited. I eye her suspiciously.

Doc: Ok, here are heartbeats on the 2 right here! AND LOOK! There's another baby right up there hiding at the top of your uterus!

Airman: OH. EM. GEE. You're my first set of triplets!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!

AAAAAAND you could hear a pin drop.

There was NO SOUND IN THE WORLD for about 27 seconds. That poor airman was NOT met with excitement, but absolute TERROR.

And then Troy opened his fat mouth.

Troy: So what you're SAYING is, we have to think of ANOTHER name? That's like, THE WORST part.

My mind started going to million miles a minute.

DAMN YOU AND YOUR 30 MILLION SPERM COUNT, TROY!!! DAMN YOU! Oh God. We just outgrew our house. And our car. Why is Troy in the military? We are SO far away from any family and are going to have no help. Maybe I can convince my mom to quit her job. She loves me right? Oh thank God Troy's in the military. We have health insurance. Do we need more cribs? How long is a gestational period for triplets? Am I going on bed rest soon? Poor Avery. She'll never understand. Oh God. I need to do some research in my journals about developmental delays and the NICU. I knew I should've taken that continuing education class about NICU stuff. I can't breastfeed 3 babies. How are we going to diaper that many kids? I'm gonna have to keep using cloth. SO MUCH POOP. My mom was right. Avery needs to be potty trained ASAP. And transitioned to her big girl room. ASAP. Thank God we paid off our cars and have NO debt. I need to work my butt off while I'm feeling good. I'm not going to be able to work for about 6 months between bed rest and the NICU and getting adjusted with triplets. TRIPLETS. Is this real life?

I blacked out during the rest of the ultrasound. No joke.

The next thing I remember is the doctor putting her hand on my knee and saying "hey, are you guys going to be okay?" Like TOTALLY dead serious. She could tell I was about to lose it. Absolutely lose it.

My mom was out in the waiting room with Avery when Troy and I came out with the ultrasound pictures. I handed them to her and said, "well, I'm glad we're going to the buffet for lunch because I'm eating for four." Like total deadpanned facial expression.

My mom grabbed the ultrasound and started jumping up and down, clapping like a seal at Sea World.

I was in complete shock. Complete and utter shock.

SO.

We have known for about 3 weeks now that it's triplets. And we have processed. And feeling SO much better. Avery is currently with my parents in South Carolina having a great time gardening, going to the park, playing in the humidity sprinklers, and eating like a queen. We sent her home with my parents last week after my sisters wedding. She will be staying with them for 2 months.

We decided that this was best for us right now because I can work my tail off while I'm feeling good, save on childcare expenses, and do some things around the house that would be harder/take longer with Avery here. Things like:

- Car shop
- Add another bedroom to our house
- Switch all her stuff OUT of the nursery to a big girl room
- have a yard sale
- Save money

My parents are THRILLED to have her and are doing some things that are making Troy and I VERY happy:

- transitioning her to a "big girl bed"
- potty training
- eating meals NOT in a high chair
- getting in and out of her car seat without help

I am currently 8.5 weeks pregnant. Is it early to be telling? YES!!! With Avery, we didn't announce until we knew that she was girl, we waited so long. But now? We would rather have your prayers, thoughts, advice, and support than worry about anything bad that COULD happen.

So here is where I leave you for now. I will be keeping you all updated very frequently as I will start having frequent appointments with the high risk doctor in a few weeks. I have another ultrasound next week! One of Troy's co-workers wife had triplets last month and he gave me her contact info. We spent almost 2 hours on the phone and I'm sure she will be a WONDERFUL source of support and advice.

While I know the overall tone of this email is somber, we are very excited about our family growing. We are feeling very blessed and our families have been SO supportive. We just have a lot to consider and plan for the unexpected while we can :)


Any advice or resources are VERY welcome. We love you all and will be talking to you soon.

The name of this blog just got real. Like really real :) It's gonna be awesome. Pull up a chair and come along for the ride!

Our Easter Weekend

I am so thankful for my mom. She came out last wednesday after my paracentesis and helped since I was on "light duty." She scrubbed my whole house down, did all of our grocery shopping, all of the cooking, dishes, and took care of Avery while I laid on the couch. Oh, and did I mention she basically potty trained Avery? In a week? Seriously.

We managed to dye some Easter eggs too. And with all the potty training going on, Avery has only been wearing underwear...so sorry for that. Her little pudgy body is pretty cute though :)



Troy made the cool egg using a whisk. I thought Avery would be able to better dye eggs if we stuck them in the whisk and let her dye them. As it turns out, she only wanted to drop them into the cups and cheer if she heard the crack of the eggshell. Oh well.

Here's our finished products.



We also managed to make it to church!! YAY! My mom snapped some pictures of Avery and me. And Avery on the swing being adorable!!



She also took some of Troy and me with Avery. They didn't turn out so great. These are seriously the best ones. And they're pretty bad. In that second one it looks like Avery is trying to fly out of Troy's arms. Better luck next year, huh? A special thanks for Megan for sending some hand-me-downs to Avery to include her Easter dress!



On Easter, we had our small group from church over for brunch. Most of us are military or Las Vegas transplants, with no family around. We had a total of 15 adults and 8 kids. It was a little crazy, but we agreed to have a potluck (we made broccoli cheese casserole and fruit salad) complete with ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pasta salad, brownies, and cheesecake. YAY!! There's nothing like some good fellowship with food! And paper plates. No dishes :)

One of the other couples brought 70+ eggs for an Easter egg hunt stuffed with candy. We took a ton of pictures, but I didn't ask any parents if I could post pics of their kids, so you won't see the excited faces of any kids except my Avery :) She LOVED it and caught onto the idea pretty quickly. We didn't know how it'd go. Avery was the youngest and we kind of had to corral the other kids away from the "easy" eggs that we had hidden for her. Luckily there were so many eggs that everyone got a chance to collect a bunch. It was awesome. We will definitely be doing this again next year.



Overall, it was busy and so fun. I'm SO glad my mom was here to help with everything. Did I mention she planted all the flowers in our yard??

How did you spend your Easter?

Military Wife, Adoption, and Working from Home

I cannot tell you how much I admire this woman. They made the decision after lots of prayer and desire for a child to adopt. They are such a testament to the power of love, prayer, and putting family first.

I think that SO many people are:

1. Curious about adoption (especially for all my military friends)

2. Wondering about the process in your heart and effects on marriage and career

This is a GREAT read. Congrats to Marcus and Maureen on their growing family :) We miss you guys and trivia night!!

Here's Maureen's story:

I'm Maureen, and I'm happily married to my hubby Marcus, who is an Air Force officer. Our 12-week-old baby, Maxwell, is as cute and can be, and we're half way through the process of adopting him. We were blessed to be at his birth, and we love being new parents.

I both stay and home at home with Max and work. I'm working from home as a Financial Counselor teaching people how to handle their own finances by getting out of debt, budgeting, and saving/investing. On a side note, I have always appreciated when people have asked me about this as follows "Do you work outside the home?" It's a small thing, but it's made an impact on me every time I've heard it. It just seems kind and respectful over a delicate issue, especially for the 2 years that we were married without kids and I wasn't regularly employed outside the home.

Those two years were tough. When I married a military man (and moved right away), I knew that it was highly unlikely that my law career would go anywhere, so I made the decision to find another field and job that interested me and would be flexible with my hubby's constantly changing location and a hoped-for family. I considered all sorts of things - some related to law, some not. The base where we were stationed was on a hiring freeze, and I wasn't licensed in the state we had moved to. Moving right after getting married hasn't helped in general - I left my job, friends, our church, and felt rather alone in a new place and growing in a new marriage.

It took me about a year to land on Financial Counseling, but so far it's been a really great fit. It was weird to be back in "school", but I love the work. I find it practical with broad implications, and therefore fulfilling. I love that I can take it anywhere (even overseas!) and I can do it after my morning cup of tea or during Max's naps. I can take on more work or less as my schedule allows.

Is this the best choice for my family? So far this arrangement seems to work. I spent a long time in school - B.A., M.A., J.D. - and I've always been the goal-oriented, active and involved type. Maybe that's why, in theory, we're going to have 6 kids. In theory. I wonder sometimes if I'll still want to - or have time to - do Financial Counseling with a passel of littles (or bigs, as they will become). I wouldn't be surprised if I do want to continue it since I enjoy the challenge and the work. Even now, I find that the time focusing on putting someone else's financial affairs in order energizes me when I need to return to baby care. It probably has a lot to do with the satisfaction I get from completing a task or project.

Being a mom is a long and wide job with few landmarks along the way. Calculating how much someone needs to save to meet their retirement goal gives me a completed task with useful information in a couple hours.
More than number crunching, I just love being Max's Mama. The transition for us has been different from most since we're adopting Max. But I also think that our struggle to have a family makes us appreciate the blessing of it more - and perhaps more importantly, focus more on the fact that our baby is a blessing rather than bemoaning all of sacrifice and adjustments that come along with children. Sure, taking shifts on the living room couch because baby sleeps best on our chests and changing a poopy diaper at 2 am after JUST changing a diaper and having warm, curdled spit up flow down the front of your shirt and into your unmentionables when you need to leave the house is all annoying. I have definitely grunted in frustration and moaned aloud at getting out of bed in the middle of the night. Perhaps the kicker is that my time is no longer my own. Or at least it's thrown in my face now. That one hurts. But I know, deeply know, like it fills my whole being know that what I am dong here - what hubby and I are doing as parents - is eternal. It's not just poop, pincer grasps, and play dates. I am charged with caring for Max's soul. In humility, I hope that I am able to show Max every day that I love him because I've been so loved by Jesus. This is a heavy and exciting task, so it requires much of me, but I desire so much - so very much - to do this.
Important days with big questions and important talks will come, but right now, my favorite thing is insisting to Max that he's a genius. Really, though, Max has just started to laugh, so I tickle him a lot. I also like to smell his little baby head and rub my cheek on his soft baby hair.

I've found so much support in friends who have kiddos and work hard to raise them. This may be the biggest surprise of parenting for me - the great importance that my fellow traveler's companionship on the journey is. I've always been a "I'll figure out what I need to know and do it myself" kind of person, but parenting doesn't seem to lend itself to this approach. So I enjoy the time spent with these ladies. It's refreshing. But if I were to spend a day away from Max, a spa day is at the top of my list - lavender oil and lots of time wrapped up in towels, please!

I think - and hope! - that my choices to parent and work from home will positively affect our kids. I'm still early in this whole parenting thing, but the plan is to perfectly communicate to my children that they are very important to me without pandering to them or inflating their egos. So maybe taking time to work is good because they have to learn that Mama won't always be there for every little thing. We'll see how that turns out. Regardless, I know that I'll mess up, but I hope that my kids will have learned the importance of forgiveness so that our relationship doesn't suffer.

Regarding the hubs, he is wonderful beyond reason. He works hard and provides for our family. I support him in his career, he supports me in mine. It does not escape me that staying at home with Max is a luxury, and I'm grateful for it. Without a doubt, a great strength of my parenting is that it's really our parenting. We get that we both have a 100% responsibility to parent our small ones. Marcus gives Max a bottle not because he's doing me a favor, but because he's Max's dad. Knowing that we're doing this together gives me confidence, peace of mind, and, you know, even a sense of freedom. Don't think it's perfect! We, ah, disagree, sometimes emphatically, and I tend to over-express my emotions. But the transition to parenthood has been made easier for me in seeing that Marcus has taken on fatherhood enthusiastically.

Why is there such a big stay at home mom vs. working mom debate? I don't know - it's weird to me. I mean, I'd give moms - at home and at work - the benefit of the doubt that we all want to raise our kids well and give them good things. Maybe there's some elusive idea of giving them "best" things, but everyone defines that differently, so then there's no basis for comparison. So maybe that's what the fight is over - my best vs. your best. Is there an absolute best? Regardless, any choice we make to do something is simultaneously a choice not to do something. Opportunity cost, people! I'm not working as a lawyer, and if I were, I wouldn't be home with the kiddos all day. There's a loss on either side. I don't think it's valid or fair for me to become defensive over my choice or continuously bemoan the thing I gave up. That, lovely people, was a lesson long- and hard-learned. I spent many a day sad and sometimes mad over my job-less state and then many a day sad and sometimes mad over my baby-less state. As I was plunging headlong into bitterness, I learned that the only way out was to be grateful.

I had made a prayerful, thoughtful, and informed decision when I married a military man and decided to not practice law. So the best thing I can do is be thankful for the choice I've made - the good and the bad - and be glad that I had the freedom to make it. You're probably thinking it - trouble getting pregnant was not my choice. But I wouldn't trade what I've learned about God's goodness in the midst of sadness. Once, that sadness was overwhelming, but it becomes so small in seeing that, all along, Max was meant for us and we for him. So, yes, that is me with a baby on my lap, drinking a latte and getting a pedicure at 1:30 in the afternoon. And I'm enjoying every minute.