10 1/2 weeks!

Another ultrasound down! You guys looked great! Moving all round and waving! Baby A you are measuring 11 weeks with a  heartbeat of 167 and Baby B you are measuring 11weeks and 1 day with a heartbeat of 174! Pretty amazing. Stephanie is doing well. She crashes about 3 pm out of exhaustion but other than that she is doing well!! So excited!!! I will post pics once Stephanie has time to send them to us!

Practice

 I was trying to get a pic for our Christmas card! I ended up using the picture below for one of the pics on the card! We had a lot of fun trying to get a cool shot!

10 weeks

Check out these little blessings! They are growing perfectly! Love them so much and just can't wait to hold them in my hands!

It went way tooo fast

 Kaitlyn and I set off for Texas together! We were able to spend 2 nights with S and her family! It was a whirlwind of a trip!

 Had to stop for a whataburger!

 I taught the girls Mr. Chinagins.......

 Then they wanted some facial hair. They ventured out to a restaurant like this! No shame!

 S has 6 kids so Kaitlyn was in heaven!

 And we got to see our two babies that are growing in S's belly! She is doing awesome taking care of these two bundles! She is growing the for us! I can't wait until we get to hold them! 9 weeks in this picture! Looking forward to going back to hang out!

Bleeding

So I think I have kinda been waiting for the shoe to drop! With our last 2 journeys not ending how we had wanted we are kinda of edge! I have been letting my self get excited though lately. I can't help it! When people ask me at work I won't lie so several have found out and I believe the entire unit knows now but they are waiting for me to tell them!
So while we have been away skiing, S has been having some bleeding! She didn't call us until she was able to make it to the doctor! She is 8 weeks. The bleeding has stopped. The bleeding is more normal in twin pregnancy and we have nothing to worry about at this time! Both babies are doing great. Still with a two day difference which is fine and right as it has been. One is measuring 8 weeks 1 day and the other is 7 weeks 6 day! Their heartbeats are perfect and there is no blood in S's uterus! The doc was able to see the umbilical cords as well! Everything is perfect! God is watching over all three of them! We have so much to be thankful for! We are blessed!!

getting big

Our babies are 7 and 1/2 weeks old! They are growing perfectly. Baby A is measuring 7 weeks 6 days with a heartbeat of 159 and Baby B is measuring 7 weeks 4 days with a heartbeat of 163! they are perfect!!

We told the kids

I couldn't keep it a secrete! Kaitlyn already had an idea! We sat them down and explained that we need to pray for Stephanie's strength and the babies growth. So now if I finish a prayer and haven't asked the Lord for these two things, then Conner completes my prayer by asking our Heavenly Father for these. I LOVE it! Such a tender heart! They are beyond excited! I don't know if they believe it yet because we have told them 2 other times before and have lost those babies! Boy are they going to have a huge adjustment when these babies come!
Kaitlyn is going to come with me to the 9 week apointment. The babies will be 9 weeks the day we are there and go for an ultrasound! So exciting! I am excited for her to meet Stephanie's family! She will love all the kids!
Conner was talking with me the other day and said, "isn't it weird how Kaitlyn was the only one in your belly. I was in Promise's, Lily was in Sheila's and the twins are in Stephanie!" I love how it is no big deal to him! He knows he is ours and he is fine with it! I praise God for that!
The list above are names Conner came up with for the babies. A boy's list and a girl's list!

Heartbeats!

Our first ultrasound showed the two sacs! WE had a repeat ultrasound that friday (first was tues) we saw both babies and we could see their heart beating! The next ultrasound was on the following tues so we were able to hear the heart beats. IT was amazing! The are both measuring right on track! 6 weeks and 3 days and 6 weeks 4 days. Something like that. That day we were 6 weeks 4 days along! Next ultrasound in a week! Whoo hoo!! God is GOOD and FAITHFUL!!
Stephanie has been really nauseated! One good thing is she got to stop taking the bum shots! That was the worse part she said! So painful she couldn't go anything!! Week by week we are getting there! What a journey this has already been now with TWINS who knows what to expect! Only God and that is good enough for me!

And the results are in.............

ITs TWO!!!!!! YEPPER! TWINS

We were able to facetime during the ultrasound! It is soo nice! Stephanie has her best friend Megan go with her to the appointments! I love these two! They are so funny together and treat me as if we have all be friends since grade school! It is just fun! I can't wait to go back and visit next week!
Isn't God amazing???? I am in AWE!!!! So very excited!

445

1002

3038

Yep those are our beta numbers!! They are crazy good!! We were hoping for our first beta over 100. Then it needed to double on the second beta and double again for third beta!! People are saying it looks like twin numbers!!! How cool will that be! I actually had a twin dream the other day! I never remember any of my dreams but this one was vivid!! So  so so very exciting! We are praising God! He is amazing!!

HPTs

S started taking the home tests 5 days after the transfer. She had bought some hpt in bulk on amazon. Those didn't work! She switched to some other and LOOk what we saw. Crazy huh?  Look close and you can see the faint line! now we just have to wait for her blood work. the betas!!! Waiting again!

superstitious

S had heard that pineapples and Mc D's fries are a sure fire way to get our little babies to STICK in her uterus!!

So sweet

 S and I exchanged gifts after the transfer! Very sweet of her! She found me this "believe" necklace! I have been very cautious with my feelings and worried things might turn out like our last journey but she wanted to remind me to BELIEVE!!

profile

So here are our two little peanuts!! Aren't they cute!!?? I can already see Tim's nose!

Transfer day

 How totally exciting! I flew out by myself, S picked me up at the airport and I got to spend the night with her and her family! They are great! We had a nice dinner out with just the two of us so we could chat! It was great getting to know her better! It is the start of a "beautiful friendship".  We were so excited! S had to drink tons of water for the transfer but it wasn't enough even though she thought she might explode! She is a champ. The doc had to fill the rest of her bladder. It was again soooo awesome to see our two little miracles as they were put into S's uterus!!! Crazy exciting!

 We were wearing our "lucky socks" for the the transfer!

 Dr. Skorupski was great through all of this! We are very thankful for him and oh so thankful for our nurses who worked with us and answered all of our questions and reassured us. This is a pic after our babies were in S!!! Crazy again huh?

Stephanie

While we were in TX, we were able to meet our amazing, gestational carrier, and her family! They really are a gift from God! She has 6!! yes, 6 kids of her own. They range from freshman in college to 3 years old! They are a fun family to hang out with! We met at their house and then headed out to dinner! They were so sweet and paid for the entire dinner!! We have never had that happen during a first meeting! It was pretty awesome! ;0)
Her body did not sync up with mine so we are "freezing" our 2 little babies and will wait until her body is perfectly ready!! more waiting! :0) God is in control!

Trigger

So tim and I got to hang out in TX without the kids. Grandma came and took care of them for us! We waited around a couple days so that my little eggs were ready. As we waited, we did nothing but sleep, eat, and watch movies! It was great! So I was pretty excited to take my trigger shot! 

 This is our last journey! We are praying for God's will to be done! This retrieval was the worst! The procedure isn't bad because they put me to sleep but for about 7-10 days afterwards I was bloated and in a bunch of abdominal pain!

 They were only able to retrieve 4 eggs if I remember right! They fertilized all of them and three did well. Then one ended up not making it. They other two made it to day 5 and day 6. The two blastocytes looked great. Of course we wouldn't know this for several days obviously!!! This is just a test of patience!! Waiting and more waiting!

so after about 10+ days of going back and forth between the clinic to have blood work and ultrasounds done, We were ready to head out to The big state of TEXAS!! Yippee!!!

It was like Christmas! All my medications arrived! What a day!

 Check out all the medications I have to inject into my body! Crazy huh? Most  ladies drink a couple glasses of wine before they get pregnant! Well this is how we do it!

P family

Can you even tell which one the mom is? Well she is our "prenatal nanny"! she chose us and we her! Her family is great! We exchanged emails and had a conversation on the phone and within 10 days we were completing the contracts!

so where do I start? We are crazy!! Yep Crazy! After all we have been through in the last several years, we are up for one more adventure! One more journey! God has laid it on our heart to have more children and this is how we feel we should go for it!

Well let me give you a little back ground in our story! My Bo and I had been together for 10 years when we got married. We were 28 years old. We knew right away we wanted start a family! We began working at it! 6 months later ( what seemed like eternity) I was pregnant with our first little miracle! I had a great pregnancy and worked up until I delivered goose. She came a bit early because I had pre eclampsia and I was induced. That went well also. I loved being pregnant and I loved pushing her out. It was such and amazing awesome experience!
After I delivered our little 4 lb 14 oz goose at 35weeks and 5 days, I bled and my body would not stop. I was rushed down to the operating room to be thoroughly checked out. The swept me away and left the tiny goose with my Bo and they told him to feed her. He was like WHAT?? I can't imagine the fear he had. Well, I received so much blood and blood products! They tried everything. I almost died! God saved me through the work of these men and women! They finally told me that I would have to have a hysterectomy! I was so out of it! It was all so surreal. I remember waking up in the ICU and asking if they took my uterus! I was so upset and felt like I had just lost a dream and so much more. I then asked about our goose. Well I say I asked but I had to write everything down because I was intubated and on a ventilator.  Goose was in the NICU simply because they needed to put her somewhere to be cared for while I was in ICU! My Bo had been going back and forth between the units. I can't imagine how hard this was for him. We had no family around for support. However, my Bo's mom did fly down to help us out and to support us both through it all. She is such a blessing!
I pulled through by the love of God! I was very sick with loss of blood and my continued high blood pressure.  Our God is amazing! Even though I lost my womb, I was able to keep my ovaries! We could have more biological babies. I just wouldn't be able to carry. This was a huge loss! I am not sure people really understood the loss I was dealing with and I actually continue to deal with. God has helped me through this!
We know right away that we wanted more babies. We got started right away on researching and figuring out how we would go about adding to our family! I really think with caring for a newborn and staying busy looking into gestational surrogacy, God pulled me through. I could have easily gone through a huge depression but I was spared from that. Looking back, I do feel like I had some post par tum depression but it was definitely curved by my staying busy!
We found the perfect surrogate for us and next thing you know on Father's day we were able to put two of our little babies into our beautiful surrogate. About a year after our goose was born, our surrogate was pregnant with our zippy!  The pregnancy went on without anything major.  Our zippy was born 10 months later at a whopping 9 lbs 3 ozs. He was such a blessing and the entire journey was amazing! What a gift someone can give! Forever we are blessed by what our surrogate did for us!
We had moved cross country and we were busy with our little family! We had no money to start another journey right away! Then we decided to take the plunge when our little zippy was 3! We tried for three years with different people offering to be our surrogate and then we went through an agency again! We found a great surrogate after much hunting and failed matches. Her and her family are great! We had a miscarriage with our first journey with this surrogate. At 8 weeks we lost our little one. heart ache but we were determined to try again and it is only by the grace of God that we found the finances (which we will be paying on FOREVER) :0)
Our 2nd journey with this surrogate, we made it into the second trimester and we thought we were in the clear when we lost the baby's heartrate! Our surrogate had to go through labor and deliver our little 18 week old baby girl! It was one of the worst experiences either of us have ever gone through! Our surrogate was devastated as well as we were. Such heartache all the way around! I hope to never experience anything like that again!  However, I am just happy I know who our creator is. I love the song that goes something like, "He gives and takes away. He gives and takes away. My heart will choose to say Lord blessed be your name!" It is so true. God gave me this baby and He also chose to take her away. He is teaching me! Shaping me!  I trust Him! And I know one day we will get to meet our littlest precious girl! I don't know why God chose to do this but I am sure it is for my best.
So we have met a new surrogate and have chosen to go on one final journey with her! She is amazing and her family is wonderful! We clicked! God has brought us together and we are so happy about this!
Follow us on our journey together as we try to build our family!