Twin Pregnancy: 23 Week Update

Happy 23 weeks to our sweet little girls! 

This past week was another good one - full of blessings and miracles. Our little girls continue to grow! They were both one pound and three ounces - still growing together. On a recent ultrasound, over the weekend, we saw Mary Elliott really moving around for the first time. In the past, we'd seen a slight movement, but recently she's really been wiggling everything. I think she's finally pushing back on her sister who is constantly moving about and kicking at her. Mary Elliott also had a full bladder and full stomach - indicating that internally, things are working. 

I mentioned in last week's update that I was really starting to feel Sadie Ann kick. Well, this week it's even more so! She will get going on these crazy episodes and go non-stop! That girl can throw a punch and kick her legs. Last week I even got to see my belly move from all the kicking. I had Chris put his hand on my belly during her playtime. It was the funniest and sweetest thing to see him react to feeling her. His eyes became as large as golfballs and he immediately pulled his hand away - I'm certain it shocked him. 

For me, my WBC count continues to jump back and forth between 13-14 - which appears to be my normal. I'm continuing to have the Braxton Hicks daily - some days they are more frequent than others. I'm also having lots of other different feelings going on, but my doctor continues to assure me that with two growing babies, I'm going to be feeling a hundred different things. So all is still going well. 

I prayed that the 22-24 week countdown would pass by quickly - and so far it has! Fran and I kept ourselves busy making crafts. This is her last week here with me for a few weeks - she returns in January. My parents, brother, and dogs come back to Alabama this Saturday and they'll be visiting through Christmas and the New Year. Again, I'm just so happy and thankful to have family that is willing to sit with me all day just to keep me company and have that added bit of support in the room. It's been a blessing. 

Here is our weekly countdown banner. One week down and one to go to our first goal!

And here is what Chris has set up in our room for our Netflix bingers. 

6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

Letters for Our Twins // No. 001

I wrote this letter to our twins while laying in bed the night before our gender ultrasound. I planned to post it that morning, but didn't get around to it. Then, two days later we found ourselves in the hospital with a long road ahead of us. I recently found it as a draft and wanted to share it. As I mentioned below, I had plans of writing them multiple letters, and I may write them additional letters on here, but my weekly updates are covering most everything that's going on week to week.

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10/28/14
9:16 p.m.

Dear babies,

I had intentions of writing you notes since the day we found out I was pregnant. I wanted to capture and document all the wonderful feelings going through my mind from the time we found out about you up until the point where we get to hold you, but one of the many lessons I have the privilege of teaching you in this lifetime is that it's better late than never. So here I am, finally starting to write to you.

You two are about 16w4d - give or take - and I'm a couple weeks into my second trimester. Baby A, in the beginning of the pregnancy, you were almost a week behind baby B - in fact, you didn't even have a heartbeat at our very first ultrasound, but our nurse practitioner ensured us that you were fine and would have one the following week. And you did! You've actually complete caught up with your sister! In our recent doctor's visits, you've both been within a day or two of each other and we couldn't be happier!

I'm writing to you tonight because tomorrow is a special day and I want you to know what I'm going to be thinking about all night while I try to fall asleep. If you two cooperate, we will hopefully find out if you are two little girls, two little boys, or a little girl and little boy. And we cannot wait! I'm thinking in the morning I may eat a sugary breakfast to get you two moving about. Well, mostly just you, baby A. Baby B, you are our little acrobat; we've had a lot of ultrasounds since receiving the good news and without fail, you are wiggling, twisting, and flipping. Always! Baby A, you're our docile, laid back child (like your mommy). Every now and then we see you wiggle those arms (I think we even have a picture of you waving at us), but you're usually comfy and cozy just laying on your back, all curled up. So hopefully some sugar will get you moving!

Since learning and sharing the good news that we are expecting twins, we've had countless people ask the same question… "What do you want the babies to be?" Our answer is always the same. We. Don't. Care. We are so thrilled and thankful to have you two growing in my belly - our only prayer and hope is that you two are healthy. And that's what we tell everyone. That's always our answer.

I've heard that mothers often just know what they are having - they have this maternal instinct that tells them. Well that may be true for singletons - or maybe it's true for most women and even those having multiples, but I don't know. Well, I do. But not the way that other mothers just know. I'll get to that in a minute.

I haven't paid too much attention to any Old Wives Tales because those are centered around singletons as well. I do know that at almost 17 weeks I'm still nauseous and that since finding out I was pregnant, my face has been breaking out like a teenager entering into puberty. I haven't had any cravings. It's  been quite the opposite - in the first trimester I wanted nothing to do with sweets (which, you will learn, is not like your mommy at all!). Don't worry though, my sweet tooth is back - I've actually been drinking a lot of sweet tea (which I haven't done in years) - I even made some not long ago. And it was delicious! I'm sure y'all enjoyed it too! So I've had pregnancy symptoms that are kind of all over the place. None indicating one thing or the other - only that I have a ton of extra hormones running though this body of mine!

I will say that about two years ago I started having a feeling that one day I would have twin girls. It was an out of the blue feeling. It seemed like every time I turned around, I saw twin girls. It felt as though God was bombarding me with the idea of twins girls so that it would become a normal thought of mine - one day I will have twin girls. And after a while, I believed knew it. At an earlier part of my life, I wasn't very keen on the idea of twins - and I usually pictured myself with boys. Lots of little boys. So if I feel anything at all… it would be twin girls. In fact, I know you are twin girls, but very few people know that - just your daddy and my best friend, Jessica. Your daddy and I talk about it quite a bit. I'll share with you in a separate letter a little more detail about all this.

No matter what that ultrasound shows tomorrow, our hearts will be full! We are overflowing with excitement! Not that this pregnancy doesnt seem real, because it is very real, but I feel like once we know what you are, things will become very real, very fast. I'll start registering, buying you little things here and here, and begin planning a nursery. Up until this point you've both been baby A and baby B - and I've loved it. After tomorrow you will have a more distinct identity. And soon after that you will have names. Names!

I'm so happy to finally sit down and write to you. Here's to many more letters!

Love you so much already,
Mommy

Naming the Twins

Since finding out we were expecting and then finding out we were expecting twins, we vaguely talked about names. We'd occasionally flip through baby name books or randomly mentioned a name we liked, but never agreed on any names. However, prior to even being married, we did agreed on one name. The name of our first daughter, Mary Elliott. 

Mary Elliott was easy for us and we agreed on it right away. We both loved classic, double names - and Mary was about as classic as it gets and is typically used in southern, double names. For me, with a name like Linley, I had an appreciation and love for unique (but not crazy) names. I also personally love boy names for girls and names that were interchangeable between sexes. For some reason Elliott for a girl just jumped out at me. So I suggested Mary Elliott. We immediately loved it. We'd say it over and over. We'd question if it was too much of a mouth-full to say, but decided we didn't care. We eventually said it enough and decided once we were married and had a daughter, it would be her name. And that was that. 

Before getting pregnant, I'd mention to Chris several times that I really loved the name Sadie. It's an older, but classic name. It's making a come-back, but it's still fairly rare, and my grandmother's name was Sadie. So it already had a special place in my heart. Chris on the other hand wasn't crazy about it, but he also never said he hated it… so I took that as a maybe-possibility that could eventually be considered. Especially if I continued to mention it… and I did. I'd always come up with combinations with the name Sadie. He'd brush it off, and I'd keep brainstorming. 

So then we found out our twins were girls. I remember driving home and starting a conversation about names. Chris expressed that he really loved then name Ann. I could just tell in how he was talking about it, that he really did love the name. I wasn't opposed to the name Ann, but I wasn't crazy about it either. I also had an exceptionally long list of girl names on my phone that I wanted to throw out there before anything was set in stone. I knew naming a second girl was going to be difficult for us. 

Then my water for baby A broke two days after finding out our twins were girls. 

We'd been in the ER about an hour and had no clue what the future held for us or our precious girls. We were battling emotions we never thought we'd have to face. I vividly remember some rare quiet time in the ER with Chris. He was sitting beside the bed, holding my hand. We weren't saying much back and forth, our tears were doing most of the talking. Then Chris leaned down to me and fought some serious tears to express an incredible idea. He asked me if we could go ahead and name the babies. He said if anything happened to them, they should at least have names. I began to cry at the sheer gesture of giving the babies names in such a situation - and could not have agreed more that this was the time to name them. 

I went ahead and addressed that baby A should be Mary Elliot - in fact, she became Mary Elliott in my mind the day we found out she was a girl. He agreed. Now baby B… Since our conversation about Chris' love for the name Ann, I knew it needed to be part of her name. I then considered a compromise - putting together the name Chris loved and the name I loved. I knew his reservations about the name Sadie, so before belting it out, I prefaced the name with the fact that it would be a compromise. And then I said it. Sadie Ann. I looked up at Chris. I saw tears in his eyes as he quietly nodded his head yes. 

That was it. On October 31st, our twin girls, baby A and baby B, received names.
Mary Elliott and Sadie Ann.
They are strong names for two strong, little girls.