Poor Audrey

I noticed she wasn't feeling well this morning. She had a nasty juicy cough, runny nose, and fever. She also just wasn't acting like herself and was very whiney. I took her to the doctor this afternoon and found out she has RSV. Great! Apparently its in the beginning stages and will get worse before it gets better. She has a f0llow up appointment on Saturday morning and then she goes on Monday to get her VCUG done to check for urinary reflux. Poor girl! It was kind of funny seeing her get her nose and throat swabbed today. She made the funniest faces. I guess it'll be a long week.

Back from the cardiologist

We just got back from the cardiologist. The doctor said that it sounds like Audrey just has a "regular murmur" now instead of the murmur he was hearing because of the hole in her heart. He thinks it has closed on its own. She goes back in 6 months to get checked again and make sure that's the case. If so, we will not need to go back until she is 2-3 years old. He did not want to do an echocardiogram today because she's older now and much more wiggly.... he wouldn't get anything done. (She has to be completely still for about 45 minutes) He would have to sedate her and feels she is too young for that, so when she is 2-3 we will go back and he will sedate her and do a final check with the echocardiogram to make sure that everything is okay. So, good news! The last time we went (3 months ago) it had not closed yet.

Cloth Diapers

We just ordered some cloth diapers! I never would have thought that I would use them but am quickly realizing their benefits. Once we found out that we were having twins all sorts of logistics flew through our minds. We are going to have three babies in our house which means that we will have three babies in diapers. I spend roughly $80 a month on diapers right now and that's only for one child. So, $80 x 3 is $240!!!! A month!!!! On stuff for our kids to pee and poop on and throw away! Not to mention formula costs, doctor bills, clothing, etc. on top of that ( about $135 for formula per month for one child). Now Audrey will be over one year of age by the time they arrive and not using formula anymore, but her food costs will still be there. So, $135 x 2 is $270. Just for formula and diapers that would come out to $510 + Audrey's food costs. I can't spend that much money on just diapers and formula per month. That's insane!

So, I ordered some cloth diapers for us to try out with Audrey. Hopefully it goes well. It seems like a lot of people order around 20 diapers per child and then wash them every day and a half to two days. We may order less per child since I'm sure I'll be washing every day with three kids, but we'll see. If we do end up ordering 60 diapers, it will cost us $1062 but we will make up for that after only 4 1/2 months of use! The diapers work for kids from 7-35 pounds. I'm so excited to try them out.

Oh and if you think I'm absolutely crazy....cloth diapers are NOT what they used to be. After much research, here is the kind that we are ordering. http://www.bumgenius.com/one-size.php

I'm sure that we will use these for more than a year as well....but after only using them for one year after we make up our cost difference, we will have saved $2880!!

More videos

How Audrey used to wake up from her naps

How she wakes up now

First time drinking from a sippy cup

Watching trains

Kissing herself

More of Audrey!

Audrey fell asleep in her exersaucer. She wore herself out. You know the nap only lasts for 30 minutes though. (I did get her out and put her in her crib. That would make her neck hurt if I didn't!)

Mom! Why am I dressed like this?! I can't move!

(This was taken when we attended our downtown Christmas festival.)

Bath time

After her bath. I tell her she's Baby Moses when she sees herself in the mirror. She thinks its hilarious! She looks for it every time after her bath now.

She sleeps with her "lovey" now at night. Even if its not next to her when we put her to bed, she finds it, cuddles it, and THEN goes to sleep. So precious.

She loves to pull Daddy's hair

Audrey standing up to greet me for the first time in her crib in the morning

Our Christmas tree... this is the only picture we have of it decorated.
All of us at a Christmas party
Audrey got to see Santa for the first time!

Had to get a picture of her in her pretty Christmas dress

She was smiling in her picture with me but this is the mega watt smile she gives when Daddy's around.

Shot glasses all over

If you came in my house, some days you might think I have a serious drinking problem by all the shot glasses. Why are there so many? Audrey takes a daily antibiotic for her urinary reflux. The medicine somes in a large container. I shake it up but I can't put the oral syringe down far enough to get the medicine out, so I have to pour some of it into a shot glass first (they're tall and narrow and perfect for this purpose) and then get it out with the syringe. I just notice them laying around everywhere sometimes and then think....what if someone came in the house right now? I thought it was kind of funny.

Christmas Tree shopping

We went to the mountains to get our Christmas tree. It was so much fun. It actually snowed a little bit, too. You can't see it in the pictures, but there were lots of flurries the whole time we were there.

We've arrived. Doesn't Audrey look so excited?!

The hay ride to get to the trees. Audrey doesn't look too impressed by Daddy's funny faces.

This one is just because she's so darn cute!

Her favorite way to travel.

Checking out all the trees.

I was trying to get a picture of Granseur and Audrey checking out all the trees and then this guy randomly bent over right when I took the picture!

We found the perfect tree!

We picked out three trees that day. .. one for us, one for Granseur's sister, and another for Granseur's parents. We all like completely different trees so we walked all over looking for the perfect tree for everyone. Wouldn't ya know that the three trees we wanted were VERY far apart from one another. The guy in the overalls went and got all our trees for us after we tagged them and carried our trees back to be bound up. He was exhausted by the time he was finished. We joked around and said that we might need one more tree and he said, "I'm done!" and spread out his arms like that. He was pretty funny. :)

Videos

Enjoy!

Granseur's sister, CiCi, finding out the big news! She had a great reaction. Sally's was really good, too. Unfortunately we didn't realize our camera had run out of memory space when we started recording.

Ultrasound Granseur didn't get her saying, "how do you feel about twins?" because we literally just started the ultrasound and he wasn't ready yet.

Hearbeat number two

"How do you feel about twins?"

That's what we heard from the technician at our first ultrasound on November 18th. I don't think I responded at all because I was in so much shock! Granseur laughed of all things. That's good though...at least I know he's totally okay with it! I'll admit it, I cried. I think it was a mixture of thoughts like "Wow! Oh my gosh...really?! Holy crap...Granseur was right! Well, there are the three children we wanted to have...we don't have to worry about trying to get pregnant again for a third time." happiness along with "Will they be okay? What if they're born early? We don't have enough baby stuff. We don't have a big enough house! How am I going to take care of THREE babies? What if they both cry for 8 hours a day like Audrey used to do?"anxiousness. Luckily Granseur took pictures during the ultrasound and some video. I'm so glad I have those now.

It was so funny because as we were walking into the OB office, Granseur said, "Shannon, this is not how you're supposed to do this....walking in to get an ultrasound done while pushing a stroller." Also, even before I knew I was pregnant again Granseur said, "What if we have twins? That'd be great. We would be done and not have to worry about getting pregnant again." How does he do that?! I think that's part of why he laughed. He couldn't believe it was true.

My infertility journey was definately the hardest thing I ever had to go through. You can change almost any other circumstance in your life, but if you can't have kids....that's it...end of story! It was hard to accept (and I never did) that could be me and there was nothing I could do about it. In many ways I'm also thankful that I went through that. It helps me to appreciate Audrey so much more than I probably would have if I had gotten pregnant easily, so it made me a better mother. It was another thing that brought Granseur and I even closer together when I know that it can tear some couples apart. Also, when we were first going through treatments to try to conceive Audrey the possibility of twins was always in the back of our minds. We would have been thrilled if that was the case because we just wanted one baby...if we got two, how blessed would we be?! So that thought has been with me for a while. I certainly did not think that I was going to be pregnant again so soon and with no medical intervention at that, but when we found out we were having twins, I felt like God was preparing us all along. Had we not struggled with infertility, even the thought of twins would have never entered our mind and I probably wouldn't be this okay with it. At least now the thought was kind of there and while having three kids under a year and a half old can seem scary, we can also see how incredibly fortunate and blessed we are. This is God's perfect plan for us.

Some of the positives are: They can all play together. Sure, they'll probably hate each other now and then too because they're siblings but they'll definately be close. Although I will have triple duty on diapering, it will be over in just a few short years rather than if we had three kids spaced out. They will enjoy the same outings like Disney World because their age difference won't be that big.

I hated holding in the big news for so long but wanted to make sure that we told family and friends before I posted on here.

So, here's a few pictures. Videos will come later...they are just taking a long time to upload.

Waiting in the waiting room taking care of Audrey.

What?! Are you serious?

What's going on? Let me see!

The two babies.

One of the babies. You can see each baby better when they are isolated on the screen.

Oh my goodness!

Holy cow! Can you believe this honey? I'm a little scared! What about you?

Me and the three babies.

Family picture