Flutters!

I realise most people will think i'm just imagining things as i'm only 14 weeks along, but i'm fairly certain i felt the twins the other night!  I was lying on the couch, reading a book when i felt little bubbles in my tummy. only about 4 or 5 and then it stopped. and then about 1/2 hour later i felt the same sensation again, just more on my left hand side.

I was trying to describe it to josh and the closest thing i can come up with is that it felt similar to when our cat lies on my tummy and i can feel her heartbeat. except it's ALOT fainter and not rythmic.

and then i felt them again on sat night, again when i was lying quietly on the couch. but nothing since then.   exciting!

14 week update

How far along? 14 weeks

Baby size: Measured 5 cm and 5.3 cm at last check up.

Total weight gain/loss: Haven't had another weigh in since my 12 week update

Maternity clothes? Not yet but my skinny jeans are no longer an option as they keep sliding down and make my butt look saggy...so i'm currently living in my leggings 

Stretch marks? Nothing yet.

Sleep: Sleeping well except for the occasional need to get up and pee.

Best moment this week: Picking up the cot and meeting the 6 month old twins and their parents. so awesome to meet people that are doing what we are about to go through (and seeing that they have survived haha)

Movement: Still too early for me to feel anything

Food cravings: Still just fruit and spicy food.
Anything making you queasy or sick: OATS! These babies really  do not like oats.
Have you started to show yet: Yup. Weird bump just in the lower half of my belly, rathern than an all over belly...
Gender: It's going to be a surprise!  But we are guessing boys for now.

Symptoms: Need to pee alot, crying over random stuff, HUNGRY all the time. And was sick after having oats for breakfast and again that night after a walk :(

Labor Signs: No signs yet 

Things I miss:  sushi, blue cheese, feta, ham, alchohol and my gym classes. And being MS free

Belly Button in or out? In but looking weird!
Wedding rings on or off? On
Looking forward to: the weekend and having a lie-in! And hopefully organising our house so we no longer live in a bombsite gah!

Birthday month!

we are having a lot of fun getting ready for the twins - shopping up a storm, reading about twins and talk talk talking about twins. but we do feel a little bit like this is the only topic we seem to discuss these days....which is why we are so excited about my upcoming birthday weekend away.

josh is the materialistic one in our family, and loves nothing more than getting STUFF for his bday. whereas i've always been about the EXPERIENCES. don't get me wrong, i love "stuff" too, but i find pressies a little anti-climatic after a few hours. so every year, we either go snowboarding for my birthday, or we head to Rotorua and spend the weekend relaxing in the hot pools. however, this year, i can't do either of those things....so i had to really get my thinking cap on to figure out what we can do instead.

and now it's all getting booked! we are heading to Waitomo, which is about 2 hours away. i've booked us into a backpackers for the friday night, and then a boutique bed and breakfast on saturday (my actual bday). and apparently their breakfasts are legendary. i'm excited.  and we are checking out the glow worm caves, which we've done before. but we've only ever done the 'black water rafting' version, which was awesome by the way; we abseiled down into the cave, walked in pitch black, claustraphobic paths and then went whizzing by on a flying fox before jumping into the water with a back inner tyre tube (and very thick wetsuits)...and then proceeded through the caves on these tubes, checking out a local eel (just the one), testing the acoustics of the cave and leaning back and gazing at the glow worms.

this time around, we are doing the more serene tours. one is a boat tour of a cave, the second has an amazing spiral staircase and the third is more about the stalagmites and stalactites. oh and we are also going to squeeze in a trip to "the kiwi house" which is awesome as i've never actually seen a kiwi before!

Joshy just emailed me the itinerary and it looks fantastic *Squeeeeeee!!!!* (that's my excited sound):

now for the caves..
Sat plan(I've booked it in without paying coz you can do that and pay on arrival)
7:30am wake up(you take quite a while to get ready.. I love you but its true.. so I've given you an hour)
8:30 breakfast.
9am check out of back packers
10am -  at the Ruakuri Cave (We need to be at the glow worm cave at 930am for pick up with a tour bus guided tour.(all included in package) That goes for 2 hours so ends at 12pm)
12pm till 145pm - Break for a nice lunch which takes us up to 12:45pm then we head to Otorohanga(which on there website is 15min from glow-worm cave) so we get there at 1pm. ($20 each on entry to park) look around for 20min(1:20pm) and get ready for the kiwi feeding at 1:30pm.
Have just rung them. We don't have to book. There is definitely a feeding at 1:30pm and we will see 4 kiwi!!
we hang at Otorohanga for an hour or so(we leave at 3:40pm to be exact) (Im sure you'll want a snack or a cup of tea in the time before we leave)

Aranui Cave at 3pm (drive there our selfs. That goes for roughly 45min. 5min to get back.)
Then the glow worm cave at 4pm(I reckon this would be the pretiest so I saved it till last)
cool... all sorted and booked!
Happy?
love love love


Some links in case anyone is inspired to travel around NZ:

The B&B we will be staying in on Sat 21st July:   http://www.abseilinn.co.nz/the-rooms/the-bush-room/ 
The Waitomo Caves Triple Combo:  http://www.waitomo.com/ruakuri-aranui-waitomo-combo.aspx
The Kiwi House:  http://www.kiwihouse.org.nz/eco-tour_self-guided.html

My love (warning: soppy post ahead)

i was going to write a post about how i spent the night on the couch, dry retching with a bowl close by just in case. because really, i'm not up for that much these days and that was as exciting as my day got. but then i remembered that when i first started this blog (pre-pregnancy days), the main point was to write down a list of things for which i am grateful. 

so instead of whingeing and going on about "poor me", (actually, to be honest, i've faired really well in this pregnancy thing thus far. only really had 2 weeks of ms to date and a few bouts of fatigue, but overall, i've been feeling good), i'd like to start talking about the wonderful people that surround and support me.

first up is my absolutely wonderful husband, and if you are reading this joshy, this post is dedicated to you xxx

my darling husband has totally stepped up his game in recent months, and does everything he can to help me out - makes me breakfast every morning when i am in the shower, makes sure we have lots of food/snacks/fruit in the house, gets the hot water bottles ready every night, puts a full bottle of drinking water by the bedside every day. and also comes to every single doctors appointment.

He no longer minds if i get tired and fall asleep during a movie (used to be his pet hate), or if i feel like i have to pull out of something. he's rubbed my back while i've puked in the bathroom, put up with my pregnancy rages which were AWFUL during the first couple of weeks, sympathised when i've complained about feeling sick, and even put together midnight snacks for me when i've woken up at 12, 1 or even 3am proclaiming "i'm starving!". 

Best of all, he's always quick to hug me and not laugh (too much) when I suddenly start crying for silly reasons (like the time we were in the library and I started crying after seeing a little girl about 5 years old sobbing in her mothers arms cos she'd lost her, or when I couldn't find my jeans, or most weird of all - when i laughed so much that tears of laughter ran down my face. and then it turned to sobs and then next thing i knew, i was bawling my eyes out.)

These days, i find myself thinking about what an amazing daddy he is going to be. i always knew he'd be great, even when he doubted himself in the early days (i heard him asking him mum if she thought he'd be a good father, oh bless), but i think he is just going to excel at this new role of his. and this love and pride that i feel when i think of him can sometimes catch me off guard. who knew that after 7 years i could fall in love so much more. and i feel overwhelmed with gratitude for having such a wonderful partner. and then of course, i have to have a little cry. damn hormones.

NZSL class

So last night had to be one of the funnest NZSL classes that we've had in a long time. Our tutor has completely changed the format of the classes and has really stepped up the content as well. Which meant I was lagging behind quite a bit as I missed the last class and my vocab just isn't as good as everyone elses. but everyone was very encouraging and patient as i struggled through various pieces of dialogue.

we also announced the pregnancy (in sign, i might add!) and much excitement ensued. and also led to the tutor (Tim) telling us about his 13 week old baby! We had no idea! it was fascinating to hear that both him and his wife  are deaf, but the baby is hearing, and so we all wanted to know how they can tell if the baby is crying, especially in the middle of the night.   turns out they have a special monitor that flashes lights and vibrates if the baby is crying. and Tim has also started sleeping with his hearing aid in. He can't hear what people are saying, but he can hear sounds, so wakes up easily if the baby makes a noise. so interesting and what clever inventions!

12 week update

How far along? 12 weeks

Baby size: 5 cm and 5.3 cm

Total weight gain/loss: nothing yet, been a slight decrease of 2 kgs all up.
Maternity clothes? Not yet.
Stretch marks? Nothing yet.
Sleep: Sleeping well except for the occasional need to get up and pee. Or when I watch birthing videos and look up twin skin and freak myself out haha

Best moment this week: How lovely Josh has been lately. Making me breakfast, walking with me, and not making too much fun of me when I cry at silly things.
Movement: Still too early for me to feel anything

Food cravings: Still just fruit and spicy food.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Lots of things these days! Yoghurt. Veges. Anything sugary (eg., chocolate biscuits) or too greasy/buttery. And non-spicy food just tastes like cardboard :(  And if I have a sleep in and don't eat when i normally eat, I throw up. And if I don't drink enough I throw up. I've been more sick this last week and a half than throughout the rest of the trimester. Not happy!

Have you started to show yet: I've got a bit of a baby bump happening. And today I wore a dress that used to be a little bit too big for me around the boob area. Fits perfectly now :)
Gender: It's going to be a surprise!  But we are guessing boys for now.

Symptoms: Need to pee alot, crying over random stuff, so tired, HUNGRY all the time. Been sick another two times this week, and I feel queasy ALL day :( Headachy too
Labor Signs: No signs yet 

Things I miss:  sushi, blue cheese, feta, ham, alchohol and my gym classes. And being MS free

Belly Button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? On, and kind of falling off at the moment. These babies are sucking up all the food I eat.
Looking forward to: Getting the blood test results to complete the NT scan/assessment. 

Telling the fam bam and a freak out

We were going to wait until I'd passed the 12 week mark before telling the rest of the family that I'm preggers...but once we found out that there are TWO babies, well, we just couldn't keep it to ourselves any longer.

Telling Sharen was the funniest, as she totally freaked and swore her head off for a good 2 minutes. And Shaz is not really a swearer, so was hilarious to hear her mouthing off haha. She also said it was always her dream to have identical twins. Had no idea!
Josh's mum cried, and his dad looked a little shell shocked.
My father said "shit" haha and then told me that he couldn't keep this a secret, he just had to tell the world. My mother surprisingly said,  "i was expecting this". Seems she figured that as Josh's dad is a twin and Josh was supposed to be a twin, I had a high chance of having a twin myself.  I didn't think to tell her that identical twins aren't genetic, so the fact that Josh's family has a history of twins has nothing to do with our two little ones.  and she also reckons that many, many, many years ago, she saw a fortune teller who told her that there would be twins in the family. 
My brother and nieces were excited and josh's grandparents, well, they were over the moon. Insisted on making us dinner which was sooo yummy. And they had champagne while i drank my water. oh champagne, how i miss you.
josh's brother and partner were very excited, but a little bummed as they are relocating to another country at the end of the year. they did however promise to try and get a 3 or 4 bedroom place on the gold coast so we can come and visit :)
josh's other brother and sister in law were excited but of course wanted to give us advice and tell us how hard having a baby is, etc. always so negative, those two! of course i know this will be hard work, but i am hoping we'll have more fun with being parents than what they seem to be. famous last words ha!

oh yes, i also saw my friends that night, who just happen to be identical twin girls. of course i had to tell them and was expecting them to say "identical twins are awesome! this is awesome!" but they said "congratulations" and "that's harsh, having identical twins as your first baby(s)"....
which totally freaked me out. I'd been so calm about all of this up until that point. but once i got home i could not sleep and the more i thought about what they had said, the more i started to think how impossible this whole thing would be.

by the morning, i'd worked myself into such a state, and so, crying and crying, i called my mum. sobbing down the phone, i told her I was scared. and i don't know how i'm supposed to carry two babies in my tummy, let alone look after them. and will i ever be able to leave the house?! and if i want to visit them in aus, will i even be allowed on a plane with two babies if I am travelling on my own?

mum was absolutely brilliant, and said all the right things. told me that of course i'm scared. it's scary enough being pregnant with your first child, so having two would scare anyone. and if i want to leave the house, i'll just have to get a big old double pram and i can plop them both in and that will be that. and she said if i'm tired and the babies are crying, just take them both to bed with me and we can all spend the day in bed. just maybe get a bigger bed haha.
she wasn't sure about the travelling bit, but i guess we'll work that out later.  everything she said made sense, and is what josh had been telling me as i was crying in bed, but i guess sometimes you just need to hear from your own mother that everything is going to be okay. even when you are all grown up :)

anyway, my mum obviously told my sister about the phone call, and now they have put together a schedule of when they will be coming over to nz to help me out. it is brilliant as it looks like i will have support for part of the month, every month for at least the first 6 months.

I'm a big believer in the saying "it takes a village to raise a child", so really glad that my "village" is rallying around already. These twins are going to be so loved x