Most shocking news of my life

January 26, 2016

Ten years ago this month I had to cancel the embryo transfer of my first IVF cycle.  I was so physically sick and emotionally drained.  If you told me then that TEN years later I would be taking a pregnancy test with a positive result I would have thought you were certifiably insane.  But crazy enough, that's exactly what happened.

Since May of 2015 my period decided to be regular like never before in my entire life.  In October of 2015 I stopped eating flour and sugar and lost 21 pounds in two months.  In December I was finally back to the weight I was when I got pregnant with the twins 9.5 years ago.  On January 19th I was 5 days late for my period so I grabbed a pregnancy test because I was curious.

February 8, 2016 (7.7 weeks)

The last three weeks have been fun and challenging.  Starting all over from scratch is a bit much to wrap our minds around but I think for the last 9 years I was always secretly hoping this would happen naturally.  Everyone said it would right?  HAHA.

Telling people has been so much fun.  My parents were thrilled.  We had to wait a couple of weeks to tell Chris's family because his mother's birthday was on February 6th and we wanted to tell her then.  It was so hard to keep it from them!  Chris said to his mother "Kerry and I were trying to figure out what to get you for your birthday and we decided on another grandchild."  She looked skeptical and said "You're getting another cat?" and I said "No a human child".  Eileen, Bruce, Courtney, Mike, Kristen, Raph, Karen, Jackie, and Mary all cheered and couldn't believe it.

My friends are all so excited and we have been offered all of the baby items we could possibly need.  They are excited I get to have another shower but I really don't want one!

As of now we haven't told Madison and Jackson yet and it's driving me crazy!  Chris says he "isn't ready" but doesn't give any other detail.

I have my first ultrasound apt on the 10th and my mother is going to go with me since Chris has a meeting at work and can't make it.

So far I'm feeling fantastic and wouldn't even know I was pregnant.

February 13 (8.5 weeks)

I had two rough days of solid morning sickness at the beginning of this week but I have been fine since then.

My parents both came with me to the ultrasound.  My father asked if the doctor could confirm the baby wasn't an alien.  The doctor said based on the picture he that he could not say either way.  LOL  He did say that the heartbeat was fantastic (168?) and everything looked perfectly normal.
After the ultrasound I had an appointment with my OB where she was very shocked to see me after so many years.  When she first saw me she started to say "it's nice to meet...wait a minute...you look familiar!"  I'm going back on March 1st for all of the genetic testing.

Most of our close friends and family know about the pregnancy at this point but I haven't posted anything on facebook about it yet.  I'll probably wait until after the genetic testing.  I suppose Chris will want to wait until after that to tell the kids too.  He says he's not ready for them to know they aren't the "only" children anymore.  He's very emotional about it.

First day of 2nd grade

Every 6 months is good enough for a post right?  I thought so.  I wish I had more time :-(  I want to write about all the things we've done but it's so overwhelming.  We went to Water Country a few times, went to Boston Public Garden with Nana, Auntie, Auntie Karen, Jackie, Nicky, Sophie, and Jill met us there, visited Lily on the Cape at her vacation house, the beach a few times (with Gia, Melanie, Auntie, and the kids went with Nana a couple times without me), Gia's pool twice, Uncle Matt's pool once, Visited Adele in Maine with her 3 month old twin boys, York with my mom, the zoo with my parents without me, all capped off by a week long stay at Children's Hospital for Madison (which obviously deserves a post of its own but for now she's fine).  I'm sure we did more than that but that's just what I saw glancing at my calendar and details on all of this would be fantastic too but I'm not holding my breath.

Off to edit 1800 pictures now!

7th Birthday Part

For their 7th birthday party they both wanted an ice skating party.  They both love ice skating and we really don't go enough!  We had a couple of friends from our days at Tower (preschool), another set of boy girl twins we met at gymnastics, their cousins, and the rest were all from their kindergarten class that they have stayed close with.  Auntie and Uncle Steve, Auntie Kristen, Grandma and Grandpa, Papa, and even Nana Fitzy also came to celebrate.
Our fabulous cake lady came through with amazing Frozen cakes.  I made favors of little jelly jars filled with blue chocolate candies and a ring of blue glittery tape.  Since everything Frozen themed is not able to be found I at least wanted to make the table all blue.  With the cakes it was clear what the theme of the party was.

I'm not sure how the pictures will show up and function below.  It's been so long since I've posted that flickr changed its interface and I haven't even attempted to embed any pictures since then.  I THINK these are going to be a slide show but maybe you need to click the arrows to advance?

7 Years Old

How are my babies 7 years old??  I guess everyone is caught off guard how quickly time goes by but this is really ridiculous.  

I really couldn't ask for better kids.  I love them both so much and they are told multiple times a day.  They are doing great in 1st grade (same class still).  They are very well behaved and the teacher says they are great roll models for the rest of the class.  What more could parents ask for?

Their birthday (St. Patrick's day) fell on a Monday so we had their party the Saturday before.  Jackson had soccer Monday afternoon and we asked if he wanted to take the day off so we could go to the Irish pub we usually go to on their birthday but he said no!  So all four of us went to to soccer and watched him.  After he was done we went to the pub.  It was crowded!

Madison's new room

Tonight Madison and Jackson are sleeping in separate rooms in our house for the first time since they were born.

It was a long process preparing the play room to become Madison's bedroom.  The room needed to be painted including the trim which just takes so long.  It still needs a lot of work including new trim around the new-ish windows but the new furniture is put together.  They are still sleeping in toddler beds (they still fit) until new twin mattresses get in for their new beds.

I really expected Jackson to get up a million times after going to bed with a million excuses why he couldn't go to sleep without Madison but they both fell asleep immediately!