March Update

This is a long one, so I broke it up with headings.

Naming Babies!

On February 27th, Mom, Dad, and I took the envelope with the babies' gender to Party City. The girl helping us was very sweet; we picked out the style of balloon we wanted and told her to put the two colors we needed in a box we had brought. As we walked around the store, she got the balloons ready for us and we left that night with a sealed box with two balloons. 

On February 28th, we headed down to All Steak in Cullman where we met up with family to have our reveal. Emily made poppers, and signs, and had blue and pink clothes pins for everyone. We opened the box, and out came two blue balloons! I will admit, the naming process was a bit more difficult this time around but not too long after, all our ideas came together and we decided. Long before I was even pregnant, I had in my mind the names Corder and Carleton. Corder is Noah's mother's maiden name (and the last name of his uncle and cousins and now cousins once removed). Carleton was the maiden name of my mother's mother, our Nana. Also, before I was pregnant, I started a pinterest board for a maybe someday baby/sibling for Isaac and while searching for big brother pictures I found this picture.

I thought the big brother looked so much like Isaac. Little then did I know, that we would have twins. It's strange but it was like I had been almost prepared.

Well long story short, we decided to call the babies Corder and Carleton. Their full names are Benjamin Corder and Jesse Carleton. Benjamin Corder is Noah's great grandfather's name and Jesse is the name we gave to baby my mother miscarried when I was ten who would have been a freshman in college this year. Benjamin and Jesse are both Old Testament names like David, and all three boys will be called by their middle names. (they'll live).

Hospital

So after our twenty week ultrasound, I had a pretty uneventful couple of weeks. My main goal was to make it to my next appointment without going back to the doctor or hospital before then. On March 14th, I went to the Mothers of Multiples consignment sale. I had really been looking forward to this because I wanted a stroller. I also wanted some sort of infant bouncy/swingy apparatus because we only had one. Well, I was able to get in really early, and I found the stroller but as I was leaning over to pick up the vibrating infant chair I tripped over a door hanging bouncer and fell down. Of course almost five different people came over to see if I was alright. I did not land on my stomach but on my right ankle and knee. I kept sitting for about a minute and then thought I was okay so I got up and went on about my business. I picked up a couple of matching outfits but then started getting worried, maybe I wasn't alright. So I went to the bathroom to make sure I wasn't bleeding and I was not...but I worried that maybe I had leaked some amniotic fluid. I made my purchases and went to the car and called the nurse. Because I have had this fear before, and even been to the doctor's office for this exact fear just a couple of weeks earlier I wanted to call and assumed the nurse would tell me to just lay down and take it easy unless other symptoms appeared, but she told me to go to Labor and Delivery. So for the third time, I headed over there. For the third time, I filled out the paper at the registration desk with the same receptionist (she's always there, she must be getting tired of seeing me) and the same parking attendant I've seen the last two times. The parking attendant was at least excited to see me because I finally had an answer to what gender the babies were... I had to call Mom and tell her where I was because she had Isaac, the last two time I've been I was able to go when I didn't have classes and Isaac was in school, so I didn't tell anyone that I was going. The nurse had a hard time finding the babies' heart rates because it's difficult using those doppler things, which is why I have an ultrasound every single doctor's visit, but with the help of another nurse they were able to find two heartbeats one in the 140s and one in the 150s, which was where they were last visit. She did some testing with the microscope and I was not leaking amniotic fluid. She called my doctor and I was dismissed. The next day a big, ugly bruise appeared on my knee and then my knee started hurting pretty badly. I had a couple of rough nights, but on Monday, Noah got me a heating pad from CVS that strapped to my knee and I wore that and finally felt better. Isaac really enjoys talking about his trip to the hospital. If you ask him about it, he says 'come back rabbit' which really makes me wonder, what did he and Gran Gran do in that waiting room...

Doctor's Visit

On March 21st we had a doctor's visit at 23 weeks and four days. They completed all measurements for Baby B and everything looked great. Baby A had a heartbeat of 145 and Baby B had a heartbeat of 151. They were both moving really, really well. I am feeling more and more movements and kicks all the time, but I still get nervous when I don't feel anything, but the ultrasounds confirm that there is a lot of movement that I don't feel yet. The doctor said everything looked good and we are scheduled to go back in four weeks. At our next visit everything begins getting kicked into high gear!! From there on out, we'll begin having visits every two weeks instead of every four, I need to complete my glucose test by next visit, and starting next visit they will begin to assess fetal weight. Third trimester is coming!!

Moving Forward

We have a lot of work to do. We've made some purchases already though, we have bought a rug, a bedding set, a stroller, and two infant vibrating seats. Noah is working on clearing out the babies' room and next week during spring break we'll continue to work. Noah has assured me that the nursery will be ready before they get here. I'm glad to have gotten through the month of March which brought back a lot of memories from last year that I thought I had forgotten. There are so many similarities in my March schedule from year to year that served as a reminder of previous feelings but I'm happy to move forward and to have had a good doctor's visit.