Guess the Sex!

We have decided we will not be finding out the sex of this baby before birth. This is going to be very, extremely, unbelievably difficult for me, BUT I promised Hubby that is we ever had a third child we could have it be a surprise and it's very important to him. I honestly told him this because I didn't think we would actually ever have a third child, but a promise is a promise.

We have our big ultrasound to make sure baby's vital organs are looking good. I am so nervous for that because we have not had many ultrasounds because this is just a regular, average, run of the mill pregnancy so I have no idea what's going on in there.

Because we don't get a view of the goods then, I have resorted to trying every single old wives tale I could find to see if that would help.

A heartrate over 140 indicates a girl: After the very early ultrasounds, baby's HR has always been between 160-180. GIRL

Chinese gender chart: I have no idea how this works, I just plugged info to a website and it said GIRL

Ring test: Dangle your wedding ring on a chain over your baby belly and if it goes in a cirle it's a boy and side to side is a girl (I have actually read conflicting information on this, but I'm going with the first one that I googled). Mine clearly went in a circle so BOY

Pee test: If your pee is bright yellow first thing in the morning you are having a boy, if it's dull it's a girl. My pee said BOY

Mayan number test: You add your age plus the year of conception. Even numbers say girl, odds are boys. GIRL

Beauty test: They say that girls will steal your beauty and boys will make you glow. I have bags under my eyes and pimples popping up all over so I will ahve to say GIRL

Skull theory: If your fetus' skull looks perfectly round, it is a girl, if it looks a little flat in the back it is a boy. My last ultrasound says BOY

Ramzi theory: If your gestational sac is found on the right side in the beginning, you will have a boy, if it implanted on the left side it's a girl. GIRL

Chunky monkey theory: Boys carry in your thighs and girls carry in your butt. My booty is packing some serious heat, so I say GIRL

Naming: If you can easily come up with a name for a sex, it's what you are having. We have a girls name we are confident on but coming up with a boy name has been pure hell. Hubby doesn't like what I love, but he doesn't really love anything and I don't like his suggestions. It sucks. GIRL

Gut feeling: Some people say "mothers just know." I can't play this one because I really don't. I have no idea. Hubby swears up and down it's a girl, but he's not the mother so he doesn't count. I don't know!

Boy votes: 3
Girl votes: 7

In the old wives gender challenge girl wins by a landslide. I only have a cool 24 weeks to wait left (BLECH!!!!!!!). Confession time? Yes! At our NT scan I looked as hard as I could for clues and I really think I saw a little weenie, but I probably didn't, but I tried. Eeek!

Care to take a guess? Do any psychics read my blog? Help me out!

My little miss is preparing for her big sissy duties.

Mom Stuff

There are so many things to consider when parenting that it's completely overwhelming. Thanks to the Internet I feel like there is so much info spread around and followed that it is crazy. I do research things related to munchkins, but I don't obsess or follow any particular method. I just made choices!

Immunizations - we do immunize. We chose not to get the Hep B vaccine right at birth because I didn't want them brought into the world and then hit with a man made vaccine right off the bat. I made sure to check with our doctors office to be sure that any vaccine given did not have preservatives in them, particularly thimerosal. They don't, so we got all other vaccines on schedule with the exception of the MMR, which we did a year past the recommended age.

Co sleeping - I have slept in the same bed as my children on many occasions, but it is on an as needed basis. I believe that my bed is for Hubby and I to share and I would like to keep it that way. I don't buy the lines about co sleeping leading to better bonding in any way, shape or form. I want them to be okay sleeping alone and have the ability to sleep at night without my constant comfort. In the event I haer the words "mommy" being cried out in the night, a munchkin ends up in my bed and we are cool with that.

Crying it out - I don't do it. Part of it is because I'm a wuss. Part of it is because I am 28 and I rarely make it through the night without needing to pee, drink water, roll over for some Hubby snuggles and, on occasion, eat something. I don't expect differently from my kids. little nuggets bodies are changing so fast I don't think trying to stick to a universal sleep plan is optimal.

Circumcision - We did choose to circ my Osh man. Hubby and everyone else we know is circumcised so we just did it. Can I confess something? This is the only decision I have made so far that I think I regret. We haven't had any issues, but the more I thought about it the more I feel it might not have been the best choice. Whenever I see baby girls with their ears pierced, it grosses my out. I do not understand why anyone does that or why they would modify their little baby's body without her consent. Then I realized that I did the same thing to my son and I feel weird about it. If we have another son, I have no idea what I will do. I think it would be strange to have a daddy and brother with circumcision and be different, but I'm not sure I could make the same choice now.

Working or staying at home - I don't really have a choice in the matter, unfortunately. I think I would like to stay home if I could, for awhile anyway. I don't think that could ever be my permanent lifestyle, but a little more time would be nice while I have littles. I'm trying to win the lottery, so . . . . All jokes aside, I really don't think one way or the other has a major lifelong impact on kids so this is more just a personal preference.

This is not intended to tell you what to do or make you think what I do is best. I don't know anything. We have just been winging it and this is what has worked for us. As a nosy knob, I always want to ask these things but don't, so I thought I'd willingly offer it up!



This is me. I don't often post pics of myself and as you can see I also don't often wear make up. I'm too lazy for that!



My love bug, smooching on me!

Road Trip Awesomeness

Last Wednesday we packed up our favorite books, toys, stamps, stickers and movies and embarked on a road trip. I was scared to death because we would be doing 26 hours worth of driving in 6 days with two two year olds.



Well . . . . .

My monkey's were awesome! They were completely happy to watch 7 hours a day of movies on the long drive days and occasionally read a book or put stickers all over their body.



We then arrived at our final destination: My ten year high school reunion.

My ten year reunion was weird as hell. First, I graduated with almost 500 people and about 40 came. Most of the 40 came from out of town while the hundreds of people who lived right in town did not come. Weird. It was intensely awkward too. I really didn't care that much what became of these people so I had to fake a lot of interest. I was so glad I went because I was dying to see my two best friends of all time, but really, weird. We decided next time we get together we would definitely not be doing it for a school reunion.

I did go from the midwest to New Mexico and I greatly enjoyed some good burritos. Not tex mex burritos at a chain restaurant, but delicious, tasty, amazing burritos. Yummo. New Mexico is a different kind of place. At least different from any other place I lived which has included Oklahoma, Texas, California, Florida, Ohio, Kansas and good old New Mexico.


Lovely mantel decor, not typical of the midwest, but typical of New Mexico! I love it!

The monkey's liked New Mexico too, but mostly because there was a pool at their hotel and they got to be spoiled with attention between myself, my mom and my aunt, not to mention all the people they met that oohed and aahed over their cuteness. They were so sweet and well mannered. I definitley pretended that they are like that all the time and I am Mom of the Year.





It's good to know that my kids are road trip compatible. This opens a whole new door of possibilites for us.

You may have noticed my lack of blogging. Well . . . blogger wants me to download Google Chrome on my PC but my PC won't let me so that means I have to blog from my iPad always. Chicken pecking blog posts is super tedious and annoying. Blogging at work is a big no, so I have to wait to blog when I have lots of patience, which is rare. Very rare.

Why We Chose Not To Do IVF Again

Before our big surprise happened, we had decided that we would not pursue another IVF treatment. I was going to relay this info by a picture of the For Sale sign in our yard, but that took a lot longer to happen than we thought. As you may recall, we could not afford to do another IVF and put a down payment on a new home.

We were out on a date and Hubby asked me when I was going to call the RE to see when we would start a new IVF. I told him that I wasn't going to call, and if he was okay with it, I was at peace with that decision.

1. Truly, I felt ready to move on. After finding out I also have endometriosis, I just felt like it wasn't worth messing with. We had talked about a new house and have for a long time. I am just ready for that. Hubby bought this house while I was in college. I am ready to have a bigger house that we choose together.

2. After many other treatments, we were seriously lucky to get pregnant with twins on our first cycle. With the FET, I felt the devastation of a failed IVF. IVF is not a joke, it's a long and invasive, very expensive treatment and to go through that for nothing is terrible. It brought a reality to me that just because I wanted another child didnt mean that I could have one and I felt like I should deal with that sooner rather than later after many failed and expensive treatments.

3. I don't feel well physically or mentally while doing IVF. I gain weight and get so filled with anxiety and sadness and despair that it is difficult to function. That takes away my ability to enjoy other things in my lif. Osh and Peanut have made my life so amazing and I didn't want to take away from the time I have with them when I already feel stretched thin trying to balance working full time and being the mom and person I would like to be. Having the frosty was a reminder of our infertility as well as the hopes we had for our future. Once it was gone, after we grieved the loss of that possibility, I felt ready to close the door on infertility treatments.

4. I love my twins dearly and if I could go back in time, I would not change a thing. But for the future, I knew I did not want to carry and have twin newborns again. That would be really, really hard on Hubby and me, but would also be very hard on Oshy and Peanut. We are self pay so we want to do anything that would maximize our chances of success. Transferring two embryos slightly raises the odds of success. I didn't want to be tempted to do something that I felt wasn't right for our family out of desperation for success.

5. Financially, stopping at two children is smart. We wouldn't have to invest in larger vehicles that would add a car payment or two plus consume more gas. We pay $1300 a month in daycare. In three years that amount would be drastically reduced. What could we do with that extra money each month? The kids could do any activities. We could save. We could take an awesome vacation every year.

6. Emotionally, stopping at two children is smart. We wouldn't be outnumbering ourselves and more kids, which would leave to more love, would still obviously lead to less attention and energy.

All of these things together made me feel like not pursuing a fresh IVF cycle was the best choice. I felt really good and content with it. I poured my energy into the twins and bettering myself. The twins part was easy because they are beyond fun right now. Truly, this is an amazing age. I did my vegan cleanse which had amazing effects on my diet and was training for a half marathon. Hubby and I were having so much fun together planning for our future. I was proud we got through another hard time together and came out ready for anything.

I had no idea just two months later we would be expecting. At first I was terrified that something awful would happen and set us back. I, like everyone else, would never want to lose a baby and that would be so hard after all the work I had done to give up on that dream. Now that I've reached the second trimester, I am starting to get more excited and feel like we might really get to have another baby. Just like infertility taught me before, this has taught me that I just can't plan for anything! Life is so crazy, but in an awesome way. I have no idea where life is taking us, but I feel like I have learned through these processes that we'll figure it out.

Random Stuff

1. In less than a week I will be putting my toddlers into the car along with my mother and driving for 13 hours. Yeah, that is probably the worst idea I have ever had . . . . . . . .

2. I am driving to my high school reunion. That should be weird! I have great friends from high school, but to be honest I was looking at the Facebook list of people attending and I don't remember very many them. At all. I am so excited to see my girlfriends and two of them will be meeting the twins for the first time.

3. Ocean is really making me laugh these days. I was watching TV and he asked if he could watch with me. He watched really hard for about one minute, then he told me that "I not watch TV with mommy, mommy TV yucky, I go to Home Depot with Daddy." We were at a restaurant and Hubby asked what I wanted and I said I really wanted some booze. Osh yelled out "I have booze too!" Luckily, I have not yet been arrested for that. He was jumping on the couch and on Hubby and Hubby asked him not to jump on him (we have long since given up on asking them not to jump on the couch). Osh said "Why Daddy, you have a baby in you tummy?" Ha! Hilarious!

4. Pool season always shows me who got the good boob jobs and who got the cheap ones. When the boobs are 6 inches apart and on the side of your chest like fish eyes, you should probably see if you can get a refund.

5. My body is one big infected mess. I had that bacteria, now I have a UTI and one of my kidneys infected. I got a shot of antibiotics and now take 150 mg of antibiotics a day for 10 days. If that doesn't do the job, I will be doing hospital time. I think hospitals are disgusting and I hope that the meds will do the job because I don't want to spend time there. No thank you!

8. I go to bed pretty early these days. With all my infections and everything I am just beat. I have gotten addicted to internet debate boards. I read one and never participate, but damn! There are some crazy people out there. If feeds my drama llama big time. I don't prefer that kind of drama in real life, so I get my jollies reading about other people. Welfare queens, abortions, people who breastfeed until kids really don't need to be breastfeeding anymore. It's really interesting. If you are ever really bored you should look up "Baby Center Debate Team." You're welcome. Don't forget your popcorn.

7. I few weeks ago I was so tired and frustrated with my children. I was on my own because Hubby was in class and I had worked a long day and they were just driving me crazy. I got so upset and totally freaked out. I called Hubby to come home. I felt so terrible about it, the next night when I picked up the kids from daycare we walked to a park and had a picnic together. I just needed to remember that I'm not the worst mother ever and that we have fun together. We had a lovely time and I haven't had a meltdown since. I hate that feeling!