Little Ones Say Merry Christmas...Sort of!

My little ones wanted to give everyone their Christmas present early...

WARNING: Exuberant m0ther with annoying voice will be heard throughout the video!!



They have been smiling now for a couple of weeks. Don't they look great? Rinar and I are very blessed to have them as a part of our family.

Babies are Blessed

Our babies were blessed on Sunday. Rinar did a wonderful job. It was a beautiful event. My mom made Julia's blessing dress and it was simply gorgeous. When Rinar brought her down from the dais after her blessing he held her up and she looked like a little angel. I was told that in the circle she was so serene and just looked at Rinar the entire time. Doesn't that just melt your hearts? Harry enjoyed his blessing too. He slept through the whole thing.






Rinar's siblings, sans Aislinn, were able to come and participate. Unfortunately, Rinar's parents were in Hawaii and couldn't make it either. But we were fortunate enough to have my parents come up from Tucson for this special day. Cody came with them.



After church, we had dinner at our house. I made club sandwiches and French dips also. The French dips were a big hit. It was a wonderful day.

Everyone!

Our family is here...everyone. We went to get Harry at the hospital. I had to leave in a wheelchair. I thought she was joking at first, but no. It is hospital policy...{Oh brother!}, and there are people out there who think this country doesn't need tort reform.

The nurse took the picture as we headed out of the hospital. Look at that crew. Watch out everyone. This is quite a bunch ready to make their way in the world.



We all fit in our mini-van. It is a packed house now.

Eli likes to sit in the bouncy seat too. He came prepared. He had a book to read and 2 hairbrushes to keep his good looks in order.

There is daddy with our latest editions. And I can attest to the fact that when they cry, they sound almost identical.


Just as a side note...I can guarantee you that when I take these two out in public, someone will ask me if they are identical. Isn't it obvious? Of course they are. So, if someone asks me if they are identical, I will say yes. It is just easier that way. I will keep you posted on that one.

The Joy is in the Journey Journey

This last week has been eventful, to say the least. After the "thrill" is gone, it is all starting to sink in...and I am scared to death!

Oh, let me catch you up, if you haven't heard the news.

I am pregnant...with TWINS!

This is not a typo. For those of you who do not know my family very well, I already have twins. They are seven.

After seven years, you forget a lot of the bad stuff and only harbor a place in your heart for the wonderful things two bring you. However, since I found out last Tuesday that I am having twins, again, many things have started to come back. These are the things you try hard to forget about.

Let me take you back: on Tuesday I went to the Fertility Center of Las Vegas for my ultrasound to see if the "glue" they used was any good. They must have used the good glue, because both embryos implanted. I was laying on the table and she turned the screen my way and it was very obvious. My mouth was doing an involuntary grin, but I felt like I wanted to throw-up and it was not from morning sickness, I can assure you.

Rinar is absolutely thrilled. He was in Albuquerque and so I called him as soon as I could. Then we decided to tell the kids. They jumped up and down with joy. It lasted for about 1.5 seconds and then Raef asked me if he could play a computer game. As you can see, they have really taken this to heart.

We decided there was no way we could keep this a secret because too many people knew too much to begin with. Also, it probably doesn't help that I wrote a lengthy blog on the whole IVF ordeal. So, I guess secrecy was out of the question. It all started to unravel like an onion anyways.

Now that everyone knows and reality is starting to hit me like an anvil hurled down from Mount Olympus, I have been thinking of the many obstacles I will be facing really soon.

First of all, I feel great and the pregnancy seems to be going well. However, when I was pregnant the first time, I went into pre-term labor at 28 weeks. It was a little scary (although I was too dumb to realize how precarious it really was) and I was put on strict bedrest. It was probably because I was dilated to a 2 and 80% effaced. I had to have a muscle relaxer constantly pumped into my body through a catheter in my leg and it required twice daily contraction monitoring and a whole lot of doctor's visits. Suffice it to say, I don't have time to be on bed rest this time around.

What am I going to do?

I am not worried about Raef and Zach. They can do most everything on their own, including making breakfast and lunch. If I really work with them in the next few months, I am sure I can teach them how to make a few dinner meals as well, like macaroni and cheese. Hey, you have to learn it some time, so why not now?

The wild card in all of this is Eli. He is a baby. When I am due, he will only be about 20 months old. He needs a lot of attention and love. I need to pick him up and take care of him. He can easily get sick or hurt. How am I going to do it? Plus, Rinar is out-of-town several days a week and so I am really on my own.

Which brings me to another point: three small children to take care of by myself. I remember waking up in the middle of the night because one of the twins was crying. I would pick him up and take care of him and not even have a clue who I was holding. This happened to me many times. However, I could take turns with my wonderful husband. This time around I will have to do the brunt of the work. Rinar also changed an incredible amount of diapers with Raef and Zach. I have changed the majority of diapers with Eli because it has just worked out that way. Now I get to triple the amount. It is going to be an incredible amount of work. There were also a million doctor's appointments that first year because they were premies. I just hope I can make it further along so that these babies will be healthier from the get go. If not, it is going to be even tougher.

These are just a few of the things I have thought of these last few days. However, there is one thing that has continued to dwell in my thoughts. I must not be ruled by my fears, but by faith. As the fear started to set in, I prayed fervently to my Heavenly Father. Then I opened the scriptures and ended up reading this verse in the Book of Mormon:

"Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend." -Mosiah 4:9

Wow. It really hit me. Do I believe in God? YES! Do I believe that he created everything, including me? YES! I know that I cannot comprehend all that He comprehends...not now, not for a very long time. However these are the things that I know...

God has worked many miracles in my life. When they were happening, I could not see them. I did not comprehend why things happened the way that they happened. But in retrospect, there is absolutely no doubt that He had a hand in all of it. My timing is not the Lord's timing and things happen for a very specific reason. For some inexplicable reason, my Father in Heaven has led me most assuredly to this place. I have complete faith in that. I must be ruled by my faith in Christ.

It is no coincidence that the Proclamation that has been hanging in my bathroom has haunted me with the scripture, "Children are an heritage of the Lord" and that we are supposed to have joy and rejoicing in our posterity. I have no desire to populate the earth by myself, for heaven's sake, but I know that I have a very specific role I need to play in bringing children to this earth, to a happy and loving home. Motherhood is not a complete definition of who I am, but it is a vital part of me. Yes, I have many interests that are my own and goals that I would yet like to achieve that have nothing to do with kids, but this is the time to have my family. I will rejoice in my posterity; just please ignore the yelling you hear occasionally emanating from the walls of my house, okay?

So, the reality is that I am having twins. I am going to say it now and then try to forget about it for the next little while. I have a lot I need to do for myself and for the children that are running around as we speak. I know that there are some really tough times ahead, but it will be an incredible blessing to hold those babies in my arms and love them with everything that I have.

The joy is in the journey.

The Difference Between Raising Multiples and One

My friend Corinne has a cute blog called Momma Sassy. It is like a little magazine and she asked me to write about my experience having multiples and having one. I am going to reprint it here for my records, but make sure to check out her website. It is a fun one.

My name is Kelly and I have been married for 12 years. I have twin boys, Raef and Zach, who are 6 years old and a 5 month old named Eli. These are just a few observations about the difference between having twins and having one.

When you wake up in the middle of the night, you know for sure which baby you are holding because there is only one. Sometimes it would take me hours to realize that I was holding Zach, when I thought for sure it was Raef in my arms.

Baby slings/carriers are actually relevant this time around. When it was just me toting my twins around, those kinds of things were just out of the question.

When I go to the store to buy clothes for Eli, I don’t have to worry about the price so much. If the price tag says $10, it actually means $10. With my twins, $10 = $20. Yes, I know some stores will give you a twin discount, but it is really negligible and not very common.

Now it is half the diapers, no bottles (nothing to clean), no formula, and more money in my pocket.

I only need one crib, and I haven’t even gotten around to buying one yet. Eli is still sleeps in a portable crib.

Loading Eli into the car is a lot less stressful than when I had to do the same thing for my twins. I had to be very strategic about how I would put them into the car so that they were not left unattended in a parking lot. I would always start on the passenger side and put Zach in and then pull Raef out of the stroller and put him in his car seat on the driver’s side. Then I could quickly put the stroller away and get in the car myself. There was one time when I was getting ready to put them in the car and the stroller started to roll away by itself. Both of my boys almost took a dangerous jaunt through a parking lot. Like I said, loading the kids in the car could get stressful.

I only had a two-stop limit before I had to go home. Loading and unloading and loading and unloading was a chore in and of itself. That is why I was so grateful for Super Wal-Mart. I could get everything in one store…Hallelujiah!

Grocery shopping was a major ordeal as well. When they were tiny I would just wait for my husband to get home and then go shopping. However, as soon as Raef was old enough to sit up by himself I devised a new strategy that worked really well. I would put him in the shopping cart and then put Zach in a backpack. It was great. I was the ultimate multi-tasker.

I always wished that they sold baby food by the case because I would buy at least 50 jars in one trip and it was a pain to put it in the cart, take it out of the cart, put it back in the cart, etc. I just bought baby food for Eli today and I noticed that the volume was significantly less.

If Eli gets fussy, I can pick him up and haul him around the house and still do other things. When one of the twins got fussy, I would pick him up but I couldn’t really go anywhere because I had to watch the other one also. I was always a little bit envious of Gumby. His skills would have come in handy, for sure.

My kids have always been great sleepers, so I really can’t complain about that.

Whenever my kids decided to get sick it was always, always Friday afternoon as soon as the doctor’s office had closed. It was quite a juggling act to get them to the Urgent Care and still take care of the other one. And then when there was an accident, you really have to improvise.

One time, and I have absolutely no idea how this happened, Zach lodged his head in between the slats of a stool and I could not get his head out. He was stuck inside the stool. I really freaked out. He was probably a little over a year old. He was crying and Raef was really crying because he was worried for his brother. I had to put Raef behind the gate so he wouldn’t interfere in our extraction efforts. Then I ran across the street frantically to get my neighbor. I had to leave the kids where they were. When we got back, I tried lubing him up with EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) to pull him out. It did not work. So then I got a small hack saw and sawed the slat off, with my neighbor holding Zach down, and I was able to extricate him. I was very upset from this so I sent Raef back with my friend and then gave Zach a bath and tried to calm myself down. Who knew a regular old stool could be so diabolically dangerous? If this type of thing happens to Eli, I can have one of my twins hold him down while I saw. I already have the experience I need to deal with this kind of crisis, no EVOO needed.

The twins always have a friend, which really came in handy the older they got. I will have to put more effort into reaching out to other kids Eli’s age or he will probably drive me crazy.

My husband was much more involved in the nurturing of the twins. He was able to bottle-feed one of them every day and he changed a lot more diapers. He did so much. With Eli, the burden is so small that I do just about everything and I don’t really think about it. I nurse him exclusively, so no bottles are needed. Diapers seem almost non-existent compared to having two babies so Rinar doesn’t need to do very much. Don’t get me wrong, he wants to take care of Eli any chance he gets, but the chances are quite a bit less than before. I haven’t asked him how he feels about that, but I probably should. I wonder if he misses those moments that he had with the twins, when it comes to Eli?

I am very grateful I had my twins first. A single birth is soooo much easier. I would dread doing it the other way around. Kudos to anyone in that boat!