The amazing weekend news you probably missed

OK, this is going to be a little nerdy. But it's SO worth reading, I swear.

Image by froggygrl727

First of all, hi, this is Marc. I have a special message to all the earthlings reading this blog:

Megan has arrived on Mars. Dum dum DUUMMMMM!

You may have heard that this weekend, mankind put its first spacecraft into the polar region of another planet. The Phoenix Mars Lander touched down in an icy area on Mars and has started sending back photos of rocks, ice, polar bears, etc.

Anyway, fast-rewind to Christmas. I was looking for a stocking-stuffer that had more meaning to it than your average stocking-stuffer. I remembered something that a friend told me about. On the Planetary Society's website, there was a special project in the works - names were being gathered to place on a DVD which would be sent to Mars along with the Phoenix Mars Lander.

I knew what I had to do.

Image by revjim5000

I sent Megan's name to Mars. Printed out a little certificate. Tied it with ribbon, placed it in the stocking. Houston, mission accomplished, over.

Megan landed on Mars yesterday, and this morning she got a congratulatory welcome message in her inbox.


How cool is that? Huh? Huh? Wait - I'll tell you how cool it is:

It's so cool, Megan was quite happy to let me blog about it.

Thanks honey, for sharing your gift with all of us. And welcome to Mars.

Two Hearts Beating

(image courtesy of flickr.com)

This past week, on Thursday, we had another doctor's appointment. This time we got to HEAR the babies' heartbeats for the first time. Marc tried to record the sound of it on his PDA, but when we got home we discovered it didn't work. Oh well. At the last two ultrasounds we were able to see their little hearts beating on the ultrasound monitor, but didn't hear them until now. It was really amazing!

As the doctor was identifying the heartbeats for us, I just laid there thinking how unbelievable this entire experience has been. This wasn't supposed to be possible for us. Even after having two months to let the news sink in, I'm still in shock. There really aren't words to describe how awesome it was to hear two rapid heartbeats coming from my body. The forming of life is such a miracle! The coming together of families, however they are made, is such a miracle. God is so merciful in making miracles happen in our lives.

Both heartbeats are strong and healthy. Baby B is always beating a little bit faster than Baby A. This time around Baby A was at 149bpm and Baby B was at 161bpm. They both fall into the normal range of where they should be at this point. One of Marc's all-time favorite movies is Sneakers. I mention that because when we were listening to their heartbeats, it reminded me of that part in the movie when "Whistler," the blind guy, is analyzing the distance between treads on the bridges in the Bay Area. That's kind of what their heartbeats sounded like. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? If you don't, you should rent this movie... it is really good.

We still don't know the sexes yet... but, our doctor joked that usually boys have slower heartbeats than girls, and made her early, semi-joking prediction that we have one of each. Our ultrasound technician has already made her very early prediction, too. Maybe we'll have to put up a little poll to let everyone have their say.

In answer to the question of when we'll find out what we're having: As Soon As We Possibly Can. We are anxious to know and start making preparations for their arrival. Our next ultrasound will be next week - for the prenatal genetic screening. They probably won't be able to tell by then, so I'm guessing we'll probably know at the following ultrasound, in another four weeks or so. By then I'll be at 17 weeks. That should be about the right time to know, right?


And, I just have to express our deep gratitude to all of you for your prayers, your well-wishes, your thoughtful comments... and for celebrating with us. We couldn't have been blessed with better family, friends, or blog readers. Thank you so much!!

A little Q&A

So, there are some questions that we've been asked over and over. We figured this was the best place and time to answer some of those questions. Here are the more commonly asked questions, along with our answers:

1. When are you due?

Our official due date is December 2nd. Since twins are considered full-term at about 36 weeks, chances are the twins will be born in November, sometime.

We are excited that today is the beginning of Week 13!

2. Do twins run in your family?

Yes and No. Let me explain, as I understand it... fraternal twins are genetic and passed down through the maternal line in a family, although with the increased use of fertility drugs there has been a rise in the number of fraternal twins. There are twins in my family - my brother and his wife have fraternal twin boys, because twins run in my sister-in-law's family. As far as I know, there aren't fraternal twins in my mother's line.

Identical twins, on the other hand, are absolutely random.

3. Are your twins fraternal or identical?

Short answer: we don't know for sure, yet.

Long answer: At our last ultrasound they were hoping to determine whether our twins are identical or fraternal. The two things they look for are if there are one or two amniotic sacs and if there are one or two placentas. If there is only one amniotic sac (which is very risky), then you can know for sure that the twins are identical. In most cases fraternal twins have their own placentas, but there are exceptions to that when the two placentas can merge together to make one placenta. And, with identical twins, depending on how soon after conception the one fertilized egg splits apart is what will determine whether or not the identical twins have their own placenta and sac.

We were able to find out that our twins are in two different sacs, which is a REALLY good thing. But they couldn't tell yet if there were one or two placentas. Since there are cases where fraternal twins and identical twins can have their own placentas, I don't know that we'll know for sure until they're born, unless we find out that one is a boy and the other is a girl, then we'll know they're fraternal. But, either way, it would be preferrable for each twin to have their own placenta.

4. What fertility drugs were you taking?

NONE. We did the whole fertility thing in 2006. Hated it. Loved adoption. We were focusing 100% on our adoption plans. Hence, the huge SHOCK when this all happened. The only explanation we've been able to come up with is that this pregnancy is an absolute miracle. Er, more accurately, a DOUBLE miracle. Absolutely.

5. Have you started to "show" yet?

Not so that other people can tell yet, but I can tell. But, based on photos I've seen of other people who are pregnant or have been pregnant with twins, it won't be long before I'm huge, especially with my 5'3" frame. Yikes.

6. How is the morning sickness?

It was really bad for the first month. Throwing up multiple times day AND night. I lost ten pounds and was so concerned it was affecting the health of the babies. My doctor gave me a prescription for an anti-nausea drug called Promethazine. It gave me diarrhea. Sigh. Then, she gave me this "miracle drug" called Zofran. I take two or three a day, and it has helped me get back up to my starting weight. I still have nausea and moments of vomiting, but it's down to about once a week or so, thanks to the Zofran.

And, can I just say this one thing. As miserable as it is to be bending over the toilet, it has brought me so much joy. The fact that the intense sickness is a good sign of a healthy pregnancy, is considered such a huge blessing. I am SO HAPPY to go through a few weeks or months of vomiting, for the blessing of being a part of this miracle. Every day is counted a blessing and a miracle. The further I get, the more excited I feel, and the more I allow myself to think ahead and plan for our future with twins. I never thought I'd be able to experience any of this, and being apart of any aspect of it is amazing.

7. How is Marc feeling about everything?

Well, I think this deserves an answer from Marc, himself:

I'm simultaneously freaked out and really excited. And actually, considering it took about five minutes to write that sentence, I'd say I'm pretty speechless, too. I tend to over-think things like this, so I've sort of put the "ohmygosh ohmygosh" part of my mind on vacation for now. I try to think positive thoughts, and I avoid thinking of phrases like "evil twins" and those big twins on motorbikes you see in the Guinness Book.

By the way, Megan has a really calming attitude about this all. She's been very reassuring about it. In fact, to talk to Megan, you'd think we were about to give birth to the Doublemint twins. Which is nice, because that sort of counter-balances my biker twins imagery.

Any other questions?

THIRTY!!!

Today is the day that both Marc and I were born. I can't remember for sure, but we looked it up once, and it seems like I was born around 1:30pm and Marc was born around 3:50pm. Yes, I married a younger man. That two hours and twenty minutes is huge!

We are celebrating the BIG 3-0 this year! How awesome is that?! I'm totally thrilled about the thirties. Seeing as life just keeps getting better and better, I just know really great things lie ahead and I can't wait.

So, anyway, I just wanted to take a moment to spotlight My Sweet One. To be honest, I don't think I understood exactly what I was in for when I agreed to marry him. I mean, I knew it would be good... I just didn't realize how AWESOME life would be with him. Seriously, I have it so good.

Let me start off by saying that over the last month I have thrown up more times than the rest of my life put together. And, when I'm not throwing up, I'm curled up on the couch trying to keep myself from throwing up. As a result, my help around the house with daily things has been greatly limited. Marc has done SO MUCH to help keep us alive. On top of his already busy schedule of work and bishopric duties, he's been doing the grocery shopping, the cooking (or sometimes "warming in the microwave"), the dish-washing, the back-rubbing... and, most wonderful of all? He's been covering my 6am early morning seminary class for me. He has been so wonderful in every way. I am so blessed!!

And, then on top of all of that, the cutest thing happened the other evening. I was in my usual curled position on the couch when the doorbell rang. Marc was in his office working. He answered the door to find three young kids, asking for donations for Little League. Two girls and a younger boy. So, he grabbed the only cash we had on hand and gave it to them. They left and he went back to his office. Well, a few minutes later I hear him rushing out the front screen door. Thirty seconds later he comes in and in the most concerned voice says, "where are the bandaids and neosporin?" I was confused and asked what happened. Well, turns out that all the way from back in his office he could hear someone crying, so he went out to see what was going on. The Little League boy had apparently stabbed himself with a pen and according to Marc, "no one was even helping him." It was SO sweet, as I watched Marc bandage up this little boy. He must have done it just right, because in perfect little boy fashion, the tears immediately stopped the moment the bandaid was in place. I can't wait to watch him naturally assume the role of father. He is going to be so great!

And, I can't talk about Marc without mentioning how HILARIOUS he is. He can be sitting in a room with people aging from 14 to 84 and say something that has everyone laughing. Now, that's talent. He just has a great sense of humor and can turn any tense situation around until people are laughing. It used to frustrate me when I needed to have a good heated discussion about some important topic, and I never could under his charm and wit. I love that about him. Life is never dull with him!

There is so much that I love about him. Like the fact that he is totally fine with the half of a "Mother's Day" carrot cake someone brought over for us yesterday counting as our birthday cake this year. And, that since I don't dare eat out in public right now we'll probably be eating crackers and ginger ale for our special birthday meal.

BUT, I promise that in a couple of weeks (when the vomiting has hopefully stopped) we will have a REAL celebration of our big 30th birthday! I love you, Marc! Happy Birthday!

Dear Blog Readers,

We have been so overwhelmed reading all the comments left for us over the last few days. Thank you for your kind words and warm thoughts for us!! This pregnancy really has come as a huge surprise... it still hasn't quite sunk in, yet. It was a little scary to come out and make the first announcement, but it has felt so great to celebrate our exciting news with you. Many of you have have followed our journey and have helped this miracle happen with your prayers. So, thank you so much for your constant support and the prayers you have offered on our behalf. We have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams. Thank you!!

All in a month...

So, we returned home from Australia and discovered some big changes were coming. I have to apologize for keeping you in suspense. I could have just jumped in and shared what's happened in the last month, but I felt like yesterday I needed to go back and reminisce a little about where we've been and what's happened in the last five years.

Because what came next is something we NEVER would have expected.

As you know, we both came down with some cold/flu thing the night before we came home from Australia... making that 18-hour plane ride home a complete nightmare. But, anyway, Marc got better after about a week. I, on the other hand, stayed sick and got progressively more sick.

And, then we found out why:

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After five years of NOTHING, then all of a sudden THIS. These are just some of the feelings we've experienced:

awe

an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like

won·der

to be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe; marvel

de·ni·al
disbelief in the existence or reality of a thing.

be·wil·dered

completely puzzled or confused; perplexed.

grate·ful

warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received; thankful

Still, after having weeks to let the news sink in, I can't say a prayer without weeping. I've thought a lot of Mary and her feelings after the birth of Jesus - "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." And, this year in seminary studying the Old Testament... when we were discussing Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, I felt such a deep connection to their heartache and anxiously hoped to one day also experience their joy. And, now, with this news, feeling so overwhelmed and even undeserving.

I don't want to say we had "given up"... but, we were completely at peace with the probability that we wouldn't have biological children. We were so thrilled with our plans to create our family through adoption. We LOVE adoption. We will continue to be advocates of adoption and spread all that's good about adoption with all we know. We have gained SO MUCH from our adoption journey - knowledge, understanding, empathy, sensitivity... not to mention the incredible birthmothers we've met and other adoptive couples who have become such dear friends. And, hopefully we will still have the chance to experience the full miracle of adoption.

Words can't describe how grateful we are to the Lord for allowing our paths to cross with "B". We are so grateful for how she has blessed our lives. She has changed our life, simply from the example she has shown us of courage, of faith, of purity and integrity. We have never met anyone who matches the qualities she has already developed. She is one of the most amazing individuals we have EVER met. And, we're looking forward to a lifelong friendship with her.

As you can imagine, we've had some conflicting feelings and emotions over the last few weeks. While we are ever so grateful for the miracle of this pregnancy, it's been hard to let go of our plans and dreams of adoption. I guess, in the end, our dream is to realize the blessing of a family, however the Lord sees fit to allow that to happen. Things change, plans are altered... and I know the Lord is involved in the details of how and when things come together.

Sharing this news is very difficult for a few different reasons, one of those being that I know all too well how painful it is to hear the news of yet another person getting pregnant. It kills me to know that this news could be painful to someone out there. I don't know why this has happened for us. It's very humbling, even to the point where I know there are so many out there who are more deserving of this blessing than us.

It's also very scary knowing that there could still be "changes" that happen. We are trying to just focus on finding joy and wonder in the miracle that comes with each new day. And, we are filled with comfort, knowing that whatever tomorrow holds, the Lord will take care of and provide for us. He always has and He always will. As long as we align our will with His, we will always be okay.

Even better than okay.

Oh, and there is one other detail about this pregnancy:

All in a year...

I know it's been a month since we've updated our blog... thanks to Carrot Jello for not letting us forget! There is so much... it's really hard to know where to start. Maybe it's best to start from the beginning...

A year ago today we received our official letter in the mail from LDS Family Services, informing us that we had been approved to adopt. That was also the birthday of our blog. Adoption was the main purpose behind creating this blog, hoping we could get our information "out there" and find the birthmother of the child who was meant to join our family. So, happy 1st birthday, blog!

We've had quite a journey. Five years ago we started trying to have a family. We actually got pregnant within a couple of months of trying, but lost the baby soon after initially getting the exciting news. It was just enough time to get attached and make dreams for that little one. But, we healed and moved forward, sure that the wait wouldn't be long.

After passing the 2-year anniversary of our miscarriage, after no luck of getting pregnant again, I finally allowed myself to admit that we had a problem. Infertility. That started a year and a half of doctor visits, tests, procedures, referral to an infertility specialist, surgery, drugs, disappointment, discouragement. And, amidst all that we went through, there was no explainable reason why we couldn't conceive. We still had more options we could pursue with our infertility specialist, but the more we went to her the more we felt like we weren't in the right place. That's probably because the last visit we had with her she scoffed when we told her we were looking into adoption. Excuse me? Then, she told us we would never have a child, unless we went with IVF. Yeah, I had no desire to see her after that.

For about six months we had been talking about adoption, and finally decided to attend an adoption orientation meeting. We listened to birthmothers talk about their experiences placing their babies for adoption, we watched as two young families shared how they'd been recently blessed by the miracle of adoption. Basically it was five hours of free-flowing tears. As we left that meeting, Marc summed it up perfectly - "we leave doctor appointments feeling discouraged and sad... and then we leave this meeting feeling joy and excitement at the renewed hope of having a family."

The answer was so clear to us. We knew that we were meant to jump into adoption and we were so excited. We received all the paperwork and got it completed as fast as we could. We couldn't wait to be approved and start our search for our child.

So, May of last we year, we were approved. The day we got the letter in the mail was a day of joyful tears... we were one step closer to our dreams coming true. September came and all of a sudden we were contacted by three birthmothers. Our contact with one of them lasted for three months, and we thought our Christmas miracle was on its way. But, there turned out to be some complications with the situation and things didn't turn out like we hoped.

We were thrilled, though, when we were contacted by an amazing girl on New Year's Eve. Of all the contacts we had had, there was something very different about our feelings towards "B". There was an immediate connection, a feeling of recognition... like we already knew each other.

There are a few reasons why we haven't shared any of our experiences with "B" here, mostly because it has been so special to us and we wanted to save those details for our private journal, until the time was right. After only a few weeks of emailing back and forth, we spent a day with "B" and her family. We saw Juno at the theater with her and her Mom. It really felt like an out-of-body experience... it was such a special day we spent with her. We left, loving her even more. Everything went better than we ever could have hoped.

Because of the delicacy of her situation (beyond her control), there were some risks with us getting involved so early, which she was really open with us about. She was in her fourth month when she contacted us, so our pathways joined together pretty early on in her pregnancy. She has had some uphill battles to fight and we have really appreciated being next to her, witnessing her bravery, her faith, her determination to accomplish the Lord's will. She has won our admiration for life.

Since returning from Australia, to our surprise, the Lord has made some serious alterations to our plans. As a result, I've felt such a wide range of conflicting emotions - joy, sadness, wonder, confusion. But, overall, as we've watched the Lord make these changes from every direction, we have felt very much at peace that He is completely in control... AND He always has been. We make plans and we work towards fulfilling our dreams in any way we can, and then we learn that sometimes even those plans that we were so sure about aren't quite what we thought they would be. But, the Lord, in His great wisdom, knows exactly what He's doing. And, though we can't understand perfectly at this time the purpose and reason behind those plans, in the end the blessings He has in store for us are even greater than we could ever imagine.

I've reflected a lot lately on a quote from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity:

God's work in our lives can be painful, but His ultimate goal is to transform us into something better. Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but he is building up a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself.

Well, I wasn't planning on making this a two-part post, but seeing as it's already getting so long, I think we'll finish this later. Plus, I think I need a little break... it's hard to put so many feelings down in words that won't ever adequately represent what's going on in those inner layers of the heart.

Please understand if it takes us a few more days to share the details of the rest of the story.