FHC Celebration for Sadie and Olivia Couch

What a fabulous night!!
  Tonight David and I were thrown a couples shower to honor Sadie and Olivia. The theme was sweet and spicy. So there were lots of sweets (of course) and a taco bar with some spice. It was hosted by our home school group and all of the dads like to hang together so we thought it was a good reason for it to double as a couple's night. So we got to eat and chat and of course share a few gifts for the girls. But I think the best part was the Hot dad contest. The dads were suppose to attempt to eat the hottest pepper they could. I have never seen so many men crying in one room. Of course there was a few smart ones that did not participate including David who said that would tear up his stomach for a few days. So the men did it cried some and then indulged in a big glass of milk out of sippies together.

  A gift that we received also was a cherry tree that they used as a blessing tree. They had this beautiful tree set up and the guests had to write a blessing to our family and pin it on the tree. I can not wait to plant the tree in our yard. What a great memory of a great group of families.

Virginia, Susan, Crystal, baby Kenzie, and Tiffani

 

Susan and TIffani

The non-pepper eating dads!

Joann and Robert

Tiffani and Mike

Kelley

Sally and Paulette

David and I were very thankful for everything that everyone did to make the night so memorable. We all took home jarred homemade salsa and cupcakes (sweet and spicy).

Jacob is 6!

Six years ago we brought our first baby boy home. What an adventure it has been! From learning all the things a first time mom wishes she had known beforehand, starting homeschooling and so much more.  Jacob and Lu are so different yet so alike at times. Jacob is slow to warm up but once there takes off socially (just like his daddy). He has a sensitive heart he longs for animals to be saved, loves to cuddle and have his back scratched.
Here are some special things about Jacob and his sixth year of life
* We have completed his second year of homeschooling and he loves science experiments.
* Now that his reading has taken off he loves to read books. He was never really a young book boy, too busy, but now it's like a whole new world opened up to him.
* Since we moved he has become really good friends with our neighbor Brian who is 9.
* In the morning he loves getting the biggest hottest blanket out and wrapping up in it.
* Loves to come in our bed at night and watch history channel or animal planet with daddy.
* Takes showers now instead of baths. We have had to limit the time because he loves to just stand under the water.
* Still sleeps with his blanket. But now it never really leaves his room.
* Is in such a hurry to dress and get out and play in the morning he usually forgets his underwear!!
* Likes to dive for dive sticks in our pool
* Is a green belt in karate. He has been participating now for 1 year.
* Loves to draw pictures of army trucks.
* He has just started getting paid for chores. He does laundry, trash, vacuuming, and dusting. We pay him a dollar a week, we want them to learn about money and figured he needed to have money to learn how to be wise with it.
*Loves to swim.

This year he will be blessed with two more sisters so I am excited to see him grow in this new part of our lives and step up and be the great big brother he has been to Lu.

Introducing Olivia Grace and Sadie Faith Couch

We have now hit the half way point! With this being our third upcoming birth, you would think I would feel fully prepared but yet I feel unprepared. There is so much unknown about a twin birth, there are so many last minute things to come about. So, what do I know....
* There is a large possibility that I may have to have a c-section. I really need to come to terms with this. Having both Jacob and Emily vaginally was the most amazing experience of my life!
* I must deliver in an OR no matter what. Which means I have to tell my mom that she can not be with us, this makes me sad.
* My babies may not be with me directly after birth.
*There is a chance of one or both may need to go to the NICU and Jacob and Emily would not be able to see them.
* The last 10 weeks of my pregnancy every doctors appointment is crucial to check for early labor and TTS (twin to twin syndrome) Where one baby starts getting more nutrition than the other.
* And most of all David and I are so anxious to meet our girls.

As you can see in the title we have given previously called baby A and baby B names. Baby A is Olivia Grace Couch and baby B is Sadie Faith Couch. David and I both like giving our children in the womb names as early as we can agree on and sharing those names so that we may pray for them and others can pray for them by name.
Every time in my life that I am beginning a new journey in life (marriage, kids, homeschooling, etc.) I like to look out for great books on those topics and read up on them. Some advice I throw out the window right after I read it, some stuff I actually try then throw it out if it does not work for us, and other great stuff I remember and share with others in my life. As for twins, there are tons of books on caring for twins in the womb but I am finding it is harder to find good info for caring for them after delivery.
So what have I found so far.....
* First thing that I found important try not to call them the twins, try to call them by name to create a one to one personality
* Let them share the same space until they begin to roll around or stand up.
* A BIG one have a way to identify them!
* Feed them at the same time
* Schedule, Schedule, Schedule... Get them on a schedule, the same schedule. When one eats feed the other, when one wakes, wake the other. I believe this will ring true. When Emily was about a year old we did our very best getting the kids on the same routine and man did it make a difference.
This journey of carrying these baby girl's in my womb is half way over but yet we have so much farther to go and the road is going to get tougher and my body has lots of growing to go. But this is such a blessing and an amazing journey for David and I and our children moments over the last year have made our faith grow so much stronger and we continue to trust in our God and have strength.

Girls, Girls, Girls!

Today we had an unexpected ultrasound due to a few other complications. I am now 15 weeks so I wanted David and the kids to come along because I just knew that today would be the day we could definitely know  if we had boys or girls. And sure enough after seeing the babies and hearing there heartbeats. There they were and confirmed our sweet baby GIRLS. To tell you the truth David and I had a sense from day one that they were girls, so we really were not at all surprised. Just the fact that both of us had the same visions of baby girls, I guess we would have been really surprised if they were boys. But God is definitely keeping us on our toes this time around so anything could have went!

Easter "God talking to me"

This Easter was a little different from the last few for a few reasons the first was David had to work over night so he would not be with us until after church and secondly we had just made it through our first major valley of our twin pregnancy, the thought of losing them.
I am healed and feeling better Easter was my first day out of the house since the blood clot was discovered. I was a little worried about over doing it. But I love Easter Sunday and planned to go with God's help.
During the sermon I realized why I was there sitting all alone on the third row on Easter Sunday that was God's plan, he had a story for me that day.
The Sermon was on giving everything you are holding on to up to God. Those things you think you need to hold on to, to be able to control, you know that won't go through if you don't keep hold.
The sermon talked a lot about those sinful things you hold on to, worldly things. But to me it was right in front of me, this pregnancy. Why the moment I have a scare I start wondering why he is doing this, why is it going to be this way. But instead why can't we hold on to the faith and give everything else away.
Giving this pregnancy completely up to God would be the ultimate sacrifice from us but it will be nothing compared to what he has done for us this Easter. It's time to step back from all the things I have been told that can go wrong with a twin pregnancy and really start focusing on the positive the "gift" in all of this. These precious girls made in God's image and who we will raise to love there Lord God with all of there being.
Thank you Bill Driscoll for giving us the good, bad, and ugly truths and making us own up to our own faith and weaknesses. I pray this pregnancy will be different through my eyes for the rest of my months ahead and through the mountains we dance with him and through the valley's we walk hand in hand with him.

Week 13 in The Valley

Well this one is a week I would love to put behind me and move on without remembering. But I start to wonder maybe God gave us this experience to make me realize a few things and it happened to be the week of Easter and a sermon that spoke straight to where I was at that moment.

 Thirteen weeks and two days lying in bed totally exhausted, David is rubbing my back which has been the routine lately for getting me to fall asleep easily. At 9pm kids are in bed and I feel a rush coming from my body, a feeling of my water just broke. I immediately knew something was wrong. I went in the bathroom and started yelling for David to call the doctor now, this was not good. Sitting on the bathroom floor crying out to God. Not this not now this is all to familiar event. I know many statistics say woman bleed in pregnancy but our experience so far is bleeding= miscarriage. I try not to think but to pray I can't help but to think I am too far along for this to happen naturely, I am going to have to go down the same road just last summer and I knew that we emotionally could not get pregnant again after this. 

David has already called the operator and I breath a sigh of relief when she says "YES Dr. Rebenack is on call". I knew that he would do whatever we needed at that moment. Not 5 minutes later is he on the phone with us. I am now laying in bed and David hands the phone over to me so I can explain the rush I had. I clear my voice and begin to speak. He listens asks a few specific questions and asks if we can meet him at the office in 30 minutes?. 

First off this is why we love him so much. He does not tell us not to worry and that he will see us first thing in the morning, he does not send us to the ER to sit and wait and pay $300 for lots of unnecessary stuff and for some strange doctor to tell us if our girls are still alive and well.

David's parents are at the house in minutes with no explanation we are out the door. There is nothing said in the car but prayers going non stop. Praying to God for his will to be our will. We are not positive they are girl's but have been told a few times. I begin praying for them by name YES we already have girl names if they are boys we are in deep trouble NO names:)

We are there a little early I keep praying David asks if I want to talk and all I could say is "I am scared". Of all times he gets on facebook ( I find out later he was reaching out to a few good prayer warriors). The doctor shows up gets us in the back door and immediately takes us to the ultrasound room. As we wait for the machine to warm up he reviews my chart and it brings him happiness to know that just the week before at the high risk doctor we had an amazing visit and everything looked picture perfect.

It was now time! I lay back he places the wand on my stomach and BAM he wakes one up and she was wiggly. My heart dropped and tears rushed I knew that was a good sign and then the other little lady wakes up and same thing dancing around. I can even see there heartbeats on my own. He spends lots of time looking and measuring, not rushing at all considering it is now 10 pm at night. After poking and proding and trying to get the girls still for heart checks. He does fine one thing a blood clot. The babies have already moved up and the blood clot is very far away from them. He measures it it is small and out of the way. That will be his diagnosis for the evening causing me to bleed like a water fall. He assures me with bed rest for the next couple of days that the bleeding should stop. I got off the table and once again another rush, he gave me time I cleaned up and then was ready to get home to lay down.

When asked why he met with us he said that he knows me and I would have stayed up all night and the best thing for this is for me to rest. He said if I needed it I could take a Benadryl to help me get to sleep. Surprisingly I felt emotionally drained and thought I would have no trouble going to sleep. 

I lay in bed thanking God for one more day with our girl's and asking for help to lay low this week. Very grateful for prayers we have received throughout the night. Just one more valley that we made it through with God's help.

12 week measurements

Seems like we are at the doctor every other week these days. Oh yeah it's because we are!
Today we went for our 12 week evaluation. They did measurements of each babies size, there necks, and we got to count toes and fingers!
All the measurements were right on and there was no sign of any deformities and importantly babies were still the same sizes.

Baby B

Baby A

They gave us a great show. Really looked like they were having a party in there. We saw hands in the air opening and closing legs flaring, waving, and great butt shots:) we are only 12 weeks so they could not tell for sure the sex of them but the ultrasound tech had a very good suspicion that they were girls. We did not say but David and I both had a secret that we some reason felt like they were girls. So we believe the technologist knew what she was talking about, I guess we will see in a few weeks.

Baby B Waving

The doctor was so pleased with there progress he said he would see us in 4 weeks instead of 2. But not to get used to the break because after that it's strictly every two weeks to make sure they keep up with each other.