A First Birthday

Yesterday we celebrated the girls' first birthday. We threw a little party with mostly family and a close friend. It's not ever what I would have imagined the first birthday of my children to be like, but it was just right for the situation. I felt their love all around me throughout the day, along with the love of all of my family and friends. Here's a few pictures of our celebration!

The whole setup


Butterfly birthday cake


The birthday girls!


Punch, birthday cake, and pink bubble gum ice cream!


Close up of the girls and their flowers


The butterflies from their cake


Their balloons

Elim Henry Otto

It's been awhile! I am currently 17 weeks 3 days pregnant, and we found out that it is a boy! We have decided to name him Elim Henry Otto. The E and H initials are from our Emilyn and Hailey. I had heard the first name before, and thought it was cute. Then when we were searching for E and H names I thought of it and looked up the meaning. Of course on different sites there are a million different meanings, but the first one that came up for me for the meaning was oasis, and knew it was the perfect fit if our little button was a boy. An oasis is something that provides refuge, relief, or pleasant contrast and I sure hope this sweet little boy is just that for us! I'm sure that anything that includes bringing my child home alive and healthy will be a pleasant contrast to what we have known before, empty arms and broken hearts. We are still hopeful that our dream to bring a baby home alive and well will be fulfilled. Elim is pronounced with a long E. The name Henry is just because we thought it was cute and flowed well. Otto is a family name on my husband's side, it is his middle name and his Grandpa's name as well. We think it also may be my Great Grandpa's middle name, but we're still not totally sure about that yet!

I am now back in Oklahoma, and have been here for just over a week! I've already had my first appointments with both my regular OB and high risk doctor. Both appointments went great, and I like both of them! At my high risk appointment they basically did the full anatomy ultrasound and that is when we found out that little Elim was a boy! He is measuring a week ahead by his leg and arm length if I remember right. However, by head circumference he is measuring a full two weeks ahead! Taking into account all of his measurements, he is weighing in 8 ounces give or take an ounce. My cervical length is 4.68, which is still wonderful! I go back two weeks after my appointment for another cervical length check. The high risk doctor seemed fairly confident that my preterm labor was caused by me being pregnant with twins alone, though he said there's not really any way to say for sure. So since I'm only pregnant with one baby this time, we shouldn't have any problems, and I really hope that he's right! I had my second shot of 17P, and had to give it to myself. I figured I might as well start practicing since I'll be doing them myself for awhile!

Here's a few pictures of our little Elim Henry Otto!

His sweet profile!


Elim's hand


Elim's crossed feet

Crash course for my pregnancy monitoring

In the past nine months I have been missing my girls I have learned so much about what happened. I've probably learned enough that I could be my own doctor, if only I was able to work the ultrasound machine myself! I thought I'd give everyone a little "lesson" to refer back to whenever I say something that just makes you tilt your head and furrow your brow in confusion when I'm talking about my appointments.

I was given two possible diagnoses for what happened. The first was preterm labor (PTL) and that is what we are leaning towards what happened. The other is incompetent cervix (IC). This is basically where your cervix does not do its job properly. Basically that means it doesn't hold strong, and eventually dilates on its own sometimes with no contractions at all. Since I showed up at the hospital already 4-5 cm dilated they can't be for sure what happened with me. They don't know if the contractions started the dilation, or the dilation caused the contractions. So they're monitoring or treating me for both. Though we are more leaning towards PTL, since a week and a half before I had the girls my cervix was plenty long. Following are the treatments for each and a few key words relating to each.

Incompetent Cervix:

Cervical length checks: Basically they go in and do an ultrasound to measure your cervical length, pretty basic. They worry a lot when the cervix gets down to 2cm, though they will also worry if they see a steady downward trend in length at each appointment. For me, I will be monitored with bi-weekly ultrasounds to make sure there are no changes. My length at my 15 week 4 day ultrasound was 4.89, and at 16 weeks 5 days was 4.68, nice and long, so yay! I had those a week apart because I was originally going to be doing them weekly, plus we wanted to double check the plane ride caused no drastic changes. These will continue until I am 24 weeks, and at that point if there have been no problems I will switch to only being followed by my regular OB. If there are signs of problems, I'll still be followed by the high risk doctor.

Cerclage: Basically this is a stitch to keep the cervix closed. We are not going this route at this point in time, we are going to be monitoring and if we see things starting to change then it may possibly be an option.

Preterm Labor:

17P: This is a progesterone shot that they give weekly. It helps to prevent preterm labor before it starts. It helps to calm the uterus and hopefully keep it from contracting. I just recently heard that it maybe makes the uterus more flexible. I just got my supply of this last week and give the shots at home, I'm sore at the injection site for a few days afterward, but it's all worth it to give this baby a chance!

Preterm Contractions: My doctor in Guam told me to go in at any sign of contractions based on my history. So I am sure I will be getting to know the L&D staff very well in the coming weeks whether they be "real" contractions or just Braxton Hicks. Better to be safe than sorry.

I think that about covers it, if anything "new" comes up I'll explain that later. Not all of my information may be correct, but either way it's my understanding of everything they're monitoring and doing to give Button the best chance at coming full term!

9 months spent missing them

Nine months is the time that a little one is supposed to be tucked away safe and sound in a Mommy's belly. I've now been missing my little girls long enough to have grown a whole little human to a fully developed baby. I so wish that my little girls had gotten their full forty weeks. Nine months on and I still miss them with every fiber of my being every second of the day. I think of them all the time, though not always with sadness anymore. I look at sisters playing together, especially if they are close to the same age and can just picture my Emilyn and Hailey at that age, wondering what things they would be interested in. I see other babies that are about the same age that my girls should have been and wonder what my girls would have looked like at that size, what milestones they would have reached by now. They should be four and a half months old now, their little personalities starting to develop, discovering new things every day.

Happy 9 months in Heaven my sweet baby girls! Mommy loves and misses you both so very much!

We are hopeful

Most people say we are expecting, but not us. We know loss, and we know better than to say that we are expecting. To say we are expecting is to say that we know in the end that we will have a baby to bring home alive and healthy, but we don’t know that. All we know is that as of this moment in time, there is a little being growing inside of me and that this little one is due to be born on February 26, 2011. It's heartrate is 115 and length is about 6.3 mm which is right where it is supposed to be. We are cautiously hopeful, that this precious little one will be born alive, healthy, and full term.

Most people also wait until after the first trimester to let everyone know. They do this because after the first trimester you’re supposed to be home free, nothing can go wrong from that point. But it can, we know that. So we’re opening up now, to share our moments of joy with our family and friends for as long as possible, which we hope will be a full 40 weeks. But if it’s not, we’ve given those we love an extra six weeks to know and love our precious child.

It is not all going to be joy though, there are going to be many times of anxiousness and worry for our little button. It is during those times that we will need support the most. A lot of you may wonder why we aren’t completely over the moon with joy and happiness all the time. We are, but we are also anxious. We will not rest easy until we bring our button home.

We have decided that I will be moving back home to Oklahoma at the beginning of September so that I can have access to high risk doctors as well as be in a location that has a neonatal intensive care unit, just in case this little one is born a preemie and needs that extra care. As much as Charles and I love each other and want to be near each other we cannot afford to be selfish. This baby deserves the best possible chance at life, and we need to live with no regrets, and Oklahoma will fulfill both of those needs.

The best sound in the world, my baby's heartbeating strong


Amazing how we all start out as a little blob and end up being a perfectly formed human, my little button is about 0.63 cm (averaged between three measurements)


The small blob on the left is our button, the blob on the right with a black center is it's yolk sac.

Six Months in Heaven

It has been six full months since I last held my daughters Emilyn and Hailey in my arms, six months since I kissed their sweet little cheeks, lips, and noses, six months since my life as I knew it ended.

My sweet Emilyn and Hailey, I love you so much. Not a second goes by that I'm not thinking about you and wishing that you were here with me. I often wonder what you would be doing now if you hadn't gone to heaven. You would be about a month and a half by now and we would be just getting into somewhat of a routine. I so wish I could go back to that horrible day so I could give you just one more kiss, one more stroke of your cheeks, one more everything. You were and are my entire world, I love you, thank you for choosing me to be your mommy.
Love, Mommy

One Proud Momma!

I got a 2 am wake up call, and I have to say I think it was the best wake up call ever. My brother insisted on calling me, even though it was 2 am our time. Today was the March for Babies in Oklahoma City, where the majority of my team was walking at. At the end of the ceremony they announced the awards. Much to my families' (and my) surprise, we won an award! We won for the "Most Outstanding New Family Team" you can see the video of my parents accepting the award at the link below. My mom had to be told to go up, she was in shock and couldn't move from where she was standing. They started the video right as they finished announcing my team had won.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydiXbzkuhh0

My family after accepting the award


I'm so proud of my girls! If it wasn't for them, I probably wouldn't have been so involved with the March of Dimes like I am now, especially since there isn't a branch out here yet! I so wish that I was there with all of my family walking today, but hopefully I will be able to be there next year!

Most of the OKC crew, I think there were a couple missing from here, but here's the majority of them!


Cool Uncle Matt and Aunt Katie


My mom, Amanda (Katie's sister) and Amanda's twin boys Austyn and Tyler

Amanda found the perfect balloons for the walk! She found butterflies that were attached, so they were twin butterflies, perfect! She wrote the girls' names on them and also got a few other balloons with notes to the girls. At the end of the walk my family released the balloons. Such an awesome day, I wish I could have been there!