Our Girls

They are finally here!

Joyce Aline
Born Easter Sunday 11:14 PM
7 lbs 7 oz.

Lydia Jane
11:27 PM
7 lbs 3 oz.

We are having so much fun. They are easy to differentiate, which makes life easier:) They are good eaters, good sleepers (during the day of course) and absolutely adorable.  We got home Tuesday and this is the first minute I have not been feeding either them or myself. I can't wait to write out their birth story and tell you all about them. We are so happy.

The Birthdays begin

Today is Lucy's 4th birthday. I know that if I don't post about it now, I never will. Tomorrow morning we go in to have another birth...day, so here is a report on Lucy's.

Lucy on her birthday

She woke up with a pretty gross cold. Horrible timing right? She told Danny that she was sick, but that she still wanted to turn four today-he said that was okay:) We decorated the house a but last night and she was thrilled to see the streamers, balloons and posters that were arranged around the house.  We started the morning by going out for donuts and then jamba juice and then met up with Gma Karen at the farmers market to buy some veggies for our birthday dinner tonight.

Afterward Danny left for a bit and Lucy, Gma and I went shopping for a new Easter dress. My child can shop. She loves picking out clothes and we tried on about 10 dresses. I looked at my mom and asked how we could possibly choose with so many options-she has tried things on with Lucy before and assured me we wouldn't have a problem. Turns out we didn't! Lucy knows exactly what she likes and wants. She twirled in each outfit-that is a big factor all by itself-and told us when she liked certain hemlines and ruffles.  Color seemed to make a big difference too. Anyway, we easily chose two dresses and she had a great time trying everything on.  After shopping and a little lunch we decided to go to Pixie Playland-a little amusement park in Concord. It has maybe five rides and is perfect for Lucy's age group. We stayed only about 45 minutes but Lucy loved the plane ride, carousel and tea cups and did all of them twice.

The rest of the afternoon we leisurely opened up presents, read the new books she received and relaxed (well, except for Gma who made us cake and dinner:) Gma Marilyn, Babba Steve, Aunt Lindsay and Uncle Bryce all came over to party with us that evening.  Danny, Mom and I collaborated on a Rapunzel cake that turned out pretty cute (except for the random splotches that arent frosted in the front....don't know how that happened.

We had a seriously fun day and it really was all about Lucy. I'm glad we had a nice busy day when I could focus on my cute girl and also be distracted so I had no time to think about tomorrow!

I'll post with pics of our new arrivals as soon as I can. I can't believe it.

Three Birthdays

Since my last post I have walked and walked, scrubbed and cleaned, fretted and freaked. I've had constant painless contractions and assumed that the painful ones were coming right behind them. The couple painful ones I've had have gotten me totally excited and pretty much each day I assumed I'd be having babies. It was frustrating. Then Wednesday I gave up and accepted that these babies just want to stay in me. I have felt SO much better ever since. I don't expect it to happen anymore-so I can just go on. I went to the Dr. this morning and everything is great. I can't feel the girls move as much, which I have been a bit worried about, but they just don't have any more space so they can only make subtle movements. I am currently only dilated to 3 cm but both babies are head down, which makes things much easier for a vaginal delivery. Everything looked good so there was no excuse to keep me. I have all day tomorrow to clean and prep, then all day Saturday to celebrate Lucy's birthday (at which point I will be 38 weeks). Sunday morning we'll have an early Easter egg hunt, then I'll go in and deliver two babies. Crazy huh. It is weird but now that that I don't feel like labor is imminent, I am actually happy to have the last couple days, however uncomfortable I am. I'm going to play with Lucy and sleep as much as I can.  I'm excited to have a last meal and leave my clean house knowing that I'll come home again with babies.  I find it pretty wild that all three of my children will have their birthdays in two days, but what can you do?! I'm sure we'll get used to it.

37 Weeks

My original goal was to make it to 37 weeks-and I have. That said, these last couple days I had really hoped I wouldn't have to type out that title. When I got my cerclage out (it was NOT comfortable) my doctor told me I was at 2 cm and Baby A was right there ready to go. He asked how close we lived to the hospital and to come in after I felt 2-3 labor pains.  He said he didn't think I'd last the weekend and that  he thought due to baby A's position it would be short. Well, here I am lasting the weekend. I should never underestimate my body's desire to keep babies in.  I also shouldn't have gotten my hopes up just because he said all of that.  The next day I was incredibly active in the hopes of getting my labor going. Danny and I went on a long walk (well, for me it was long, I'm still sore-I guess I lost all of my leg muscle), I vacuumed the house, did the floor boards on my hands and knees, vacuumed out the car, installed the car seats etc.  I was very relieved I didn't go into labor that night-I was exhausted. Anyway, since then I have walked around all day to no avail.  I have had a few labor pains here and there-but nothing that felt real.  Every morning I hope I'll go into labor and every night I hope that I won't so I can just sleep.  I know that they will come when they're ready-and I am incredibly glad that every day they're inside they are getting nice and fat. Selfishly, however, I want to be able to breath again:) I can't really express how uncomfortable I am at this point.  The nice thing is that if the girls don't come on their own, I know I only have one more week to go.

My attempt this week-fuzzy and eye-less.

Anxious

Today I get my cerclage out. When this happened with Lucy I had a paper chain going to weeks and we brought our hospital bags expecting to have a baby. When they took out the stitches and I was only at a one, they had me walk around for a few hours. When I stayed at a one they told me I was officially a normal pregnant woman and would go into labor like one. I waited for four weeks. The doctors had given me expectations of an early baby-so to wait for 39 weeks was torture!

This time around I am trying not to get my hopes up. With two six pound babies that are very close to the 37 week mark, I hope I start dilating quick and get these girls out.  Danny is all excited because he thinks it will happen soon. I am trying to manage my hopes and say it won't happen until my induction date instead-otherwise I may go crazy!  This weekend really is the most convenient time to have the girls (taking into account my mother in law still being in town, my mom's school schedule, me being totally uncomfortable:) so I am crossing my fingers a bit. 

My bags are packed, my car seats are in the car ( if not secured yet), the room is ready. Just waiting for babies!

35/36 Weeks

Week 35 in the baby room

I have made it to my 35th week. Actually, I just realized that I'm barely 36 weeks-but I had my Dr appointments in week 35 so I'll report on that. I have been looking forward to my sonogram to see how much these girls weigh.  As of Thursday:

Baby A: 5 lbs 11 oz

Baby B: 5 lbs 13 oz

I could hardly believe it. That seems really big for this week! So yeah, I'm carrying over 11 lbs of baby! Good girls, at almost 6 pounds each I feel quite comfortable with them coming any time. In fact, when I get my stitches out next week I may just start running and whatever else it takes to go into labor.  Right now Baby A is head down and baby B is...sort of head down. I'm not sure how she has enough space but she is still managing to squirm around in there.  I have an induction date set when I am 38 weeks (can you imagine how big we'll all be by then?!) It is set for Easter Sunday-the day after Lucy's birthday.  I hope I don't make it that far, but we'll see.  

Today I am sending Danny off the Utah for Jared Collette's wedding. I am so glad he won't miss it.  He has been a bit nervous about leaving me given the late stage of this pregnancy.  I have been pretty confident that nothing will happen. I am not having tons of contractions and it is only two days...but at night when I'm pretty incoherent (but awake because I use the bathroom every two hours) I panic slightly that I'll go into labor and he'll miss it. I know it won't happen...but cross your fingers just in case:)


Update: Danny is on his way home from the airport right now! We made it. I didn't really have time to worry about anything because I was having too much fun with Katy who was visiting for the weekend. We showed her Tangled for the first time, read books together (well she and Lucy did) and went to the Disney store's Minnie Mouse Masquerade party.  Here I am at 36 weeks:

Showered

We have been looking forward to this past weekend for awhile. On Thursday I was thrown a shower by my  mother in law with all the lovely ladies from our home ward in attendance.  We really had a wonderful time eating delicious food and chatting. I loved just talking about my girls.  I was completely spoiled with adorable matching outfits and whole cases of diapers. I was really shocked by everyone's generosity. I expected gifts: some blankets, onesies and maybe a sleeve of diapers-typical baby shower gifts. Instead those that gave me diapers brought whole cases from Costco or large bags filled with sleeves of diapers. Those that brought me outfits (I didn't have any matching things before and it really is fun to imagine my little girls matching:) brought me really beautiful dresses and accessories. I was just overwhelmed. 

Me with about half the food in one of the four shirts that still fit me.

Mom and I like to model our baby clothes!

Lucy got to reopen everything the next morning-a very important big sister job.

Someone even remembered Lucy and got her and her sisters matching dollies-Lucy is thrilled.

Everyone had so much fun chatting we didn't get home until pretty late-I was exhausted. The next day was an exciting one for the Leininger fam-Lindsay got engaged to Jason! We are so excited to welcome him to the family. They'll be getting married in August so we are lucky enough to see them often and get to watch the wedding prep (I can't wait to dress up my three girls for a wedding-although I think I'll still look like a whale in August:) On Friday we were able to attend the temple together for Lindsay's endowment. We had a great time being there together for such an important event.