What I Wore: Tulle, Blazer With Jeans, and Lace Pencil Skirt

My cousin said I looked like a ballerina in this outfit.  Ballerinas are beautiful so I'm okay with that.  This crop top pairs really well with a higher-waisted dress.  I know it's hard to tell, but it actually does hit me just below my natural waist.

Pink tulle dress: H&M

Ivory crop top with back lace detail: Forever21

Pink beaded necklace: Forever21

Ivory crochet lace shoes: Kohl's

I love this ruffle top and lace skirt.  I feel great when I wear this outfit, and I think it would look great on anyone!  Black and turquoise are one of my favorite clothing color combinations. 

Black ruffle top: Contempo, found at Plato's Closet

Black undershirt: Downeast

Black and turquoise lace pencil skirt: Forever21

Silver sandals: Payless

Blue topaz and diamond necklace: gift from my dad :)

I love the blazer with jeans trend.  It's one I wish I could talk my husband into trying.  Blazers are very hard for me to find a good fit, and I looked for a long time to find this one.  I gave up on a long sleeve one because that is just too much of a long shot.  My striped top works in so many outfits.

 Black and white striped half sleeve top: Kim's Fashions

Black 3/4 sleeve blazer: Love Culture

Pink necklace: Downeast

Cuffed jeans: American Eagle (extra tall sizes exclusively online)

Turquoise flats with gold flower detail (sorry you can't see them in the pics): Forever Young Shoes

10 Weeks

Something's happening for sure!

What a week.  We had planned to use the whole week to move into our new apartment and do it slowly as to not kill ourselves, but Monday night someone ended up wanting our apartment on Wednesday.  So we basically moved everything on Tuesday.  I'm so grateful we had a couple people help us, because I don't think we could have done it by ourselves this time.  Last time we moved I carried almost all of the boxes up the stairs by myself, but this time I didn't dare carry anything heavy and had much, much less energy and was feeling sick.  Even at that I overexerted myself and was sore until Saturday.  We are loving our big new apartment, and I will love it even more when it is all put together.  Our babies are going to live here!

As for symptoms, I have some good days and some bad days.  Yesterday ended my lucky streak because I finally threw up.  Sad day.  I'm hoping this does not become a common occurrence.  Even if it does, it should only be lasting 2-4 more weeks according to my doctor and the internet.  Speaking of the internet, I need to stop looking stuff up on the internet.  I get myself all worried.  I just learned about 'vanishing twin syndrome' which is where all of a sudden, one of the twins is gone without a trace.  I think it only happens earlier on, but still.  And I wasn't too happy to read that 50% of twins are born via c-section.  I mean, if it has to happen that way then I'll deal with it, but I'd really rather not have to do that, especially with my first pregnancy.  Another scary tidbit is that more than half of twins are born premature, so I have to pick a hospital with a good NICU.  That is really not something I want to go through.  I want to get to hold my babies after they're born.  I guess it's in God's hands though.

My babies are supposed to be over an inch long now!  I may have bought a bunch of maternity clothes already because I found really great deals, and so now I'm wondering when I'll actually need to wear them.  I am fearing and also strangely curious and almost looking forward to starting to get a big belly.  Mostly just to see what it's like.  I know I'll probably be sick of that by the end though, haha.  I think I may be a bit more moody than normal.  I don't think I'm psycho yet though.  Hopefully Blake would agree.  This week has been hard on me and he hasn't been around very much so I have been feeling a bit abandoned.  This week should be better. :)

9 Weeks

It's starting!

We got to go to our first prenatal appointment on the 16th.  They gave me a bag full of pages of helpful information, a water bottle, and prenatal vitamin samples.  I thought that was fun.  The doctor answered my questions and then did an ultrasound. Blake somehow knew to start taking a video right before this happened so what you've got right here is an actual transcript.

My doctor looked around for a minute and then said, "So like, what if you had two?"

I said a hesitant "I don't know."

"Cause you do."

"Really??!?! Are you kidding me?"

Blake joined in with an "Oh my gosh."

"Yeah, they're twins.  They're fraternal, they're not identical or anything."

"Okay," I said as I laughed nervously.

He showed me the two little blobs and we listened to each of their heartbeats.  He said they are both doing really great and everything looks fine.

And just like that, everything was flipped on it's head.  I felt terrified at the thought of twice as many diapers, twice as many feedings, twice as many times trying to get a baby to sleep.  Would I be able to sleep at all or would they be awake at different times?  So much for my plans of not getting too huge or needing as many maternity clothes because I'm tall.  My body will definitely never look good again.  How can we afford to buy twice as many baby things?  Two car seats, two cribs, two high chairs, twice as many diapers, twice as many clothes, twice the health insurance and doctor visits, the list goes on and on.  I might not be able to leave the house at all for months, not even for grocery shopping.   How the heck do you get two babies to breastfeed at the same time?  How do you carry two car seats and a diaper bag at once without your arms falling off?  There are so many logistics to figure out that had never even occurred to me. 

Being pregnant with twins automatically makes my pregnancy a high-risk one.  That means I'll have to be more careful about potential problems such as gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, preterm labor, and more.  More than 50% of twins are born premature.  My doctor told me that they don't let twin pregnancies go past 38 weeks.  He gave me the official due date of April 27th, but since twins are considered full term at 37 weeks instead of 40 the more accurate due date is April 6th.

Blake had been teasing me all along that it might be twins.  He would say things like "You're so pregnant, if you were any more pregnant it would be twins!"  Blake couldn't be more happy about getting two babies for the price of one pregnancy.

So how am I feeling about all this?  I go through times of being overwhelmed and scared, wondering if I will ever feel like a normal human being ever again, or if the pregnancy and newborn stage will literally kill me.  Sometimes I think I am in denial.  But most of the time I feel happy.  I had no idea I could be so happy about this.  Seeing them on the ultrasound and knowing that they are okay made me feel so good and calmed so many of my fears.  I looked at pictures of newborn twins on pinterest and they are adorable.  I'm going to have a set of my own in 6-7 months.  I'm pulling for a boy and a girl, how fun would that be?

As far as pregnancy symptoms, some days I feel pretty good but just kind of off.  For example, some days I eat a full meal yet within an hour or even less sometimes I feel like I am starving to death.  It is the strangest thing.  I have less energy and feel more tired than normal, but can't sleep quite as well as usual.  I have some days where the nausea hits me pretty bad and eating anything makes me feel really sick, but so does not eating, so I do my best to eat.  My doctor said that morning sickness is usually worse with twins, so that explains why I have it much worse than I was expecting due to my mom never having morning sickness at all.  I feel like my stomach might be looking the tiniest bit bigger, but I'm not sure.  It might also just be me starting to gain back the five pounds I lost right before I got pregnant due to medication.  I'm so curious about what it will be like to be further along in pregnancy and have a baby bump.

Since I will probably be showing soon and am not feeling great, we decided to tell Blake's mom and stepdad, Blake's sister and brother-in-law, and my cousin Haley.  I don't particularly like trying to be secretive about things so I'm glad we got to tell some people.  We think we are going to wait to announce it to the general public until sometime between our anniversary next month and Halloween.  My parents were so excited to hear the news about twins.  My sister said, "Great, now I'll have to babysit two of them," and my brother said, "Haha you are going to look so crazy huge."  Sibling love.  I realized that there will be the same number of years between me and my sister as between her and my babies.  Crazy right?

We bought our first baby things this week.  We got a Pack N Play from a thrift store for $12 in great condition, and one of those toys with the plastic rings of different colors that stack on a base with a stick for 99c.  You'd know what I meant if you saw it...  I also bought my first maternity shirt there for $2.99.  Things are getting real, people!

One more awesome piece of news, we found a great townhome and start moving in today!  It has been an extremely long 8 months in Ogden and I am so happy to be moving on to better things.   We will actually have a room for our babies that I can start thinking about decorating and filling with baby things.  Of course I can't buy much of anything right now because we don't know the genders, and I should probably wait until after the baby shower anyways.  For now I can keep myself busy with unpacking and decorating our bedroom in the new theme that I had been waiting to change to until we moved.  I'm so excited!

There's two!!!!!!!

8 Weeks

I can't believe I'm two months pregnant already!  Seven months doesn't sound like a long time to prepare for the baby.  Things are starting to get a little better this week.  Although there is still plenty of nausea, it has abated just enough that I am able to handle it better.  I've been able to get out of bed almost every day.  There were two days that I had migraines though, and so those days didn't go so well.  I've only had a migraine once before, right after I went off birth control last year.  So I'm guessing it's a hormone change thing for me.  I get aura before my migraines, which is really freaky.  I am still having a hard time with food.  The thought of eating just makes me sick sometimes.  But don't worry, not eating also makes me sick so I go ahead and eat plenty of food.  I'm handling fruits, certain veggies, cheese, peanut butter, and most whole grain stuff the best right now.  Which I know I should be eating a bigger variety of things, but it could definitely be worse, right?  Having stomach acid rising up in my throat all day long is getting so old.  I'm afraid that's just going to get worse as my abdominal cavity gets more and more squished.  I am grateful that my mom didn't have bad morning sickness, because they say that's a big factor in whether you get it too.  She says she never threw up while pregnant.  Keeping my fingers crossed that will be true for me too.

I am so glad that my first prenatal appointment is on Tuesday!  I am sick of wondering and worrying about everything.  Not that it will stop, but at least I'll get some answers.  I am kinda scared that there might be something wrong with the pregnancy and I will be so happy to finally get to hear if the baby has a heartbeat and if everything is going okay.

Sunset Nails Tutorial

It's September now and so summer is officially over, but it's still hitting the 80's most days I thought one last summer nail tutorial would help us say goodbye to summer right.  And what could be better than a sunset nail tutorial? 

Step 1- Gather materials.  You will need a white polish, two or three colors, and optionally, a glitter polish.  You will also need base coat, top coat, something to use for cleanup, and a cosmetic sponge.

Step 2- Paint your nails white.  Make sure it's more or less opaque.  Let it dry very well.

 Step 3- Cut the sponge to the approximate size of your nail.

 Step 4- Paint the colors on the sponge in the order you want them.  You will need to do this after each nail.

 Step 5- Press the sponge onto your nail.  Bounce it around and let the polishes blend together at the edges.  You will probably need to let it dry and do a second coat.  Your fingers will be a ridiculous mess.

 Step 6- Clean up your nails.  I use a small brush and acetone.

 Step 7- Optional, add glitter on top, because glitter makes everything better!

 Step 8- Enjoy your new mani and try not to be too sad that summer is over.  It'll be back next year :)

7 Weeks

This past week has been so hard.  I have been in a constant state of insane nausea, have hardly been able to eat anything, and have been unable to get out of bed for more than the occcasional bathroom trip.  I haven't thrown up yet but have felt very close many times.  I feel so useless and frustrated with myself for laying around doing nothing.  I know I should try to focus on how I'm doing the best I can to grow this little baby, but it's hard to be positive when you feel horrible all the time and your house is a mess and there are dishes piling up in the sink because you can't even get out of bed for a shower, let alone cleaning.  I am praying that the sickness lets up soon, just a little.  Please please please. 

For something happier, I had my first dream featuring our baby last night.  I can't remember much except that she was a girl.  I've heard about vivid pregnancy dreams, but this one was no different than my regular dreams and not very clear.  I woke up very happy and was doing great until I tried to eat breakfast and got super sick from it.  Oh well.

No picture again this week, for the same reasons.