Hello World! and 15 Week Update

Hello everyone and welcome to my weekly pregnancy update!  I've been keeping a little pregnancy journal of sorts since we found out we were expecting, and now I finally get to publish it.  If you missed our announcement, you can go see that here: http://blakeamanda.blogspot.com/2014/10/5th-anniversary-trip-to-california.html

So, here's all the big details:

Due date: April 27, 2015, but since it's twins, I will be delivering by 38 weeks instead of 40.  More than half of twins are born premature, so we are hoping to make it to late March through mid April.

When we found out we were pregnant: August 14th.  I was only 3 weeks 3 days pregnant, according to my due date.  You can read about that here: http://blakeamanda.blogspot.com/2014/11/im-pregnant.html

When we found out it was twins: At our 8 week appointment on September 16th.  You can read about that here: http://blakeamanda.blogspot.com/2014/11/september-22-9-weeks.html

Do we know the genders: Yes!  At our 12 week appointment our doctor gave us a 99% guarantee.  I trust him because he was able to tell my sister's gender at 12 weeks as well.  (Yes, I'm using the same doctor as my mom did with her last pregnancy.  Kinda weird, right?)  I will be putting up a post soon about our gender reveal party including a video!

Morning sickness:  Oh yes.  And at 15 weeks it is still not gone.  I am grateful that I haven't thrown up more than once a week though.  It's mostly been nausea.

Baby bump: While my stomach is definitely larger than it once was, it would not be apparent to people that don't know me well.  I have been taking weekly pictures (except weeks 6 & 7 when I was too sick to pull myself together for a picture) so you can see that progress.  As I am in the second trimester now, I expect my belly to start expanding rapidly any day now.

How I feel about all this: I feel so, so lucky to get to have twins!  Only about 1-3% of births are multiples.  I am so grateful that after a wait we are able to have this opportunity.  I like to say it's God's way of catching us up.  I am also very scared and unsure of my ability to survive a twin pregnancy and raise two babies at the same time!  I am doing my best to put my faith in God right now and trust in His judgement and that he will help us make it through.

What this means for Campbell Photography:  I was so grateful to be able to take my first trimester off of work.  I knew that I couldn't do my best work feeling the way I did.  I will be doing photography again throughout my second trimester, and we'll play things by ear for the third trimester.  After that, I will be having a longer-than-usual maternity leave due to there being two newborns instead of one.  For everyone who will support my business during my second (and maybe third) trimester, I thank you, and my unborn children thank you.  ;)

What this means for this blog: I will be posting a weekly update about the pregnancy, and probably backing off some on the other parts of my blog.  I will try to throw in something different every once in a while though.

How you can read my older weekly pregnancy updates: Click on the Twin Pregnancy tab at the top of the blog.  This will show you all posts I've published about the pregnancy.

If you have had twins or multiples recently and have some advice for me, I'd love to hear it!  It's so much harder to find information about twin pregnancy, gear, care, etc.

Okay, I think that's it.  If you have other questions, feel free to ask!  Now, onto my 15 week update.

My Halloween costume.  Mummy of two!

The babies are about 4 inches long each!  That seems so big.  How do they both fit in there?  

I am pretty bummed that I'm still dealing with morning sickness.  I guess you shouldn't pay attention to what normally happens since pregnancy is such a crazy thing to begin with.  Eating pretty much anything makes me feel awful.  Which is weird because it keeps switching between food=bad and food=good (when I had to keep food in my stomach to keep from getting sick.)

My favorite weekly pregnancy update I've read is for this week.  I have at least 5 different weekly updates I get on apps or emails.  I might be a little obsessed.  But this Pregnant Chicken one kills me (love the name Pregnant Chicken btw.) "...(the baby) moves away from light if you beam a flashlight on your belly (I like to think it makes a hissing noise while doing it.)"  That just puts the funniest visual in my head.