Baby Kortlandt is a BOY and he arrived on Friday evening (5/24)!!! :) Jack had most of us thinking that he would be arriving very soon after his parents' shower & diaper party weekend. But he held out until almost the end of the month. So glad that #32 has arrived safe and sound. Can't wait to meet him and snuggle with him. A big congrats to Scott & Megan - so happy for you two!! :)
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Greetings from the Atlanta Airport! I’ve been quite the business traveler this month – hard to believe May is almost over. The good thing about having to travel to Atlanta for work is that I get to visit with the Robbins family. I was lucky enough to spend a night with the Robbins earlier this week and got to meet sweet little Annsley & Breann. Their actual due date was on Monday (Ollie-bear’s birthday) – so although they are 3 months old, their gestational age is only a few days. Craziness! ;) They are fed every 3 hours – so I got to help with the 8:45pm feeding. I got to change Annsley’s diaper (she totally peed on me because I was too slow) and feed Breann her bottle. I kept saying how tiny they were! But their mama kept correcting me by saying, “No… they’re HUGE!” I’m sure they seem ginormous to her after seeing them at 2 pounds when they were born. Loved my snuggle time with both girls and it was great to see their big sister, Josclyn, as well. We’re looking forward to vacationing with the Robbins in 2031! ;) On Monday, we had our next appointments with Dr. Lindauer! We have been looking forward to hearing our babies’ heartbeats. This appointment was much shorter than our other one – we both peed in a cup, had our blood pressure checked (we were both at 122/82), were weighed in (we do NOT weight the same – I am the younger, yet bigger sister), and then headed to the room for the appointment. Dr. Lindauer checked the babies in me first. She was quickly able to find the heartbeat for one of the babies – it was loud and clear, at a rate of about 150. Then she moved it around (for what felt like forever to me – but apparently was only a few seconds) and found the other baby’s heartbeat. It sounded a little more faint and was a little slower at 140. I asked her what the normal range is and she said that anything over 110 is good. Just to make sure we were hearing two babies’ heartbeats and not the same ones twice – she did a quick ultrasound to verify the heartbeats on the screen. We were shocked to see how much bigger they were – they practically took up the whole ultrasound screen. Definitely looking like babies now – the one was laying on its side, so we saw the profile. And the other was positioned so that we were looking down on its head. When she showed the 2nd baby, I said “Oh- there he is.” Didn’t realize I said “he” until Dr. Lindauer pointed it out. Then it was time to check on our little ones in my Seestah. She was able to find the first heartbeat pretty quickly again and this time it didn’t seem too long to find the other. Both babies’ heartbeats were around 140. Again, she did a quick ultrasound to make sure we could verify the two babies and their heratbeats on the screen. Our 4 little ones are still doing well – crazy to see how much bigger they are. But it makes sense, since our little bellies are starting to poke out more and more. Today I actually wore my first maternity top! Dr. Lindauer gave us the number to call to schedule our high-risk ultrasounds down at Riverside Hospital. I called yesterday morning and we have our appointments scheduled for Friday, June 14th. The ultrasounds will take about an hour for each of us and they will be able to tell us the whether we’re having boys, girls, or a mix! Only 3 weeks and 1 day away – sooooooo anxious to find out, let’s hope the days FLY by. This weekend we are heading to Gatlinburg with my husband’s side of the family. There will be 17 of us staying in a big cabin – should be good times. ;) When we were down in Charlotte at the end of April, my husband’s sister gave us the following card to share some wonderful news with us! The funny thing is that her due date is November 6th – just one day before our full-term due date. We’re guessing her baby will be arrive after all of ours – but he/she could arrive first or be born in-between his/her quadruplet cousins. The Johnston family will be on all sorts of baby watches this fall. So there will technically be 17 plus 3 staying in the cabin this weekend. I hope the babies inside my sister’s belly aren’t too upset about missing out on the Johnston family fun. We promise we won’t leave them behind once they are out of Aunt Chrissy’s oven. ;)
In other news, Baby Kortlandt has yet to arrive – though I believe his mama is getting induced tonight. Can’t wait to hear the great news when he/she arrives! J Today is also my husband’s Granny’s 97th birthday – we are excited to be giving her 4 more great-grandbabies this fall. With Sissy’s little one – she’ll be up to 14 great-grandchildren in total by the end of the year. Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!! :) One of my co-worker friends and his wife had their twins earlier this month. The doctors had discovered during the pregnancy that one of the twins had some heart complications. Grayce and Rosie were both born on May 15th - Rosie was in the NICU due to some breathing issues. This morning, his wife announced on Facebook that they had lost Rosie this past Sunday. My heart is breaking for them - can't imagine the pain and mixed emotions they must be feeling. Mourning the loss of Rosie and joyful that Grayce is still here. Please say some prayers for the Stroud family!
Good Evening! :) So ever since we found out that both my sister and I were pregnant - our friends have been telling us that we need to get on Ellen to share our unique story. Before we even found out how many we were going to have, Elphie sent me the link to submit my "1st time mother-to-be" story to Ellen for a chance to be on her Mother's Day show. The day that we found out that we were having quadruplets (3/22, to be exact) - I submitted our information to her site. One of the required fields was how far along you were in the pregnancy. I figured that there was a good chance that they wouldn't be reviewing those of us "crazies" that were only 7 weeks along. ;) Anyway, the show aired the Friday before Mother's Day - so I didn't make the show. But I've been meaning to share what I submitted for our story - so here ya go.... Dear Ellen, Right when we found out we were having quadruplets, a few friends even mentioned that they should actually create a video about our story in order to get us on the show. It was sweet of them to even think about - but I never really expected anything to come of it. So I was very surprised to receive this email tonight.... Sent: Friday, May 17, 2013 5:29 PM We all know I am not one to shed tears easily, but this video definitely make me cry. After watching it for the first time, I was just speechless and overwhelmed by the kind words. It's not everyday that your friends secretly make videos like this for you. Of course I had to watch it a few more times. :) Such a nice surprise from our sneaky friends that planned out the video script, reviewed the thousands of pictures on my Facebook profile to pull down photos, starred in the video (Thanks, Ladies!), and watched my nephews so that my brother-in-law could edit the video for them today. Quite the team effort - to create a video that means the world to us. Thanks again to our secret little video production group - SKEJ. :) What an amazing video - I love it so much!!
After so many Mother's Day of hoping for good news or being on my period, having a couple babies in my belly (and a couple in my sister's belly) today definitely made this Mother's Day a little more special. Looking forward to holding our little ones next year on Mother's Day 2014! :)
Thanks to my hubby for the sweet Mother's Day card and spa gift card for a pregnancy massage! I also love that he got my sister a card & spa gift card, too. So thoughtful!! We enjoyed a nice dinner out at Red Robin tonight with my sister and her boys. I also felt the love with many Mother's Day wish texts from friends and felt the love from neighbor friends who brought flowers and a card! I feel like such a lucky mama-to-be. Hoping all of you mothers & grandmothers out there had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend! :) And prayers of hope & strength for those that are still struggling with infertility. Good night!!! Sorry that it's been so long since I've blogged - things have been pretty busy! This past weekend I headed up to Michigan for Baby Kortlandt's mama's baby shower. Baby Kortlandt is due on June 3rd and will be the 3rd addition to my extended Kortlandt family this year. She/he seemed to be anxious to get out on last Wednesday - but did let his/her parents make it through their baby shower and diaper party this weekend. (For the record, I think Baby Kortlandt is a boy and will arrive on May 10th.) I also got to meet Baby Zora - who flew up from Arkansas with her parents and big sister for the baby shower. She spends a lot of time sleeping - which gives me hope that our 4 little ones will sleep alot when they first get home. Her mom also let me change Zora and her big sister's diapers - to get practice with girls, in case we get some girls. I have a lot of experience with changing boy diapers. ;) 14 Weeks: As of today, my sister and I have made it through 14 weeks of pregnancy and officially entered the 2nd trimester last week. The 1st trimester went really smoothly - so we hope that the 2nd trimester continues to do the same. My sister said that her level of tiredness seems to be going down and she's hoping that her energy levels will pick up from here on out. I've been keeping pretty busy - so I was a little concerned that maybe I was fighting my body in the whole tiredness thing. But after talking to a few friends/family, they all seemed to indicate that if my body needed to rest that I wouldn't be able to fight it. I know everyone's pregnancy is unique, so I guess I will just be thankful that I didn't have the 1st trimester exhaustion. The crazy thing is that I've started to feel a little more tired this week - so maybe I'm going to have the 2nd trimester exhaustion. ;) Telling Charlie: I flew down to Atlanta on Tuesday afternoon for some work meetings down here in our Norcross office. Since my manager, Charlie, works out of the office down here, I figured that this week would be a good time to share my news with him face-to-face. We didn't have any scheduled time to meet 1:1 this week. And I thought about scheduling some time, but thought that may seem weird. So I decided to just play it by ear and figure out some time to talk to him inbetween meetings. Yesterday he attended the morning session of our meetings - so I thought about telling him during our lunch break. But we ended up meeting with a bunch of other folks outside on the patio. I debated about asking him to stay back when everyone else was heading back inside after we got done eating. But I didn't want to make a big deal infront of others - so I didn't say anything. During the afternoon session, I sent him a message via Communicator (our instant chat tool) to say that I needed to talk to him in private at some point this week. His initial response was "Uh oh.... are you resigning?" I reassured him that I wasn't resigning and that it was good news. He had to leave for some afternoon meetings - so we decided that I would swing by when my meetings wrapped up that day. We headed to an empty office for our chat while just talking about work stuff and how the meetings were going this week. I wasn't really sure exactly how I was going to tell him - so I just kicked it off by saying, "Well, my news..... is that I'm pregnant!" And he of course quickly congratulated me. Then I started giving him the background and said that we've been trying for quite a few years and have done various treatments - including in-vitro a couple years ago that didn't work. I told him how Chrissy offered to help us out and how Dr. Williams suggested transferring embryos into both of us. And then I said, "So, she's actually pregnant with our babies as well." He was quite shocked and we both laughed - but he was very supportive of our unique situation. I didn't think he caught the "babies" part- so I mentioned that we transferred 2 embryos into each of us and they all took. I think he was still "Wow"-ing over the fact that my sister was carrying our baby that he didn't quite catch how many there really were. So I ended it with "And now we're both pregnant with twins!" He was like, "What.... four?!?!?" I could tell that I was pretty much blowing his mind. He was very supportive though and sincerely happy for us. We briefly talked about the work aspect of it - he mentioned that since we're in the process of hiring a new project manager, they could probably use that person to help backfill for me while I'm out. I told him that I definitely want to stay with Fiserv and need to work - but that we're just not sure how things are going to go. We both agreed that we have plenty of time to figure things out and he said that he's sure that we would be able to work something out. He also asked who else at work knew - so I told him about the few folks that already know. I told him I definitely wanted to tell him first - before anybody else at work knew. He then asked when I would be comfortable with other people at work finding out - I told him that I was okay with people knowing at this stage. So he said that he would let his manager (Deb) and his manager's manager (Sue) know - which was fine with me. Charlie actually has twins (that are teenagers now) - so I've always wondered if his twins were natural twins or not. I figured when I told him my story, he may offer up - if he had any experience with fertility treatments. Turns out that he and his wife also tried in-vitro a couple times with no success and then finally got pregnant with their 3rd attempt. He mentioned that they transferred 4 embryos into his wife and initially 3 took - but then they just ended up with their twins. Nice of him to share their story with me. I told him that his wife would probably get a kick out of our story! ;) From his experience with raising twins - he did say that organization will probably be the biggest key to our success. I was a little nervous about telling him - not sure why, because I figured he would be very positive and supportive. But it is nice to have it out of the way and "telling the boss" feels like a big milestone. I've been waiting a LONG time to get to tell my manager that I'm pregnant! ;) Last night, a bunch of us went out to dinner after work. Everyone was ordering wine or margaritas, so I knew that it would seem pretty lame when I had to order a water. When we all went out to dinner back in Ohio in March, I was able to play the "I have to drive home" card to explain why I wasn't drinking. But since I was traveling and riding in someone else's car - I didn't really have that excuse. Only one of the folks at the table knew about our baby news - but as soon as I ordered water, the lady next to me was like, "What?!? Are you pregnant or something?" I didn't really deny it - just smiled and let her order her drink. I thought maybe I could just let it slide - but after the waiter left, she turned to me and asked, "Are you pregnant?" I was kinda shocked that she would call me out at a table full of folks - but decided that I could let the cat out of the bag since Charlie knew. So I said, "Yes, I am..." Everyone was of course very excited! ;) Then I said, "But there's more.... we're expecting 4 babies." And then I went into the whole story - as high-level as I could keep it, to explain how our 4 little ones came to be. They were also pretty shocked - but very supportive. The lady that called me out said, "Well, you seem very maternal - so I'm sure you can handle it." I guess we'll see how quickly news travels around at work. This morning, Deb & Susan both quietly congratulated me before today's meetings were kicked off. Susan said that Charlie blew her mind when he told her yesterday. I was like, "Yeah, not something you hear everyday, huh?" :) My friend joked that she was anxious for me to tell Charlie, because she's going to need a lot of help on projects while I'm gone this fall. And Susan's response was, "She's going to need help!" - referring to me and our babies. This morning, Deb & Susan both quietly congratulated me before today's meetings were kicked off. Susan said that Charlie blew her mind when he told her yesterday. I was like, "Yeah, not something you hear everyday, huh?" :) My friend joked that she was anxious for me to tell Charlie, because she's going to need a lot of help on projects while I'm gone this fall. And Susan's response was, "She's going to need help!" - referring to me and our babies. Maternity Pants = SUPER COMFY! I wouldn't say that I have a real baby bump yet- but my mid-section is definitely starting to poke out. My largest size of pants/jeans are a little snug in the morning and so uncomfortable by the end of the day. I still have one khaki skirt that I can wear comfortably throughout the day. Today I wore my first pair of maternity pants and they were SO comfy. It was a cute pair of white capri pants - thanks to TRF's donations to the traveling maternity clothes. I have a feeling I'm going to be wearing them quite a bit this summer. I'm not quite ready to break-out the maternity tops yet, but I think I will start wearing more of the maternity pants. Borrowing Baby Gear: So one of the wonderful things about taking so long to have our own babies is that many of our friends/family have plenty of baby stuff that they are happy to let us borrow. Ever since we found out that we had our quadruplets on the way, many friends/family have offered various gently used baby items that they would be more than happy to loan us. Two friends took the initiative to email some other families within our circle of friends to figure out what type of baby gear they could round up for us. Then they put it together in this wonderful spreadsheet format - so we could review and decide what we think we might want to use. Thank you, Tracy & Katie! :) We always knew we had amazing friends - but we are feeling especially blessed with the generousity of these 7 families. Thank you, Frases & Knotts & Spellmans & Kings & Blickhans & Wortman & Gerschutz families!! Tons of good stuff that will definitely give us a HUGE jump start on our supply of baby goods. We love you all!
In closing, I'd like to shout-out a Happy 5th Birthday to Rowan - Greg & H2's first-born. :) Good night!! This afternoon Breann was checked out of the hospital - just one week after her twin sister, Annsley. They were born back on Feb 26th - just over 9 weeks ago. It has been a loooooong road (understatement of the year, I know) for them to FINALLY be under one roof. What a great way to kick off the month of May! :) We love you, K-Rob, Spare Bear, Josclyn, Annsley, & Breann!!
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