Beautiful baby girls!!!

Hello girls!

It was so wonderful seeing you yesterday and even better being able to hear your heartbeats! They were by far the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard!

Your birth mom had a Dr. appt. yesterday and she allowed me to come along with her. They did an ultrasound and confirmed that you are both in fact beautiful little girls! You are both growing well and look very happy and healthy. One of you (the Dr.'s call Baby A) already weighs 1 pound and the other (Baby B) weighs in at a close 14 oz. The Dr. was very pleased with where you were on the growth chart and will continue to monitor you closely to make sure everything stays on track.

We are all so excited to meet you two little beauties and hold you in our arms. We know that your birth is going to be so emotional for us all, and we are all anxiously awaiting your arrival.

Keep growing strong and healthy my little girls! I will get to see you again in a few weeks as Eliza is coming down to the Valley to have a level 2 ultrasound done which is just a more thorough ultrasound to make double sure that you are both happy and healthy in there. I am very excited that I won't have to wait very long to see you again and hopefully daddy can come too because he wasn't able to be at the ultrasound yesterday. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he hears your heartbeats for the first time!

We already love you so much Chloe and Araya! I will write more again soon!

The Nursery

Pace was in town for the weekend, so we were very busy! We finished our gift registry, cleared out the guest bedroom and built the cribs! We are trying to get as much done as possible while he is here, because we don't really know what his work schedule is going to be like for the fall. We are both tired of him working in NJ. It is so far away from home! I felt kind of bad keeping him so busy over the weekend, but he was such a good sport! He likes to stay busy and he already likes to do things for the girls even though they haven't been born yet. It was a proud moment seeing the cribs he built all set up!

It is so surreal looking into that room now. I catch myself just daydreaming about walking in to get the girls out of their cribs in the morning and my heart skips a beat. I am so beyond thrilled and excited! There just aren't words to describe how Pace and I feel. Our joy is overwhelming!

Today Eliza is 21 weeks along - we are well over half way there and I am very excited about seeing her next Monday and going to the Dr. appointment with her. I have so many questions and I am hoping to get some good answers and feedback from the Dr. I am so grateful to her for allowing us to be as much a part of the pregnancy as possible. She truly is an amazing human being!

We got our first "baby" gift from my friend Debi on Sunday! She bought 2 adorable little outfits. They are long sleeve shirts, one zebra print and one leopard print with little tights to go with them. The girls are going to look adorable in them!

Birth Mother love

Good morning Chloe and Araya!!!

I am getting so excited to see you again in a week and a half! Eliza tells me that she can feel you two move all of the time! It is amazing to think how active you are already! Soon you will be big enough for me to feel your kicks from the outside!

I want to share a picture that your birth mom made this morning. I think it is just beautiful (especially since the two of you are on it). It is also a beautiful token of how much she loves the two of you. This decision has been extremely difficult for her and I want you to always remember that this decision was made out of love for the two of you, and your big brother.  I am so grateful that we have a close relationship with Eliza and your big brother, so you will always know them and have a relationship with them. I want that for both of you!

Here it is :)

There you are my little beauties!!!

I already love you so much sometimes I just tear up thinking about you and how you are going to be changing our lives for the better in a few short months!

We have names!!!

Picking names for the little girls was a bit harder than I expected. Pace, Eliza and I had decided early on that we would all collaborate together to name the girls and the first name came really quickly. We went back and forth on the middle name and then the second name took more time.

Well...yesterday, the three of us agreed on the two most beautiful names.

Chloe Elizabeth and Araya Mae Clinger!

Having names for the girls has made it so much more real to me. I can see their names in decorated wooden letters over their cribs and I find their names constantly swirling through my mind. I am so grateful that Eliza allowed Pace and I to be a part of the naming process - it was very important to us and meant so much.

As I move through my day, I often find myself thinking "when the girls are here...where am I going to put them while I do dishes, shower, vacuum, do yardwork?" and then my tummy gets the flutters. We will definitely have some adjustments to make after the girls are here, and they are adjustments we have been ready and prepared to make for years!
The joy in my heart when I think about the girls being home with us is immeasurable.

Slowly preparing

Another weekend has past, and tomorrow Eliza will be 20 weeks - we are officially over half way there! After doing some research and talking to a labor and delivery nurse friend of mine, I have discovered that twins are considered full term at 36 weeks...not 40, so the girls very well may be here in late November, early December!!! That is fine with me - the earlier the better and I am sure Eliza feels the same way!

The cribs are here...lets look at that again. I have TWO CRIBS in my house. It feels so unreal. Granted they are still in their unopened boxes, but they are at least under our roof! Pace's little sister, Emily and I did some shopping over the weekend for the girls and found some very cute outfits. I know I shouldn't be buying clothes, because we will get so many clothes at the shower, but I just couldn't resist. I have been waiting for 8 and a half years to shop for baby clothes for us. Although after this weekend I have determined that I will not buy any more clothes...diapers yes, but no clothes! LOL

I tried and tried to upload a photo of my favorite outfit I bought the girls this weekend, but it kept crashing my pc, so I guess it will just have to remain a surprise :)

I also ordered the fabric for the nursery this weekend. I have searched and searched for bedding that I liked, and just haven't been able to find it, so when I found this fabric, I knew I had to make my own bedding! Thankfully I have a very close friend that is going to make the two rag quilts for the girls (I will help some) so really all I will need to worry about is the bed skirt, curtains etc. I have decided against a bumper at this time - I know they are very controversial and honestly, I just don't want to invest the time in something that may cause me to worry every night the girls go to sleep.

Here is a photo of the fabric we picked out!



I absolutely LOVE this fabric! It has bright, vibrant colors but isn't too froo froo girly girl. Pace will still feel like he has SOME masculinity when he walks into the nursery lol.

I am so excited to see the girls again on the 26th! After Eliza was here a couple weekends ago, and I got to see the girls on ultrasound, it was so weird watching her leave knowing that the babies were still inside her. It was weird for me to think that the girls were going to be so far away from me. I already feel such a close bond to them and love them as if they were growing in my own womb. There are still plenty of risks and hurdles to clear, but I am remaining positive that by the end of the year, the girls will be home with Pace and I and our family journey will finally have come to an end!

Beautiful Progress

We had a very BIG weekend!!! Eliza has come to stay with us for the weekend and we had so much fun! Since Pace was in town for the weekend, we decided it would be fun to make an appointment at Stork Vision so we could try to find out what the sex of the babies are. Stork Vision is a beautiful little office, very cozy and the worker there - Jill was so loving and comforting during the entire process.

The ultrasound has revealed with 99% certainty that we will be having two beautiful little girls!!! It was so amazing to see them and with the 3D and 4D ultrasound we could watch them move around and see such clear details of their faces. I did the huge ugly cry that I just couldn't stop.

Although this is not what I had envisioned when I thought about Pace and I finding out the gender of our future child(ren)...another woman lying on the table with her swollen belly exposed, it was still an amazing experience. It is very surreal and at times hard to imagine that this will all actually happen.

Sunday morning we went shopping and got Eliza some maternity clothes. It was a little sad for me purchasing maternity clothes for another woman. The maternity section of stores is one that I avoid at all costs, so actively looking through the clothes and picking things out was a little tough. Then we moved over to the other section of the store that I swear triggers PTSD...the baby section. We searched through all of the clothes and found two adorable sets of onsies and matching tights and coordinating headbands. One purple and one pink. They are the most adorable outfits I have ever seen.

We ordered the cribs for the nursery today. It was a huge leap of faith that this will all work out. I would be lying if I said I didn't have a minor panic attack before completing the purchase. This journey is just so emotional and such a stretch of faith for everyone involved.

I believe that I may just age 10 years over the next 5 months.