Weekend Getaway

You would think that because we took a weekend get-away to Las Vegas that I took a bunch of pictures. I'm still upset with myself for only getting a few, but to be honest, it was a rough weekend for me. Max had been sick with a cold the previous week and Josh and I were lucky enough to get sick just in time for our trip. The entire ride there was miserable for the two of us, but Max was so excited to go somewhere new that we just sucked it up.

We decided to stay at Circus Circus since there is a lot for kids to do their. Max had so much fun playing arcade and carnival games with his dad. We brought home several little stuffed animals that they had won. Most of them are Max's, but he's been kind enough to share a few with his brother and sister.

Max and Josh also spent 3 good hours on Friday, playing in the Adventuredome which is an indoor theme park inside the hotel. Of course being able to ride rides was a lot of fun for him too. I spent the first hour with the boys and then decided to go up to the room and rest. Later that night, we took Max to see the sights of the strip. We saw the fountains at the Bellagio, the volcano at the Mirage and of course had to see the pirate show at Treasure Island. Unfortunately the pirate show is now a musical with the women being scantally dressed and dancing quite provacatively. It's a good thing that Max is young enough not to understand, and he was just excited about the pirate ships. I have to admit that I underestimated just how much walking I can handle. With Max I was able to do a lot more at 23 weeks, but with this twin pregnancy, I'm finding that I am a lot more limited. Poor Max was trying to patient with mom who had to sit and rest often. He was just so excited to see everything.

Saturday we spent some time at the pool. There were too many people around for me to have the guts to actually get into the pool in my maternity swimming suit. Luckily I found a nice lawn chair by the pool side in the shade to sit and relax and enjoy the 80 degree weather. Later that night we went to see the Tournament of Kings show at the Excalibur. This was definately the highlight of my trip. There was minimal walking to get from the car to the show and I was able to sit, relax, enjoy excellent food and an amazing show! Max had a blast also. It was so fun to see him getting into all the chants and cheering. He loved being able to raise his glass and yell "hear hear" before taking a big drink and slamming his cup down, followed by a very loud "arghhh......" The show was excellent and I loved how each section had a different King/knight to cheer for. Our section was actually cheering for the Dragon Knight which was the bad guy. It was a lot of fun, but toward the end I felt bad cheering for the bad guy. Max loved it though, he has always loved the bad guys in the Disney Movies. I would definately recommend this show to anyone visiting the area.

We ended our trip on Easter Sunday. Max had been so worried that the Easter bunny wouldn't be able to find him, but the bunny sure is smart. He found our hotel room and even hid a bunch of plastic eggs, and he left Max a very nice Easter basket with a transformer inside. He played with that transformer the entire ride home. As I said before, that is one smart bunny!

All in all, it was a very fun weekend. I'm finally starting to feel better, but I'm definately feeling run down from all the standing and walking around. We'll have to go back someday when I'm not pregnant!

We Are Having...........

A boy AND a girl! We were hoping that at least one would be a girl so we are very happy!!! Although, 2 boys would have been just fine too! I'm excited to have another boy too! I have come to find that little boys are a lot of fun. Now we can finally think about how to decorate the nursey and also start thinking about names. We have been asked so many times what names we are thinking of. We do have two names in mind, but we are nowhere near deciding for sure. It's hard to come up with two names that sound good together. What sounds good to me, does not sound good to Josh and vice versa. He seems to think that the names both have to start with the same letter to sound good together. I'm hoping that this can stay a fun and exciting event rather than the alternative. Both babies are looking great! They are actually measuring a week early so we will see if my doctor changes our due date. I had a few weeks where I was feeling awesome and now recently I'm starting to feel sick a lot more. Maybe it's due to not getting enough sleep. Having two babies kicking throughout the night makes it really difficult to sleep. It also doesn't help that I'm getting up at least 3-4 times to use the restroom. If you happen to see me this summer and I'm looking extremely miserable; just know that I'm beaming on the inside. It has been nearly 3 years since we started trying for another child. We have been through a roller coaster of emotions and have had so many tests and financial costs to get to where we are today. I feel so blessed. Our prayers were finally answered! I know that our Heavenly Father loves us so much and our prayers will always be answered. We may not receive the answer we want or it may take time before we really get the answer, but things will always work out in some way or another. All 3 of my children are miracles! I just adore Max and I always make sure to remind him every day just how much his mom and dad love him, and how special he is to us. He's already told me that he loves our babies. He loves to give my tummy hugs and kisses for the babies. I can't wait for him to meet them. I can't wait to meet them too!

UPDATE

Apparently there are people who read my blog. For the longest time I thought it was just something I did for myself, but now I see that people want to know what's going on with the Gabriels. Soooo......I thought I'd give a little update. I am 19 and 1/2 weeks pregnant, which means two AWESOME things. 1. That I'm halfway through the pregnancy!!! 2. Our 20 week ultra sound appointment is finally approaching!!! This is the big ultra sound because we will be finding out the gender of our babies. Our appointment is on Tuesday. So far my symptoms have gotten better since entering the second trimester. I'm no longer vomitting 3-5 times/day. I'm finally taking something that has given me a lot of relief from the horrible heartburn, and I finally have some energy during the day. My house is actually getting some TLC now that I can actually stand up and function. It's also awesome that I am feeling better now that the weather is slowly starting to get better. Max and I walked to the park last week and spent 2 and 1/2 hours there. He played with some of his friends from school/primary and also made some new friends. It was an awesome day! I need to enjoy the weather now because I know that I'm going to be pretty miserable this summer. I am going to try to focus on all the things that I love about the summer to try to make it better. I am excited for the 4th of July, which usually includes getting together for a bbq with family. I'm really excited for the summertime foods that I'm already craving: watermelon, cantelope, strawberry shortcake and corn on the cob, just to name a few. I'm so excited to watch Max play T-ball this summer and my dad and Josh are going to start teaching Max how to golf. My parents bought Max his first real golf set last year, but he didn't have any interest then. This year he is starting to show the interest. I love to see that my son is growing up and having these fun experiences, but it also makes me sad to see him grow up so fast. For now, I'm going to take the next 4 months and make this summer all about Max. I'm going to enjoy this sweet 4 year old and take in every minute.

SPRINGTIME!

It is finally spring! I wish it actually felt more like spring, but we've taken advantage of just about every nice day there has been. Max is playing soccer now. I've been so excited for the day when my son can start playing sports. I grew up playing most every sport there was available and my parents were always there to support me in everything. I'm so excited to finally become that kind of mom. Max is loving soccer, and has been improving each week. It's also been a lot of fun to watch 4 and 5 year olds play.

On Tuesdays, I've been taking him to play group at the Peak. He just loves playing in the huge gym with all of the trampolines and gymnastic equipment they have there. He's always making new friends when he goes too. I love how friendly and enthusiastic he is about most everything. He makes friends with everyone and will walk over and introduce himself by saying "I'm Maxwell Joshua Gabriel." I love how friendly and outgoing he is and I hope that it continues.

Today we went to Baby Animal days with my Aunt, my two cousins and their two sons. The kids loved holding the tiny baby animals. There was also a train and pony rides there too!

This baby goat was so calm and friendly and let all of the kids pet it. There was one goat that did NOT want to be pet and some of the kids in the pen were having a lot of fun chasing the poor goat. Of course, he was a lot faster than any of the kids. Max got to hold a baby duck and a really fuzzy baby chick.

We had to take a break and get a picture of these cute boys on their fun day out. Dylan is to the left of Max and Jace is on the right. These are my cousins 3 year old cuties.

The pony ride was a big hit!

But I think Max's favorite animal was the bunny. I have about 6 more pictures of him holding this soft and cuddly little bunny and he was in heaven. The bunny was so good and calm that it didn't try to get away until I took it from Max's arms.

This is my handsome little dude. He is the spitting image of his dad, but he is very sweet and sensitive like his mama. He is so excited to be a BIG brother and tells everyone he sees that "mom has TWO babies in her tummy." I love this little guy so much and can't imagine my life without him.

Christmas Miracles!

It's official. We are pregnant with twins and couldn't be happier. I am so miserably sick and I'm thrilled about it. It's a good sign that things are going well. Although I am only 9 1/2 weeks, we've heard both heart beats and they are very strong. We were going to wait a few more weeks to share, but I'm already starting to show a little and there are quite a few people who knew we were going through this so we couldn't hide it. Max already knew somehow. While I was on bedrest following my embryo transfer, my sweet sister-in-law watched Max one afternoon. He told her that Mom had to stay laying down because she had BABIES in her tummy. Josh and I had never told Max anything about it, but that boy is smart and knew what was going on. We didn't even know that we were pregnant yet. I've been asked before what made us decide between IVF and adoption. For us, the answer was simple and the story is special to us so I'd like to share.

After a year and a half of trying with one miscarriage; we decided to go get checked out. Our first appointment was on January 7th, 2009 at U of U. By March we had been given our diagnosis and to make a longer story a little shorter, we were given a 5% chance of ever conceiving again on our own. Our best options for another child would be to go through the process of In-Vitro Fertilization or adoption. We were devasted because the cost of either was more than we had available since we had already spent $5,000 on testing. IVF was not a guarantee that we would become pregnant or even have a live birth at the end. I wasn't sure I could go through all the possible heartache of adoption either. We did a lot of praying that night.

The next day at work, I came across a purple piece of paper in my work binder. It had the information of a woman I could contact about something called the Miracle Fund. I hadn't remembered this until that time, but before even going to my first appointment I had overheard a woman at my work talking about this. Her friend had applied for this Miracle Fund (a fund for IVF patients where money is given to this grant by anonymous donors) and had her entire Ivf procedure paid for by this fund. Couriosity got the best of me so I started asking questions. Before the end of the night, she had spoken to her friend and gotten all of the information I would need. I took the paper and figured I would hold onto it, but I was positive I would never need to use it. I mean, I had already been able to have a child. I wasn't one of THOSE women who would need to go to that extreme.

I knew at that exact moment what we should do. By the next day I was in touch with the Miracle Fund Coordinator and found out that we were perfect candidates for the grant. We met with her and had to fill out a lot of paper work. We also had to give her our tax information for the previous 3 years, proof of income, bank statements, you name it we had to give it. We also went through a criminal background check and a child abuse background check. A social worker came to our home and conducted an extensive interview as if we were adopting. After four long months, we finally received the letter that we had been approved!!!

The day after receiving our approval letter; we found out that Josh got the job he had recently applied for. It was with the same company just a new position, and his pay increase was significant. I'm not sure that if he hadn't gotten this new job, if we'd be able to afford all the costs that come with having twins. By this day, I knew that we had made the right choice. We also were given our IVF schedule whiched showed the egg retrieval date (conception date) of December 4th. Max was conceived on December 10th, and our previous pregnancy that ended in miscarriage was conceived on December 2nd. This was our week to get pregnant!!! It's really funny how it all turned out perfectly.

We finally got to the point where we had our egg retrieval. The doctor extracted 17 eggs!!! We were so excited at the time, but by day 5, our transfer date (implanting the embryos) there were only two embryos that had made it. We were lucky to have two to implant, but were hoping to have more to freeze in case this didn't work. Luckily both embryos took and now we are pregnant with twins! Looking back I am so grateful that we didn't have any embryos to freeze because it would have cost us $1,000 to store them for a year. After finding out we were having twins we knew we were finished having kids after this pregnancy. We won't have to make the decision of what to do with the embryos. The thought of having them destroyed had caused me some anxiety, but the other option of donating them to research didn't sound too great either. Luckily we don't have to make that decision.

Back when we were pregnant with the miscarriage, we had bought Max a t-shirt. The t-shirt had the words only child crossed out and below it in bright red letters, was BIG BROTHER! We used that shirt to announce to just the grandparents that we were pregnant. Finally after 2 years, we were finally able to put the shirt on Max again and once again announce it on Christmas day. The funny thing is that his shirt is a size 4t. There weren't any 2 or 3t's when we had originally bought it so we figured we'd just roll up the sleeves. Now it is the perfect size for him. If that isn't a sign, I don't know what is.

I guess deep down we've always known that we were meant to have twins. Max has been saying for more than a year now that he is getting a brother AND a sister and that they won't come yet because it's not his birthday. My due date is 8 days after his birthday. I believe with all my heart that we were meant to have our children this way. This has just been one of our trials in life and has made me cherish my son even more (if that's possible). He is a little Miracle and I love him so much. I know that these little spirits in heaven were meant to come to us, they just needed a slightly different way to get here. I am so grateful for Josh and all of the support he has given. I also have my Heavenly Father to thank. I feel so blessed and everything we've been through up until now has been worth it. I guess now we'll just see if Max is right about that brother and sister!!!

Halloween 2010

I honestly don't think I really have enjoyed Halloween as an adult until the past 4 years of being a mom. I absolutely love Halloween now! It is so awesome to see Max get so excited about things like dressing up in his costume every day for 2 weeks prior to the big event. This was the first year that he insisted on choosing what he was going to be. He loves pirates, especially the notorious Captain Hook. We searched every where for a costume and he kept telling me that none of the pirate costumes we found were the "real" Captain Hook costume. I finally decided to look at the Disney store online and as soon as Max saw it, he had to have it because this was the "REAL" one!!! I was lucky to get in on sale and wouldn't have been able to make it for that price so it was a good deal. Now here we are in January and he still loves to wear it.

Below is Max and his cousin Eli, at the family Halloween Party.

We had so much fun last year so we decided to take Max to Boo at the Zoo again this year. The weather was so nice and he had a lot of fun having another excuse to wear his costume somewhere and trick-or-treat for candy. The entire time we were there, he kept asking to see the crocodile since he was Captain Hook of course. It was so cute!

Here he finally got to see that silly crocodile that cut off his hand.

This Halloween was the best yet! There's nothing better than seeing your child smile for days on end.

Here We Go......!

We just received our calendar from our IVF nurse for our IVF cycle. I can't believe in just a couple weeks, we will finally get started. The process is going to take a little over six weeks to complete because I have to take a series of injections to stimulate my ovaries, prevent premature ovulation and to thicken my uterine lining. We went in yesterday for our injection training class and very soon, I will start taking injections on a daily basis for about 8 weeks. Ugh, I am so not looking forward to it because I don't have a very high tolerance for needles. Josh is definately going to have to be giving me the shots. There are also many unpleasant side effects such as hot flashes, mood swings, headaches, etc..... If this works it will all be worth it, though.

I'm a little concerned about whether or not the egg retrieval is going to be painful, but at this point i'm willing to do anything. If all works out, this will be an awesome Christmas! I'm so nervous and excited at the same time.