Where to start….my pregnancy was rough. I was sick the entire time. I had morning sickness the whole day. I had to take a prescribed medicine to keep from throwing up. I never gained weight in my pregnancy – I think I lost weight.

I worked a full time job the entire time, literally up until the day I went into labor. Times were tough then and we needed every penny. I was even working overtime with a co-worker who was also pregnant. We were going through old records and following up with potential clients to ask them if they were still interested in building a house, if they’d gone with someone else and so on. I think they made up this job for us so we could get extra money. So we were working until 7 o’clock some nights. They offered no maternity leave so we needed everything we could.

There were times I definitely questioned if we should even be having the kids. It was overwhelming and scary. Greg and I were NOT in the best place. I’ll leave out the details, I don’t want to share everything. I wasn’t sure we were going to make it together. I kept thinking I’d have to be a single mom and had no idea how I would do that. Greg at one point told me he would raise the kids by himself if he had to. He’d always wanted to be a dad after all. Obviously in the end we made it work but man, what a tough time.

I found out my dad had died while I was pregnant. The hit to the gut was that he died years earlier and no one had told my sister and me. We only found out through a lawyer that had found her. We had been left as beneficiaries on a pension he had with the railroad. We ended up getting $1500 each. This really helped. I was able to get some maternity clothes and things for the babies. Although, we were shocked at his death. Later, my sister found a copy of his will and he had intentionally left us out of it. He must of forgotten about the one pension we did get….that’s a whole other mess and story for another time.

Because I had multiples I was considered a high risk pregnancy so I had to switch doctors and hospitals once we found out we were having twins. We ended up with Dr. Glen Lovelace. He came highly recommended for high risk pregnancies. I had to go to the doctor often. When it got closer I was going twice a week for ultrasounds and monitoring.

Towards the end I was also incredibly swollen. My feet looked like Fred Flintstones. They were so big I couldn’t even fit flip flops on. I had to wear these cloth cheetah print slippers I had to work.

There were some nice moments. We decided to make the nursery for the kids jungle themed. I painted some animals on canvas. We bought some fabric from JoAnne’s and sewed up our own crib bumpers and blankets. Greg even did some of the sewing.

We started talking about names. I really wanted Addison for our girl and Kyan for the boy. Greg didn’t like Kyan he thought it sounded like the spice. He liked Levi for a boy. I don’t recall if he ever had a preference for a girl name. As we got closer I was looking at the list of babies being born at the hospital and I swear every other girl was named Addison so I wanted to change it. Later I came up with Jaelee’s name. It’s a combination of my sister’s middle name Jae and my best friends middle name Lee. I wanted her middle name to be Rose – that’s the middle name of my other best friend but Greg wanted both the kids to have a family name. So we decided her middle name would be Vella – after his grandma. We were still undecided on the boy name, up until the day they were born. By that time I had given up on Kyan and liked Jace – Greg was stuck on Levi.

I did have a baby shower. I don’t have any pictures from it and not a lot of memories. I remember it was a good time and we got a lot of great items for the kids. My best friend Theresa’s mom gifted us some beautiful blankets she had crocheted that we still have today. I had saved the money we’d got from my dads passing. After the baby shower I went and bought the rest of the items we needed – specifically remember buying car seats. I put them in the car and went to the fire department to have them inspect them and the way I had installed them. I got a pass!

Greg and I took a lamaze class in the basement of the Meridian St. Luke’s. We learned about breathing. How he could support me. How to change a babies diaper. What to do during labor and what to expect. It was helpful. I had also bought the book What to Expect When Your Expecting and some other books on twins.

We were lucky that my sisters best friend Jamar was a nanny for a couple that had twins. Their twins were toddlers and they didn’t need some of their stuff anymore so they gave us the cribs, a double stroller and some clothes. This was huge!

March 14, 2008

April 11, 2008

Right before I had the kids Greg and I got into a huge fight. I needed to get away. I went on a quick trip with my friends to Sun Valley. It was such a fun time. I don’t know why but I remember driving there and we kept having to pull over for someone or another to pee on the side of the road. I’m sure I was one.

We ended up going to a bar, I felt so weird being a in a bar this hugely pregnant but my friend Becky happened to be there for her bachelorette party! It was fun seeing her and getting a picture all together.