Life is Like a Box of Chocolates!

I know that it has been a bit since I have been on here. Cherie and I have been pretty busy the last couple weeks. It has been so hectic, I am not sure where to start. Well lets see....Cherie went to Dallas for a couple of weddings as I mentioned in the last blog. She said the weddings were beautiful and she had a great time seeing and catching up with everyone. Even though she missed living in the Dallas area, due to all her friends, she was glad to be back in Oregon with me!! She was only gone a week, but it felt like longer, and we missed each other quite a bit!

Okay now for the reason I really started this blog in the first place. Back in March, I spent 3 weeks in Israel for work. While I was there, and missing Cherie terribly, something clicked in my head and I brought up the idea of starting a family. Now, Cherie and I have talked about starting a family quite a bit over the last year. We initially decided to wait a year and start trying about September of this year (2008). I had been the one to think that we should wait a bit longer, possibly 2 years.

However, with my trip to the Holy Land, I had a sense that it was the right time and so I brought it up. Cherie's first words were, "Are you sure your ready?" I told her that I believed that it was the right time and so we decided to stop the birth control and start the process. We went to a pre-conception doctors appointment to get some information and pre-natal vitamins when I got back in Country. We thought that it would take a bit to get pregnant, but on the first try, it took. It was early in the morning, and I was still asleep when I was woken up to be told and shown the pregnancy test was positive. At that point, I was still half asleep, and my first words were, "What? Are you sure?" After reading the directions a second time, and then confirming with another test, we were pregnant.

Now my first reaction was happiness, then went to nervousness, and then to a calm uncertainty. It did not feel real. Were we pregnant or was this all a dream? Even though we knew that she was pregnant, it seemed not to be real until a week ago, when we went to our first Dr Apt for a sonogram, and formal confirmation that she was prego's.

We get into the exam room, and wait for what seemed an hour for the doctor to appear. He goes through all the normal checks, and then starts the sonogram. His first question was, "Did you guys conceive spontaneously?" We were not sure what he meant, and Cherie said, "No, I knew when I was ovulating." He replied, "Not what I mean. Did you guys use fertility drugs?" We replied, "No, it was all natural!" He looked at the monitor a bit more. At this point the nurse asked me if I wanted to go to the other side of the exam table to get a better look at the monitor. As I moved to the other side of the table to get a better look, the Dr. asked Cherie to look at the monitor and tell him what she sees. She look a second and then point to a white bubble on the screen and said, "Is that it?" The Dr. chuckled and said, "Yeah, that's THEM!" It took a second for it to sink in and I bet at the same time, we both said, "What, are you sure?" He said, yeah there they are, your having twins!

The next 20 min for me was a bit of a blur. I was a bit light headed and could only say WOW, oh Wow! A million things went through my head, and I was a bit overwhelmed. I also had not had anything to eat for lunch and it was 2:30 - 3 ish. Cherie had to finish the checkup with blood being drawn. I told her that I was feeling a bit light headed and thought that I should step out of the room while they were putting in the needle. She told me to stay, because she did not like needles and she needed my support. I reluctantly agreed to stay, keeping my mind off the needle by looking at the sonogram pics so that I would not pass out. So with that here are a couple of the first pics of the Twins! The top left pic is with both babies, the top right is Baby A, and the bottom middle is Baby B.

We made all the important calls to the parents and family to let them know that instead of the one baby they knew was coming, it was going to be a two package deal! It was fun telling everyone that we were expecting twins due to the reactions of each person. There was disbelief, happiness, concerns, questions, and a lot of pauses to take in the information. We have another appoint in 4 weeks, for ultrasounds of each baby. We are looking forward to seeing the progress of each ones development. At this point, we are unsure if they are fraternal, identical, or the sex of each.

So that was one of the major news flashes of our week, the other is we purchased and moved into our first house last week. We finally moved out of the two bedroom, 3rd floor apartment that we were living in with our dog's. It was a pain to have to take the dogs out every day so they could take care of business. Up and down three flights of stairs, was trying on a normal day, but with Cherie being prego, I am sure it was really wearing her out.

We purchased a two story, 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bath, 1600 sq ft home to start our family in. It is a beautiful house with hardwood through out the living, dining, kitchen, and breakfast space. It has a back family room, with all bedrooms on the second floor. The two upstairs bathrooms may be a bit small, but we decided to make the two baths into his and hers. This will enable us to not get in each others way while getting ready in the morning.

The house is located in Beaverton, OR about half way between each others work. So that will increase my commute from across the street(2 mins) to about 15 min, and Cherie's will decrease from 30 to about 15 mins. When Cherie got back from her trip to Dallas, we packed every day in a rush to get moved out of our apartment on time. We hired movers to do all the lifting and moving of our household goods to the house. We did not feel up to asking everyone we knew locally to help move from our 3rd floor apt to the house. We decided to maintain their friendship instead! Best decision ever. It took the movers 7 1/2 hrs to move us. I could only imagine if we tried to do it ourselves. It would have taken at least 3 - 4 days of doing it part time.

So for the last couple days, I have been busy taken care of all the little things that needed to be fixed, along with keeping up with the yard work that has not been done in a couple weeks. While I am doing this, Cherie flew out to Las Vegas on Saturday morning to participate in a trade show for work. She gets to relax at the pools, and eat great food, while I am stuck in a new house with lots of boxes to move, and unpack. I am also currently with out cable, so it has been very quite around the house except for the dogs to keep me company at night. My IPod with docking station (thanks Lara & Charlie) has been playing non stop to keep me from going crazy in a quiet, empty house. I am sure if the neighbors seen me through the windows, they would think I am a great dancer and singer while I am unpacking, or they could be thinking the new neighbor is CRAZY!!

I wish I had taken some pics of the house to post, but I have not gotten around to breaking out the camera yet. I will make sure over the next couple days to do just that, and get them posted so everyone can take a peak! Until then I will be unpacking, and patiently waiting for my love to return home!!