Oh, right. The babies. And also, why a blog?

First of all, I cannot begin to express our gratitude for the outpouring of love, support, encouragement, prayers, offers of help, etc. that we have received in the last few days. We were already feeling so loved and cared for by our friends and family who already knew about the babies that we didn't know it was possible to feel more loved and cared for. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. You people are the best friends we could have ever asked for, and we can't wait for these babies to get here and meet all of you who already love them so well. Truly, thank you.

Speaking of the babies, I realized after I finished posting the first blog that I am a big, self-centered jerk who only talked about myself and didn't even mention that the babies are doing awesome. Oops. I'm blaming it on the exhaustion, but really I'm just a turd. But, indeed, the babies are doing so well! We get to see them every two weeks (sometimes more!) at this point, and at every appointment they are growing well, measuring appropriately, and their teeny tiny hearts are beating within the normal range. They also have all their little arms and legs, and we've even gotten to see them move! Yay, babies!! They will be 11 weeks on Wednesday, and five weeks after that we can find out how many of each baby we're having. For the 10 days we thought it was just one little guffer we weren't sure we would find out the gender. But then we found out there were four and decided that was enough of a surprise, and we just need to know what we're working with as soon as possible (we agree on exactly one name...for one gender...and that is all. So, we've got some work to do once we know how many of each name we're going to need!). We might even tell you all the names before they get here...as long as you promise not to judge us. If we pick something you hate, maybe just don't tell us? We're under a lot of pressure here, people. But also if you want to craft me something for their nursery with their name on it, who am I to keep you from your dreams (and also, every crafty bone in my body is too weary to do anything creative right now, so I'll take all the help I can get!)?!? Just so you know what the odds are, we looked it up and there's a 6% chance they could be all boys. And a 6% chance that they could be all girls. 12%. A 12% chance that we'll be getting all one or the other. Which doesn't seem like that big of a percent until you remember that there was a less than 1% chance this whole thing would be happening at all. So, I'm not confident we're getting a mixed bag. We shall see in June!

So why a blog? I never thought I would be a blogger...my life was pretty boring up until now and I didn't have much to put on the interwebs about the life and times of the Beydler trio. But, now I need to get on Ellen and the morning news circuit, so I feel like a blog is the only way to make that happen. Surely someone would give me free diapers or something if I got on the Today Show, right? And who doesn't want to meet Ellen? She's the best, and maybe she could give me some formula or a couple of swings? If anyone has connections, I'm calling in favors. And I'll take you with me to dance when we get on her show (Nick says he would go but he's not gonna dance. Which means he's not going.).

The other, more important and serious reason for the blog is that we have a lot of dear friends who are still struggling with infertility and mourning the losses of babies they never got to meet. Having been in their shoes, I don't want to fill up their Facebook feeds with baby updates and pregnancy woes - I know how upsetting that can be in the midst of a hard day. So instead, if you want to tag along on this journey, we'd love to have you join us here. Friends who are still longing for a baby, we love you. We see you, we're with you, and we're praying for you. We still want to be a safe place to cry and lament and be angry. Know that. We are trusting God to fulfill the desires of all of our hearts in the way only He can. We still have a long way to go to get these babies here and don't want to take one day with them for granted, but the reality is that we are still in limbo too. There is a 25% chance we could lose all of these babies, so while it's a very different emotional and physical roller coaster that we're on right now, we are definitely still on this journey with you. Please reach out if there's anything we can do to love and encourage you. We would be honored.

Thanks again, lovely humans. We are so grateful for you.