Tuesday, 13 October 2009

32 Weeks - From El!

I am officially on maternity leave and it feels great! My last week at school was tough as I am really starting to feel the weight of the twins and it’s no wonder as they have grown so much in the past month!!! Last Thursday I went to see my gynae and was pleasantly surprised that little Gracie has picked up just over 500g! She now weighs just over 1.3kg. Eli is a “big boy” and now weighs 1.6kg!

I am really proud of the fact that I have managed to carry to 32 weeks and I know that I’ll be able to go a little further now that I am on leave. My gynae reckons the twins, Eli at least, will be over 2kg at birth which is a miracle in itself. I have heard so many stories about women carrying to 28 weeks and the twins having to be in prem ICU for weeks. I cannot imagine how difficult it
must be to have to leave my babies at the hospital or at least one of them.

I want to thank all of you who have been interceding on my behalf because I know God has been at work here. Even my gyae is amazed! So thank you from the bottom of my heart...and please don’t stop!!!


The nursery is coming along so nicely. We bought a comforter set to match the colour scheme of the room. The room is a soft yellow with light green accessories.





Tim finished painting the new door during the week and he hung a frame set we purchased from Builder’s Warehouse of Classic Winnie the Pooh. Our camp cots are up.
I’ve sorted through ALL the hundreds of little outfits and have washed all the prem baby clothes. I’ve also washed all the receiving blankets and towels. My friend, Carol, is coming over on Friday to help me sort the remainder of the clothes. She has offered to even wash some clothes for me too, which is very generous of her. She is having mosquito netting made for the cots, so that Roo (our cat) and flying creatures do not disturb the twins. Carol was also responsible for the beautiful cake that we had at my baby shower.

We are still waiting for our chest of drawers that a guy in our church offered to paint for us and make a few modifications too. Hopefully that will come this week. Paul has offered to help Tim put shelves up but that has yet to happen. I am rather keen to set up the lamp, CD player and purifier but that will only happen once the shelves are up! We took the cupboard doors off too, to save some space, as the room is quite small. We’ve left the spare bed in the room for feeding and sleeping so opening the doors would have been tricky. Tim has put a dowel in the doorframe and I bought a cream tab top curtain, which I need to hem still, and that will be our cupboard door! As I said, space is limited but I am satisfied with what we were able to accomplish with what we had. We never imagined we would need two of everything but it was God’s design that it should happen this way.

About two months ago, I was worried that we would not be able to afford to buy all the major items that would make our lives easier, such as the electric breast pump and the angel care monitors. I suppose we did not need to have those specific items but my antenatal sister highly recommended I go with an electric pump as it would save me time and in her vast experience, the Medela brand is the best. She also said that having the Angel care monitors would offer us peace of mind, especially having twins and them being premature. The angel care monitors not only act as monitors but they monitor baby’s heartbeat. That should one of them stop breathing, an alarm sounds. The monitor also monitors room temperature, which is great.

o, yes, the items, as you can imagine and for those of you who have looked into these purchases yourselves, will know that these items are not cheap.
In my anxiety, I wrote down my prayer requests in my prayer journal on the 9th of August. It went something like this:
Provision for the twins:
Medela electric breast pump R2100-00

Angel care monitors (Twin set) R2100-00
Tandem pram (Peg-Perego) R8000-00

Piccolos x2 R1000-00

Chest of drawers R1600-00


And so I began to pray…
Tim managed to find the breast pump for R500 less. We bought it. The church bought us the Angel care monitors. Heather and Owen Paton, an elderly couple at church, bought us the pram we wanted. My school threw me a baby shower and bought us the piccolos. Tim and I bought the chest of drawers for R200 less and had modifications done and painted free of charge by a friend in church. Somehow, God made a way for us to get the exact items we needed, with little expense to our own pockets. Paul and Catherine bought us an air purifier for the twins.

Tim was given a R1000 Game voucher for some PR work that he did and we bought a really smart CD player that you can dock your iPod into. My parents-in-law bought us a tumble dryer, which has come in really handy, especially now that it’s rainy season here. Another couple in church gave us R1000, so we’re buying our toweling nappies with that cash!


Ephesians 3: 20 says “Now to Him, by the action of His power that is at work within us, is able to carry out His purpose and do superabundantly, far over and above all that we dare ask or think infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes or dreams.” I feel I need to share with you what God has been doing for us and just His amazing capacity to love us and give us more than we could ever ask or dream of!! We feel really blessed and a lot of the blessings have come through people we know and love.

Tim and I are feeling really excited (and a bit overwhelmed) at the thought of meeting the twins. There are about five weeks to go. I see my gynae again next week. Please continue to pray for us!

Much love and blessings to you all
Ella (and the Twins) Xx xy

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