This week has been an interesting one. I should have been blogging all along since I had the time, but for some reason I didn’t. I just wasnt in the mood, I guess!
Last weekend I came down with the nasty stomach bug that is going around, and it was miserable! I stayed in the bed almost all weekend long trying to get over it. Monday I went to the office and did a few things around the house, but I was feeling a really strange sensation in my belly. I wasnt sure what it was, but it didn’t stop. So I called the doctor and told her about it, just in case. She said it sounded like I might be having some light contractions and told me to stay off my feet and drink lots of water. If it didn’t go away, I should call her the next day. Well I rested all afternoon and evening, and on Tuesday morning the contractions were stronger and more distinct… I could definitely tell they were contractions at that point! No pain or anything, but a strong and noticeable tightness would take over my belly every few minutes. They told me to come on in the office to have it checked out.
I went in to the clinic on Tuesday afternoon so they could check on me and the babies. They sent me for an ultrasound at first to make sure that the babies weren’t in any distress. They were doing great! They were moving all around and having a blast in there. At one point, Baby B even stuck his feet straight up in the air and started kicking his brother, making him bounce all over the place! We are in trouble if they are starting to pick on each other already! Of course, they are both still big for twins….usually twins are smaller than singles. Baby B is measuring the same as a single, and Baby A is measuring over a week ahead of a single! My boys are champs (:
After the relief that my little boys were safe and in no danger, the doctor checked me out to make sure that I wasn’t showing any labor signs…I wasn’t. She said that the contractions were most likely brought on by the dehydration caused by the stomach bug, and that they would probably go away. Since they had steadily progressed however, she wanted to make sure they didn’t get bad enough to start causing labor signs. So she told me I had to stay off my feet for at least 2 days. If the contractions totally went away, I could move around some on Friday, but if they came back, I had to go back in to the clinic.
So I spent Wednesday and Thursday in the bed. I got a little taste of the bedrest to come at the end of the pregnancy, and I think it is safe to say that I am going to need a game plan to keep from losing my mind! I was searching for things to keep me occupied for 2 days.
Thankfully, the contractions totally went away and havent returned. I have been back up and about since Friday morning, but I’m making sure to get plenty of rest, so don’t worry! I have another appointment on Monday to make sure that things are still going well. I’ll get another ultrasound…it will be the 3rd one in 2 weeks. I guess that’s the benefit of having twins! You get to see them EVERY time you go to the doctor!
This little episode made us realize that we REALLY need to go ahead and get everything together since I have no idea when the doctor will put me to bed. She already told me that she is putting me on “restricted activity” in a few weeks, and to start preparing for that. We have started making plans for getting the nursery together, registering, and getting the house ready. Hopefully, we’ll have enough of the big stuff ready that I will be able to just enjoy the down time whenever it comes. No matter what, though, the primary focus is on taking care of these sweet boys and making sure they stay in as long as they need to!
Speaking of my boys, here’s the latest pictures from our surprise appointment this past week:
^ Baby A just chillin on his belly. He is crouched on his little feet and has his hands curled up underneath him.
^ Baby B bein' a little troublemaker. He is bouncing his brother up and down with his feet. Look how long his legs are! He's going to take after his daddy and not his short mama!
I hit the 18 week mark yesterday. Since the doctor is shooting for 35 weeks, I am over halfway there!
I finally got my pictures uploaded to facebook, and you can view them here if you’re interested. Unfortunately, there were alot of days where I didn’t have my camera with me, so I missed out on some great picture opportunities. There were lots of things I meant to get shots of and didnt, such as overall views of Armenia Benito, Buffalo (another community we visited), all of the school supplies for the sponsored kids, and sites around the city of La Ceiba. Maybe I can get some of those shots from someone else…we will see!
The last few days of our trip, we asked lots of questions about the ministry, visited an ESL class in Armenia, watched the USA vs Honduras soccer game on TV, played with kids, watched Erin pack and repack for Haiti, and visited a local church service. The church service lasted about 2 and a half hours and was very different than our church at home. Of course, everything was in Spanish, so I couldnt understand much! Thankfully, Erin translated most of it for us so we could follow along with the sermon.
Monday morning, we had to get up extremely early and head to the tiny little La Ceiba airport to start our trip home. I traveled much better on the way home, with only a little nausea and not a single instance of getting sick! I was thrilled that my only complaint was just being tired from travel.
All in all, we absolutely loved our time in Honduras. We loved getting a chance to know the missionaries there, to hear about their ministries, to talk to them about their needs, and to pray with and for them. We were excited that we felt God continuing to confirm our call to be a part of a ministry involved in church planting, working with streetchildren/orphans, and discipling pastors. We were also excited that we continued to feel God’s confirmation that long-term foreign missions is what we should continue to pursue.
Please continue to pray with and for us as we pray about Honduras and continue to seek the Lord’s guidance over our future!
Erin serving a patient in the makeshift medical clinic.
Nate's role in the clinic was to keep records for each patient about what the complaint, diagnosis, and treatment.
The medical clinic, set up in the community center of Aremnia Benito. "In-take" is just out of the left side of the frame. The waiting area is on the left. The exam area is behind the curtain, where Erin and Nate sat. The pharmacy is on the right.
part of Nate's hiking trip into the rainforest...
the boys on the hike
Again, feel free to click on the link at the top to see more pictures from the facebook album!
That’s what little BOYS are made of!
Nate and I went to the doctor on Tuesday to check on our babies and see how they handled the trip to Honduras. It turns out that they did great! They were big and healthy with strong heartbeats and were bouncing all around to show off for us. I have a feeling that the bouncing is not going to end anytime soon, because it turns out that both of our sweet babies are BOYS! We are going to have one active household!
Both of us are thrilled! Ever since I was little, I thought I’d end up with a house full of boys, and Nate is already planning all of the fun “boys trips” he is going to take with his little men.
Here are our boys at 16 weeks:
^ Baby A's profile... sort of. It was hard to get him to sit still! He was much more concerned with showing off his "little boy parts" and wouldn't give us a decent shot of his face!
^ Baby B was much happier to sit and smile for us so we could check him out. Although, he's much more modest than his brother.... it took us a good 20 minutes to get him to let us see that he's a boy too!
And since Nate’s mom made sure to tell us before we went that if anybody waved, they were waving to her… we made sure to get a good shot of when Baby B waved to his grandma! …
^ "Hey Mammaw!"
Nate and I are so excited!! I cannot wait for my sweet little boys to finally come out so that I can kiss their little faces. Of course…they need to bake awhile longer, so I’ll happily wait until they are ready.
We go back to the doctor a week from Monday for another ultrasound (all these ultrasounds are GREAT!) and to do a full organ check-up…and I’ll have more pictures to post!
In the mean time, I’ll finish telling you about Honduras and post all of the pictures we took of our trip, so stay tuned!
Friday, the guys and girls split up and headed in two different directions. In the morning, Nate and Mike (the team leader) headed to Armenia to go pick up a Honduran man and his daughter, then drove them into town so that they could take care of some business, such as paying bills, etc. Josh and Sean stayed back at one of the houses and kept the kids (Jak, Lucy, and Ellie) while the ladies all went out hunting down school supplies.
We hit lots of local stores and pretty much depleted their resources, buying huge amounts of pencils, pens, notebooks, glue, pencil sharpeners, rulers, and more. Since alot of stores dont stock very much of any given item, it’s kind of hit-and-miss as to where you’re going to find what you need. So, you basically hit the streets, going from one store to the next, until you find everything on your list.
At each place, we were counting out hundreds of items to check off our list, but the workers at the store had to recount our items to make sure the numbers were right. Once we realized that this was going to happen, we found it was much easier to just tell them “we need X number of markers” or whatever, and let them just count them for us. Needless to say, with our HUGE list, we ended up having lots and lots of employees doing nothing but helping us! There was one woman sitting on the floor counting out 4000 pencils. Yep…FOUR THOUSAND. By hand. Thankfully, they were all so grateful for what we were doing that they were more than happy to help!
Basically, these school supplies are divided into student bags and handed out to the kids who attend school but cannot afford their supplies. Of course, many of the children don’t go to school at all, because the cost of registration, uniforms, transportation, books, and supplies is far more than their family can afford. But for those that do, having a bag of brand new school supplies saves them alot of money.
When we got back, we met the guys at the Papuseria, which is a little restaurant in a shopping center similar to a food court. It is air conditioned and has a kids jumping house, so it’s a fun place to go. We ate lunch, then took the kids back to the house for the ladies’ turn to keep them while the guys went out.
They decided to have a “boys day” and headed out to the rainforest/mountain area to go hiking and hunt for a waterfall. When they came back hours later, they were sopping wet and exhausted, but with huge smiles on their faces from an exciting afternoon of hiking and swimming. They had a blast! I was really glad that they decided to do a trip like that, because Nate doesnt get to do things like that often with his wimp of a wife! (especially now that I’m pregnant!)
After everybody had time to wind down, get showers, and cool off, we had a dinner and game night with the two missionary families. We had a great Honduran dinner of beans, rice, yucca, and tortillas, then hooked up the Wii to the projector and battled each other in every Wii game imaginable. We had a Mario Kart tournament (Nate won), followed by sword fighting, ping pong, frisbee, and more. Of course I didnt win at anything, because I suck at all things sports-related even if it’s simulated. But I’m okay with that.
After all of the activity for the day, I’m pretty sure everyone slept well!
Thursday, the group headed out to a small community outside the city of La Ceiba called Armenia Benito. It is a very poor village of about 3000 people, most of which are uneducated and can’t get work. The public hospitals here are terrible and the healthcare is very poor, so most people just don’t go if they are sick. Since Erin Pettingill was a pediatric RN by trade before coming on the mission field, it makes sense for her to reach out to the community with her medical skills!
Each Thursday, they drive out to Armenia and set up a make-shift clinic in the community center in the center of the village, which is actually just an empty cinder-block rectangular building. They bring all of the medical supplies, including medicine, and set up to treat about 40 people over the course of the day. This week, Nate, Josh and I followed along to help.
When we arrived, there were more people waiting outside the door than the missionaries had ever seen at clinic before. They ended up having to turn away about 60 people!! After all, there’s only so much one small team can do when there’s only 1 medical professional in the group.
We set up the room into 3 areas: an in-take/waiting area, an exam room (divided from the rest by a curtain hanging from a homemade pvc curtain rod), and a pharmacy. Josh and one of the local boys handled in-take, which included taking the patients information, weight, height, blood pressure, blood sugar (finger pricking!), measurements, etc., and their chief complaint. Since Josh doesnt speak English, one of the local children who knew bits of English helped him out. Each patient is also prayed over and evangelized at this point, then sent to sit in the waiting area.
Erin called them one-by-one from the waiting area into the exam room, where she talked to them about their symptoms and did any medical check-ups that they needed. Nate sat with her, recording all of the patients diagnostic and treatment information into a special database on the computer. She wrote prescriptions, then passed them off to Sean (another missionary on the team), who gave them their medicine and instructions on how to take it.
I floated around, helping out wherever needed and playing with the kids who dropped by to see what was going on. I didnt stay out all day, because they didnt want me to get exhausted sitting in the heat for too many hours. I worked on my Spanish with the kids and gave them lots of hugs while they showed me around.
It was a great day!
We have spent several more wonderful days in Honduras. Yesterday, we went to the women’s Bible study, like I mentioned, and it was really neat to see a group of American women living in Honduras as missionaries from various organizations. I havent seen anything like this before– where missionary women from lots of denominations and backgrounds come together, despite some of the denominational differences in their beliefs, and to encourage one another and study the Word of God together. They normally do Beth Moore studies, but they are currently working through a study called Women After God’s Own Heart. After all, they are all in the same situation…American women trying to adjust to a Honduran culture while telling others about Jesus. It was a great experience.
We also had the opportunity to spend some time with the McCanns last night, which we normally don’t get to do as much since we’re not staying at their house. We went to dinner with them at a great little Honduran restaurant, where they got our order completely wrong, but what they served us was still delicious. There are several places in town that are considered “safe for Americans” because they use filtered water for all of their cooking, ice, etc, and because the meat they purchase and serve is extremely healthy and safe. It’s great staying with people who know where we can eat and where we cant!
For the most part, I havent had any trouble at all with the food. I brought alot of my own stuff, but I havent had to use that much of it. We eat here at the homes of the missionaries alot, and everything they serve us is perfectly safe. I pack peanut-butter and jellies to take with me whenever we go out anywhere, just in case I have to eat something to fend off nausea.
Speaking of the food, Honduran food is WONDERFUL! It’s kind of a mix between mexican and caribbean, and I love both of those. They eat alot of rice, beans, tortillas, cheese, vegetables, and eggs. Their refried beans here are made with a different type of bean, and they are really good. They are a staple here and are used in lots of meals, and I havent minded a bit! We’ve had various Honduran dishes and I havent found a single thing that I didn’t love.
More coming soon!
Hola from La Ceiba, Honduras!
I’ll go ahead and tell you straight off that I can’t post any pictures. I have my camera and I’m taking pictures, but I don’t have a way to transfer them to this computer. I’m using the Mac here at the house where we’re staying, and it doesnt read my memory card. So you’ll have to wait until I get back!
Nate and I (and Josh, Emily, & baby Jak) got here around 6pm on Monday night after a pretty decent day of travel. It was 4 short flights (one 1.5 hour flight, one 2.5 hour flight, one 30 minute flight, and one 15 minute flight!) The babies traveled pretty well, all things considered. I was only sick a couple of times, and even those were manageable.
Once we made it here, we immediately went to have dinner with the 2 missionary units here. The Pettingills (Mike & Erin and their 13 year old daughter, Maddie), and the McCanns (Sean, Lindsey, and their two toddler daughters, Lucy and Ellie). We have really loved getting to know them so far and learning about everything that is going on here in Honduras. Of course, we were all exhausted during dinner after a night of very little sleep and then getting up at 4am to make our flight! Nate and I are staying with the Pettingills, so we headed back to their house, while Josh and Emily (and baby Jak) are staying with the McCanns.
Yesterday morning we slept in, then headed out around 10am for a basic tour around the city. La Ceiba is the 3rd largest city in Honduras with around 200,000 people. It still feels small though, because you can get from one side of the city to the other in about 10 minutes. Right outside of the city are lots of small communities, such as Armenia Benito, which is a small 3000-person, very poor community that the team ministers to on a regular basis. After our tour of the main city, we drove out to Armenia Benito, which is about 20 minutes away, and held a Kids Club for the kids there. They all spoke Spanish, so I couldnt talk to them that much, other than phrases like hello, how are you, whats your name, how old are you, etc. The basic Spanish I learned in elementary school doesnt get me very far here!! We basically communicated through gestures and hugs, which they responded really well to! They also really loved my digital camera, so I got lots of great pictures. Nate went out a few hours before the Kids Club started and played soccer with the kids and just hung out with them, and the boys especially really took to him! By the time I got there, he had made lots of new spanish-speaking friends, although they couldnt say a word to each other!
After the kids club, we came back to the Pettingills house for dinner and more time to visit, then headed to bed.
Today we’re going grocery shopping with the ladies to get a feel for how some of the practical aspects of life here are handled, then working on getting some school supplies sorted and prepared for the kids in the community who dont have money to buy their own. This afternoon Emily and I are going to a womens Bible study with a big group of various missionaries from many denominations and organizations who are here in the city. It will be interesting to hang out with other women who are doing the same type thing in a different context.
Tonight Nate and I are having dinner with the McCanns, since we dont get to spend as much time with them, and Josh & Emily are having dinner with the Pettingills for the same reason. We’re basically switching up for the evening so we can all get some one-on-one time with each other.
Speaking of one-on-one time, Nate has made a new unexpected friend. The Pettingills have a HUGE rotweiler who adores Nate. They are basically inseparable if we are all here at the house!
I’ll plan on updating again tomorrow… until then, keep praying for us and the babies, as well as for the work here in La Ceiba and the surrounding communities. It is amazing to see what God is doing here and how me might be using us here in the future!! Specifically, pray that Nate and I (and Josh and Emily) will be able to confidently discern whether this is the place that God has planned for us to live and serve.
Ooops I missed a day again. Sorry bout that.
BUT I have a great picture to make up for it! Nate and I went to the doctor yesterday to check up on the babies, and they are both doing great!
This is a picture of my sonogram photo, because our scanner isnt hooked up yet. So its a little grainy and fuzzy, but you can get the general idea.
I have a video of the sonogram, but I dont know how to make it upload… so far it only works in a dvd player and not on any computer. Any tips?
Both babies were measuring big, so that’s a great sign! They’ve done lots of growing in the past few weeks. If you need a visual, they are supposedly the size of limes:
In the video, you can see their fingers and ears and everything…its amazing! Baby A (on the right) is a little bigger and was determined to try to stay still, even though it wasnt really working. Baby B (on the left) is a wiggly worm, bouncing all over the place and squishing Baby A. The tech would poke around on my belly and it would make the babies jiggle, and they would freak out, waving their little arms and legs…it was so cute!! They had great heartrates of 165 and 175, and everything looks like it’s going well!
I told the doctor about our upcoming Honduras trip and she wasn’t too excited. She did say that if I’m going out of the country, this is the best time for me to go. If it was any later, she’d tell me I had to stay home. So at least the timing is working out perfectly! We have to come back into the doctor the day we get back though, for her to check and make sure the babies handled the trip well. They’re going to check and see if we can tell the genders at that point, but we’re not sure if we’ll be able to tell or not. I’ll let you know!
I think this is cheating, but that’s okay. Today I’m showing you a picture I took yesterday, because I havent taken any pictures today.
Two of my favorite little girls, making their cheeseball grins last night at the wedding reception. They had a blast dancing the night away!
I’m pretty sure both of these girls need to stop growing and stay exactly that size forever. I’m pretty sure their daddies agree with me!
Today a sweet friend got married.
Everything about the wedding and reception was stunningly beautiful, which if you know Emily at all, is no surprise! Of course the only down side to the whole thing is that now she’s moving to New Orleans… but since she’s so happy, we’ll let it slide as long as she comes in town to visit.
Congratulations, EmG! We love you!
