Thank you all for your well wishes. They mean the world to me and Mark right now.
The twins are being their usual active selves so I am encouraged. Hunter has settled up by my lungs and is kicking the shit out of my ribs and Aden keeps doing his squirmy eel dance low down. Uncomfortable as it is, I am thrilled. In fact, I didn't mind my first day of bedrest too much. It was wonderful to get up fully rested at 8 AM and not have to worry about commuting or fighting people. (Ask me how wonderful it is three weeks from now once the novelty of it has worn off...)
Mark gave me the second round of the steroid shot that accelerates the twins' lung development — in case you are wondering, it's a butt shot — and that was the only medical thing that I needed to do aside from confirm my appointment for Monday. I go back for a non stress test (NST) and biophysical profile (BPP). I will be having the NST twice a week and the BPP — which measures fetal movement, fetal tone, breathing movements, and the amniotic fluid volume — once a week. Then every two weeks I will have a growth check to see how the twins are developing. The next growth check is May 7th and I'm really hoping that Aden shows some major improvement!
I posed a question to the members of the Manhattan Mothers of Twins Yahoo Group and have gotten further insight into IUGR. The women who have written me have been largely positive and have told me that bedrest is the best thing because your body is forced to take it easy and can concentrate on simply growing the babies. Also, the bulk of them were diagnosed with IUGR much earlier than I was and managed to get their twins past 34 weeks or so and that makes me feel a world better.
And, my brother reminded me that my 7 year old nephew was born at 32 weeks weighing only 2 pounds, 11 ounces and he's a bouncing, healthy kid despite the rocky start.
So... I've been trying to take it as easy as possible. I mainly knit and watched TV yesterday and caught up on some calls I needed to make. My friend Sherine, who had busted her butt organizing my surprise shower for this weekend is currently in the hospital and needs surgery (!!!). They're not quite sure what's wrong with her but she's keeping up a brave face despite the fact that I know she is scared shitless. I definitely wanted to talk to her to make sure she was okay! I also had a few minor loose ends to tie up at work and needed to find out if my brother was still planning on visiting me this weekend (he is).
I haven't had Mark set up the laptop in bed yet because I know that the second he does I'll spend most of my time surfing or online shopping — which I actually have valid reasons to do. We have absolutely NOTHING set up for the nursery right now. The reason was that we were going to wait to shop for what we needed until after the shower and since the shower has been cancelled for extremely good reasons, Mark and I are going to just buy the essentials that we need to bring the babies home. I'll be ordering a crib, changing table, some linens and some clothes next week. Then I'll send Mark out to Tar-jay to pick up baby meds and disposables since I'm not going to worry about cloth diapering until the babies are both home and thriving.
Thank God for the internet, online registries and wishlists, and, my very good friends, UPS and Fedex. Now I just need to stick to buying baby things and not, say, yarn that is on sale.
I finished the second Harvey Kimono yesterday — blocking and sewing up aside:
I also made a slew of progress on the second Hooded Jackets. I know that I can finish this today while on bedrest. This is the last of the newborn sweaters and my goal was to block and finish them all together. I haven't yet figured out how I'm going to do all the blocking while I'm on bedrest — maybe I'll get Mark or Kelly or Sandy to help me?
I can get up for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon (hence this stolen posting time) but Mark would very much rather I spend 24-hours-in-bed-and-stuffing-my-face-thank-you-very-much. And blocking, while not strenuous, can be time consuming. Still these are little teensy pieces so maybe I can block half of them tomorrow and half of them on Sunday?
After I finish these projects, I will bang out a couple of hats, baby mittens and booties. I think that will entertain me until about Wednesday. Then I'll start the larger sweaters — the Milan Jackets in the 12 month size and the Classic Baby Cardigans in the 6 to 9 month size. There's much less urgency to finish these before the sea monkeys get here so I may also work on the Alphabet blanket or — blasphemy — maybe knit myself a quick little something like a shawl or shrug or a pair of slippers for the hospital. (Although, I just eyeballed this pattern and am thinking that maybe a teeny last birthday splurge for some Koigu is in order.)
After all, Mama is admittedly feeling a touch blue over these developments and could use some cheer.
