House Arrest

Hospital Bed Update

I'm posting another quick update from my phone. (As Mark would say, "Ain't technology grand.") Let me just say that I know now what contractions feel like. Thankfully mine are irregular though strong. I spent most of yesterday hooked up to fetal monitors and can look forward to more of the same later today. No one knows the real gameplan yet -- I'm waiting on the all important ultrasound now -- but whatever happens, I'm being optimistic. My phone's battery is dying so I'm going to wrap up this post and will have Mark update everyone later. 

Quick Update: Discharged and OK

Just a quick post from my phone to let you know that the twins are still gestating and we've been sent home to continue our previously prescribed bedrest. I'll post more details tomorrow but long story short the scary venous thing DID NOT show up on today's ultrasound. Thanks to all for your good wishes. Let's keep hoping we can keep the sea monkeys in place for four more weeks.

Swelling

Yesterday my co-workers and I were talking about pregnancy symptoms. Everyone's been fairly surprised that I haven't been complaining too much about the usual suspects such as heartburn or swollen ankles. I mentioned that while I'd had a few bad bouts of heartburn, I didn't get it too often and when I did, I could get it pretty much in check. And that, to date, my ankles hadn't gotten swollen and everything felt great.

That changed this morning. I woke up with deep indentations where my socks met my legs. It took a bit of effort to get my rings on my fingers. And, checking my socks just know, I found puffy, indented ankles. Ugh! Of course, now I can add worrying about pre-eclampsia to my list.

There are so many things that the books don't mention. They don't tell you that it will hurt when your bellybutton pops. They don't mention the "stabbing crotch pain" you will feel in your vagina or the fact that it will radiate outward in your groin and make it practically impossible to walk. And the books definitely don't say a word about the "squirming eels" feeling you will sometimes get when your baby(ies) are hanging low and moving around above your crotch.

Instead they are vague about symptoms, saying some women feel great others feel not so hot. I have exhaustion hanging like a dark heavy fog around me and realize that I fall into the "not so hot" category. It's only Wednesday and I'm wondering how I'm going to make it until Friday.

26 weeks, 4 days

I have a ton of updates for you and very little time so I will post them tomorrow. Besides, I know what you REALLY came for today:

26 weeks, 4 days

and here's the first (and possibly the last!) ever frontal baby bump picture:

The manager at the company cafeteria commented that I was "all belly." I felt like saying, "Dude... you ain't seen nothing yet."

12 weeks to go.

Restless

Sleeping has become difficult. I can't find a comfortable position easily and spend a lot of time just trying to flip my bulk over when the side I'm lying on starts screaming for mercy. I lie in bed watching the hours tick closer to morning, occassionally dozing, praying for deep sleep.

The babies are quiet today. They're normally a lot more active but I'm not worried. I know that their sleep / waking cycles change and I've felt them both kick and nudge me since I've woken. I am, however, glad that I have an appointment this morning. I know that I'll get to see / listen to them and that reassures me.

I have lots of questions, lots of concerns. Birth plans. Odd twinges. Leave. All these need to be addressed today, even if closure does not come at this visit.

I'm suddenly feeling a "tick tock" rush. We have to pick up the car. We need to buy cribs. We need to straighten stuff out and make sure that we can support each other, emotionally, mentally, physically. Our taxes still need to be done. Wills have yet to be drawn up. There's so much left to do in a very uncertain timeline.

June. We just want to get to mid-June with the babies in place. That's not far off at all.

The warm, beautiful weather outside belies that we have just crossed into spring. It feels like late April and throws me off. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the drop in temperatures and some snow. It is still March, after all.

My 38th birthday is a month from today.

26 Weeks & Contest Winner

I'm 26 weeks today and the sea monkeys are still safe and sound. (Knock on wood.) Next week I officially enter the third trimester and from there it's hopefully 8-11 weeks (35 - 37 are considered "near-term"; 38 is considered term) before Aden and Hunter show up in this world. Which is a really mind-blowing thought.

It was crazy at work last week and I'm just hoping to make it through this one fairly unscathed. I was pretty much falling on my face by Thursday night from the exhaustion I felt. The early part of the week is always doable but by Thursday or Friday, I'm usually crabby and miserably tired. I'm beginning to wonder how much longer I'm gonna have to do this for...

I would love to know when I'm going to go on leave. My guess is that if I haven't given birth by then, I will ask my doc to approve my leave at week 35 or 36. She has to fill out my leave paperwork so that I get paid for it, so her buy-in is absolutely necessary. Most of the moms at work are telling me to hold off on leaving until they are actually born so that I will have a full three months with my babies. But I'd really like to have at least a week home to get some of the last minute stuff organized and ready. Also not commuting would be a HUGE PLUS!

I have another prenatal visit on Wednesday — I get to take the oh-so-fun gestational diabetes test at this one — so I think I'm going to ask my doc again about what they recommend. I've been really lucky not to need bed rest (again, knock on wood) but I'm kinda hoping for a reprieve from this exhaustion...

We also have the second part of our Parenting / Childbirth for multiples class on Wednesday night. At this one we get to see both a vaginal and c-section birth. The class will also cover some of the must-buy twins items and getting started with breastfeeding so I'm looking forward to it. Mark is not too crazy about watching the videos but as far as I'm concerned, I just want to know what to reasonably expect.

Aside: This may seem blasphemous, but frankly I don't care how the babies come out, as long as they come out alive, kicking and healthy and I don't die having them. Everything else is gravy. Drugs? If I need them, pump 'em in. Cut me open? If that's the best way for the babies to come out, go right ahead. Vaginal is the way to go? I'm ready to push until they do. Whatever the decision, I want to be informed but will rely on the experts at hand to guide me and get my babies here safely.

Prep-wise, we got the shelves up this weekend so I could get the last of my knitting stuff (magazines mostly) off the floor.

That only leaves the pile of "stuff that must be shredded" before I can consider the room ready to start bringing baby furniture in. I'm planning to tackle that task next weekend. For some reason I'm not at all into doing it, mainly because I remember how time-consuming and boring it was last time I had a major pile of shit to shred.

Aside from this, I finished updating our baby registries (Target didn't carry our stroller / car seats so I had to create a second registry at Babies r Us for them). I might need to add a thing or two after our parenting class, but I think that it's pretty much done. A close friend and a co-worker are each planning on throwing showers for us — one geared towards friends and family; the other for work — and had been gently nudging me for a few weeks to get my registry together. I honestly didn't want to think about it anymore so I decided to finish it as best as I could. I mean, it depresses me to see how much of the essential stuff we have yet to buy.

The only "recommended" stuff I didn't put on the list were clothes / outfits and medicine cabinet stuff since a) I will get clothes from people one way or another whether I register for them or not and b) I'm not entirely sure what we need medicine-wise and I don't mind picking up the remaining "last minute" stuff on one of our bi-weekly Tar-jay runs.

Also in prep-news, Mark's dad located and bought a mini-van for us. We'd asked him to do the legwork for us and gave him a budget to stay within. He scouted out a good deal on a white 2002 Chevy Venture and bought it for us. (We're paying him back, natch!) Now Mark has to go down to West Virginia one of these weekends REAL SOON NOW to pick it up — something which I have to admit to not being very keen on right now. I'm really not feeling cool with him potentially being away from me for a whole weekend (what if I need to go to the hospital?) or with driving a car with temporary plates. I'm worried shitless about something happening to him even though it's highly irrational. I mean, really, who would carjack / kill the man driving a 4 year old mini-van? Still, my dreams have been haunted by this and other scenarios for the past few nights.

All this prep-work and parenting stuff aside, I know that you guys really come here for the knitting content. The winner of "When Bad Things Happen to Good Knitters" is Rachel O. Rachel, just email me with the address to which you want the book sent and I will get it out of the mail to you this week.

And, last, but not least, the first of the Harvey Kimonos is off the needles:

It desperately needs blocking and finishing but the knitting is done. That's four baby sweaters down, two to go.

Off to work on Harvey number two!

Crazy Busy Week

Everybody and I mean everybody has been sick this week. I've been waddling around the office like a loon, covering for various people and have been a little too busy to post updates. I'll do so on Monday, along with the name of the contest winner.

Right now I have to run off 'cause someone else is out sick today!

25 Weeks

Today marks the beginning of my 25th week and I am beyond grateful that everything is going okay with my pregnancy. A fellow "Bellybean" on the boards I frequent lost her baby over the weekend and it has brought some of my fears back into very sharp focus. I am incredibly saddened that such a nice and caring woman had to suffer such a terrible loss. She and her husband had to jump through hoops for years to get to this point, only to suffer the loss of their baby girl at 19 weeks. Once again I think of all the ignorant, hate-full people who can get knocked up no problem, and crank out kid after unwanted kid or the news stories about some mom killing her baby and I wonder why there is this injustice. Why the folks who really want them have to struggle so...

Every time I feel Aden or Hunter move, I am reassured that they are still okay and pray that they decide to hang out for the long term. I consider myself very lucky and blessed right now.

Our appointment last Wednesday went pretty well. We had a growth measuring ultrasound so we got some more stats on the sea monkeys. Dr. Death was actually the doctor who read my ultrasound report and he told me that we were doing really well so that meant a lot to me! I didn't think anything but bad news could come out of that man's mouth...

Aden

Hunter

Aden and Hunter were measuring perfectly at 24 weeks even and were 1lb 5oz and 1lb 3oz respectively. My cervix was still long and closed, and my blood pressure and everything else were good as well. I gained 5 lbs since my previous visit at 22 weeks. (I guess the weight gain FINALLY decided to catch up with me and I'm probably going to watch my diet a bit more closely going forward.) But unlike other women I know, my doctor didn't yell or berate me for gaining too much between visits. All he asked me about was whether or not I was feeling depressed or extraordinally fatigued. I told him that I'd been up since 4 AM so yeah I was beat that day but I wasn't depressed in general, just really crabby. He smiled, told me that crabby was good and sent me on my way after telling me that I'll be having my Gestational Diabetes screening at my next visit.

After all the stories I've heard about it, I can honestly say that I'm not looking forward to it... but whatever it takes to get to a healthy 38 weeks.

Mark and I have our first "Multiples Birthing" class this Wednesday and in light of this operation "Baby Ready the Apartment" began in earnest this weekend. Remember this?

Well, that is no longer. What we have in it's place is this beauteous arrangement:

We still have to put up the shelving over these to hold some stuff but I'm beyond thrilled with their capacity. Everything except for my cross-stitch stuff and quilting fabrics fit in these so Mark and I are extremely pleased.

Here's how the rest of the bedroom turned out:

My sewing table and Mark's side of the bed. Yes, that's a dog bed and pillow for Maia on the floor. The magazines in the crates on the floor will go on the shelves once they are installed. Unseen in this picture is my blocking board which is now living under Mark's side of the bed...

My desk. The storage bins on the left of it contain cross stitch stuff, fabric and supplies for quilting and scraps of good yarn (who can throw out a 1/4 ball of Koigu?)...

My yarn stash. All of my yarn — sans Grandma P's acrylic which is living in the front hall closet since I couldn't bear to throw it out — is living in Ziploc bags in these drawers. In addition, the top drawer on the left is dedicated to my beading and jewelry making stuff. The top drawer on the right contains all my lace yarn and about ten WIPs. Speaking of WIPs... That humongous Lands End tote and the grey containers house all my other WIPs (yes, I have that many!). The drawered storage units on top house all my notions and circular needles. There are KnitPicks' Options needles and Denise interchangeable needles sitting on top of these, along with my most used reference books and my spinning supplies. Half of the bookshelf is taken up by reference books: stitch dictionaries, techniques, etc...

These pieces are all from the "Malm" line...

A shot of the front of the room from the back.(There's a new end table next to the glider.) I'm trying to give you some idea of how large the room is...

The new TV media unit and my other bookshelf of craft books...

Our bed without Mark or Maia in it! This is my side of the bed, as evidenced by the step stool and Moby...

My brand new glider. (I plan on knitting a throw for it... the blue thing is a temporary measure to protect the wall in case we rock too far back.) The bookshelves shown on the left here will be moved out into the hallway to make room for the cribs or we might move the glider / nursing area there and put the cribs at the very front of the room where the glider is currently...

The last remaining bit of clutter that will be tackled within the next week.There's tons of paper to be shredded and filed which are currently in the bins on the left. This might be another location for the nursing area or the changing table once the bookshelf on the left is moved out. We have to see what the dimensions of the pieces we're buying will be...

Ikea and Tar-jay freaking rock... as does Mark. He put together all this furniture pretty much single-handedly. I helped by sorting screws and some minor holding of pieces but he put together both dressers, the media unit, the glider and the new end table pretty much on his own. The bulk of my work involved reorganizing and figuring out what we should chuck. Broken VCR? Gone. Non-functional CD player? Trashed.

All in all it was an extremely productive — and exhausting — weekend.

In knitting news, I am 8 rows away from finishing the second sleeve on the Harvey Kimono. I'm thinking that I will do the blocking after it's joined so I will be working on the neck edging and joining tomorrow. My guess is that it will be done by Wednesday.

And speaking of Wednesday, don't forget that the book drawing will be held then, so if you want to enter, drop me an email by tomorrow night.

Bump: 24 weeks, 4 days

Growing, growing, growing... Keep those babies growing...

Expectations and Perceptions

Liz: Someone on the Weight Watchers board was talking about getting this TV
Liz: That's a used car right there
Mark: Yes. That wouldn't be us...
Mark: Some people take their home entertainment seriously
Mark: I'd be happy with something like this
Liz: We don't need a TV but we can get one next year if I get a bonus...
Mark: Or this
Liz: Food, diapers... :)
Mark: Yah, yah
Mark: :*
Liz: Don't "ya ya" me
Liz: You want to make modifications to the kitchen to make it easier for you to cook in and we need to design a wardrobe for your room...
Mark: No, you're right vis-a-vis the TV
Mark: With regards to the wardrobe, though, I'd rather upgrade the TV
Mark: It's not nearly as important now that we found good furniture for the old one
Mark: But there's lots of TV time in the near future with babies on the way
Mark: I have a feeling I'm going to need a Netflix subscription too
Liz: The boob tube / DVDs are not raising our kids
Mark: No... for me
Mark: When feeding and diapering and washing and feeding and diapering and washing
Mark: Rinse and repeat
Mark: Thee and me will NEED something going in the background
Liz: Classical music perhaps?
Mark: And there's only so much "all Hitler all the time" I can take
Liz: Quietness so the babies can sleep?
Mark: Bluetooth so I can listen?
Mark: We can tell which one of us has actually thought about the psychological components of the first 6 months or so of parenthood
Mark: :)
Mark: The babies will dictate to a large extent what kind of environmental noise / sound is acceptable
Liz: That I know
Mark: On the other hand, don't discount how easy it will be for one or both of us to go stir crazy
Mark: We'll have to take care of ourselves and each other, too
Liz: I know
Mark: I'm just trying to think ahead a bit...
Liz: The trouble is that I think you and I differ on what is "important" at times
Liz: And six months takes us into the new year and bonuses come then (if they're merited) so we can wait at least that long to get a better TV
Mark: We'll see how it all works
Mark: Wireless headsets might not be a bad thing for the TV
Liz: I don't think my TV takes them :(
Liz: It's pretty old
Mark: I'll check when I make the move to the new unit
Mark: There's probably an audio out. If so, I can put together some kind of switchable system to be able to switch between regular speakers and a wireless system.
Mark: And if not, no big deal
Mark: Having music on for the babies (assuming they tolerate it) wouldn't be bad either
Mark: I don't know how I feel about classical, though. ;P

My main question during this whole exchange was left unasked: When do you think you're actually gonna have free time to sit and watch anything during the first six months? Maybe it's just me, but I think one of us is in for a rude awakening once the babies are here.

(And I'm banking that it won't be my read-everything-about-babies-and-childbirth, plan-for-the-absolute-worst-case-scenarios, paranoid-about-turning-into-her-mega-overprotective-mom, pregnant ass...)