Friday, December 28, 2007

17 Weeks

Today I went to see the doctor with whom I was formerly upset. She was back to being wonderful. I think I can explain the phenomenon of my last visit. First, it was advent. My advent was filled with tiny gnat-like annoyances and evils. It was like walking uphill with a tiny rock in your shoe. So lots of strange annoying things happened and that made me more sensitive. Second, I'm pregnant and I don't take kindly to the idea of killing any of my children especially given what I've been through to get to this point. So I'm a little sensitive in that way too.

I found out that the nurse who laughed at my fatness is leaving the practice. A nice new nurse weighed me today. She was alarmed by the fact that I've lost a pound and a half. We're totally best friends now. (I lost the weight b/c of the virus not because I'm dieting, Mom). The doctor was super nice today. John came with me and got to meet her. He loved her even though he was ready to be Mr. Nasty if she made me cry again.

The twins are still beautiful, of course. They were very active during the ultrasound. We saw them batting at each other - playing. It was adorable! Heart rates today for Baby A were 153 and for Baby B were 136. John and I didn't talk about it until tonight but now we suspect even more strongly a boy and a girl. The doctor tried to get a glimpse today but couldn't see anything.

The wives tale is that girls have faster heart rates than boys. Mr. Cubby's HR was always in the 150's so it's obviously not a TRUE wives tale :) but still it's interesting to note the difference. Our doctor tells us that the babies both look healthy and not to worry - differences in HR are normal.

As for the pregnancy, no more sleeping on my back until I give birth. I'm having some round ligament pain and back pain as the babies grow but nothing too terrible. The cervical pain has also gotten much better. I've got a small tummy pooch. Last night I stuck a mini basketball in my shirt so I'd look more like the mama of twins. John and I were a little punchy from lack of sleep we take our laughs where we can get them. :)

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Celebrating Christmas

Things have calmed down considerably now that Christmas Day has passed. We're still celebrating Christmas. I mean, it's supposed to be celebrated for an octave (8 days) so why stop the day after Christmas. Plus, it gives me more time to make those cookies I never got around to and sending out the few Christmas cards that didn't get addressed with the first batch I sent out.

Christmas this year was wonderful - absolutely amazing - but totally not what I had expected. Our tradition is to celebrate Christmas Eve with John's family and open a few gifts with them. Then on Christmas morning, we get up (the kids let us sleep in until 6:45am!!!!) LOOK but don't open gifts, eat breakfast and then go to church. After church we open presents.

My memory of Christmas morning as a kid is one of uninterrupted gift opening. My brothers and I would open presents one at a time in an orderly fashion, each one waiting their turn. Very organized thanks to my mom. But I don't remember people getting up and going to get drinks or going to the bathroom or kids wandering off to play with the cats or any other such nonsense. We were all about opening presents.

My family now is very different. When we got home from church we had to putz around for a while - find the camera, find the video camera, get drinks for everyone, change a diaper, oh - gotta use the bathroom, someone needs a snack, re-find the camera. It took us 30 minutes - easiliy - to get to opening the presents.

You'd think that Will would be completely nutso and ready to attack every gift with his personal brand of intense energy. This was not the case. He was fine with the after-church delay. Plus, during the Gift Opening Ceremony, each time he unwrapped something he wanted to open it and play with it - all other unopened presents temporarily forgotten. We don't play with toys until after all presents are unwrapped. We'd never get to the end otherwise. So Will would ask, we'd say no, and then he'd run the box up to his room and put it away. EVERY TIME HE OPENED A PRESENT. We finally stopped him, even though it was a great use of energy, and made a stack in the living room to be taken upstairs at the end of Present Opening.

Mr. Cubby made a beeline to a little white rocking chair - just his size - under the tree and plopped down - right on top of his new Christmas bear, Mr. Inkerwinker Jr. He sort of understood the idea of unwrapping but we had to do a lot of coaxing. Even so, he was a lot more interested in Christmas than he was last year at 6 months.

The twins did just fine over Christmas. They're moving all around. I can feel them moving especially after I eat. Speaking of, I think I need a cookie.

Merry Christmas to all.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Can't Catch a Break

So yesterday something unplesant took posession of my oldest child and turned him into a raving, cracked-out lunatic. From the time he stomped out of the car (and deliberately on to our shrubs) until he went to bed (an hour early) he was a mess. Christmas does this to him - to be fair, every change of routine does this to him but Christmas is an extreme change of routine so we get extreme behaviors.

OK, today he comes home and appears to be in a much better frame of mind. (Good thing because rumor had it that Santa was ready to have a bonfire with all of Will's toys... just kidding... not really). But he can't find his backpack. He's been looking for it for about 30 minutes. He thinks someone might have stolen it out of our house. He also thinks that his brother may have taken it (which would be within the realm of probablitiy had his brother not been in a highchair eating during the time his backpack went missing).

It's 5pm now. He still needs to find the missing backpack (because he has homework he has to do) and put away a load of laundry for me (part of his unfinished business from yesterday) before he can have playtime. Meanwhile, Mr. Cubby napped for about 30 minutes today and is approaching melt-down mode. And I still feel sick from the virus.

The other thing that's killing me is that I've got to finish (start) making a dollhouse for my neice. Due Date: Dec. 24th. And all I want to do is sneak off to bed. My dream is to be allowed to sleep until Christms morning at which time I will awake, refreshed with bright eyes and a clear complexion dressed in a soft blue princess gown of some kind, music playing softly - perhaps a harp - to find my children scrubbed and dressed in handsome matching outfits, peaceful and quiet, being attended to by my mom who has decided to move in with us. That would rock.

Post Script: Backpack was found in carpool mom's van and recovered. Dollhouse was finished on Christmas Eve about 1 hour before it had to be under the tree.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Week 15

It's nearly Christmas. I'm so far behind I can't believe it. We had one solid week of no sickness - morning or otherwise. Then it struck. John calls it The Lurch. (Not sure why). He got it Sunday night at 7:30. Will got it around midnight. It hit me at 7:30 Monday night. Fast moving and brutal. I suspect food poisioning of some variety.

I don't think we had the flu. When John got sick, I did some research online about the flu (influenza). It is actually a respiratory illness that causes high fever along with a host of other maladies. I didn't know that most cases of "the flu" are not really the flu at all but food poisioning - of which there are about 15 or so different varities all with different symptoms. That's my health lesson for the day.

Given my vast medical knoweldge, I'd have to say that we have "a 24 hour bug."

I'm a little dehydrated. John's making me drink a Pedialyte Gatorade cocktail. Mmmmm. So far I've had that and a little bit of Jell-o. Lost 4 pounds. Mostly water weight. The babies haven't been as active while I've been sick but I'm not too worried. My fever stayed low. I had plenty of liquids except for a period of about 12 hours between 7:30 last night and 7:30 this morning. Not that much different than morning sickness, right?

It's much more difficult parenting non-sick kids while you're sick. I highly recommend not getting sick at all when parenting but if that can't be helped then try to get sick while your kids are sick. When Mr. Cubby was hit with his fever over Thanksgiving all he wanted from me was to cuddle in the rocking chair. It was so easy. We sat and rocked. Yesterday he was the only well person in the house. He was into everything. I'm sure part of it was because he was bored. The rest of us were laying around on couches and floors watching him ride the dog, throw napkins and kleenex around the room, dip coasters in the dog's water bowl, and pull ornaments from Will's tree. (Will has a 3 ft Christmas tree in the family room that he's in charge of. Only unbreakable ornaments allowed).

As for the doctor situation, I've looked and looked for other options but I haven't found a solution yet. I spoke to a friend who told me that her experience with OBs has been similar. She expained that most of it is them trying to cover themselves to avoid a lawsuit later on. They also deal with a lot of patients who are misinformed or who just don't know very much about the human body or fetal development. So I understand, I guess, where the doctor was coming from. That said, if I can find a better option I will take it.

For now I'm going to focus on getting better and wrapping gifts and watching the Packers kill their competion.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Turning the Corner

I’m cautiously optimistic that my morning sickness is getting better. For the last three afternoons and evenings, I’ve been able to make dinner, tidy the house and keep a smile on my face. Before Monday, John would come home and usually find me on the couch, house in chaos, children covered in dog hair, dog covered in apple juice. I’m pretty sure this is the real thing because I feel like me again. I have happy thoughts about life, am optimistic about the future, and can plan activities that don’t involve the couch or TV or napping. It’s a very exciting time.

If you were at the Mom’s Group Cookie Exchange you can skip the rest of the blog. You’ve already heard it. It’s just me complaining about my last OB visit.

OK, so my last OB visit made me absolutely furious. First, the gay nurse boy who does the temp, blood pressure, weight check was moron enough to comment on my recent weight gain of 7 pounds in one month. Perhaps comment is too kind. He snickered and said something like, “Oh my. You sure put on a few pounds.” Whatever. I’m having twins and have been too sick to get off my couch. Wanted to smack him to within an inch of his silly gay life with a non-designer shoe – just to add insult to injury.

Then, my OB took it upon herself to explain to me that declining prenatal testing and waiting until the 20 week ultrasound to reveal any “problems” was going to make it much harder for me if I decided to terminate my pregnancy. Hello. Can’t she see “devout Catholic” and “work for a pro-life group” stamped on my head? She said, “Have you considered what you would do with a Downs Syndrome baby.” (Note, she didn’t say “a baby with Downs Syndrome” which is bad news. Descriptions that place the emphasis on the problem rather than the baby serve no purpose but to dehumanize the baby). I say (stunned that we’re even going down this road right now when there is absolutely no indication of any problem – unless you count the gay nurse boy’s reaction to my weight), “We’d keep the baby, of course.”

But the doctor isn’t done. She continues. She says, “You understand that if there is a problem, terminating an 18 week old fetus is much harder than terminating a 20 week old.”

I stammer, “No. Absolutely not an option. We’d never do anything like that.”

She continues, “I just want to make sure you fully understand what you’re doing. It’s much more difficult to terminate a 20 week pregnancy.”

I cut her off. “We’d never, ever do anything like that. That’s not something we believe in.”

Let me point out that our decision to pass on the prenatal testing was a sound decision. We don’t feel the need to work ourselves into a tizzy over test results that may or may not be accurate. Many prenatal tests give a substantial number of false positives and false negatives. Plus, we’d never abort. Plus, prenatal surgery for things like spina bifida aren’t an option since we’re having twins. So why do the testing? What good is the testing at this point? We’d just have several extra weeks of worry, maybe a few additional ultrasounds. I like being happy and unworried right now, thank you very much.

I’d also like to point out that even though I told her we would keep the baby, she persisted in the discussion on abortion. Not only did she persist in the abortion talk but clearly betrayed her own preference for the abortion of children with disabilities. Maybe she forgot that I’m carrying twins and an abortion of one of them would be a serious danger to the life of the other. I have no idea what she was thinking but it was so wrong on so many levels.

I’m surprised I kept it together as well as I did. I didn’t start crying until I got in the car and called John to explain what had happened.

I’m trying to figure out what to do now. Switch? Stay the course with the stupid gay nurse who makes me feel fat and stupid doctor who wants to kill my babies?

Good thing the Packers are in the play-offs and kicked ass against Oakland.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

13 Weeks + 2 Days

I'm not complaining about the morning sickness. I'm just wondering when it's going to end. I mean, we're past the magical 12 week mark and oddly it seems to be getting WORSE. But, like I said, I'm not complaining.

I got a little freaked out today thinking about giving birth. I think going natural last time was a little traumatic. I'm leaning more than ever towards a nice, calm scheduled c-section. From one extreme to the other, right? I suppose it doesn't help anything if I get all worked up about the birth process at this point. But I'm a planner. I like to have a plan. These twins are throwing me for a loop. Can't plan a darn thing.

One extremely positive note is that as of last Tuesday I was able to discontinue my twice daily shots. You have no idea how nice it is not to have to endure that anymore. Which reminds me, I have to get more blood work done tomorrow. It's endless. It really is.

So I hope that my morning (all day) sickness passes soon because I'm spending an awful lot of time on my couch watching reruns of The Surreal Life.

One final note. On Thursday, the Packers lost to the Cowboys and now their record stands at 10 and 2. They played a great game and, IMHO, lost because of a really REALLY bad call by the refs. It was so not pass interference. And God love Aaron Rodgers for the great job he did as QB after Favre was injured.