Sunday, April 22, 2012

it's gettin' real up in here

We just tested out three carseats across the back row of my compact SUV. It's a tight squeeze but they fit, so that's good.

On the not-so-good side, I may be having the tiniest bit of an anxiety attack over the sight of it. Holy crap. We're about to have three small children, two of which will be newborns. *gulp*

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

just the facts, ma'am

Stats from OB appointment on Monday:

  • BP: 100/68
  • Swelling: Yep. But nothing too serious or concerning. (Still wearing shoes and my wedding ring!)
  • Fundal Height: 41cm
  • First NST: Passed

Weekly visits and NSTs from here on out. Next growth scan is on 4/30. I made that appointment in, like, February or something and I remember saying "I guess I'll just cancel that one if I've had the babies by then" to the receptionist. I can't believe it's less than two weeks away now. Fingers crossed I make it that far and beyond! My weight seems to have plateaued (I've only gained one pound in the last three weeks - no surprise since my stomach is roughly in my left armpit at this point - have I mentioned I'm 5'2" and short-waisted?) but my fundal height went up 3cm in that same time period, so I guess the boys are growing away in there!

Monday, April 16, 2012

cranky

I'm feeling restless and moody today, for no good reason. I'm off work and M took E to school this morning (180 degrees out of her way - so big thanks to her) so I didn't get out of bed until 9am. Since then, I've been sitting on the couch watching United States of Tara, stressing over our finances, and making a list of all the crap we still have to do before the babies arrive. (Huh, I take back what I said about not knowing why I'm feeling moody...) I have an OB appointment in a couple of hours and, for the first time, I'm planning on whining a bit. I am just so big and uncomfortable. The frequent contractions I've been having for the past couple weeks seem to have slowed, but they've been replaced by intense low pelvic pressure - no less concerning. In other (related?) news, my previously-lauded chiropractor is (a) just plain too far away, (b) not working enough days/hours to accommodate her patient load, leaving not a single free appointment on one of the days I wanted to get in this week, and (c) dragging her feet on ordering the type of table she needs to treat pregnant women comfortably, despite telling me that she fully appreciates how much she needs one and they ship within 48 hours of being ordered so, hey, it could totally be here by my next appointment, but she just can't bite the bullet because "it's like buying a car!" /vent

For contrast, I should document that we had an AWESOME day as a family yesterday. E helped me make a yummy breakfast of buttermilk pancakes (using my B&B-operating mom's signature recipe), bacon and fruit salad. Then we headed out to run some errands - something I haven't felt up to doing for 2-3 weeks now. Our spoils included a stylin' haircut for E, a new iphone for yours truly, treats from Godiva for all, and Build-a-Bears for Crash and Bash, lovingly chosen and "built" by the big-brother-to-be. (Geez, that last one was some serious cute overload. Let me tell you.) Our days as a family of three are numbered, and it was fun getting out with M and E, enjoying the family we are now instead of being all-consumed with thoughts about the family we're becoming. There were several times that E and I were walking together hand in hand and he was chattering on about this, that, or the other thing and I felt overwhelmed to think our time together will never be this simple or effortless again. Gah, this is supposed to be the happy paragraph. But, even the sad-ish part was still happy. I'm thankful for the relatively quiet moments with M and E, thankful for the 3+ years I've had to get to enjoy him as an only child, thankful for the burst of energy that let me participate in yesterday, and thankful for the pictures taken and memories made.

Update on a couple of things from my last post... I decided to go down to part-time this week. I'm still planning to work 25-30 hours (unless my doctor expresses other plans at my appointment today), but it seems like the right time to start scaling back. My "last day" is tentatively planned for April 27th (34 weeks), but I may move it up or push it back depending on how I'm feeling. The meeting with the lawyer was a bit of a mixed bag, but positive overall. The good news: We don't have to pay double for anything except the amended birth certificates, and she is charging us the same fee for her services that we paid with E ($300 less than her current charge). The bad news: The judge who granted E's adoption - the ONE judge in our county who was willing to handle same-sex adoption cases - has retired. There is another judge who has expressed an openness to hear cases like ours (and has accepted one of our attorney's cases so far, after the judge who replaced the retired judge flat out refused to keep it on his schedule), but this new judge has been really tough to pin down or get responses from. The attorney suspects he may not waive some of the requirements that the last judge did (i.e. home study, publication of intent to adopt) and it's likely this will end up costing us quite a bit more money, time and stress than our last adoption did. Ah, the lengths we go to, huh? All of that said, she's optimistic we will be able to finalize before the end of 2012, so we wrote her a big fat check and she started preparing our paperwork. Once the babies arrive, she'll update the petition to include their names and birth dates, and as soon as their SSNs and birth certificates are received, we'll be able to file. Then, we just wait out the 6 months and tackle whatever ridiculous hurdles the court puts in front of us. I can't believe we're going through this demeaning process again, but glad we're getting off to an earlier start this time.

I've been feeling really introverted lately, hence the lack of blog commenting. I am still reading religiously though, and sending out good thoughts to all of my blogosphere friends!

Monday, April 9, 2012

31 weeks and change

There's a lot going on around here, most of it very good.

I am still working full-time, but considering starting some sort of part-time/phase-out plan over the next couple of weeks... and then second-guessing that decision. I haven't talked with my boss yet about the possibility of extending my (unpaid) 12 weeks of job protection, but employees have asked to do so in the past and been denied, so I can't see how they could make an exception for me without getting into a very sticky situation. I work for a small non-profit where gossip and drama are the social currency. That means that any time I take before the babies are born is less time I'll have with them after they arrive. (Work = Post For Another Day. Nutshell version is that I'm not sure what the long-term plan is, but I HAVE to go back for a few weeks after they're born or I will owe my employer a ton of money which would pose a serious hardship financially.) ANYWAY, I feel okay most days, as long as we understand "okay" in the context of measuring 40+ weeks pregnant and having the associated swollen feet and ankles, shortness of breath, sleepless nights, heartburn, exhaustion, etc. Holy moly, twin pregnancy is tough - tougher than I can capture here, in many ways. I've been waiting for "the wall" so many talk about hitting during their twin pregnancy, and I'm pretty sure I reached it myself right around 30 weeks. I'm able to push through the weekdays, but I crash hard on the weekends. The fact that I'm physically making it to Friday makes me think I should keep working, but then I consider how exhausted I am on Saturday and Sunday and wonder if I'm inflicting more toll on my body during the week than I should be. I dunno, going to just keep taking it one day at a time for now.

That said, I'll tell you the same thing I tell everyone who asks how I'm doing - it's hard to feel anything other than supremely lucky that I'm still up and around and doing as much as I am at just shy of 32 weeks, and that the babies seem to be doing so well, too. Of course I'm achy and tired and, let's just be honest, totally useless around the house (poor M) but I'm not on bedrest and all signs point to this pregnancy continuing for a while longer, knock on wood. I had both an MFM growth scan and an OB appointment a week ago today and got glowing reports all around. The babies weights were estimated at 3lbs, 6oz (Crash) and 3lbs, 12oz (Bash) which were roughly 40th and 50th percentile for singletons. That's an improvement over their last scan where they were more like 25th and 50th. Crash is still head-down and Bash is transverse now rather than breech, but his position (compared to the previous ultrasound) indicates he may be in the process of turning head-down as well. The tech said they and I both looked great and congratulated us on our progress so far. Then I went to see my regular OB who was thrilled with the babies' sizes and my overall condition. My blood pressure was 110/60 and my urine was negative for protein. I told her I'd been having a lot of  BH contractions so she did a cervical check and found that my cervix is softening, but not dilated or effaced at all, so hooray! I know - lucky, lucky, lucky - but I promise I'm not taking one bit of it for granted.

I've been seeing a chiropractor weekly since I hit 22 weeks and will be stepping it up to twice a week starting tomorrow. She moved her office last weekend so she's now a 30+ minute drive for me rather than the 10 she used to be, and she doesn't have the right type of table in her new office to accommodate my full-term belly, which is a huge PITA (and other body parts), but I'm not giving up on her yet because I truly believe her care may be the single greatest contributor to how well I'm holding up. My first appointment in the new location was Friday night and she and I were both startled and disappointed to discover just how ineffective the new set-up is for me, so I'm hoping she'll have some new ideas when I go in tomorrow. We are so close. Just gotta limp across the finish line somehow!!

The other highlight of the past couple of weeks was the wonderful family shower In Loco Parentis threw for us last weekend. She and her partner went all out, and it was so fun to get together with friends and share our excitement over the babes' impending arrival. When she approached me with the shower idea a couple of months ago, I was a little pinchy and anxious about it because it seems the etiquette guidelines are murky on "second showers" and I didn't want people to think we were being greedy. She assured me she felt twin pregnancies were granted a pardon on any second shower taboos (a sentiment many other friends and family members have echoed since) but that she'd still keep it less "shower" and more "laid-back, kid-friendly party to celebrate our expanding family and E's new role as a big brother." (OK, maybe not those exact words, but you get the gist.) She made good on her sales pitch, and it was absolutely perfect: Great food, great friends, great conversation, and tons of toys and games to make every kid there feel like they'd died and gone to heaven. We had two showers with E but they were both surprises, so it was a special treat to have this one to look forward to. Once again, how lucky am I?!

Tonight, M and I are meeting with our endlessly-quirky lawyer to start the ball rolling on the twins' adoption. We won't be able to finalize until they are 6 months old, but we're hoping that by getting all of our ducks in a row now, we'll have no trouble getting a court date between them coming of age (ha ha) and the end of 2012. We wouldn't be in such a hurry except that we've heard the adoption tax credit is likely to go waaay down in 2013 (don't get me started) and we already pay the gay tax, giving Uncle Sam a grossly unjust share of our income, so would prefer not to give him any more than we have to. We can't wait to find out how much it will cost us for twins, compared to what we paid for E. On one hand: Double the kids, double the fees? (gulp) On the other hand: It's still only one series of meetings with us, one set of court documents, one hearing, etc. In my initial email to the lawyer, I asked her what to expect in terms of expenses but the answer was conspicuously absent from her reply. Hmmm... Will report back.

I think that's all the news that's fit to print. I will, of course, post ASAP if anything exciting happens around here (please, please don't let anything exciting happen around here for at least 4-5 more weeks) and I still have my twin questions in the queue as well. :-)