Greetings, wise internets.

I come to you with questions!

I've had all these debates bouncing around in my head for days or weeks or months and I keep thinking "I should ask the smart people who read my blog about that." I even started a list... but it was on a post-it which I seem to have lost. So, here are the two I can think of right now, most likely to be followed up by more in the near future.* Thanks in advance for any thoughts you care to share!

1. Baby Books - Anyone have one they love? Must be appropriate for a two-mom family, obviously. I keep going back and forth about whether to get the same ones for Crash and Bash as we got for E. On one hand, I like the consistency of getting the same book for each child - nobody's will be cooler than anyone else's. On the other, is that boring? Would it be more special for each child to have their own unique book? One pro for sticking with the same one is that it took me FOREVER to wrap my head around the billion milestones I was supposed to be watching for with E, and it would be nice not to have to "learn" a new book this time around. That said, E's book wasn't anything amazing. I picked it up a few days before he was born when I realized I didn't have one yet and I chose it primarily because I only had to cross out one reference to "Dad" instead of 629 like all the other books I looked at. I wonder if I could do better with a little more advance research. Which brings me back to... Anyone have one they love?**

2. Bear pictures - We took E's picture with a bear every month for the first two years of his life, and intend to do so on every birthday from here on out. I'd like to carry this tradition on with Crash and Bash. The question is... Same bear? Different bear? Different bear for each child? On one hand, I like the idea of using the same unit of measurement for each child. On the other hand, is said unit of measurement going to become a family heirloom in which case it would be nice for each child to have their own so it can live in their homes someday, be chewed on by their offspring, etc?

Any thoughts?

*Actually, these will definitely be followed up by more in the future as I have a whole separate list of questions for the twin moms out there - so many, in fact, they warrant their own post, so that will be coming soon!
**The astronomical probability of these books being totally neglected is not lost on me. It was hard enough keeping one book up-to-date. I realize I may look back at this post a year from now and laugh at the very thought that I might maintain two baby books while raising twins and a preschooler. But, I want to try. And the first step is having the books there just in case I might, you know, want to write a sentence in one every 6 months or so.

28.5 weeks...

...and time is flying.

Babies are estimated at about 2.5 pounds each. They're also freaking adorable, not that I'm biased or anything.

I have a backlog of actual posts in my head. Hoping to be back with more words soon!

my so-called life

There are four questions/comments I get a LOT these days:
1. When are you due? -OR- Is it a girl/boy? (These seem to be the interchangeable icebreakers and, apparently, do not warrant any other form of greeting or introduction!)
2. Do twins run in your family?
3. Is this your first pregnancy?
4. Wow, two more boys? Your husband must be [insert some synonym of "thrilled" and/or "over the moon" here]!

They come almost exclusively from complete strangers, and yet, I feel compelled to answer them honestly. Part of it is noble - seizing the teachable moment and all that - but much of it is that I'm a terrible liar. I have this irrational fear that the complete stranger is going to catch me in a lie and then... yeah, I dunno. Like I should care, right? But anyway, my typical answers are either (1a) "first week in June" followed by a pause for them to pop their eyes back into their sockets, and then "but I'm having twins so I'm bigger than I would be with one." Or, (1b) "Actually, it's two boys." Then we move on to (2), "well, no, but we did fertility treatments so that's kind of beside the point," and (3) "nope, I have a three year old son," before closing with (4) "my partner and I are both very excited."

Amazingly, that's not enough for some people and they proceed to ask if I'll have a c-section, whether I will breastfeed, if I'm going to keep working, and so on. STRANGERS ask me these things. OFTEN.

Late last week, I went to the post office to mail a package. It was Thursday or Friday afternoon and I was wiped. When the woman at the desk asked when I was due (after already having made a bet with the desk agent at the next station over, which I overheard - classy), I launched into the spiel, but I just didn't have it in me to do the full song and dance. So, when we hit the question about my family history of twins, I just said "nope" and left it at that, although I did throw in a slight smile/shrug as if to say "I just have no earthly idea how these two life forms found their way into my uterus!" I took the easy way out again when she asked about my husband: "Oh yeah, he is." And then came the twist. She asked if we'd been trying long. And without any forethought, it just came out: "No, not really." I guess I was on a roll. She proceeded to tell me about how she knew people who had to try for months and months (gasp!) and weren't we just "the lucky ones!" I just smiled and nodded... and willed her to finish the flipping transaction already so I could get OUT of this Twilight Zone of a conversation.

As I got back into my car, I thought about who that woman was that I'd just impersonated - a woman who had quickly and effortlessly conceived three children just by having sex with her husband. It's hard to think of a profile more different from my own.

The next day, I started out telling the truth to the woman doing my facial, but when she used her own post-IVF-surprise-pregnancy story to encourage me to "seriously consider" an IUD after the twins are born, I just laughed and went along with it. Maybe I missed out on a chance for Each One to Teach One, but... I don't know. Would it really have made a difference if I'd outed myself, or would it just have prolonged the conversation, further preventing me from enjoying the QUIET relaxation I was paying for?

I have to admit, my forays into dishonesty were a little intoxicating. The exchanges were easier; shorter. They also felt empty, like cotton candy, but I'm kind of okay with that too. It's not my job to educate a dozen complete strangers every single day. I do believe there is value in telling my truth to increase visibility, both for same-sex parents and infertility veterans, and I plan to keep that as my default course of action, but sometimes, my feet hurt and I just want to wrap this damn conversation up so I can get home already, you know?

(thanks)^3

Sorry for all the fly-by posting I've been doing lately. We're in the home stretch of finishing up all of the big home-improvement-slash-baby-readiness projects we wanted to do and are on day 12 of 17 straight days/nights of houseguests. First M's mom was here, followed by my parents, and on Thursday, it'll switch over to M's brother and sister-in-law. Then, our guest room is closed until further notice! I can't complain - we put out the call for help and were lucky enough to get a great response - but whew, are we ever exhausted. M and I did a LOT of work on our own before the parade of helpers began and the end result is that we haven't had a day "off" in over 6 weeks. But, our house is much improved, furniture has been relocated, truckloads of items have been taken to Goodwill, NB-3 month baby clothes are washed and in the nursery closet, and all we have left to do is to pick updated decorations for our newly bared walls. OK, we're not quite to that point, but we're close. Soooo close, and I cannot wait until all that's left on our to-do list is putting our feet up and waiting on the babes' arrival.

With all the chaos going on, I haven't taken the time to thank you for the kind and thoughtful comments y'all left on my last three posts. One of the things I treasure most about blogging is being able to stream out a barely-formed jumble of thoughts, and then have my fellow (read: wiser) bloggers come along and post comments that leave me thinking "Right! That, exactly!" or "Wow, I never pieced that together myself, but she's 100% right." And on that note... a couple of follow-ups:

HUGE thanks to all of you who empathized with my ramblings about our NT scan, and especially to those of you who shared "been there, done that" stories. Like Katie, who commented about her own pre-screening scare, my overwhelming feeling is one of regret, and I do not say that lightly. I wishwishwishwish we had never done the NT Scan. If I were to be pregnant again (ha!), I would decline it. I'm sure the test would be a useful tool for some people/scenarios, but for me, the magnitude of worry it caused when we had no desire for diagnostic testing any earlier than an amnio was simply a recipe for disaster. I realize I say this from the priviledged position of having several clean cardio scans since the NT, but my regret was instantaneous and has not wavered. And we're still not out of the woods. No one ever is, really, which - for me - is all the more reason that early testing is crap. You either get a possibly-false sense of security or a possibly-false sense of the world crashing down around you. Delightful!

Regarding viability, Bionic and tbean's comments pulled the chain on the lightbulb for me about WHY I was so underwhelmed by the 24 week milestone. It's because all of the sudden, people start talking about your baby's arrival like an Actual Thing; an Actual Thing that could happen, and holy hell, it is soooo too soon for that! It's true that a 24 weeker should do better than a 23.5 weeker, but nobody talks about your baby coming at 23.5 weeks because that's Scary. Then all of the sudden, they sneak a toe across this largely-theoretical line and everyone starts verbalizing how they can be born and be okay! And I'm left thinking "Um, they're only one day older than they were when they were Not Viable. Someone's going to have to explain the balloons and fireworks to me." Anywho. We're now a whopping 2.5 weeks over the theoretical line and while I'm still petrified at the thought of the babies making an untimely appearance, it certainly does get less scary by the day.

And SPD... thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who offered tips and sympathy! I have been very conscious to keep my knees together as much as possible (there's a great joke in here somewhere...) and to find the right balance of gentle, frequent activity without overdoing it. I have been seeing a Webster-certified chiro since the beginning of February so it was easy to ask her to shift her focus a bit at my last appointment, and I think that helped too. All in all, I have to say that so far, I'm feeling VERY lucky to have what seems to be a minor case. As long as I keep my activity reasonable, it's manageable. For now. And at this point, I'm counting each day that it's tolerable as a win!

In other news, we had an ultrasound yesterday and got lots of good news - Crash (Baby A) and Bash (Baby B) are both within range for normal singleton weights. Crash was estimated at 1lb. 15oz and Bash was estimated at 2lbs. 3oz. Both hearts look good (144 and 152 bpm) and not only has Crash's placenta migrated off of my cervix, but he has turned head-down! I'm still working full-time and haven't had to limit my mobility yet, but it's getting tougher to do everything (oh sleep, how I miss you already) and my boss and I are meeting later this week to discuss a plan for scaling back my work schedule in the near-ish future. It's tough because my boss has her own medical leave scheduled for the second half of March, and I am HER coverage plan, so the goal is to make it to April (30 weeks) without any drastic cuts to my schedule if at all possible. That said, Crash and Bash are the number one priority so we'll do whatever we have to do whenever we have to do it!

Oh, and E's birthday party is this weekend. How exactly did it happen that he is turning THREE?

OMG SPD, WTF?

Ow, ow, owwwwww! Any and all tips welcome.

ETA: Sorry. SPD for those who have been lucky enough to avoid it (as I was for the entirety of my last pregnancy) is this.

first major milestone

24 weeks today, and I have to admit I'm not breathing the sigh of relief I expected to.

On one hand, we're at 24 weeks! Hooray! If something awful happened and the babies had to come tomorrow, they'd have a reasonable chance of surviving.

On the other hand, we're at 24 weeks! Scary! That is still so early, and they have so much more growing to do before we can genuinely expect good health outcomes.

(I don't have any reason to believe they won't continue to bake for another 2-3 months. I'm just being neurotic.)

So, in an effort to ditch my Debbie Downer attitude (because - Hey! 24 weeks! Viability! Yeah!) I now present this list of Very Cool Things:

• Baby B is kicking away as I write this post and if I stop typing for a minute and look down at my belly, I can see it twitching and jumping from the outside.
• E moved into his new bedroom last week. It was really fun (and a LOT of work) getting it all set up, picking out "big boy" furnishings and accessories, and moving all of his books and toys into his new space. He'll be three in less than a month, but somehow, it's the move to the big boy room that has me all misty over how fast he's growing. He seems to dig the new room for everything but sleeping right now, but we'll get there. Change is hard.
• We're struggling something awful with names. We are pretty sure we have one first name picked out, but the second one just isn't falling into place, and we haven't even begun to discuss middle names. E has had two consistent suggestions since the day we told him he was getting little brothers: Crash and Bash. Hmmm.
• E is excited, if confused, about the impending arrival of his brothers. Every time our dog barks, signaling someone has arrived at our house (or any of our nearby neighbors'), E's eyes turn to saucers and he exclaims "My brothers are here!" Freaking. Adorable.
• The babies were 1lb. 1oz and 1lb 2ozs. at my ultrasound almost two weeks ago. Not too shabby. I'm hoping my random appetite surge of the past week indicates a decent growth spurt since then, too. (The amount of food I have consumed since last Friday is truly shocking. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't watched it pass my lips.) C'mon babies! Keep on growing!
• And one obnoxious brag: Peter and the Wolf has been on heavy rotation in my car for months now, and E has long been able to identify the different instrument families in it, and other pieces of classical music as well. During the last few days, he has also started singing the instrumental parts along with the CD when it plays. His favorite is Grandfather. His brain is so amazing.

you can't unring a bell

I have been writing this post in my head for well over a month and even have a few attempts saved in my drafts folder. On one hand, I want to capture our processing of all that has happened in full, technicolor detail. On the other, it feels too personal to share; uncharted territory for me, considering all the gut-spilling I’ve done on this blog over the years, but there it is. But, I want to share why I’ve been so silent, here and in your comments sections, and also get you up to speed on where we are now, so here is the nutshell version:

When we went for our “first look” ultrasound in November, Baby B’s NT measurement was high and we were given 1:86 odds of Down Syndrome, compared with 1:2611 on Baby A. Baby B’s risks of other trisomies were elevated as well. We told no one for weeks until I finally opened up to two friends – one over email and one during a weekend lunch date in which I held her hostage for four long, self-absorbed hours. M and I did a bunch of research and soul-searching and doctor-grilling and decided to book an amnio during the same office visit as our early-January anatomy scan with the hope of declining the amnio on the spot if Baby B’s heart and other organs looked okay on the ultrasound. And – thankfully – we were able to do just that when Baby B sailed through without a hitch. As did his brother. (Did you catch that? We decided to find out the sexes this time and we are having two more boys. Heaven help us.) We’ve had one more in-depth cardio scan since that ultrasound and everything still looks good. They will continue to look at the boys’ hearts monthly from here on out, along with the standard growth scans. (The anatomy scan also revealed that Baby A’s placenta is completely covering my cervix, but it’s early, so I’m hoping it will move away with time.)

The weeks between the NT scan and the Amnio-That-Wasn’t were dark times. I have never felt so vulnerable. Even though I knew Baby B's odds weren’t that bad in the grand scheme of things (1:86 = 1.2%), they seemed enormous compared to Baby A’s and it put an impenetrable dark cloud over my pregnancy as a whole. Before the NT scan, I’d been anxiously awaiting the end of the first trimester to shout our news from the rooftops. As it turned out, we had very close friends who didn’t even know I was pregnant until just shy of 17 weeks. Basically, if I didn’t *have* to tell someone because they came face to face with my rapidly growing belly, they didn’t get to know. I was terrified to tell anyone about the babies in case one or both would not be ours to keep. I felt like a fraud every time I told someone it was twins; like I needed to follow it up with “…but, one of them may be very sick.” It sounds like an overreaction now, but at the time, the fear was paralyzing. Around 13-14 weeks, I realized my subconscious had built a protective wall between me and my pregnancy and I'd prevented myself from developing a connection to the babies. It freaked me out and I launched a concerted effort to tell more people, and then to lock in on their excitement and try desperately to make it my own, but I just couldn’t. The fear was stronger than any amount of will or logic.

Ultimately, telling more people (including the eventual FB announcement) and the two clear scans have helped a lot, but the fear has left its mark as well. I no longer fear for Baby B’s health in the specific, intense way I once did, but the sense of vulnerability remains, similar to how your calf aches the morning after a charlie horse woke you during the night. The experience has been a powerful reminder of how fragile everything is, how little control we have, and how quickly things can change or be lost. I’ve had intermittent cramping and spotting over the past few weeks (too much activity, I’m sure) and at one point, I felt so worried it was the beginning of the end, I called my OB and went in right away (sooo not my style), only to learn my cervix was long and closed and perfect.

I will be 24 weeks on Friday. So close, I can taste it. I couldn’t be more anxious to reach a milestone.

2011 Holiday Craft Exchange

It's our second year participating in the Holiday Craft Exchange organized by the amazing S over at An Offering of Love. Things have been so hectic lately, I all but forgot something would be coming to me as well. This is how I found myself staring, puzzled, at the unfamiliar return address on an envelope that arrived yesterday. I opened it up and discovered these three adorable photo frame ornaments, crafted especially for us by the family at That's A Lot of Esses. I can't wait to fill them with pictures of our THREE children next Christmas! It turns out we have a lot in common with the Esses - both of our families have one (adorable) boy here and twins due this June - so I am grateful not only for the ornaments, but also for being introduced to their wonderful blog. Thanks so much to Leander and his mommies!

Go here to see what other participants received!

P.S. The craft we made for another blogger family is going out in tomorrow's mail. We were thwarted by a supply shortage and it took a couple of days to squeeze in the necessary shopping mission. But, I sealed up the box tonight and it will be on it's way soon!

You know you're tired when...

I work in the "penthouse" of my office building (a hilarious term considering people regularly smoke/drink/fight/sleep in our stairwell and there's fresh urine in the elevator at least once a week) and the bottom floor is a dialysis clinic. Every day, I walk in and out past their large picture windows and look in at the rows of turquoise vinyl-covered recliners, each surrounded by a dozen pieces of medical equipment and a 9-inch television monitor on a retractable arm. And every day this week, I have thought "Man, if only I had kidney failure, someone would make me sit in one place with my feet up and my own tv for several hours a day, several days a week. I'd probably even get a blanket with no pet hair on it." True story.

I am in that part of pregnancy where you are so exhausted to the core of your being that you feel like you could sleep for the next 1000 years and still be tired. My body aches from it. M has been awesome, picking up all kinds of slack around the house while I lay useless on the couch, but I still have a full-time job that is an 11 on the stress meter right now, two more weeks of a 3-hour class to teach (including a final assignment to grade 24 copies of), time-sensitive tasks to complete for two separate boards/committees (not that I'm doing any of the things I'm supposed to be doing for either), and a toddler to feed, bathe, clothe and care for. It's a lot, and I'm looking forward to having a few days off.

I have so much more I want to write about, but I have GOT to get some things crossed off my list at work. More over the weekend, I hope. If not, I want to say now how thankful I am for all of my blog friends. Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it. I hope your holiday is warm and joyful!

and... exhale

2 beautiful heartbeats = 1 very relieved mama

I would say two relieved mamas, but M informed me this afternoon that she never doubted for a moment that the babies were fine. Ah, the enviable un-damaged outlook!

One of the babies started the scan by flipping around wildly, then relaxed to a steady stream of punches and kicks. The other was cool as a cucumber the whole time. The NP and I have a difference of opinion about which baby was which (A or B). She's not an ultrasound expert and admitted she couldn't really tell where they were placed in the uterus. I have even less experience reading ultrasounds, but I have seen THESE babies two more times than she has, and I also know that Baby B has been our big acrobat thus far.

Appointments are every two weeks for now. That is a welcome change from the one month wait between reassurances with E! First trimester screen will be in the next 2-3 weeks too, if the MFM can fit me in. The NP was a little concerned that we're calling too late to get an appointment in time, but we'll see. Have to call there in a few minutes and hope something works out.

I feel like I've been holding my breath for the past week and a half and I can finally let it out. So, so grateful to have seen those little hearts beating away. At least for today, our surreal and amazing journey continues.