Wardrobe

Yesterday was a big milestone for me: I wore non-maternity pants for the first time since last spring! Granted, they were my loosest-fitting pants pre-pregnancy, and getting into them was a bit of a squeeze, but still, they actually have a non-elasticized waist! A zipper fly is such a novelty to me now. It did make for some briefly disconcerting moments in the restroom though, embarrassingly enough.

This is happy news (the non-maternity pants, not the fly-related confusion), because it means a) that I am down to 9 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight, which is to say that I’ve lost 36 pounds, and b) that I can finally unpack all my regular clothes that have been packed in boxes since our move this summer. Granted, actually accomplishing that wardrobe transition was not exactly fun (and finding time for it seemed impossibly unlikely for a long time), but now that it’s done I feel much more settled.

That said, actually packing away my maternity clothes was bittersweet. I know that I am not packing them away for my own future use, but rather so that they can be passed on to the next knocked up friend or relative who wears my approximate size, and that leaves me feeling (just a little bit, I swear) wistful. The memories of purchasing so many of those clothes back when I was 16 weeks pregnant — thinking that, no, really, I totally had a belly! — are memories of excitement and disbelief and happy anticipation. So there was some nostalgia there to say the least. A lot of the clothes have strong pregnancy-specific associations: the dresses I wore to my baby showers; the bathing suit I squeezed into at Lake Winnipesaukee so I could float in the lake and get some relief from the weight of my belly; the ridiculously overlarge maternity shirt I enthusiastically wore to work the day I finally shared the news of my pregnancy with co-workers. (That shirt, incidentally, was decidedly too small to fit over my belly by the bitter end.) When I acquired all those clothes, I knew that they would only be a temporary wardrobe for me, but like most things in life, I couldn’t really appreciate how quickly that time would actually pass.

No sense dwelling on the past, though. Time to look ahead. And by that I mean I really really hope I fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans again soon.

Born (Third of Three)

part one
part two

I remember very little else from the operating room after they were born. I think I probably asked how much they weighed. I remember pictures being taken. One of the nurses standing by Baby A’s warming station called out “Can I get someone from the NICU over here, please?” And then, without missing a beat, she added, “Just for an extra pair of hands?” I realize now that second comment was thrown in to keep me from panicking, and it worked – I had no idea until much later that poor Baby A was awarded a whopping 3 (out of 10) on his one-minute Apgar score. (He was up to a 9 by five minutes – thank you, outstanding medical personnel!) In what seemed like no time at all, Matt and the babies and their staffs were all being bustled out of the room to recovery, and suddenly no one was paying much attention to me anymore. The surgical team was chatting with each other, and the nurses who’d been so nice to me earlier had left with the babies. My only company was the dull-as-dishwater anesthesiologist, who clearly felt he was getting a raw deal by not being allowed to knock me out completely. I had been terrified of this exact scenario when imagining the c-section, but in the moment it didn’t matter at all. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that we had a boy and a girl. After months of being so certain that they were both boys, I was overcome with the surprise of my little girl (and to this day I still have this strange feeling that someone is going to come and tell me that there was a mistake, and that she’s not actually mine, or not actually a girl – the latter possibility seeming less and less likely with each diaper change). While I honestly didn’t have a particularly strong preference about the babies’ sexes as I was wheeled into the OR, by the time I was wheeled out I have to admit that I felt incredibly, indescribably fortunate to have both a daughter and a son (words that still sound crazy and wonderful to me).

I lay there as they stitched me up and mused on the fact that we now knew their names, including the fact that they would have Matt’s last name (we’d agreed ahead of time that if the twins had been two of the same sex, they’d have my last name, and if they were one of each sex they’d have his last name – sort of a built-in coin flip). The OB showed me their placentas, which I know some people will think is gross, but I wanted to see these amazing, disposable organs that I’d grown and that my body had used to nourish my babies for months and months. (They looked exactly like you’d expect: jiggly, bloody lumps. Still.) I consulted with my delightful anesthesiologist about a very strong pain in my left upper arm, and he comfortingly told me that it was probably referred pain from my uterus being outside of my body and resting on my leg. (Right around this time I also noticed that if I looked directly at the overhead light, I could see a (blessedly) fragmented reflection of what was going on on the other side of the curtain below – ack! It looked a lot like Matt’s diagram.)

Finally, finally it was time for me to join Matt and the babies in the recovery room. We took turns holding our children and getting to know them. It’s funny; a few days before they were born I mused to Matt that I expected that for the first few days or weeks I would probably think of the babies as a unit – “the twins” – and only later really start to differentiate between them as I got to know them as individuals. Apparently I expected to have the most generic babies in the world. In fact, they were unique little people full of their own personalities right from the beginning. It was the first of the many surprises that motherhood has brought me so far.

Matt and I spent the next four days in the hospital, in a room with a large picture window looking out over divine Providence (and the hospital parking lot). We got about six hours of sleep in the first 60 hours. Julian and Eloise were born just in time to watch the Red Sox play their last game of the 2008 postseason and, slightly later, to see the first black man elected president of the United States. I feel exceedingly lucky that I get to devote the next several years to witnessing what else their lives have in store for them. At least until they’re teenagers and they start telling me to butt out.

Today is actually my official due date. No one ever expected me to go 40 weeks with twins, of course, but it’s still the date I used throughout pregnancy — usually with a “twins” caveat — at my OB’s office and whenever anyone asked. Just three weeks and a day later, it is impossible for me to grasp that with a different pregnancy I might only now be giving birth. For all that I have failed to capture the magnitude and significance of my children’s arrival, I would have an even harder time putting into words the wonder and terror of our lives since, so I won’t even try. I want to try, because I already feel a crushing nostalgia for this time, which is going so fast. I don’t want to forget a moment of it, but I’m sure that written down it would sound like nothing but a dull recounting of clipping tiny fingernails and watching tiny chests rise and fall in sleep. Okay, on second thought, that actually sounds like a pretty terrific read to this smitten mother.

(But don’t worry, I won’t subject you all to it. You’re heroes for having made it even this far.)

Born (First of Three)

Hey, it’s me! Rachel! The other parent, the one who can’t detach from the breast pump long enough to type more than a sentence at a time! Hence the long delay in my writing up the story of the twins’ birth from my point of view. It’s not as funny as Matt’s version, and in all honesty not as much fun to read (on the plus side, it’s incredibly long), but it’s a reflection of how I experienced the event.

As regular readers of this blog know, because the twins were stubbornly breech for months and months, we had no choice but schedule a c-section. Sunday, October 26 – at a gestational age of 37 weeks and 6 days – was to be The Day, and as I had had essentially no contractions or any signs of pre-term labor the entire pregnancy, it looked like we’d make it there.

It took me a little while to come to terms with the inevitability of the c-section – I had really been holding out hope for a vaginal delivery in spite of the rather shoddy odds. However, my pregnancy taught me stark lessons about adjusting to the unexpected (starting at week seven with news of its twinness), and I tried very hard to focus on the positives: I could have my own doctor and midwife in attendance, we had the luxury of making detailed plans for family visitors, and I would be able to get as much sleep as possible the couple days beforehand so I could go into the whole ordeal well rested.

I became so comfortable with this scenario that my brain wound up in denial about the possibility that the babies could come sooner. After weeks of protesting and procrastinating, I did finally pack the hospital bag on Saturday, October 18. Matt installed the car seats that day as well. And I mailed my absentee ballot (thank goodness – every vote really counted here in Rhode Island, you know).

After watching the Red Sox win game 5 of the ALCS around midnight that Saturday, Matt and I headed up to bed and I prepared for another night of fitful, uncomfortable sleep. When I got up for a standard bathroom trip at 2 a.m., it did not take me long to realize that something was very different (specifically, that my legs were all wet and the bathmats were suddenly in serious need of a wash). I sat in the bathroom allowing the reality of my water breaking to sink in, and I actually spent a moment wondering whether this really was IT, or whether this was the sort of thing I could maybe not mention to anyone for another week. Once common sense took over, I shakily called out to Matt that my water had broken. What I didn’t say out loud, but what I knew we were both grappling with, was the fact that we would probably have babies within a few hours. Boys or girls? Healthy? NICU? Big or small? The answers to all the questions we’d been pondering for months would be clear before the sun came up. I admit to being a little freaked out.

To be continued tomorrow…

Unexpected

I did not expect the Red Sox to win Game 5 of the ALCS, so I certainly did not expect to be watching Game 6 until after midnight. And I definitely did not expect to be woken two hours after going to sleep by Rachel calling to me from the bathroom.

“Matt? I think my water broke.”

The predictable half-hour of frantic scrambling ensued. By a happy coincidence, we had spent the day Saturday packing our hospital bags and installing the car seats, “just in case.” In fact, I had confidently predicted to Rachel that by packing the bags in advance, we were ensuring that the babies would wait until their scheduled date to arrive. It’s the same theory that holds that by packing an umbrella for your vacation, you can guarantee that it won’t rain. I guess the principle doesn’t apply to babies.

So: bags, pillows, and an air mattress got thrown in the back of the car, food was hastily poured out for the cats, cameras and a laptop were stuffed in their bags, and off we went to the hospital.

The nice part about rushing to the hospital at 2:30 in the morning is that you get your choice of parking spaces, and there’s not much of a wait at triage. By 3:30 at the latest, we were in an exam room, Rachel was gowned up and on monitors, and the all of the preparations were underway. Rachel was pretty nervous, but I was able to keep myself upbeat and confident—until the nurse decided to put Rachel’s IV in the arm that I happened to be sitting next to and I nearly passed out. (Dramatic tension! if he can’t handle watching an IV go on, how will he manage in the operating room? Stay tuned!)

As mentioned previously, we were reasonably pleased to have the C-section scheduled because it meant that Rachel’s doctor would perform the surgery, and her midwife would attend to help keep us both calm and comfortable. (In fact, both of them planned to come in on their day off for us, which we can’t help but find flattering.) Coming in early meant that we got the doctor on call, who happened to be very nice, very professional, and very French Canadian. They also paged the midwife on call, but due to a communications breakdown somewhere along the line, the hospital staff forgot to wake her up from her nap to attend the surgery. I suppose if anyone was going to sleep through the surgery, a midwife we’d never met before was probably the best candidate.

After a seemingly interminable wait in the exam room, they finally wheeled Rachel up to the second floor and into the OR. This is the part Rachel (and I) were especially nervous about: neither of us liked the idea of being separated while she got on the operating table and had her spinal block. I’ll let Rachel relate the story from the woman’s perspective, but I can say that, from the male perspective, waiting to be called into the OR for your wife’s C-section will be the most boring and nerve-wracking fifteen minutes of your life.

Once they wheeled Rachel through the double doors, they handed me a bag of scrubs (size XXL) to pull on over my clothes, pointed me to towards one of two sad little chairs in the hallway, and told me to wait. I had time to experiment with self-portraiture:

After what seemed like hours, I was finally called into the OR. I had no idea what to expect, really, having never been in an operating room. What I saw was Rachel’s head poking out of a blue curtain, and two baby receiving stations just to her left. To her right was, essentially, the machine that goes “ping!” manned by her anesthesiologist—a man who had less personality than the aforementioned blue curtain. (He seemed like the kind of person who has never in his life been greeted with, “Hey! Good to see you!” I’m guessing he gets a lot of, “Oh. Hi, Bob.” The guy walked past be twice while I was waiting out in the hallway and was the only person out of more than a dozen not to congratulate me or, you know, acknowledge me sitting there in my oversized scrubs.)

Rachel was nervous, but brave. I was definitely holding it together, and was determined not to look over, past, or around that blue curtain, because very very gross things were going to be happening over there. My problem was this: I was told that as soon as the babies were out, I was free (and indeed encouraged) to go over to them, take pictures of them, and touch them. What complicated matters was that the room was laid out as follows:

Going over to Baby B was going to require edging past the curtain, making absolutely sure not to turn around, even for a second. After my misadventure in the exam room downstairs, I was determined not to screw this one up.

I sat down on the “dad” stool, the doctor started doing something behind the curtain, and less than ten minutes later, we heard Dr. Caron shout over the curtain, “I’m taking out Baby A! Do you want to know what it is?” Rachel and I replied in the affirmative, and the doctor sang out, “It’s a boy!” What seemed like a whole herd of blue-suited nurses sprang up around the Baby A table and before I could decide whether or not to get up off of my stool, Dr. Caron was telling us that the second baby was a girl.

(I didn’t care, much, what the sexes of our babies were, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was hoping for at least one girl. The more I think about it, the more it seems like we got absolutely the perfect combination.)

All in all, the “getting the babies out” portion of the event took maybe twenty minutes. Julian, Eloise, and I hung out for a few minutes, and then the three of us were ushered off to recovery to wait for Rachel to get stitched back together. So there I found myself, sitting in a warm, dark hospital room at six in the morning, staring at two helpless, pink, and crusty miniature persons. I did not expect to be doing that at all.

Arrival

We are very excited to announce that our twins have decided to make an early entrance!

Julian Spaulding Harvey was born at 5:27 a.m, October 19. He weighed 4 pounds, 15 ounces. Julian is named in memory of his maternal great-grandfather, John Julien McCoy.

Eloise Spaulding Harvey was born at 5:28 a.m. She weighed 5 pounds, 1 ounce. Eloise is named in memory of her paternal grandmother, Lois Rappoport Harvey.

Rachel is recovering nicely, the twins are healthy, and we’re ecstatic, if a little stunned! We’ll be camped out at Women and Infants’ Hospital for a few days, but we’ll hopefully get some more pictures up soon. We look forward to introducing you to them!

Bringing the Babies into a Better World

Four years ago I remember thinking, “This is going to be an exciting fall! We’re getting married, a Democrat is going to get elected president, and the Red Sox are going to win the World Series!” Two out of three proved true. Well, here we are four years later, with a similarly exciting lineup of fall events, and I’m hoping to go three for three this year. (If we can only have two, though, I’m really sorry, Red Sox, but you just don’t quite make the cut.) In an effort to help bring that to fruition, I mailed in my absentee ballot today. (I am also happy to pitch for the Sox in long relief if called upon by Terry Francona.)

True, Rhode Island does not make most political analysts’ “swing state” lists, but I really didn’t want to miss out on voting in this historic election. And with Election Day coming nine days post-surgery (assuming the babies wait until their scheduled delivery date), I could imagine a scenario in which I didn’t feel up for going to the polls, particularly given Rhode Island’s assured navy blue status. So I went the absentee ballot route.

Let’s hope that does the trick! It would be very hard to give the babies up for adoption by Canadians if McCain wins, but we’d have to seriously consider it.

Today I’m 36 weeks and 4 days pregnant. Three days until the babies are officially full term, and nine days until they are born (again, assuming they cooperate with our schedule). I am so happy and relieved that we have made it this far. We’re getting awfully close to being ready for them. This weekend we’ll put our hospital bags in the car and install the infant car seats. I will also try to knit them some little hats to wear home. I don’t want to finish everything, because I feel as though that will somehow send them a signal that they can come any time, and I’d really rather they wait, both for their own sake (the longer they cook the better) and for ours (we really want our awesome OB and midwife to attend the c-section). So I will knit their hats very slowly.

I can’t believe that we will watch Game 4 of the World Series (not to mention the late-night election returns) with babies in our arms.

Countdown

In the first of what I’m sure will be a lifetime of instances of these children disappointing their parents, our twins have decided that they will not be turning around, thank you very much, and so both remain in the breech position. This is a problem for two reasons:

First, Rachel is walking around with two human skulls under her ribs. I’m given to understand that’s as uncomfortable as it sounds. Secondly, it means that the twins are no longer eligible for a conventional vaginal delivery. (I know that some of my friends have expressed discomfort about using a simple medical term like “vaginal” to describe childbirth, and so to them I say: get over it. Vagina vagina vagina.) Most doctors give up on attempting a vaginal delivery if even one twin is breech; ours, because he rocks, was willing to attempt a vaginal birth if Twin A was in the vertex (or “head down”) position. But at this point, the game’s up, and we’re (mostly Rachel) having a Cesarean section.

This has its upsides, though! For one thing, scheduling a C-section means that we can be sure the birth will be attended by our doctor and our midwife, both of whom we’ve really come to like and rely on. Secondly, it means we know the date our babies will be born, which makes planning a lot easier.

So, the countdown to October 26 has begun.

Having a date makes this thing super real. Now, of course, these little guys could always decide to come early, resulting in a scramble to get to the hospital, a delivery by whichever doctor is on call, and, quite possibly, a short stay in the NICU. (If that happens, they are so grounded.) But we know the latest possible date they’ll arrive. It feels like that’s both no time at all and also ages away.

And as weird as becoming a parent is in general, a Cesarean delivery is particularly surreal. They estimate about fifteen minutes, tops, between the time they get Rachel on the operating table and the moment we’re holding babies. That’s a pretty sharp transition from not parents to parents. I suppose, though, that whether the transition is accompanied by twenty hours of screaming labor or twenty minutes of antiseptic surgery, it’s something you can’t quite imagine until it happens. Not for lack of trying: we spend a lot of time talking about how excited we are and what we’ll do when they arrive, and I spent at least a few minutes every night before we go to sleep trying to picture what our babies will be like when they arrive, how I’ll feel about them, and how our lives will change. How can I imagine what it will feel like to wake up at 3:00 A.M. to change a diaper, or see an infant seat in the rear view mirror, or to hold a tiny, helpless baby and know that it’s my responsibility? I can’t imagine, yet; it’s a hopeless task.

And a pointless one! Since they’ll be here in 18 days! To help us count down until the arrival, Rachel regressed to childhood undertook a craft project. We’ll remove one link each day until we’re left with a sad little paper bracelet that, on Sunday morning a few short weeks from now, just before we get in the car at 6:00 A.M. to go to the hospital and meet our babies, we’ll toss reverently into the recycling.

29 weeks

Erm, this is late, as usual. And it’s going to be an incomplete post — but more are coming, I promise. We’ve had two baby showers and done lots of decorating of the babies’ room and spent money on incredibly crucial products without which it would certainly be impossible ever to keep a baby alive. But more on all that later.

Mark took these great pictures right around 29 weeks. I think the one of the two of us against the purple wall may be a framer.

He also took some photos of the shower, but we’ll put those in the shower-themed post, coming soon.

To add some substance to this post (defined, admittedly, more in terms of the quantity of words than the quality), I will complain about a pet peeve of mine. Folks, four weeks do not equal a month. Every month of the year except February is two or three days longer than four weeks. This is not usually an issue that needs to be discussed, but it becomes very relevant during pregnancy. If you are 32 weeks pregnant, as I will be tomorrow (despite this being the 29 week post), you are not eight months pregnant, especially given that you have eight weeks to go (in a normal pregnancy). You are, in fact, just over seven months pregnant, thanks to all those nice bonus days in every month. And please don’t be one of those otherwise intelligent people who tells me that “actually, pregnancy is ten months long!” because you gestate for 40 weeks; that would only be true if there were four weeks in a month, which — let’s review — there aren’t. (And never mind that for the first four weeks you don’t know you’re pregnant, and for the first two of those you aren’t even technically pregnant, so don’t try to get extra sympathy for ten months of pregnancy when for all intents and purposes, women experience pregnancy for eight months.)

Whew, I’m glad I got that off my chest! In more positive news, I got an iPod Touch! This was an essential baby purchase, because it will allow me to use more conveniently the Trixie Tracker that Matt posted about previously. That is the only reason I got it. For the sake of the babies. Not yet officially a mother and already I give and give.

Song

Yeah, a few months ago, I wrote a song for the twins. I figure since they’re about eight weeks away I’d better stop worrying that it doesn’t sound perfect and hurry up and post it.

The Twins Song

Awwwwwww.

27 weeks

Late as usual (I’m just over 28 weeks now), but here are some fun pictures Matt took when we were on vacation last week. Don’t be deceived by all the sunlight; we had one sunny day out of seven. Still, we had a really nice time and managed to relax to a degree we haven’t been able to enjoy in months and months. Somehow I don’t think there will be as much knitting, reading, guitar-playing, and Nintendo Wiiing when the babies get here.

You are all very patient to look at all these photos of me as a beached whale (that one was for you, Auntie Deejee). I know you’re all waiting for the main attraction — I’m just the opening band. The headline act will be here before we know it, though!

Gender

Let’s talk about sex, babies.

Rachel and I have decided not to find out in advance what the sexes of the twins are. Partly, this is because we like the idea of being surprised, but mostly (for me at least) I don’t want anyone to know in advance whether we’re having boys or girls because I do not want to be inundated with pretty pink princess crap, or sports and cowboys crap. DO NOT WANT.

It’s odd to me how common it is to find out the sex of your unborn baby. In our twins class, we’re the only couple out of 9 who didn’t already know what they were having. When we went to Babies “R” Us to start our registry, the woman at the checkout was apalled that we weren’t finding out. “But,” she pleaded, “how will you buy bedding?”

I get it that, traditionally, pink clothes and sheets with flowers and such are for girls, while blue stuff with balls and trucks and cars are for boys, but I can’t shake my bafflement that anyone thinks a one-month old cares what’s printed on his or her crib sheet. Even burpcloths are gendered. Burpcloths! Because, God knows, if a boy throws up onto a towel with flowers on it, it will turn him gay.

I swear, if we have a girl, I’m totally dressing her in this “chick magnet” onesie. Because this makes me kind of queasy.

25 week portraits

We had a great ultrasound the other day, confirming that both babies are growing on track and that Baby B does, indeed, have that all-important four-chambered heart (the tech couldn’t get a good look at it back at 18 weeks). Baby B also continues to have big feet and is building up a lot of muscle by kicking me with them.

Twin A, practicing his or her knitting technique, I think

Twin B, cutting a handsome profile

We’re off on vacation up at Lake Winnipesaukee next week. After the whirlwind of the last few months, we really need it (you know, before the real chaos sets in!).

24 Weeks

My my, the time does fly. Tomorrow I’ll be 24 weeks pregnant, a milestone because it’s considered the lower limit of viability, although I sincerely hope not to find that out personally. I’ve been feeling mostly good, with the occasional episode of heartburn, breathlessness, or general discomfort — nothing really deserving of major complaint (although I complain to Matt anyway). I have been feeling (and sometimes seeing) plenty of baby movement, which is quite cool if slightly “oh my god there are things living in me ew ew ew ew!”

Up until a couple weeks ago, the move was so fully occupying our time and thoughts that we didn’t pay much attention to the eventual needs of the babies. However, now that my belly is really starting to assert itself, we have realized that there really are going to be twins at the end of this, and maybe it would be better if we had more stuff in the nursery than six paint swatches, a cradle with no mattress, and a rocking chair I bought off the side of the road when I was 22. So we braved Babies R Us to set up a registry (and utterly shocked the cashier with our intention to decorate a baby room without knowing the sex of the babies that would be occupying it — abuse!) and filled in a few other items on myregistry.com, and now we just have to slowly acquire them. We’re also getting some good deals on Craigslist and are the recipients of some very generous hand-me-downs (and the sister of a friend, whom we’ve never even met, pulled a fancy, good-condition double stroller out of the Natick dump for us!), so we’re making some progress.

We also went to our first of four “Marvelous Multiples” classes at the hospital. We didn’t learn much (except that apparently cutting through the umbilical cord takes some muscle), but it was very cool to sit in a room of eight other couples all expecting twins — so nice to feel average! Next week is the hospital tour (yay) and the review of all the awful things that can happen to you and your babies just because you were dumb enough to get knocked up with twins, you high-risk oddballs. I’m bringing my iPod for that part.

Finally, on a totally random note, lots of women talk about how their dreams get really unusually crazy during pregnancy. People on the chat board I frequent detail some truly bizarre ones. I have found the opposite, however: my dreams have become unbelievably tedious. Last night I dreamed that all my clothes had gotten mixed up in this huge pile of everyone’s clothes (I don’t know who “everyone” was), and I spent a long, long stretch of dream time looking for my clothes, folding them, and putting them away. I woke up bored. I think this is my brain preparing me for certain aspects of parenting.

Week 20

So, what have all of you been up to? We bought a house, painted it, moved, sold a house, and unpacked. (Well, we started unpacking. I don’t think we can legitimately claim to have unpacked until there are no more cardboard boxes in our living room)

It’s been a bit of whirlwind, is what I’m saying, so we haven’t exactly been right on top of taking or posting pictures. But the pregnancy continues! Here, at last, are the week 20 photos:

In previous weeks, all of the pictures were taken in front of a neutral or scenic background. We thought for this week it might be fun to take the picture against a backdrop that illustrated what our lives were like when the picture was taken. I think this picture conveys “disarray” pretty well, don’t you?

Things are going very well! Rachel’s feeling good, our house is filling up with our belongings and shiny new furniture from IKEA, and we’re starting to make a big list of the baby stuff we’re going to need. In fact, it’s kind of crucial that we make that list soon, because if we think our house is filling up now…

Week 16

Here I am at 16 weeks! (You can click the pictures to see them larger, if you so desire.) I wanted to start taking pictures of Matt every couple weeks as well. I thought it would be hilarious, but it turns out he does not share my killer sense of humor.

We’ve bid the first trimester good bye and have been happily inhabiting the second trimester for a few weeks now. So far, a vast improvement! I was starting to feel better during week 13, but then I came down with a nasty flu at week 14 that set me back for several days. Once I finally got over that, I began being treated to long stretches of feeling almost…normal? Can that be? And normal is blissful right now.

I still get pretty sleepy around 8:30 p.m., but overall I have much more energy and zest for life. I can now contemplate a future with babies in it with excitement rather than a sense of “why did we think this was a good idea, again?” I have finally discovered that I do have the capacity to coo over frickin‘ adorable onesies (when I was sick, all I could do was dread how much work it would be to wash them). And today I went shopping for some maternity clothes with my mom (thanks for your help, Mom, in all its varieties!) and am ready to embrace my soon-to-be gigantic self.

We’re starting to pack up the house in anticipation of our move. It’s daunting, so I prefer to avoid thinking about it. As far as I’m concerned, we’re just putting all our stuff into boxes as part of our new cardboard-based organization system.

Week 12

Let’s take a look at the twins at the end of the first trimester from the inside and the outside, shall we? Here’s what the little critters look like now:

And here’s what Rachel looks like now:

Starting to look like there’s some babies in there, huh? She’s been feeling pretty awful for the last few days, but I’m hoping it’s related to the low barometric pressure… or something.

Reaction

It’s important to know your own foibles and faults. It helps to be aware of them to try to minimize them and their negative impact or impression on others. It also helps to exploit them for their humor value, especially if you’re looking for a way to introduce a short piece of non-fiction writing.

Here’s one of mine: I like attention. Well, I like the good kind of attention. I definitely dread public embarrassment, but public successes are the fuel that powers my engine. (Apparently, I also like clunky metaphors. And I’d rather undermine my own writing with disclaimers than edit.)

Anyway, there are very few opportunities for an attention-lover that are as gratifying as announcing that you’re having a baby. I admit it: I love watching people’s eyes widen and their mouths start to form expectant Os when I say, “Actually, I have some exciting news…” So far the reactions have been entirely gratifying.

It sucks, a little, to think about telling people my wife is pregnant as a performance (see above re: foibles and faults) but from a performance point of view, there are few pauses as delicious as the pause between, “Rachel’s pregnant…” and, “… with twins.” Can you think of anything that could be better? Even, “I bought a lottery ticket…” and, “… I won,” can’t compete, because even the greenest rube has to see it coming. (No one tells a story about losing the lottery.) Seriously try it out now on your own:

Rachel’s pregnant.

…

With twins!

Feel that? You’ve got one of the best one-two punches ever. The first one is pretty amazing. Everyone loves to hear that a friend is pregnant. They’re so excited! They’re surprised! They’re so happy for you! They have so many questions! And then, just as it’s sinking in, just as the waveform starts to curve over the top and start to fall off—BAM. Twins, sucka.

With at most one or two exceptions, nearly everyone has said something on the order of, “No.  You’re kidding.” (Which kind of makes me wish I were. That would be hilarious.) Our friends seem as knocked on their asses by the news as we were. We almost always get a big hug after “pregnant” and slack-jawed shock after “twins.”

I think I’ll be a little sad when we run out of people to tell.

A Passover Feast

I admit that we haven’t been blogging much recently. On the one hand, it’s because we’ve been very busy buying a new house and trying to get ours on the market quickly. On the other hand, it’s because there hasn’t been much to say about the pregnancy, assuming you don’t want to read post after post saying “My stomach doesn’t feel good,” “Wow, I still feel nauseated,” and “Ugh, nothing sounds good to eat but not eating makes me feel sick.”

We told Matt’s siblings the news last weekend, which was a lot of fun. They were in town for Passover, and I think this photo from the seder illustrates my current feelings about food. Can you guess which plate is mine?

And I didn’t even finish my portion.

Week 10

I know that looks like a good bit of progress since Week 8, but I think it’s more about the vast quantities of food I’ve been eating and less about Lorem and Ipsum. For the past two weeks I’ve realized that I need to eat something every two hours at least in order to keep from feeling sick. Some of those things have been carrots and celery and grapes, but some of them have been cheese and crackers, grilled cheese, and macaroni and cheese. And a veeeerrry small number of those things have been McDonald’s cheeseburgers. The really sad thing is that not much of the food tastes particularly good to me. Frankly, I am entirely sick of food in general, but I need to keep eating lots and lots of it or I feel miserable.

Fortunately, Matt has been nothing short of amazing, coming up with new food ideas and cooking me every last thing I could ever want. (This week he’s making me individual homemade chicken pot pies to take to work to reheat at lunch!) And all this food really is a good thing, because weight gain in the first trimester supposedly correlates to a decreased risk of preterm labor with twins. Of course, that might only hold true for people who gained all their weight with lentils and fruit and skim milk; I’m not sure what the science says about processed cheese food.

Week 8

Well, there may not be much to see on the outside, but the little nuggets are getting bigger. We’ve got heartbeats, we’ve got arm buds, and we’ve told our parents. Exciting!

Looks like we overshot a little

It’s twins. We’re having twins. There are twins in my uterus. As in twice as many as we thought. As in Bobbsey or Olsen. As in 40 percent of a basketball team. As in two-ninths of a Supreme Court.

Well, either it’s twins or it’s an alien. (Big hollow eyes, little mouth underneath, and it’s even giving a little thumbs up — see its hand just below and to the left of its head?)

Of the two options, I was sort of hoping for alien, but the doctor seemed pretty convinced it’s twins. Matt laughed and I cried when we got the news. How did twins happen? At my ultrasound right before my trigger, they told me I had just one follicle ready to go, but at today’s ultrasound the doctor was clearly able to see two spots on my right ovary where two eggs had been released. So much for the exactness of science.

This is going to take a little getting used to.