Twenty-eight weeks today!!!! Milestone #1– DOWN! Yahoo!!!!
Overall, I feel pretty darn good. Tired, big, uncomfortable, nauseas but super happy. In the home stretch I waver from “Wow, how am I going to make it?” to, “These are likely the last weeks of my life that I’ll ever be pregnant.” In that latter, I just want to soak up every minute. Want to slow it down, even.
Life in the Belly
The pelvis is pretty painful again and my belly and weight seem to be growing exponentially. I think I put on about 2 pounds a week now! Wild, right? I wonder if I’ll hit 200 lbs? I think that would be really cool. Anyway, despite the rapid growth and decreasing space, these girls still manage to move in different positions and flip inside of me. Last week, Baby A decided she wanted to cuddle up next to Baby B and they were both crammed on my entire right side. It was unbelievable! The whole left side of my belly was just sort of mush. The right side was hard and big and stretched to capacity. Pointy to the eye, even. Like Mt Hood, kinda. Then, when it came time to sleep, it was actually pretty painful, pressing in on my intestines and back, I simply couldn’t get comfortable and was awake for about 5 hours that night. Finally, around 5am, she’d had enough cuddle time with her sister (or perhaps responded to my plea’s) and moved back over to her side of the apartment. We all felt much better. Well, I did anyway.
All in all, it’s still just as miraculous and fascinating watching what my body is capable of and witnessing — from here– these babies growing, developing and already becoming people inside of me. It’s the most intimate relationship I can imagine and yet they are, in many ways, strangers to me/us. This of course leaves me so eager to meet them and see who they are I can hardly stand it.
As always, not a day goes by that I am not in awe and utter gratitude that I get to do this–even on the hardest of days. I’ve never experienced anything like that before in my life. Words like, “amazing”, “incredible” and “miraculous” seem to fall so short… but I use them anyway because they are as close as I can get to what I feel.
27 weeks and 5 days. Measuring about 38.5 weeks (for a singleton). Yahoo!
27wks 5 days, close up. Yowza! Yippee! Can you believe this thing?
Body and Health
Remember that glucose test I was so sure I’d pass. Yeah, uh….I failed it. Well, the initial screening anyway. My OB and midwife say that’s common for women with twins to fail this initial screening because my body has to make insulin for the three of us. They both also said it’s common for women who eat pretty clean to fail it as well: i.e, my body sort of freaked out with that much glucose in my system (which was so sweet it made my head ache something awful and I slept for hours after, I was so sick).
So, the normal protocol for someone who fails the initial screening is to do a 12 hour fast and drink twice as much glucose while having my blood drawn 3-4 times over 3-4 hours but my midwife said I’d likely fail that even more… not to mention I’d for sure throw it up and/or pass out. I simply can’t go that long without eating. Are they crazy? So, my midwife suggested an alternative and my OB was totally on board.
The Alternative
I’ve been given a “glucometer” testing kit– diabetics use these regularly. It’s a little system that pricks my finger and then digitally tests my blood 4 times a day. Once in the morning before eating, then three times each 2 hours after a meal such as breakfast lunch and dinner (fasting in those 2 hours before each testing). I’ve been at it 8 days now and so far mostly, my numbers are all nice and low. I do notice when I don’t have enough protein they spike up a bit though. Interesting. The OB wants them lower than 140, the midwife wants them lower than 120; I’m consistently in the 90’s, in the 80’s upon waking, sometimes in the 110-120 range by dinner and twice it was close to 140. So, all in all, pretty good.
Eating and food has already been such an ordeal that this obviously adds another layer of “pain in the butt” (ie. I eat less each meal now that my stomach has less room and simply more often so if I’m hungry in that 2 hour post-meal fasting period I can’t eat- making it even more of a conscious effort to make sure to get all the calories inside the parameters, etc…. BUT, I’m so glad I have it because it sure beats plan A and I’m actually learning more about what I eat and how my body metabolizes it. Once the two weeks are up, Gina is going to start testing her blood, too! Just to see. She can’t right now because the little machine has a memory bank and logs all my numbers. Would hate to have her throw it off and try to explain that to my docs! 🙂
Gina
Speaking of Gina and food… did I mention that while I’m trying to clock 3500 calories a day, she’s started a 6 week (if not longer) cleanse? That’s right. My honey is taking on her health before these babies come… and with a commitment I’ve never seen in her. It’s pretty damn cool. She’s seeing my Naturopath who taught her a whole lot about her eating, her body type and her specific needs. She’s on an anti-infammatory diet; eating meats, veggies and fruit (occasionally a small amount of brown rice or quinoa but no other grains). That’s it. No dairy, sugar, processed foods, wheat or gluten.
In the three weeks she’s been on it, her psoriasis has cleared up 95% or more. I’ve never seen her hands looking so smooth and pretty. Her energy has totally evened out. She’s a bit more irritable right now but that’s part of the emotional cleansing that comes with eating so clean (not to mention she’s working 11 days solid here and there and on “days off”, she’s painting, prepping, etc.). Fortunately, as a bonus, she’s dropping weight which she’s pretty stoked about. I am so, so proud of her. If you were to ask her why she’s doing this now, after many years of “knowing she should” (her words, not mine), she’d tell you, it’s for our babies. Well, and being able to be as healthy as possible once they come and wreak havoc on our sleep and lives.
Nightmares
Unfortunately, I’ve been plagued with some nasty nightmares about the babies. From miscarriages to other weird grotesque stuff that has to do with my babies dying or being dead in me. The details are horrific; I could sell the images to movie makers for sure. I’ll spare you the visuals and leave you with this note from my doula, upon sharing with her about the nightmares:
Jesse: “True, to affirm, it’s all very normal to have these things move up and out of consciousness (the 2nd chakra activity is so strong). I view it as one midwife said: babies don’t like to be born on dirty ground so they clear out your psyche of all the media, cultural imprints, fears, etc so that what is left is clear, vibrant, crystaline love light. ; ? )”
Me likee. I’m stickin’ with that empowering reframe. So, each time I wake up sweating, heart pounding and gasping for air from these icky nightmares, I’ll just remember, it’s a cleansing. Soon, all that will be present is clear, vibrant, crystalline love and light. Not bad, eh?
Nursery
You should see the baby loot piling in our living room! Well, you CAN see it. Look here!
Snap and go stroller, pack and plays, bags of clothes, gifts, changing table...Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!
Gina *just* finished painting the babies room this weekend and we had lots of help along the way; not only painting (thank you Jill!) but building the crib and Ikea dresser (shout out to Michelle and Bekkah who helped while on their vacation, in from SF). Take a villiage, I’ll tell ya. And we’re so grateful.
After all the help was gone and Gina finished building the dresser things were quieter here, we cleaned and mopped and put the rug down. It is so lovley. When I walked in this morning, I about teared up… this is it. This is the dream. This is the place that will host all their stuff. The room we’ll change them in. The room they may sleep. The room I’ll do late night feedings in. For years this room has been something that I didn’t want it to be– only because all I EVER wanted it to be was this. Long time coming, this nursery is.
Soon, I’ll start washing clothes, sorting them and putting them in drawers. We’ll move all the baby booty from the living room to their room and hopefully start to feel a bit more settled on this front.
For now, I just stand in there and stare. I soak it in. It feels light. It feels good. I talk to the girls and tell them how hard their Mama (Gina) worked on it for them and how excited we are to meet them. I tell them how pretty it is in the room and even moreso, how pretty it is out in the world. I talk to them about the moon, the stars, the trees and all the amazing things that await them on the outside.
Gina building the girls' first dresser.
Ikea Heaven and Hell (this pic taken 11pm at night)
It's almost complete! Can you see the blue ceiling?
This is the print we are building our nursery theme around. We love it.
Two lamp shades here... one for a standing lamp, and a cloud shade for the ceiling sky.
Twin-Mobile
Once we found out we’d have twins, Gina and I knew we’d need to get a new (pre-owned) vehicle. Our cars just won’t cut it. So, we’ve been researching the market and readying our 11 year old Volvo to find a new home whilst swapping her out for something to better hold our new family of four. Family of FOUR! Gulp. We test drove a Kia this weekend — didn’t totally love it but it’s in our price-range so we’ll see. We plan on doing more test driving in the coming weeks. Eventually I won’t be able to go and likely I’ll have to — gasp!– relinquish all control and let Gina go buy the damn thing without me. Oy, the lessons here are ample. 🙂
Work
Many of you have asked how it is not to work now. It’s such a relief to be able to just have my attention on this– these babies, my body, nesting– truth is, it’s the ONLY place I want my attention and intention to be… and the only place it is, even when I want it somewhere else. I’m grateful we saved as much money as we did and grateful Gina is working overtime so we can do this. In short, it’s good to not be working– but it’s also not like when I’ve been off work in the past. I’m still working, it’s just a different kind of project I’m working on now. Ironically, I feel even more focused and busy and occupied than any other “job” or “career” time that I’ve had.
Baby Shower
This weekend is our baby shower. Yet ANOTHER dream realized. For years, I’ve been attending baby showers and in recent years they have been sweet indeed, but always with my own longing right there like an unwanted companion.
Now that ours is here, it’s sort of surreal. The Poker Gals are hosting it at Krista’s house and I feel so humbled I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel like I should be doing more to help. Receiving the gift of this shower simply can’t be enough, right? Ha.
So, we’ll show up Sunday, open hearts in tow, and enjoy our friends– many of which we consider family– celebrating us and the two little lives that have already joined our clan. I am so excited that I wake up each morning and count the days until Sunday. Only thing is, I’m sure there are people we forgot to invite. It already happened twice and I sent late invites. Slightly embarrassing but ah well, what’s a pregnant brain to do?
Classes
We went to our first “Birthing Naturally” class last night. It was a bit of a stretch comfort wise and food wise (have to bring food and also test glucose while there), sit up for a few hours, etc. but super loved it nonetheless. It was so great to be in a room with other groovy parents all getting close to meeting their babies. Of course it was slightly stunning (again, you’d think Gina and I both would be used to this) that most of the women there were 5-6 weeks ahead of us, due a good month or more before us and yet my belly was larger than any of them. Crazy! And truth be told, kinda cool. Anyway, this was again another rite of passage that I’ve been hearing about and looking forward to for ages and now, finally, it’s our turn. There are three more classes taking us up to the end of September.
Gina and I both loved the class number one. There was a lot of education and then a good 30 minutes of massage. We left feeling connected to a new parenting/pregnancy/birthing community in a way we have not yet in this process. We also felt a renewed appreciation for each other; me for the partnership we are already in together– the ways we are already co-parenting– and all that Gina does for me and for us. Gina felt awed by all she learned that my body is going through. In her words, “I’m just really in awe of how hard this is for Regina, what this takes from her body to do this.” Ahh, sigh. Love.
We have a Multiple Expectations (Twins Class) at the hospital this Saturday. It’s on how to take care of two babies at once. It’s from 9am-4pm and I have no idea how we’ll manage that in terms of comfort, food, napping, etc. All the advice from twin mom’s (and the hospital) is to do this class as early in your pregnancy as possible– before you are too uncomfortable– but I was leading a retreat the last time they offered it so there wasn’t any work-around. This is it. We’ll see how it goes. If it’s too much for me, Gina may stay and I’ll head home. I’ll just have to trust her notes. Those that know Gina well, know this may be another grande leap of faith on my part. She’s has my favorite brain on the planet, is a smart, critical thinker but a great memory and note-taker she is not. Ah well… it’ll all work out. I’ve no doubt. It always does. It always will.
Peace Out and Big Love,
regina