The Least Incompetent Father-To-Be

A new voice! The dad! Yes, it's me, and I'm just happy to be here. People keep asking me if I'm scared or nervous, and I don't think I'm any of those things yet. Two pooping machines and no sleep may get me there, but for now I'm just awe-struck. I think that's the difference sometimes: I know it is going to get bad. real bad. So I can sleep in a bit later for now and play my video game just a bit longer...

We went to a class titled "Life With Baby" and it had singleton parents in there as well. We all went around the room saying what our due date is and what the gender is, and it's almost comical at this point. I say something like "yes, our due date is December 22" and everyone goes "awww" and gives us this kind look, and then I finish with "and we're expecting identical twin girls" and their faces immediately flip to horror and between the gasps and the deep "oh my goodness" we've learned to just hold our head high. Not that we're naive, but that we're ready to take it on!

I have to say, I thought I would be totally behind the curve in this class. I'm not necessarily a baby person -- just never really had a need to. However, once I heard that someone in the class pronounced uterus as utter-us, I realized I would be totally fine. I'm surprised that the little bits and pieces I was able to help with nieces actually seemed like a big part of what is coming up! Anyways, we learned some good stuff (this technique where you jiggle the baby and make noises like Niagara Falls either makes them pee or go to sleep), I learned I'm a pretty good swaddler, and I confirmed that I am the least incompetent father-to-be. At least in that room. Im sure I'll be plenty incompetent in the girls' room at 2AM trying to get one of the girls to get to sleep so daddy can finally close his eyes...

20 Week Ultrasound

The big news this week is I hit the 20 pound weight gain goal. It was a lot harder than I would have expected. I can remember being conscious of my weight (and ability to gain easily) as early as elementary school, so it was quite a surprise to me that I’ve had a really hard time gaining. I feel like I’m eating all the time and had to add ensure high protein/high calorie drinks to my daily diet to try to fatten up quickly. Being told to gain weight sounded like a lot more fun in theory than it was in actuality. I always hear of people who are really hungry throughout their pregnancy and just can’t get enough to eat. I tried to just eat when I was hungry for a 2 week period and I didn’t gain anything, so now I’ve had to really force myself to eat whether I want to or not in order to give the girls what they need.

So anyhow, hitting the 20 pound milestone was definitely a victory for me. Now the doctor says I can “slow it down” to 1.5 pounds per week since I’ve caught up to where I needed to be.

The girls have continued to grow at a normal rate and have been sharing like we’d want them to, so we’re in good shape for now. Baby B flipped and is now head down on my right side with her feet up in my ribs. Her kicking is quite painful, but it’s a reminder that she’s doing well. Baby A is somewhat head down as well, but is stretched horizontally across the lower part of my stomach with her head on the right side too. At one point the girls looked like they were boxing each other which explains some of the discomfort I’ve had lately.

Now that baby B has moved, we were finally able to get a good look at her. The first one is baby B and the second is baby A's face.

My mobility has really gone downhill fast over the past few weeks. My back (especially on my right side where I’m carrying ¾ of the weight) isn’t handling the additional weight very well. It’s probably not good for me, but I’ve been trying to push through my to-do list while I still can. I got all the painting (it’s not wall paint – so it doesn’t count as breaking the doctor’s orders…) done in the nursery, which is a relief.

Luke was taking pictures of me as I worked on it last week. Fortunately the tree I painted is well above belly height – otherwise I think I might have kept dragging my stomach across wet paint.

 

Here are the final products. The first picture is the wall that I painted and the second one is the vinyl tree/animals that I ordered off of Etsy. I plan to put the rocker below the tree I painted once it is delivered.

This picture was taken today. It’s funny how my concept of being large has changed over the course of the pregnancy. I felt huge early on, but now when I look back at those pictures I realize that was nothing. I’m sure I’ll feel similarly about my 20wk size by the time I hit my 3^rd trimester.

18 Week Ultrasound

Luke was originally supposed to be on a business trip today, so my parents came with me to this visit. A lot has changed technology-wise since my sister and I were born, so I think they were surprised by how much you could see on the ultrasounds now. The girls weren’t being very cooperative though. Baby B is now not only on top of baby A, but they have their heads at each other’s feet, so it makes it really hard to tell what you’re looking at – especially when trying to look at baby B. We can’t ever seem to get a good look at her because she appears to be behind baby A on the screen.

Fortunately there are still no signs of twin-twin transfusion. The girls are still lagging a bit in size, but don’t seem to be losing any ground. They’re still about 3-5 days behind where they should be size-wise. I asked the doctor if we’d push back the December 1 delivery date goal to let them grow a bit more but she said they seem to be developing just fine, they’re just midgets (I don’t think she means that literally – just that they’re tiny like their mom). She compared it to getting your driver’s license, saying "If you're 16, you're old enough to drive- it doesn't matter how big you are. 16 is 16"

Anyhow, here are new ultrasound pictures – at this rate we’re going to have a full photo album before the girls are even born! These are both of baby A and look a bit creepy because you just see her skeletal face. The ultrasound tech assured me that they'll look more normal once they fatten up a bit. The first one is from a top-down angle.

Marvelous Multiples

Today we went to our first class at the hospital. It was called marvelous multiples and was an 8 hour class focused on things like nutrition during pregnancy, labor and delivery, and relaxation (which apparently I’m really bad at…). Similar to the MOMs group, it was mostly couples having fraternal twins. We all had different doctors, so it was interesting to hear the differences in information that we had been given.

Part of the class was a tour of the hospital. There was a decent amount of standing/walking between looking at the different rooms and nurseries. I get tired just taking the trash out, so it was more than I was prepared for. My back had been bothering me already that day from sitting so long, and about halfway through the tour I was digging in my purse looking for the Tylenol. It quickly got worse and people started asking if I was okay. I tried to fake a smile and said I was fine, but apparently I wasn’t very convincing because one of the women in the class went to the instructor and asked for a wheel chair to get me through the rest of the tour. Embarrassed and in pain, the tears started coming. Although I was definitely the shortest in the group, I was the least far along out of every one, so I was very frustrated that they were doing just fine and I wasn’t. I’m quickly realizing that bed rest is coming sooner rather than later.

In the afternoon a guest couple came in to talk to the group with their identical 10 month old twin boys. Like our babies, they had shared a placenta and had been warned of the possibility of twin-twin transfusion. It sounded like she hadn’t received any special treatment during her pregnancy and they were surprised when the doctor wanted to deliver at 36 weeks. Although the babies were born with a weight difference of almost a pound, the smaller one caught up in size pretty quickly (I think she said within 3 wks?) to the larger one and they had been exactly the same height and weight ever since. I was comforted to hear that the pregnancy and delivery was pretty normal. The boys spent some time in the NICU because of their small size but hadn’t had any major health issues. After the MOMs group story earlier in the week, it was good to hear of someone with the same situation as us that ended up with 2 healthy (and very cute!) babies. The things that this couple had been surprised by/unprepared for were things that we were warned about very early on by my doctor.

Our next class is in 2 weeks to learn about “Life with Baby.” That one isn’t specific to multiples, but I think most of the stuff should still apply. Fortunately its only 5 hours long, so hopefully I won’t make a scene in that one.

MOMs Group Attempt #2

Tonight I went to my first mothers of multiples (MOMs) meeting (I found the right group this time!). It was good getting to know some other moms of twins as well as some other women expecting.

It was strange though because I really expected to feel like my pregnancy was normal after talking to them, and that just wasn’t the case. There were some positive differences, like everyone else was talking about terrible morning sickness which I haven’t experienced, but for the most part it just made me realize a little more that it’s not just having twins that is making my pregnancy a high risk.

There was a large turnout, but very few others in the room had identical twins. I know that is statistically the case, but seeing it seemed somehow different from reading the odds in a book. With fraternal twins you don’t run the risk of twin-twin transfusion, so most of the people I talked to had normal length pregnancies whereas I already know 36 weeks is the longest mine will go. Everyone else I talked to has continued going to their normal doctor, has stayed on the same ultrasound schedule as a singleton pregnancy, and had or will have their babies in the local hospital. While I really enjoy being able to see my babies every other week on the ultrasound, I couldn’t help but think it’s probably not a good thing that those measures were taken so early on. I feel good about the quality of care I’m getting by seeing a specialist, just a little scary knowing it was necessary for me but not for all those other people.

Before I left I was talking to a mother of identicals. Hers were in separate placentas, so her pregnancy was very similar to the fraternal moms. She did mention that there is another mom in the group who was pregnant with triplets that were sharing a placenta and developed twin-twin transfusion. They did the surgery to try to split them up and thought it was under control, but she ended up losing one baby in delivery. *sigh* I know the woman I was talking to was trying to let me know that there was someone I could talk to if we started to see the signs of it, but hearing about someone losing one of their babies wasn’t really what I wanted to hear in that moment. I’m very aware that it’s a possibility, but we’re trying really hard to stay positive.

I went home with mixed emotions – on one hand I met some women that I can see getting to be friends with, having play dates, etc. but on the other I was really saddened to realize that the person whose pregnancy mine most resembled was someone who lost her baby. I think it’s going to take me a bit to shake that off.

Crib Assembly

Today we made a lot of progress towards getting the nursery ready.

Putting together the cribs turned out to be more of a labor of love than I had anticipated. There didn’t seem to be a large volume of pieces and there were only 6 steps to the directions, but that was deceiving. The worded portion of the directions was pretty vague, saying things like “step 4: attach the side rail to the left and the right ends.” There was a diagram under each step showing what pieces needed to come together to make that happen. Sounds simple enough, until I realized that the pictures of the pieces (particularly the placement of the holes) didn’t match up to the pieces I had in front of me. After lots of trial and error I eventually got them all to fit together, only to realize that I still had a bag of 30 screw locks left over when I finished. There was no mention of these in the directions (not even in the listing of parts), but there was a small piece of paper in the bag that said “You MUST use a screw lock with each screw.” So annoying! I must have done the equivalent of putting the crib together 6 times by the time I was finished.

By the time I finished the first one I finally had it all figured out – the second one went MUCH more smoothly (which was definitely a good thing because I was on the verge of a temper tantrum at that point!)

Although we’ve known for a couple months now that we’re having twins, it was quite the reality check when I stepped back and saw 2 cribs in the nursery and immediately pictured a screaming baby in each one. We’re looking forward to having the unique experiences that having twins will surely bring, but wow….2 babies…at the same time…

16 Week Ultrasound & Updates

The girls are still on the small side but are doing well. It was a pretty uneventful visit, but I think that’s a good thing. Here are the pictures from today. The first 2 are of baby A (her head is on the right) and the 3rd is of Baby B's leg. Since she's behind baby A that was about all we could see of her.

So operation decorate is in full swing. I ended up coming home from Vegas a day early – it’s not a fun place to be when you’re pregnant. I get tired really easily now, so I wasn’t up for much walking and the smoke in the casinos really bothered me. We saw a couple shows which was fun, but I really just wanted to get back to the house to get started on putting the nursery together.

I actually ordered bedding sets before I knew for sure that we’re having girls. I found a good sale on the sets that I had picked out and figured I could return them if I was wrong. Fortunately I was right, so I was able to jump right into accessorizing. Since I’m not allowed to paint the walls, I ordered a large vinyl tree with jungle animals that will adhere to the wall to coordinate with the girly jungle themed bedding.

The bedding came with valances, but the window in the girls room is really tall, so it needs some long curtains as well. After lots of looking I gave up on buying ready-to-hang curtains, so my mom and I picked out some fabric and she’s going to make some for me (the sewing machine isn’t something I’ve mastered quite yet).

Anyhow, so we’re moving right along with the decorating. The cribs and mattresses have been ordered and are on their way to the house and I placed an order for the dresser and rocking chair. Those will take 8-10 weeks, so hopefully that will give me some time to get everything else done with less furniture in the room to work around.

Although I have to take frequent breaks, this is definitely the fun part for me. I really enjoy trying to figure out how to pull it all together to make a cute/unique/functional room. I don’t think Luke quite has my “vision” figured out, but he’s willing to go along with it - trusting it’ll look good once it’s all completed. We’ll post some pictures once there is something to see.

Here is the latest picture of my rapidly expanding belly...