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I should have worn heels -- life at 5'3"
Jul. 25th, 2009
02:56 pm - The Good, The Bad, The Itchy
Today I turn 36 weeks. We have passed the point of no return. I'm no longer at risk for pre-term labor, because I'm term. So whenever these kids decide to show up, they are showing up. I can feel the finish line, or the final push (so-to-speak), not far off. Things are feeling different, and have been for a few days now. It's only a matter of time.
The Good: I just got back from the St. Helens Pool with Ken. Prego + Pool = BLISS! It was a little weird climbing into the pool at first. Well, first of all, I felt a little ridiculous squeezing my 9-month pregnant body into my pre-preggers bikini, but mostly I didn't care. I don't think the girls knew what to do with the new weightless sensation. I'm assuming that even though they are encased in fluid, it's still not quite weightless. They got VERY quiet for the first half hour of me paddling around on one of those foam noodles, despite Ken's attempts at trying to play with them. They did eventually offer up some tentative kicks that I interpreted as Morse code for WTF, Mom?! Me, I felt great! Better than I've felt in many weeks. I could almost forget about the 40 lbs I've packed on. Interesting note: I expected my belly to be more buoyant, but actually I sank rather easily. I guess that makes sense being that it's not fat I've put on but flesh and fluid. Kind of like ballast system in a submarine, I imagine. The hardest part was getting OUT of the pool, because a.) did I mention the bliss? and b.) as soon as I started up the steps I could feel the weight of gravity pulling my stomach toward the floor. Oy! I felt every one of those added pounds.
The Bad: It is hot as hell right now. Actually, today hasn't been too bad. But the last few days have just been miserable. We pretty much live in the cave when we're home - curtains drawn, A/C units full power, fans assisting. My hairless hobbit feet do not like this weather. But I shall keep the whining to a minimum. Fatigue is not made of fun either. Nor is inability to achieve normal range of motion. I could go on, but I shall spare you until I write my tell-all book "Twin Pregnancy, And the Stuff No One Ever Tells You About Until It's Too Late."
The Itchy, or PUPPS the Magic Rash: Speaking of the tell-all book, here a sneak preview of one of those fun preggo things no one ever mentioned until I was about to tear my own skin off. So in the third trimester, right around week 35, about 1% of women (usually with 1st pregnancy and/or twin pregnancy) suddenly develop a weird rash on their belly. In fact, one of the doctors I see called it "The Weird Rash of Pregnancy" and it doesn't go away until after giving birth - sometimes not for a couple weeks after birth. Official term is Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy (PUPPS). The docs don't know what causes it, but some have theorized that it may be an inflammatory response to all the stretching the skin has to endure, or that it may have to do with the presence of male fetal DNA. Since I'm have girls, and I've gotten it on the two places where my skin has stretched the most (my belly and my ankles), I'm inclined to agree with the former. Regardless, it is the most agonizing, torturous part of this pregnancy to date. And there's nothing to be done for it but put some steroid-y creams (baby-safe) on it that don't really do much to take away the itch anyway. Bleh! Secret tip: the one thing that I've found to relieve the itch at least temporarily is ice. It's a little difficult to ice the belly as the twins really don't like that, but on the feet and ankles it works. A cool pack (as opposed to an ice pack) works on the belly to some extent.
So one more bit of Good... by popular demand, the latest belly pic. This was taken today (week 36) just as we were leaving for the pool.
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ItchyMay. 17th, 2009
11:26 am - 23rd Century Technology
This is not my original thought - though it IS presented in Jen-speak. I was either talking to someone earlier this week and can't remember who, or I heard this from a caller who called in during an interview with J.J. Abrams on Fresh Air. Either way, the question that was postulated has stuck with me for days.
So, there have been a few babies born during the various episodes and movies in the Star Trek universe. Of all the ones I've seen (and I haven't seen them all, I'm sure, because I have not watched every single spin-off), the birthing scene always has the same huffing and puffing of the mother trying to push the watermelon out of the lemon-sized exit. (Well, I'm assuming from the huffing and puffing that the aliens had similar object-to-opening size ratio... damn it Jim, I'm a writer not an obgyn!)
And here's the question... why not just use transporter technology to beam the kid directly from the womb to the doctor's awaiting hands? Bypass all the huffing and puffing and pushing (and blood and tearing and mucus plugs and all the other stuff they usually don't show on cable TV or IMAX - and really, I don't EVER have to see a birth on IMAX. Really, really. That is going a few light years too far. Birth - in high-def on a 29 Ft screen. No thank you. But I digress.) I mean if Kirk's crew can beam a couple of humpback whales (one of which was pregnant) and however many tons of seawater into the cargo bay of a Klingon ship, then surely a baby (or two), a placenta and some amniotic fluid would be a piece of cake.
I'm just sayin'.
May. 10th, 2009
04:27 pm - Mother's Day - page i
I say "page i", because since the girls aren't born yet, this is sort of a pre-Mother's Day. A Mother's Day prequel. Or like those extra pages of stuff that start out with roman numerals before the actual page numbers start. I realize I'm being a good mom by taking care of myself and, therefore, them. So I am thoroughly enjoying my first Mother's Day.
Today started out very nicely with me waking up from a sweet dream about the girls. It was very short and simple. I walked into the baby room where they had been sleeping. And they were at an age where they weren't quite crawling yet. They were awake, and when they saw me, their faces just lit up, like they were saying, "Hi, Mom!" I like these dreams much better than than the anxiety-ridden ones.
I received two lovely Mother's Day cards upon waking up. One from Ken (the sweetest husband EVAR) and one from the twins. He said they tapped a message to him in morse code to let him know what kind of card to pick out. How cute is that?
Then we packed up and headed to my parent's house where I was making brunch for my mom. Well, it turned out to be more of a joint effort between the two of us. I know we're supposed to be all pampered and spoiled, but we love to cook/bake and so we experimented with a long-forgotten recipe from the cookbook she made the family for Christmas this year. The brunch came out beautifully. We had asparagus and swiss cheese crepes with fruit salad and maple flavored sausage links served with orange/mango/pineapple juice. It was the perfect balance of sweet and savory. And playing in the kitchen with my mom is one of my favorite pasttimes.
After brunch, I even got my mom on Facebook. So maybe she's reading this crosspost even now!
My sister, her husband and Ken and I crossed paths as we passed through our parents' house. As we were leaving, they were arriving. And of course, there were belly pics to be taken.
The proud parents-to-be.
The pregnant sisters. Can you tell which one of us is having twins? (I'm a 25 weeks, I think she's at 18 or 19 weeks.)
And for the rest of Mother's Day, I'm spending it with my favorite daddy-to-be.
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happyMay. 2nd, 2009
08:24 pm - More crazy, weird stuff
So I've entered the Leg Cramps From Hell phase of pregnancy. You know, those charlie horses that wake you up in the night biting into your pillow so your screams don't wake your significant other. And your calf muscle is visibly bunched up and whatever power has seized you just refuses to let up. And then when it finally does, you're sore for three days afterward... from the last day you had the cramp, so if you've had them for days in a row, you're pretty much screwed. Oh yeah, they are fun.
I started asking people what they've done for leg cramps, and I've gotten some good and some really weird responses back. I've listed them below
1. Stand up. (Ouch, but this actually got the cramp to cease.)
2. Put a bar of Ivory soap at the foot of your bed or under your mattress (wtf? I would love to know how that works.)
3. Eat more bananas for potassium. (Just bought some, have eaten one.)
4. Take a magnesium/calcium supplement. (I eat TUMS regularly.)
5. Drink raspberry leaf herbal tea.
So what weird advice have you tried or heard of to get rid of leg cramps? Or really, what weird home remedies have you heard of to cure any ailment?
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soreApr. 28th, 2009
10:59 am - The Weirdness of My Head
Another weird pregnancy dream.
Our dreams are so obviously our subconscious trying to work out stuff while we sleep. Of course, being that it's our subconscious, it's sometimes hard to piece together what the heck is going on inside our noggins. But I think this one is fairly clear cut.
I woke up this morning from a dream in which I couldn't find any maternity clothing stores, so I embarked on building my own. I picked a plot of land in the middle of nowhere that had too many trees growing close together to erect a building. The trees had to go. Now, here's where it gets weird. I didn't hire a lumberjack or even pick up a chainsaw myself. No, I enlisted the help of He-Man's Battlecat, and while riding in the big cat's saddle, we tied rope around the trees and used his super cat strength to pull them out by the roots. The dream never progressed beyond that scene, because I think my conscious mind kicked in and said, "Battlecat? Really?"
So yesterday (and over the weekend too), it became apparent that I could no longer squeeze into my first round of maternity clothes. (Btw, when the sales person says to just buy your normal size because the special elastic will grow with you, DON'T BELIEVE her!) My jeans and two work pants are now in the "Loan to My Sister" pile. (If you recall, she is pregnant too, about 5-6 weeks behind me, but only having one baby, so might not get as ginormous as me.) I did a Google search for maternity stores in Portland, and I swear, you'd think that I was trying to locate Osama Bin Laden. I did get 4 hits in the greater Portland Metro Area, but they were these upscale boutiques that sold pants for $80+. (Considering where I work, I really shouldn't talk. But still.) Or, it was that one store that stills holds on to that classic maternity look: Frumpy Mu Mu Chic. What I've discovered is that many stores have these unadvertised hidden areas with small collections of maternity clothes, but you have to know which individual stores carry them. It's a serious scavenger hunt out there.
To make a long story short (too late!), I see a clothes shopping hunt in my future. Unfortunately, I won't be able to take Battlecat. Most stores don't allow animals.
Apr. 25th, 2009
03:46 pm - And in the morning, I'm making WAFFLES!
So, have you ever wondered what would happen if/when a prego encountered multiple cravings at once? Well, I'll tell you.
I woke up this morning craving waffles. Waffles on a Saturday morning sounded dee-lightful. With bacon. Must have bacon, too. And I wanted to make them with my fancy little Belgian waffle iron. Because making breakfast taps into this weird nesting instinct that creeps up out of nowhere. Unfortunately, I couldn't decide what kind of waffles I wanted to make. And just plain Belgian waffles just wouldn't do.
Aside: you know, the packaging companies really should be more careful when they are posting their "delicious recipe ideas" right there on the box for any prego to see!
Ken, being the wonderful man that he is, volunteered to run to the store for supplies. He had no idea what hair-brained idea I'd concocted. Because in the end, I went with my usual modus operandi for all major decisions involving choosing from a selection: why choose when you can have both (or all)? Thus, behold my breakfast creation! My chocolate chip Belgian waffles with strawberries, walnuts, whipped cream and a drizzle of maple syrup. In the end, I think it was the maple syrup that went just one step too far. (And no, I did NOT eat the whole thing.)
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hungry