Childbirth Class

We went to our first birthing class tonight.  Yay!

At 15 weeks, mine was the youngest pregnancy in the room.  I thought that might be the case.  But the next class for multiples is in February and in the Seattle area, February can get really screwy with weather issues.  Since I'll be hitting my 7th month in March, and sometimes twins come horribly early, I wanted to make absolutely sure that I got through these classes before the actual birth.

So the teacher commented that I'm being really proactive and she loves that!  At which point K and I had to contain our laughter.  If you've read my "Mama drama" post, you'll remember that one of my bad mommy offenses mentioned was that I wasn't proactive enough in my childbirth planning and labor prep.  So an official pbbbbbttt! to the perpetrator of the mama drama.

It was a very talky talky class and a lot of videos.  The first video was very talky talky about how it's difficult to be pregnant and men being supportive of their women.  Good on them.  But not what I want to learn about.

They showed us a C-section.  ACK!!!  I couldn't watch that one.  The squick factor was just too much for me.  It think it's an empathy thing.  Even though I know she wasn't in any pain, the brain still can't get over that she's being cut into and there are gutsy things coming out with the babies (ok, I peeked) so I go all squick.  If I get a C-section, I have no intention of watching it.  Put up a little curtain and show me the babies once they're out!

And they showed a video of a natural birth.  The squick there wasn't nearly as bad.  It was edited to make it seem like it was the easiest thing in the world.  I think they may have edited out a few screams and other discomfort sounds.

Most of the questions were answered with "it varies so much with multiples that you'll have to ask your doctor for their preferences and about your particular situation.  But here are 5 different possible answers based on the most common variables."  So yeah, no matter how much we learn, unless we do a scheduled C-section and the babies decide to stay inside until that date, it's pretty much going to be played by ear.  The best they can do is kind of educate the various players who'll be playing.

There was some discussion about nutrition.  And I'm finding that my doctor is really chill compared to some of these other doctors.  They are being told to get x number of protein, etc etc. whereas I'm being told if I'm eating decently, it's all good.  Then again, many of them started getting these nutritional directives around 18 weeks so I might find that my doctor assigns some directives to me as well when I'm further along.

I'd say that my pre-pregnancy diet was about a 10 out of 100 on the quality scale.  Seriously, my nutrition sucked.  But I'd say that my pregnancy diet is about 80 out of 100 simply due to tastebud changes.  So that's one hell of an improvement.  I try to add another point or two every week.  Changing to decaf at Starbucks.  That added a point or two.  Tomorrow I'm going to try a protein bar for breakfast instead of a bagel.  That's a point or so.  So I'm getting better but if I go for perfect, I'll go nuts so we just won't stress about that.

Then the last 10 minutes were deep breathing and visualizing your babies hearing your voice, etc etc, while getting massaged by the hubbies.  I had trouble not giggling.  Seriously, I tried.  Really I did.  But I just can't do the visualization thing.  And the picture your babies in their nice, comfy, warm sack blah blah blah.  I understand and respect that some people find that kind of thing very moving and profound, but it just makes me roll my eyes and giggle.  I didn't do that in class though!  I played along like a good girl!

I've got no decent closing sentence.  So, I'm done writing now.

Decorating

Spent about 20 minutes choosing paint colors and getting them mixed at the hardware store today.  A light forest green for the bottom half of the room and a golden glow for the top half in case you're wondering.

And just spent almost 3 hours trying to find a proper monkey, or green, or brown border for the room (where the colors will meet in the middle) only to finally give up and go with plain chocolate brown.  The one monkey border both K and I liked is out of stock.  Wrote to the company to see if they might have it available at another retailer so we'll see if that pans out.

But I feel kind of silly.  3 hours to settle on a brown stripe.  This is why I'm procrastinating on the important purchases.

Symptoms - week 14

It's been a few weeks since I've done a pregnancy symptom rundown, so here's what I'm experiencing:

Still no nausea.  Food preferences still gear towards the healthy (cottage cheese with berries tossed in is a daily snack) but I have a little more tolerance for less than fabulous food.  Still can't handle cloyingly sweet though.

Need to eat every 2 hours or so.  It's getting really irritating trying to find things to eat that I didn't just eat an hour ago.  I've found that Nature Valley Granola Thins are wonderful.  They're a new product.  Granola that's about the size of half a graham cracker with chocolate on one side.  These are perfect when I'm suddenly hungry RIGHT NOW and it's going to take 10 minutes or so to prepare something more substantial.  Seems to hit my stomach immediately and cure that hungry ache while not filling me up so much that whatever I was preparing is no longer needed.

I've only gained about 3 lbs.  Regardless, I'm so busting out my new maternity jeans on Thanksgiving!  All hail elastic panels and a husband who cooks!

I'm still feeling like I've lost 20 IQ points, and several motor skill levels. My typing has gone to crap and I can hardly finish a sentence without confusing words in it somewhere.  As a result, I've printed out a calendar and taped it to my prenatal bottle so I can keep track of whether or not I took my vitamin today.


I'm shedding like crazy.  I thought pregnant women didn't lose hair so they get really nice thick hair by the time they deliver?  Not me.  I've had thick hair all my life.  Really thick.  New hair dressers are frightened to dig in thick.  So I can afford to lose plenty of hair and it won't really matter.  But yeah.  I bought a brand new brush (because the old one was getting too icky to clean) and when I brushed my hair this afternoon, I had what would usually be 10 days worth of hair tangled in it.  And I'm constantly pulling hair off of clothes, my arms, it's just getting everywhere. 

Lower abdomen always has that feeling like I just ate too much fast food.  That kind of heavy, and I might get the runs in an hour, but I'm fine at the moment feeling.

I have more energy than I had for the first couple of months.  I've grown accustomed to doing nothing so I still don't have a lot of motivation.  But when I do have something to do, I'm more prepared to do it.  But I do wear out pretty quickly.

Something is funky with my sleep.  I'm waking up around 7am and I can't get back to sleep.  So I watch tv for a couple of hours because I don't have the energy to actually get up, then fall back to sleep later in the morning until 1 or 2pm.  This is not conducive to any kind of accomplishment in life.

Still hitting the bathroom a lot.  I think it might be settling down a little bit, but it still seems excessive.

My nose is always full yet feels dry.  Going through a lot of kleenex and there's a touch of blood mixed in.  And I'm still sneezing a lot.  

I'm getting zits.  Damnit.

My cat will not leave me alone!  He's following me everywhere.  He never used to concern himself with me.  When I sit, he lays down.  When I try to sleep, he's crawling all over me to get to a snuggle spot.  His 17lb frame is not appreciated when it's all stepping on sore boob!  Seriously, here's what I was looking at while taking pics for the blog yesterday -

For the squeamish, this symptom and the next aren't for you so, so just look at the pretty kitty!  You're done reading now!  Bye!

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think I need a stool softener.  Nuff said.

Family members reading this blog, look away, for you, that was the end of the blog post, no really, you don't want to know.  The sex thing.  It's still not really on the radar.  We're counting how many times a month rather than how many times a week.  For lack of a better description, my body simply does not want to be invaded right now.  Not by a husband, not by a doctor, it just wants to be left alone.  Brain is starting to swing back the other direction, so I'm hoping the body will be catching up soon.  K hopes so too.

Ultrasounds - 12 weeks

In all the drama, I forgot to post the most recent ultrasound pictures!  These were about 2 weeks ago when I was 12 weeks along.  Everyone is the right size, heartbeats were both at 156 bpm, and one twin is sitting directly on top of the other.

During the ultra sound, we also watched one twin flip over which was funny to watch.

I'm not exactly sure what angle they did to get both in the picture here. They said that one was on top and forward and the other was on bottom and back.  So I guess this would be like a side view where my stomach was facing left and my butt was facing right.

As you can see, they are looking somewhat human now!  And they are imitating each other.  Both were lying down basically flat with their heads facing the same direction.  The only reason one is a little clearer than the other is because twin A was the one who was forward while twin B was a little farther away from the ultrasound device.

Kid centric day and New Stuff

I went to a family fair today hosted by a local cafe designed for parents with little ones.  It's only about 5 minutes from me, I never knew it was there, but it has all sorts of toys and play room for kids so parents can kind of sit around the play area and chat.  Good idea and good to know it's there!

The family fair was basically a bunch of vending tables.  When you walk in, you're given a bag with random flyers and such in it along with raffle tickets.  Parents of older kids got a tan bag, and expecting mothers and parents of little kids got a.......wait for it........bright barbie pink bag!  ARGH!!!

I knew I wasn't going to stick around very long so I had no use for the raffle tickets.  I just figured I'd walk around, see what products and services are being advertised, maybe chat with a few people and head out.  Since I've never needed kid stuff before, I don't know what's available, especially nearby, so this seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

I chatted with a mother of robust, 1 year old twin boys.  Apparently they were born nearly 3 months early, weighed less than 3 lbs each.  You sure wouldn't know they were premies to look at them today.  Spent 3 months in the NICU.  But meeting them, all big and healthy, took away a little bit of nerves about early delivery.  While I desperately hope I don't deliver premies, it was nice to have some evidence that they can be healthy and robust only a year later.

There was a booth who's products were all monkeys and monkey stuff.  Didn't buy anything today but I think that website will get quite the workout from me in the next few months.  And we've bought a few monkey decorations for the kids room already.  See?

   

Oh, and what I can't wait to tell K about when he gets home.  Dairy delivery!  Remember the days when the milkman came and delivered milk?  It's available here, for all dairy products from a local dairy!  They even deliver bread!  It's all fresh, harvested and pasteurized the day before delivery with no growth hormones or any of that other crap.

The organicness of it isn't so important to me.  All things being equal (price, convenience), sure I'll go the organic route, but I don't seek it out.  And I have heard about all the growth hormones in our foods causing really early puberty in our kids and stuff.  Now if I try to go all natural, all the time, I'll go nuts and any benefit of the natural food will be negated by the craziness of the mommy.  But if it's convenient, and comparable in price, sure I'll choose the options to reduce those bad things.  My aim is "better" and "improvement" rather than perfect.

We already get organic produce delivery once every 2 weeks.  $35 for seasonal, local produce, there's enough for 2 people for those 2 weeks and we've found that it has more flavor and lasts longer in the fridge than anything we could get at the grocery store.  In the long run we save a lot of money because less produce is thrown out, and having fruit and veggie snacks brought into the house, we spend less on crappy snacks.  So now that I learn that we might be able to get all of our dairy and bread needs delivered as well?  That just reeks of pure awesome!

And I'm told that with twins, you will desperately need people to bring you food because you won't have time to prepare anything.  So if I'm getting apples from the produce delivery, and cottage cheese and milk from the dairy delivery, it's not exactly a stocked kitchen but at least I'll always have SOMETHING I can grab and stick in my mouth sitting around the house.  I will tolerate a pink info bag if that's the price for learning about something so fabulous!

After the fair, I popped over to my brothers place to sift through some hand me downs that my cousin left for my niece and nephew and my upcoming kids.

I should probably introduce my brothers family here since they are likely to be repeat players in this blog.  There's my brother S.  He's about 7 years older than me, very much into physical fitness, an actor and 3-D animator.  His wife G, whom I haven't actually talked to a whole lot until recently.  She is quite a bit like my mother, or at least I get the impression that she is.  Much brighter and sparklier than me.  However, the more I'm getting to know her (which I really should have done years ago, my bad!), the more down to earth she seems to be.  My nephew, KC, who's 5 and quite the talker and wiggler and whom I've trained to flinch from tickles at just the sight of my wiggling hand.  And my niece V, 1 year old (with the same birthday as KC even though they tried not to do that), and quite the charmer.

For those of you who read about the mama drama, G has been really great in helping me deal with it.  And that's how I've gotten to know her better over the last week or so.  I called her right after it all started because I was so startled, I needed another mommy's perspective on the whole thing.  And she read my blog post about the conclusion of the drama and was very patient listening to me bitch and moan about it for a few hours today.  She doesn't know PR so it gave me the opportunity to go to petty places in my bitching which sometimes a person just needs to do.  So I'm starting to feel like I'm going to be able to go to her socially as I get going on this parenting thing.  That's a great help since losing PR was putting me into a social panic.  And she's family, so she's kind of going to be around for a while!

Back to the stuff.  My cousin already dropped off a few things here.  We got several toys for when the kids start learning to walk.  The toys that they can stand and push and help them balance.  Those will go in the shed until it's time to break them out.  And she dropped off a bag of clothes that I still need to go through and 2 baby bjorn holder thingies of different brands.  Yay!  I have baby snugglers!  We can strap a kid to each parent!

The clothes that were left at my brothers didn't really have much for babies.  Most of it was very girly stuff for a 2 or 3 year old.  I'm grateful, but we don't have the room to store stuff like that which we can't use for so long, and we don't know if we'll have a girl anyway, and if we do, well, there was a lot of pink.  So my brothers family is going to take a few pieces for their little girl and the rest gets donated.

So then G starts going around the house and pulling out the various things that she intends to hand down to my family and the pile just gets bigger, and bigger, and more and more awesome!  A full box of clothes that will probably be somewhere in the first 6 months stage, feeding pillows - including one designed for twins, a play mat, and a portable play pen/bassinet thingy.  And apparently there's going to be more coming!  Like a bathing tub that 2 can fit in for at least a few months, and a swing.  It looks like we'll have almost every sleeping option covered (crib, bassinets, co-sleepers) so we can see what works with our kids pretty much immediately without a whole lot of investment and my cousin will be handing down a double stroller a couple of months before we're due.  G and S have cats as well and mentioned that the sleeping options will have nets to put over them to make sure the cats will keep off the kids, though G assured me that their cats naturally stayed away from the babies.  So that's another thing off my mind.

Here's what we've collected so far -

It's not so much that we're getting stuff, that's swell and all, but the stuff is really making me feel more secure.  The idea of providing 2 of everything and of buying special equipment to deal with twins, well, I was getting really nervous adding up those costs without seeing extra income on it's way to cover it.  But now it seems like several of these things are going to be given to us.  Even the craziness that G had a twin feeding pillow for some reason makes me a little less fatalistic.  And she said she tried just about every sling option available so I'm going to be getting just about every option available as hand me downs, and the whole sleeping options products, it's just all very reassuring that I'm going to have the necessities.

At this point, the main things I'm thinking will be major costs are the 2 car seats (any we get as hand me downs will go in the husbands car or grandparents car since the kids won't be in those cars very often), a dresser for all of the clothes that can double as a changing table, possibly a crib (not sure yet if I'll need to buy one or not), and a breast pump.  I'll probably rent one from the hospital for the first month though, but that's a decision for another time.

And then of course all of the small things like bottles and swaddlers, and whatever else it is I'm going to learn I need in the upcoming months.  A lot of those things are smaller so it's very likely that I will get a significant portion of them via family at a baby shower.  And for what I don't get that way, one of the local Moms of Multiples chapters will be having a big sale of used items in March and another chapter has their big sale in April.  My kids are due in May.  Perfect timing!

I'm officially starting my second trimester now.  And every day I'm feeling a little bit more secure about all this.  I'm sure my next blog post will recant that statement and discuss all of my freaking out fears, but at the moment, I'm feeling ok.

The only thing I know for sure today is that anything I know today is subject to change tomorrow.

Remodelling to make room for the little ones

We've started doing the work necessary to prepare for the kids.  Ok, some of it is for us, I guess the nesting is starting.  Stuff that we tolerated for years we're now finding better solutions for.  Like our pots and pans.  They've been haphazardly stored in a small pantry closet since we moved in, just piled on top of each other however we can toss them in there from the dishwasher.  Hubby finally got around to deciding that he'd prefer to hang them to get them out of the way and make more room for the dishes that no longer have a china cabinet to go into (more on that later).  So we got them hung, and ordered a nice new set to replace some of the slightly damaged hand me downs we've been using for years.

Once we got that hung, I got all fuzzy.  This is what our kids are going to recognize as normal even though it's new to us.  To them, this is just how it's done.

Now that the back room is going have babies in it, we've lost all storage space in the house.  So we got a contractor in to remove a china cabinet, fix a hole in the wall that we've been living with for 5 years, and create a GIANT closet.

 

China cabinet while we were moving in 5 years ago.  Hard to see but it's back there.

After pic taken from approximately the same angle

While he was at it, he also removed the wall returns that created a closet in the babies room which effectively added another 2 or 3 feet of room space.

You can see the gap in the carpet where closet walls used to be.  We're recarpeting next month.  But you can see how much larger the room is now. 

Introduction to Mama Drama

I have officially been initiated into the world of Mama Drama.  That world where other mothers judge you and critique you based on how you perform as a mom.  And to think, I got initiated just shy of being 14 weeks pregnant, lucky me!

So this will likely be the last time I discuss the R family and the person I introduced in my first post as my best friend, PR.

For you see, I've been dumped.

It all started about 10 days ago when PR and I were chatting on IM.  She was reading my Babies R Us post, and I was squawking in her other ear (eye?) about car seats.  I was ranting about how stupid it is that car seats expire after 5 years no matter how they are used or if damage is done to them are not.  After 5 years, they are no longer safe to use.  I found this to be absurd and I was annoyed by it because it means that one of the car seats that my cousin is going to hand me down to me is over 5 years old so the money I was hoping to save there, nope, gonna have to spend it on a new one.

So PR was getting really upset about my blog post, informed me that it was completely offensive, got mad that I didn't understand why it was offensive and then generally got mad at my sense of humor.  In the midst of getting upset by the blog post, she also misinterpreted my rant about car seats.  She thought I was saying that it was stupid to buy a new car seat and that I intended to provide my kids with less than the best to save myself a few bucks and some convenience.

As best as I can figure out what she was thinking, she was upset because she thought I was calling people stupid for going to time, expense, and effort to do what's best for their kids.  And since she is someone who goes to time, expense, and effort, I was thereby calling her stupid.  Unfortunately, this was a gross misinterpretation of the text.

When it comes to the car seat rant, she just totally misunderstood what it was that I was calling stupid.  And I'm insulted that she could actually think I would put my kids at risk for the sake of a couple of bucks and some convenience.  I was doubly insulted that it didn't occur to her that I couldn't possibly mean that and ask me to clarify.  And I'm 10 times insulted that once I realized she was misinterpreting me this way, I attempted to correct her and clarify and she still didn't believe that I had no intention of strapping my kids into a death trap.

So she gives me a few flailing sentences about the offensiveness of my blog post and a few lines about how she can't see anything stupid about keeping kids safe and delivers the parting blow of "you shouldn't even bother having kids if that's the way you feel about it", logs off of IM (effectively hanging up on me) and starts the silent treatment.

On day 5, I try to give the benefit of the doubt that maybe this silent treatment isn't all about me, and I email her saying that from my perspective, I'm receiving the silent treatment but gee, I hope nothing is going on her life that's just keeping her away from the computer.  So she replies with a chit chatty email about how busy busy busy she is and all is great, la dee da.

So I reply back and ask her if she realizes what she said to me, how evil it was, and that the more time that passed, the angrier I was getting.  And if she was hoping that a cooling off period would make this discussable in the future, that strategy was backfiring because every day of silent treatment just multiplied my anger so we need to discuss this and get it over with.

So she emails my husband.  The crux of that email is that since I'm not doing cartwheels about the pregnancy, and I'm looking at all of the work coming my way rather than all the joy, and that I tend to talk about and recognize the sacrifices in my future, she can't reconcile that attitude as belonging to someone who actually wants to have a baby.  So hubby replies and very carefully outlines to her what I've gone through to try to get here, how I may have a cold exterior but that's not necessarily all that exists of me, etc etc etc.  He doesn't tell me about this exchange until a day or two later.

So on day 8, I email her again and reiterate that the passage of time is making things worse, not better, and since she's the one continuing the silent treatment, I have no power to do anything, she needs to take some action here.

Her reply is an attempt to placate me and again expresses that she doesn't understand how I could want to have children when I don't display any child appreciation behavior.  She says that she is creating some distance between us because she doesn't want to flare tempers.

So I write back with a novel.  I know, a novel from me, really?  Who'd a thunk it?

While what I really want to say is "Fuck you", I instead opt to completely opening up and just spilling my guts.  She has asked me to answer the question of why do I want to have a baby.  I tell her that I'm never going to answer that question because it's ridiculous for anyone to even be asked that question.  No one has to justify why they want to be a mommy so I'm sure as hell not going to dignify the request for that justification with a response.  But I would acknowledge the question of "Do you want to be a mom" and went into quite a bit of detail.

I talked to her about being on the pill throughout my 20's to try and teach my ovaries what to do when the time came to do it.  I talked to her about making life decisions when I was 20 years old primarily for the sake of being able to tell my own kids to try something new.  How when asked in college what we want to do with our lives in terms of our careers, when the round table got me, I said I'm going to be a mom.  How when we bought our house, we made sure we had a baby room and have refused to do anything with it for the 5 years we've been here to keep it available for kids.  How I've destroyed the one thing in my life that's precious to me (other than my husband and marriage) and that's financial security in order to get pregnant.  And if she still wasn't convinced that I wanted to be a mom, she was never going to get it.

And the response I got was "Come on Alex"  And then details about how people who want kids surround themselves with kids.  Make it a point to be around their friends kids.  Choose careers that put them in contact with kids.

Um, really?  Every person who wants to be a mom surrounds herself with kids?  Not this person.  I intend to adore my own children but no, I'm not particularly fond of other peoples.  And even so, I still get a bit of goo-goo face when I'm with her baby.  And I've offered to babysit but was told that her kid only knows his Aunty E so, no, I can't babysit.

I was admonished because I didn't treat my body like a temple after my failed IVF attempt and before the success of this one.  Yeah, I was flawed, but I did lose 15lbs in the interim, and took my metformin to prevent gestational diabetes.  My flaws were basically based on the belief that I would never actually be pregnant anyway so it didn't matter.  I'm a bit fatalistic that way.  As soon as it did matter, I started treating myself well.

So I got admonished because I don't count calories to make sure that I'm eating enough for three and I'm not monitoring my water intake as closely as she thinks I should.  For the record, I'm a fat woman.  And I'm eating plenty.  And my tastebuds have decided for me that I'm going to pretty much eat healthy because I no longer enjoy crap food.  So never in my life has NOT eating enough been an issue.  And I'm drinking plenty of water, thank you very much.

I'm doing exactly what my doctor has told me I'm supposed to do.  Chill out, don't fall and injure myself, and don't eat, smoke, or drink anything to poison myself.  The rest will happen as it needs to and he'll let me know when things need to happen.

Did I mention that in her letter to my husband, one of my offenses was that I'm not preparing for and being proactive about childbirth?  I'm in my first trimester.  What the fuck am I supposed to be proactive about here?  The doctor said we'd discuss it and come up with plans near the end of my second trimester.  So I kind of think it's going to be dealt with and I don't need to be freaking out about it right now.

So her final email to me starts off by telling me that she should have ended our friendship a long time ago.  That there's no foundation for a real friendship and that she's only been sticking around because she's felt obligated to do so.  It goes on to list the various "bad mommy" offenses that I have committed.

And just to make sure that she's not only judging me for the bad mommy stuff, she also tells me that I've been belittling her beliefs, she believes that I have been friends with her all of these years the same way that a person enjoys a silly puppy.  Watch what the puppy will do next, and enjoy its company, but no mutual respect.  We've been best friends for about 4 years, and this is the first I'm hearing that my teasing has genuinely hurt her feelings.  I had no idea!

But that seemed like it was just tacked on at the end.  95% of her communication in all this has been about how I shouldn't bother to have kids because I hate them so much and then she just kind tacked on that little bit because she was flailing for some excuse to be hating me that wasn't so damned ridiculous.

I don't have a whole lotta friends.  I'm an ornery, closed-off, snarky individual and fairly unlikeable.  I know this.  It's who I am.  It's not a fact that thrills me, but at least I'm not blind to it.  Those that choose to get past that exterior and get to know me are greatly rewarded with loyalty, kindness, and someone who will always be there for them.  She was family to me.  She got to know me, at least I thought she knew me, and I regarded her as family.

But now I've been dumped.  All communication cut off, unfriended on facebook the whole nine yards.  And as much as I wanted to reply with a prideful "fuck you", my last email to her admitted my devastation and that she hurt me as much as a person can be hurt.

If I've hurt her feelings in the past, it was unintentional.  Friendly barbs and teasing that touched a nerve I didn't know was there.  But this capacity for cruelty on her part just shocks me to the core.  Her whole persona is about acceptance, and being nice to everyone no matter what their eccentricity, and her husband and I even joked a month ago about how if she has a flaw, it's that she's too accepting of everyone without discrimination.

She fooled me.  I sincerely believed she didn't have a mean bone in her body.  And then overnight, after 4 years of almost daily interaction and friendship, she flipped a bitch switch, and delivered every cruel blow she could think of and pushed every insecurity button I have.  And not only am I hurt by her actions, but I feel like a total ass on top of it for ever trusting her and letting her in in the first place.

So, that's my first experience with a Mommyer Than Thou personality, and it hit me outta left field.  If this is what mommy friends are like, fuck it.  Don't need 'em.

Musings

K and I were watching TV and a commercial came on for the latest Disney princess movie.  K decides to tease me about my distaste for pink and overly girly things.  Script format:

K:  We're going to have 2 girls and they're both going to want to be princesses!

ME:  No honey, we're going to have 2 boys and THEY'RE both going to want to be princesses!

K:  It could be worse.  They could be obsessed with football and force us to have the games on the TV all the time.

ME:  I don't want to play anymore.

Doctor Part Deux

Met with my new doctor again today.

First things first, all my tests came back really good.  I'm 35, but I'm having the pregnancy of a 25-year-old.  And the risk rate of all sorts of problems has dropped to practically nil.  So, yay!

But when we last met the doctor, I wasn't so sure that I liked him.  He seemed to have the impression that I'm one of those hyper-scared, incredibly high maintenance new moms.  While of course I have concerns and curiosities, I like to think that I'm fairly low-key about it and can usually tell the difference between unpleasant symptom that I have to live through and a scary symptom that requires medical care.

Now, we kind of think he might have gotten this impression because when we first met, my husband kind of grilled him with a bunch of interview questions out of a book.  This is not our usual MO but the doc had no way of knowing that.

For our appointment today, it was just a 20 minute chat session with no tests to do.  Just an opportunity to ask questions and stuff.  The problem was, we didn't really have any questions. 

When I got my tests last week, I did ask quickly about how much weight I should expect to gain and how to recognize if I start gaining way too much.  There are very few guides that give you any range of numbers when you are starting your pregnancy already overweight and you're pregnant with twins.  Wanted to make sure I didn't get carried away with the weight gain and blame it on the kids when I need to be dialing back on the cookies.  For the record, he said 11-15lbs.  Works for me since I lost about 15lbs last summer.  But that mini-consultation was kind of a drive-by answer.  The ultrasound tech tossed him that question quickly while he was running between other people and he opted to stick his head in the door and answer the question personally rather than just give the tech the numbers to deliver.  So points for that.

Anyway, last night we tried to get a few questions together.  Especially since our appointment was at 8am and there was no way I would remember anything at that time of morning without having it in writing.  So I asked about the things I saw my friend concerned with during her pregnancy (blood pressure, blood sugar levels) and said that no one had mentioned those things to me so is there anything I need to know that I haven't been told yet?  I asked if there were any surprising and alarming symptoms coming up in trimester 2 that I shouldn't panic about if they happen.  I asked about what tests would be coming up next.

His answers were pretty darned low-key.  Very much the attitude that as long as I don't really do anything in the extreme, things would be fine.  He's seen people eat the stuffing out of teddy bears and rolls of toilet paper due to PICA issues so if I ate a cookie or some ice cream every now and then, it didn't worry him much. And that they will be checking for gestational diabetes and stuff at around 28 weeks and if there's an issue, we'll deal with it then.  And there was quite a bit of joking around.  I think he has a better idea of who we are and has relaxed a bit when dealing with us.

So I like him better today than I did before.

And at breakfast after the appointment, K asked if I noticed his shoes.  Uh, no.  Well, they are quite long and a weird style I'm not accustomed to seeing, but no, didn't really notice anything.  So K said that his shoes were scuffed and worn out.  While his hair might all be in place, this is clearly a man who is on his feet all day working.  That's a good thing.

Babies R Us

K and I went out to breakfast this afternoon (yes, breakfast in the afternoon, I slept in, deal with it) and he decides that maybe we should take a look around Babies R Us.  Ya know, just to see what's there and what we're in for.

I was not excited by this plan, but whatever.  Here are my findings:

There are no products that will allow me to move the twins in any kind of convenient manner.  All of the twin strollers are huge and unwieldy, there don't appear to be any Bjorn type of products for two, and the portable crib/playpen/changing table thingy is so large, I'm not sure I can maneuver it around our weird hallway from our bedroom to the rest of the house.

I hate pink.

There have GOT to be similar items to those sold at BRU for half the price.

Why does an infant need something branded?  Seriously.  Winnie the Pooh was big, as was Barbie, and various sports teams put out baby jerseys.  Why on earth does a baby need something that's 50% more expensive simply because it has a trademarked animal on it?


I completely made another couples day when we were looking at the little baths/baby holders for bath.  I believe my quote something akin to "Wait a minute, the baby gets a whirlpool and I don't?  Oh hell no!"  They left the aisle laughing.

There was a beautiful crib/changing table that converts into a full bed.  I left thinking that would be the most cost efficient route because the twins could share a full bed well into their childhoods.  But I've thought about it some more and we don't know if we're going to get cuddle twins or sock 'em up twins.  Probably not the best idea to invest in a piece of furniture that determines their sleeping arrangement for the next several years.  I'm now leaning towards one that converts into a twin bed.  When it's time to graduate from the crib, if they are cuddlers, we can get a second twin bed and put them together and if they're fighters, we can get a loft bed to go over the twin bed effectively making bunk beds.

Seriously, pink sucks.

We inadvertently decided on a theme - Monkeys.  Secondary theme, froggies.  I'm just not up for cute.  I can't handle bunnies, I don't like duckies, those over simplified cartoon lions look sad and gross, so monkeys and froggies it is.  So we can probably start decorating with a green type of color scheme with monkeys and froggies and not have to know the genders before we get started.  Yay!

Most of the pregnant women there were accompanied by 2 other women.  I'm assuming a mother and a sister.  Not a lot of fathers there even though it's a Sunday.

Why do they put stimulating toys over cribs?  Isn't the point of a crib to remove stimulation so your child will sleep?

As I feared, there are ton of products out there that simply do not need to exist but attempt to convince you that you simply must have one.  Like some sort of reclining seat thingy that vibrates.  You're supposed to strap your kid into this thing after they eat, it will hold them at a certain angle and vibrate.  It's supposed to aid digestion.  Really?  My kid won't be able to convert food into poo without this expensive gadget?  Ya know, I think they'll manage just fine thank you very much.

Rocking chairs are really friggin expensive.  Does a person really need one?  Can a child not be soothed unless you're rocking?  I hate rocking chairs.  I'm assuming I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get one on craigslist or something. 


I have nightmares about having too much gum in my mouth so I can't breathe and I'm trying to peel it from my teeth and from the roof of my mouth where it's all sticking.  Pink makes me think of gum.  *shudder*

We ended up buying a cheap wedge pillow for me to wear between my knees when I sleep.  I've been thinking of getting one of those big fancy pregnancy pillows but I probably won't.  I think those are primarily for the average woman who suddenly has to adjust to having a huge amount of weight in front of them.  Since I've always been fat, I'm pretty sure I'm already accustomed to sleeping with extra weight so I'm not going to be as uncomfortable as most.

And that's what I noticed at Babies R Us.

Attempting more shopping

Got my first clothes and woot!  They fit!  Yes, plus sized clothes ordered over the internet and they actually fit!

Now I've kind of gone through that whole store and I'm not really interested in any of the tops there.  So I'm trying to find some cheap, long sleeved, tunic or trapeze type of tops.  I already have a couple but need a couple more.

Apparently, you are not allowed to be plus sized and maternity at the same time.  Did you know that?  They are considered two entirely different categories!  Grrrrrr.  I can either order something in maternity that's several sizes too small, or just go to standard plus size stores and buy something oversized and call it a maternity shirt.

Lovely.

I want S

Still a bit unsure about how I feel about my doctor and whether or not I should try to find someone else that I click with better.  But I have another appointment with him in a few days so we'll see how I feel after that.

What I really want is one of the nurses from the fertility clinic.  She was awesome.  Says the "wrong" things on purpose the same way I do, has a total attitude that I click with.  We didn't interact a whole lot, but I was always really glad when she happened to be on duty during my appointments.

I just get the impression that for the important stuff, she would listen to me and make sure what I wanted got done, but if she were to tell me that I can't have what I want because of whatever reason, I would listen to her.  She's got some ball-buster in her and that's kind of what I need cuz I tend to go wimpy around doctors.  And since she's in the medical profession, she'd probably think of questions that I wouldn't and could act as a bit of an interpreter.

And even though the doctors office insists that I can call them about anything, I tend not to call a doctors office unless it's something really important.  There's all of those little questions that pop up that aren't important enough to interrupt the doctors day, but that I'd still like to get an answer to.  I kind of feel like she was someone I could call with that kind of little stuff.

Friends are telling me I should contact her and see if she would be interested in being my doula or something.  I know it doesn't hurt to ask, no one is ever insulted by being wanted, but she has a full time job and her job tends to be over once the pregnancy starts.  I dunno.  I might contact her, I might not.  It just seems really awkward.  But whenever anyone asks me who I want at the delivery and who do I want to be involved in all of this, I always go back to "I want S."  I've been pretty consistent about this thought both when I'm rational and when I'm doing the emotional whiny thing.

I guess the least awkward thing would be to send her a link to this post.  That way she can be complimented at being wanted without being put on the spot by being asked for an obligation.  And since we'll likely never cross paths again unless we make an effort to, she can simply not respond and no awkwardness on either side.

So, S, I would really like you to be involved in my pregnancy for the next 6 months in some way, as much or as little as you would be comfortable with.  And I'd really like you to be there for the delivery.  As much as I trust my husband to be there for me, he's going to be becoming a father for the first time so he's kinda gonna have his own shit going on at that moment and I could really use a ball-buster on my side.  Is there any way, shape, or form in which I can have you as a part of all of this?