Getting political again

Newt, come on over here and tell my little fetuses to their faces how holy your heterosexual third marriage is after years of adultery, and but that my little girls shouldn't exist at all.  That's some fascinating "morality" you've got going there.  But seriously.  In June, you come over to my house, and you tell my little girls to their faces that their existence is immoral.

Go ahead.  Mama DARES you!

Newt Gringrich is an evil son of a bitch.

Familiar Territory

I've got pictures!

Here we are at 16w1d.  Cervix is a super long 4.5cm, heartbeats were in the 150s today, and everyone is moving around like they are supposed to be.

Now, technically, they aren't really supposed to confirm gender this early.  It's all supposed to be "Maybe" and "Well kind of looks like it might be...."  But they bend the rules for me a bit because I've got a history and everyone wants to be nice to me.

So before the big gender reveal, how about I put some pictures in your face?  Nothing special, they look like every other ultrasound picture on the planet, but they're mine and that makes them awesome.

Ok, I think it's gender reveal time.  You ready?  Not sure I am, but here we go anyway.






Twin A is definitely a girl!  We got very clear girl bits.  The technician tried to hem and haw and then just went, "Oh yeah, that's definitely a girl."

Twin B is probably .......... another girl!  We didn't get the definite three line indication that showed us girl bits, but she mooned us with legs wide open and there was a definite lack of boy bits so by default.....

Holy fucking guacamole!

I did not allow my brain this possibility.  I was certain it was two boys.  I was hoping for at least one girl, but I never thought it was actually a possibility to have 2 again!

Alternative titles for this post -

Girls 2.0
They're back
Gobsmacked
What are the odds
Please history, don't repeat yourself

When does this get real?

16 weeks today.  Every time I look at the calendar and count up my weeks and days, I can't help but think "Really?  That's it?  That's as far as I've gotten?  This is taking FOREVER!"

I seem to recall that at around 16 weeks is when it all got real for me the last time.  We were halfway through our Birthing for Multiples classes, I was signing up for the local Moms of Multiples club, and I was starting to shop for various things to decorate the nursery.

Not this time though.  This still just seems like an extension of the IVF attempt.  Instead of a 2ww, I'm going to have more of a 30ww.  We're checking on the doppler every other night or so and yes, we still have two little hearts beating away in there.  They tend to remain pretty consistent at around 160bpm.  But that seems about as real to me being told I have a large number of follicles or healthy embryos ready for transfer.  It still seems like part of the process of maybe rather than declaring a success and needing to start preparing for the reward.

The other thing that's pretty consistent is the dark brown blood on my toilet paper that I get to look at every time I pee.  13 solid days now of a small amount of very dark brown blood.  Almost looks like I'm wiping the other end sometimes.  Starts with about a teaspoons worth collected there when I do my first pee of the day, and then it tapers from definitely being there to just being trace amounts for the rest of the day.  Every night I go to bed hoping that it's stopping, or at least it's going to take a break, and every morning we start the cycle over again.

I'm sick of eating all the time because I'm hungry every 2 hours.  I'm sick of the sink being full of dishes because I'm eating so damned often and I don't have the energy to deal with them and K doesn't have the time.  I'm sick of being able to smell every litterbox in the house all the friggin time.  I'm sick of thinking every day I'm going to do something productive, or at least fun, and finding myself having spent yet another day sitting in front of my computer with nothing to show for it.  I'm sick of having a sore abdomen without having the fun of it being kicked from the inside.  I'm sick of feeling blurples that I think might be baby movement, and then 20 minutes later feeling the exact same sensation in a different part of my stomach (like up near the ribs) that couldn't possibly be baby blurples.

I begrudgingly signed up for three baby classes yesterday.  Not because I'm convinced I'm going to actually have a use for the knowledge one day, but because the paperwork we have from the doctor says to take the classes in months 4 or 5 if you're having multiples and I'm about there.  Signed up for Day With Baby, Breastfeeding, and Car Seat Safety.  Since we already took the birthing class, that pretty much covers it right?

And it's starting to nag me that I should start researching products.  Research carseats (but now I'll wait until after I take the class in April), various sleeping options and the products one needs to purchase for whatever choice is made there, strollers, stuff like that.

Meh, fuck it.  Yeah, there's always a chance that I could give birth really, really early in just a couple of months, but if that happens, the babies will be in the NICU for months and I won't need that stuff yet anyway.  Researching and shopping would give me something to do during those stressful weeks in the NICU.  Doing all that stuff right now would be too early, a burden on the 16 week me, and might deprive the terrified 28 week me of a distraction I might desperately need.

I suppose around 20 weeks, I'll ask my brother what equipment he has been storing, waiting to pass it on, and actually begin an inventory of what I have already from a variety of family members given to me during the last pregnancy (thanks again everyone!) and what I will actually need to get.  It will be real to me at that point, right?  I'll know genders, the babies will have the beginnings of identities, I should actually be feeling them move, and I'll have passed the point where I lost the girls.

Ultrasound tomorrow morning.  With the girls, the big ultrasound was around 17w or so.  I think it was a different machine because the picture was so much clearer, and they suddenly looked real rather than like fuzzy blobbies.  So I'm not sure if my 16w ultrasound is going to be the big one or the 18w will be.  I'm not sure which I'm hoping for actually.  If tomorrow is the one where the reality suddenly smacks me in the face (like it did with the girls) will that rachet up my fear several notches?  Is my current state of apathetic "maybe" a better place to be for the time being?

I suspect tomorrow we'll also start my weekly progesterone shots, and I'll probably be taking the glucose test for gestational diabetes within the next week as well.  Since I'm pretty certain I'm going to have it again (I have twice the placentas this time so twice the chance, and since I got it last time, it only stands to reason), I'm pretty sure that my cookies and other treats are about to be taken away from me.

My conclusion is in reference to this post.

I guess what this all boils down to is that even though I've been told I've hit my goal weight and that I don't need to diet anymore, I'm allowed to eat the brownies, I'm still scared to go into the bakery and actually make the purchase.  I'm allowed?  Really?  Are you sure?  Maybe I should just lose another couple of pounds, just to be safe.  Ya know, cuz that one bite of brownie might undo all the work I've done to get this far.

Recitations

Once again, some forum drama leads me to another set of thoughts that I'm going to plop here in the blog.

After several rounds of discussion and disagreement, someone declared that I am a mindless sheep and that she is able to think for herself, because she is religious and I am not.  I think her argument was that I'm brainwashed by the liberal media or something.  When some other liberal popped up and started quoting bible versus and prayers commonly spoken amongst the religious community, such as "The lord is my shepherd".  Ha!  And that a preacher usually refers to his congregation as his "flock".  Ha ha!  Clearly, she has willingly declared herself to be one of the lords sheep many times throughout her life.

This got me thinking about how many things come out of our mouths that we just kind of recite mindlessly, never really thinking about what the words mean.  And wow, are there a lot of them!

"Every breath you take"  Damn that's creepy.
"Hungry like the wolf"  Holy crap, he's stalking and going to rape that woman!
"And if I die before I wake, pray the lord my soul to take"  Really?  We're planning to randomly die in our sleep?

My mother is a singer.  She was offered a record contract as a teenager, but being a good girl in the late 50's her father turned it down due to the kind of life it might have lead to.  So she's been singing in various barbershop groups for decades.  I was raised on a combination of ragtime, jazz, show tunes, and unfortunately, barbershop.  And my voice is exactly like my mothers.  So while some mothers like to braid their daughters hair, my mother got giddy over singing with me.  She taught me this song with 2 short versus, and we would switch off who would sing the lead line, and who would sing the harmony part.  We sang this damned little ditty pretty much every time my mother wanted to kill a few minutes during a drive in the car.  Someone please tell me you know the tune to this too so I don't feel like such a freak:

I know, you belong, to somebody else,
but tonight, you belong to me.
I know, with the dawn, that you, will be gone,
but tonight, you belong, to me.

When I was about 25, it suddenly occurred to me what I had been singing about since I was able to speak.  I can't believe my mother had me singing about being someones booty call!  WTF Mom!

The big one to me is the Pledge of Allegiance.  To my non-American readers, when I was in school (and I'm assuming this still happens), children all stand up at the beginning of their day, put their hands over their hearts, face the flag, and recite the following in a very monotone, robotic voice, all pauses are preprogrammed:

I pledge allegiance
to the flag
of the United States of America
And to the republic
for which it stands
one nation
under god*
indivisible
with liberty, and justice for all.

How many times in your childhood did you say that?  And if you were asked if you had ever taken a oath of a loyalty to this country, would you answer yes?  Well, ya did.  Every school day morning for years.

What is the point of this practice?  The people speaking this oath have no clue as to what they are saying!  They learned this poem phonetically, it hardly ever clicks that they are saying actual words, and they certainly don't comprehend what the words mean, or what it means to say them.  And if you want to argue that it does matter, that pledging your allegiance is important, why do kids have to do this every single day?

I gave my husband my wedding vows one day, several years ago, and I don't have to recite them every morning when I wake up to still be held to the promises within those vows.  So why do American children have to recite this every day?  Wasn't once enough?  Did their allegiance fade over the last 24 hours and it needs to be renewed?  Goodness, how do we ever remain American over summer vacation when months go by without reciting this!

Some time when I was in junior high, it just dawned on me what this was.  That this was like a brainwashing technique.  That we were swearing our allegiance, almost without our consent since we were made to do it without understanding it, every day since we were really little.  I refused to say it again after that and just stood silently so I didn't make a spectacle of my personal objection.  I figured that when I was older, I would be better educated on the various countries out there and when I could choose for myself who deserved my allegiance, I would swear it again at that time, when it actually meant something.

So tell me in the comments.  What things have come out of your mouth, be it a song, a poem, a prayer, or whatever, that just shocked you the day you realized what you were actually saying?



*For any American who uses this line to try to prove that America is a Christian nation, learn your history.  This line was added during the McCarthy era as a big "fuck you" to the soviets.  The soviets were discarding religion and McCarthy types wanted to remind them that we are different in any way possible, so they added this stupid line into the pledge of allegiance, much in the same way that Bush renamed french fries "Freedom Fries" when he was pissed off at the french.  Americans were too afraid of being labeled a communist that no one argued with this stupid crap and it's been a pointless part of the poem ever since.

Stupid, stupid people

Having no life sucks.  It means I spend all day on various forums, seeing the thoughts of really stupid people and feeling like they actually matter because I have no life of my own to put things in perspective.

On one forum, stupid religious zealots who claim that because they think the way their preacher has told them to think, that I, a person without a preacher, am incapable of thinking for myself and I'm a mindless sheep.  WTF??? Um, in the bible, those who follow Christ are DEFINED as his sheep, he being the shepherd.  How can you call me the sheep when I'm not friggin following anyone?

On another forum, someone starts a thread to tell some members to stop being mean, nasty bitches, and then gets all upset and victimized when those people stand up for themselves by giving a big ole FU.  Call someone a name, they're going to say FU!

I hate that these people exist, I hate that I have to run across them, and I hate that because I have no life right now, it feels like they actually matter.

GAH!

I think....

I've been feeling movement.

I don't want to make any bold declarations here because it's still really early and I'm not sure.  But they say that you can feel movement earlier during your second pregnancy, but I didn't know if I would qualify since I only got halfway through my first.  Then again, it was twins so maybe physically, in terms of uterine stretching, I got some extra credit.

For a few nights, especially when I lay down on my side, I've been feeling blurples in my stomach.  I've felt things like this before, but only once in a blue moon.  But this has been pretty consistently happening in the evenings for several days in a row, even though I'm eating differently every day.  If it was digestion blurples, it wouldn't happen so often, and it would be according to something I'm eating, right?  So by eating differently every day and still feeling the blurples......I dunno.  The movement tends to feel a little too high too.  But only by an inch or so, so it's hard to say.

Ok, so I'm not declaring official feeling of movement, but I'm recording this now so that if it turns out to be movement, I'll have a record of when it started.

Is it time for belly pics?  Have I gotten far enough along that there's something to compare rather than just having babies buried in fat?  Well, they're still buried in fat, but I think it's starting to shift a little bit.  Ok, here are my pics, 10 weeks and today at 15 weeks.

10 week twin belly pic

15 week twin belly pic

Snow day!

Yup!  I'm trapped in the Snowpocalypse that is Seattle right now.

Check out the view from my window.

A couple of things about this picture.

First - Notice the tire tracks.  That's because no matter how much the news tells you not to drive if you don't have to, my husband will go to work.  The garbage trucks?  No.  But my husband?  Yes.  He's a Massachusetts native so he still thinks that us Seattelites are a bit ridiculous when it comes to snow.  But he is finally starting to admit that it's a bigger issue here, even though there's less snow, because we don't have the infrastructure to sand and ice the roads, and because there are simply no flat surfaces around here.  Even when you think you're driving on a flat surface, you're probably on a hill of some sort.

Second - That apparent tilt of the cul-de-sac.  Yup, that's real.  To get to our neighborhood, you have to go up a winding hill that's about half a mile long and seems to stay icy long after everything else has melted.  Then you turn to come into our little spot and you go slightly back down hill again to the house.  So this means that should I get the car to the end of the driveway, the tires would then be caked with snow, and I'd have to immediately try to go uphill, on even more ice, with no traction.  I'm not sure how the hubby does it because I'm pretty much never successful in trying to do this.

What does this all mean?  I'm trapped.  And both of these hills will remain icy a solid 5-7 days after everything else is clear.

When I hit about 14 weeks along, I officially got my waddle.  I don't have a huge stomach or anything, I'm still a pound below the starting weight when all my dieting craziness happened, but the round ligament pain has created a distinct walk.  You know how you have to brace your pelvis when you stand on one foot, like when putting on pants?  That hurts like hell.  And it's the same bracing that you do when you take a step because for a moment, you're only on one foot.  So to relieve the pain, I'm kind of rocking back and forth to keep all of my weight evenly distributed over the foot on the floor so my pelvis doesn't have to brace.  And that creates the waddle.

It's very likely that K will not actually get his car home.  There's a parking lot at the bottom of the main hill so he'll probably park down there and walk the half mile home.  Poor guy.  But much better than spinning out on the hill and going over the cliff.  Or finding himself victim to some other idiot who doesn't now how to drive on the ice who might hit him and again, send him over the cliff.  But since I'm not real steady on my feet right now, it's not much of an option for me.  So it's easiest just to consider myself snowed in and call it good, while K is able to pick up any emergency provisions on his way home from work.

I got a bit obnoxious when sending K on his way.  We've had snows in this area that have prevented us from getting home before and we were fortunate enough to make it to my parents house to spend the night.  But K isn't getting off of work until 10pm and it's supposed to keep snowing all day.  So he's probably going to be braving the freeways with all of those idiots you see on the news who have spun out or have abandoned their cars.  It's possible that it's either going to be too difficult and he'll get a motel room (he has to open the store in the morning and hopefully the company would reimburse the cost), or he might get trapped in one of those traffic jams that keeps you stuck for 4-6 hours (we've been in those before), or who knows what else.  I loaded his car with a couple of blankets and a pillow in case he gets trapped in his car, hand warmer packets, enough food and water for 2 days, a flashlight to make himself visible when walking up that hill, extra socks, etc etc.  Had him take our new kindle too so he can entertain himself if trapped somewhere.

Obnoxious, yes, but you gotta admit, I'm awesome to have around in an emergency.  Odds are, I'm prepared for it.

My main fear of course is that something will go wrong with the pregnancy while I'm trapped here.  I'm not entirely certain an ambulance would be able to get to me if necessary and I certainly couldn't get myself to the ER.  Do you have any clue how much I simply despise having to even think about that?  But I've been to the ER twice in the last 2 months.  So it's a realistic fear to have.

One thing I do like about the snow around here?  The first tracks to disturb the perfect blanket of snow are always paw prints!

Just a quick update

Went to the doctor today.  Different doctor from Dr. C because he's off this week and I want to meet all the doctors anyway because at this clinic, when you deliver, you get whoever is on call.

Going into the ultrasound, I got the question "So, uh, why are you here?  Have you had bleeding?"  I answered honestly.  "Because I'm completely paranoid and Dr. C said I could come in whenever I wanted to so here I am.  Oh, and yes, I've been bleeding this weekend."

No gender reveal.  She said that they'll try at 16 weeks but even then, it might not be until 18 or 20 before they get an accurate read.

Both kids are active and have heartrates of 162bpm.  Plenty of amniotic fluid.  Cervix length of 36mm.  Woot!  That's a full centimeter longer than they hope it will be!

The bleed is still there, sitting under Twin As patootie, but it's holding pretty steady in size and is butting up against the placenta, but isn't digging underneath it at all.  I was really hoping that we had passed that last week and we were done with it, but no, it's still with us.  And it's still unpleasant.

But, and this is where you find out just how twisted we are, there is a weird silver lining.  I was talking to K last night, asking him how real this all feels to him.  Has that click happened yet?  To him (and to me too), all of this difficulty and complication almost makes it more real and more secure in the belief that we'll have kids at the end of this.  The girls were just so simple.  Nothing happened, we simply waited our way through the pregnancy.  But this time, we're dealing with bleeds and really fighting all the time to make sure that we stay pregnant for another week.  So it almost feels like we'll be rewarded for all that work.  We are people who have to fight for babies, we don't get to do anything the easy way.  So fighting through the pregnancy seems more reassuring than waiting it out.  We waited out conception and that didn't work.  We started fighting and we finally got it.

In other pregnancy symptom news, somehow I went from achy abdomen yesterday to OMG there's a bowling ball sitting on my pelvic bone trying to crack me open!  Just walking has become pretty darned painful, even after 2 pain killers.  I'm hoping this passes as quickly as it hit me because I am not enjoying this at all.  My digestive system never seems to be in a normal state.  It's either too empty, too full, full of gas, wanting to shit, not being able to shit, or some other variation of wanting me to relieve it.  It's just never happy.

K is having issues of his own.  He's spent most of the day either asleep or running to the toilet to deal with diarrhea.  I'm letting him sleep in the bed though.  Whatever is bugging him doesn't seem to be an airborne thing, and the snoogle now prevents him from breathing on me all night anyway.

The snow has hit the Seattle region so I don't know if I'll be leaving the house tomorrow or not.  There's still a thrill seeing Northshore School District on the news ticker of closed school districts.  I can't wait until that's actually relevant to my life again!

Slim chance of gender tomorrow

I have an ultrasound tomorrow and there's a very slim chance that I'll get a clue as to the genders.  I'll be 14w4d so in theory, the genitals have started forming.  But the odds of the technician getting a clear look and knowing for certain are slim.

I was talking to K about this and here's the problem, if I have 2 boys in there, I'm going to be devastated.  Not that I have anything against boys.  And I'm sure I'll get over it.  And it doesn't even have anything to do with boys versus girls.

But I've kind of survived this long by telling myself a little story.  You see, Charlotte was perfectly content in there.  She showed us who she was with no question right away.  On the other hand, Christina did not want us to see her bits at all.  She kept flipping and turning to make sure that her bits were unseeable no matter where they put the ultrasound device.  We even tried to go vaginal to get a look from another direction and she figured out what we were doing and flipped back away from that one too.  And it was Christina that had the infection, Charlotte was still untouched by it when the pregnancy ended.

So in those 2 weeks between the gender ultrasound and losing them, I got very attached to my little girl Charlotte.  I was still very attached to Baby B, but we just weren't certain if she was Christina or if he was Christopher, so I didn't have as firm an identity to latch onto with her.

So I tell myself the story that she didn't want to be a she, she was meant to be a he and that's why she shed her last body.  So she could try to come into this world as the person she was meant to be.  Unfortunately, she took Charlotte with her.

This little story has served me well.  It's kept them somewhat alive for me.  That I might still get to meet them and be their mommy.

So if I currently have one of each, it almost confirms that silly little story, and will actually give me an odd sense of security.  Like this time they got it right so they'll stick around.  And if it's 2 girls, ok, so the story doesn't quite work as well, but I still get that "they're back!" joy and I really get a second chance to try to get it right this time.

But if it's two boys....my delusions are shattered.  Yay for the 2 new babies that will be joining us, but I will have to fully admit to myself that the other two are actually gone.  It's not that I won't love my boys if that's what I've got.  It's just that when I'm told "it's 2 boys" what I'm REALLY being told is "it's confirmed, your girls are really dead and gone."

I hope you can understand my potential reaction.   I won't be reacting to the news of what I have, I'll be reacting to the final nail in the coffin for my girls.  And that's going to take some time to get over so that I can accept and embrace the new babies as being new and apart from the first two.

So folks, that's why I'm so adamant that I need my little girl to be in there.  It's not because I see raising a girl different from raising a boy.  Ok, I do have a slight preference towards that because boys tend to be more energetic as toddlers and two of them destroying the house in tandem scares the crap outta me.  But no, that's not really it.

I fell in love with my little girl and I want her back.


Current pregnancy status - 14w3d.  Dark brown bleeding for the last 2 days.  Heartbeats detected on home doppler.  Still have a lot of lower abdomen soreness like my bladder is constantly trying to hold in a gallon of water.  A bit of a bloody nose as well just to make sure I've got blood coming out of everywhere.

My growing security blanket

I'm gonna show you pictures of me!  I never do that!  But what I look like is actually relevant so here I go.

I haven't had a haircut in a while.  It's something I tend to avoid.  Not sure why really.  Probably because I have so damned much of it that getting a simple trim seems to take forever.  And I don't want them to cut it into something that I'll have to style.  I want to shampoo, condition, brush when I get out of the shower, and how it dries is simply how it's going to look.

And I've talked about the various issues I've been having with it since I lost half of it when pregnant with the girls and the aftermath of it starting to grow back in when they left me.  So since that last haircut, I just haven't touched it.

While I was shedding like crazy during my last pregnancy, I haven't lost any hair this pregnancy.  Boys, I'm telling you.  Everything about this pregnancy is different so it's gotta be boys.  PS - there's a slim chance I'll find out of that theory is correct on Monday.  Probably not quite far along to tell yet though, but maybe.

I've had bangs for most of my life though.  Personally, I find my face too round and blech without them.  But I let them grow longer than usual between cuttings and figured it had been so long since I had tried growing them out, I may as well give it a go now.  K actually prefers it this way.  The weirdo likes being able to see my face.

So here's where they currently are.

Why yes, I did crop those pictures.  I just think it's sad when you see someone holding up the camera in the mirror.  Even though it's obvious that's what I'm doing, at least allow me the delusion that you can't see the blue camera strap ok?  Besides, I made someone a promise that if I started doing belly pics, you would not be subjected to the contents of my bathroom counter or dirty laundry that always seem to be in the background of these things.

Ok, where was I?  Right!  How I currently look!  This is what my hair is doing when it's generally behaving.

Oh, and yes, many of these facial expressions were made strictly for your amusement and because even when I try to be normal, I'm just so not photogenic.  See that photo on the left there?  That's about as normal I can look in a picture.  Ok, now you know why out of almost 300 blog posts, you've hardly ever seen a picture of me.  I have issues.  Moving on.

Now, more often than not, that one stupid lock of hair that was my bangs hangs down directly in my eyes and just bugs the hell outta me.  So I've taken to doing the Amy Farrah Fowler most nerdy hairdo of just clipping them out of my eyes, vanity be damned!

And what the hell, let's complete the loser picture and include the "no one will take a picture of me so I'll take pictures of myself" camera shots!

The good news is that the shorter hair near the root is now long enough to just seem like it's an intentional layer.  It's almost shoulder length at this point I think.  In this pic, you can see the difference in size in the ponytail holders.  The big one is my usual hair, the smaller one is how much hair I had left after being pregnant last year.

My hair is doing so many things that I just don't know what to do with it.  I'm basically just tolerating its existence at this point.  On the other hand, I have long, thick, naturally blond, unchemically treated hair.  

So, what is this all leading up to?  I've made a decision.  

For the third time in my life, I'm going to donate it to Locks of Love.  It's currently long enough that if I were to cut off the minimum donation of 10 inches, it would fall just below my shoulders.  I've always regretted going shorter, but I can do shoulder length.  And if I'm going to have 2 babies to handle, well washing this mess makes my showers longer than they need to be, and cutting it off will cut my shower time in half.  And projectile poo and baby juices will have less hair to get icky in.  And little hands won't have as much to tug quite as quickly.

So when I get to 24 weeks, after I get another inch or two on this, and on the day that the doctor tells me that if I went into labor, there would be a chance of taking home babies instead of sadness, I'm going to the hairdresser, and I'm cutting it off.  That will be the confirmation to myself that having babies might actually happen this time.  I still can't get myself to believe it, but maybe by then I'll be able to.  And I'll walk around with a confirmation that I believe it.  And of course, I hope this will help someone else who's having a rough go of things since I don't have much else I'm able to give.

Been Workin!

Oh irony, how I love you when you work in my favor.

Around spring or summer of last year, when I got off my butt and attempted to move my life forward in any random direction after losing my girls, I applied for all sorts of jobs.

I got a group interview for a job that I thought I'd be wonderful at, admin at an events company.  I'm a kick-ass admin and with my theater background, I thought an events planning company would be a great place to marry the two.  My hope was to start off being the person who files paperwork, and replenishes the toilet paper in the bathroom while quietly learning the business and growing as the opportunities arose.

I didn't get an individual interview.  In fact, none of us did.  I saw the same posting for that same job a couple of days after learning that I wasn't the right candidate for the job.  Rather insulting really.  We all sucked so much that they had to continue advertising to try to find someone suitable?  It tweeked my nose a little.

But oh well.  So I moved on to my plan B.  Temp agencies!  I supported myself for years with temp jobs and got the best job I ever had (and held for 4 years) from a temp job that started out as nothing more than watering the plants for an hour a day while the boss was out of town.  Not knowing what my fertility journey had in store for me, I figured temp jobs would be perfect.  I could work, while not promising anyone I would still be around in 6 months.  Awesome!

I applied at every friggin agency in town, most of which I had worked for when I first moved back to the area 6 years ago.  Each one interviewed me, and with the exception of 1 where I was kind of a mess, they all seemed very confident that I'd be working right away.

*crickets*

Yeah, so professionally, I've been quite the loser.  That one group interview was the best I did during my push to apply at companies directly, and my plan b was doing a big fat nothing.  I've been trying to keep busy doing other things so I don't have to think about what a loser I am and how scared I am that when my kids are in school, I'll be even less qualified for a job and as a grown-up, I'm just all sorts of fail.

The last three months of course, I've had other things to focus on.  Ok, so the whole career thing isn't going to work out right now, so let's really focus on the baby thing.  Just, not worry about it.  Just, be content to be chilling at home because we don't want me to exert myself at all.  Yeah, I'm doing nothing, ya know, for my health!  And for the babies!

Guess who called me a couple of days ago?  A temp agency!  They have a 1-2 day job, it pays a few pennies above minimum wage, data entry, would I be interested?  Now that I have no interest in pursuing a job, they come running to hand them to me!  Back in the day, I usually got about double minimum wage, but beggars can't be choosers.  Of course I'm interested.  I can sit in their chair typing on their computer just as easily as I can at home on mine, so I may as well earn some coffee money in the process.

You'll never guess where.  At the company I had the group interview!  Part of me wanted to say "Uh, this might not be a good idea.  They already decided they don't like me."  Meh, fuck it.  I wanted a paycheck from them before, I may as well take one now.

I show up, smile, smile, and I'm reporting to the same woman who conducted the interview.  Obviously she doesn't remember me, why the hell would she.  And she seems to like me just fine.  This isn't going to lead anywhere of course, I'm just going to finish out the project tomorrow and I'm sure that will be the end of it.  Where could it lead?  Heading into the second trimester with twins, I'm hardly going to become MORE reliable in the months ahead.  I'd hate to be offered a job that I want only to go on bedrest a week later.

But at least with this under my belt, and having a good attitude and good feedback to the temp agency from the person I'm reporting to, maybe I'll be called a little higher on the list when more of these temp jobs come up in the next few months.  And it's just kind of nice to be back in an office and not be fumbling around like a complete loser.  It's like "Oh yeah, I DO know how to do this."  Maybe I really am a victim of the economy like people tell me I am.

Dear Miss I Think I'm Having Twins,

I realize people think twins are cool.  But guess what - if your ultrasound indicates that you have one baby, even though you asked the technician to look for another one, YOU HAVE ONE BABY!

I don't care how much you've puked, how big your belly has gotten, or how hungry you are.  If you look inside your belly, and there is only one baby in there, a second one isn't going to magically appear at your next ultrasound because you have some nagging feeling that you have twins.

You WANT twins, that does not mean you have some sort of magical insight into your womb that the doctors and ultrasound technicians don't have.

Oh I know, you heard of some random strangers cousin who didn't know about the second twin until birth even though they had lots of ultrasounds.  And the heartbeats were in sync so they could only pick up one on the heart rate doppler.  Well some random stranger told me that her cousin was abducted by aliens too, and maybe that cousin even believes that, doesn't make it true, and it doesn't make it likely that ET is hanging out in YOUR storage shed.

You have one baby, just like all of the other normal pregnant women out there.  You're just being stupid and annoying, and it's obvious that your life revolves around how much attention you can garner which is why you want twins instead of the one that you actually have.  I come from a community that would kill or be killed to have what you've got, so stop being so disappointed with the miracle that you DO have.  

Be grateful that you can anticipate normal childbirth that will result in a healthy, breathing child, instead of constantly fearing premature labor, long stays in the NICU, and a higher risk of going home with no babies.

Sincerely,

A true twin mom who's terrified

Snoooooooooooogle

Ok, so I didn't by a Snoogle, per se, but rather a different pillow put out by the same company.  I just like saying Snoogle the way a Lord of the Rings fan would say Smeagle.

Well, it appears that my husband has just become somewhat obsolete by this product.

I don't normally do product reviews, mostly because no one asks me or pays me to, but what the hell!  This'll be fun.

For the most part, I really like it.  I'm not pregnant enough to need the various pregnant belly support bumps, but I've had insomnia issues all my life, and it's been really bad for the last few weeks.  I've had a horrible time getting comfortable in general.  Not because of pregnancy, but just because sometimes you go through a period of time where you can't get comfortable.  I've been trying flat pillows, soft pillows, firm pillows, 2 pillows, fluffy pillows, I just can't find the right combo for me.  This isn't perfect, but it's the closest thing I've found so far!

I also have a habit of when K gets out of bed, I re-position myself sideways so that I'm laying with my back to all the pillows.  And I tend to be comfortable sleeping on couches.

So the back support on this works great for me.  I get that snuggled feeling.  I like having the leg of the thing up against my back.  It holds its place pretty well so I can lean on it, but if I need to toss it aside, it will bend and change its shape easier than I thought it would.

I was surprised by the flexibility of this thing.  I was afraid it would be a really firm shape and that was that.  You either fit in it as is, or don't use it.  But it adjusts really well.  I've been putting it up against the wall behind the bed so the top of the horseshoe is vertical while the legs stay horizontal on the bed.  It makes for a really comfortable tv viewing position.  The legs also push really far apart with almost no effort, so if one is bugging you, you can hang it off the side of the bed.  

If you wrap it in the breastfeeding position that's suggested, where the top of the horseshoe goes around your waist and the legs fold behind you as a pillow, we'll I've found that to be great for reading my kindle in bed.  I have a stand for the kindle and it sits on the snoogle just fine.

I've slept on my back and on both sides with this and I'm very comfortable.  My arm doesn't fall asleep when on my side like it does with other pillows, and there's enough bulk to wrap my upper arm around it without it putting a strain on my shoulder.

There's a video review on the Amazon site that complains about the seams at the shoulders.  And those are a bit of an issue.  They are tight and can dig into your neck or shoulder a little bit if you don't adjust.  But once you get adjusted and comfortable, well you're comfortable!

The downside - as you can imagine, this thing is a bit big and bulky and unweildy.  Not as bad as I imagined it would be, but it is kind of difficult to move it around once you get it under the covers.  

Other members of your bed - Sexual spontaneity will likely be out the window with this thing, but for us, I'm on pelvic rest at the moment so we're probably better off just keeping a barrier between us anyway.  On the other hand, I haven't had an elbow or bad breath in my face since getting this, and he hasn't had icicle toes tucked under his leg to warm up, so it's kind of a fair trade off.  My big kitty who likes to climb up my belly and step on my boobs with 19lbs of ouch surprised me by climbing up the leg of the snoogle instead and parking himself on that.  I was able to put my arm around him and all was well.  My other cat, the skittish one, is confused as hell.  He's taken to sleeping in a ball between my knees meaning I'm completely surrounded all 360 degrees and can't move.

Yesterday, I turned sideways in this and put my head on one of the legs, the other leg over my lap, and my legs over my husbands lap.  Ya know, for a little connection and so I could face him while we chatted in bed. And another time I turned it so that the top of the horseshoe was at my butt, the legs were spread out and bent to go across my back and fold under my head so I could do a general hubby snuggle while watching tv.  So snuggles can happen, they just take a little bit of effort setting up.

The various positions that this facilitates are great though.  If stuck on bedrest, I would really recommend this. The across your lap position will probably make eating a lot easier (get some plastic to put over it though for spills), you can probably set a laptop on it, etc.

I'll say a 4 out of 5.  The nature of the product makes it a bit difficult to maneuver, but I think it's accomplished with this product about as well as possible  And for the most part, it's more comfortable than other pillow combinations and will be a lifesaver if one is stuck on bedrest for an extended period of time.

I could have slept all day

K and I went to bed at a decent hour last night.  Midnight is actually early for us.  And I slept solidly until I got a text at 9:30am.  I turned on the tv and continued to sleep for several more hours.

I finally hauled my ass outta bed, much to the objections of various kitties, about 2pm.  Not because I was ready to get up, but because I was ashamed of myself for still being asleep.

I could easily fall right back to sleep.

I was told I'd bleed a bunch and the doctor was right.  I'm bleeding a bunch.  Lovely.  Probably gonna make K pull out the doppler when he gets home from work.

Projectile Bleeding

Ya know, a couple of days ago, I thought to myself that gee, I don't have much to say when things are going ok. So I started thinking about what I could chat about if things were going to be uneventful from now on.

Didn't get a whole lot of time to explore those ideas, because things decided to get eventful again.

Last night around 1am, I'm getting ready for bed, and I find some blood when I go to the bathroom.  Nuts.  It had been 3 whole weeks since my last bleed and I was really starting to believe that I was done with all that.  In fact, I had the guts to order 2 pregnancy items from Amazon yesterday.  You know, having faith that I would still need them when they arrived a few days later.  So I'm looking at blood, almost feeling punished for being so arrogant.

But I've got an ultrasound appointment scheduled for 10 hours later, so I'm not panicking.  I tell K that I'll sleep a lot better if we can get a heartbeat or two on the doppler before going to bed.  So I lay on the floor and he gets the little machine out.  Now K is nervous, not because he's afraid something is horribly wrong, but rather he's afraid that if he can't find a heartbeat (which has been difficult in the past), I'm going to freak out and be inconsolable.  So he's got a lot of pressure on his shoulders to find the little buggers.

Within 30 seconds, we're hearing it.  This is a record for us, the other times we've found it, it took several minutes.  But now we know why, one of them is hiding directly under the main vein that runs through my belly.  So my heartbeat is so loud that it usually drowns out the little ones.  But we were able to hear both at the same time, mine kind of slow, and baby going nice and fast behind it.  So K moved a bit to the left (by now I'm content, 1 is all I need to hear), and pretty quickly finds a second one.  They are a solid inch and a half, maybe two inches apart so it is definitely baby number 2.

Well okey dokey!  We've confirmed that both are still there and alive, so let's watch some Craig Ferguson and go to bed, we're already scheduled for a proper look at them in the morning.

I'm sitting in bed and I feel it.  Not the usual whoosh of fluid suddenly falling out of me, but rather this feeling like it's squirting out of me.  And normally it would land directly below me, but this feels like the stream is almost pointing up.  So off to the bathroom I go and the front of the pad I'm wearing and my underwear are just soaked.  Not the usual red and purple thick blood with random clots, but rather a thin blood that looks mixed with a clear fluid.

I sit on the toilet and it almost feels like I'm actively peeing, except slightly more south, and I'm not putting any effort into squirting this bloody fluid out of me, it's just happening without my consent.

Blood I could handle.  I have a clue as to what that is and what it means.  But an additional fluid mixed with the blood?  I wasn't ready for that.  And the way it felt like it was coming out, it felt like when you poke a hole in a water balloon and all the pressure pushes the fluid out that hole.  Sooooooo, I kind of have 2 water balloons in my body, you can imagine what I was thinking was mixing with the blood.  I started to panic that my water had broke at only 12w6d.

When I was able to get up, I poke my head out and say "we're going to the hospital" almost more pissed than anything else.  We get dressed and off we go.  The very familiar late night, rainy drive.  The usual checking in, this is why I'm here, get the temperature taken and blood pressure measured while I sit there, feeling like I'm about to soak through my jeans.  We head to a proper room and I'm told to strip down completely, and sit up on bed covered in puppy pads wearing a gown.

I think we all know what most of the night entailed - waiting.  I soak through the gown in the front and have to get another one.  I'm sitting on a puddle and it feels like it's going everywhere.  I'm fluctuating between wanting to cry, to wanting to break the tension with jokes, to thinking about what our next step will be if this is the end of this pregnancy.  I'm in decent spirits as I finally get wheeled to the ultrasound room.  I have to pee and I'm honestly afraid I'm going to expel something important, so they give me a little bucket to put in the toilet.  If I catch anything, the nurse will retrieve it, if not, dump it and flush it.  Fortunately, just some bloody urine so dump and flush and back up on the table.  The technician checks my kidneys (seriously docs, we moms don't give a hoot about our damned kidneys!) and we prepare to check on the little ones.

That's when I lose it.  I start shaking uncontrollably and crying.  And the technician has the screen pointed away from me, but K can get a look at it.  We put the thingy on my abdomen.

And they're alive.  And moving.

Encouraging words start being said and I look to K to confirm, do they really look ok?  Yes they do.  I'm still crying and shaking, REALLY trying hard to believe them.  And she finally turns the monitor to me so I can see for myself.  Those really are babies in there, throwing a dance party!  They've grown so much, they don't' seem to have as much fluid around them as they did before.  But I'm assured that the sacs look full, and there's no evidence of any kind of leak or anything.

She gets an obnoxious number of measurements which gives me all sorts of time to watch my babies wave at me and I even saw a leg kick or two.  They were just dancing, having a grand old time!  And I was shocked at how developed they appeared.  I could identify the full face in profile, nose, lips, chin, and a hand with fingers, and everything!  Even a little hint of spine here and there.

So back into my room for another hour of waiting until the doctor can interpret the images and come talk to me.  I'm not allowed to have a glass of water or to grab the granola bar from my purse because until the doctors interpretation comes in, they have no way of knowing if I'll be needing surgery or something.  Standard procedure, but still not what you want to hear.

The doc finally comes in and says that everything looks great.  They specifically looked for evidence of a fluid leak.  Apparently the sac will kind of go teardrop shaped as it starts to leak, and then will lose most shape as it collapses around the fetus.  But no, both are nice and round and no evidence of any issue.  They did find the subchorionic hematoma that I've had all along and it's about twice the size it was the last time we looked at it. So that freaks me out a bit, but he says that these things rarely cause any real problem.

We head home around 5:30am, confused, still not understanding where all the fluid came from, but at least able to tolerate trying to sleep until my appointment 6 hours later.  I take a quick shower to wash the blood that has stained my thighs and abdomen (like I said, somehow it got everywhere) and we go to bed.

Everything at my scheduled appointment this morning went fine.  The technician found what had been a bleeding void last night and said it's fully clotted so all is good.  The sacs are still full and round, still no evidence of any leakage.  The kiddos are chilled out (they partied hard last night, must have been tired by this morning) but measuring well in terms of size and heart rates.

I get to see Dr. C and he says that this is the best he's seen things so far, so everything is great.  The bleeding has moved south towards the cervix so it's either going to come out in a main clot (he described size and potential shape) or it will break up and bleed out gradually.  And he gave me a visual of how much blood to expect so hopefully I'll be able to handle it as it happens during the week.  All the genetic markers look good, I think this was the scan where they measure the back of the neck to look for abnormalities and I'm pretty sure he told me that looks perfect, but it wasn't really the main focus of conversation.  He says the extra fluid was probably cervical mucus, but wow, I didn't know that much could be in there.

I pouted that I don't know if I can wait 4 weeks for my next appointment considering my record so far has been 13 days.  So he says that I get to break all the rules and make as many extra appointments as I want.  Next ultrasound - Jan 16th and I'll have a brief meeting with a different doc because Dr. C won't be in that day.  That's fine, I want to meet all the doctors at some point because for delivery, you get whoever is on call.  I'd kind of like that person to not be a complete stranger.

I'm exhausted.  I'm not even fully out of the first trimester yet.  I just don't know if I can handle all of these scares.  But I don't have any choice because I can't figure out how to avoid dealing with them either.  Silver lining (besides the 2 healthy little ones of course)?  We probably burned through our annual deductible last night.  Yup, 4 days into the new year and we've used up a years worth of insurance.  That's just awesome.