Mom hair

25 weeks today.  That's 6 weeks longer than I made it last time.

Today's achievement - I traded in long locks for Mom Hair.  My showers should be a whole lot shorter and I look like a real grown up now!

 

After

Before

Symptom Breakdown -

• I'm getting some skin tags under my arms.
• Feeling kicks.
• Because I'm sleeping on my side, I'm getting pimples behind my ears from having them smooshed against my head all night.
• 2 kids sitting on my bladder makes me feel like I have to go all the time.  Then I get there and discover I didn't really need to go.
• Where did these nipples come from?  My boobs are now half taken over by darkness and my nipples are trying to make a break for it all the time.
• I'm a really light sleeper now.  I'm waking up all the time to either go to the bathroom, or to flip over.  Changing positions is a major undertaking and sometimes leaves me out of breath.
• So far I'm 100% successful, but I'm starting to fear for my future ass wiping abilities as my stomach gets bigger and I become less agile.
• I could wear my wedding ring, but a ring a size larger is more comfortable.  My feet are swelling pretty regularly.
• I get full really fast.  I guess my stomach doesn't have much expanding room.  And I still never feel like I'm the right amount of full.  I feel like I have to either eat or poop all the time.
• Starting to have trouble getting a deep breath when reclined.

Apparently I'm not over it

So the last couple of days, I've been making an effort to enjoy pregnancy stuff.   I've been registering with abandon, and yes, I put some cute pink things on there.  I've been pretending to be confident about this whole thing.

Then last night, I had one spot of blood when I wiped.   Just a spot, fresh pink blood.  Probably from a small scratch or raw area in my crotch (though I'm not sure how I would get a scratch there), as the blood didn't have any other type of fluid mixed in, and it was brand new fresh.  Not the kind of blood that's been traveling through the vaginal canal at all.  Nope, probably just what you would dab off the spot where you got a shot.

I flipped my fucking lid.

I knew it was surface blood.  But I didn't care.  I've been building up a hormonal breakdown for some time and I just needed a catalyst.  This was it.  I did all sorts of crying about how I'm lonely because K is doing a play right now so he's not home in the evenings, and I'm bored because I'm not capable of doing a fucking thing but sit here all day, and I feel useless.

And of course, I felt like I was being punished for starting to gain some confidence.  For starting to plan instead of hope.  Like the universe just wanted to remind me that I've been all sorts of arrogant and things can still be taken from me in an instant.  And I was scared that this was just the first drop and that afraid that I would be doing another trip to the ER within a few hours.

Fuck you universe.  You think I've forgotten that this can go away?  Do you really think that for a moment I don't have fear and doubt?  Yeah, fuck you again.  You don't need to fucking remind me.

Why don't I get to just enjoy any of this?  Why is it that the moment I do, I'm punished for it?

Quite frankly, this is why I'm such a damned bitch.  Every time I try to drift into a happy place, I'm reminded that happy is not for me and I'm smacked back into my dark little corner.

Everything is fine by the way.  That spot was it.  We found them both on the doppler.  They are wiggling and making me sick today.

Viability!

24 weeks and one day, ladies and gentlemen, we have reached viability!

*applause*   *applause*  *applause*

K got to feel a baby kick the other night.  Movements still aren't consistent, but there was some squirming going on while we were watching tv so I had him stick his hand in my waistband and wait.  It took a couple of minutes, but he got a good swift kick!

That was it guys.  The last piece of the puzzle that would allow us finally accept that we are going to have babies.

We are now registering for stuff, accepting hand-me-downs, and doing a few little nesting things.  We are now planning instead of hoping (but the fingers are still crossed).

Symptom breakdown -

• Heartburn is pretty much gone since I started taking prilosec.
• I'm getting about 2 baby squirming sessions each day.  One of them is usually while sitting up reading before lying down to go to bed.  They are more squirmy than kicky.
• Even my jammie pants are threatening to get a little tight.
• So far my urine is pretty much staying in place.  I don't have nearly the incontinence issues I had last time. Sometimes a really impressive sneeze will let out a small leak, but it's not a daily thing.
• Hands are randomly swelling so I've taken off my wedding band and am wearing a cheapo band a half size larger.
• My bladder always feels full and sore.  I don't think it's actually full, but since the only means I have of adjusting its position is to pee, I keep attempting that to relieve the discomfort a bit.
• My sleep doesn't seem solid and deep so I end up needing a lot more of it.  I wake up every time I need to shift positions.
• I'm hungry all the time and yet completely sick of food.

That's about it for now!

Fat lady fashion show

Well, I had my first crying, non-provoked, purely hormonal emotional meltdown of this pregnancy.  The source? Clothing!  I hate clothes.  I hate shopping for clothes.  I hate that as a fat woman, no clothes ever fit me right, ever.  Even if they fit in the store, or last week, that doesn't mean they'll fit right today.

We were invited to a St Patty's Day party and for once, I actually was feeling fairly social.  I have a pair of gray pants that seem to be stretching right along with me, and they are kind of my go-to going out in public pants for this pregnancy.  As I was pulling them out trying to figure out what to wear to the party the next day, I found a spot of wax or something on them and they couldn't be worn until they went through the laundry.  So I started to panic.

I hadn't busted out my maternity pants from the last pregnancy yet so I pulled those out and while they fit, they are also too long.  I'm afraid I might trip.  Some of my jeans are ok if I fold them down and do the belly band, but it's uncomfortable and looks weird.  The only pants available were leggings, and in trying on tops, I had completely run out of tops that were big and flowy enough to cover my butt.  And I'm sorry, but if I'm wearing leggings, my butt needs to be covered.  I'm just not going to inflict skin tight clothing as the only barrier between my butt and the world on anyone.  That would be cruel.

So panic set in and I realized that it was official, I did not have enough actual clothing to leave the house.  Not that big a deal most days, I just wear jammies and jammie pants at home, but holy shit!  If I'm too big to leave the house now, what the fuck am I going to do over the next 3 months???  Almost everything I've tried to buy at some sort of reasonable price has had to be sent back because it didn't fit.

Full on melt down.  There was crying.  There was a husband sitting there like a deer in the headlights having no idea how to respond.  It was unpleasant.

Ok, so I did finally find something I could wear in public.  I found this top and a black sweater that was a bit longer than the top so it covered my butt.  It's actually kinda cute.  This is probably what I'll wear to nicer outings like my grandmothers 100th birthday at the end of the month.

Emily has also requested updated belly pics.  Well, K has been too busy to deal with belly pics and I haven't felt like climbing into that skin tight outfit I've been using.  So the fashion show pics will have to suffice.  I also wanted to get some pics of me with my hair like this because I've made an appointment to get rid of it on the 29th.

Good lord.  If I'm this big now, how inhumanly gigantic am I going to be in 3 months???

But one picture hardly makes for a fashion show now does it?  The rest of this post will be dedicated to solving the solution plaguing plus sized maternity shoppers everywhere.

Where can a plus sized woman find maternity clothes?  As long as you're a very casual dresser, the answer is Value Village.

After our Day With Baby Class (oh yeah, remind me to write about that at some point), we stopped by the Value Village near the hospital.  I expected to spend a total of 15 minutes there because stores like that usually have this smell that just reminds you that you're going ghetto.  But this one was actually pretty nice.  Didn't have that used icky smell at all.

So now I present to you, the crap I bought to simply cover my belly and ass for this pregnancy.  The intention isn't to look good, or cute, or to make a fashion statement, the intention is simply to cover myself so that I won't be arrested for public nudity if I need to leave the house.

Tshirt already owned. Sweater purchased to make most of my tshirts work with leggings.	Red yoga pants already owned. Huge black tshirt with white "undershirt" thingy.  Should last  through the pregnancy.	Gray nursing tank from jammie set. Red and white sweater makes it publicly ok and still gives me boob access for nursing.

I swore I'd never wear a maternity shirt that tucked under and hugged the belly.  Apparently I was wrong.

Black tank top dress.  I'm going to be hugely pregnant for the beginning of summer.  I'm hoping this will help  beat the heat.

Blue dress.  Leggings mean I don't have to shave my legs yet.

Oh wow, a whole week already?

Sorry guys, I'm not sure what's keeping me from posting.

Every day of this pregnancy dragged on endlessly until I passed that 19 week mark that I was so afraid of.  Ever since then, time has been flying by me.  I realized the other day that I'm a full 4 weeks longer into this pregnancy that I got into the last one.  It took so long for me to break even, now that I have, it's just flying forward at break neck speeds.

I'm at 23 weeks now.  I think it's official.  There's now no way out of this pregnancy other than to give birth.  Ack!  I'm really motivated to keep these kids in as long as possible if for no other reason than to put off that terrifying experience!  But we've made it.  If this all goes to hell tomorrow, the doctors will still try to save my girls.  Another week, and they'll have about a 50/50 chance of succeeding.  It only gets better from there.

I've spent a good deal of this week with doctors.  Apparently the issue with IVF babies is there's an elevated risk of heart defects.  So I spent Wednesday getting an ultrasound for over 2 hours.  UGH!  Ok, I realize that this sounds so wonderful, to get to watch your babies for 2 solid hours.  But seriously?  It gets old.  Especially when the technician is moving the wand around so fast that you're looking more at the camera movements than the babies movements.  Most of the appointment was about the hearts so even if I wanted to look at cute babies for 2 hours, 90 minutes of that time was spent just looking at hearts beating in extreme closeup.

I did get 2 decent pics though.  We got a good face profile, and when they were trying to measure the belly of one baby, the foot of the other baby kept getting in the frame so she took a picture of the foot too.

Extreme closeup of face profile.  The bump near the upper center is the nose pointing skyward.

Belly of one baby is the round dome, bottom of foot of the other baby is on top of it.

And here's where we get our very first "She has so-and-so's fill in the blank!"  I have mutant toes.  The big toe is big, but the rest don't really fall in line.  They are all kind of midgets.  They look like I was just extremely adept at stubbing my toes as a kid, which I was actually, and they just permanently remained stubbed.  Here ya go.  The left is especially mutantastic.  And yes, I blurred out the scale numbers because I've had enough comments about my size and I'm over it.  You people think I don't own a mirror?  Seriously, I'm aware of the fact that I'm fat.  You're not telling me anything I don't know.

Anyway, if you check out the bone structure of the foot in the ultrasound and compare it to my own toes, it looks like at least one baby is going to have at least one normal foot!  That would be daddies foot!

Before I went to this doctor, Dr. C said that they would likely say stuff that would be scary.  They sometimes try to poach patients by scaring them and then saying they can take care of the issue.  It's a classic marketing tactic that actually works quite well.  You introduce a problem, then you show off how you have the solution to that problem with a product or service that you can sell.  So I was warned to take what they say with a grain of salt.  And I think Dr. C gave them a bit of a heads up not to scare this particular patient because she has issues and can't handle being freaked out.  I think he did that because at the end of the appointment, they didn't tell me a whole lot of details and said that Dr. C wants all of the information consolidated with him so he'll go over the details with me at my next appointment.

Even so, here's what they told me -

They weren't able to get a couple of views that they want to get.  But, they were able to rule out anything major and anything they would have been able to look for in those other views would have been very minor anyway.  I was born with a heart murmur that cleared itself up so the little flaws (that they didn't even see) don't scare me.  Glad they ruled out the big ones!

They said that one baby was measuring a little small though.  About a 20% difference between the two.  I'm calling bullshit.  They were exactly the same size a week ago, just like they were 2 weeks before that, and all along since they existed.  And the one they claim was smaller was the one that's buried deeper so she's a little farther away from the ultrasound wand which might explain a slight appearance of being smaller.  I don't think that one would grow that significantly and leave the other that far behind over the course of a week.  And the doctor even said that the measurements have a 10% margin of error.  So if they measured one as 10% bigger than it is and the other as 10% smaller than it is, there's your 20% difference.  I'll have them check that next week when I'm back with my real doctor.

Yesterday was spent at the cardiologist to see what these little adrenaline rushes are.  I got to do an EKG and they checked my blood pressure half a dozen times.  When I talked to the doctor, he discussed a few heart monitor options.  But I'm not getting these attacks very often, certainly not enough to guarantee that a 24 hour monitor would catch one and there is some expense to wearing these machines.  Thanks to some BBC friends, I mentioned that one had experienced something similar due to her thyroid and that I was on synthroid, maybe I was being overdosed at this point or something?  So we opted to do bloodwork instead of the heart monitor since the bloodwork could indicate the source of the problem whereas the monitor would be more about showing him the symptom.  I also asked that my prolactin level be checked since I've had issues with that in the past.  The attacks feel like sudden stress, I know my prolactin elevates in times of stress, maybe I'm experiencing it backwards where my prolactin spikes and I then feel the stress?  I dunno.

But he called back today with the results.  My prolactin is through the roof - for a non pregnant person.  He was all freaked out about it at first because normal levels is 2-24 and mine was 121.  So then it dawned on me, duh!  Prolactin is what tells your body to produce milk!  It's probably elevated because I'm gonna need milk soon!  So he looked up normal levels for a pregnant woman and saw that normal is between 10-209.  So I'm right in the middle of that range.  But he's not an OB so he doesn't really know where it should fall.  He's forwarding the info to Dr. C so we can discuss it at my appointment next week.  But my thyroid is at ok levels, I'm slightly anemic so I'll probably be raising my iron intake.  But he saw no reason to move forward with the heart monitor.

I think this is one of those problems where you threaten to have someone qualified look at the problem, the problem gets scared and magically heals itself.  You know, like that sound your car makes until you threaten to take it to a mechanic.  Hopefully we've threatened my heart with enough doctors that it will just calm the fuck down on its own.

Day with baby class tomorrow.  All day learning just how ignorant I am about all this stuff.  Wheeee!!!!

The corner is turning

After our good news doctors appointment, K and I are thinking that we need to start accepting that we have to plan for these children and not just fantasize about them.

We talked last night and we're both pretty much in the same place.  We are being urged forward, but still holding ourselves back.  I think we're going to have to drag ourselves across that initial threshold of acceptance and once we get through that discomfort, we might be able to start enjoying the pregnancy a little bit.

So for the next 2 weeks, we're in dragging mode.  Kind of forcing ourselves to start doing stuff, even though we don't want to do it.  After that, we'll hit 24 weeks, we'll have kind of gone through the work of figuring out WHAT we need to do, and we're hoping that the emotional resistance will be broken down so we can start actually doing it.

Todays achievements - we solidified the names.  We knew we still liked Charlotte, but I wasn't really loving the name Christina anymore.  But K wants both of his girls back so he really wants to stick with Christina.  He rarely expresses an opinion so when he does, I generally go with it.  So we've officially decided that we're sticking with Charlotte and Christina.

We've also decided on middle names but I don't want identity thieves to use the info on this blog to use my girls names and eventual birth date to mess up their finances so I'll keep at least that to myself.

I've called my sister in law and she's sending me lists of what a new mom needs (in her experienced opinion) and what they'll be handing down.  K's parents have asked if they can buy us a double stroller and I'm perfectly happy to accept that as a gift.  That is one of those purchases that I could agonize over forever, trying to factor in every little detail from the size of our car trunk that it will have to fit in, to door size, to maneuverability, etc etc etc.  But if someone gives it to me as a gift, I can simply be grateful and if it's not the perfect choice, it won't bother me too much because I won't be kicking myself that I should have chosen something else.

The maternity clothes I bought have arrived, but only 1 shirt fits.  The rest will have to go back and I'll either get a refund or exchange them for larger sizes.

We were at Fred Meyer today and I got myself a short sleeved shirt that has a snap down front.  It fits me as I am at the moment, so I'm hoping it will fit me after I give birth.  Most of my wardrobe is tshirt style that is just one piece, so it won't really work for breastfeeding.  I'm keeping my eye out for shirts like this with easy boob access and picking them up here and there as I find them.  My mom is also good at sewing so I might go through my wardrobe and see what shirts can be sliced up the middle and given a zipper.

Next things to do - clean out the nursery and take stock of what we've already inherited.  I suspect our first furniture purchase will be a used dresser from somewhere so we can start putting clothes away.

Brown goo

Another trip to the doctor and another "everything's fine" diagnosis.

I was scheduled for my routine appointment on Monday but I started having some brown goo discharge.  There wasn't much of it, but it was different from the brown bleeding I'm accustomed to so I figured I should call it in.  Besides, Dr. Google kept saying things about mucous plugs and consult your real doctor.

I called early Friday morning and after a couple of hours of nurses consulting and calling me back to confirm what I was describing, they decided to have me come in that afternoon.  I texted K telling him that our Monday appointment was now that afternoon, but that it probably wasn't dire that he be there.

Even though I was pretty sure things would be routine, K shuffled his schedule all around so he could take me.  I asked him later why it's such a priority that he be at every appointment and his thinking is that if there's ever bad news, he doesn't want me to have to hear it alone.  I'm totally keeping him.

Anyway, no ultrasound video today because they were squeezing me in and I didn't want to push my luck.  But everything looks great.  Cervix is still measuring at 4.6 which is incredibly strong with twins at 22 weeks.  Babies were both active though not exactly doing cartwheels.  K got all grinny because Baby B was doing his signature dance move.  Unfortunately for the rest of us, he's a very white guy and his signature dance move looks something like this.

White Man Boogie

According to the doctor, everything is going as good as can be.  The brown goo isn't bleeding from the SCH - that's pretty much gone, but rather the cervix is likely a little irritated and so there's a smidge of blood mixing with cervical mucous.  Very common.

He did say that it's mostly after doing a little extra straining, or activity, or sex.  Of course, I've done none of these things.  I've stopped doing video work so I don't have to carry my camera equipment and most of my days are spent sitting on my ass, my only exercise being traveling to and fro from computer to fridge or bathroom.  So if my body is reacting as if I've been straining a little bit when I haven't, it helps me feel less guilty about removing all actual physical strain from my life.  Many twin moms are put on bedrest.  My doctor isn't a fan of bedrest, he feels it does more harm than good, so this whole pregnancy I'm existing somewhere between a self imposed bedrest and actually living like a normal person.  That basically boils down to being extremely lazy pretty much all the time.

I was smart this time and put a note in my phone about the things I wanted to ask the doctor about.  The headaches?  Take tylenol.  The heartburn?  Take prilosec.  The sudden heart races/pumping extra hard?  Ok, that one confused him a bit.  He displayed some concern and I'm going to make an appointment with a cardiologist next week to check that out.

Here's one I didn't know about - apparently there's some extra little risk in IVF pregnancies.  My brain seems to have blocked out what that risk is, but they are going to be sending me to Maternal Fetal Medicine for a series of ultrasounds between 22-24 weeks.  This will basically replace my usual 24 week appointment.  Whatever the risk is, it's very low, and MFM just wants to do a very comprehensive battery of tests and views and measurements to double check that all is well.  I told Dr. C that whatever they advise, or whatever extra medications etc they want to put me on, they'll need to go through him.  I hate having several different doctors recommending several different things so I really want all information and stuff filtering through one person.

Dr. C is predicting that I'll deliver around 34 weeks.  The average for twins is 34-37 weeks and that's a pretty healthy length of gestation.  I think he's telling me 34 because he doesn't want to be overly positive.  I'm kind of thinking 36.  Things are looking really good right now, and at the moment, there's no reason to anticipate premies.

Daddies girls

I knew it would happen eventually, but I wasn't expecting it to happen quite so soon.  Already, the girls like daddy best.

Yesterday, after straining for a BM, I had a bit of brown discharge.  Nothing to freak out about of course, but you know me, any change is something to worry about.  So I pulled out the doppler to check on everyone.  That's why we bought it!  So I don't get the opportunity to get scared.

One is usually very easy to find.  She's usually right up front, you touch the wand to the belly and you can hear her nice and strong.  But she didn't want to be found!  It took several minutes of hunting around to find that first heartbeat.  And while it was fast, it was a bit quiet.  I'm used to quiet from the second one because she tends to be buried, but not the first one.  It took several more minutes to find the second one.

When K got home from work several hours later, I asked him to do doppler because I wanted to check again.  And he barely touches my tummy with the wand and bathunkity bathunkity bathunkity!  He moves it to the spot we usually go to in order to start the search for the second one and bathunkity bathunkity bathunkity!

So here I am, trying to convince him of how hard they were to find a few hours ago and he's like "yeah, right" and grinning like a mad man.

"Oh you're just loving this aren't you?"
"Well, I'm not hating it!"

Yes, our little girls hearts go pitter patter when Daddy gets home.  Hurumpf.

And K actually spoke to my belly for the first time last night.  We had Tosh.O on tv so there was some video of some idiot doing something stupid.  So he leans over my belly and says the phrase we intend to raise our teenagers with - "Don't be stupid!"

We're gonna be awesome parents.

The PAIL Controversy

Huh?

Apparently there's a big hullabaloo here in ALI land about a new blogroll for parenting after infertility.  I'm on my computer pretty much all the time, surfing the web for lack of anything better to do, and yet I still somehow managed to have no clue as to what the hell is going on that has everyone in a tizzy.

I'm getting the impression that there are 2 issues going on.

First, Mel over at Stirrup-Queens has done a lot of work over the years to build a community and to become the hub for all things infertility related.  If I'm understanding correctly (which I'm not claiming I do), another blogger has basically used her ideas and site as a template to try to create a hub for those who are parenting after infertility, a topic that Mel also covers.

So that's kind of sucky.  I don't think it was a malicious thing, but rather someone not understanding the work that went into creating that template and not understanding that they were kind of stealing all of that work while also usurping a portion of the community as well.

Second, I think people are hurt that a portion of their community is forming a new club that they aren't able to join (yet).  I understand the hurt, but it also seems like a perfectly natural thing to me.

The infertility community is a really crappy club to belong to.  The people are fabulous, but the reason for coming together royally sucks.  Same with the Miscarriage Mamas.  It's lovely that we all come together and support each other in our time of tragedy, but seriously, what a shitty thing to come together for.

This is where I might come off as harsh, but I think most of my readers will understand that I'm not being mean, I'm being realistic.  My goal is to leave the infertility and miscarriage mamas clubs.  They will leave an imprint on my life, and I'll always speak up on behalf of those who belong in those clubs, but I don't wish to be an active member forever.  My goal is to get the hell out and start a new chapter in my life.

I suffered from bipolar II for more than a decade.  It's only by random chance, a one in a million shot, that in my particular case we accidentally "cured" it, or at least found a means of putting it into remission.  When surgery cured my sleep apnea, the bipolar issues went away too.

I no longer read depression blogs.  I don't read books about depression and how to cope with it.  I don't actively participate in any forums, clubs, or other gatherings of those who are suffering from it.

Sure, when an article comes up about it and people are commenting, I'll see what the comments are and educate where I can, because for a portion of my life, depression was all encompassing and I still have empathy for those who are not as fortunate as I am to have found their cure (if there is one which for the vast majority of sufferers, there isn't).

But what consumed me for all of those years is not the subject of this blog.  Sure, the topic comes up from time to time in passing, but it's not the focus.  That's because my life is in a different place now.  And I don't feel guilty about that.  I think anyone who is in that shitty, shitty club would kill or be killed if they had the opportunity to leave it.  I'm not going to feel guilty about being the lucky bitch who did get to leave.

That's how I feel about the infertility and loss community.  If I get the chance to leave this summer, you damn well better bet that I'm going to run as hard and as fast as I can to get the hell out of here and as far away as possible.  It doesn't mean that I don't care for those who are stuck here, it means I'm taking full advantage of the opportunity we are all hoping will one day be ours.

As my confidence grows that it might soon be my turn to leave, I'm starting to unsubscribe from infertility blogs, slowly.  Those that are friends beyond their infertility and/or loss, I'm keeping them, but the others are starting to leave my reader.  I'm simply moving to a new place in life and that's no longer the topic that consumes me.

I'm not going to forget.  As I complain about parenting or pregnancy pains, I'm not ungrateful or trying to rub others noses in it.  This blog is where I put my thoughts and most of my thoughts tend to be about my current life situation.  I'm really hoping that infertility and grieving are going to be a part of my past and the topics of my current will be changing significantly.  I'm sure they will creep into my current thoughts from time to time, because like I said, they left an imprint on who I am.

But I'm not like Mel.  She has built a community around infertility and has remained an active member even though she is parenting now.  It's commendable and I applaud her for constantly providing for those who are coming into the struggle behind her.  It's like a rape victim who uses her pain to open a crisis center for other women.  I don't know how they have the strength to remain an active part of a struggle that hurt them so terribly.

I don't think I have that strength.  When/if I graduate, I'm going to get myself into a lifeboat and row away as fast as I can.  When I'm away from the wreckage, I'll turn and look to see if I'm able to help anyone else.   If I find myself feeling really stable, I'll go back to the wreckage and see what I can do to help until my boat is filled to capacity.  But if my own lifeboat is shaky, I'm sorry, I'm not going to let others topple me over. Right now, I'm predicting a pretty wobbly lifeboat that I'll be working my ass off to keep afloat, so I won't be able to support those still in the water.  I hope I'm wrong about that.

If this makes me a royal bitch, so be it.  I never wanted to join these clubs.  From the day I found myself in these clubs, I've only ever wanted to get the hell out.  Still like the people, but hate the club dues.  If I get the opportunity to leave, I'm leaving.

I feel like I'm really tempting fate by putting these thoughts out there.  Universe, I'm still fully aware that this pregnancy can be taken away from me at any moment.  Acutely aware since I had trouble finding one of my girls on the doppler this afternoon (found her eventually but it still make me nervous because she's usually front and center and easy to find).  I haven't forgotten, I'm still not assuming that I'm on the last legs of my struggle.  I'm simply acknowledging that there's a chance that I might be changing life chapters.  Please don't take this blog post as an arrogant assault on the hand you are still capable of dealing me.  I'm still humble, I'm still wary, I'm still scared.

Wanting to empty

Well, 21w3d and I'm still very pregnant.  And getting more pregnant every day.

I'm officially waddling.  I'm making grandpa noises when I get up off the couch.  I'm huffing and puffing when I do anything even remotely active.

I think the nesting is starting to set in.  Everywhere I look, I see little chores that need to be done.  And I'm starting to think about what stuff we're going to need to get, at which point I get overwhelmed with how much I don't know about what babies need, and so I procrastinate on thinking about that for a while more.

And I'm not sure, but I think a baby kicked me awake this morning.  I'm still not really feeling definite baby movements, but as I woke up this morning, I thought I felt some thumping on my lower left.  When we played with the doppler tonight, K was trying to find the first baby and I thought I felt some movement so I pointed and said "try right there".  Sure enough, that's where it was!

Most of all though, my body just wants to empty out.  I constantly feel like I have just drunk a gallon of water and it's just sitting in there, sloshing around, dragging my torso down, mixing with gas, and body interprets that as "go to the bathroom" in an attempt to feel better.  But obviously what I'm full of is nothing that can be relieved by a bathroom break, though I'm certainly taking more than my fair share.

Big triumph for me - I ordered some maternity clothes.  While my usual wardrobe fits at the moment, I'm unbuttoning a lot and the maternity pants that I have yet to grow into are a size 24.  I was a size 18-20 when I got pregnant this time.  Yes, I'll be able to get my body into those pants, but odds are they won't fit right because my starting size was smaller so the weight distribution is different from the design of those pants.  So I ordered 2 pairs of maternity pants and a couple of maternity tops in what I think my size was when I started this pregnancy.  It feels so wrong to spend money on something for me, that I'll only need temporarily, when I could probably make due with what I already have, but....*sigh*...I think it needed to be done.

Just a moment of bitter infertile thinking

Update - ok, so the due date on this doesn't work because even those ovulating now would have a due date of November.  But since I have always felt that the existence and "success" of Snooki is pretty much everything that is wrong with the universe, I'm going to leave this up.  The bitter infertile in me needed to say something about the fact that she had no problem getting knocked up and this made me laugh.