Yes, I'm STILL Pregnant

Why do I feel like a watched pot? I'm only 35 weeks and 3 days people. If I weren't pregnant with twins, no one would even be considering me having these babies until at least 41 weeks, which is about 6 weeks from now! I understand the excitment is building. I feel like I'm gumming up the works in the plans for a HUGE party because the stars of that party are IN me and it's up to MY body to let them out! 20 days at most people, 20 days. If I can survive 20 days in physical misery, I KNOW you can survive 20 days waiting!

On a completely off topic note, I'm sitting here at too early (yes, 8 AM is TOO early, at least for me) in the morning on a Saturday, looking out the window of the office at the little bunny that viciously ate my strawberries! He/she (I have no way of knowing which) is happily nibbling away at the weeds in the grass in the front. Now why couldn't he/she stick with that and leave my berries alone? I was REALLY looking forward to those! The bunny just keeps getting bigger and fatter. I think it sees me now and KNOWS I'm "talking" about it! HAH! Damn bunny, I hope Ringo makes a nice dinner out of you!

Anyway. I saw the midwife yesterday. Just an FYI, I am going to mention some "girly" things like cervixes and mucus and what not, so you may want to skip this paragraph if you don't want insight in to all of that. Sorry about that, but it's the nature of discussing pregnancy. I've gained another 2 pounds, which puts me at about 18 pounds gained. I am very OK with that number. I know it is quite a bit less than a lot of twin moms gain. I also know that some of it is water weight. And that it will go away once the babies are here. I forgot to ask what my BP and measurements were. I can ask next week.

I asked her to check my cervix. I was curious as to what is going on "down there". She did a slide and the old finger check too. I'm soft, which makes the cervix more willing to move when it needs to, which is in my favor. It's still pretty thick and it really isn't open much, both things don't surprise me much. It does seem to have moved down at least a little bit. I can tell that by compared to how far the midwife I saw in Labor and Delivery had her hand shoved in me! Yeah, that is always fun! The slide said that along with the usual pregnancy nastiness (yes, guys women are just gross!) I'm losing mucus because of the extreme pressure Jack is applying to the area.

The midwife was a bit surprised at how low Jack was laying and how high Abbey is. She is also STILL transverse, so it's still looking like a C-section will take place if I go in to labor on my own. Honestly, I've made my peace with that. I figured I would. I knew that all it would take would be for me to get to the end and be absolutely physically miserable, which I am, and I wouldn't care HOW they came out, as long as they did!

I have another growth ultra sound on the 23rd. I see a midwife on the 17th, then I have my presurgery appointment on the 24th and then it's surgery on the 31st. My grandfather will be 90 that day. My mom tells me he is SUPER excited too. Not only is he getting a great grandson named for him, but odds are high that they will have the same birthday!

Now I'm going to whine a little about my aches and pains. Again, you can skip over this part. It's not like I can KNOW what you are reading from this page!

I have never had my feel and ankles swell up like they have this time around. It's HORRID! I feel like I have meat filled balloons at the bottoms of my legs with little sausages hanging off of them. I'm pretty thankful that I always wear flip flops in the summer and that I'm not trying to stuff these massive things in to regular shoes! My fingers are swollen as well, and they get stiff when I'm doing just about everything. Oh my word, my hips and pelvic area are just crying in pain every time I stand up! It's like someone took a vice and put it in the pelvic opening and is cranking it more and more open every second! That being said, I am bound and determined to do even MORE walking. Walking is supposed to encourage the cervix to dilate. That's the end result we want here folks, so I'm all for it!

On to a more positive note or two. No more than 20 days and this will all be over. We'll have 2 gorgeous babies to show for it. How do I know they'll be gorgeous? They are MY kids and I have a strong genetic line. I will NEVER have to be pregnant again. I know a lot of women mourn that. Me, I'm rejoicing it! While my body handles pregnancy with grace and dignity (as much as possible at least, I certainly don't have complications cropping up all the time) my mind revolts at being pregnant. I always feel like I've lost my mind while I'm pregnant. Like some alien has taken over thinking for me for the duration. I'm always SO happy when it's done because I can work on going back to being ME.

I'm supposing that is all for right now. On the agenda for today, I am once again, sorting laundry, folding it and putting it in to storage tubs. I wouldn't have to keep doing this if Issac (ooh, he's in trouble, I used his full name!) didn't keep dumping the tubs OUT. Jason will be taking a tub or two down to the basement when he gets home from work. I'm trying to make room in our living room closet for the infant clothes tubs so that Issac can not get to them. That requires all other tubs to vacate the premesis.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you have a nice quiet weekend filled with joy and peace.

A Day In the Life

Why am I awake at 5:45 in the morning? Oh wait, that's right, because I'm in PAIN! It feels like Jack is trying to claw his way out without anything happening to the cervix! Sitting is very uncomfortable and so is standing. Don't get me started on laying down with my legs closed which means basically anything on either side, which is the ONLY way I can lay right now, and how it hurts like no tomorrow! I was thinking of sending Jason the store to pick up diapers for Izzy when he wakes up. We were going to make a trip to Walmart today, but I'm not sure if that is going to happen or not. Maybe we'll do it anyway to offer "encouragement" to the general areas "down there". I may be starting to dilate, based on the signs, but I did the same things with Izzy and still only started being induced at a 1. All in all, the pain I can get used to, it's the interfereing with my sleep that I have a problem with!


It's now 11:24 in the morning. I was awake until about 6:30. I went back to bed, which is the couch right now. Our bed is just too flat and Jason just moves too much for me to be even remotely comfortable there. Not that the couch makes it THAT much better, but it's enough to let me sleep in about 3 hour incriments. The pain I had this morning is still there. It's like someone has taken a vice and placed right there in the opening of my pelvic bone and is slowly twisting it wider and wider and wider. Peachy. You'd think I'd go in to labor with all of this. Nope. I do believe, honestly believe, I am going to be stuck being pregnant all the way to the 31st of July.

Linda is supposed to bring the kids back on the 4th. That is only 5 days later. I MIGHT be home from the hospital then, I would think I would be. The plan was so that they would be there so I could take a couple of weeks and get used to caring for 2 new babies at once. After the fiasco James pulled last night, I'm amazed she hasn't told me that she wants to bring him back NOW.

The Word of The Day

I'm sitting at the dining room table, refolding laundry very hastily folded by James. His chore is to fold laundry so he can earn time either on the PS2 or the computer. He rushes through and does a sloppy job and it drives me BONKERS. Jayden is next to me, doing part of her chore, folding all panties/bras of the female household members.

"James, do you see how neat and tidy my piles are?"
"Yes"
"Can you tell me who folded the sloppy piles here?"
"I did, I wanted to be done."
"Can you tell me why my piles are neat and yours are not?"

Before James could answer, Jayden pops up with the word of the day "Because you wear granny panties!"

I Really Needed This Right Now

It's such a good thing too. I once read an essay about parenting a special needs kid. I'm sure I've shared it here before. However, I can't find the post (go figure, it was before I figured out tagging I'm sure) so I'm reposting in an easy to find clearly labeled and tagged post. Here is the essay and then I'm going to talk some more.

Trip to Holland
Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this:

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans: The Coliseum, Michaelangelo's David, the gondolas of Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland??" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you noticed that Holland has windmills - and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

This past couple of weeks has been especially hard for me and James. Yes, I know that should probably be "James and I" but I added James to it as an after thought and instead of just correcting it, I'm writing this drawn out sentence explaining it instead. Yeah, it's been like that.

Going along with the multiple doctor visits for me and the stress and anticipation of the twins upcoming birth and the planning for the kids to go to Wisconsin for a month with their grandmother, we had the meeting to get the results of James' psychological evaluation. I thought those results would bring me some semblence of peace. Sadly, I was wrong. They did nothing but aggitate me even more. It seems that now that I know what is wrong about James, I've stuck myself on that.

The difficulties that present themselves in our day to day lives are not any different now that I have that report than they were before I had it. James has not changed one iota since I was handed that sheef of 19 pages detailing the results of the tests and what it all boils down to.

Sadly, the one that has changed is ME. I am stuck on the things he "can't" do, the things he finds "difficult", and even though they are exactly the same as before, I can't let them go. I am beating the dead horse. I always felt that having that report would give me freedom. Freedom to try different things. To look at it and say "Yes, that is what is going on, now I know how to help him!"

The difficult about always being right is that in instances like this, what we have been doing is the right course of action. It's mind numbing and stressful and makes you wish you could smash your head in to the wall. And it seems to make not a damn bit of difference with James. It's the "right" course, it's the one I knew about all along. It's the one I asked to have verified. I so wanted to be wrong this time.

So now I have to get out of the rut I've stuck myself in these past few weeks. I am so angry and frustrated. Not at James per se, but at what he was born with, how he's wired. I want to scream from the tops of the highest mountains about the unfairness of this all. How it's so unfair to saddle a child with this, and to chain his mother to it as well.

Homer told me "I can't believe he is that bad off." He told me I was lying. That I'm a horrible parent. That I don't know what the hell I'm talking about and that HE could definately do a much better job. I know he's an idiot. He can't even MAKE an effort to spend time with his kids. James calls him more often than not. However, I'm already feeling this way, feeling as though I have failed this child miserably, and I'm only making things worse, and here is the stupidest man on the planet (after Katy's dad of coarse) reinforcing all of what I'm going through.

Jason is as dumbfounded as I am. However, Jason also gets "nice" James. I get the constant mean angry chip on his shoulder I hate you because you are the authority James. So he gets some kind of relief.

I've been told that James will never reciprocate on the feelings. When he says things like "I love you" and "I hate you" to him, they are the one and the same. They are buttons to push to get a reaction. He just doesn't understand the difference. This is through no fault of us trying to teach him, it's just how he's wired. Every time I hear "I hate you" and "you are so mean to me" and "you make my life absolutely miserable" and "you hate me and don't want me" even though I KNOW those are buttons, they hurt because they are reinforcing my own doubts, my own fears and feelings regarding him.

I look at him and his outward appearence is that of a "normal" boy. He's very small for his age. He has no muscle on his body. He's stick and bones. But aside from that, he looks "normal". I know looks can be misleading. However, I want him to BE "normal". He never will. I have to find a way to give that up. That desire. Though I don't think I will. I'm rather certain that it will always be there, in the back of my mind.

There are plenty of GOOD things about James. However, I just get caught up in the day to day grind that I forget to pay attention to them. That I forget that sometimes you have to go looking for them. I need to stop, and look for the windmills and tulips and Rembrandts in James. They are there. Once I can find them, then I can share them with him and maybe they will help him in a way like they help me.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you remember that no matter where you land, with a little exploring, there is beauty in every thing and every one.

Another Doctor Appointment Update

I met with a doc yesterday. The female Dr. Rodriguez. I don't know if the two are married or what, after all it seems Rodriguez is a pretty common name, like Johnson and Smith. With both babies being head down, I don't need a c-section. I was also told they CAN do an induction as long as it is "slow". Um, how do you have a "slow" induction?

I have another appointment next friday, which I'll end up taking ALL of the kids to because Jason has to work 8-5, but that's fine, it's just a regular appointment with no extra fancy stuff like ultrasounds or NST's, so I'm not too concerned about it. I need to ask if they'll do an ultrasound to follow up with the position of the babies. I also need to ask what will happen if they both stay head down and the c-section date comes up. Should I plan on being there for that or just let it pass on by? What if I don't go in to labor on my own, and it seems as there is no end in sight? I keep getting told "Oh, you'll have those babies some time around 36 weeks". Well what if that just is not the case?

Jason is supposed to have his vasectomy on the 17th of July, but he is in the process of rescheduling that. I guess they are now looking at dates in October and when that calendar opens up, the woman who does the scheduling will call him and set a date. I would have liked for him to have it done before the babies arrive, however with it being the 17th and things being so unknown about their birth, it's better to reschedule. If this were a single baby birth, I would tell him to keep it and not even worry about it overlapping the birth. I'd be pregnant until the end of August easily then!

My BP is normal again. I was right, it's the automatic machine that does that to me. With the nurse taking it by hand, it was a good 124/70. I have swelling in my feet and fingers, but I'm ok with that, I think that is more from the heat and the fact that my body feels as pregnant as a woman who were 4 weeks overdue

With the babies being over 4 pounds each and I'm now past 33 weeks, the told me that if I go in to labor they won't try to stop it. That was according to this one doc. I might get a completely different story if I were to ask another one. I would like to stay pregnant until the kids leave for Wisconsin, it would just make that a little less stressful. I know I would also like some time alone with Izzy before they arrive. However is it really that wrong of me to hope it happens sooner?I'm SO over this already. I've been waking up each morning with HORRID cramping in my legs, and I've been making sure to get a dose of calcium each day. I drank a decent (12 oz) cup of milk yesterday and no cramps in my legs today, so I need to start making sure I'm doing that every day. The heat is not helping my lovey dovey happy feelings at all!

I know this next month is going to get crazy, but as long as I'm NOT pg through most of it, I'll be OK! I have an open schedule (meaning I can call and schedule any time I feel I need to talk with her)with my therapist, so I'm hoping that with her help I'll be able to handle the breast feeding/pumping to the point that I can get over the hurdle and make it 2nd nature. It's all psychosematic for me, there are no physical inhibitions to it, so thankfully that helps.

Evening Primrose Oil is now a daily thing for me. 1000 mg orally a day and starting tonight I'm going to do the suppository (yes I know family didn't want to read that, sorry for the TMI but it's a risk you take while reading here!) and hope that it really kicks my cervix in to gear. If I can go in to labor on my own and deliver vaginally I know that will really help with my recovery!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and they find that staying cool isn't too hard! Prayers and blessings everyone.

a rambling appt update and other stuff too

I had an appointment and ultrasound this morning. I have an appointment on Friday morning too, but it's more of a formality and meeting with one of the many docs more than anything else.

My weight was 296 so up one pound. That's 5 pounds total gained from my initial weight at 291 at 9 weeks. At that point my home scale said 286, which is what I was before becoming pregnant so I'm equating a 5 pound difference between home and doc office. They took my blood sugar, so they have a base level. The appointment was the MFM side of things and they like to have at least ONE on record. My blood pressure was high at 136/88, but it was also one of those automatic things (which recorded high last week too) and those seem to always come out higher than having a person do it. I think it's a little elevated, but it's also hot and muggy here, so retaining water and the headaches are part and parcel of that. I measured at 44 today. 3 weeks ago it was 38. I forgot to ask this past Friday what I was.

Both babies are currently head down and it seems like they are back to back. Jack's head is in my pelvis where it "should" be and Abbey is trying to edge him out, though she is up a bit higher. That certainly explains the recent increase in pelvic pain and pressure! For at least the last week I've had horrid pain my hips and it has felt like someone was driving their head between my hips and pelvis and shoving them apart. Now I understand it is actually SOMEONES and they are both doing it! They may or may not stay both head down. I need to ask on Friday if they'll do an ultrasound if/when I go in in labor to find out where the babies are laying.

Jack's kidney is fine. The dilation is right at where they worry about it being an issue, and it may in fact be a little smaller because he kept moving they weren't able to get a really good look at it. They want me to do kick counts, but it seems like a joke. How do I keep track of which baby is kicking, especially when they are both in what seems to be CONSTANT motion? Jack is weighing in at 4 pounds and Abbey is 4 pounds and 13 oz. I asked about the size difference, especially considering that up until now they have been really close together, and they are still within a close distance so I'm told that there is no worry there. I had to schedule an appt to go back in 4 weeks and have the babies measured again, however there is high doubt that I will still be pregnant then, so I just had her put me on the schedule for whenever and if it looks like I may make it that point, I'll reschedule it because it is currently set for 7:40 in the morning. Yeah right, I already know there is no way I'd make it to that appointment, not that early in the morning!

I'm going to pick up evening primrose oil and start taking that tonight. I'll start doing the vaginal suppositories next week once I hit 34 weeks. It has the added benefit that it helps stabilize my mood so I get that along with softening the very stubborn cervix. With both babies being head down, it'd be a midwife that delivers if I were to go in to active labor on my own. When I asked a couple months ago, I was told it'd be a midwife checking on me the entire time I was in labor anyway and the doc would only make an appearence once I was moved to the O.R. for the delivery and to "catch", which is something I'm very ok with. Now the trick is for my cervix to actually cooperate and open on it's own and put me in to labor. The contractions my body can do, it seems the cervix is the stubborn part of the equation. Once I get to 34 weeks they won't try to stop any labor and once the cervix gets to 4 cm they would keep me as being in active labor and delivering soon.

I reserved and paid for the kids' train tickets to Wisconsin today. They'll be gone from July 7th to August 4th. The come back date can be changed to a later date if we really need to because the babies are born much later (actually making it to July 31st or there abouts) than what the current thinking is. Honestly it'll be nice to have them gone for that long. It will give me one on one time with Izzy. Also things will be a bit more relaxed and less stressful, at least until the babies are born.

We are doing the final prep stuff to get ready. Jason has the next 3 days off (he had today off as well) so we are going to be focusing on getting our regular laundry caught up (so I can start organizing and getting the kids packed up) as well as getting the newborn and 0-3 month clothes and the baby bedding all washed up. On the agenda as well is getting the last bit of the office reorganized and getting one of the moses basket stands (we only have one, the coffee table will work very well as the other) up and reinforced (it's just 2 bars, one at each end of the basket right now, and are not comfortable with it like that). We need to try out where we are going to put the infant seats in the van. I'm thinking the far back and they can go in and out over the top of the back seat, but we'll see how that works. We'll get those installed once the older kids are gone and we no longer need those seats for them. I would like to sew another moses basket cover (the current 2nd one is fleece and I think it will be much too hot) but I don't know if that will get done or not.

The heat is really killing me, but we'll make it work. I need to pick up some box fans for the upstairs. We are on putting ceiling fans in up there, but right now, we have our focus elsewhere. I would like to get those in before the kids come back, or shortly after that. 2 of the lights up there stopped working anyway and they have to be replaced, so we are just going to buy fan/light combos. We know that having those in the 3 main rooms (boys room, girls room, play room) will really help with the air flow and keeping things cooler up there. Shoving box fans in the windows will help as well. They'll bring in the cooler night air and have the added benefit of keeping Izzy from pushing stuff out of the windows.

I'm thinking that is all for now, I'm going to go veg in front of an A/C unit until it's well after dark and then head to Walmart to pick up some much needed stuff, like stuff for my hospital bag that I need. I told the kids I'd make smoothies at 9, and it's almost then, so that MUST get done.

On a side note, no we haven't done the maternity pics yet. We were both just too wiped out after Jason's folks left last friday to do them. We waited until the last minute when I was pregnant with Izzy (it was just over 41 weeks when we did them).Considering Jason has the next few days off so they WILL get done. It'll give him a reason to hide in the cool basement setting stuff up during the day so once the kids go to bed we can do them.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope your weeks are as mundane and rather same old as mine seems to be. Try to stay cool in this heat.

What a Screwed Up Blessing!

OK, you all know how Jason was laid off in December, the very beginning of December at that? So his old job, the one that laid him off, called him last week Wednesday wanting him to return to work the very next day. They wanted him to drop EVERYTHING and just jump. That just was NOT an option. I had appointments that I had scheduled around his Walmart schedule that I NEEDED to be at, and without the kids if possible. He told them he couldn't start then, he'd need to talk to the manager at Walmart, because Sign Art (the old job) was very unwilling to have him work around his current schedule until he can get a new availability to go through, and see if he can get his schedule changed and the manager was gone until today.

The manager at Walmart isn't willing to adjust what Jason is currently scheduled to accomodate Sign Art, and honestly, I can't blame them. He can put in a change of availability but that won't take affect for about 3 weeks, so until then, Jason would either be working what he is at Walmart and telling Sign Art to wait or working at Sign Art and for the days where the shifts overlap, calling in to Walmart. In the long term, Walmart is the better deal simply because of the stability of the job but also the fact that there is a lot of different ways he can take the job, and management is the ultimate goal.

However, we don't know if him NOT going back to Sign Art will affect his unemployment. It's been 6 months since he was laid off from them, and he's now on an extension of his unemployment, which will last about 33 weeks (20 regular weeks and then 13 bonus weeks because we live in an "overly distressed state"), so some time in to the New Year. Once Jason hits 90 days at Walmart (2 months from now) he can get switched to a different department and work full time.

We KNOW the job at Sign Art is temporary. MAYBE it will cover 3 months. Jason is friends with a guy that still works there and he told jason that honestly, he'd be better off staying with Walmart. However, Jason is only working part time right now, and we can't afford to live on just his part time Walmart pay and my measely child support (my ex is ordered to pay about 175 every two weeks, and only pays about 140, and that's about 1/2 of what he used to pay because he's also unemployed) especially with Jason making $3 less than what he used to. That being said, it took him almost 6 months to find this job and he spent at least 3 of the last 6 months unemployed. He doesn't want to screw himself out of a job and just quit at Walmart because we KNOW that Sign Art will lay him off again.

To us, at least, it would seem that he could tell Sign Art to jump off of a bridge, especially as he is re-employed, but he's NOT employed full time, and even though it's only temporary, they ARE going to give him full time there, and some over time too. So it's all really up in the air right now, and VERY frustrating. My suggestion is to tell Sign Art he can work part time, like on his days off or when he has evening only shifts until he can get the new change of availability in to effect.

Prayers and blessings everyone, I really hope that your daily lives are not nearly as convoluted as those going on here!