Monthly Archives: July 2012

I guess 34 weeks is a milestone.  So say the nurses who do my twice-weekly non-stress tests.  Then, yesterday at my final perinatologist appointment (yay!), when I told the doctor that my hospital suitcase is not yet packed, she said “Wow, that’s pretty brave to be 34 weeks pregnant with twins and not have anything packed.”   She asked me what I would do if, right then and there, she sent me to the hospital to be admitted?

It may be time for me to face reality, eh?  So I came home yesterday and began getting things together. Nothing is  in the suitcase yet, but things are out, arranged, and ready to go into the suitcase.

I think I’m in a sort of denial phase.  Maybe I’ve felt so huge and pregnant for so long that part of my brain is convinced that this will never change.  Partly though, too, my physical capacity to do things is now so incredibly diminished that the seemingly simple act of getting clothes from the closets and dressers and laying them out on the bed is quite overwhelming and I end up panting and needing to lie down in no time.

Aside from my denial and physical inability to do much at any given time, things are good:

*  Baby Boy’s approximate weight is 5 pounds 8 oz and Baby Girl is 4 pounds 12 oz.  If they hold out a  few more weeks, they should be nice and plump (relatively speaking).

* My blood pressure is nice and low, I still have no edema and my cervix is in good shape.

*  I have gained about 50 pounds this pregnancy (5 pounds during the past 2 weeks alone!).  Although part of me shudders at the thought, I know that my weight is reflected in the babies’ nice weights.

* The non-stress tests have gone wonderfully.  There was one day when Baby Boy had 2 heart rate drops, so they sent me immediately for an ultrasound to check his fluid level.  It turned out to be just fine, so I will overlook the fact that the crazy woman who pushed my wheelchair to the ultrasound room located on the other side of the hospital crashed my wheelchair into a gurney along the way, nearly lurching me out of the chair!

* I have been Amazon and Target online shopping like crazy (fun, fun, fun!).  We have baby books, a few bottles to have on hand, I got myself a maternity nightgown and a few maternity dresses (to keep cool in for the rest of the summer after the babies are born but before I’ve regained my girlish figure), and even a fun shirt for Scout.  Online shopping is the best.

Finally, in other news….

No, we don’t have names yet.  I’m a bit frustrated about that, but finally last night DH and I tossed around names seriously for the first time (he has not been very engaged in this pregnancy, any of the planning or any of the actual preparation activities – grrr).  We are having the hardest time coming up with a girl’s name.  I want it to be sweet and feminine, not grossly popular, and a name that would fit a little girl as well as a future female CEO. Plus, my DH’s last name is horribly difficult to work with.  Even he said (jokingly) that we ought to change the last name.  I’m stumped.  Honestly, I adore names like Emily Grace and would choose it in a heartbeat if I didn’t think that she’d be one of 6 Emily  Grace’s in her kindergarten class.  So we will have to keep plugging away.

Here’s a 34 week photo:

That’s what a woman in the OB’s waiting room said to me yesterday.

I guess I am starting to look that way to other people.  My experiences of late have been a bit odd.

I feel generally okay, except that my ribs feel like they’re being crushed when I lie down, and sometimes there is so much pressure on my pelvis that I wonder whether a baby body part is about to fall out, and at times my back muscles feel like a twisted, wet towel.  Oh, and the most *interesting* sensation of all happened last night – the babies decided to simultaneously move in opposite directions.  I envisioned two little Michael Phelps standing back-to-back and each diving head-first toward the opposite sides of my belly.  Suddently there were two, round, HUGE lumps – one on each side of my belly.  Ow!  I patted and massaged the lumps till they settled down and moved back together.  Good grief, that was both weird and painful.

Did I mention that 37 days from today is my scheduled c-section?

My belly is measuring at 39 weeks.  No, we still don’t have names for the babies, but I did read and draft a 3-page outline on a book entitled “Twelve hours of sleep by 12 weeks.”  The babies are allowed some leeway for the first 8 weeks, and then, it’s boot camp for them.  Scout got the luxury of a softie mama, rushing to meet his every whimper.  After reading enough twin blogs and realizing that having a dependable schedule has made all the difference is Scout’s life, the new babies will be on a schedule as soon as posssbile.

I needed to go to Target for a few things and my good friend went with me.  She showed me the “scooter-with-a-basket” they have available for disabled folks.  Okay, I thought, I’ll give this a whirl because I seriously can’t make it walking through the store, but honestly I was a bit embarrassed.  Particularly when I nearly took down two racks of clothing.  I got a few questionable looks from other shoppers.  But hey, those scooters are not easy to drive or navigate!  It reminded me of learning to drive a stick shift.  I’m chalking it up to a novel experience, but hope I don’t need to use one of those things again.

Oh, and one final interesting experience.  I busted a bra strap yesterday.  No kidding.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  Being my frugal self, I don’t want to spend $30/bra on new (read: bigger) bras that I will probably only get a couple of months of use out of.  I have some nursing bras, but otherwise, I’ve just been cramming myself into my usual 36B’s.  (And I will confess that pre-pg, 36B was a bit roomier than I needed).  Now, though, my cups runneth over, if you know what I mean.  So there I was, wearing my pretty, black, lacy 36B, showing quite a bit of new-found cleavage.  Sometime in the middle of the day I felt a snap or pop or something, but didn’t think much of it.  Then it felt like my right bra strap was slipping down my shoulder and I thought I needed to adjust the strap.  When I reached down the shirt to find the strap, the end of the strap that attaches to the front of the bra remained in place, but the tail end (which should have been attached to the back of the bra) came out, loose in my hand, rather like a shoe lace. Now that’s embarrassing!  What the heck do you do with a loose bra strap (and suddenly sagging boob)?  Maybe it’s time to splurge for some bras that fit, eh?

Yes, indeed, I am about done, I think.

31 weeks.

Scout (soon-to-be-big-brother) and me, his mama, in our toy-trashed back yard.