Flip-Flopper

There are Republican primary races happening today, but this post is not about Mitt Romney. No, it's about our little, contrary Baby B!  If you recall, at my 32 week perinatologist appointment, Baby B was breech, and the doctor said she was unlikely to flip at this point in the pregnancy.  So at my 33 week appointment with the OB, I scheduled my c-section and spent the whole week coming to terms with the idea of surgery.  Then, at my 34 week appointment last week with the perinatologist, Baby B had flipped to head down!  (Other notable things about this appointment - Baby A measured 5lbs., 2oz and Baby B measured 4lbs., 14oz.  My cervix was at 4cm, which is good, the babies had a good amount of fluid, and the cord blood flow looked good.  So all in all, very good appointment!)  The doctor said baby was even less likely to flip back to breech, since the head is the heaviest part, gravity tends to keep it down once it is down.  So, like the crazy researcher I am, I spent a week reading up on vaginal delivery with twins, what to expect, the risks, and all that jazz.  With both babies head down, it is up to us whether to try for a normal delivery or opt for a surgical delivery (c-section).  After talking Cody's ear off about it, we decided to try for the vaginal delivery, and I started to get a little excited about the prospect of no surgical recovery.

So you know where this is going right?  I had my 35 week appointment with the OB today.  I spent the first 30 minutes of the appointment asking her 20 questions about twin vaginal deliveries and what to expect.  Then she went to measure my belly and said, as she pressed the measuring tape into the top of my uterus up near my rubs......"I hate to break this to you, but this feels like a head to me."  A quick ultrasound confirmed that Baby B had flipped yet again!  Honestly, I felt some big movements just yesterday, so I wasn't totally shocked.  But come on!  I thought for sure I would know by now what my delivery options are going to be.  So we kept the scheduled c-section on the books, and will keep an eye on Baby B's position.  At this point, nobody wants to say that it is unlikely she will flip, since she appears to have plenty of room in there to spin around!  Honestly, my biggest fear is that I will deliver Baby A and then Baby B will flip and have to come out via c-section, leaving me with all kinds of recovering to do.  Since it looks like she flips easily and often, I am leaning a bit toward going with the scheduled c-section regardless of her position.  We'll see! 

Everything else was good at the appointment, blood pressure is still low, weight gain is good at 42lbs., and the babies were fine.  I signed all the necessary consent forms and had my group B strep test (which matters not at all if I have a c-section, and just means I need a few hours of IV antibiotics before a vaginal delivery).  I am 1cm dilated, which for a second-time mom means nothing about going into labor any time soon, so no big news there.  I go back to both doctors next week for my 36 week appointments.  The perinatologist appointment will probably be my last with that Dr. K, as long as everything looks normal, they will just release me fully to my OB for delivery of the babes.  We have, at most, 24 days until delivery - so soon!

I have many more things to post about this week including Charlie's trip to the circus, his fun times with Nana and Grandpa visiting, his recent decision not to nap, the lovely baby tea my mom and sister threw to celebrate the wee ones, nursery preparations, and more.  Now though, I am off to watch the election returns with the hubby.  We are not republicans, just political nerds...

Charlie is 2 Years Old!

Happy Birthday Charlie!  Today Charlie turned two years old, admittedly without much fanfare.  As I've mentioned, we are postponing the festivities a bit, plus little man has been running a low grade fever for the past few days.  We thought we might get out for a play date, but little sicky wasn't up for it, and he must be sick because he wouldn't even eat a birthday cupcake today.  He has his 2 year well visit with his pediatrician tomorrow, so he will get checked out then.

Needless to say, Charlie wasn't in the mood for an official 2 year old photo today, and frankly, I've been feeling a bit feverish myself, so I didn't lug out the camera.  These are some more recent phone photos we have of Charlie just being silly and having fun with us around the house.

We don't hunt or wear much camo in our house, but Charlie loved this hat that Cody got at a charity event.

Creepy mustache goes surprisingly well with ivy league attire.

Charlie at 2 years old is such an awesome little dude!  I hear the twos are terrible, and the threes are even worse, but we haven't had that experience too much yet.  Our main observations about Charlie these days are all amazement.  He is truly learning at warp speed and the child just won't stop talking.  He narrates our days, letting us know exactly what he sees at all times.  It definitely is still charming and cute, but I am starting to see a time in our future where we will just wish he would stop talking for a minute!  He is stringing together multiple complex thoughts and is generally able to hold up his end of a conversation.  

It seems like just yesterday he was learning to say "bye bye" and "mama" and now he greets me with "Hello Mommy" and tells me "Charlie go GaGa's house, see Deucey, play golf."  He picks up dozens of words a day and seems to remember most of them.   His articulation is still a little kooky sometimes, but I think Linda, Cody, and I can understand about 90% or more of what he says.  People who don't talk to him daily could probably understand maybe 70%, he can be very clear about he wants!  He says words like stethoscope and xylophone quite clearly.  He is picking up concepts and making connections.  He has a little doctor kit and he will say "Stethoscope, listen heart. Listen babies' hearts, make noise."  This is because I am paranoid and have a fetal doppler so that I can listen to the twins' heartbeats.  Charlie wanted to see how it worked once and now he loves to "listen babies' hearts make noise."  I was amazed that when we told him you could hear his heart with the stethoscope, his brain immediately made the connection to the noise we listen to on the doppler being the babies' hearts.  Of course some of the connections he makes are pretty funny - we have told him that his Nana and Grandpa are coming this weekend on an airplane and we will see animals at the circus.  He has internalized that to mean that Nana and Grandpa are coming to "go airplane park and go zoo, see animals."  Hopefully the weather is good, because I think he really expects that they will take him to the airplane park (near our house) and to the zoo!  I have no idea if all this is normal or advanced for his age, but it's just amazing to see development like this in front of our very eyes, regardless of when!

Speech and his verbal skills are really the big changes these days, though he continues to be all boy on a physical level.  He loves all sports and takes great joy in kicking the soccer ball, playing catch with his football(s), playing with his little golf set, and trying desperately to dribble a basketball.  He loves to be outside, and wearing himself out at the park or even just on our deck.  The kid can hit a ball of his little tee with some serious force!  Indoors, his favorites are trucks, trains, planes, cars, and building things.  We read a bunch of books every day, with the Curious George series being a current favorite.

We'll get more info tomorrow from the pediatrician, but I suspect he will tell us that Charlie is still a skinny little dude.  He is not the best eater and is super active and on the move.  This combination does not a chubby kiddo make!  He is only just now starting to wear a size 4 diaper and still wears a combination of 18m and 24m clothes.  Given the way spring and summer clothes fit him, I feel like he won't be in 2T until the fall!  He does have some favorite foods, and will pretty reliably eat a variety of breakfast options - waffles, english muffins, pancakes, eggs, oatmeal (which he calls oats, so cute).  Other than that, he subscribes heavily to the Toddler Diet of peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese, fruit, bread, and pretty much anything in nugget form.  Even pasta can be hit or miss, which I think is strange.  He typically eats a solid breakfast and lunch, decent snacks (again Toddler Diet staples like yogurt, fruit, raisins, peanut butter on crackers, cheese), and basically no dinner.  We continue to try to offer him whatever we are having and hopefully some day he will start eating more than a bite or two!  He is doing really well at eating with utensils and drinking out of a regular cup (of course we only do this at meal times, I think my preference would be for him to use a closed straw cup when unrestrained until he turns 18 - I know it would be better for the furniture!).

Charlie continues to be a champion sleeper, giving us a solid 12 hours at night (7:30 to 7:30) and a very reliable afternoon nap that usually lasts right at 2 hours.  He still has his pacifier for sleep time only, and sleeps in his crib.  I suppose someday we will have to yank the paci and move him to a big boy bed, but I'm not about to mess with a good thing right before the twins arrive and wreak havoc on our sleep themselves. He spits the paci out shortly after he falls asleep, so hopefully it isn't creating any orthodontic issues.  If he could maintain his sleeping habits until we get the twins sleeping through the night, that would be amazing! Fingers crossed.

I know this all probably sounds like I am painting an overly rosy picture of the boy, but he truly is the light of our lives, and the wonderful, amazing things about him far outweigh the toddler craziness.  Don't get me wrong, we DO have tantrums, and he has distinctly unreasonable moments (tonight he was temporarily distraught because he so badly wanted to "help Daddy work" - aka help Cody put together twin nursery furniture.  Total meltdown ensued upon learning that there was just no more furniture to assemble!).  Much more often we have a sweet little guy who is a pleasure to be around.  Of course, I am not exactly spry right now, and am excused from chasing him around the house, so maybe Linda and Cody have a different take!

So that's a little snap shot of Charlie at 2 years old.  We, of course, think he is the greatest thing ever, though we work hard not to show it all of the time - for example, time outs are less effective if you are visibly laughing at how brilliantly your child is acting up.  I do have the normal mommy sadness that my little man is growing up so fast - it is really hard to believe it has been 2 whole years since he was born!  It is a little extra sad to think that we are closing a little chapter of our lives where Charlie is our one and only.  We know that with the twins, everything will change, and there will be new challenges, new difficulties, and also wonderful new things.  I guess everything would change even without the twins coming, but it does seem like this will be a particularly abrupt change for Charlie! He's had a good two year run being the center of our little world, and I know he will learn to share.  Happy Birthday Charlie! We love you so much!

Another Week Down

I had my regular OB check-up today and all is well in babyville.  Evidently my refocused effort on weight gain has paid off, and I went from a month-long plateau to gaining 6lbs. in two weeks.  Hopefully the large amounts of meat I have been eating and the protein shakes I've been downing are going straight to the little ones, it is time for them to start plumping up!  Given that I have been having a bit of swelling, plus the weight gain, I was a little concerned that my blood pressure might be creeping up, but luckily it is still nice and low, no protein in urine, etc.  It seems like a common reason for early delivery of twins (particularly between 32-36 weeks) is high blood pressure and other signs of pre-eclampsia, so I am a little nervous about that prospect.  The fact that I didn't have those issues with Charlie is a good sign though, and so far so good.

My belly is measuring full term for a singleton, and I am not surprised by this at all!  In order to get into the passenger seat of our car, Cody has to back it fully out of our one car garage because otherwise the door won't open wide enough for me to get my belly through!  For this reason, and because I can't walk more than 20 yards without getting winded, the OB gladly granted my request for a temporary disability parking placard today.  I'm not out and about much, but this will make my few errands and doctor appointments much easier.

Everything else was fine, babies' heartbeats were strong and it seems like stubborn Baby B is still breech.  Can't be totally certain without an ultrasound (I will have another one next week), but the OB thought based on what she could feel and the location of the heart beat, that she is still head up. That is consistent with some of the low kicks I have been feeling a lot lately too.  Because all the doctors seem to think the likelihood of her flipping is so low, I went ahead and got on Dr. K's surgery schedule for a c-section at 38 weeks (supposedly the optimal gestation for twin delivery).  Of course, if the little munchkin decides to flip we can always just convert to an induction.  I feel like the scheduling is largely aspirational, as the majority of twin moms go into labor before 38 weeks, but now I have a date to shoot for, so that's good.  I am a nerd and like goal-setting, so it helps me psychologically.  This way I can mentally prepare for the surgery (about which I am terrified, but that's a whole other post), and if the stars happen to align for a vaginal delivery, then we'll try that.

In non-twin news, this is Charlie's big birthday week!  We are celebrating in a sort of unconventional way.  I decided that planning and executing a toddler birthday party at 33 weeks pregnant with twins was a fairly terrible idea, so no party.  I will be bringing cupcakes to Charlie's school on Wednesday, and then on his actual birthday, on Thursday, we will "celebrate" in some low key manner (thinking I will just get him some balloons?).  Then, when our families are in town to meet the twins, they will bring him his presents and we'll get a cake and do the whole bigger birthday thing then. I'm thinking he will love being showered with attention after the babies arrive, and we will have a Very Merry UnBirthday just for him. 

Oh, and we are also taking him to the circus this weekend, so that will be fun.  I have been keeping open the option of not going myself if I was feeling too terrible, but as of today, I think I can manage the circus for an hour or two if I just sit the whole time.  Charlie may need to get up and roam the lobby area a bit, but somebody else will have to follow!  His Nana and Grandpa are coming for a visit this weekend, so they and Cody's mom (who is now known as GaGa in case you hadn't noticed - just goes to show you can choose a grandma name, but it is no guarantee the little bugger will use it!) will also be with us.  We have been reading circus books in preparation for the show, so I hope he likes it.

That's pretty much the update!  I am resting as much as possible, but also working on the nursery, doing a bunch of freezer meals for when the babies arrive, and trying to mentally prepare for total chaos to descend - posts on those topics to come!

Twinny Twin Twins

Clearly I am no longer wearing this shirt in public, but figured I will keep wearing it for these belly shots for the sake of comparison.  Also, I no longer care about the state of my hair or make-up in these photos, you can expect to see me back to my nicely kempt self sometime in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Back from another specialist appointment for the twins, and they are doing well!  I guess I can't be offended when people give me "the look" now.  "The look" comes in various forms.  Coming from a woman with children it is a mix of pity and nostalgia, it says "oh I remember being full term and it was damn miserable, but aww, baby is coming soon."  Coming from younger women without children it is a mix of horror and fascination, it says "could that happen to me? do bodies really stretch that far? maybe surrogacy is underrated."  And from men, "the look" is straight up fear, it says "please God don't let this woman go into labor in my presence."  They look especially frightened when I encounter them in my work elevator.

Anyway, the look is totally warranted now, as I am carrying 8lbs. of baby.  Baby A was estimated today at 4lbs., 1oz., and Baby B was estimated at 3lbs., 15oz.  So 8lbs. of baby, which is 3oz. more than Charlie weighed at birth.  Plus an extra placenta and amniotic fluid.  So I have officially reached the point where I am starting to look less like a normal pregnant lady (just further along) and more like a freak of nature. Yay!  My weight gain has plateaued at about 35 or 36lbs., so I have redoubled my efforts to pack on a few more extra pounds before these babies arrive.  In theory, they should each gain a half pound every week from here on out, so my stomach is about to go through some more serious growing!

The babies looked healthy, cervix was still good, and plenty of fluid around the munchkins, so that is basically what they are checking for at these appointments, aside from growth.  I will now go to the specialist appointments every other week, and my OB appointments probably every week starting next week, so they can check for the mama-related issues, like blood pressure, infections, etc. Time is really ticking down, and these babies will be here before we know it.  Six weeks left at most!

I should mention that they also check the babies' positions at these ultrasound appointments.  For the past week or so I had been thoroughly convinced that both babies were head down, and had talked myself into all the good things about having a vaginal delivery, the main thing being a shorter recovery time.  Well, it was abundantly clear today that what I thought was Baby B's little bottom up in my lung is actually her head.  So uncooperative!  Baby A is still head down.  Dr. K said he thought there was about a 30% chance of B flipping before delivery, so it is still a possibility, but I should be preparing myself for the strong likelihood of a c-section.  I really have a good pro and con list going for each type of delivery (I will get to choose if both are head down), so I am okay with either option.  I just don't like uncertainty!

I also got the official work stoppage note today, so I will be totally done working, behind the scenes or otherwise, as of Friday.  I have been mostly wrapping up administrative stuff here and there lately, and answering any questions that might pop up about my transitioned client matters, so I haven't been overdoing it or anything.  I will say, I was initially skeptical about the general advice that twin moms should stop working early, but I am totally on board now!  I feel so much better and have so many fewer contractions when I am not working.  No matter how little you plan to work as an attorney, the client service aspect is always somewhat stressful, it just comes with the territory.  So it feels really good to have that stress lifted and to focus on the babies and Charlie and just resting up for the big events ahead of us.

As for me, I am still feeling vaguely miserable, but am in pretty good spirits.  I just have to acknowledge that I can't really do a lot of things at this point and not try, or I get way overtired and feel like a bus has run me over.  The things that make me the most tired are any kind of shopping, so I am done shopping, even though it would normally be a favorite activity!  I am okay going places if I can get out of the car and walk directly to a seated position, but meandering around the mall is just not a possibility.

Unfortunately this means I am also missing out on Charlie's adventures with his daddy on the weekends, because I can't do the required walking to go to the zoo or the aquarium or the park.  Charlie sweetly seems to understand my situation, and will bring me books to read to him while I am lying down, and will sit with me and watch Sesame Street for a bit in the mornings.  He does sometimes command "Mommy get up, play soccer!"  But when I tell him I have to sit, he will revise the command to "Mommy watch Charlie, Gaga play soccer!" or content himself to play catch with me, which I can do from the couch.  He kisses the babies every night and is a real sweet pea.  Logically I know that he won't remember this relatively brief time period where mommy was constantly resting and not being any fun, but it is still hard! I know it won't get better right away, especially with potential c-section recovery time, then nursing the babies and sleep deprivation, but I am looking forward to being able to be a bit more active with him.

Stall Tactics

Watching Charlie learn new things is my favorite thing about being a parent.  You know you are a brain-washed mommy when you even think it is cute that your child is learning to manipulate you.  Charlie's latest talent is for stalling bed time.  I thought we had a ways to go before the stereotypical glass of water routine, but apparently not.  Charlie now has about 20 different stall tactics in his repertoire.  From the basic - asking for "one more" book or song about 10 times - to the clever - not being able to "find Elmo's blanket" on any of the pages in our "Where is Elmo's Blanket?" book, even though he memorized the location of said blanket on each page months ago.  Anything to make pre-bed storytime last longer!  He has a list of things he would like to do before going upstairs.  He now refuses to choose his pajamas, changing his mind every 10 seconds until I am over it and give him a 5 count to choose before I choose.  On the nights we do bath before bed, he bolts away from us after getting dried off, running around naked like a wild animal to avoid being diapered and put in pajamas.  Let me tell you, it is really hard to keep a straight or stern bedtime face with a little nudie twirling, jumping, running, and rolling all over the upstairs den.  Sometimes he will wiggle his bottom during all this mayhem and say "Jiggle buns!", which he learned from his Nana.  Usually during these episodes, Cody and I just look at each other wide eyed until Cody says, "Can you imagine this with three???"

Charlie is 23 months old!

**Confession: I started this post 2 weeks ago and never finished, so let's all pretend this update is from mid-January.

I haven't been keeping up with monthly updates, but wanted to squeeze one in before the big 2 year birthday.  I know photos are the preferred content on this blog, so I've included some of the professional photos we had taken in November with the lovely and talented Amy Lee (photographer, friend, and next door neighbor).  I can't get over how he is looking almost like a full-fledged little boy with so little baby left in him. Sad!

I am so proud of the little boy he is becoming though.  He continues to have such a sweet disposition, and it is so fun to interact with him like the tiny human he is.  His verbal skills have continued to explode over the past month, and we now have two-sided conversations with him all the time.  He can answer pretty much any question we ask him and he has started speaking in sentences.  Lots of those sentences are still commands, but "Daddy, read a book," "Mommy, sit on floor," "Go to GaGa's house, Deuce hides," and "Super Grover fly in sky"  all come to mind as some of his more recent longer sentences, so he is also starting to describe things to us, as opposed to just ordering us around.  He will tell us about his day if we ask, but he is not the most reliable narrator.  I guess he is a people-pleaser, because he likes to answer lots of  questions affirmatively, but the grown-up involved cannot always confirm!  Example:

Me:  Were there lots of other kids at the park?

Charlie: Yes! (with vigorous head nodding)

Me: Is that true Daddy?

Cody: We were the only people there.

He does tell us the names of his teachers and classmates from school, can tell us what he ate for various meals, and is *quite* effective at communicating what he wants.  My favorite sentence he says is "I love you" and he has even said it to me unsolicited as opposed to when I say it first - it totally melts my heart, and I think he really does know what it means! As much as a toddler can anyway....

I am knocking on wood, but his behavior has been pretty good lately, and we've seen a decrease in tantrums, maybe as a result of being able to communicate better with words.  He will still have freak out moments when he can't do or have exactly what he wants when he wants, but they are not typically of the unconsolable, throwing himself on the floor variety.  Those happen occasionally, but are few and far between.  He is very sweet, and generous with hugs, kisses, and high-fives.

We continue to talk about the babies, and they continue to be an abstract concept to him.  I don't expect him to understand until they get here, but I do feel like it helps to talk about them.  He likes to push his twin baby dolls around in his shopping cart, and will occasionally tell us they need a diaper change or want to feed them.  He hugs my belly and knows the babies are in there.  I have just started specifically explaining to him that when the babies are ready to come out, they will come live with us.  We've shown him the two cribs and told him the babies will sleep there, so I think some of it is sinking in.  We let him choose which baby would go in which crib.  Regardless I know it will be a shock to him, so I am savoring all of our Charlie-mommy moments as much as possible, bracing for change.  Our bedtime routine typically involves Cody reading the story, and then Cody says good night and goes downstairs while I sing Charlie a song or two or three.  Those few minutes are my favorite part of the day.  Depending on his mood and how sleepy he is, Charlie will sing along, or snuggle me, or act silly during song time, but he is always so sweet.  I can't believe we are about to have a two year old!

Update on me: I am technically supposed to be starting my maternity leave today, but will probably need a few more days to wrap some administrative things up.  But I am done with clients, their fire drills, and billable work.  Of course, I am torn about this to some extent.  While it is always nice to get a break from work, I do like my job and I think I have accidentally wrapped up a lot of my identity in being a lawyer and a working mom.  Add that to the fact that I am an admitted control freak, and it is a bit hard to let go.  I've also purposefully not made specific plans as to when I will return, since I have no idea how crazy or not crazy things will be with the twins.  Definitely there is part of me that thinks a nice long leave would be great, and another part of me thinks I will be begging to go back to my nice, quiet, private, office as soon as possible.  I guess we'll just have to see!