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8 weeks old

2 Oct

  
The Scooter Pies are 8 weeks old!  

  
Zeke is now 10 pounds 7 ounces and 21 and 3/8 inches long.

  
This is Zeke.
Skeeter is now 11 pounds 5 ounces and 22 and 1/4 inches long.

  

This is Skeeter.  It is great to watch them fill out and get chubby.  

  
This is Skeeter.

I suspect that Skeeter has dimples, but until he starts really smiling and not just chuckling in his sleep (so cute!) I won’t know for sure.  

They are still in the stage my mom called the “rag doll stage”.  Their heads are floppy and they are totally dependent on me for everything and they are not very interactive yet.  I love this stage.  I do feel like I’m playing dress up as I put on the cute onsies and outfits my family and friends gave us and take pictures for Grandma to see on Facebook.  

  
This is Zeke.

The Scooter Pies have begun to make eye contact.  They gaze into my eyes when I feed them with a compelling intensity that leads to minutes long staring matches many times daily.  

Like I feared, they are sleeping for much shorter amounts of time than they did for their first six weeks. And hard as I try to put them down at the same time, they rarely both comply , so I don’t get to take advantage of the sleep as much.

It has happened more than once that I never get to lie down for the night but just rotate babies until it is time to wake the big kids up for school.  

  
This is my bed at 5:30 this morning.  Yes, Toddler Bean had a nightmare or something and needed some snuggles in the middle of the night as well.  The resident Captain is off playing soldier for 3 nights and 3 days, it’s all on me.

  
Feeding the Scooter Pies remains my all consuming focus.  

I’ve always been in the camp of “Breastfeeding is best, but don’t judge other moms.”

My current experience has laid a lot of emphasis on that DONT JUDGE part.

Currently the Scooter Pies get half their sustinence the way nature intended and half their food is formula a.k.a. gold dust.

I still hold out hope that they will move over to all “Mommy Milk” but after 8 weeks of best efforts, I’m no longer emotionally attached to that outcome, and I’m not allowing my failures to make me crazy or get me down.  Because I’m doing the best I can and I know it. 
I know I could increase my milk supply if I hooked myself up to the milking machine every 2-3 hours without fail. (At least all the blogger Moms of Mulitiples who successfully exclusively breastfed or exclusively pumped and fed their twins for the first 2 years of their lives promise me I can).   But I physically cannot manage to do it that often because I’m either holding crying babies or saving the fridge contents from Baby/Toddler/Hurricane Beana or have fallen into narcaleptic sleep coma.  And then there is the issue of I’m not the new young mom that they all are.  I’m a 36 year old mom of 9.  This old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be.

So if these little Scooter Pies figure out what’s good for them, it could still  happen because all the feeding time would be slashed in half.  

Occasionally they get it right and it is the best:

  
But if not, that will be okay to.  

Thirty Days of Real Life

2 Oct

My cousin started doing “real life” posts in Facebook. As in not just the pretty ideal moments of life but the unpretty ones too.  Today it suddenly seemed like a fun idea.  

I just want to point out though that lots of times people talk about being “honest” and “real” and they mean they are going to tell you all the bad stuff.  But telling all the bad and leaving out all the good is not honest either.  Life is a beautiful mess of good and bad.  

So here’s my real life today:

Here Banana Cream Pie and Hurricane Beana are eating apples for breakfast which they got for themselves while I fed and burped 2 babies (8 weeks old today!) 

 
Hurricane Beana also helped herself to the Cheerios and milk that the school kids left out this morning. Yes there are Cheerios floating in the milk jug. She woke up after I had fallen back asleep with the twins.  Someone left the baby gate open, so she had access to the kitchen.

Those of you who know how I feel about healthy vs. processed food will know that just the fact that there are Cheerios in the house means I’ve let a lot go for the present.

But, you know what?  It’s okay.  The kids have food to eat.  The floor really needed to be mopped anyway.

#30DRL

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16 Sep
Zeke
Skeeter
Baby piles are better than dog piles

My Scooter Pies are Three Weeks Old

27 Aug

  
Zeke and Skeeter are three weeks old.

They have both surpassed their birthweight.  Zeek is now 6 lbs 8 oz.  Skeeter is now 7 lbs 5 oz.    What a fatty!  He is now as big as she who used to be my smallest baby ever.  

My little Scooter Pies.

scotter_pie_twin_1

(They come in a twin pack, get it?  ha ha, I kill me.)

So how are things?  pretty good and sometimes not.  Usually I get a few hours of sleep at night.  A couple times last week I thought to myself, twins are pretty easy.  If I only had the twins to take care of, life would be a breeze. Then it gets really hard and I’m all overwhelmed and weepy. People ask what they can do to help and I don’t know what to say.  I’m either optimistic and feel like I don’t need help or so devastated that I can’t think of solutions.

Toddler Bean is still hard to wrangle, because she quietly sneaks off to do naughty things while I can’t do anything about it.  But I think I’ve outsmarted her on at least one thing.  I put all the kitchen stools in the garage so she can’t use them to climb up and get in the cupboard or play in the kitchen sink.  

What??!!! Toddler Bean just magically fell asleep at a normal nap time(on the floor).

  
Banana Cream Pie is asleep too!

  
I think I will nap too.

We are the napping house.  Please bless it lasts for an hour.

Taking Care of Twins and A Little House Elf Magic

18 Aug

Taking care of twins is not what I imagined. I read lots of other moms of multiples blogs, but all of those Moms were either first time moms, or they had a toddler and then twins.

 I have 7 other children, so I knew my experience would be different from theirs, but I wasn’t sure HOW it would be different.

  
These little sweetie pies are just the best.  They sure are fun to hold and admire, but I haven’t had as much time as I usually get for doing so.

First off, they still aren’t very good at nursing, so I’m still making lots of bottles.  That means I don’t hold the twins as much as I would usually get to hold a new baby.  I miss that.  I’m attempting to remedy it.

  
Zeke is still clearly hungry.  Mm mm. Bacon.

Secondly, I’m not nearly as exhausted as they all said I would be.  The twins often sleep for at least one 4 hour chunk of time at night.  In fact, all they do is sleep and eat.  Possibly this is because they are preemies.  Possibly they will start waking up more and I will have less “not feeding the twins” time.

That’s probably likely.  Already my time falls into only 2 categories: feeding time, and not feeding time.  So far those times seem about equal.  But like I said, the twins sleep a lot for now.

My older kids are super helpful.  They have house chores to keep things running (like unload the dishwasher, fold laundry, set the table).  They are capable of putting casseroles in the oven (I had 30 made and frozen before the twins were born, plus kind friends and family have been bringing more).  They can chop veggies for salad.  They love to hold the twins and feed them bottles.  Thanks to those big kids, the house is pretty clean and the laundry is not behind. I didn’t expect it to run so smoothly.

Even Banana Cream Pie, who is only 3, can hold a bottle for a baby to drink.


Fourth, I didn’t imagine the large impact that even small health troubles would have.  My twins only had trouble with blood sugar levels, keeping warm, and jaundice.  It’s not like they had to be in the NICU.  But it was stuff I had never had to deal with or worry about before.  

I didn’t realize how demoralizing having to stay extra days in the hospital would be.  

I didn’t realize how time consuming extra tests would be.  Skeeter had high bilirubin levels and had to be on a bili-light for this whole week.  I had to take him to the hospital lab every day to have his blood checked to see if the bilirubin  level had gone down.

The first day wasn’t so bad because my big kids were home to help.

The second day was their first day of school.

By the time I had loaded Banana Cream Pie and Baby Bean and Zeke and Skeeter into the van, I was so overwhelmed I was crying.  And then I realized that I was still wearing my pajamas.  

Obviously hormones had something to do with the crying, but leaving the house with a new baby is always hard.  I generally do not even attempt it until my new baby is 4-6 weeks old.  ( I try to avoid unnecessary exposure to germs).  

Attempt to leave the house before the baby is a week old, multiply by 2, and add a toddler and a preschooler.  Well, that was a lot to handle.  It took me over an hour just to get us all dressed and buckled into the car.  Then there was the hour at the hospital.  (Lucky for me I have a friend who lives right next to the hospital, and she kindly kept Banana Cream and Bean during that hour.) Then I had to repeat The whole process 5   more times over the week until Skeeter’s test finally showed his levels had gone down significantly.

(P.S.  If they ever send you and your baby home with a Bili-blanket and tell you it doesn’t matter whether you put the light on the baby’s stomach or on their back, this is FALSE.  Start with it on their stomach.  If the jaundice doesn’t improve, alternate stomach then back.  But don’t just put it on the baby’s back because that is easiest and think you are good. I’m pretty sure we could have shortened our ordeal by 2-3 days if I had started out with the light on his stomach.)

What I figured would be difficult, but didn’t realize how difficult, is taking care of the twins plus my 20 month old, Baby Bean.  I guess she is now Toddler Bean.

Never have I had such a naughty, busy getting into things, toddler to keep track of in addition to a new baby(s).

Always before, my toddler was pretty happy to sit by me on the couch while I took care of the new baby.

HOUSE ELF MAGIC

My sister has 6 boys born in the last 8 years.  Each of her boys is very smart, and that means each boy has been very busy being naughty and getting into things and creating big messes.  I don’t know how my sister manages the stress of trying to keep up with her toddler(s) when she has a new baby. 

 I guess she just does what she has to do.  

All of the experienced mothers (including my own mother) whom I have asked for advice, sort of shrug and say, “I don’t really remember how I did it when I had all those preschoolers at home.”

It’s the magic of moms, I think.

Remember when Harry Potter asks Kreacher how he escaped from the zombie filled sea cave, and Kreacher can’t explain?  

He just did it because he had to.

I think moms are like that.  Moms often cannot explain how they do what they do.  But they do it because it must be done, and they love their families enough that they find a way.

THE DESTRUCTION THAT IS BEAN

Without fail, Zeke and Skeeter will both be crying–needing new diapers (and new dry clothes) and to be fed.  I will be in the process of attending to them, when I will hear the sound of a kitchen stool being dragged across the tile floor downstairs.  It is like the herald of doom.  It is BEAN.


Bean already tried tasting the cayenne pepper and ground white pepper from the spice cupboard.  Sadly, I don’t think she learned anything from the experience.  (Well she didn’t learn what I wish she had–not to get into the cupboard.)

She never tried this before the twins were born.

The DH reinstalled the baby gate at the top of the stairs for me, so I can at least trap her on the same level of the house that I am on.

I can’t really quantify what it is I do all day to take care of Banana Cream Pie and Bean, but they need nearly all of the “not feeding twins” time. So I spend the day feeling just a little bit behind what needs to have been done.

Sometimes I get to have a nap.  Sometimes I fall asleep without really meaning to.  Bean uses this time to her great advantage.

THE RESIDENT LIEUTENANT 

The resident lieutenant will soon be promoted to the resident captain.  He needs a new command level to keep control over the brigade of kiddie pies.  Also, he needs the new pay grade because these little guys use up alarming amounts of diapers.  

They are so worth it.

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Introducing Zeke and Skeeter

9 Aug

  
Zeke and Skeeter were born Thursday morning this week.  Zeke is on the right.  He was born first and weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces.  Skeeter was born second and weighed 6 pounds 15 ounces.  They are both super big and healthy for twins.  However, they are my smallest babies ever, and they were 4 weeks early.  

I was so happy to be able to deliver them without having to have a cesarean section.  I was given a choice because they were both head down when I went into labor.  It was pretty hard to choose, because I knew that regular deliver was more risky–that it had a chance of turning into an emergency c-section.  But in the end, I could not bring myself to ask to be cut open–even though I knew I was okay with whatever delivery had to happen to get them here safely. Lucky me, no emergencies happened.  The nurses all told me how happy they were for me, that almost no one gets to have their twins without at least 1 c-section.   Probably a good thing that I hadn’t realized the odds were that bad against me.  

The twins were born fast, just like all my other babies.  Labor started a little after 7 p.m. And finally turned into something I was sure was the real thing at about 10:30.  I got to the hospital at 11:45 pm and they were born a little over an hour later at 1:02 and 1:08 a.m.  It was intense but not too scary or stressful because I had 4 awesome cheerful nurses and my trusted doctor.  It was like a big party in the OR. 

Everything seemed peachy and normal.   

Then when Zeke and Skeeter were 2 days old, things started going a little downhill.  Saturday morning,  I was worried enough about breast feeding two babies at once that I asked the lactation consultant to watch me feeding them and to see if she could give me any tips.  I was having a little trouble getting them to latch on properly (they have tiny mouths), and they were falling asleep instead of eating once I got them latched on.  In less than 5 minutes she had shown me what I was doing wrong, and they began eating great. I was so happy.  It was totally worth letting a strange woman handle my Dairy Queens to get the babies eating better.

Then the twins’ temperatures and blood sugar levels suddenly plummeted, and Skeeter developed jaundice badly enough that he had to go under the blue lights.  

  
The pediatrician said that they weren’t getting enough to eat and that each time after they nursed, they had to drink 30 mL of formula as well.  

This didn’t phase me at first because I thought it was a one or two time stop gap procedure to get their sugars back up, and then it would stop.  Also, the twins were nursing so much better, I was feeling very positive about everything.

  
Sunday morning, I woke up realizing that the doctor was having them eat as much formula as they needed and not counting the nursing as any food at all.  If things kept up as they were, I definitely would not have enough milk to feed them, because they weren’t eating enough to signal my body that more was needed.  

Then at the next feeding, the twins were both really sluggish about eating until they got to the bottle, and then they sucked it down.  I realized they were starting to prefer the formula because bottles are easier to drink from. 

The pediatrician came in to let me know that we had to stay in the hospital anther 2 days at least because Skeeter’s jaundice wasn’t down enough and Zeke’s jaundice was rising.  He wanted the feedings to continue as they were, with formula every time.  Also, the twins were still having trouble staying warm.  He repeated several times that breast fed babies take longer to get over jaundice (I think this is total baloney, by the way) and that I shouldn’t feel bad if I couldn’t keep up with feeding 2 babies.  I asked him if I could start pumping milk to keep my supply up, and he sort of airily said, “Oh yes, if you want to.” And then he changed the subject.  

Clearly this doctor underestimated me.  I am not used to being underestimated.  I may have been a little slow figuring out what was going on, but I sure as heck was not going to be edged out of feeding my babies the way I prefer. 

After I called the DH and cried my eyes out on the phone, and told him to bring me my good Medela pump, I pulled myself together and shuffled myself down to the nursery to talk to the babies’ nurse.  

She instantly agreed that I could use the pump and we could feed the twins bottles of breast milk instead of formula.  “There is nothing magic about the formula,” she said.  “It is just easier for them to drink from a bottle, and for us to see what they are eating.”  

Now the eating schedule is:  Skeeter nurses for 20 minutes (so he  doesn’t forget how) and then drinks a 20-30 mL bottle of breast milk.  Then repeat for Zeke.  Then I set up the pump and fill up more bottles with whatever the twins didn’t eat.  

By myself the process takes two and a half hours, and I begin again in half an hour because they have to eat every 3 hours or less.  If I have a helper to feed the bottles, the feeding only takes one and a half to two hours and I get a whole hour break to rest before we begin again.  

I am happy to report that the Dairy Queens are totally keeping up with supplying 2 babies with milk .  Also, since he is exclusively on breast milk, Zeke’s  plumbing is working much better, which is exactly what he needed to happen to keep his jaundice level from getting too high. 

Take that, doctor.

I produce milk.  What’s your superpower?

Me right before we headed to the hospital.

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Race the babies

30 Jul

So my life is now a gambling game.  Can I finish this (whatever needs to be done) before the babies are born.  Today I finished a project which I began only 4 days ago.  I think it’s the fasted dress I’ve ever made from purchasing fabric through completion.

Sunday I discovered the need for a new dress.

Monday I bought the fabric.  ( Usually it would then sit for weeks/months/years, but this time I didn’t dare wait.) 

Tuesday I cut out the pieces. 

Wednesday I sewed most of the day.

Today (Thursday) I unpicked the sash I had sewn wrong, resewed it correctly, and attached it to the dress.  Done!!!

Presenting Cherry Pie’s new Sunday Dress.

  

Isn’t it beautiful?  I love the fabric and the pattern (which I successfully altered to fit her waist.  Woot!)

The pattern is from the book Sew Serendipity by Kay Whitt.  

 
And check out this professional top stitching 😉

  
Also, all the seams inside are clean finished despite the fact that I do not own a serger.

*******

Now that Cherry Pie’s dress is done, there isn’t anything more I really care about finishing before the twins arrive.  I’m super ready for them to be outside me instead of inside.  

Per my last ultrasound, one twin is 5 pounds 9 ounces and the other is 6 pounds 7 ounces.  That is 12 pounds of babies wedged between my ribs and hips.  Yes I am ready for them to be out.  Unfortunately for my crowded kidneys and me, the doctor figures we can wait 3 more weeks.  So I’m hoping the babies are less patient than he.  The good news is they have both turned head down (They were both transverse for quite awhile.) 

  

How Much Bigger???

21 Jul

  
Did you know that babies grow faster towards the end of their gestation?  They gain half of their birthweight in the last 7 weeks.  So in the picture above, (photo A)  the twins and I are at 32 1/2 weeks.  Time wise, we are over 3/4ths to the finish line.  Size wise we are half-way there.  

  
Photo B– here we are 9 days later at almost 34 weeks.  Clearly they are growing fast!!

Today I had to remind myself that back a few months ago, I knew that I was going to get miserable and that the more miserable I got, the better, because that meant the twins would be getting bigger and more able to survive outside.  

It was easy to say at 20 weeks when they were 1 1/2 pounds each.  

Now they are closer to 5 pounds each.  Today as my back ached no matter what I tried, I had to repeat it like a mantra ” my back hurting is better than the babies being in the NICU”.  I kept forgetting and wanting to call my doctor and cry about how I couldn’t take it anymore. 

 Mass repetition made it finally sink in, though, and I now feel capable of lasting a couple more weeks.  At which point, I think that I will be able to convince myself that another 2 weeks can be survived.  (Or however long it takes for these little guys to be ready). 

In a side note, I blogged a couple months ago about how awful it is to tell a pregnant woman how huge she is.  Funny enough, once I wrote about it, it quit bothering me.  Now if someone mentions how huge I am, I just agree with them and it doesn’t offend me a bit.  (I do think the twin factor has something to do with it, because I know I have a great excuse to be growing so large.  but I think writing about it helped too.  I no longer harbor ill feelings towards that nice guy who commented on my size two Christmases ago, which is a relief because it seriously bothered me that I was so unforgiving). So there you go.  Feel free to tell me I’m horrifyingly huge.  It shan’t bother me a bit.  

Because Twins: Changes

7 May

So things have already started to change around here because we’re expecting twins.

#1- I’m not babysitting anymore.  I was too tired and too pregnant to chase those high energy, high maintenance extra kids around.  When I first found out I was pregnant in February, I told the mom that I would have to take a month or so off from daycare.  Then I found out in March that the the baby was actually twins, and I realized I couldn’t keep babysitting after they were born, so I told her she would have to find someone new by the end of June.  Then I had that week of terrible tension headaches.  Also, I realized I wouldn’t be able to lift her heavy 2-year old much longer.  Also, Baby Bean suddenly decided that the 2 year old was a threat to her territory, and she would just jump on him and bite him/pull his hair several times a day.  It was getting hard for me to move fast enough to keep him safe from her. I told the mom she had to find someone else as soon as possible.  I had to watch her kids for 2 more weeks.

I went from this:

marypoppins

to THIS:

misshannigan

I gave her the phone number of an acquaintance friend who was interested in babysitting.  I was a little worried that this friend would hate me forever, but I was desperate to get out of a situation that I couldn’t handle any more. I ran into this friend at a mom’s night out on Tuesday this week and timidly asked her how it was going.

“Oh, I only watched them for one day and I told the mom I couldn’t do it,” she said.  Then she turned to the other moms at the table and proceeded to tell them all how terrible these kids were.  They WERE really difficult to care for.  I babysat them for them for 6 months, half of which I was pregnant and sick and tired, but it wasn’t until the headaches that I had to cry “UNCLE!”  Apparently, their grandmother (who is a relatively young grandma) is watching them now, because the mom can’t find anyone else who is willing to put up with her kids.  Lucky for her, the 2 oldest will be in all-day school beginning August 12th.  The 2 year old is a piece of cake, as long as you keep anything breakable away from him (and also keep Baby Bean away from him.) So grandma has hope on her horizon.

#2- Switched Baby Bean to cloth diapers.  This will be less diapers I have to buy when the twins are born.  I don’t like putting newborns in cloth diapers.  They go through, like, 10 diapers a day (x2).  Thats a lot of laundry.  Also their legs are too scrawny for cloth diapers to seal around to keep in the explosive projectile poo.  However, Baby Bean has enormous fatso legs and only goes through about 6 diapers a day.  The DH rigged me a clothes line on the balcony.


Aren’t diapers on the line so cute?  I love not having trash cans full of stinky disposable diaper trash.  I love not buying diapers.  (Actually I am stockpiling diapers for the twins now, since I’m not having to buy them for Baby Bean and Banana Cream Pie.  I don’t expect the stockpile will last long, but it should help.)  Also I’m hoping that cloth diapers encourage Baby Bean to potty train much earlier than Banana Cream Pie.  My other babies that wore cloth diapers potty trained before they were 2 1/2.  My babies who wore disposable diapers didn’t potty train until after their 3rd (or 4th) birthdays.  It would be super cool if Baby Bean was totally out of diapers by Christmas.

#3 – Banana Cream Pie is pretty nearly potty trained.  As soon as I was done babysitting, the potty training began.  We’ve been working on it for 2 1/2 weeks, and she is more trustworthy every day.  I’m not totally confident that she won’t have accidents when we are away from home, but at home, she is pretty good.  By August she should be an expert toilet user.

#4 – I’m slowly fighting my hoarder tendencies and trying to get rid of things we don’t use.  It’s difficult for me, because I can always think of possible scenarios when we might use those things.  However, one thing I’ve learned in the last few years is, you can’t clean clutter.  All you can do is move it around.  Reducing the “stuff” in the house will make the house easier to keep clean and make room for the twins and all their stuff (diaper stockpile).  When we designed our house plan, we were planning on having 6 kiddie pies.  Now we will have 9 (+1– I’ll have to tell you all about him later) and so using our space efficiently is important.  Luckily, the bedrooms are big enough to hold 2 sets of bunk beds each, and the closets are roomy.  I have planned out organizing systems to put in the closets (instead of just the couple rods we have installed now) to maximize the space for clothing storage.  If my dreams come true, those closets and maybe even some built-in bookshelves will happen before D-Day.

#5 This is just a little thing, but I feel like a genius for figuring it out:  I’m going to use a backpack for a diaper bag this time around. (Because my 2 hands will be full of 2 babies.)  Actually, for the last 4 years, I haven’t really used a diaper bag.  I just threw a few extra diapers and wipes in my purse.  I’m not one of those moms who feels like she needs 50 things to be prepared.  However, new babies do require a few extra supplies (like clothing changes and burp rags) and I’ll have to pack all that x2, plus Baby Bean is still in diapers.  So I for sure need a dedicated diaper bag, and it for sure needs to be as hands-free and easy to organize as possible.  I know I won’t actually use the organizing pockets as well as I could, but I plan on having a zipper pouch for each baby–or at least each size diaper.  That way I can say, “Cherry Pie, get the yellow pouch and change Twin A.”  Then the pouch can get tossed back in the backpack and yet it stays organized.

Yep, I feel like a genius for figuring that out.

I’m sure more changes are coming down the line, and I’ll roll with them as they come.  Life’s exciting and, yes I am busy.  But busy is ok.
#6. Oh yes, I got my hair cut even shorter. Easier is better, right?  I think I like it.

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Because Twins- part 1

27 Apr

twins

I’ve only known since March 20.  Only for a little over a month.  But it feels like months and months– a year.

We will be having twins this summer.

Identical boys.

This is my 8th pregnancy and until a month ago, I thought I had this pregnancy thing down.  Everything is different this time around.

Doctor visits are a lot more exciting/intense.  Normal pregnancy visits are about 10 minutes long.  I step on a scale, pee in a cup, have my blood pressure taken, tell the doctor that I don’t have any unusual symptoms.  He tells me everything looks great, listens to the baby’s heart beat and says, “see you in a month, keep drinking water and taking care of yourself.”  I smile and nod.

This time around, I get new information every visit.

“Because of the high chance that you will need a Cesarean Section, you will deliver in an operating room.  Also, your gestational diabetes will be worse this time around, you may even need insulin.  Also, we will do several more ultrasounds to check on the growth of the babies during the pregnancy.”

or

or “Baby A’s femur is measuring short.  This might indicate a chromosome disorder, but it is what we call a ‘soft sign’ and everything else looks totally fine. It could be just a measurement error.  We will definitely measure again on the next ultrasound.”

or

“It looks like the twins are sharing a placenta.  That puts the babies at risk for Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome.  I’m not worried, and you shouldn’t be either.  But to be prepared, we’ll have you visit the high-risk doctor and have another ultrasound and see what he thinks.”

Then there is just the extra suspense of looking all around with the little doppler thingy to find 2 baby heartbeats instead of just 1.  Twin B is super wiggly and hard to pin down.

Last of all my doctor asks me, “What questions do you have?”

I generally don’t have any questions yet.  I’m still processing the information.  I mean, I know what questions I want to ask, but I’m not ready to ask them yet. I have to think about them first.

I go home and look stuff up on the internets (which is always horrifying.)   I cry a little bit about the possibility that my twins will be born tiny and struggling instead of strong and healthy.

After a day or two, I am able to explain to myself all the statistical reasons why my babies will be fine.  I make out a list of questions to ask my doctor and obsess over those questions and what the answers might be for the weeks until my next appointment.

I wear my friends out talking over and over about whats going on inside me.

Sometimes I even end up calling the doctor extra, like when I had a week of the most terrible headaches in my life.  Turns out they were just tension headaches caused by hormones and there are a lot more hormones boiling around inside me right now because of 2 babies instead of 1.  That tends to be the answer for most everything.  “well there are 2 babies this time.  That means twice as much hormones/tiredness/ect.”

I think I am doing a pretty good job of not worrying about things I have no control over- like whether that wiggly twin B is going start hogging all the nutrients his brother needs.  Or whether Twin A is still alive in there, because I don’t feel him moving as often.  But I never forget that I’m having twins.  Mostly because I’m so extra tired.  Walking down my hall makes me feel like I just ran 2 miles.

I’m totally excited about having cute identical boys running around.  Bow Ties are going to happen.

I’m also very trepidatious about what it will be like to care for two newborns at once.  What it will be like to chase after two mischevious little boys, who will no doubt gang up on me and cause all kinds of mayhem and destruction.

It’s gonna be good.

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