Full term, false alarm, and other stuff

Tim and I can hardly believe I made it to full term with these babies!! 37 weeks is an "official" date in the pregnancy books, although I think the average delivery date for twins is about 35 weeks, but that still usually requires some time in the NICU (Neonatal ICU). I've been visualizing 37 weeks for a long time now (even as I may have secretly sometimes wished them out last week!), and it seems to have paid off. My nurse practitioner Lynne said I can keep them in as long as I want to/they stay, but she said most moms have had it by 38 weeks. My OB, on the other hand, is nervous about them going past 38 weeks, so she would like to strip my membranes this Friday if I am still pregnant. I think Lynne may have done this the day before I went into labor with Thomas.

Updates since last week
After my last post about slowing down, I woke up Monday morning even more swollen than before. My fingers were a little puffed out, and my face seemed a bit, too. I had gained two-and-a-half pounds overnight! Since these are also classic pre-eclampsia symptoms, I called the OB's office and talked to Lynne about the symptoms. She had me move my Tuesday NST appointment up a day, and asked me to come in at 11:00 a.m. So after I did my NST, I met with her. My urinalysis was back to normal (hooray!) -- no sugar and only a trace of protein as usual. And my blood pressure remained low. So she suggested I get my blood drawn for "chemical signs" of pre-e, which I did. I got the results in the afternoon. My liver and kidney functions were normal, but my blood platelets count was lower than normal for a pregnant woman (126 vs 140). So Lynne asked me to redo the blood test when I went in for my appointment on the following Friday. I had gained six pounds since the previous Friday, and she could see all the swelling, but I guess that is all that is wrong with me at this point, thank goodness!

On Tuesday I gave up wearing socks. They just cut in too much on my elephant legs. On Wednesday, I read about keeping my feet up on pillows while sleeping, so they are higher than my heart. That night, I tried it and it worked! All the fluid seemed to drain down, I had to get up and pee maybe four or five times that night, way more than normal! I had normal looking ankles for the first time in days! Of course, during the day, they swell up again, but at least the pillows help at night.

By Friday, I lost a pound and a half. My appointments went really well -- had a great growth ultrasound (more about that later), passed the NSTs even though B was sleeping through most of it for a change, and my office visit went well with the OB -- the urinalysis and blood pressure were normal again. The results of the bloodwork show that the platelets number is stable (128), so they aren't too concerned about it now. The doctor didn't do an internal exam on me, so I still don't know for sure if Baby A is engaged, or if my cervix has changed.

Pediatrician
Early in the week I asked a friend who lives nearby, is a nurse, and had a baby a year or so ago for a recommendation for a pediatrician. She gave me the name of hers, and I called and made an appointment. I wasn't sure if I should wait until after Mary Anne arrived so she could drive me, but I was also a little worried the babies would come before that could happen, so I went ahead and visited the office on Thursday. The office was beautiful, everything looked new in the waiting rooms. The area was spacious and it had three waiting rooms: sick child area, well child area, and a teen waiting room (which is where they had me wait). The doctor came out and greeted me and we talked for about twenty minutes in his office. I just had such a positive vibe from the place, the doctor, and his nurse -- so different from the one pediatrician I had visited before Thomas was born. I'm so glad to get that decision made. (Tim goes with whatever makes me happy, lol. He's just thrilled I found someone!)

"Do what you can before they arrive!"
On one of my moms of multiples message boards, I've been repeatedly advised to take care of whatever I can before the babies arrive, as we will have next to no time or energy when that happens. So I went ahead and designed the birth announcements (printed a few options and Tim picked his favorite), addressed 120 envelopes (using pre-printed labels) with return labels and stamps, including foreign stamps. Tim was great about going to the post office to pick up the stamps, too. Then I designed the baptism invitations, and Tim selected one of those. We will wait until we have the girls' names to print them all out. But it is a relief to have taken care of some of that stuff.

Taxes!
I finished our tax preparation work back on February 1, as part of my to-do list. (This is the earliest I have ever finished that.) But since we were waiting for a document that wouldn't be done until the end of February, the accountant wouldn't start the taxes. This was a bummer because we were looking forward to a nice refund, thanks to our medical deductions and charitable donations. We finally got the document the first week of March. And we got to go in Saturday to sign the electronic-filing forms. I am SO glad we were able to finish this before the girls arrived! I was worried it would get lost in the cracks otherwise.

False Alarm
My mother-in-law Mary Anne arrived Saturday night. She will be here for a month or two (we are all playing it by ear). In anticipation of her arrival, I finally tackled my last major to-do item: cleaning up the office side of the nursery. I had 3" piles of paperwork on two TV-tray-tables, a bag on the floor filled with Christmas gift receipts, piles of stuff on top of our scanner and on the desk. I've been looking at this stuff for months! So I finally did it! I put things away, put stuff in storage, finally took care of to-do things like thank you cards, paid some bills, filed a lot of paperwork, etc. This of course involved going downstairs to the lower level a few times during the day. I just got more and more tired, the more I accomplished.

I stayed up, cleaning, emptying the dishwasher, and setting up the coffee pot, until Tim returned from the airport with his mom, which was about 10:30 p.m. We chatted for thirty minutes, then everyone went to bed. At 1:40 a.m., I woke up from a strange dream about baby dresses feeling hard as cast iron, and used the bathroom. Trying to fall back asleep, I realized I was having harder, regular contractions. Now every pregnancy book I have read says to try to keep sleeping if they start up during the night, as you will need all of your energy later for labor. I lay in bed for forty minutes (or four or five contractions) and knew I would never fall back asleep. I was too excited, even though I was a little sad this might be happening on my late niece Kelli's birthday. Daylight Savings Time then occurred, so I was already an hour closer to waking up anyway! I got up quietly, and let Tim and Mary Anne continue to enjoy their sleep until 7 a.m. Meanwhile, I timed each surge, and they remained, on average, a nice regular eight minutes apart.

At 8 a.m., I went back to sleep and slept for two hours. But when I woke up, the surges became less and less frequent until I was having one every two hours or so -- back to my normal state. And that is how it has remained since then. A false alarm! And there we were, all so excited something might be happening. Oh well! But apparently that goes to show you what happens if you overwork when you are very pregnant.

Mary Anne and I spent the day organizing the rest of the nursery. She separated out all the baby clothes, so that we will only have preemie, and 0 to 3 month sized clothing in the drawers and armoire. She is washing them today.

Jackets are finished
I finished them some time ago, but never took a photo of the pink one until today. So here is a photo of the two jackets (you can click to enlarge):
This is how the dress looks with the jacket:
If I'm still hanging around this week with nothing left to do, I might work on the bonnets after all.

More more more!
"How do you like it, how do you like it?" While sewing the dresses and jackets for the girls, I would listen to the cable TV's music stations. My favorite was the 1970s music. Some of the catchier songs still remain in my head... hence the title of this section!

We have continued to receive more and more gifts in the mail. And I love sharing them with everyone, I hope you understand why. Part of it is because my family and Tim's family don't live nearby, so it isn't easy to say, "Oh look at these adorable dresses" and share that way.

On March 4th, we got a surprise present in the mail from Brenda. Brenda and I have a lot in common. We met online, struggling to get pregnant, and finally were blessed with baby boys, whom we both lost too soon, within a year of each other. She sent us a nice collection of things we did not have yet, that every parent needs!


A week later, Caroline, who I met on the same board with Brenda, had a gift shipped to us from an incredible store. The box it came in had a sweet floral pattern, was wrapped with a beautiful green ribbon, and the tissue paper inside was green with white polka dots, which matches our nursery! It was such a delight opening this gift!
The two outfits she sent are decorated with little poodles. The material is very heavy and everything is beautifully lined. When Tim saw the dress he said, "Hmmm, this puts your dress to shame!" I actually agree! The dress comes with matching pants, and the other outfit is like a jumper suit, or "bubble". The matching bonnets have chin straps to hold them in place, and the coordinating socks are just adorable. I think these outfits will go into the "save forever" pile!

Today, the girls received three more gifts! The first package I opened was one I was expecting from my mom: pink and lavender mittens for their homecoming outfits! Mom (aka Grammie) also sent a pair of pink booties she knitted, but she is now knitting a smaller pair of lavender ones and pink ones since these are a little too big for the homecoming. Mittens help keep babies from scratching their faces. Mom used a soft cotton yarn called baby yarn for these projects!

The second package was sent from a diaper store, so I was trying to remember what I might have ordered. But it was a wonderful surprise gift from my friend Becca who also is a cloth diapering mom. How amazing she could think of our girls as she was mourning her own son Jasper. She sent a pair of pink and a pair of lavender Rump-a-rooz diapers to match the girls' color themes! I was so blown away when I opened that package.

The third package today was a very sweet gift from another fellow November mom, Lara. Most of the November moms still keep our son Thomas in their thoughts. Lara saw this beautiful soft fabric baby book, "Night Night Peter Rabbit" at her friend's house. But when she saw the butterfly page with "Flutter by Tom" she just knew she had to get it for our daughters.
We are just so blessed to have such thoughtful family and friends.

Last growth ultrasound
Unless I actually go over 40 weeks (ha!), I had my last growth ultrasound Friday, at 36w4d. This was a major milestone I've been trying to reach since I made it to 32 weeks. I wanted to have the girls measured one more time to see how closely their birth weights match the sizes as measured by the ultrasound technician. Before we started, I showed the tech the ultrasound photo album I've been maintaining this pregnancy. It includes the collage I've made for each scan, followed by each printout cut and trimmed to fit inside each photo pocket. She was so inspired by this book, that she gave me a ton of pictures at this visit. Since we had a hard time seeing the babies clearly at 34 weeks, I told her that pictures of feet and hands would be just fine, but it was very hard to get good ones of those! The best scenes on the scan were things like the ribs and spine! She did print scans of their four-chamber hearts for me, along with the graphs showing the heartbeat rates.

Surprisingly, Baby B was in a different position. Baby A was much lower (but you can't tell from an ultrasound if she is engaged), and still head down. So apparently Baby B took advantage of the extra space on top and was laying out flat from left to right, with her head on the right, but not down. The tech didn't say B was transverse, I thought she said obverse, but that isn't a position I've heard of. B was enjoying kicking me in the ribs, and she was belly to belly with A, somehow! The tech needed to measure B's back leg, and she couldn't get to it, so she asked me to roll to my right side a bit. Now I find it hard laying on my left side, but I gave it a try. Immediately I felt a shift in weight, like the cargo in a hold in a stormy sea. Ouch, was that painful as everything fell to the right. Well guess what? Baby B was next found primly posed head down as if she hadn't been fooling around moments earlier. She is definitely my wild child.

Oddly, Baby B is now measuring larger than Baby A, and they are both measuring on schedule instead of week(s) ahead. So who knows how big they will really be. But for now, the tech says Baby A is 6 lbs. 5 oz., and Baby B is 6 lbs. 12 oz. I am carrying thirteen pounds of baby!!! And speaking of weight, I have now gained a total of fifty pounds! I'm actually pretty happy with that, and that has been a goal of mine since the beginning. (With Thomas, I gained 35 pounds.)

So that is where we are today. I have an NST scheduled for tomorrow, I still battle with the swollen ankles, we'll start trying natural methods to induce labor this week, and I will do a little work on some projects that have been keeping me busy on the side (non baby related). I did visit the chiropractor today to get my pelvis adjusted, so that is finally done. (I did it with Thomas, too, hearing that it helps to keep the birth canal straighter if you get it aligned.)

We are anxious and excited to meet our baby girls soon!!