Saturday, April 24, 2010

32 weeks

First of all, it's 3:30 in the morning. I really though I would sleep well tonight because we actually managed a trip to the beach today, a field trip to nature that left me too energized.

We went to the doctor yesterday. The babies are estimated to be 4#15 ounces and 4#10 ounces. This is over 9 pounds of baby. The cervix is high thick and tightly shut, a reason to hope that nothing exciting will happen in the next 2 weeks. They are breathing in there. They have hair. The tech said in her hilariously dry way, "They have hair", then after a moment, "They have a lot of hair" then, "Oh, they're hippies." This made us chuckle in the room, and then hysterical in the car. Gregg says that the presence of hair makes them more real to him, and he got really excited about seeing it. We cannot tell if it is curly or straight. One was sucking his thumb.
We return in 2 weeks, then the appointments go to weekly non-stress testing/ biophysical profiles. They're both still breech and I cannot imagine either of them turning now. They seem locked into position, but we could be surprised. I'm not going to try any of the tricks to get them to turn, as I would feel awful in a headstand right now and really bad for putting ice on their heads. Although I sing James Taylor songs to them daily, they really like it when I listen to Beck.

Yesterday we also went to Toys-r-Us to exchange a gift. That is a scary place. The tantrums going on in there were frightening. It smelled awful. The lighting? Reprehensible. They sell some grocery items there, which I didn't know and now wish I could unknow. Strangely, in a fit of parental...something...we signed up for the rewards card the cashier offered us and vowed only to use it online and to bring the boys there never. Never, ever. I think in the future we might have to buy games and puzzles and dolls and balls and bikes and on and on and on, that's why the card. Frankly, they will mostly be required to learn to knit, sew, make stuff out of stuff around the house and generally choose their own adventure with the abundance of stuff already around the homestead, but who's going to supply the soccer ball? The whiffle ball set? Toys are stupid us. Unless someone around here decides to make a football from scratch, which wouldn't surprise me.

Oh, the rambly insomniac brain.

I've been home for about a week. I had an unexpected and blessedly brief identity crisis about 3 days in. It was of the "who am I? what category do I fit into?" variety that comes with a major imminent life change such as parenthood. My step mother said, "you're going to know exactly who you are in a few weeks." Wise words. I'm really glad I woke up the next day feeling relatively normal. I have the typical mini-panics about developmental delay, syndromes and disorders, sudden emergency, loss. I can talk myself down pretty quickly from this type now, because they've been occurring since conception. Frankly, there is nothing we could do about any of these things except manage them as they happen and all of these things are rare compared to rates of good outcomes.

We've been watching pregnancy and parenting related dramas and comedies lately. I was going to save my review for the end of the marathon, but I can't entirely wait because we saw one really great movie this week and one really terrible movie this week. The good one was as good as the bad one was bad. The good: "Away We Go". Best pregnancy movie ever. I identified with way too many aspects to list here. I watched it 3 times. I'm buying the soundtrack and the DVD. Loved it. The bad: "Motherhood". It made me suicidal in way too many aspects to list here. The premise that the "intellectual" main character had not done any examination of the potential trials and tribulations of parenthood prior to having babies makes me insane. This may be the pediatric primary care provider in me reacting. I guess I'm glad to know that parenthood is not all peachy and that it will require some evolution of my self.

Whatever. Blah, blah, blah.

I packed our bag. I'm going to put it into the car on the day of our next appointment. That will be 34 weeks. That's the gestational age that one of my friends who has twins went in and they said, "go over to the hospital, we're taking them now". AAAAAH! EEEEEK!!!

Last of all, now it's 4:30 am.





3 comments:

  1. Your bag is packed. Your boys have hair. Where did the time go? :) I'm glad they are doing well!

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  2. Just to clarify, I always thought they were real, but knowing that they have hair gives them more of an identity. And I'm hoping they have Cymande's wild red hair...too bad the ultrasound can't pick up color.

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