Week 16

Babies: I have begun talking and singing to you. It feels silly, but I’ve read that you can hear my voice now. Mostly I do this in the car, on the way to and from work. It’s an awful lot like talking to myself, but I keep my tone gentle and leave out the cuss words. I tell you both about my day and what I want to eat for dinner, and whatnot. Apparently, at this point you can not only hear my voice, but to a lesser extent - sounds from outside the womb. SO does that mean no more blasting heavy metal music in the car? I hope not. After all, you need to know who yo momma be.

I still have to wait another THREE WEEKS to see you guys again. I have lapsed into the “am I really still pregnant?” worry, which is stupid. Of course I am. Of course you are both still in there, still doing fine. I’m just impatient to feel movement. Certain, undeniable movement. (not just gas!) Yes. Three weeks until the ever-popular “anatomy scan” ultrasound done at 20 weeks. It will be so wonderful to see you both again, swimming around, kicking and flexing your sweet little bodies inside me. There is nothing as reassuring as that. And then, if you both behave and show us your “parts”, then your Dad and I can start really nailing down the names, and I can shop for gender specific clothing items. Not that I want to bathe a girl in pink and a boy in blue, mind you. I’d like to think we are far too progressive for that. But it sure will be nice to know.

Week 15

I’m pretty sure I felt movement today on the way to work. It’s been described as flutters, popcorn popping, butterfly wings flapping gently, or little bubbles. Mostly all I have felt so far is gas and my uterus stretching. Both of these things are painful, but not incredibly so. Gas pains, well, those are followed shortly by farts or a trip to the bathroom. The uterus stretching is more like a cramp, but not as intense. At any rate, there’s a lot going on in there, all the time, and Dr. Grant said (as have others) that I could have been feeling movement but it’s lost in the confusion of other things going on in there. So anyway - I was driving to work and I felt a little fluttery popping sensation. That made me quite happy. Books and websites all say you won’t feel anything until 17 weeks, but on the internet message boards I read, some women have felt it as soon as 13 weeks. I can only take this as a cue to begin worrying.
So as one might imagine, I was pleased.

I’ve been nesting a bit, too. Last weekend I continued emptying the contents of the room upstairs. The big transformation from Office to Nursery mostly includes Finding New Places for All My Crap. I am astounded at the sheer girth of stuff I have but don’t need. How many pairs of size 10 vintage 1960s shoes do I really need? I always think - well, what about Halloween? Right. Save EVERYTHING in the hopes that I might need that one thing that one time. Well, in truth, I have experienced the loss of some item given away, at a later date. (How could I have gotten rid of that _____ (sweater, dress, belt, Donny Osmond note paper set, etc.)? So, as long as we have a basement, and as long as folks keep producing big plastic storage boxes, I’m keeping it ALL!

Last week I decided to stop in and have a look at the curios at City Liquidators. It’s just a couple of blocks from work, and sometimes I’ll go there on a break or during my lunch, to browse the odds and ends. The office supply building is by far my favorite. You never know what you will find there.
Well - they had just gotten in about a hundred tiny childrens’ chairs from the International School. They had a few different colors - mostly unfortunate shades of teal and magenta. The best color, I thought, was the yellow, and there were only two. Perfect! They were, of course, on the bottom of the pile, and most difficult to reach. I unstacked several chairs (and made kind of a mess in the process) to carefully liberate them. I was so excited to get them home and show Jesse. The first thing he says (after cooing like a goofball, which was just the reaction I was hoping for) is that he wants to refinish them! Of course he does. After all that wrestling. If I’d have known that I would have bought the ugliest color! Well, no, I’m going to fight to keep them in their original, yellow state.

You know you're a graphic designer when

I picked up a copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" at Goodwill. I figured I'd save some money and still get all the info I needed. I've been avoiding this book simply because it's the one everyone reads, and I, by nature, eschew anything that everyone likes. I'm snobby that way.
So I sit down, and start leafing through. "Why is this typography so 90s?" I'm annoyed and not even really reading the material. I start to realize their data on twins seems off. And hardly any mention of IVF and donor egg issues. The more I look at the layout, the more I'm weirded out. "Gah! This seems so dated, I can't even look at it!" I flip to the front and notice the publication date. 1996. "Oh" I think. "That's kind of old. No wait - that's FOURTEEN YEARS AGO!" Time for a trip to Powell's.

Milestones

AND in case you can't quite figure out what you're looking at, here's some help:

No, we're not naming either of them Milestones. Or Miles or Stones. It's just a really really big deal to see these little beans actually moving, squirming, swimming about. That's a milestone. WHEW. To say I was relieved would be a massive understatement. I have NEVER made it this far before. They were squiggling around! It was amazing!

YAY!

9 weeks, 5 days

I have hereby been released from Oregon Reproductive Medicine! I’ve GRADUATED! They are Done With Me. It’s pretty amazing to be done with ORM. No longer will I sit in their small, quiet, tastefully modern waiting room, where the waits were never long, and all of six people worked there. Now I’m back in the hands of Dr. Nancy Grant and the fine people at Women’s Health Today, where the waits are ridiculously long, the co-pays are higher than I think they should be, and there is an endless loop of Dora the Explorer on a TV in the Kid’s corner.

At ORM, there was an odd, respectful quiet in the waiting room. Everyone is there for reproductive help of some sort or other, and it’s just sort of strange. It’s not upbeat or chatty, everyone is very solemn. Hard to describe. You never know if the person next to you is there for bad news, good news, to donate sperm, to donate eggs, or to recieve those materials.

Waiting at WHT, it’s fun to see so many different shapes of pregnant women. Some are skinny with obvious bumps, some are really big ladies with really big bumps. Some look like they might be about to give birth any second. Some are in high heels (?!?) but most are in their comfy duds. There was a punk girl there with her newborn in a sling, toting him along. They were both dressed in black. A nice reminder that moms don’t all dress in khaki slacks and pink polo shirts, and that I’m not destined for a beige existance. Hah.

Do these twins make me look fat?

So yeah, Baby A is plain to see there, but Baby B is hiding. That's what the pink circle is for. Enormous amounts of relief and excitement abound. No really. You just can't know.

The symptoms: Smells/odors are incredibly crippling. Opened the newspaper the other day and was knocked back by ink fumes. I can smell the people/dogs that were on the elevator on the trip before me. I do not have to guess if that old cauliflower in the back of the fridge is rotten. So far, the smell of onions cooking is the worst ever. (Odd because I really like onions normally) I'm also pretty queasy, off and on, all day. All I want to eat is bread. And hamburgers. Salty things are always good and I'm really indifferent about sweets. Hmm. I also cry all the time and went for a nap in my car today.
So, everything is pretty normal.

The doc said that there is still a chance that by the next ultrasound there might only be one baby in there, that the Body Does Not Really Like Twins and might absorb one. But he also said that What We See Now is Usually What We Get. And also, baby B looks pretty insignificant in comparison but that's only because it's hiding right at the top of my uterus and is very hard to see. In any case, I totes want them both and am thinking good thoughts.

It's Just Emotion, Taking Me Over

These hormones are making me crazy. I felt like crying today while listening to Ozzy. Because Randy Rhoads died. In 1982. 28 years ago. Crazy train, indeed.