hairdos

the babies’ total lack of cooperation has gotten us ejected from the nonstress test lab — now they get weekly biophysical profiles on ultrasound instead. these are shorter than the monthly ultrasounds we had been getting — no weight measurements, no pictures, just a quick check-in to make sure everyone’s breathing and whatnot. but this week the technician on duty was the giggly one, who showed us that the babies have hair — hair!! — and made up these prints.

i’ve gotten so used to seeing the babies semi-translucent on the ultrasound monitor that it’s going to take some getting used to when they come out all opaque and three-dimensional.

birthday of eating

babies and i spent my birthday weekend getting fatter, with lots of celebratory meals as sponsored by my fabulous co-workers, friends and family. thanks & love to all.

my stats

weight: 165 lbs

age: 36 years, 364 days

belly size: off the charts! once i hit the size of a 42 week singleton pregnancy, my OB stopped even saying the number aloud after she measured me.

number of times strange men have asked “do you have a watermelon under your shirt?”: just the one time, but that was more than enough. (in his defense, it does kind of look like that.)

prenatal week 33

weight check:

baby A continues his hugeness — he’s now 5 lbs 13 oz, landing him in the 81st percentile.

baby B had a growth spurt — she’s 4 lbs 8 oz, putting her in the 42nd percentile, up from 21st last time!! (this seems to have made her a little shy so she hid her face from the camera, but did allow this shot of her newly fattened up ribs.)

their weight discordance remains 23%, very close to the 20% or under ideal for twins. yay babies!

good news

Your pregnancy: 33 weeks
This week your baby… [is] rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look.
http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-33-weeks_1122.bc

nonstress?

babies had their weekly nonstress tests on thursday, so i spent an hour hooked up to electrodes and wires and tubes measuring their heartbeats and movements, and my contractions, blood pressure, and pulse. i was at the end of the row of similarly kitted out pregnant women, so the room looked a little like when starbuck was kidnapped for the cylon baby farm. as usual, the nonstress test seemed to cause quite a bit of stress for the technician; the babies would kick up a storm, and briefly allow their heartbeats to be tracked, only to sneak out from under the electrodes and escape to a remote corner of my belly once the technician turned her back. she said it would get easier each week, as the babies got bigger and had less room to hide out. who would have thought things were currently so roomy? not me.

back at home, with sydney asleep on the baby shelf:

prenatal week 29

weight check:

A = 3 lbs 9 oz, in the 77th percentile! making him bigger than most singleton babies of his age.

B = 2 lbs 12 oz, in the 21st percentile. still tiny! but the babies’ discordance is now 23%, down from 35% last time, so that’s good news.

priorities

we still haven’t gotten around to acquiring car seats and double strollers and whatnot, but i have taken care of the really important stuff, such as applying keith haring radiant baby decals to the nursery door.

i’ve also bought several dollars worth of choking hazard nostalgia on eBay, in the form of fisher-price little people babies:

 
(to be kept only within reach of those of us who will keep them out of our windpipes)

aug. 22!

at my OB appt this week, we scheduled the babies’ birthday: my c-section will take place at 37 weeks on friday, aug. 22. that’s assuming i don’t, as dr. m put it, ”do anything naughty like go into labor” before then.  

i’ll post the ultrasounds later — my office is still closed due to flood damage, so i don’t have easy access to a scanner right now. (but if you can’t take the suspense, you can review the previous ultrasounds, since they’re all kind of exactly the same.) i do have a new baby map – still breech & transverse, but now they’re stacked up on top of each other like a sideways yin & yang symbol. and despite extreme overcrowding, baby B managed to turn herself 180 degrees sometime in the last month. impressive!

showerrific

sunday’s babies shower was crazy successful — the weather was perfect, my dress still fit (although just barely), and we had a good turnout of family, friends and co-workers, with minimal flood-related cancellations. thanks to everyone for the wonderful presents – damn, but those babies are going to be snappy dressers – and extra shout-outs to karen for hostessing, my mom for the food and decorations, and sarah and chris for set-up and takedown (plus bonus points for driving in from chicago).

cribtastic

it’s assembled!!!!!

it turns out it took both an act of god and an act of my mom, who’s been trapped in town by the flood. she put the crib together all by herself, with tiny bits of assistance from me holding parts while she screwed them in and deciphering some of the more cryptic ikeaisms.

baby pen

i ordered this tot block on sale from babycenter. i figure it will be a good place to store the babies if we’re lounging at home in any of the rooms where my floor isn’t very clean (i.e. all of them).

swollen

 

in sympathy with my giant belly and cankles, the Iowa River has done some out-of-control swelling as well. my library is in the path of the flood, so today we got notice to evacuate the building. people who were not me packed up computers and formed bucket brigades to transport library books from the basement to the fifth floor; i answered the help desk phone until phone and internet service were shut off at noon, and then i waddled my useless self home.

the library could be closed anywhere from a week to the rest of the summer, and there’s no word on where/if my department might be relocated. i plan to try channeling any extra time at home into putting together the crib, which has been living here in a million pieces for about two months now; apparently it takes an act of god to force me to deal with ikea furniture assembly.

booty

baby gifts are starting to pour in!

the generous denise gave us a baby store gift certificate, which we spent on some very soft green and yellow receiving blankets, along with hilarious matching swaddling wraps with velcro closures that will let us wrap the babies up like burritos.

the talented cheryl knitted these beautiful baby blankets! from scratch!! out of yarn!!!

the fabulous karen, in addition to hosting the babies shower later this month, is also painting the dresser we plan to use as a changing table. i meant to take a “before” picture to document the sure-to-be amazing transformation, but i forgot, so please imagine how this looked when it was an ugly scratched-up dark green color.

christy brought the pram over, which she had packed up and stashed in a safe place since jack outgrew it. the cats have generously agreed to undertake extensive safety testing (i.e. shedding).

breech & transverse

it’s early yet so there could be lots more shifting about, but according to the ultrasounds baby A is currently in breech position with his feet closest to the exit, and baby B (a.k.a. sideways baby) is lying transverse all up in my rib cage. yet more reasons why i’m glad dr. M has ok’d a cesarean.

prenatal week 24

weight check:

mr. A is a relatively huge 2 lbs 6 oz., which puts him in the 82nd percentile on weight.

ms. B is a tiny shrimpy thing at 1 lb, 10 oz., putting her in the 24th percentile.

their size discordance has grown to 35% — not ideal, but consulting high-risk obstetrician dr. Y, who was put on this earth to torture me, actually said he wasn’t concerned since B’s size falls safely within normal range.

i’m almost 160 lbs!! every morning, Adi and i reenact the corset-tying scene in Gone With the Wind as he attempts to zip me into my increasingly too snug maternity dresses. “now breathe in deep, miss scarlett…”

marker-free

after receiving baby B’s full-color glossy chromosome test results back at our genetic counseling appointment, baby A’s tiny scrap of a normal result finally straggled through in the mail today — no color, no rave party. that’s where being the non-problem-child gets you.

prenatal week 19

weight check:

baby A weighs 12 oz, not unlike a can of Pepsi. he’s in the 70th percentile for his age.

baby B is 10 oz, 50th percentile. that’s a 13% difference, well within the 20% twin discordance safety zone.

i’ve gained 20 lbs.! dr. M says i’ll be gaining 20-30 more by my due date.

d’oh

baby girl has an extra bit of chromosome 15! but doctors say it’s harmless.

external view

prenatal week 16

IT’S A BOY AND A GIRL!!!!!!

prenatal week 7

TWINS!!!!!