Tag: kids

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baby room reveal and BIG update

BIG NEWS: Etta and Claire will be born tomorrow! Our c-section was originally scheduled for this coming Monday, 4/2, but at my appointment this morning, my blood pressure was elevated, I had started to retain a lot of fluid, and Claire wasn’t as reactive on the monitoring as the doctor would like her to be. My doctor said my body and the babies were telling her that it’s time for them to come out. Initially she was talking about getting them out today, but Claire perked up a bit with further monitoring, so we bought ourselves until tomorrow morning, first thing.

I’m glad, because we still had a lot to do: finishing touches on the girls’ room, finishing thank you notes for shower gifts, straightening up the house a bit, and packing a bag for the hospital. In fact, right after the doctor told us tomorrow would be baby day, I said to Jon: but we have to finish the room and I have to take pictures so I can blog it before they come!!! Clearly I’m an insane internet weirdo. But hey: check out our babies’ cute room!

This is the view standing in the doorway of the room. I didn’t set out to have a themed room, but it quickly developed a color palette based on the crib skirt and pillow fabric, and we ended up with a bit of an animal thing going on. What I am most proud of about the room are all the handmade touches, by me and by other folks who love Etta and Claire, and of all the stuff that we already had that we were able to repurpose for the room. The only new furniture we bought were the two cribs, which are BabyMod from WalMart and were a gift from my family. The white dresser, from IKEA, we already had, the little yellow table used to be a nightstand in our guest room, the futon was in our living room, the white tables on either side of it were in our bedroom, and even the rug, which strangely matched perfectly, we already had from IKEA.

This is the view from in front of the bathroom door. Bonus Tinycat sighting! The purple dresser/changer is one of the coolest repurposed items in the room. Our friend Sean found the solidly-built dresser by the curb while walking his dog and carried it home for us. Jon refinished it, and I found the cutest green knobs on sale for half off (which made them $1.50 each) at Hobby Lobby. It’s chock full of our cloth diapers! The four animal paintings were painted by my dad after some he saw in a catalog. They were the first animal items we got for the room, which is what led to the unofficial theme.

I knew right away that a traditional rocker or glider wasn’t going to work with two babies, but wanted a comfy place to nurse and snuggle. So we moved a futon out of our living room, and it fit great! This way one of us can sleep in the room with the babies if we want, and if anyone is ever crazy enough to want to come stay with us, we still have a space for guests to sleep. Tinycat also thinks it’s a great nap space. Everything hanging over the futon is something we already had somewhere else in our home.

I already mentioned my DIY mobiles and origami lamp and re-made vintage lamp in previous posts.

Another awesome handmade touch in the room are these name prints by my awesome friend Christen, whom you may remember from our maternity photo shoot. She’s not just a super talented photographer, but makes adorable prints, which you can purchase from her Etsy shop. I love that they don’t match exactly, but go together just perfectly!

And that’s the room! I can’t believe that after tomorrow, we’ll have BABIES in those cribs!

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our babies have a birthday!

Just a quick update on Etta and Claire: they’re not even born yet, but they have a birthday!

I saw my OB this morning for my now weekly monitoring, and the babies and I look great. She had spoken to the Maternal Fetal Medicine team about our last ultrasound, and they decided that to be on the safe side, we should plan to have the babies at 36 weeks.

So…..April 2 is BABY DAY! It’s completely surreal to think we’ll just go to the hospital, have a c-section, and have babies in our arms by lunchtime.

I feel it is an auspicious date because April 2, 2006 is the day Jon asked me to marry him. Now that happy day gets exponentially happier!

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cursed sleep

At the beginning of my pregnancy, blessedly free from the all-day pukes called “morning sickness” that so many women suffer, my one persistent symptom (aside from having to pee constantly from the moment we got that little plus sign) has been INSANE TIREDNESS. Like, mono tired. Ran a marathon tired. Completely senseless tired. I spent a lot of time napping with Tinycat (who, it must be said, is a champion napper):

Now that I’m in the home stretch, it’s become frustrating because I’m still tired, and I’m increasingly incapacitated by my ballooning body, but I can’t. freakin’. sleep.

I know! Right this second, you’re thinking something along the lines of: oh poor naive dear, if she thinks this is bad, just wait til she has actual newborn twin humans on her hands demanding to be fed and changed and held all the time.

I KNOW!

And yet, it would be nice if I could sleep now. People say helpful things like, “Sleep while you can!” And boy do I wish I could. Between reflux (which is a nice way of saying “constantly throwing up in one’s mouth”), restless legs, difficulty rolling over which results in weird hip pains from being paralyzed in one spot, hot flashes, and having to pee every single hour on the hour of the night…. and I’m not sleeping much.

I’m thinking I might start “sleeping” on the futon in the nursery, not because Jon is somehow keeping me up, but because lying sleepless next to someone happily, deep-breathingly, sleeping away makes me irrationally, jealously angry. He’s off in dreamland, and I’m sitting there thinking NO FAIR NO FAIR NO FAIR.

In the meantime, not sleeping at night means lots of napping during the day, which perpetuates the vicious cycle. Perhaps I’m becoming nocturnal.

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A quick update on Etta and Claire

Just got home after another ultrasound with our maternal fetal medicine team. We got to look at the babies, which is always super fun–just looking at them reminds me that all this near-constant discomfort and pain are worth it. I also know now why my right ribs hurt all the time: both babies have their big ole noggins on that side.

Baby Etta was called an “Amazon baby” by the doctor because she’s measuring a couple weeks ahead of where we should be at 28weeks gestation at 3 lbs. 6 oz., and Claire is just slightly petite at 2 lbs. 9 oz. The discordance is nothing the doctors are concerned about.

The best news was that neither the tech nor the doctors saw a defect on Claire’s spine. Basically, based on her head anatomy, the presence of a “lemon sign” and the fact that her cerebellum has been pulled down trapping some fluid in her ventricles, mean that there must be a spinal defect somewhere. But, the fact that they can’t find this defect means it must be very small and is therefore unlikely to have a very large negative impact on her. It seems more and more like the neurologists will have to find it after the birth rather than seeing it in utero.

We are so thankful and hopeful. Both girls look great and are growing well and we can’t wait to meet them!

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nursery progress and a lamp DIY

To me, one of the more fun things about being pregnant is fixing up a room for the babies. I knew from the start I wanted to avoid having a “theme.” None of the rest of my rooms have a theme, so why should the babies’ room look any different? I wanted their room to look like it belonged with the rest of the house, and I knew I had to work with the navy blue floral wallpaper that we renters can’t change. So my goal was to incorporate lots of color and lots of handmade touches to make a room that goes with the rest of our house. I figured I’d share some of my progress so far:

The cribs are actually the only “new” thing in the photo, and they’re BabyMod from Walmart. Cribs were a tough decision for me, because I originally really wanted bright red cribs, which apparently do not exist. Then I thought I’d paint unpainted cribs, which also do not exist, unless I want to pay a zillion dollars or drive 4 hours to the nearest IKEA, which, it turns out, didn’t have the unpainted ones in stock anyway. So we ended up with gray cribs that actually blend surprisingly well with the aforementioned wallpaper. The dresser we already had, and there are three smaller nightstands in the room that we also already had. Even the rug was something we already had.

Early on, I decided moving our futon into the babies’ room made more sense than getting a glider, because this way, I could set the babies down on the couch, sit down in between them, and still feed them even if I were home alone. Also, the futon still functions as a place for guests to sleep, in case anyone wants to stay in a house of craziness, or for one of us to sleep in the room with the babies. It’s actually an espresso brown, I just have a sheet on it to protect it from Tinycat’s hair, since he likes to hang out in there.

To go on the futon, I made 4 throw pillow covers with fabric I happened to already have in my stash, that I think goes well with the rug:

And for Christmas, my dad made these four paintings to go on the wall: I think the animals are super cute, and he did a great job choosing colors that go with the other things in the room.

Now, while we’re not doing an animal theme, there will be some other animal touches, including some letterpress prints I already had around, and a vintage lamp my stepmom found at a flea market:

I immediately loved the little elephant, but knew I wanted to do something to spruce up his bland, faded shade. Initially, I thought of trying to cover the shade with the same fabric as the throw pillows, but since I’m making the girls an origami crane lamp like the one I made for my friend, I decided to incorporate the same origami paper I’m using for the cranes to make the two lamps “go” together. I cut each sheet of origami paper into 4 smaller squares and ModPodged them to the lampshade in a patchwork pattern. Then I glued some rickrack trim around the edges. I’m really proud of the results (though everything I ModPodge comes out a little wrinkly), and think the patterns of the paper echo the pattern of the wallpaper in a nice way:

I still need to figure out some sort of changing table/dresser, want to get an ottoman, need to hem curtains, and am planning to sew some crib skirts, among other things, but I’m pretty proud of how the babies’ room is looking so far. I don’t think it screams “baby” or “pretty pretty princess” but it’s still girly and fun and colorful. I can’t wait to get it finished!

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thankful that no news is good news

It’s possible I’ve gotten a little spoiled in that I’ve yet to go to an OB appointment alone. Jon’s got a flexible schedule, and he’s been willing and able to go with me every time. Until today, when some very important disaster training coincided with my appointment, and he couldn’t make it. Because I’m spoiled, my stepmom came with me instead. It was an uneventful appointment, and for that I am very thankful. Just a quick check in, a chat with my doctor, and off on my way, with a pat on the back because I’m still gaining the weight I need to for the babies. No bad news in the ultrasound room. No difficulty finding two little heartbeats on the Doppler. No real problems to report except that I’m still insanely insanely tired, and the constant heartburn is a little annoying, but overall I’m pretty happy for 6 months pregnant, which still feels insane to say.

I am so thankful for this uneventful appointment. I’m thankful to have a great team of doctors and nurses and genetic counselors and care coordinators. I’m thankful that, even though Claire will have to be transferred to another hospital right after birth for surgery and care, it’s the hospital where my husband works, right by our house, and one of the best in the country. I’m thankful to have family nearby to take care of all of us.

In short, I guess I’m just feeling really thankful. Possibly because I’m reading One Thousand Gifts, which is a book all about the practice of gratitude as the central practice of the Christian faith, which is a really great read so far, even though I don’t agree with all of it. The author seems to suggest that God causes all things that happen to us, be they joyful or painful, and I just can’t get on board with the idea that God causes things that are bad. That isn’t to say that I don’t believe that God works all things for the good, or that we can’t be drawn nearer to God in all things, or that we can’t learn and grow from every experience that happens to us. But I just can’t agree, though it has been suggested to me by well-meaning people, that God caused, for example, my Claire’s spina bifida. I am sure it will be an opportunity for learning and growth and drawing nearer to God, but I don’t believe God gives anything but good gifts to his children. I can’t believe God would cause disease or suffering and pain and still maintain faith in God. Spina bifida just happens sometimes. Even if you take your vitamins. Even if you say your prayers. Because that’s the way this world works. And God’s heart is broken along with mamas’ and daddies’ when they find out something’s wrong with their baby. And God rejoices when the defect isn’t as bad as it could be. That’s what I believe.

And so, I’m thankful for uneventful appointments, and for hope for the future, and for days when we don’t get any bad news. And I’m thankful for arms that hold me when the bad news comes too.

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six month pregnancy update

Jon and I last week.

I’m now 24 weeks pregnant. That means 6 months. Before I was pregnant, I thought 6 months was a whole lot pregnant. Now that I am actually 6 months pregnant with twins, I’ve discovered that while it is indeed a whole lot pregnant, I still have a long ways to go. Apparently I don’t look as big as folks think I should, because when they ask me how far along I am and I tell them “6 months, with twins,” they always remark how tiny I am. Well, the babies are just now breaking a pound in the weight department, and I have to get to 6 pounds each, so I have a feeling the growing is going to start speeding up in a hurry.

After our last ultrasound ended in scary news and tears, I was a little nervous about this morning’s appointment, but I have to say it went so much better. It’s always fun to get to peek at our girls, and we had a great ultrasound tech and a MUCH warmer Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist this time around. The great news is the girls are growing very well, with Etta (baby A) weighing in a little ahead of schedule at 2 lbs. and Claire (baby B) just slightly behind schedule at 1.2 lbs. There was a little fluid in Claire’s skull, but it looked pretty good, and there appears to be no sac on her spine, so again, the best possible scenario for spina bifida.We met with a genetic counselor and a nurse for the Arkansas Fetal Diagnosis and Management Program which will help coordinate all the various care Claire will need both before and after birth. We feel great to have such a good team of healthcare providers and are very hopeful for the best for Claire.

Both girls were still as wiggly as ever, and the tech managed to get one really awesome shot where it looks like Claire is giving Etta a kiss on the cheek. I realize it’s entirely possible that I’m only looking at this pic with a mama’s eyes, but I’m sharing it anyway. It’s sort of like a magic eye– don’t look too hard, and you’ll see two little faces, I hope. Can you see it?

Overall, I feel pretty good. I’m really exhausted practically all of the time, have been experiencing more and more rib and back pain, and am completely annoyed by all the heartburn. Still, I’m thankful I don’t feel too bad, and also thankful that I have plenty of time to rest when I need to. The craziest development is that we can now SEE the babies moving around in there from the outside. It’s a completely trippy experience.

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good news and the best possible bad news

Friday was my birthday. I think 27 is going to be a good year. It was also the day of our “big ultrasound” or “anatomy scan” for the babies, the day we would finally find out if Baby B was a boy or a girl.

The tech was very sweet and showed us right away that we have two very wiggly baby GIRLS! Baby B, the one on the top if you remember this early ultrasound picture (they’re now too big to both be seen at once) is named Claire Elaine, and Baby A, the one on the bottom, is named Etta, with an as-yet-to-be-determined middle name. I’ll tell you all about the names and their significance later, I promise.

We got to see our girls kicking and punching and flipping around, and at one point, I swear they high-fived across the membrane that separates them. It’s so cool to think they’re already interacting, and that they will ALWAYS have each other. We couldn’t be more excited about them.

The atmosphere in the ultrasound room got a little weird right at the end of the scan. Instead of wiping me off and sending us on our way, the tech draped me with a towel and said she had to go talk to one of the doctors, who may come back in in a few minutes. We were soon joined by a maternal fetal medicine specialist with an all-business demeanor. She took the helm at the ultrasound machine and told us that Claire has a slightly lemon-shaped head, and this was a red flag that made them want a better look at her spine.

She then got to work looking at Claire’s spine, and I got to work freaking out. Hormones and fear took over, and though I was trying very hard not to cry so as not to have a heaving belly making the scan more difficult, the tears just came. I was confused and scared and all I had heard was that there was something wrong with my baby’s head and spine and no one was speaking to me in a way that I understood. Jon held my hand and tried to comfort me, but he was also trying to get all the information so he could explain it to me later, which I am very grateful for. I have never felt more like a mama bear than I did in that ultrasound room, wanting to protect my tiny baby girl.

Ultimately, Claire has what we hope is a best-case scenario of spina bifida. This is known as a neural tube defect, and means that her neural tube didn’t close all the way when her brain and spine were forming very early in my pregnancy. This means there is an opening at the bottom of her spine, in the section known as her sacral region. There is a little sac there, but there appears to be no neural tissue in the sac, which is a good sign. It’s hard to know how this will affect her until she is born, but she might have disability in her legs and some other issues. However, her legs looked good anatomically, and though the MFM specialist said that movement doesn’t necessarily mean anything in utero, she was kicking and wiggling her legs all around. She will most likely not have neurological or cognitive issues. The abnormality in her head shape is known as a Arnold-Chiari malformation. She might have problems with excess fluid building up in her head, which may require surgery and a shunt to drain the fluid, but we don’t know this yet either.

We do know that I will definitely be having a scheduled c-section, and that Claire will most likely be having surgery within a few days of her birth to close the opening on her spine. That’s all we know for sure.

We are thankful that the opening on her spine is down so low, and we are thankful that there appears to be no neural tissue in the sac. We want it to stay that way. We are thankful to be at UAMS, where we have access to some of the best specialists and surgeons around, and to know that our OB will definitely be there at the girls’ birth. I am personally thankful that I’m married to a pediatrician who can listen to all these doctors speak and translate it into a way that I can understand and that calms me.

We are so excited and so in love with Etta and Claire already. They are moving like crazy inside me, and every night at bedtime, they seem to have a little dance party. Jon has been able to feel them moving too, and it’s just the craziest experience in the world. I love that they’re still keeping a little secret to themselves, and that we won’t know until after they’re born if they’re identical or fraternal twins.

Friday was a hard day with a lot to take in, but after a couple of days of reading and settling in, we are feeling much better. We, all of us, are going to be OK.

 

*Update almost two years later: Claire’s spinal defect was more severe than originally predicted at this and other ultrasounds and ended up being a myelomeningocele that extended up to around L2. At this point, she is 17 months old, has had a shunt placed for her hydrocephalus, is crawling on her own, can pull to kneeling on her own, wears knee-high braces on her legs, and can stand with help and step with help. We have every hope that she will walk, though what types of braces or other support will be required remains to be seen. So again, more best possible bad news: the defect was worse than we hoped, but her abilities remain better than we might have expected with the location and severity of her spinal defect.

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cry/babies

I spent yesterday feeling sort of hungover.

From crying.

In order to explain the crying, I have to first say that I spent at least an hour snuggling my friend Kat‘s adorable, sleeping newborn on Saturday. It was divine. She nestled and nuzzled and made tiny bird noises and drooled all over my chest. I was in heaven.

And then, when we were going to bed and I was telling Jon about it, I suddenly started sobbing about how I’m never going to get to do that sort of thing with my babies because there will always be another one with needs and wants and OH MY GOD HOW DO I EVEN HOLD TWO BABIES AND HOW WILL THEY FIT IN OUR HOUSE AND WHY CAN’T WE JUST BE NORMAL PEOPLE WHO HAVE ONE BABY AT A TIME WE DIDN’T ASK FOR TWINS THIS IS TERRIBLE.

I cried so hard I literally couldn’t breathe, and then I cried harder because I can’t take any sinus medication. Jon stroked my hair and held me and handed me tissues and eventually I fell asleep, only to have another crying jag the next day when we started doing the great bedroom switcheroo to make what was the guest room into our bedroom and what was our bedroom into the babies room. I think the crying trigger that time was that we don’t have enough closets which became me not having enough arms for two babies which became me feeling insane which became me fearing that having two babies is really going to send me around the bend.

I think the twinshock has worn off, and twin reality is setting in. We’re undertaking a major life change. And while most of the time, when your life suddenly and completely changes, you don’t really see it coming until it’s in the rear view mirror, this change is looming up ahead like a mountain we have to climb, behind which is another mountain, and another. Add to this utter unknown the fact that I’m hopped up on literally double the hormones of the average pregnant woman, and you’ve got a perfect storm for lots of tears.

It’s not that I don’t think the babies are a blessing. I DO. It’s not that we’re not thrilled. WE ARE. But I think we’d also have to be in some sort of deep denial to not also be a little bit terrified, and we’d have to be blind not to realize that our entire lives are changing, and it’s OK to mourn that change a little bit. We’re processing some major stuff.

Will this be hard? Of course. Will there be a lot more crying in our future? Of course. Will we survive? Yes. Will there be a whole lot of joy and cuteness too? Yep.

So while I may feel a tiny bit guilty for being actually angry and sad about this whole twins thing (along with excited, happy, blessed), I’m trying not to beat myself up over these feelings, but instead, just to feel them. It’s a process. As I learned from my beloved Mr. Rogers:

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”

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weeks 12/13

So, it’s been a bit since I’ve done a pregnancy update, huh? Tomorrow marks 14 weeks, but since the pic I’ve got is from the middle of week 12, this is sort of a combined update. Check out the bump on the beach (ignore the windblown hair):

I’m feeling pretty good as I start Trimester #2. Still sleepy pretty much all the time, but not AS sleepy as I was before. I spend a lot of time like this, still, though:

Tinycat is an excellent nap partner.

Still no puking, but I feel the general queasiness has increased. Everything makes me want to gag. Getting some of my own hair in my mouth? Gag. A seatbelt touching my neck? Gag. Trying to wear a scarf? Gag. Brushing my teeth? Gag. Even the sheets and blanket touching my neck in bed? Gag. It’s super fun.

Though I’ve written about struggling to get the calories and protein level recommended by my multiples pregnancy book, I’m gaining weight right on schedule. About 14 pounds, for those of you keeping track at home. It’s a weird thing to be cheering myself on for every extra glass of milk I drink and pound I gain, but I want nice big, healthy twins, so I’m doing it.

The reality of TWO BABIES seems to sink in more and more as my belly grows and grows, and we’re starting to think about all the stuff we need for the twins. One of our big concerns is that we might need a bigger car. We have a 6 year old Pontiac Vibe and are a one-car family. We’re a little concerned that my tall husband won’t be able to scoot his seat back far enough to drive with a carseat behind him, and not sure our backseat is big enough to have one seat behind the passenger and one seat in the middle. We really need to get some carseats and just try it, but we’re researching cars and trying to figure out what we need, and stressing out a little bit. How do you know what kind of car you need? Do I really have to get a minivan? How the heck are we going to afford these kids?