Thursday 31 July 2014

32 Down. 32 Up.

Well, I'm 32 weeks (almost 33) and measuring 42. I'm also up 32 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight. Does that say enough? Maybe a picture would better illustrate.

I'm feeling big, but not huge.  I thought by this point I would be much larger so I'm pretty happy with how things are progressing. 

We've had a lot happening this month leaving little to no time to blog (or do much of anything "fun").  The first part of the month was spent packing and then moving. Our first two weeks in the new house were spent painting.  I'm mostly settled upstairs, but still have a TON of boxes to go through and unpack.  I've switched gears now to get ready for the arrival of these babies.  Last night and today I went through Lucia's clothes and pulled out everything from 0 - 12 months so it can be washed.  I also went through all the shower gifts and removed tags etc. so they're ready for laundering as well. Boring, right? But, it needs to get done.  The one kink in my plans today was that the plumber showed up at 5pm to replace our kitchen faucet and a whole bunch of little upgrades. My dreams of doing laundry were stalled for 3 hours and now I'm writing a blog post instead of doing laundry :)

The girls' room is coming along.  While my friends were up from the coast we put together part of the closet organizer (hubby needs to tweak it a bit), the new chair from Ikea (that's actually much smaller than the catalogue makes it out to be), painted the chair rail, laid out the rug, and that's all for now. Still need to get the curtain rod and curtains up, set up the crib, finish the closet, hang up/fold and put away baby clothes, organize diapers.  One rabbit trail here: My mom has been buying diapers whenever she goes shopping. I think she brought close to 15 boxes of diapers (of varying sizes) when she came up! I have a whole closet FILLED with diapers. How awesome is that? I won't be the one stuck without any diapers at home!  The down side is that babies go through about 8-12 diapers per day so times two that's up to around 24 diapers. That means that one box off 88 diapers (newborn size) will last us 3.5 days. Yep, that's not a lot. So we NEED a closet full of diapers! And maybe our own landfill.  I attempted cloth diapering with Lucia, but funny enough, her skin reacted really badly. Maybe because I had bought used cloth diapers (they were clean), but she just has really sensitive skin and it did not work out for her.  With two babies coming, I think I'll have enough to do without having to wash and hang dry cloth diapers too. Kudos to all you cloth diapering momma's though, I have a lot of respect for you!!

Unfinished closet


I hosted a BBQ for Mason's 5th birthday at our house, just with close family.  Our family is pretty big so even just with the immediates there were 10 people.  That's not too many, but considering we'd moved in 5 days earlier....I may have been pushing my limits a bit.  This past Saturday we had Mason's friend birthday party.  I did most of the prep for it (making a cake, gathering decorations, planning games, goody bags, etc) and JP ran the show.  It was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle party and it was pretty fun.

Michelangelo cake

Sewer Ooze

A pretty fun  ninja punch game

Anyways, tomorrow is another ultrasound (I'm going every three weeks now).  I'll drink my water and waddle myself in to the office.  I think they should know me by now. I think this is my 8th ultrasound (at least).  Holding that water in doesn't get any easier though.  I'll think I have to pee soooo bad and then there's only like a thimble full. And then I have to pee 3 minutes later again. 

Today's appointment with my family doctor was really encouraging. My blood pressure remains great, my urine sample was good (they look for nitrates and sugar and things), the fetal heart rates were both around 140, and both babies are head DOWN! Yippee! I've been hoping and praying for a vaginal delivery and to have both babies head down is a good start to achieving that.  Hopefully they get too big to turn around again and things stay the way they are. 

I took a short video of the babies moving inside me last night.  It's a bit freaky seeing such bony parts stick out, but kind of neat at the same time.  If we're "Facebook friends" head over to my page to check it out. Warning: it is my bare tummy which some people might find distasteful.  Normally there isn't that much belly but when you have 42 weeks worth of pregnant belly....it's a lot of skin.

Fun Facts for Week 32:
Babies are the size of a jicama. (Jicama tastes really yummy with sea salt and lime squeezed on it. Yum!)  They're probably getting close to 4.5 or 5 pounds by now. They were just shy of 4 pounds three weeks ago.

Challenges:
Sleeping is definitely my biggest challenge right now.  I've self diagnosed myself with pregnancy induced insomnia.  The other night, it was getting light out before I fell asleep. And then my children work up at 6:30.  Wednesday was a long day!


I still have down days where I feel completely overwhelmed and "can I really do this?" goes through my head constantly.  I've been trying to pray more when I feel like this and am just trusting that God will get me through it.  We do have a ton of support which is amazing, but a lot of it still comes down to me having to handle things.  I've started doing some research into actually living with and raising twins so I'm hoping that will answer some of the unknowns.  That being said, we will GLADLY accept meals and any offers of housework ;)

Victories:
The swimming pool is open! My in laws have a pool in the yard and they're just down the hill from us. I feel the most "normal" when I'm in the pool.  All of the extra weight and pressure feels non-existent and I can swim and float and be cool in the pool.  My maternity swimsuit even almost covers all of me. Almost. 

We've got about 5 weeks to go until induction day (if I make it that long).  I'm really hoping to go into labour naturally so if I haven't already delivered by about the 27th of August, I'm going to go for a bumpy drive (worked with the first two) and eat 10 pineapples.  If that fails, I'll be induced around the 3rd of 4th of September.

I really hope you are enjoying your summer and getting to spend time doing what you love! Thanks for sticking with me! I appreciate your support, concern, prayers, thoughts, and hugs so much!!

Blessings,
Tamara



Tuesday 1 July 2014

28 weeks!

We're in the 3rd trimester folks! If the babies were to be born now, I'd still have to go to Vancouver for NICU care, but they would have a good chance of survival! That's definitely a blessing! At my last ultrasound, the girls both looked great. They are weighing about 2 lbs 4 oz each, which is a good weight for this stage. 

My blood pressure has remained low (90/40) and I think it's causing some extra struggles for me. I'm just sooo tired all the time (sometimes even just holding my cell phone to scroll Facebook or Pinterest is too much) and I've been really light headed and dizzy.  Our family has been under a lot of stress lately with the looming move to a new home as well as some recent illness for my dad. He's been sick for almost a month and ended up in the hospital twice.  He is still currently admitted after undergoing surgery on Thursday last week.  Needless to say, between being preggers with twins, still working, packing/trying to get organized for a move, and now my dad being incapacitated, it's been stressful to say the least. I've had a lot of extra phone calls and research and meeting with home nurses, setting up various services, doing extra errands and that sort of thing.  A huge help has been that the surgeon looking after my dad just happens to be one of the doctors that I work with.  He's been so fantastic at keeping me updated as to how surgery went and how things are progressing. I'm so thankful for the connections to the medical world.  Even one of the nurses looking after my dad is a friend from way back.  I'm hoping that dad will be released sometime this week after he's regained a bit more strength and they get his medications switched from IV to oral. 

Another good thing about him being in hospital is that we were able to go on the houseboat trip we had planned over the weekend. Last summer, my brother in law won a $5000 houseboat weekend at the Calgary Stampede. We'd had it planned for quite some time and I was looking forward to getting away.  Having dad in the hospital meant I knew he was in great hands. I felt that I could just release that extra responsibility and enjoy the peace and quiet of nature and just being away. We had a really nice time and it was just what we all needed.   

In all honesty, I'm surprised my blood pressure has remained so low.   That's another blessing and I'm trying to look at it that way.  

This isn't really a happy post. I'm feeling pretty discouraged so thought I would write about it. I'm sure another pregnant mom out there can relate and maybe it will help her to know that it's ok and it's normal to feel down sometimes.  As long as the down days aren't EVERY day.  I'm trying to hold my head up, but it's tough.  Making it through each day is an accomplishment. Not running away (not that I can run anyways) is another step in the right direction.  It scares me to think that the coming weeks will only get more difficult but I'm trusting that God will give me the strength and patience I need to make it through each day. 

Prayers would be much appreciated :)

Blessings on you and your family!

Tamara