From the monthly archives:

October 2008

Waiting for you. Week 22.

by Ms. Myg on October 31, 2008

It was pain week. Yes, that’s what I’ll call it.

I have a history of back/neck injuries sustained from two totally excellent places:

  1. Flipping over the handlebars of my Sears Freedom bike when I was 7 years old. It was real bad. So bad, I cracked my brand new adult front tooth in half, landed on my head in the middle of the street and was knocked unconscious. Hospital time!
  2. Rock and Roll. I played guitar and sang in an indie rock band from the time I was 19 until…well I last played a show in December of 2001. I was 32 then. (Ugh. That long ago?) Anyway, I had some terribly shitty posture and managed to herniate two discs in my neck, which became very problematic for me in 1999. With treatment (physical therapy, chiropractic adjustments, drugs) I fully recovered. Or, did I? Herniated discs are like that.

I haven’t had a lot of complaints about these issues in the last few years. I’ve been lucky. Every once in awhile if I was feeling achy I’d make a trip to the doctor and get an adjustment, then be fine. I maybe saw him a couple of times a year. Then came pregnancy. With twins.

The pain I now have in my back is different. It hovers somewhere in the middle, (“Really? Not your lower back?” most formerly pregnant women, aka mothers, ask me. Now, I may know absolutely fucking nothing about being pregnant, but I can tell you exactly where it hurts, damn it.) The pain was particularly vicious on the left side, right under my ribs, every night at around 8:30pm until I went to bed, when it would wrap itself around to my abdomen, making me ponder whether or not I was getting an ulcer. Then magically tonight it appeared on the right side, and behaved in much the same way. I was relieved for the change in scenery, as it were.

This pain started gradually. I first noticed that if I spent much time on my feet, I’d be screwed for days. I learned, hey, don’t spend so much time on your feet. Now it’s to the point where I can’t spend too much time sitting upright, either. I need to spend a significant part of the day laying down. Which sounds a lot nicer than it is – especially when you still sorta have a job, like I do.

Know what’s really killing me? I had to stop walking the dog. Couldn’t make it down my street to the corner without my mid back feeling like it was being ripped apart. I feel so, so bad about not being able to do things with my dog! Soon enough he’s going to be relegated around here to actual, you know, dog status. I was hoping for a little more time I could really dote on him. Poor guy – he’s just 19 months old – still a puppy for labs. [Insert gratuitous adorable dog pic here:]

Man, he still does that head cocked to the side thing when you talk to him too. He’s too much.

To alleviate the pain, I had a full on therapeutic massage last weekend. It was nice, but it didn’t fix shit. On Monday I begged my doctor to squeeze me in and got an adjustment. I think that helped – some. My pain is more localized now. But it still hurts. A lot. And for a lot of the day.

The OB/GYN told me to order the “prenatal cradle.” It’s a crazy borderline S&M looking contraption that will support my back in holding up my belly.

Wear it UNDER your clothes, dummy!

Wear it UNDER your clothes, dummy!

With that shoulder support, it should alleviate some of my mid back woes. If you need one, google it, but don’t order it from the maker, Prenatal Cradle, or you’ll pay about $20 extra for one with shipping. I ordered mine from Target for around $60, shipping was free. I’ll let you know when it gets here if it works. I really pray it does because if all goes well, I’m looking at another 15 weeks of this shit!

So that was my week.

Oh, the kids? Here’s what Bing and Doot have been up to:

  • They’re growing. How do I know? Well, I don’t exactly, other than the fact that I have been growing. And they seem to be crowding my internals a bit more. Conventional Wisdom says they should be about a pound each and a foot long a piece. That makes me crave a Nathan’s. Or two.
  • They are now producing their own hormones. Great – just what we need around here. More hormones!
  • Moving around. I still worry about whether or not I feel them moving enough. But I do feel tap, tap, tap every now and then. First this side, then that. Every once in awhile in the middle of the night, somebody kicks me hard enough to cause pain in a vital organ. It’s reassuring.
  • Other than getting bigger, I’m not sure what’s left for these guys between now and showtime.

And as for me, the pain thing is really tantamount. If you’ve ever experienced chronic pain, you know of what I speak. It just flavors everything in your day. So since I devoted so much of this post with that, I’ll skip it in the bulleted recap of the state of me:

  • Getting clutzy and moving in the vertical plane is more complicated. Unplug something? Pick that sock up off the floor? Okay, I’ll do it, but it had better be REAL important to you.
  • Worrying. Like up at 3am thinking about every single thing that isn’t done. From the hall closet being a wreck to the nursery to work related things to my wedding photo album (yeah, I got married 6 years ago, but still.)
  • I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT I’M DOING HERE! SHUT UP! GO AWAY! DON’T LEAVE ME!
  • Denial. Sometimes I just don’t believe they are really, truly in there. Just as I was typing this, I received a message in the form of a swift kick from Doot in the liver. Thanks, buddy.

I’ve got a lot more internal state of mind stuff to spew at you, but it’s late and I’m tired and oh, jeez, did I mention my back hurts? Makes even blogging a bitch.

You may be wondering, as I have, given my complaints above, do I still think pregnancy over 35 = AWESOME?  Well, yes. I do. But I will qualify this with the fact that awesome doesn’t mean easy. It doesn’t even always mean good. The big bang was awesome, wasn’t it?  Mother nature must have gotten a serious damned back ache from that, right?

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22 Week Belly Tour

by Ms. Myg on October 27, 2008


22 Week Belly Tour from Myg on Vimeo.

Soon I’ll write my “Waiting for you – Week 22″ post, but thought I’d give you voyeurs a glimpse of my ever expanding cargo space.

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Amy Poehler = AWESOME

by Ms. Myg on October 26, 2008

She’s funny. She’s got Hillary Clinton nailed. She’s 37. And she just had a baby boy with her husband, Will Arnett (who I will also love forever for his genius portrayal of the character Gob Bluth on Arrested Development). Which makes Amy Poehler AWESOME.

Congratulations Amy and Wil! Welcome to the world, little Archie Arnett!

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Waiting for you. Week 21.

by Ms. Myg on October 24, 2008

I’ve picked up a bad habit – reading the blogs of other mothers, some of whom have some really, really awful stories to tell. But, oh! These blogs are good. The writing is good, the people are good, the stories are real. You can’t beat good blogging. It’s the new indie rock.

I found two of these new mom blogs because many women bloggers have, quite understandably, flipped the fuck out over John McCain’s assinine comments during the last debate about “health” of the mother being an “excuse” (I really wish I could render McCain’s sarcastic wrinkly finger wagging air-quote gesture in print somehow) that “pro-abortion” proponents use for protecting women’s reproductive rights.

The blogger backlash led me first to Uppercase Woman, by Philadelphia writer Cecily Kellogg. I’m now undoubtedly hooked, and the timing couldn’t be worse.  Why?  Well, Cecily was pregnant with twin boys four years ago, during the last presidential election. She had severe pre-eclampsia, diagnosed in week 22 (EXACTLY WHERE I AM RIGHT FUCKING NOW, btw) and lost both of them, four years ago this coming Sunday. But the story is even worse than that – worse than just “losing them.” She had to have a late term abortion after one of them died in utero and she was in danger of dying herself.

The other new mom blog I found is by a woman named Alexa at Flotsam. She shares another harrowing, god fucking awful tale about complications in her twin pregnancy. Her twin son had died from some mystery infection in utero and she ended up delivering her daughter at 25 weeks (she continues to blog about her daughter’s progress). Damn, damn, damn.

See why I shouldn’t be reading this shit right about now? But I have, so now I subject you as well.  Please, if you can stomach the kind of grief and heartache women face every day with this shit, read their stories. But for GOD’S SAKE, NOT IF YOU’RE PREGNANT! Especially NOT if you are pregnant with twins, like me! Wait until those little bugs are out here raising hell, at least.

But, if you are willing and able, here’s Cecily’s response to McCain and the recap of her story. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page to start from the beginning – there are a bunch of posts related to it.) Cecily, I know you’re dealing with some strong anniversary reactions right now and a lot of grief. Much love to you, fellow stranger.  Alexa Flotsam’s story is here, and it is equally powerful.

When you take 30 seconds to consider the reality for women who have to endure something as atrocious as the death of her unborn child or children at that stage of development, I hope you feel a very hard slap in the face. I hope it hurts. And by you I don’t just mean John McCain or Sarah Palin or any other so-called “pro-lifer” out there. I mean all of us. We all need to feel a little pain when considering how these kinds of issues become political footballs among the majority of us who will never have to face this specific brand of agony. But perhaps if we all hurt a little more for these brave, loving women, we might collectively come to our senses regarding the safeguarding of, yes, women’s HEALTH.

Glad I got that off my chest. It has been no small amount of emotional workout to keep my anxiety in check after reading those stories.

After reading a bit about all that can go so desperately wrong at this stage, I freaked out and called the nurse practitioner coordinator person at my OB/GYN’s office. This is the first time during my pregnancy where I’ve had to wait more than two weeks to see a doctor in person. Given a few things, like a) Cecily’s story, wherein she had severe pre-eclampsia at 22 weeks and was virtually asymptomatic and b) women who’ve undergone IVF are twice as likely to have pre-eclampsia and c) I was still unsure if I was feeling the boys move enough, or in the right way and d) I didn’t have a glucose challenge test scheduled yet and e) after my last ultrasound, it was not recommended I come in after two weeks for a new cervical length check like they wanted me to at weeks 18 and 16, I had some questions.

“Wow, that was a thorough voicemail!” she laughed when she called me back. Damn straight it was. I’m a social worker. I work in the health care industry, though off to the side now. I know that doctors, nurses, all sorts of medical professionals fuck up. Not intentionally, but in a “we’re so, so, so overworked” kind of way. They follow protocols more than instincts, and treatment protocols are dictated by insurance companies who have the ultimate goal of saving bucks, not you. Often these are tailor made for the general population and don’t fit your specifics. So yeah, I had questions.

And you know what? I was okay with her answers, which were that a) they’ve been checking my urine and blood pressure for early signs of pre-eclampsia and everything looked great – they really were not worried at this stage. b) I’d get the referral for the glucose challenge test (to check for gestational diabetes) at my next visit. c) What I described over the phone as possibly the movement of the boys sounded like it was indeed movement, not bad gas, and if I was worried at all, to come in and they’d check on me. And to call if I had any worries or concerns at all. I was okay with that, and since that day I feel them moving a lot more. Though I still swear it feels like gas in the wrong part of my body.

Anyway, you want to know how the kids are? This is what they say about week 21:

  • They are plumping up like little turkeys in there, baking away and packing on the pounds. Like mother, like sons.
  • They are wrinkly like prunes or like your grandpa’s ass, perhaps. Depends on your grandpa.
  • They are sucking their thumbs! Man that’s so cute to think about I can hardly stand it.
  • They do seem to be wriggling around a lot in there now, as though to say, “Mom, look, you’ve got to get a grip on yourself!” after my agonizing and worrying about it.

As for me? I’m just great, just:

  • IN PAIN! My back hurts. Oh, it hurts. It hurts a lot. But the good part is that it’s a new kind of hurt, not that same old boring hurt I had from guitar injuries. And the other blessing, seriously, is that about 5 minutes of back rub in the right spot does give me relief for about an hour. How I suffer depends on what I do.
  • Worried. Ah, sigh. What can I do? I go back to the doctor on 11/5, unless I really just can’t deal with it. Then I’ll go back earlier to hear the heartbeats and reassure myself I’m not really that gassy.
  • Did someone say gassy? Hullo, constipation? Upping my rations of Rasin Bran this week.
  • Big. And getting bigger, it seems, by the day.
  • Limited in my activities. This is self-imposed, due to my back pain (see aforementioned bullet 1). If I stand long enough to get my hair dry, I’m in pain. Fucking ridiculous. I know, my belly is big and heavy and yes, teeming with life. My back muscles are not up to it, at all. I do have a massage scheduled for tomorrow. I know that’s going to help, and my appointment with my back doctor is on the calendar. So hopefully I can do things like unload the dishwasher and fold laundry again shortly. Yeah, I’m really hoping for that.

You know what else? I seriously can’t wait for this election to be over. I hope, oh how I hope, that Obama does it. I hope he gets in and whips the government back into shape. I think he can. I think we can. But god am I tired of the election. I’m just tired of it.

And you know what else, else?

I still love being pregnant.

Check back in another 15 weeks and see if I’m still saying that.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

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In or out? The Moms Only Club in the post-infertility world.

by Ms. Myg on October 22, 2008

This has been a hard post to write, let me say that up front. I think I need to eat some humble pie. We’ll see.

As a long time outsider to mom culture, I had no idea what kind of club I was going to find myself inducted into with this pregnancy. I sort of speculated when we adopted Mason, because dog-owners-who-love-their-dogs-too-much have a similar “us-ness” that you join when you do things like spend time at dog parks. But this experience is far beyond.

I admit, I’ve always found the “moms only” club irritating once I reached an age where most of my female friends and relatives were members. See, when you’re in your thirties and childless you eventually stop getting invited to your friends-with-kids’ parties and dinners, presumably because you’re thought of as someone who doesn’t want to be around kids.

But now that I’m pregnant, we’ve been welcomed back into this group of people – some of whom I’ve known forever.

It’s just, well, weird. It’s not bad. But it is the process of becoming a part of something you’ve resented for years. You definitely don’t want to opt out, but you don’t forget how you felt a few short months ago either. And that’s weird.

See, when you’re infertile you really don’t want to be around other people’s adorable children or around pregnant women. At least I didn’t. Whenever possible I avoided them. I was such an ass I didn’t even respond to several invites for baby showers, let alone RSVP with a polite “no” and send a gift. “Fuck it” said I. I couldn’t tolerate the idea of someone else having a baby that wasn’t me, not even long enough to step into Babies R Us to buy a stupid gift. I was really that bad. So bad that at one point I remember being at a party last fall where the host announced his wife was expecting, and I had to lock myself in their bathroom and sob. I left early.

Of course, that’s me. In case it’s not obvious yet, I am nothing if not overwrought with intensity at all the inopportune moments in life. My struggle with infertility shook me to my foundations – challenged the very meaning of my own life. IT SUCKED BALLS.

Despite my best efforts to contain myself (and I’m a licensed therapist, so you can honestly consider me a pro at that), perhaps my personal hell was noticeable to my friends with kids after all. I’d like to think that’s the reason we were excluded from their social lives for awhile, but truthfully I think they had more reasons to bond with other parents who could share child watching, toy sharing or other concerns. I don’t blame them at all for that. During the same period, mostly due to my frequent sour moods, we became far less social and offered invitations to our home only for rare special occasions. I can’t say the loosening of ties wasn’t a mutual process.

But I will say I was surprised to see how proactively our company has been sought now that I’m pregnant.

Would I suck if I said it makes me nervous?

I want to join the club and you know what? I really need to for my own sanity. I want to be able to ask people stupid questions like, “How do you go to the bathroom in a public restroom with twins in a stroller? Should I even bother to go out in public with them for the first six months? Where should the babies sleep? For how long?”My problem is, I hate, hate HATE to ask anyone for help. With anything.

Lucky for me, I didn’t have to ask. Help is coming, whether I’m able to ask or not. That’s one of the small miracles of motherhood I’ve discovered. Mothers can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to helping others.

So, I’ve found myself the recipient of this incredibly sweet outpouring of attention and support the likes of which I’d never imagined. I am humbled by the generosity especially of other women who have kids – many I’ve known and paid little attention to for years (some in my own family) and even several I’ve never met other than from their interest in this blog.

Other than being pregnant, I can’t understand what I’ve done to deserve such commeraderie. So I try to understand it like this.

Being pregnant is the dichotomy of a truly unique experience and a truly common one. It’s special beyond special. More special than Christmas morning waffles and more special than shooting stars. It’s the specialist thing I’ll ever do. I know that, even despite the ever present spasms in my shoulders and twenty pairs of shoes that don’t fit. And so do all these women who are reaching out to me now.

I think it’s partly to welcome and honor me for partaking in this continuity of the life force. And I think it’s partly their way of honoring and remembering the experience itself.

So whatever happens now, consider me in.

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Waiting for you. Week 20!

by Ms. Myg on October 17, 2008

WEEK 20! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!

That’s how I thought I’d feel, anyway. It’s a pregnancy milestone, right? The coveted half way point of your average full term pregnancy, a little more than that for us twin carriers. I’d long said to myself, “When I hit 20 weeks, I’m going to feel like this thing is really on.” But the 20 week mark came and went for me without any huge “Aaaaahhhh” moment.

I wonder if most moms-to-be have a particular moment during pregnancy when they go, “Holy shit – this little alien is going to be outside of my body and I’m going to have to deal with it!” I thought since the beginning of pregnancy that 20 weeks would be the point that happened. But if you’ve read this blog for the past month, you might recall that it actually happened at week 16. That was the week I woke up and realized I was going to be somebody’s mom. Two somebodies.

Week twenty did bring with it a surprisingly gruelling ultrasound session, one in which the tech marked down every single length of every bone in each of my boys’ bodies. You know what? That was a pain in the ass. It took like an hour and a half, and then the doctor had to come in and try to get better picture’s of Bing’s heart, because they like to get 8 views, and in his position they could only get 1. “It looks beautiful-perfect-in the one view, but we’d like to get at least a few more.” In what could be a sign of things to come, Bing said, “Screw you guys for interrupting my nap with your pesky technology” and would not offer himself up for a better view. The doctor said better luck next time and not to worry. So for once, I won’t!

At this point, it looks like Bing is a teeny bit bigger than Doot. The doctor said it wasn’t a difference that they were worried about because it’s a very small difference. Do you ever wonder how doctors do it? How they worry so little? They must practice.

However, I know that with twins, you do have to worry about one growing bigger than the other, so I’d rather at this point they were more or less the EXACT SAME SIZE. Is that too much to ask? Ah well, I suppose it’s one of the ways they’re asserting their individuality. No doubt one will have a mohawk in the third grade, while the other will be playing the violin. I do know that during the ultrasound Bing was caught kicking Doot. We’ll have a little chat about that when they get here. No kicking your brother just because he’s a mm shorter!

Other things my boys are up to in week 20:

  • Growing! I don’t know why, but the ultrasound pics I have include magnification and other tech specs, but don’t put my babies’ size or weights down anywhere. Like, why do I care about Hz? I want to know about them. Internet wisdom and the Mayo Clinic tell my my boys are nearly 6 inches and half a pound each. My insides tell me they’re growing all the time.
  • They are now noticeable. I mean to me. The movement I feel with them feels nothing like “popcorn popping” or “soda bubbles” or anything cute like that, that most people tell you it feels like. So much different, I didn’t understand I’ve been feeling them move for awhile now because I couldn’t recognize what it felt like. I normally don’t feel their kicks and punches, per se. I have felt them, I think, and can only imagine I will soon feel them regularly. Instead, what I feel is a sensation of my insides moving around. It feels more like my organs are migrating or as though I have indigestion in the wrong part of my body, to be honest. It feels like “there something IN there!” It’s not uncomfortable, except one night when I’m fairly sure Doot kicked me in the stomach and I woke up with a mouth full of stomach acid. I thought I was going to puke. I didn’t. Rah!

My week?

  • Working SUCKS! I actually have a really nice job. Anyone would envy my job, if only it wasn’t going away. But a large part of my job is to train people, meaning to stand up in front of groups of people and tell them all I know about various subjects. Ego strokes galore, it’s a nice thing for someone like me who likes that stuff. Thing is, my fuckin feet hurt! Who knew I couldn’t think sitting on my ass? Who knew being pregnant and off coffee would be such a drag on my training style? One thing I hate is doing something I love half assed. I’ll cook half assed or clean half assed, but gas bagging? I want to blow everyone out of the water. I can’t do that now, plus, my body really hurts if I stand for too long.
  • I can’t bend down too well. Oh, and I’ve started to waddle. Hat tip to Cheryl Lage again, who dutifully warns of this in Twinspiration. The saddest part of my newfound physical limits is the toll it’s taken on playing with Mason-the world’s cutest and most amazing dog. I can’t bend down, over and over and over, to pick up the slimy toy and throw it to him. And he has yet to learn how to bring it to me without dropping it on the ground. Good boy! That reminds me, here’s the gratuitous adorable dog picture (yes, from puppy years – I need to take some good new pics):

    Mason at 13 weeks old

    Mason at 13 weeks old

  • Emotional. I cry! Wow, do I cry. Sometimes in the middle of the night I cry without any actual good reason. I am also a bit clingy. I am lucky because Alex is nothing if not patient with me and my profound emotional neediness during this time. Okay, writing this is making me cry. See what I mean?
  • Sleep, I miss you so, so, so, so much. It’s going to be a long year or so for me I realize. I am trying to accept it. I do sleep, but I am not able to sleep as soundly as I once did. And I’m not able to sleep for as many hours either. I have been obsessively worried about sleeping on my back, as I still find that I roll onto my back in the night. I had lunch with a friend of mine today – a mother of 7 year old twins – who admitted she slept on her back the whole time. “It was the only way I could sleep at all.” That made me feel a little better.

And a bunch of other stuff, but my absent mindedness and ever present tiredness prevent me from thinking of what it is. Sorry!

In other news, one of my favorite pregnant bloggers, Amy of Amalah.com had her new baby boy! For super special adorable newborn pics, head on over here. They made me cry, of course. But in a really, really good way. Congrats to you Amy. I’m not long behind!

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Twinspiration – a book I am totally appreciating.

by Ms. Myg on October 14, 2008

I never really anticipated doing reviews of anything on this blog, but what the hell. It’s not like I’m not buying stuff, right? Today I pass along to you other twin-moms-to-be or new twin moms a book that seems to know exactly what kinds of things I am stressing about right now.

Twinspiration: Real-Life Advice From Pregnancy Through the First Year (for Parents of Twins and Multiples)

The book is by Cheryl Lage, a mother of twins from Richmond, Virginia. I only have one seriously bitchy comment to get out of my system before continuing to sing the praises of this short and helpful volume.  As the title suggests, Lage has a habit of twinifying nearly every poor word that has the woeful luck to begin with “in.” I just find that to be, I’m sorry, corny. Referring to the first chapter as “Twintroduction” or calling her website, Twinsights.com after awhile just makes me cringe. That said, please keep in mind that I’ve got as much gnarly NJ sarcasm in my veins as I do red blood cells, so take my criticism as nothing more than a personal language preference. There’s a lot about “mommy culture” that makes my skin crawl, such as grown women referring to themselves as “Mommy” under any circumstance when not directly addressing their own child under 5 years old.

But that’s me, and hell, when these babies come out I might be gooifying my general speech patterns with the best of my softer, gentler and admittedly more seasoned counterparts in the land of motherhood.

Now back to the book.

I’ve lately found myself crapping at the prospect of two helpless newborns under my care. The biggest reason for this is that I’ve never in my life spent much time around babies. Give me any child with verbal skills and I’m a whiz. But a helpless baby who can’t talk? Forget it. I never baby sat as a kid. I didn’t have any younger siblings. Lo, I have never even changed a diaper. The thought of managing one newborn is intense enough. But two? Holy Christ in a hand basket.

To help me get a handle on impending motherhood, I have purchased several books on pregnancy and a couple of others on twins. They were the size of phone books. I thought, oh, good, they’ll be comprehensive. NOT. I found one twin book to have a lot of information in it I just didn’t want. I know that sounds strange, but too much of it was just, frankly, hippie-style hogwash about how circumcision is the devil and how adult twins undergoing malarky “in utero transgressive hypnosis” uncover deeply rooted traumas from having to share a womb with their sibling. Now, as a mental health professional I love hypnosis as a treatment technique for all kinds of issues, but pardon me for saying that just sounds like tremendous horse shit. It made the rest of the book hard to take seriously.

The other big fat twin book? Vapid as hell. Lots of superficial treatment of complex topics. Sort of like reading a lot of quick magazine articles about shit you actually want to, you know, learn about. It told me little I didn’t already know or couldn’t figure out with basic common sense, and the twin pregnancy week-to-week coverage was much weaker than your average guide to pregnancy. Amazing to me how page layout can kill so much paper for so little information.

So until now, the Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy has been my bible and my preferred guide to pregnancy. However, while it gives a decent amount of real information about pregnancy and child birth and assorted possible medical issues (without scaring the crap out of you, which is a plus), it doesn’t offer much additional  insight into birthing or parenting multiples.

I really needed something that would explain how on fucking earth I was going to survive with two little tiny babies with so much need. At least until they get to that talking part, when I will feel a little bit more on familiar turf. Twinspiration, hokey title aside, has really delivered what I was looking for. I couldn’t put it down when I first brought it home.

Things I love about this book:

  • It is market paperback sized, and fits in my purse at about 325 pages. This is a great thing when you find yourself with ample doctor waiting room time.
  • Brief but useful coverage specific to twin pregnancy. She focuses well on what might be different about twin pregnancy from singleton pregnancy. Mayo has covered the basics of pregnancy in detail, but Cheryl tells me things like, yes, you are going to be more exhausted with two babies developing. Go on and nap.
  • Cheryl is a mother of twins and assures me the experience awesome and ultimately does not kill you. My hunch is that it’s awesome in a good way, and in an “oh my fucking god I’m going to die of exhaustion” way. She doesn’t gloss over what’s difficult, but she does accentuate what’s amazing. I am so needing that now.
  • A full account of her birthing story, all gory details included. She delivered vaginally and spares little in the telling. That was the point at which I could not put the book down.
  • She mentions that she was “of advanced maternal age” at some point, but doesn’t say how old she was when she had her kids in 2001. I wish she had, but I appreciate knowing she was over 35 when she experienced her first pregnancy.
  • Short blurbs from Cheryl’s husband including some quite useful insight for fathers-to-be.
  • Detailed advice on things from what to pack in your hospital bag, or how on earth you breast feed two babies, boneheaded things you can expect to hear from people, how to open doors with a twin stroller, or whether you need two cribs or one during the first year.

You know what I like about Cheryl’s advice? In a world where too many doctors, professed parenting “experts” and publications offer little actual opinion for fear of being wrong, Cheryl dares to give an informed opinion. On too many nagging questions, most resources ditch responsibility by saying, “hey, really, it’s up to you.” This lack of guidance just pisses me off. I am a grown woman and I KNOW these decisions are up to me. What do you think bitches? Cheryl tells me what she experienced, what she recommends and lets me make up my own mind. I like that in a woman. And I especially like it in a writer.

The book travels in my purse and stays next to my bed at night. I have no doubt that I’ll sleep with Cheryl’s book under my pillow once the little guys get here. And who knows? By then, I may find myself having a twinkle in my vernacular too.

Slap me if that happens.

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What to call them?

by Ms. Myg on October 11, 2008

What do you call your unborn before you’ve picked out a name? We’ve been struggling with this for a bit. Coming up with one name would have been a challenge, but two?

My darling husband Alex, father-to-be is still stalling in the name department. Really, pinning it on him is not entirely fair because I’m not exactly sure what we should call the little lima beans either. But in what’s sure to be an enduring pattern of family life, I’ll kick the responsibility for indecision to him!

The problem is, they are getting to the point where we don’t want to keep referring to them as “Baby A” and “Baby B.” Which is how the doctors and ultrasound technicians tell them apart. All I need is a whopping therapy bill in 15 years because “Baby A” has felt mysterious unconscious undue pressure to over-achieve, whereas “Baby B” has always somehow felt like the second, lesser child.

So from henceforth and until required to make some sort of legal declaration of identity, we shall now refer to the boys as Doot and Bing.

Of course, these will not be official birth certificate names, nor what we call them after they make their grand entrance sometime this winter. But for now, until we can figure out some handles we can live with, these will have to do.

Why Doot and Bing? The nics just popped out of my mouth one night as we were wrestling with names, and Alex cracked up.

So it shall be.

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Gillian Anderson = awesome! (mom over 40 alert)

by Ms. Myg on October 9, 2008

Man, I was an X-files FREAK, but only for one season. Season 4, of course, just before Fight the Future came out. How psyched am I to be pregnant the same time as Gillian Anderson? Well, quite, thanks very much.

I hear she’s due in October. Danged soon! Good luck Gillian – I’m sure you’re wicked psyched to meet your new little alien. And because I know you’re curious, she’s 40. This will be her third kid.

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Waiting for you. Weeks 18 & 19.

by Ms. Myg on October 7, 2008

As I write this, one of my favorite bloggers, Amy over at Amalah, is now sporting her Week 38 belly. I wonder if I shouldn’t read ahead so much. She’s 20 weeks into my future, sort of.  This week she’s talking about false labor and, crap, does that sound like a drag. The kind of thing I suppose I should be aware of but really, I don’t want to be. Not yet. If it happens to me I’ll eat that sentence.

Once again I’m writing about Week 18 in the middle at the end of Week 19. I know I say the same thing every week but damn if it ain’t true. This pregnancy thing is just flying by. I know, I know. When I’m past the 34 week mark it won’t go fast enough.

Since I’m always now running behind on these things, I decided to cheat and put weeks 18 & 19 together. To be honest, I haven’t felt a ton of difference in between the two weeks, other than that gross armpit lump thing was really painful last week, but not so much this week. As an aside, I had a check-up with my OB/GYN today, and they haven’t gotten the report back from the radiologist on that. That’s annoying. I told her what they told me, and she checked the lump herself, which is a lot less swollen today. Her belief is that the tissue is indeed breast tissue because it reacts in a cyclical way and to hormones, but she is sending me on to a breast specialist just to be doubly sure. As she put it,

“With anything that has to do with the breast, I just prefer to go all the way with making sure it’s fine. I know they’ll send you back here wondering why I wasted their time, but let’s get it checked out anyway.”

I like this doctor and that attitude is exactly why.

I’m writing this today with wonder dog Mason laying on top of my feet. I wonder if he has any idea what’s coming. Somehow I think he must. Okay, now that I’m talking about him, I must include another gratuitous cute puppeh pic:

That’s him as a 13 week old pup, but I swear to you, even at 18 months he is still this cute. And he’s kind of laying like this right now, on top of my feet. I love the feel of puppy face on my toes.

And about those other little pups, the ones growing in my belly, conventional wisdom tells me that over the past two weeks:

  • They’ve got skins. Not just that, but these skins are covered in some sort of waxy goo called vernix caseosa. That makes them all greased pig like, which will come in handy as they slip through the tunnel of motherly love.
  • They’re about 6 inches, 7 oz. a piece by now. Seems like only yesterday they were one sip shy of a latte.
  • They look like – wait for it – babies! They supposedly have lost their alien resemblances, other than their family ones I mean. Now they just have to grow, grow grow. And I along with them.

As for moi, the last two weeks I have been:

  • Tired. On the days I don’t have to be anywhere, I will still take a 2 hour nap. The weird thing is I actually feel a little worse when I wake up, too. But I can’t seem to stop myself from taking them.
  • Speaking of sleep, I am now waking up every couple of hours just to roll over, because my body is awkward enough now that I can’t do it while asleep. Thus, I’m not getting enough uninterrupted sleep at night. See bullet above for relevant consequence. Did I mention that I really love to sleep? I can, no lie, under normal circumstances sleep 9 hours straight in a night. Now it’s more like 2. I think that’s taking a toll. Maybe it’s good practice for what’s ahead.
  • Ambivalent. Can I say this? Overall, in a grand scheme big picture way, I am ecstatic to be a mom and to have these little two space monkeys here in a few months. But at age 39 it is so god darned difficult to fathom what kind of life change I’m really in for here. I look at my friends’ families, which are all swell, but I have a hard time picturing myself in them. What is this going to be like? I want to get psyched up, but I find myself teetering between psyched up and psyched out a lot.
  • Worried about post-partum depression. I’m a licensed mental health professional, so I have a license to worry about my own mental health.
  • Worried and frustrated about money. My job situation is precarious right now because of budget cuts. My hours have been cut and we’re losing a lot of our income and will need to pay for our health insurance come January on top of a shrinking income. Thank the lord for progesterone, the stress killing hormone, because without it I think I’d be quite hard to live with right about now.

I also had an AFP test, which came back normal, which is good. What’s that? From About.com:

The AFP test, sometimes called the MSAFP or maternal serum AFP, is where a blood sample is drawn from the mother to check the levels of AFP. AFP is a protein secreted by the fetal liver and excreted in the mother’s blood. It is generally used for detecting neural tube defects, but it can also indicate: abdominal wall defects esophageal and duodenal atresia, some renal and urinary tract anomalies turner syndrome, some low birth weight fetuses, and placental complications. A low level of AFP could also indicate Down Syndrome.

I knew Down’s wasn’t an issue, but it’s good to know all that other stuff appears to be normal too. As I am now exhausted from writing this, I’ll sign off for now.

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