This is likely my last pregnancy entry, as I’m going to be induced in a couple of hours.
I am feeling quite an eclectic mix of things right now. Scared, yeah. Excited too. Like I’m about to walk off a cliff, too.
I’m not focused on the pain as much as the unknowns. I know it will hurt. I have no idea how much or how I’ll tolerate it. Hopefully I’ll tolerate it just fine with a few pharmaceuticals.
My biggest fear is how the boys are doing and how’ they’ll do during the process. I pray that they tolerate it well and that their bodies are developed enough to have a good start to life.
I am very excited hold them in my arms.
I am a little sad that this very, very sacred time of carrying life inside me is coming to a close now.
A note of caution: If you are currently pregnant, this story is one you may want to wait and read after you’ve delivered. By reading further you agree that neither the author nor Wiser Mom nor anyone connected with the blog may be held liable for contact PTSD symptoms, nightmares, hysteria or other undesirable effects incurred from reading the following account.
There is a huge backstory leading up to this, some of it was documented in real time on this blog. But for those of you who need a refresher or are new to the story, this post drops into it when Myg was exactly 35 weeks pregnant. She had been in the hospital for a week with mild preeclampsia after a third trimester filled with ER visits and two other hospital stays—one overnight and one five days long. Unexpectedly—we had been told a few hours earlier that it would be another week—the OBGYN team decided on the morning of week 34 and 6 days that it would be best to induce labor immediately and not let Myg’s condition deteriorate. The babies were healthy in utero and would most likely be fine after delivery, whereas Myg would only get sicker and not begin to recover until afterward. We catch up with our protagonists at 4 a.m., January 22, 2009:
Myg is being rolled into the operating room for delivery and I am right behind her in disposable scrubs and surgical mask. Twins are considered high risk, so all twin deliveries are done in the OR, just in case. A Pitocin drip to induce labor was started about nine hours earlier, and she was given an epidural at 11:30 p.m. that worked just as you’d want—she has gone through transition smoothly with not too much discomfort and is now 9 cm dilated. She has also been given magnesium sulfate—known in the medical parlance as “mag”—to control her preeclampsia symptoms. Mag will keep her blood pressure, already high and spiky, from getting out of control. It also has a host of nasty side effects, including the possibility of hot flashes that some recipients have said feel as if you’re burning from the insides and your eyeballs are melting. The other effect is that it is a powerful muscle relaxant. Exactly what you don’t want when you’re about to deliver a couple of babies.
The last belly pic
My previous experience with operating rooms is that they are cold. But as Myg is wheeled into the OR to deliver our twins, I don’t notice the temperature. I notice the table. The scene is like something out of David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, which should put a chill into anyone who has seen the film and anyone who doesn’t get the reference should be thankful they don’t. The operating/delivery table has padded swivel legs and stirrups that my memory says are stainless steel, but that sounds unnecessarily cruel, maybe they were just worn leather. Like the straps you’d find on an electric chair in Texas. Overhead, a large array of klieg lights dangle at the end of an articulated arm looking oddly like a female mantis with the severed head of her lover held in the caress of her deadly mandibles. A wall made of monitors and other machines that go bing! stacked about twelve-high is teetering dangerously close to the table. The only man in the 11-person delivery team sits next to them in oversized glasses holding a clipboard or notebook or tablet computer. He is unmistakably Hell’s bookkeeper. Other odd apparatus are arranged about the room but my attention is focused on Myg as she is helped onto the table, still strapped in, and her feet are arranged in the stirrups and a flimsy sheet is arranged over her.
Once again, Myg explains to the doctor and the nurses that we’ve had no birthing classes, no Lamaze, nothing, because she’s been on bedrest since week 26 and no one at the hospital could find any resources that would come to the house, other than the midwife/dula team we can’t afford because I’m in grad school and Myg’s on disability and frankly, we’re as poor as we’ve ever been and thought that it was the best time to have twins because we plan everything and it always works out—just not how we plan it, or we would have gone to birth classes in the second trimester when Myg felt well enough to go on vacation—therefore, we’ve only read about delivery. Yes, in a book. Oh, and online, too. (This works for me, give me a book with instructions and I’m golden, not so much for Myg, and she’s the one that has to do it, so I’m nervous but keeping a good attitude.) No, Myg hasn’t watched A Baby Story, because she’s terrified. (Five months after delivery she still can’t bring herself to watch it.) We need some coaching, please. The staff says not to worry and explains that when she feels a contraction she needs to take a deep breath and hold it and when they tell her to push she needs to push like she’s shitting a watermelon and keep pushing as long as she can—they’ll count to ten—and then she can relax until she feels the next contraction or like she wants to push.
And that’s it. Ready for your skydive/bungee jump/moon launch? Good, me too.
I sit at my wife’s head, looking down at the part in her hair. I want to kiss it, but my mouth is covered by the mask. The delivery team sees a contraction begin on the monitors and they all say in disjointed unison like a girls’ rugby scrum: take a deep breath, now PUSH, hold it keep pushing don’t let it out one … two… three… four… don’t let it out keep pushing and Myg lets it out and stops pushing around seven.
She looks at me with a holy shit expression that says this is not fun I do not want to do this but I have no choice oh fuck…
I whisper sweetly into her ear and she tries to relax for the brief couple of minutes before the next contraction. I try to say encouraging things. I hold her hand. I feed her ice chips. And it goes on and on and on. Myg gets tireder and tireder but continues to labor. Labor. The word in its most radical form. She labors.
Of all the things I am in relationship to Myg, at this moment I am nothing but an ice machine.
I am an ice machine.
I am the best ice machine.
That is all.
The iceman. I’m good with a Styrofoam cup and chips of ice. See? I can get them out of the cup and put them into your mouth where they melt and soothe and if I knew where the crushed ice machine was I could refill the cup all by myself. And when you stop to think about it, what else does one need in life but some ice chips? All your needs can be met with a foam cup full of ice.
With every contraction the routine is the same. It goes on and on. The mag has made it next to impossible. Myg gets tired. I just want to sleep, she says. Can someone else take over for a bit? She tries not to think about the fact that this is Baby A, nicknamed “Doot” in utero, and that after she gets this done she has to do it all over again for Baby B, “Bing.” She’s ready to be a mother. Or, she really wants to be done with pregnancy and wants these kids out of her, at least.
The team all cheer her on with every contraction and it’s annoying. If it’s annoying to me, I know it has to be irritating her. Myg, amazingly diplomatic, says, okay, I only want one of you to count. She points to the resident. You. You get to count. Everyone else has to be quiet.
I know inside she is thinking along the lines of: Shut up, you dumb fucks, I know the routine now. It’s not complicated. I hold my breath, I push for an eternity, the kid doesn’t budge. I do it again. You had to go to med school for this? If you have any suggestions besides “push” and demonstrating that you watched enough Sesame Street to count to ten as a group, then please enlighten me. Otherwise, I’m coming off this table and there will be carnage that will require a SWAT team and weeks of forensic analysis.
The diplomatic tack works for about two more contractions. But now it’s clear that Doot is moving, they can see his head, everyone is more excited and seems certain that he is about to come out on the next push. Everyone but the bookkeeper starts shouting “encouragement” again. Myg looks at me and says, we’re done with this. I nod and agree. If we want more children, adoption, as we have often discussed, will be the way to go. We’re finished with the biological imperative. The Team tells me to come around to look from their angle. Doot is nearly here.
I walk around and look up between my wife’s legs at the mystery of mysteries, the holy of holies, the place I like to think is my playground and not anything that involves spectators. I’m a guy, I love sex. But I’m also a pretty waspy guy who was brought up right and went to church as a kid. Sex works best in the bedroom. Without a team of specialists with instruments and years of expensive training. And I know, I know, this is not sex—this is the end result of sex when all the pieces of the biological Rube Goldberg contraption fall into place. And we’re in a hospital. Everything is sterile and clinical and has nothing to do with my sex life with my wife and OHMYGODWHATTHEFUCKISTHATTHING? An angry red maw of engorged flesh has replaced Myg’s lady parts, and it’s being stretched wide by a red playground ball with wet black hair that I can just see a crescent of—no way is that thing coming out of that hole. It’s not happening. Meanwhile, the Team is grinning at me like they’ve just shown me the fountain of youth.
I admit, the miracle of life and childbirth are beautiful things, perhaps the essence of beauty—but it’s this as a concept, as an abstract. All the great and mysterious things about the universe, they are summed up by these moments but only metaphorically. In reality, it’s a gruesome visceral experience. It’s difficult, painful, and fraught with a lot of danger that modern hygiene and medical technology have mitigated but not eliminated. Sure, I love the primality. Put someone else’s spouse there and I’ll come in with a camera crew and wax eloquent like David Attenborough and win the Palme d’Or. But when it’s my beloved and my immanent offspring, I’d take no pain, no blood, and no risk if it were offered. Something antiseptic and external—stork delivery, even. I back away from the Team trying to appear nonchalant and not like I’m retreating from the mob at Bedlam.
Back around at Myg’s head, I smile and hold her hand. I lie. Just a couple of more pushes, babe. He’s almost here.
Myg pushes again. She has stopped paying attention to the cheering section. They’re doing it wrong. She has figured out that when she lets her breath out during the contractions and pushes not just with her stomach and bowel muscles, but even with her chest and neck, that they scream more encouragement and the baby moves better.
And I am also happily wrong. In just a few pushes, Doot arrives at 6:52 a.m. and gives a little cry as they hold him up and I look at my son—a weird red lizard dripping stringy white mucous, with what appears to be a version of Winston Churchill’s head run through a Play-Doh Fun Factory. They put him on the heat table and begin wiping him off and sticking his feet onto ink pads and making footprints. They put him in Myg’s arms for just a second and she is overjoyed and I’m choked up and she cries a little and then they take him back to the table where they swaddle him up and at the same time the doc is telling Myg she needs to get ready for round two.
Doot chilling on the warming table, 30 minutes old
They break Bing’s water and ask Myg to give a push just to get him down into position. Myg is in a daze. She has successfully delivered a baby. She knows she can do it again, how about in 18 months? It’s about 7 a.m. The doc has her hand inside Myg, a contraction comes and Myg pushes and I see a slight look of surprise on the doctor’s face. I felt the cord, she says. She looks up at the monitor and says, okay, Myg just give me one more push, and I’m going to see if I can get his head into position. Myg pushes. No, I feel the cord. The doctor shakes her head and she gives some unseen unheard command.
The operating room, already burgeoning with attention to Doot’s birth, blossoms. The 11-person team moves in complex synchronous harmony about twice as fast as they had been. What’s going on? Myg asks. The anesthesiologist begins turning dials and jams a mask over her face. Are we doing a C? There is worry in her voice and I realize something has happened, something with Bing and they’re going to do an emergency C-section.
A nurse flags my attention calling me “Dad” and it seems strange but I know it’s me. Follow me, Dad. She leads me out into the hallway with some rehearsed reason for why I can no longer stay in the room with Myg. You might faint, she says. Wait here. She points to a spot on the carpet in front of the delivery OR doors and leaves me there. I do as I’m told. After five minutes I begin pacing. I am worried but have faith in the Team that the C-section will go smoothly. I call my mother and tell her about the arrival of her grandson and let her know that the second is on his way. The doors slide apart and someone notices me as he moves past carrying arcane medical devices. The second baby is out, he says. I am relieved. He doesn’t say anything about Bing’s condition. I assume everything is fine. A manx cat appears pushing a small cart bearing Doot. The cat speaks. Do you want to come with me to the nursery? Apparently, it’s a nurse.
It’s not until hours later that I understand that when Myg pushed and the doctor felt Bing’s umbilical cord that it was a fairly rare and serious situation known as a prolapsed cord. The monitors showed his heart rate had dramatically dropped to 80 bpm when Myg had pushed. He would not have survived a vaginal delivery. Now I go cold when I write those words. On that day, I was supremely confident and ecstatic.
What they did not tell me and part of the reason I was in the hall during the emergency C-section is that because Bing’s heartrate was dropping they had to open Myg up immediately. As in before the anesthesia was in full effect. Myg apologized later to the surgical team for all the screaming. I didn’t hear a thing two sets of doors away in the hallway. Are you numb? The doc asked. You’re numb enough. Myg says the cut wasn’t painful, but that having her guts moved out of the way in a hurry was like having a wild animal pawing at her insides. The doctor knew she’d survive that trauma okay—the important thing was to get the baby out.
Bing joins his brother in the nursery after escaping the womb via a window
Both of our sons arrived healthy and whole. Neither required any time in the NICU. They even made it through the bilirubin spike without needing light table treatment. As of this writing, they’ve quadrupled their birth weights. They smile and laugh and roll over. They grab hold of fingers and toys and eat solid-er food. They’re delighted to see me every time I enter the room. Because of my wonderful sons, these five sleepless months full of diaper changes and spit up and two babies crying in tandem at a 4 a.m. that lasts forever have been the greatest five months of my life.
This is a blog with a mission, being, to take some of the GAHfuckdamnohnoisthisokay? out of becoming a mom when you’re over 35, or in my case now, over 40. I had infertility issues that kept me from getting pregnant when I was younger, and I was one of those hand wringers who would Google “pregnant over 35″ and just be dejected with the search results. Hardly anyone has anything good to say on the matter, or encouraging, or even maybe celebrating women who start their families later. It was all risk and warnings and that shit is just depressing.
But that’s not to say it isn’t real. Indeed, pregnancy for me was nearly every bit as hard and scary as they say it can be for women my age, especially bearing twins. I had pre-term contractions, pre-eclampsia, borderline anemia, a very tough delivery (which had nothing to do with my age, ahem). What they don’t tell you is, so fucking what?
See, I’m trying to cultivate a new and improved attitude about risk. Now that I’ve taken certain risks and have gotten a certain unbelievably awesome payoff, I’m here to say that if your heart truly longs for a baby and you’re over 35, go on and get pregnant. DO IT. I could have had a worse result, yes. But you know what? I didn’t, and most women my age having babies don’t either. And look what I got to show for it:
Two beautiful kids, born totally healthy.
So here’s the whole truth about my over 39 year old twin-pregnancy experience. First, the bad.
My pregnancy was great until the third trimester, when my back started to hurt so bad I could hardly walk from my car to the house without pain, and when pre-term contractions and then pre-eclampsia kicked in. That period of time involved total bedrest, three hospitalizations and a lot of unfortunate Google searches.
Being pregnant with twins caused more of that than my age. That said, women over 35 have a greater chance of multiple pregnancy. That’s not a bad thing, but it is harder.
I delivered five weeks early, due to pre-eclampsia. My delivery was tough, tough, tough. I delivered Doot vaginally and had to have an emergency C-Section for Bing. That had nothing to do with my age, or the pre-eclampsia. He had cord pro-lapse, which can be catastrophic. We were thankfully in good hands. If you’re a high-risk pregnancy, make sure you are too.
Speaking of high-risk pregnancy, if you get labeled this know it’s a blessing. You get much better prenatal care.
My recovery from delivery took awhile, and to be honest I thought I’d never feel right again. I was wrong, and knew it within about four weeks. Two weeks after giving birth I was much, much better. By a month, I was back to normal except for my weight and my tendonitis.
Oh, by the way, did you know you can get mindbendingly painful tendonitis in both wrists while pregnant, just from your hormones? I didn’t, and believe me, this was the most painful and inconvenient part of being pregnant and a new mother – worse than the sleep deprivation. No, there’s not much you can do for it but wait it out. It’s much better now at the five month mark, but it’s not gone.
Not a day goes by where I don’t do the math. When they’re 18 I’ll be 58. When they’re 25 I’ll be 65. When they’re 30 I’ll be 70. And so on. Every day I worry about being too old. Not now, of course. I feel young now. I daresay I look young, even younger than I am. But I don’t take terribly great care of myself and that has to change so I can age well and enjoy my kids well into their adult years. I don’t want them to have the worries of caring for older parents, well, ever. But then, I don’t want to die on them when they’re too young. And then, what’s too young? I’ll never, ever, ever be ready to let my parents go. In any case, I don’t get to decide any of these things, and so they are not worth the worry. But I must tell you, I worry anyway.
Now for the good stuff that waiting got me, and may get you too.
Some things that would have really rattled my 30 year old self really don’t rattle me now. I have been called a very calm, confident parent, and I have to admit that I am.
I don’t ever wish I was out doing something else that I can’t do now because I have small kids. At my age, I’ve really spent a lot of time doing exactly what I wanted. I’m not worried about my career because it’s so well established I can pretty much write my ticket now.
Even though the economy is bad and money is tough, I know I can always make money if need be (see above).
My kids live in a nice home, in a great neighborhood with an excellent school district.
In my neighborhood, many, if not most of my friends are mothers and fathers who started their families after the age of 35 or at least continue to have kids over the age of 35.
I savor every moment I have with them, even at 3am, because at 40 I really know how fast it’s all going to go. I just didn’t have that perspective yet when I was 30.
In every other way except trying to lose weight, being 40 pretty much kicks ass. My head is clear. I feel powerful. I don’t take shit from anyone. I know what’s important. I thoroughly enjoy everything I have. So really, in that sense, it’s the perfect time in my life to bring my kids into the world.
Not because of the economy or the war or the environment or any external thing. It’s a good time because it’s the time it was possible, and really, it’s as good as any and better than some.
The author, born in 1969, but shown here somewhere around late 1970.
Accomplishment #2: Points for individuality, since despite being twins, you both came into the world quite differently. Doot, my brave little astronaut, you ventured out first, taking the more traditional route. “PUSH!!!!! LIKE YOU’RE TAKING THE BIGGEST CRAP OF YOUR LIFE!” the doctor, no kidding, screamed at me moments before you made your entrance. I did, and felt that otherworldly POP and then the most enormous relief I’ve ever known. Your head – who knew it was so pliable? Good thing, too because the few stitches I did need, well, the memory of them still makes me itch sometimes.
Bing, my clever little man, it was though you saw what your brother endured on his trip into the world and said, “Screw it. I am NOT squeezing my shit through there!” They cut a quick slice in my belly to get to you before, well let’s just say before the unimaginable because I don’t even want to imagine, not for a second, what could have happened had we not been in totally competent hands in the OR. But once the decision for the C-Section was made, you arrived quickly, safely and you were perfect from head to toe. No elongated head for you, no sir! I can see years ahead of you finding your own path in this world. Let’s hope most of them don’t lead to emergency surgery.
Accomplishment #3: Steady hearts, steady breaths. No NICU time. Not even for a few hours of observation. You were both under 5 lbs, but breathing and sucking superbly right away. When they said you could go to the regular nursery it was about the thousandth time that day your father and I counted ourselves among the very, very lucky.
Accomplishment #4: How about the adorable factor? Both of you, either separately or snuggled together exude enough cuteness to shame the entire baby animal kingdom. No kittens, puppies, baby seals, infant capybaras or what have you can touch the “AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWesomeness” that you two have going on. I thought maybe I was biased in my judgment of your attractiveness, but NO, definitely not. I am totally unbiased and you two are without doubt the most adorable creatures that have ever been or will ever be born. (*The author reserves the right to revoke this statement on the occasion of grandchildren. AND during the years 13-17.)
Accomplishment #5: You came home the same day I did. I began to understand how amazing this was when everywhere we went, or I went, people said, “Oh twins! How long did they have to stay in the hospital for?” But you didn’t have to stay in the hospital any longer than I did. And by nearly every measure, one could argue you were in better shape than I was when we got home.
Accomplishment #6: You grew. And grew. And grew. I have one photo, which I promise to never post, in which I am tandem breastfeeding you. And I swear your heads are not even half the size of my boobs. Now, your heads are much larger than my boobs, sadly, and I can say largely due to the service said body parts have done you. Well done, all of us.
Accomplishment #7: You taught me the very meaning of FEAR. I was never truly afraid until I had children. This coming from someone who’s had remnants of an anxiety disorder since the 1980’s. Yet my anxiety since you’ve arrived has crested peaks I’d never dare imagine.
When I first got you two home, every little tiny new thing scared the pants off me, when I bothered to put any on. Bing had a marble sized lump in his left breast. WTF was that? (Turned out to be a common nothing thing that went away on its own). Doot had an umbilical hernia. Oh, and yes, I had a massive herpes outbreak (on my mouth – fever blisters), which manifested itself two days after you were born, and hours after I dared to bestow my first kiss to you Doot. I was TERRIFIED I would give you the Herpes 1 virus, which is quite dangerous in infants. I didn’t, THANK GOD. But I cried and cried and cried and obsessed over it, and many other things in those first weeks.
I did realize the absolute need to get over it, all that fear. So while I’ve still got plenty of it I’ve been dealing with it better, yes. Because I either get over it or I am miserable and if I’m miserable, how can I bask in your awesomeness (see #4 above)?
Accomplishment #8: Smiles. Oh Godddddd, the smiles. Your father and I fall apart whenever you smile at us.
The other day, Graham, Dad heard you laugh in your sleep! He was so excited he called me at work, and after I teared and snuffled a few times, we congratulated ourselves, thinking we must be doing a great job as parents for you to have such funny dreams. And by the way guys, I’m sure this trend of us taking credit for your accomplishments is something you’ll need to discuss with your therapist sometime in your early adulthood, if not sooner.
And Liam, holy cow, you are the smiliest baby I’ve ever known. You wake up smiling. You smile at anyone you meet. You smile at the dog. You smile at the wall. You screech, squeal, coo, belch, spit up 300 oz and then smile at the pool of spit up. You really crack us up.
Accomplishment a gabazillion: I just realized the futility of numbering your accomplishments in this way. It’s not that there are too many to list. It’s that your birth and your lives so far are so enormous a factor in my universe that breaking out the individual things like this does not come close to conveying the complete transformation of our lives.
I want you to know, I was happy before you were born. I really was. I had a sense of purpose, a creative mission, a sense of the meaning of it all. Granted, I was not so happy when I wanted to have you and couldn’t, but I knew deep in my heart that if I could never have you, I would grieve and then find a way to move on in my life and make peace with it. So when I tell you, I’ve never known happiness like this, I’m not saying this from the point of an unhappy, unfulfilled person. I’m saying that you have brought to my life a depth, a sense of purpose – the perfect mission. The reason to live at all, and the way forward.
You changed everything. Everything. Every thought I have, every hope for the future, the very meaning of life itself. My world, my body, my concept of family and my notion of priorities. All different now. I have to tell you though, your father and I were counting on that.
I’ve had almost no sleep since 4pm yesterday. Pardon me if I’m a little edgy.
I started having more mild contractions again yesterday. Again, they weren’t painful. I just had a lot of them in a short period of time. No other preterm labor symptoms though. But all the same I had to go back to the hospital.
They poked me, prodded me, stuck things in me. Early this morning I had the roughest pelvic exam of my life and at this point, that’s really saying something significant. Sweet Jesus, this doctor (a stout grey haired man I’d never seen before) was barbaric. It’s 15 hours later and I’m still sore. Sure, he wanted to be certain my cervix was closed but WTF? Men like that have NO place in gynecology, I’m sorry. I’d really like to give him a reciprocal rectal exam while he’s constipated, shoving a fist up his ass with all of the vigor he employed with me this morning. Actually, no, I wouldn’t like to do that. Not at all. But I would appreciate it if someone, preferably big fisted, would do it to him. Let me know if there are any takers.
Other than the contractions, which I kept having, all was well. In fact, they thought they’d send me home last night. But to be safe, they repeated the Fetal Fibronectin Test (fFN) and the result was positive. A refresher on what this means, from the March of Dimes:
Fetal fibronectin (fFN) is a protein produced during pregnancy and functions as a biological glue, attaching the fetal sac to the uterine lining. During the first trimester and for about half of the second trimester (up to 22 weeks of gestation), fFN is normally present in the cervico-vaginal secretions of pregnant women. In most pregnancies, after 22 weeks, this protein is no longer detected until the end of the last trimester (one to three weeks before labor).
The presence of fFN during weeks 24-34 of a high-risk pregnancy, along with symptoms of labor, suggests that the “glue” may be disintegrating ahead of schedule and alerts doctors to a possibility of preterm delivery.
and…
The greatest value of the fFN test is the high level of reliability of a negative test result. According to ACOG, “Fetal fibronectin testing may be useful in women with symptoms of preterm labor to identify those with negative values and a reduced risk of preterm birth, thereby avoiding unnecessary intervention” (1)
In women with symptoms of preterm labor, a positive fFN result, while less reliable, allows doctors and patients to take preventive measures to delay labor for as long as possible and to consider labor-suppressing (tocolytic) medications.
They were fairly surprised. I was upset. They reassured me, a positive is not something to get terribly worked up over. But since I did have it and I had two episodes of contractions within a week, they decided to give me steroid shots to help the development of Doot’s and Bing’s lungs along, just in case. It wasn’t a tough decision, but it was a recommendation that scared the crap out of me. Like, there was enough of a chance of the boys coming early that I needed to do this. That’s not what I want to hear right about now. I got my first shot yesterday and my second and final shot tonight, 24 hours later.
Today the very nice, and very gentle, and might I add, FEMALE High-Risk Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor came to visit early this afternoon and did an ultrasound of the boys and a very gentle transvaginal ultrasound. “Your cervix is the size of Kentucky” she said. Apparently, this is a compliment. It’s a very good thing. Especially when carrying twins. The boys looked “perfect.” So all in all it looks as though things are okay. I am not, repeat, not having preterm labor. Not at this point, anyway. They just want to be sure and do whatever they can to prevent preterm labor from happening and god forbid it happens in the next week or two, give Doot and Bing every chance.
“You’re pregnant with twins – your body is not going to act the same as if you were carrying one baby.” the nice lady high-risk doc said. “How can we expect you not to contract with two babies in there at this point? Your body has stress on it more like you’re 30 weeks along, not 26.”
Well, that was a good point and made me feel much better.
Still they’re keeping me. At least until tomorrow morning, possibly through the weekend. I’m now officially out of work. But I am less freaked out by the contractions and that’s a good thing.
I keep telling myself, I’m just along for the ride now. I’m trying to let go into this experience while still remaining a strong advocate for myself. It’s a delicate balance. And it may or may not be obvious at this point, but “delicate” is not my strong suit. With two boys on the way, that’s probably a good thing though.
It’s getting serious now. Ladies and gentlemen, we have crossed into the realm of viability. Well, they have anyway.
Now, of course you don’t want to have your babies this early because the consequences are too often dire. But something happens in your brain when you realize the tiny creatures duking it out in your belly could potentially get along without you. With tons upon tons of medical technology in that case, sure. But the idea that they can potentially survive without you, well, that’s a tad bit mind blowing.
Wanna see what they look like? Sure you do!
That’s my boy Bing. I’m telling you, he’s got my nose. I can tell. At the time of this ultrasound he was 1lb 8oz.
This is my other bundle, Doot. Look closely. You can see the chambers of his heart! It’s that area with the dark kidney bean looking thing sort of to the right, midway up. It’s big and powerful, just like his Dad’s. He’s 1lb 8 ozs and a real kicker. Kapow!
So what did my boys accomplish this week?
Faces! See? That’s how I know Bing has my nose.
Fingernails!
Testicles! Say it with me now – Testicles!
Lungs! The wee airbags keep growing and here’s where we want a lot of good progress.
REM! No, not as in “It’s the end of the world as we know it” but rather the whole rapid eye movement thing itself. Why this matters, I can’t say. Are they dreaming? Can you imagine what their dreams would be like? Woosh, woosh, poke, kick, growl, float, poke, woosh. That’s all I can come up with.
Still moving a lot in there. Especially after meals, when just maybe I’d rather they chill so my squashed stomach has a fighting chance to do its job. Right now my poor gut feels like a mishapen shrunken ziploc half turned inside out and stuffed in the corner of a shoe that’s got someone else’s foot in it. Not good, in other words.
How am I?
Um…
Trying to keep a good attitude, but with the chronic pain thing, it’s not easy. I am always on and on about my back pain so I feel like a dolt recounting it here, yet again. Let me just say it’s not better.
How about pain in my left side and the top of my abdomen? Can I talk about that? The top of my belly, just under my boobs, on the left side feels so tender to the touch – like I got punched there. Hey – maybe I did! I feel like I’m being ripped apart sometimes.
Hello, Braxton Hicks! I’m beginning to notice these painless “practice” contractions a lot now. Enough so I’m tracking them because as I mentioned above, I do NOT want these guys to come early if I can help it. I started noticing these often enough that I called the doctor’s office (“Hey, it’s me again! How’s it going?”) They are not worried, but said if I get more than 6 in an hour, to call back. I haven’t.
Thinking about going out on leave early. Why? Pain. I had planned to work until the bitter end, finish my grants, and then cut loose. But I’m finding that a) I don’t think that’s possible given how I feel. and b) It’s not at all necessary.
The more I do, the worse I feel – it’s that simple. If I can be mildly active (you know, walking all by myself to the john, showering, and maybe *maybe* doing a load of dishes) and then lay down a lot during the day I feel best. I felt bad about this – like I was lazy or something – until I got this book: When You’re Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads, Revised Edition: Proven Guidelines for a Healthy Multiple Pregnancy. According to the doctor expert in this book, they recommend many women pregnant with multiples leave work at 24 weeks, and most by 28 weeks. My doctor(s) haven’t talked at all about this yet, but given how awful I feel just sitting half a day at a desk, I have to say I am all for it. My boss is all for it too and that simply ROCKS. Now I just need to see what my doctors say when I go back next week. God, I hope they’re for it too. It’s not that I can’t work from home. It’s that I can’t THINK very well about work right now. I just want to rest and keep myself mildly entertained. Is that too much to ask?
On top of all of this, I have to tell you how relieved that I live in NJ! Why? I am eligible for Temporary Disability Insurance for all the pregnancy medical related stuff (we pay into it like unemployment insurance here) AND up to 24 weeks of combined Family Leave from the federal Family Medical Leave Act and the extra oh so special NJ Family Leave Act for after the babies are born. ALL WITH PAY AND BENEFITS.
I love, love, love you, socialist NJ. Now if only we could work on the traffic around here.
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.
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.
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.
