Monday, December 31, 2007

Operation Declutter

S is on a tear lately.

He desperately, desperately wants the house decluttered. I want it too, but I want sleep more. I am really hoping my second trimester burst of energy kicks in sometime over the next couple of weeks so I can make some progress.

We've already donated an old TV and 3 old computers. We've sold some things on eBay that got rid of 3 big boxes that have been taking up space in the living room. We have a lot more stuff to donate or sell.

Need to go through my closet and sort stuff that can go to Goodwill. Also should pack away clothes that I won't be wearing again until after July.

KB's outgrown toys and clothes are in limbo. So far most (but not all) are in big clear bins. I don't want to give away or sell any clothes until we figure out if we're having a boy or a girl. If we're having another boy, we are SO set.

We have borrowed a train table from a friend and I've asked her if she's ready to have it back. KB has lost interest in it and only plays with the train table at Barnes & Noble or at his cousin's house.

We have some large items to get rid of as well (S's computer desk that he never uses, a huge upholstered chair upstairs, a spinning wheel I bought years ago, and an antique Singer sewing table come immediately to mind).

And of course, I know S would love for me to go through my craft closet and get rid of a bunch of yarn and cross-stitch stuff.

Guess I need to start making lists and prioritizing. Now if only I could find the energy and the motivation to get started.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

12 weeks? Me?

KB still isn't finished with Christmas. Last night he opened a few more presents, but there are still 2 left under the tree, including the Radio Flyer scooter. He is going to go nuts when he unwraps it. I should make sure he opens it when there is still some daylight left.

Had my 12 week appointment yesterday. Surreal. This is only the second time I've made it to 12 weeks, so I am still in awe.

Got another ultrasound (have I mentioned how much I love my physician's assistant, Erica? I think I have, maybe a couple hundred times). The baby was moving around like crazy. I'm still having boy vibes and I commented, "He's going to be just like KB -- won't sit still for a second."

Next appointment at the OB's office is not for another 3 weeks. We are currently scheduled for our nuchal translucency test next Wednesday, but I've just about decided to cancel that appointment and go straight for an amnio. I was 35 when I was pregnant with KB, and the first trimester screening seemed to be enough reassurance at that time.

Now, though, I am 3 years older. And I see that the office/lab we were planning to use for the screening has about an 81% detection rate. That's a pretty scary gap, and I think I need to know for sure. So amnio is scheduled for January 23. Results about a week later.

I guess the upside is, I'll know that much sooner if I should start getting out all of KB's hand-me-downs.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Our Christmas, Part I

Today was a great day. I'm exhausted and about to go to bed, but wanted to write about our Christmas so far.

As expected, KB was up early, though he did sleep until 6:30. S stayed up watching movies last night and brought KB to bed with him around 1 am. For some reason, KB tends to sleep a little later when he sleeps with us.

Sent S downstairs to plug in the tree lights and fire up the video camera, then KB and I came downstairs. I really expected KB to make a beeline for the tree in the living room. Instead, as he came downstairs, he spied the very edge of the toy kitchen which we had set up in the family room. He immediately cried "My toy kitchen!!!!" How he knew just what it was from seeing a small edge of it, I have no idea.

The toy kitchen was the hugest hit of the day. KB played with it for hours today, checking out all the food, opening all the doors and cabinets, pretending to make pumpkin bread and soup. It was a long time before he wanted to even look at his other gifts from Santa, and he had almost no interest in unwrapping other gifts.

Only as I was trying to get dinner on the table did he suddenly realize that there were still presents to unwrap. He got a couple and opened them as I finished up dinner.

There are still 6 gifts under the tree. We'll let KB open them whenever he decides he's ready. He had wanted to open the biggest one, from my parents, first thing this morning, but I asked him to wait a little bit. That is a Radio Flyer First Scooter, and I know he is going to want to ride it outside the second he opens it. Hopefully I can get him to hold off until Friday, when I have the day off.

Dinner was so-so. I can't make myself do a whole lot when it's just the 3 of us here. I made a ham, scalloped potatoes and dinner rolls. But for dessert, I made a peppermint cheesecake. Yum. I was very happy with the dessert at least. :-)

OK, off to bed for me. It's been a long day and tomorrow it's back to work.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas

Christmas is so much more fun now that there's a child in the house. Before KB, Christmas morning was pretty much like any other day. S and I aren't big on exchanging gifts. We usually buy a big gift that is for both of us. This year, I think I've mentioned, we're going to save money towards a big family trip in the spring.

We've been talking up Christmas, and Santa, for a couple of weeks now. And there have been several presents under the tree for about a week. KB has been SO good about not trying to open them. I'm shocked. He hasn't even really tried to pull ornaments off the tree after the first day.

His biggest thrill is rearranging the candy canes on the tree. His favorite thing to do is to gather as many candy canes as he can reach, and then see how many he can line up on a branch. It's pretty funny. And if that's the worst thing he's going to do to the tree, that's fine by me.

Today was fun. After KB's nap, the three of us made cookie dough together. KB insisted that we make the same cookies that we took to his little friends' cookie exchange a couple of weekends ago. The dough had to chill for a couple of hours, so after dinner, we rolled and baked the cookies.

KB generously decided to give Santa 3 cookies, so we put those on a plate and poured a little cup of milk, and put those under the tree.

After that, KB and I both put on our Christmas pajamas (S would not be caught dead in Christmasy PJs), read "Twas the Night Before Christmas", and KB went to sleep (after much chatting and singing songs from his new favorite movie, "The Sound of Music").

Then S and I put together KB's toy kitchen. It only took about an hour and there was no cursing or yelling involved. The kitchen looks REALLY cute. I can't wait until KB comes downstairs tomorrow and sees it.

Filled the stockings and set out KB's presents from Santa. He's getting the soccer ball he asked for, plus Tinkertoys, a Tonka truck, a Cars playmat and some of the little Cars characters. S made me put the Lincoln Logs back for another time. He said he doesn't want KB to have expectations that Santa brings a ton of gifts every year.

He's probably right. I've gotten too used to seeing how overboard my mom & sister go with my nephews. Christmas back home is insane. I'm actually glad I'm not there to see the excess this year.

Gotta get to bed. I'm sure KB will be up early (this morning, it was 5:45). I hope he's excited. I'm pretty sure I'm more excited than he will be.

Merry Christmas!

Friday, December 21, 2007

Christmas card crunch

I have mailed 15 cards. I bought 80. Go me.

Have spent the morning trying to update my address list from last year. Almost have it done; still waiting on a couple of people to e-mail me back.

Sent cards to friends east of the Mississippi River first and figure I'll work my way west.

My friend Katrina is smart. She had her envelopes pre-printed with the recipients' addresses. I think I will try that next year.

Of course I will still procrastinate, but maybe I can save enough time to put together a Christmas letter.

I really do like sending & receiving cards. It's my own procrastinating nature that I dislike.

This is how "not pregnant" I feel

S just called me from running errands to see if I wanted to meet him at a nearby Italian place for lunch.

My first thought? "Oh good, I can have some red wine with lunch!"

Took me a minute to realize, oh, no, I can't.

I will be glad when I start feeling some movement to remind me that yes, there really is a baby in there.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Christmas card photo session

OK, so all two of you who read my blog will get a hint of what our Christmas cards look like this year.

This is an outtake from our session:

Photobucket

Better late than never (?)

Finally bought holiday stamps. Started putting stamps on all our Christmas card envelopes and noticed that I used up all our cute address labels last Christmas. D'oh! No way to re-order them in time.

If I am lucky, I will have a batch of cards to send out tomorrow and Friday. I'll save the local ones for last; if I mail them Saturday, they might get delivered on Christmas Eve.

Every year I tell myself I'm going to get Christmas cards done early. Um, yeah.

Lots going on here lately. Nothing major, nothing bad -- just a lot of activity. Will catch up about it one of these days.

It's really cute seeing KB getting into the whole Christmas thing. He loves the tree and can't wait for the lights to be turned on when he wakes up in the morning.

We've been s-l-o-w-l-y putting presents under the tree, one or two at a time, so KB doesn't go nuts. So far, so good. He has only tried to open one and didn't throw a fit when I told him we were waiting until Christmas to open all the presents.

S and I decided not to exchange gifts and to instead save our money for a possible family trip in February or March. We canceled our trip to Maui when we found out about the twins and the high risk of losing one or both of them. It was going to be our first big trip with just the 3 of us and no extra relatives. I still want that.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Still here

Almost an entire week since I posted. I am feeling really withdrawn lately. Anxious, scared, you name it. Felt like I held my breath from last week's appointment until today's.

Since the RE released us last week, all my appointments from now on will be with my ob-gyn or with one of her physician's assistants. This morning's was with my favorite PA, Erica. The appointment was at 9:25. S met me at the office, I signed in at 9:20, went to give my urine sample (for once in my life, I did not have to pee and COULD NOT manage more than a few drops). We weren't in the waiting room that long, really, before the nurse called us back to check weight and blood pressure.

I've lost 2 pounds in the last 2 weeks. No idea why. I still feel hungry a lot and am eating regularly. My blood pressure was very high for me. I'm usually a 110/70 kind of gal, and today's reading was 141/70. Of course, the nurse had just opened my chart and said "Oh, twins?!" and I was explaining to her what had happened while she was taking my blood pressure.

We were taken back to one of the ultrasound rooms and I dutifully stripped from the waist down and covered myself with the paper drape. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. I think Erica finally came in around 10:15.

The nurse had told her about the loss of one of the twins, so the first thing she said when she came in was how sorry she was. We chatted a tiny bit and then she moved to the ultrasound machine. She knew I was feeling very anxious.

Twin B hasn't shrunk much since last week, and Erica said it could be weeks before my body fully reabsorbs the embryo.

Twin A (gotta think of a new name) looks awesome! Erica estimated the heart rate in the 190s (um, isn't that WAY too fast?) and calculated the baby to be 10 weeks, 2 days based on size. (I am 10 weeks today)

As we were watching the screen, the baby started moving all around. Almost looked as if he (yes, I am thinking boy again) needed to stretch a little and find a comfy position.

Got a very cute picture of him looking right at us, with his hand up by his face.

Hang in there, buddy. I'm already getting very attached to you.

Next appointment is in 2 weeks. Erica's going to do another u/s to see how things look. Have I mentioned how much I love this woman?

And then the week after that is our first trimester screening, with the bloodwork and the nuchal translucency test.

Right now, I've got to sleep. I managed to catch KB's cold and now it's turning into a sinus infection.

More later about our Christmas-y last few days...

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Sad

Apparently I am sadder than I thought.

S commented that I seemed really down both last night and this morning. I had a really tough time motivating myself to come to work today. And ever since I got here, I've found it very hard to concentrate. I should have just stayed home.

I really need to take the time to explore my feelings, instead of just putting on my "Life goes on" face.

More than anything, I think, I'm terrified of losing the other twin now.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Good news, bad news

Just got back from today's ultrasound.

Twin A looks great. Measuring exactly 9 weeks (which I am today), heart rate around 156 bpm, moving all around, limb buds distinct and waving wildly. Go, baby, go!

Twin B is gone. No heartbeat, measuring around 8 weeks, but hard to tell because features were very indistinct. My body is already starting to re-absorb the embryo.

Truthfully, I am OK. I am sad but not heartbroken.

Twins would have been very, very difficult when we already have a gorgeous, spirited, incredibly high-energy little boy at the center of our universe.

I don't mean to sound heartless or ungrateful. I am extremely grateful that Twin A looks great, and I hope with all my being that s/he continues to do well. And I did not wish or hope Twin B out of existence.

For a long, long time, I dreamed of having twins. I am sad to let go of that dream. But I have to be honest with myself and I have to be practical.

At some point, it may hit me what I've lost. For now, I feel a mixture of sadness and relief. And I feel like a horrible person for admitting that.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

I am a broken record

I miss caffeine. So much. I'm trying desperately to wait until the 2nd trimester to have a real, honest-to-god Diet Dr. Pepper, but I have moments of temptation every day.

KB slept through the night last night -- hooray! He was asleep before 8:30 and woke up at 6:30. I went to bed a little after 9 and woke up when KB started calling "Mommy!" on the monitor.

But I'm still exhausted and don't know how I'm going to make it to naptime. I want to fall asleep as soon as KB does, but I know I should use that time to take a shower and perform my weekly maintenance, since swimming lessons are tonight.

Aside: thank goodness next week is the last week of swimming lessons until after New Year's. KB has been taking lessons every session since he was 9 months old. I am glad he's so comfortable in the water, but right now, the weekly lessons feel like another obligation I'd like to get rid of.

Except for being tired all the time, and being super hungry much of the day, I don't really feel pregnant. I am trying not to read too much into this. My nipples aren't very sore any more. I never got morning sickness -- had some queasy feelings here and there but never threw up a single time.

Tomorrow will be 9 weeks. This pregnancy is creeping by. Even though I don't think about it every second of every day, the time is passing super slowly.

Ultrasound at 10:00 tomorrow morning at the RE's office. I cannot predict what we'll see. Last week at the OB's office, I wasn't feeling pregnant at all either, and both hearts were still beating. So I'll avoid making any predictions about tomorrow.