Week 25: Water Water Everywhere, but Kings Stay High and Dry

Although it’s been a pretty uneventful week for us, Alberta will always remember this week as the great flood of 2013. It was bad anywhere near the river. The saddledome and stampede grounds were flooded so the Stampede this year might be a little different. Downtown was shut down. People living by the rivers lost their homes. High River town is mostly gone... (that’s what comes of naming a place High River). Canmore was flooded, bridges down, they had to close the highway around there, plus numerous roads and bridges in Calgary.  It’s very sad, but we feel so displaced from it all. Totally not affected, don’t really know of anyone personally who was affected... So on the weekend after the flood we stayed at home and gardened... I don’t know, what else can one do?

Our lives, luckily, have gone on as usual. The babies continue to twist and kick each day. Daddy even got to feel little girl going at it the other night. Even though most of the rest of the time they stop kicking when he tries to feel things. Had a minor spotting scare after a bumpy little boat ride or Dave’s new boat. Who knew that that was going to be a problem? Bah! You can’t do anything fun when you’re pregnant. However, it was just two little spots and the ultrasound doc thought it was strange I was even worried. Apparently it happens all the time, just a little bit a rubbing on the cervix can cause it (or some jostling in a boat). Either way, I was due for my routine ultrasound on Wednesday anyway, so they bumped it up to Monday just to check on things. Sadly, it already feels rather routine, but it’s still is nice to see them moving around, hearts beating strongly, on the right growth curve, etc.

Right now they are almost identical in size. The boy is just slightly smaller than the girl... poor little runt boy. And here’s a fun breakfast time thought: If you hold a bag and a half of bagels, that’s how much they each weigh right now. They are apparently still eggplants or perhaps rutabagas depending on which app one chooses to look at. Right now they are just growing and filling in with fat, and perhaps growing more hair. Good job babies! Keep it up so you don’t look like unhealthy wrinkly rats when you come out.

Also this week we assembled the crib one day and then the change table on another day. They look pretty good. However, after putting together said crib together we are now thinking that the chosen nursery room is going to be too small for two cribs. Although we don’t need a second crib until about month four we still thought we might move things around now. Still haven’t decided, but we will need to disassemble the crib to get it through the door frames and into the other room. Aw nuts! And Matt wants to paint that room because it doesn’t really match the furniture color as well. This we will wait and see about, as well.

PS I forgot to mention that my ankles have started to swell. It actually started about a month ago and goes up or down depending on the weather, my activity, my salt intake... yadda yadda yadda. But I have been watching these things more closely and have managed to keep the worst of the swelling down for the past two weeks. Still swollen feet do not look like your own, they are ugly fat feet!

Week 24: We've Got A Live One

Oh my gosh, travesty, I missed a week! Sorry guys but regardless of my best intentions I just never got around to it. I suppose it may happen now and then. Anyway, not much really changed over the last few weeks. In fact, I can’t think of anything too new to complain about... same old same old, right. The funny thing is that ever since I went to see the doc and she told me soon I would be feeling movement a lot, I have been feeling movement a lot. Maybe it’s just that I’ve finally nailed down the sensation and know when it’s the baby’s and when it’s just me. Maybe the babies just heard the doctor and decided to ‘kick’ it up a notch. Either way I am enjoying it. It seems to me that most of the time it is from the girl kicking down into my pelvic/bladder area, or perhaps trying to kick little bro in the head. And the other day, when we were waiting in line to check out of the dump, the boy was really going at it on my right side to the point where it could be felt on the outside - Must have been the noxious fumes. Unfortunately, every time Matt takes a feel they stop. Oh well, I’m sure he’ll get to feeling them soon enough. They are only going to get bigger from here on out.

What else? Well the furniture came but we haven’t had a chance to get it out of the boxes yet; besides Grandpa wants to help assemble it. Though we did move the old furniture out of the room so at least it’s kind of ready to be set up. And the bed’s in the basement ready for when the nights start getting really hot. I know they will, last year I spent a couple sleeps down there on the futon so at least with a bed it’ll be a little more comfortable. Man, I am so not a hot weather person.

Matt also put together the stroller and then we played with the various seat configurations for half an hour. In other words, bad-babies positions and good-babies positions depending on if they want to look at each other or not. It’s a pretty slick stroller, so far I am impressed.

Also, in the last two weeks I officially became freaked out over the whole delivery process. I know I said it didn’t really worry me and now I feel like the less you know the better. The more info I get the more one thinks and then the more one worries. Yes, yes, I know it will be fine, everything will be fine... yeah trying telling a hormone infused mom-to-be that. Anyway, I know I will manage just fine once the time comes.

Last week the babies were corn cobs and this week they are eggplants. Their skin is turning from translucent to pink as all the little blood vessels fill in. Nostrils are opening up and the lungs are becoming a little more developed so they can practice breathing fluid shortly. Good, this all sounds good. Hopefully we can keep these babies inside until their lungs are fully capable of breathing air. Here’s hoping for no premature things to happen because I plan to work until the end of August... BAHAHA. Well maybe I can, we will see!

Week 22: We Are Golden

Without a doubt, I now feel like I look mostly pregnant. Had a couple strangers ask me now so you know it must look fairly obvious. You better be pretty darn sure that someone is pregnant before you go and ask them. Years and years ago someone asked if I was expecting and I was totally clueless and said “expecting what?” OH! So that was when I knew it was time to join Jenny Craig. ANYWAY, this time at least the weight gain isn’t all me. I have put on 10kg so far and the doc says my uterus/tummy is exactly the right size for a singleton mom. Good, still not getting overly huge. Still, on the agenda for this weekend is finally some maternity shopping. Can’t live in pjs all the time and I am down to 5 scrubs that still mostly hide things and aren’t tearing at the side seams. The other good news during this golden stage: my plight of the week is simply that I’m losing my belly button. Now, I have always consider my belly button to be rather deep so to think that it will become an outie shortly I’m a little put off. Seriously, an outie! Eww.  But really it’s expected right? I know I know, stop complaining. 

In baby class this week we learned about natural twin deliveries. In fact, and I was surprised by this, but 40% of twin deliveries are natural. Well there ya go... Labor... ugh, but oddly the whole idea of labour or delivery has never worried or daunted me. I feel physically and mentally up to it. It’s only a couple of hours, right? I know you are thinking I will probably change my tune. Well, yeah, I probably will when it’s the heat of the moment. Until then, I’m pretty much just worried about ALL the stuff to take care of afterwards! And there’s a lot of stuff!

We are slowly making our way through our baby shopping list; ticking off some of the bigger items first. This week we bought our double stroller. Went with a sleek one-in-front-of-the-other baby jogger, because the side-by-side ones just look massive and probably won’t fit through doors. I think I would like to be able to go through doors. We also decided, after much shopping around, on the cribs. Went through an online site in BC that seemed to have reasonable prices, reasonable selection, and reasonable shipping times. Most of the stores we asked about ordering cribs were telling us 3 months! Really? So yeah that’s why we needed to get aboard that train. Anyway, mom and dad are helping out with furnishing the babies’ room. (When I say helping out I really mean “being amazing!!”) and they ordered everything for us and it will come next week... or perhaps the week after if things are a little slower! That’s pretty awesome. In fact I’m pretty excited to start setting up the nursery. I mean I’m no interior designer but I think we can pull something pretty cute off, but not too cute, if you what I mean. We’ll see. Either way, it’ll feel great to get it done. And with every little thing we do or get things are starting to feel more and more real. I know pregnancy is no new happening... haha obviously! But it’s pretty new to me and the thought of carrying living things in your tummy is weird! Now I have definitely felt some obvious movements; just random things here and there, but its kind of cool/strange. I like feeling them move because it alleviates some of the worry that things could be going wrong. My doc says they’ll just get to be more and more in the weeks to come. Good. We went to the Star Trek movie on the weekend and boy did they start moving then! All the loud explosions had them flipping and kicking almost for the whole movie. Probably a better mom wouldn’t have subjected their children to such loud noises. Oh well, I could be doing worse things I suppose, and besides my fat must be some sort of decent sound muffler, one would think.

This week the babies are papayas! They are really going to start growing now, and so am I! The babies' weights could double over the next 4 weeks. Gulp. Guess we'll see how that goes.

PS: still sick with phlegminess on the occasional morning. But the headaches have become much less (probably because I am starting to not be so uptight) and also because girls in my baby class say they take Tylenol all the time. So I am not waiting so long to resort to the drug once or twice a week instead of letting things fester and get bad. It is a big help.