Dancing Brave

Mr. Braxton and Mr. Hicks

Well, we've now had a nice dry-run at the hospital -- although everything is totally fine, I had to go to the Labor & Delivery ward on Monday to double-check that I wasn't getting an unhealthy number of fake contractions, and they gave me the full treatment: wheelchair, bed, gown, fetal heart monitors, more wheelchairing, and even little cartons of orange juice with bendy straws.

About two weeks ago we had our hospital tour, so we'd seen the LDR floor and the recovery floor, and been walked through emergency parking procedures and even pre-registered me for the big day so that check-in ought to be quicker. It's a nice new ward at St. Sorry We Killed You John Ritter, although it's nowhere near as swish as the hospital in Santa Monica where my friend Erin delivered her son. They had plasma screens. We do not. But I am not wired to be able to cope with the spectre of traffic delays on the 405 while possibly in labor and/or going to get checked out every week because I'm having twins, so Kevin and I agreed to sacrifice the flat-screen TV for a regular Zenith and a shorter trip. It's all about what level of stress your brain can take, and I do NOT want to end up pushing out twins inside our nice new car while rush-hour traffic rages around me. Of course, talk to me in three months or so when I'm laid up in a bed in Burbank and I can't watch my telenovelas in high-def. I swear, on Monday I saw an ad for one whose title translates to Stupid People Don't Go To Heaven.

Here's what happened (to me, not on Stupid People, although some may argue we are one and the same): After lamaze last Thursday, when I'd gotten a pretty thorough explanation of what Braxton Hicks contractions feel like, I realized I'd experienced them sporadically before. They're not dangerous contractions on their own; they're the famous ones of movies and TV that get written off as "false labor" and which actors play as if they hurt as badly as the real thing. From what I've heard, that's not true. It's also apparently not abnormal for pregnant women to get them at 24 weeks, or even as early as 20 (I'm at 23 right now), and adding to the pile is that the uterus HAS TO contract in order to stretch and accommodate the growing baby/babies. So there's all kinds of shit happening that you need to learn to differentiate, but the peril with Braxton Hicks is, I believe, that it can trick your cervix into dilating as if you are TRULY in labor, and that's not good.

It's basically a weird shifting sensation in your belly, which I had always written off as the beans floating around or flipping over, but which is apparently a wave of stiffness coming over the ol' uterus. It's followed by a hardening of it that's tangible, and then it abates as it came, almost like a sound wave's crest-and-trough cycle. They say if you have four or five in an hour, it's too many. Well, Sunday night, I had six of them in 15 minutes while lying on my side in bed, trying to fall asleep. Awesome.

Let me pause here to note that no pregnancy book is helpful when it comes to describing sensations or symptoms -- in fact, as I just said to a friend of mine, I could rip out every segment on "How To Know If You're In Pre-Term Labor" and replace it with a page that says, "Are you feeling even a LITTLE pregnant? Then you're probably in pre-term labor RIGHT NOW OH MY GOD CLOSE YOUR LEGS AND PRAY," and it would have the exact same informational value. I think a sign that I might have twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS, which is when beans sharing one placenta don't share the nutrients from it equally) was described as "feeling that your belly is full and heavy." Um, I have that every day, and it's called There's Two Babies In Here, asshats. Not helpful. Not to mention that "cramping" is considered a sign of every dire malady in the book, except that you're also supposed to feel cramping because it means your stomach and uterus are expanding. So there's cramping, and there's cramping, and no one explains the difference. Pregnancy is basically like when you go on Web MD to figure out why you're tired with headaches, and it helpfully suggests you are dying of cancer.

Even with Braxton Hicks, as my friend Stephanie was groaning, they can be sparked by lying down... but they tell you to lie down when you get them. And they can be caused by dehydration, but also by a full bladder. With mine, the left side of my stomach gets hard and then almost forms what looks like a knotty tumor, sticking out further than the contours of the right side of The Belly. Because I'm having twins, it's sometimes hard to tell what's just the babies running out of room in there and what's a Braxton Hicks, but the sensation is the key, and on Sunday I was definitely having that. After I had two more Monday morning, one of which Kevin got to witness so he could help me describe at least the external sensory stuff, I called the doctor and described it all to one of his nurses. They decided to ship me down to the hospital to hook me up to a monitor and have a perinatologist check me out. My doctor had already called Admissions and prepped them for me, so when I arrived they whipped up all my paperwork and got me an ID bracelet, and insisted upon wheeling me to my destination; once there, I gowned up and got into bed, and a really lovely nurse came in to strap the monitors to my stomach and try to get some consistent fetal heart readings.

You can probably imagine, based on past ultrasound stories of mine, how easy THAT was. These little dudes are movers and punchers. They were whizzing around so much, she couldn't isolate them to get a nice long printout of the heartbeats. The monitors pick up the sound of movement and translate it into something almost like a loud roaring -- seriously, it's as if I'm having wolves -- and the whole room was filled with it most of the time until she could zero in on a heartbeat, which she'd be able to hold for 10 seconds before the boy in question zipped off again somewhere else. Luckily, we did for sure HEAR both of them, even if they didn't want us to hear them for long. Next up was a trip down to the perinatologist, who confirmed that -- and I quote -- my cervix "looks fantastic." There is nothing like hearing someone say that, and realizing it brightened your day, to make it hit home that you are a really boring adult all of a sudden.

So we went back upstairs and got me back on the monitors for a bit -- a second nurse needed about 15 seconds before asking if I minded if she sat on my bed with me while she tried to get the heartbeats; I was like, "Yes, this is going to take a while" -- until my doctor said it was OK for me to go home as long as I took it easy. I think if I worked outside my house, this would have been a bigger deal -- they'd most likely have asked me to stay home and probably taken me off work earlier than the proposed 28 weeks. But since my entire existence is not that far removed from bedrest anyway, I'm fine as long as I don't sit in my chair without moving for 8 hours. It's kind of nice to have a medical excuse to get up in the middle of the day, go lie down, and watch Greek.

While it was a TAD earlier than I thought I'd be experiencing the hospital first-hand, it's comforting to know the rooms feel clean and bright when you are lying in one, or at least this one was, and that all the nurses we dealt with were super friendly and helpful and personable. The Braxton Hicks aren't even a disaster -- I was flummoxed as to why six in 15 minutes weren't a bad sign when four in an hour are, but apparently the key is whether they're sustained over a period of time rather than a short burst of them and then nothing. I guess. Chalk it up to another mystery of pregnancy that no one can fully explain. Even the nurses can't totally confirm that I had them, since none showed up while I was in the hospital (and I didn't think to replicate my at-home conditions by rolling onto my side to try and trigger one, because I had no fewer than three fetal monitors strapped to my chest and it would have been a dick move to displace them after all the nurses' hard work trying to get the beans to hang out underneath them), but I am positive that I did.

Let's call it a growing pain of pregnancy, shall we? Because otherwise I feel just fine and I'm hell-bent on keeping these beans gestating for as long as I possibly can. They're not done yet, and fortunately, my "fantastic" long and closed cervix concurs for the moment, so I'm figuring this will be an educational experience that can inform the rest of my pregnancy rather than freak me out about it.

Of course, see if I feel the same way in a week if they come back strong. But for now, being philosophical is not so tough.

Three years and counting

Three years ago today, as I type -- which is around 3:30 p.m. at the moment -- I was walking up the aisle beaming at the love of my life, while he looked at me in my pretty dress and veil and thought to himself, "Holy shit, I hope my fly isn't open." Such began our married life together.

See (and I think I've told this story before, but oh well), the heinous planner the church assigned to help coordinate the actual ceremony -- a woman who any member of my wedding party can tell you caused us no shortage of both mirth and premature grey hairs -- told Kevin he had ten minutes before she cued the music. Then, 45 seconds later while he was using the bathroom one final time, he heard the organ start. She began the wedding without him. This led to frantic hand-washing and running, and by the time he got out there and had already missed two groomsmen processing to the altar, he'd lost track of whether everything was zipped properly. Among the roughly 1200 prints we got from our awesome photographer is one rather terse shot of Kevin staring at me, hands clasped in front of his crotch as if he's on his best behavior, and we picked it for our album.

"See, these are the kinds of things you might be able to leave out, in favor of something with a bit more flair," she said when we went over the layout. "Ah, yes," we said, "but you have to know WHY we need this photo." Once she heard the story she was like, "Now I am not even going to allow you to CONSIDER taking that out."

It was the best day, the best party. And I've had the best three years since then, through buying our first house to seeing China and Egypt and a Super Bowl in Tampa, to getting pregnant and facing turning our family of two into an actual brood. I can't believe we've come so far and been married three years already, but at the same time, it's hard to imagine that we ever weren't married -- that we actually worked together for a year, give or take, when we were just friends and dating other people.

Yesterday, Kevin finished painting the nursery, which he did from taping to priming to final polished coats all by himself over the course of two days -- after having spent two weeks working hard to digitize his entire CD collection so the discs could go in storage and clearing out everything else from his home office so that we could make room for the beans. He's worked pretty relentlessly on all this during his vacation and never complained. And sure, yes, I'm doing all the gestating, and I lumber around with 20 extra pounds and counting and acid reflux and things kicking at me while I try to move and sleep and eat, but he doesn't HAVE to be as good spirited about everything as he is because it's a transition for both of us. It's just his nature to be so great. There's no one else I'd rather do any of it with than Kevin, because he's going to make it fun and funny and lighthearted even when it's impossible and fraught and exhausting. I can't wait to see him holding our beans... and can't wait to spend our fourth wedding anniversary foisting them on a babysitter while we marvel at all the steps we've taken together since today. Happy anniversary, honey. You're the best decision I ever got lucky enough to make.

And for the record, his fly was closed.

Hang in there, Chuck

It's a bittersweet time: Tonight is Kevin's last Chuck episode of the season and the penultimate one overall, unless NBC decides to pick up the show. Yesterday, I went with my friend Kate to a screening of the three as-yet-unaired Pushing Daisies episodes, which just reminded me how great TV can be when it's smart and creative and tart and uses actual clever wordplay and vocabulary. And yet Heroes still exists.

Nobody seems to have an answer on Chuck one way or the other yet. NBC's upfronts -- sorry, "infronts," whatever the hell difference it makes -- are May 5, and I can't help but cross my fingers that there's room in the schedule somehow, some way, for another round of the show. Kevin is so happy there. The people are great. The series is hitting its stride. And NBC could stand to recognize that just because it doesn't win its time slot, it's still worth something -- I mean, it's up against Dancing With The Stars and House, for Christ's sake, with the rest of its audience torn between watching it, the CBS comedies, and Gossip Girl. Mondays at 8 might just be the least forgiving spot on television.

Pushing Daisies, I'm so sad to see go. I loved the rapid-fire dialogue, the alliteration, the assumptions the audience was smart enough to keep up with the action. It's great when TV doesn't assume I'm dumb. This is a show I was just sure I would lose patience with because of the impossibility of its premise -- boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy loses touch with girl, boy learns girl is dead, boy brings girl back to life, boy and girl fall in love but boy can't touch her or else she'll die again -- but the writers really gave it warmth and feeling and realistic conflict without any character becoming an asshole, or without the idea overstaying its welcome. I'm glad the last three episodes will air beginning at the end of May, because people who don't live in L.A. and couldn't attend the Paley festival screening deserve a chance to see it, especially because they found a way to re-engineer that last episode's ending so that it provides some level of closure without entirely slamming the door in our faces.

I'm even sort of bummed TNT's Trust Me got axed. I started watching that out of curiosity, and because I enjoyed Tom Cavanagh on Ed, and initially it frustrated the hell out of me. The ad team he and Eric McCormack worked with seemed so hapless and dysfunctional, and not in a particularly rootable way; the other characters seemed too tightly drawn at times to be likable, or too predictably messed-up for anyone to think anything but, "Why aren't these people all FIRED?" But the show found its footing and had just turned the plot on its ear a little in a way I really liked... so of course, it's done. Ditto Middleman on ABC Family, which got its one wonderful and wonderfully weird season before disappearing as quietly as it came.

These are the perils of sampling so many shows -- you end up saying a lot of goodbyes before you're ready. Here's hoping Chuck isn't on its swan song, at least.

21 Weeks, And A Diaper Thingamy

We got our first present off our gift registry yesterday, and it's the one that really hits this thing close to home: Our diaper disposal system.

This was a touch decision for us, because of course, nobody wants to buy the one that lets the most smell escape. But of the major contenders in the stinky-diaper game, none of them have figured out how to make a dirty diaper smell like roses -- a real shame of science -- and no review seemed to indicate that any ONE of them had figured out odor-suppression completely. So we just had to guess.

In the end, we picked something called the Diaper Champ, because it's the most economical. Even though a slight lid redesign dropped its average score a tiny bit in Baby Bargains, it's the only one of the Big Dogs that uses regular kitchen garbage bags. The top-rated Diaper Genie -- which feels like it only got that spot by defult, since the rival Dekor got an F due to redesigned bags that don't work -- uses its own custom inserts that you need to buy or else it won't work; with twins, we're going to have so many diapers coming and going that the cost of buying more garbage bags than usual is way more appealing to absorb than the cost of having to run to Babies R Us and pick up a bunch of specialty bags. So, the Champ is our champ. The sheer quantity of diapers our kids will use really did end up being the dealbreaker.

For now. We have, of course, several months to balk and swap it out for another one.

Want to see our latest picture?

That's Baby A lying on his back, head on the right, profile pointing skyward. And that round object with the spiky thing, up in the left corner? That's Baby B, apparently unable to handle not being in the spotlight. So ol' B kept barging into the shot trying to punch at Baby A, and finally the technician gave up and took a photo of the catfight in action.

I can't wait until the boys are older and fighting and I can be like, "See? You did this before you even took a breath in the world." And then I can make a horrible pun about sending them to their WOMB instead of their rooms, and they'll never speak to me again, at least until I make dinner.

I suppose I owe you a belly shot, too. It's bigger in PERSON, but I don't know if it's bigger in pictures; this was taken last week, about a week or maybe a week and a few days after the other one I posted.

Please excuse my face. We were outside, and I can't NOT squint when there's any kind of natural light hitting my eyes. I'm SENSITIVE.

Also, you can kind of see where my belly button wants to pop out -- there's a shadow of it, a divot even, visible  under the shirt.

Also, I forgot not to slouch.

Also, my hair wasn't dry, so I hadn't taken it down yet.

Also, I was tired.

Also, I'm pale and my eyes just kind of look baggy sometimes

Also, that's just the unfortunate reality of my face, because I don't wear foundation ever even though I probably should start. What can you do? Well, besides the foundation thing. Maybe I'll look into a paper bag.

Also, I'm being a drama queen. I don't photograph well but the picture isn't as bad as you'd think considering how much I'm going on about it.

Also, it's time to hit "Publish."

Dear Ruffles: I Am Bored. Fix That.

I am thrilled to report that Pickled Onion potato chips are actually kind of GOOD. And not just because I'm pregnant.

One of my favorite things about living in England was the wacky flavors of potato chips, so whenever I'm near a shop that sells British imports, I pop in and see what they've got on sale. Last weekend I scored several packets for myself of good old standbys: Cheese & Onion, Steak & Onion, and Bacon. But the one I'd never tried before was Pickled Onion, and at the last minute, I added it to my haul. I can't recall the last time I even ATE a pickled onion, but these tasted pretty spot-on, and were pleasantly tangy.

The best part? The packet advertised a promotion that Walkers is doing in the U.K. to have people vote on the next flavor. Some of the contenders will blow your mind: Fish & Chips, Chili & Chocolate, Crispy Duck & Hoisin, Cajun Squirrel, Onion Bhaji, and Builder's Breakfast (which, if I am not mistaken, includes a baked-beans component). I am now as invested in that race as I am in American Idol. WHAT WILL WIN?

The U.S. is really missing out on the whole potato-chip flavor craze. Canada is all about it, offering my favorite, Dill Pickle, and even Ketchup flavor. We share a border, can't we share some taste science? I'm so bored by the current offerings. It's either Ranch or BBQ or Sour Cream & Onion or Cheddar and Sour Cream, and if they ever splash out, it's in the direction of Mexican food flavors and I don't LIKE Mexican food. Kettle Chips try, and some of the stuff that company pumps out is interesting, but they're too heavy for me most of the time. I want a light and fluffy chip that tastes like something wacky. Is that too much to ask? So basically, the Frito Lay's people need to venture north to our Canadian friends, or hightail it overseas and take a lesson from those wackadoo flavor wizards at Walkers. Or at least buy their recipes so I can get Steak & Onion chips at home for cheaper. You'd be surprised how tasty those are. Mmm. I'm sure they're chock full of illegal flavorings that the FDA wouldn't approve over here. I hope the beans enjoyed their first taste of dancing on the wild side.

So apparently, twins are going to be hard work. Huh.

There is something comforting about walking into a room full of other pregnant women and hearing them talk about their aching hips, or their body pillows, or just seeing them rub their belles and looking tired. It's like, "Oh, yes, you have been where I am, and I'm going to be where you are," and we don't even have to say anything. We can just look at each other and the silent "Get ready, honey"/"Oh, dude, I KNOW" passes between us.

Of all the women in our "So, Guess What? Having Multiples Is Hard" class (or whatever it was called), I was the earliest in her pregnancy. Most of them were past the 30-week mark, except for one 27-week lady next to me who is already on bedrest, and one 23-week lady who is seriously tiny and my belly could beat up her belly three times in a row and never break a sweat. Of the 11 couples, all of us were first-time parents -- including the lady sitting next to Kevin, who at 29 weeks was living at Cedars-Sinai already because she is carrying triplets and could blow at any moment. Also, she was totally still in her original True Religion jeans and had a bump about the size of a woman who is 7 months pregnant with ONE baby. I am not particularly self-conscious about getting big -- I actually rather love it -- but since I can't exercise right now I do see my ass and thighs rebelling and that can cross a girl over from feeling adorably pregnant to dumpy and sad. It is REALLY hard not to stack yourself up against the way other women look when they are pregnant. Mostly I'm pretty good about it. I'm sort of curious to get to the part where my entire face starts to look like someone inflated it -- remember when J.Lo was near the end of her pregnancy and everyone was like, "Did she get COLLAGEN???" but it was just that she was about to burst with twins? I shall be amused to see what my face does along those lines.

They set the room up with U-shaped tables, chairs for all of us around the outside and one chair per couple on the inside -- presenting a place for the tired, ankle-swollen preggies to put up our feet. Very clever, Cedars. Everyone was nice, some chattier than others, but watching all those women who were already on Cervix Watch '09 got a little tense for me and Kevin. Any time one of the further-along women paused to breathe out a very long, slow breath and rub her stomach and hang her head a little, Kevin and I would look at each other and think, "Is she going to...?"

The class itself ended up being partly stuff we already knew -- feeding: going to be tricky -- and partly helpful on other issues we hadn't really thought about, or had considered only in passing. For instance, the woman teaching, who is herself an identical twin and is married to a fraternal twin, talked about some personal stories from their lives about how growing up and being branded "the twins" or "the sisters" affected her. I guess when they were babies, she was two ounces leaner than her twin, so everyone nicknamed them Skinny and Fat; she realized like forty years later that every time she was traveling to see her sister she'd go on a diet first. Or her husband, "the scientific one," turned out to be really good at sculpture and it wigged out his twin brother, who was like, "But... I've always been the artistic one!" In some senses this isn't that different than the way you'd talk about ordinary siblings, but she said that sometimes twins internalize that stuff a lot earlier and a lot more dearly -- even subconsciously -- because they themselves are struggling to be both part of a matched set and their own individuals. So she cautioned against referring to them as a unit all the time, and against rhyming names and dressing them alike (not a problem, as we don't plan to do either -- okay, unless the dressing-alike has a funny purpose and is very occasional), and just suggested that we be careful about the line between encouraging them to have different interests and pigeonholing them in those distinct corners. Her buzzword was "labeling" them, and how we should avoid it where we can because who knows how early they pick up on it.

This totally stressed out one father, who was all, "But... but how can I treat them as individuals if I don't label them?" This is the same guy who came to the realization halfway through the class that this was going to be a shitload of work. He goes, "I'm just getting the sense that I'm going to come home after a full day of work, and I'll be coming home to ANOTHER full-time job." Er, yes. Yes you are. He also fell asleep during the video about Bringing Home Your Multiples, which means he missed the cavalcade of awesome '80s hair and high-waisted shorts. Everyone else was laughing at dumb stuff in the video that was being said, and Kevin and I were hitting each other on the leg and being like, "DID YOU SEE THAT WOMAN'S SHOES?"

The instructor also talked about how some studies show that twins, when they're first born, prefer sleeping together in the same crib. We'd assumed we wouldn't do that -- we don't want to start any habits that we have no intention of prolonging, like having them sleep in our room, etc. -- but she said that for the first few weeks or even up to a month, it can comfort them to sleep faster because they're used to being each other's soothers, packed tightly in the womb as they are. Every set of twins is different, of course, but she said it can be worth trying. Something for us to ponder. It requires extra stuff to keep them separate from each other in the crib so they don't roll into each other and suffocate -- you can't just roll up a blanket and do it, because you're not allowed to have plush stuff like that anywhere near their faces until they're older, etc. Side note: There is nothing scarier than contemplating the SIDS risk with every single thing you might want to do or buy for your children.

We did finally order the cribs a week ago; allegedly they will be here in another week, and then we have to decide if we want to go pick them up and assemble them ourselves -- by which I mean, Kevin's own self, most likely, since I'm not supposed to be lifting things -- or pay to have them deliver and assemble. I suppose it depends on how ready the nursery is. Right now, the guest bed has been moved into my office from his, and we'll eventually share the desk. Somehow. He insists the main next step before moving anything ELSE out of there is boxing up and storing all his CDs, which means he's been loading every last one of them into his computer. It's taken him two weeks, and not because he's slow. He has almost 40 continuous days' worth of music on his iTunes right now, some of which he's just keeping in case he's ever working on an editing project that demands it, but most of which he wants around because he's a music fan. We're nearing the light at the end of the tunnel, though, at long last. Next up is priming and painting the room, and then assembling the cribs. I'm relieved we should have most of this well in hand quite early, because I don't want to make any assumptions about what might happen as I roll into the third trimester. Like, as long as we have a place to put them and some clothes and diapers, we will be set, so that's what we're focusing on now.

Wow, this turned rambly -- like an e-mail I might write to my sister or something. I have another ultrasound pic and an updated belly shot, but I might wait and put those up tomorrow or later in the week, since this accidentally turned into a crazy epic.

Now, time to eat. Mama needs to fatten up the beans.

Week 19-ish Photo

Tonight is our first in a series of "Holy crap, we're having babies and we don't know what we're doing" classes. We're warming up gently with a group for parents of multiples who want advice, then we're doing a tour of our hospital and NICU, then we step into Infant CPR before we dive into the big dog: lamaze/childbirth.

Even though we're not giving birth there (wait, we? I. I am the one giving birth), we're doing most of the classes at Cedars-Sinai, and they are CRAZY organized. They sent us prepaid parking and/or passes for each of the sessions we're doing, for instance, and you can sign up for all of them via the Internet -- something that shouldn't sound so revolutionary, but everywhere else, we had to call and hope we got a nurse who had time to answer.

We're actually delivering at the same hospital in Burbank where John Ritter died. Basically, it was a choice between Hospital That Killed A Beloved American Comic Legend, and Hospital That Almost Killed The Quaid Babies. We picked Ritter. Sorry, Cedars-Sinai. I'm sure you're a very fine institution.

One frustrating thing about signing up for all these classes: Most of the options are at the WORST times for a pregnant lady. Seriously. Everything is wrapped RIGHT smack around a mealtime, usually the dinner hours. Do they not understand that we gestating bitches need to EAT? I'm totally bringing a purse full of almonds and energy bars because the course synopsis mentioned nothing about helping us strap on the ol' feedbag while they tell us how freaking scary it's going to be having two tiny new babies instead of one.

Although maybe it's better not to feed us during the lamaze part. I have a weak stomach. I'm planning to turn away during any and all videos -- I am not the mother who needs to experience the birth from all angles; just let me know how it's going and tell me when to push, if indeed I don't have a mandated C-section, and then hose off the beans and I'll take it from there. A friend on Facebook commented that she doesn't understand why we're forking over money to be taught stuff people have been doing since the beginning of time, and how I am too smart to be dumb enough to pay for this (that's my paraphrasing), but I counter: This shit's scary when you've never done it, so anything anyone can tell me to help calm my growing nerves is worth the cash. I've never clipped a writhing baby's toenails, so why don't you show me before I start sobbing about how I'm scared I'm going to slice off a toe by accident? If my kid stops breathing, show me how to help so that I don't break its ribs. And I would much rather have taken a class on relaxation and breathing and understanding what the hell my body is doing when/if I go into labor, than get to the hospital screaming, "HOLY SWEET JESUS, WHY ARE THESE BASTARDS TRYING TO RIP OUT MY COLON?"

Here's a slightly outdated photo of the bump, taken about a week ago when I was roughly 19 weeks along. It is already outdated, so I'll have to take another sometime to give you the updated bumpwatch.

It is also very delicately censored -- not because I don't want anyone to know what my face looks like in GENERAL, but because on this day my face looked like refried ass:

Rest assured, I'm already poking out more than that now. I've put on about 20 lbs, MOST of it in my stomach but a healthy portion taking up residence in my ass and upper thighs too. My face looks mostly normal -- maybe a BIT fuller? -- but I give that about another two weeks. Them beans want to grow, and that means I get to grow with them.

It's kind of fun. Actually, really fun. I'm still fully hooked on belly-rubbing. It's my idle pasttime. As I've said before, and have probably even already said on this blog, I'm not one of those ladies who wants people to step away from the bump. Granted, if some random person started feeling it up in the supermarket, I'd probably take issue -- but otherwise, have at it! Might as well enjoy the only time in a woman's life when it's not only awesome but downright exciting to throw out your gut and be like, "CHECK IT OUT."

So, dig it. That's the beans' house. I get to see them again on Friday for a good long ultrasound, at which point hopefully they will still be boys (not that we don't like girls, but seriously, we're full-on Boy Stoked now, and also, disappearing wangs would be slightly alarming) and still be nice and big and happy and of about the same size. We can't have one robbing the other of in-utero nutrients -- it'd be nice if they didn't come out of the womb averse to sharing. Although I guess as long as they're not averse to ME, then I can teach them the rest of it.

ER: Not Sad, Not Bad, Not Glad, Just... Over.

After recapping four seasons of ER, I couldn't resist setting a season pass for its final run on NBC -- being a sucker for endings, as well as simply curious. Last night's finale was both sweet, comfortable, and fairly average in a very predictable way. It was unremarkable, but at the same time, exactly what it probably needed to be.

The show abandoned its traditional theme song and main titles at some point along the way, so I decided that if it were ME, I'd slot in the old credits and put in everyone who's ever appeared on the show in a contract role. Once I realized how much that costs, though, I revised it to: a spot to anyone on-contract who'd agreed to appear in the episode, old and new. The latter is exactly what they did, which kicked things off on a nice, familiar, and even slightly touching note.

The rest of it did what we all knew it would: indulged in some reunion moments with old cast members, and otherwise incorporated inoffensively preachy cases that followed every stereotype of tearjerking medical-show tragedy. There was the mother of five who wanted girls all her life, but never met her newborn twins because HER UTERUS CAME OUT HER CERVIX DURING DELIVERY (I should not have watched this episode, clearly) and the OR couldn't save her life. There was the friendly old man with AIDS and a great attitude, who greeted his cancer diagnosis by refusing chemo and pointing out that he's lived a wonderful 20 years with his diagnosis, and prepared for imminent death with winning dignity. And there was the old man who watched his wife die, leaving him without her for the first time in 72 years, and of course he curled up next to her dead body on the bed and stroked her hair in silence. Everything you'd expect to try and make you cry, they threw in there, complete with a med student played by Alexis Bledel who was trying to cope with "the job," delivering all this bad news, getting invested in people who aren't going to make it, and how you get up the next day and do it all again. Weirdly, Bledel had never been in an episode before -- all season we'd been given Shiri Appleby, and now, she was nowhere in sight; presumably Bledel was a callback to the wide-eyed rookies of the past, like Carter and Kellie Martin's character. The beat goes on.

Left unaddressed: The multi-episode arc of the mother who needed a heart transplant, and her adorable moppet of a daughter who had no one else in the world. In the penultimate show, we learned in passing that she was rejecting the heart they fought hard to get her, and... last night, nothing. They rushed a reconnection for John Stamos and Linda Cardellini's chracters by having him and her son build her a convertible for her birthday. And rather than give Carter the love he always seemed to crave, his heart ended up more or less broken: Though the Cater Center named for his dead baby son came to life in impressive form, and a bunch of his old pals came out to support him, he got nothing for sure out of this. They brought back puppy-dog-faced John Carter just to almost have him die of kidney failure, give him a transplant, have him call his estranged wife, then have said estranged wife... remain estranged. But then again, ER never was a show about happy endings, so I suppose it's only fitting that they ended Carter's arc by implying his true love is medicine.

They did add another nice, and nicely saccharine, touch that invoked its history. Rachel Greene, daughter of Anthony Edwards' character, came back to County as a med student hoping to get into the program. It led to a bunch of ridiculous moments where Carter paraded her around the hospital while not even on duty, showing her how it works and things like how to put in an IV, and inviting her into traumas. Again, territory I expected tem to tread, but it did give the show a rather apt closing moment: As multiple ambulances carried burn traumas into the ER, Carter gowned up and grabbed a gurney and then turned and said, "Are you coming, Dr. Greene?" And the camera pulled back as Rachel ran inside -- no qualifications, nothing, but she had the right last name to make the scene mean something to people who have loved the show since it started.

We all had to know ER would end with the show proving that even as it is surrounded by death itself, County General would never die -- and the hint that maybe Carter had it in his blood and would bring Mark's daughter up through the ranks as Mark helped bring him. So it didn't shatter the earth, they didn't explode the hospital or have it exist inside an autistic kid's snow globe, and they didn't cliffhang us on anything.

But I'm not sure what else they could've done. It's better the show didn't pull out all the stops for a gripping two-hour thrill ride, because that's more in character with its most outrageous, desperate sweeps stunts than with its true heart. Instead, ER went with a pleasantly languid ending to 15 years of bodies pouring in and out of those doors, both showing that its age and its heyday had passed but leaving it in the hands of characters who love it -- just like one of its signature octagenarians who gets wheeled in at the beginning of the episode, charms the pants off you for half an hour, then slowly drifts away until it's finally time to go. And you'll miss them, but you'll know it's for the best.