Dancing Brave

One Week Ago

The NICU is a study in opposites: calming and frightening; happy and agonizing; warm and sterile. Even the acronym sounds cute when you pronounce it, but when you draw it out to its full and intimidating length -- Neonatal Intensive Care Unit -- it's a hard kick to the knees, because you realize they're not playing around in there. Those are sick babies. Even yours.

My birth story is a little dramatic, but it also gets harder and harder for me to tell it because my brain gets bogged down in how close I might have come to losing my boys, and I can't process it. I know it's pointless to dwell on the tragic what-ifs, but it's also impossible not to let my mind drift to that dark place when I'm already on such an emotional roller-coaster. I will try.

I picked Kevin up at the airport on Monday night. His flight landed at 10:15 p.m., and at 4:30 a.m. -- only a couple hours after we finally got to sleep -- I woke up with my usual need to pee. Except this time there was also a tiny bit of blood. And for whatever reason, I couldn't decide if they merited an urgent message to the doctor, or just a call to the regular voice mail -- see, I had an appointment that afternoon already, so I figured I'd just tell them I needed to come in early, which has been the usual procedure if something weird happened. (They had yet to tell me to come RIGHT in for anything except my weird Braxton-Hicks episode.) He'd mentioned I would need to call if there was red blood, but never, "Call me on my urgent line," and so of course I overthought that to death and we consulted the books and decided not to overreact unless something else happened.

Then I got back in bed, and felt something akin to a gush. A light gush, but a gush. Assuming it was blood, I checked... but, nothing. This, I decided, might just be regular pregnancy hoo-ha -- there is a lot of varying lady hoo-ha when you are knocked up, and it's all maddeningly vaguely detailed in books -- so I tried going back to bed. It would happen when I climbed in, and again when I climbed out; after an hour of this, I moved into the living room to kill time with a bowl of cereal and some TV. No way I was sleeping. My stomach had tied itself up in knots that felt like ladycramps and I needed to distract myself.

Come 6:30, though, my stomach was knotting itself tighter and tighter, with varying degrees of intensity. I finally gave up and called my doctor on the urgent line at about 6:45, and he called back around 7 to tell me that I should go straight to Labor & Delivery, check in there, and he'd meet me. He seemed calm, and most intrigued by the gushy sensations than anything.

So I did what every practical girl would do: freaked out that I hadn't shaved my legs yet, because that was on the docket for my Tuesday morning shower, and promptly turned on the spray, cleaned up, and shaved up to my knees. I moaned my way out of the shower -- my abdomen felt so heavy and my cramps were bad -- as Kevin threw a bag or two together just in case. We assumed I'd be admitted for hospital bedrest, so we didn't try too hard; just an extra pair of sweats, my mini-computer for getting work done while I languished in bed, a bunch of clean underwear, and an extra t-shirt. I remembered thinking to myself last week, "I need to pack a bag, because the quickest way to go into premature labor is not to have that thing waiting by the door." I looked at the Father's Day card I had just gotten Kevin, in which Bart Simpson cackled that Homer should be thrilled Bart wasn't twins, and which I'd signed, "Get ready! Love, The Beans." Then I shook it off and stumbled to the car.

En route, I felt queasy. That, coupled with the fact that I had earlier that morning been having -- to put it delicately -- the exact opposite intestinal issues that had plagued me the rest of the pregnancy, I convinced myself that, yes, my water probably had broken, but that I also had food poisoning. Water breaking doesn't always mean you're having the baby in two seconds, so I quite rationally -- while inhaling sharply every time we hit a bump in the road, attempting to calm myself via Lamaze breathing, and then declaring that Lamaze is for shit -- concluded that I must have eaten something bad.

I hopped out of the car at the hospital and puked heartily in a trashcan while Kevin went to get me a wheelchair.

This was at about 8 a.m. He wheeled me up to L&D, where they admitted me, got me to a room, and gowned me up before settling me in a bed. The nurse calmly strapped on fetal heart monitors and located both babies' pulses, then did a litmus test to determine whether my water had broken. It turned blue practically within an inch of touching me. So then she reassuringly told me they needed to check my cervix. We bantered about how uncomfortable I've heard that can be, and then suddenly she said, "Oh. OH."

I had walked in the door 10 cm dilated. "I feel the head. That is definitely a full head of hair," she said. But she got a second opinion just in case. "Looks like we're having these babies right now," the nurse said, squeezing my hand. "And they're both head down, so it may happen vaginally."

My doctor wasn't even there yet. Looking up at her, I choked, "I AM GOING TO NEED DRUGS."

She smiled down at me, as kindly as anyone ever has, and said, "We will do everything we can to get you drugs, but if we need you to push and they're not working or they're not here yet, we will GET YOU THROUGH THIS. I promise."

Then, it was a flurry of activity. Full marks to the hospital for making me feel like the only patient in the world; it wasn't until after that I learned they admitted six babies to the NICU that morning, and that we'd bumped from the OR a scheduled c-section of a woman 33 weeks pregnant with twins. The nurses calmly noted that they'd be doing a bunch of stuff very fast and all at the same time, and that none of it was anything but typical and that they'd try to explain it all as best they could. Kevin had to sign paperwork of all sorts, like agreeing to transfusions if necessary, and he had to run out and contact our parents. And Jess, who needed to know that I wasn't going to be showing up online to work.

A nurse came running in: "Good news. I just got off the phone with your doctor. You're going to get your drugs, because he wants to do a c-section anyway."

"Thank God," I said. "Wait, is that bad?" I didn't have anything against a vaginal birth; in the moment, though, I was too scared to do anything without numbing agents.

She laughed. "Not even a little."

Suddenly I was in the OR. The anesthesiologist, a complete angel to me that day, chatted comfortably with me, explaining what would happen as casually as if we were talking about something we watched on TV last night. We made jokes. I rolled over and got anesthesia injected at the spine, then my arms pinned down on either side of my body, fully extended and not to move from that spot. The drape went up; my doctor and his colleague were on the other side. "The area" was being prepped. I got poked lightly with paper clips until I was numb from the boobs down, all the while mildly terrified they'd make a cut I could feel. I had the sense of bustling activity around me but all I could think about was the blue curtain a few feet from my nose and what was about to happen on the other side. Apparently there were about 15 people standing over there that I couldn't see, whose presence I never knew of until it was relayed to me later, including a team per baby and several assistants for the doctors, who conducted the birthing business in low voices.

Kevin appeared, gowned up, and took my right hand. That's when it hit me.

"They're not ready," I whispered, welling up a bit. "They're not done. It's too soon."

He squeezed my fingers. "I know." His eyes got wet.

We just looked at each other for a few seconds, maybe even a minute -- I don't know. It was so fast and an eternity all at once. It said a lot even as we said nothing. Then we both nodded, almost as if to say, "Well, this is happening. So let's just do it."

The next part is a bit of a blur. I recall some small talk with the doctors, who were deeply impressed this had all waited to happen until Kevin got back from his trip. Then the anesthesiologist leaned over and said, "I see a foot."

"WHERE?" I asked, completely discombobulated.

"Over there," she said, pointing to the side.

"He's OUT?" I asked. Kevin peeked around the drape. "Why isn't he crying?"

"I hear something," Kevin said. "And he's pink, and he's moving."

Then he was directed to peek around the curtain. Baby B was out, too, and just a split-second after Baby A finally decided to cry, Baby B joined him in a chorus. I've never heard anything more beautiful in my life: wan, gentle, needy, but very much alive.

Tears rolled down my cheeks, and Kevin and I smiled at each other as he shed some, too. They'd made it through the first stage.

A nurse handed A -- soon to become Dylan -- to Kevin, swaddled in a blanket. Dylan's face was terrible, all bruised around the eyes and swollen lips. He looked like he'd had bad plastic surgery. We affectionately nicknamed him Crazyface, knowing it would all go down soon, but when I look back on that first picture it pings in my heart a little to think that, even indirectly and certainly not intentionally, my body did that to him as he struggled to get out. Kevin put him on my shoulder so I could say hi, and then both babies were gone. And so was he. Everyone rushed to the NICU -- I had told Kevin he should go, and I knew he felt torn but it was the right thing -- and left me there with the doctor to be mended.

Somewhere in here, we found out the birthweights from the NICU. My OB was shocked to hear Dylan's was lower than we thought and Liam's was so much higher. Now, I'm guessing it's because when they calculate the weights based on ultrasounds, they're using measurements of bones and head circumference and all that, and my boys aren't that different in length or noggin size. It's their bodies that hold the key, the baby fat that in Dylan's case wasn't there, and that's tougher to quantify with a mouse and a cursor on an ultrasound screen. It looks like they had developed Twin To Twin Transfusion Syndrome, where one baby essentially hogs a higher percentage of nutrients from the shared placenta. Dylan maybe just realized, hey, I need out. And that's why a vaginal birth isn't as safe -- for one thing, it's risky with twins anyway, but if the TTTS is particularly acute then sometimes the baby that's still inside waiting for its moment, which often isn't immediate with vaginal twin deliveries, overfeeds on the placenta and dies. If it was indeed really TTTS, and it seems to have been, I probably needed to have these babies soon and for sure by c-section. And I'm glad my baby boy was smart enough to know that, because I didn't have a clue it was happening. In retrospect, with that plus the circumstances of my labor, it's hard for me to think about everything without realizing I maybe came closer than I'd realized, and way too close for comfort, to losing my beans.

The first few days, Dylan emerged as the champ, eating everything they fed him through his nasal tube and never needing breathing help. He went under the bili lights -- a treatment for infant jaundice, which is normal in preemies -- on Thursday and is still under them now, but his numbers are dropping for the moment so at least that's progress. Meanwhile, Liam -- also under the lights at one point, but not for as long -- had a murmur near his heart. They suspected it was a vein that was supposed to close at birth and didn't, and it wasn't bothering him, so they let it go to see if it fixed itself. He also wouldn't tolerate food. So we didn't worry about Dylan as much as about Liam, even though Dylan is so much smaller.

Now, though, things have flipped. Liam is back on food and eating like mad, he's out from the lights, his IV is out, the murmur repaired itself, and his coloring is normalizing. We've even gotten to cuddle two days in a row. But today, their one-week birthday, we learned Dylan lost 40 grams overnight. Basically, he'd gotten up to within 5 grams of his birth weight, and now he's back to a full two ounces lighter. This despite eating, AND getting a calorie boost stirred into his milk. The nurse said it might be the slightly stronger bili light they put him under two days ago that's making him lose weight, but they can't deny that if he loses again tonight, it's a worry.

It's not the end of the world. But it's a setback. And we knew there would be some, but the emotion of it still smacks me down in pretty potent waves. When we arrived for our visit this morning, I looked at him in his incubator -- you can see in his face where he's lost weight; his eyes were open, his cheeks were gaunt, he was looking in my direction (even though I know he doesn't see me yet), he was so cute and wee and frail and without body fat... my little guy needs to get bigger and I don't know how to make it happen.  It was the most intense feeling of love and powerlessness, which I suppose they call "parenthood," and I started crying silently. It just hurt so much to see him there, and know he is trying and probably confused and wondering why he isn't feeling stronger and what the hell is happening and where the hell is his brother, and I couldn't keep it together. I have to learn to be tougher in there for him, for BOTH of them, but today wasn't that day. Kevin calmed me down as only he can, but I also need to be strong sometimes for him. He is going to have bad days, too, and he's going to need my shoulder, and I have to be able to give it to him.

The recovery period has been pretty benign for me. It hurts to sit and stand, and when I have to go to the bathroom my full bladder is really uncomfortable against the incisions. Last night I had some burning twinges; today, none. It comes and goes. I'm actually very proud of myself for how well the recovery went, and I'm sure I owe that in large part to the news from the NICU being relatively undramatic. Much easier to chill and take it slow and coddle myself when my boys are doing as well as can be expected.

But now I'm home, and it's a bit harder. We're not a floor away from them any more. Couple that with churning, burning emotions changing on me at every turn, and it gets pretty wearing. We're getting by just fine -- the hospital isn't that far, I'm still able to pitch in with work to distract myself, and I'm managing to pump every three hours without feeling so tired I am afraid I will keel over on the spot. But it's a long road and if today's teeny bump in it set me off that badly, what will happen when a real one comes?

All I can do is remind myself that they're exactly where they need to be. And we're doing everything we can to be there for them. And we have to believe they'll both bounce back from these things -- that Dylan will rebound with some fat on his bones and that nothing more serious than his basic prematurity is keeping him from absorbing all his food; that the routine brain scans of tonight will yield nothing but healthy photographs; that the days ahead will give us more chances to hold our sons and promise them the world in the future if they can just battle a little harder now.

Day 5 And All Is Well

Thank you so much, everyone, for the love and support in the comments -- it means so much to me, because this has been a surprising and emotional and amazing and difficult time for us. It's so heartening to come here and read that you're all pulling for us and for the beans. Who are now flesh-and-blood boys rather than just intangible ones. My sons. That still feels incredible -- in both the "defies credulity" and "fabulous" senses of the word.

Dylan and Liam are hanging in there. I'll post more details later in the week -- right now I'm just sneaking a quiet moment with Kevin's laptop before some hospital blah-blah and then a trip down to the NICU. But I wanted everyone to know that despite a couple so-far-routine setbacks (mostly with Liam; wee Dylan is the scrappiest dude, sucking back everything we can feed him and never needing breathing help, words I hope do not myself have to eat in the coming weeks) they're both winning over all the nurses with their moxie and their sweet little faces. They assure us that anything that's cropped up is all routine and common in preemies, and so we chalk up good day after good day, knowing that it won't always be this rosy but cherishing the moments where it is.

Here's me seeing Dylan for the first time, after my c-section recovery period but before they wheeled me into my hospital room:

This is Dylan on Day One, wearing Kevin's wedding ring as a bracelet -- yes, he's that tiny: 

This is Liam's head of hair:

And this is the happy family on Day 2, holding our beans for the first time: Me with Dylan against my chest, and Kevin with Liam. You will enjoy my hair.

That is what it looks like when I insist on showering while in labor before going to the hospital, it dries while I'm on a gurney, and then I lie in bed for 27 hours before getting up to go to the NICU. Special, no?

Again, more elaborate details later, I promise. I just wanted to share and say a very sincere thank you. Every time I think about having a support group like this full of people I've never even met, people who are rooting for my sons to rally and grow big and strong and come home healthy in 6-8 weeks -- people who don't have to care but do anyway --my eyes well up, and I KNOW it's not just my hormones doing the weeping. When I count my blessings after another day the boys have made it, you're all in the tally.

Surprise arrival

Well, it HAD been so far so good, but on Tuesday morning -- exactly 11 hours after Kevin's flight landed back in LA -- Baby A was born in an emergency c-section, followed by Baby B a minute later.

I will get into the crazy four-hour start-to-finish labor story -- not too graphic, I promise -- once I am more recovered, and not blogging on my phone. For now here is the scoop: I'm in some pain but making do. The boys are my heroes. They'll likely be in the NICU for 6-8 weeks since they were SO premature, at only 30.5 weeks in the womb. Baby A is Dylan Edward, middle name from Kevin's grandpa, and he weighed in at 2 lbs, 9 oz, measuring 15 3/4 inches; Baby B, Liam Alan (middle name is my dad's first name), was 3 lbs, 15 oz, 17 inches. Both are breathing without intubation and wee Dylan had been needing no help at all. He thinks he's the big boss, yanking out tubes and intaking room air. Liam is calmer, but needs a boost of oxygen from a nose tube -- but even he went 12 hours without it first.

Those are great milestones, but it's a long road ahead and it WILL have potholes. We've braced ourselves and are grateful for every day, even the ones ahead that may have setbacks. Today was a good day: We held them for the first time. Tomorrow, we will take as it comes.

Bits and bobs

You know, I was all set to offer up a post of little tips and tricks that have helped me get this far in my pregnancy, but I realized I don't think I have that many -- I am one of those loathsome women who never grappled with morning sickness and counts herself very fortunate to have encountered no speed bumps larger than her actual bump.

Er, knock on wood, of course.

My pal Stephanie did a great post on her various tips and tricks for combating nausea, which is probably more helpful than anything I could rummage up here considering that she actually contended with it. But I'll still take a stab at some random thoughts here...

Skin care: Zits are a common side effect of all the hormones raging around in your body, which is doubly delightful if you're already prone to them. I found out at about week 10 just how much they like you to be careful what you put on your skin while pregnant -- no benzoyl peroxide, and no salycilic acid, for instance, and a lot of the stuff in intense anti-aging cremes is also thought to be best avoided. My savior here was Belli Skincare, whose products are developed by a doctor and tested to be safe for pregnant ladies. They make an acne wash and a stretch-mark-prevention oil that I love (plus a reduction creme and a skin-firming lotion I intend to try once I deliver, and an eye creme I can't decide if I should try now or wait). Obviously, if you're genetically inclined toward stretch marks, you can't avoid them altogether, but I do think that and a healthy daily slathering of cocoa butter are jointly responsible for how long it took for me to get them. Plus, pregnancy bellies itch ALL THE TIME because the skin is growing and stretching, so I needed the mosture. A friend said her dermatologist cleared the Dr. Murad acne collection's clarifying face mask for use, too, so I keep that on hand and use it when it seems like my pores are throwing a rave. For moisturizer I went with plain old Oil of Olay for sensitive skin, with some SPF in there because pregnant-lady skin is apparently more prone to sunburn, or at least weird pigmentation, and I wanted to be super careful. (Usually I prefer to apply sunscreen separately.)

Maternity gear: It's rather shameless how much people try and bilk you when you're pregnant, overpricing maternity stuff just because they can. Pea in a Pod is particularly egregious, although some of that is because they're pimping stuff like True Religion Maternity Capris, which... no. I do not need to spend that much money on designer-jeans capris that will soon go in a storage bin for a long time. For as long as I could, I rigged my jeans to close with a hair elastic, threading it around and through the button-hole using the same method you do to put bag tags on your luggage, and then hooking the open end over my button -- and twisting it around the button as many times as I needed to for them to stay comfortably closed but still have a little give. That worked for quite some time, until my bump got big enough that shirts weren't covering the elastic, and my zipper would start creeping down, and I got sick of obsessively checking its open/closed status every time I got up from a seated position in public. I did purchase a Bella Band, which is like a giant tube top that you pull down over your unbuttoned jeans, helping you wear your regular pants for longer but without the fear of exposing your zipper; this, in the end, I only used a handful of times. I suspect that's because maternity jeans turned out to be kind of awesomely comfortable and didn't have me psychologically conditioned to tug at them to make sure they were all in place.

Because I preferred to try and make it on my own as far as I could without giving in to maternity prices, I pretty much left boutiques alone and stuck with Gap Maternity and ordering online from Old Navy maternity -- which tends to have a lot of sales and is as reasonably priced as you'd expect, especially considering that if you have a Gap, Old Navy, or Banana credit card, you get pretty good rewards and coupons that slash things even further. I benefited greatly from the fact that a lot of the styles this summer involved looser and longer tops, so I had luck shopping at their regular stores but going up a size. For pants, I got two pairs of Gap Long and Lean jeans with the cotton elastic waist that only rises up a few inches, and then I have a pair each from The Gap and Old Navy (plus one set of denim capris from the latter) that have the elastic panels that come up much higher. Now that I'm so big, I wear those almost exclusively just because it's harder to find shirts that safely, reliably cover the bottom swatch of belly skin -- but when I'm at home I fold down those panels back around my hips, just so my stomach can breathe. Sizes were pretty accurate with my regular size, so ordering online was easy. But I do realize my work-from-home situation is unique, in that all I really NEED are jeans.

Heartburn: I limited my Tums intake, but kept a resealable bag of Diamond unsalted almonds in my purse and by my bed. Not only were those great for a pick-me-up, but one of the pregnancy books suggested sitting up and eating a handful of almonds as a heartburn cure. It did work for me on a few really terrible nights, or at least it didn't seem to hurt and it felt like I was being proactive. Another tip was warm milk and honey, but I am creeped out by the very concept of warm milk unless it has been masked by hot cocoa.

Snacks: I kept cheese and crackers around the house at all times, which made for a great snack when I'd get a wave of hunger nausea -- the kind that only came in the first trimester when my body needed an extra boost of fuel. For me it was never too severe, but having something like that to munch on helped; I went with low-fat or low-salt Ritz and cheddar. Those little individually wrapped ones were great.

Drinks: Water. All the time. I'd keep a pitcher near me so I could keep refilling my glass without getting up every five minutes to go to the fridge. Orange juice apparently does count as part of your daily recommended fruit intake, so I worked glasses of that into my water rotation. I also started drinking milk -- one percent; they say to go up a notch from what you'd usually have, and I'd usually go with either none or skim -- which I spiked with just a little Hershey's syrup. (I have trouble with the taste of plain milk, but all it takes is a few drops of Hershey's to dupe myself into being okay with it.) I also invested in those eight-packs of tiny Sprite cans, because lemon-lime and fizz and sugar soda can all be good for unsettled tummies, AND there's no caffeine or artificial sweeteners to freak me out about damaging the beans. When it turned out I wasn't getting sick, I still bought and drank those occasionally just for variety. I've heard you can chance a small cup of coffee and a glass of wine now and then, but a) I don't drink coffee, and b) I didn't miss drinking booze one bit, so the potential risks associated with that one scared me a hell of a lot more than any reward appealed to me. Stephanie did another good post on mocktails that might come in handy for people who want to FEEL like they're drinking but also fear the risks.

Sleep: I would advocate a memory-foam mattress pad for anyone who doesn't have a pillow-top or who has one that's rather firm, because as I got bigger my circulation at night got poorer and being able to sink my hips into this thing really saved me. Mine came from Bed Bath & Beyond, and it's two inches, and that was enough -- but they have them in three and four inches too.

Baby Bargains: This book became my Bible for navigating the sea of products out there. It helped us narrow down crib brands so substantially -- seriously, I think I might have lost my mind wandering through baby stores and not knowing if what I was looking at was worth the price, or even reasonably priced. So this book and reading the user comments on Babies R Us's Web site kept my head straight and led to us making some good choices. The 2009 version just came out in April; they publish updates every two years but keep a Web site that has some interim information on it and also a message board.

Shopping: Babies R Us has been awesome about returns no matter where stuff came from, and even it was something on the registry but for which I lacked a receipt; Target apparently is TERRIBLE about returns, especially with stuff ordered online and returned to a store. Bear that in mind when registering. Bed Bath's baby division, Buy Buy Baby, is apparently great in terms of selection but has with limited brick-and-mortar locations. Crate & Barrel has a catalog-only kids' division called Land of Nod that has all kinds of cute stuff, although we've only taken advantage of it for some of the storage solutions. Caution: As Baby Bargains will tell you, you do not need to spend as much as they, or Pottery Barn Kids, want you to on a crib -- seriously, that is totally a case where the price tag doesn't mean they're that much better than some of the other ones. Our Munire ones are fab and solid and classy and were half the price.

Breast pumps: It's early for this one yet, but I can already say that I'm not purchasing one right now -- a lot of women really have trouble with the feedings, and you can't return a breast pump once you've bought it. So the best advice is to rent one from the hospital while you're giving it a go. If you decide breastfeeding is for you, then you can purchase one, or just keep renting if that's easier, depending on the fees.

That's it for now, I guess -- honestly, I think if I get pregnant again and find myself in a different, more nauseated situation, I will probably be like, "WTF, I AM TOTALLY UNPREPARED FOR THIS." I give thanks to whatever deity decided it would be nice to cut me some slack on the physical symptoms since I'm going to be knocked sideways trying to juggle the beans once they're in the world. Karmically this probably means the boys will be complete hellions, but let's face it, that's probably going to happen anyway. And by "probably" I mean, GIRD YOUR LOINS, SHERMAN OAKS.

So Big You Could Eat Off It

The following is my profile picture on Facebook:

That's from the last weekend in May. Enjoy the way my fruit cup rests right smack on George Michael's, er, mixed berries.

I can also fit one of my square lunch plates on The Belly, with the edge just tucked under my boobs for extra stability, and the other weekend I used The Belly as a remote-control tray. Might as well enjoy its added functionality while it's here, right? I've decided I want to get a series of pictures in which I balance increasingly larger things on there, perhaps ending in a large platter of exotic meats and cheeses. Actually, I wanted to end it with my friends' puppy-sized dog standing on there, but that seems hard to pull off AND as if it might exceed the recommended weight limit. Whatever that might be. There's an idea for how to get my doctor to look at me like I'm on crack: asking him if he thinks my belly could support the weight of a small dog safely.

Just to give you an idea where I am here, I believe the best target date for my 37-week maximum is on or around Aug. 6. The questions are still there because my fertility doctor did have me as five days FURTHER along -- despite using the same start date for his calculations -- than my OB does. August 6 more or less splits the difference. We'd be looking at having two Leos. And that is really only seven weeks away, right? For some reason that brings it home a lot harder than the words "August 6th."

I'm feeling good, but as I get toward the part of the pregnancy where my number of weeks begins with a 3, I can also sense that things aren't going to stay rosy. Rolling over in bed involves ever-more movement and effort, which has been fine with Kevin gone the past two weeks but when he gets back Monday he might be a little surprised to find a giant whale flopping around in his bed. Thank God he's a good sleeper, and a very sympathetic person by nature. If we had a contentious relationship at all, or even just the type where we enjoy pushing each other's buttons, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to stay on such an even keel about all this.

At our last ultrasound, we learned that Baby B -- who had been breech -- turned himself around and pinned his head-down brother. Seriously, he was on top of him. All those times Baby A was kicking at Baby B, and B remained above the fray, were really just moments of peace where B was plotting his revenge. Obviously. But the upshot of this is, with both babies head-down, theoretically it opens up the possibility of a regular ol' childbirth. C-sections are so common among twin moms because of the vagaries of getting both babies in the ejector position, so as we get closer I'll have to get my OB to examine the fetal layout more closely to see if he thinks it's feasible, or whether I am in danger of getting stuck pushing AND getting cut. I don't want to recover from both kinds of delivery. And I'm not someone who has particular ideas about the miracle of childbirth, or how it should be; I just vote for drugs at the earliest opportunity, and then whatever the safest exit strategy seems to be. I'll go along with the recommendations, but I do hope to avoid having two babies two different ways. Fortunately, or so I pray, we are a ways away from that being any kind of issue. The beans are still only hovering around the 3 lb. mark each; they've each got to put on at LEAST another two pounds smart-quick before I'm going to feel remotely comfortable with them making an entrance.

After thinking I'd avoided stretch marks, though -- a surprise to me, since I still have some from ninth grade, and that was just mild chubbing up -- it turns out I might actually have a GIGANTIC one. Typically, I've viewed stretch-marks as more like purple lightning bolts. This is a huge round angry patch by my belly-button, which sprawls out almost like a galaxy of purplish-red skin-strain; I had assumed it was either a bruise or just the most taxed, tightly pulled portion of my belly. But it occurs to me that it could just be a really concentrated patch of stretch marks. I can't actually tell. It IS tender, and it is the spot where both babies' feet tend to be and thus where the largest of my two semi-permanent belly lumps will appear, so all possible explanations for it make sense. I need to remember to ask my doctor what he thinks when I go in on Tuesday for my checkup. By then, Kevin will be back here, and it's time to put our OWN heads down, get the nursery to look cute rather than merely functional, and enjoy our last chances at going to movies and having a peaceful household.

I've gotten a couple e-mails about how we picked out certain things, where I've had luck with maternity clothes, and other ins and outs, so I might post about that next. If anyone wants to know anything else, please drop me a line or a comment! It's certainly not that I fancy myself an expert, or even have that many incredible insights; just that I know from experience how pregnancy makes you want to read EVERY and ANY information anyone has for you about ANYTHING. The stack of books on my bedside table can attest to that. Under no other circumstances would I want a tome on C-section births.

I'm Already Sick Of The Word "Vaccine"

So, the appointment with the pediatrician had mixed results. It was yet another situation of me feeling totally prepared on the way in, and then exiting wishing I'd gone in there with more information on hand. But what can you do?

The guy is totally nice. He was welcoming, he gave me a tip that my hospital doesn't have the best lactation consultants and so handed me a recommendation for an independent one, he chatted amiably, and the practice -- staffed with five doctors in total -- is clean and new and nice, in addition to being nearby. He's available by e-mail; he will take calls if he's around and if not you'll get another doctor on the phone. For the early going, he'll do just fine.

After that, we'll see. My approach with the vaccination thing was to be conversational but not overly intense. I didn't want to present him with a ream of information on our first meeting, or a bunch of charts and tables. I just wanted to get a feel for him. And he certainly listened to me and never talked down to me, and seemed to understand my concerns even while not necessarily agreeing with them. It comes down to this: He's fine with pushing Hep B and polio, but most of the other ones, he feels should be on the regular schedule. He talked (predictably) about the lack of a known link between shots and autism, and the need to protect against some of these diseases, especially as kids become more mobile and active and touchy-feely with the world. I reiterated -- which was also my opening line -- that we have every intention of giving our kids the shots but we just feared overwhelming their little bodies with too many chemicals at once; the argument in return is, the human immune system is a lot hardier than people give it credit for being.

This is where I wish I'd brought papers in with me: Alternative schedules by Dr. Sears and the like push a pair of those vaccines by only a month -- which means more appointments, but also spaces things out even just a little. So if I'd had that with me, maybe he would've been like, "Oh, that's not a big deal, we can consider doing that." Like, maybe he thought by "spacing them out" I meant by much bigger amounts. Or maybe he didn't, and he just feels the way he feels. That's the trick here: These are my kids, but it's tricky to demand that a doctor compromise the way he truly believes something should be done -- in a way, bending to anyone's will rather than his own instincts may make him less of a doctor. It's a fine line and it may end in us finding, eventually, a pediatrician for whom it wouldn't be a compromise. We'll see.

The big trick is with the MMR vaccine -- measles, mumps, and rubella. Autism groups used to advocate splitting up these three shots rather than getting them all in one cocktail, but it's harder and harder to get them split up now because of availability and/or the companies don't all make them separately any more. I had kind of a testy conversation with my mother about the merits of not getting MMR at all if it can't be split up (MMR is, apparently, the vaccine that most concerns the autism groups), versus getting it and taking the chance. She seemed to think it was better not to get it because "autism is for life" and people have been surviving those three diseases since the dawn of time. I am concerned that either way is rolling the dice, but that at least autism being for life means my kids would have life as opposed to contracting a potentially life-threatening disease. Every issue has multiple sides and often they both make sense, and as if parenting weren't scary enough, this gets added to the pile.

And I get confused about how much I even ought to be freaking out about this. Honestly, I think autism has more to do with each individual's body chemistry than anything. You can't really predict that, and I'm not even sure how much of it is a familial propensity -- like, does my niece's place on the spectrum mean my kids are that much closer to being on it themselves? The answer seems to be... maybe. Everything with autism is "maybe," or so it seems.

Kevin, sensibly, pointed out that we have two months after the birth in which this doctor can be treating our children but before we ever have to give them a shot. During that time we can present the Dr. Sears schedule and say, "Hey, how about this compromise?" And if he still draws a hard line, then maybe we look around for a doctor who's less rigid, and if that means not getting 100 percent coverage, then we deal with it.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure how much of my life and my kids' lives I want to spend trying to run away from autism. But then again, what happens if they do develop it? Do we kick ourselves for the rest of our lives?

Shoot 'Em Up, Doc. Eventually.

With Kevin out of town shooting ANTM, I'm killing time with a very busy medical week that involves five blood draws, an interview, and some unpleasant abstentions from eating.

Monday, I had my 3-hour glucose tolerance test -- the second step in determining whether I have developed gestational diabetes. The first is a one-hour test in which you chug a sugary beverage and then get your blood taken an hour later, and I flunked that by a slim eight-point margin and was thus forced to schedule the marathon session. It required three days of pleasant carb-binging in which I had to eat pasta, potatoes, bread, or rice with every meal -- which was neither a struggle nor a particular departure, as I'm of the mind that all this carb-fearing crap right now is insane -- and then a hellacious 16 hours during which I could eat nothing, 12 hours in which only "moderate" water was allowed, and four hours during which no water could pass my lips at all. You would think such tests would be performed in padded cells, so that the lab workers would be protected from the violently hungry and dehydrated pregnant ladies who want nothing more than to go all HULK SMASH on the world. Instead, I just went to a boring little lab at the hospital, gave blood so they could read my fasting blood-sugar level, pounded ten ounces of a drink that tastes like souped-up flat Sprite (not as bad as it could be, but surprisingly gross to chug in less than five minutes), and then waited for three blood draws at one-hour intervals. By the time I gave my last vial at 12:30, the needle was barely out of my arm before the Fiber Bar was out of my purse and halfway down my throat. It was behavior almost worthy of excommunication.

Tuesday, I got the results: I passed. GOD BLESS. Although as complications go I'd take gestational diabetes over anything else, I'm still not that upset to avoid having to prick my finger multiple times a day just so I can see what my blood is saying. Especially because I'm pretty sure my blood would be saying, "Please leave me in your body. PLEASE. I'm fucking serious."

At the end of the week is another checkup with my blood doctor, to make sure my anemia isn't getting unmanageable -- athough, after a slow downward spiral, my numbers rebounded at our last visit and I'm not overly fatigued, so I'm optimistic that test will go well. If it doesn't, we're looking at weekly shots and infusions (so that the iron bypasses my digestive tract), but I have no reason to suspect that it will have gone downhill again so quickly that we'll leap there right away.

Tomorrow, though, is the big dog, the one about which I'm most nervous: The meeting with our prospective pediatrician. You need one in place and on-record before you give birth, because that person comes to examine the babies within 24 hours of the birth, and the hospital isn't wild about randomly assigning one. But I'm antsy because we don't have a huge amount of choice. With our health plan, we only get 100 percent coverage if we pick a doctor who is contracted with Motion Picture (the company the editors' union uses, through which we get Blue Shield), and in our area that number totals... three. Simply accepting Blue Shield isn't enough; the doctor has to be on Motion Picture's approved list, and what's more, we have to get an official referral from Motion Picture or else we won't get the benefits. They make it hard. And of those three options, only one definitely has privileges at St. Ritter's Please Don't Let That Happen To Me Hospital. That's the other thing you learn: Your doctor has to be affiliated. You don't just get to mix and match.

The interview is sort of a big deal for me. It matters because of vaccinations and autism.

Before I go any further: Yes, I know, there's no proven link -- and there is absolutely no unbiased study out there that parents can turn to for information -- and yes, Kevin and I fully plan to vaccinate our children. We know that already. Those diseases aren't going away. Without wanting to ignite any tensions among my readers, because I don't want to judge another person's experience with this issu, the point of view I have is: to bypass vaccinations ourselves effectively places the burden of disease prevention on every OTHER parent out there, as if to say, "The risk is too great for MY precious babies, but I sure hope you put YOUR kids in the line of fire or else we're all getting rubella."

For me, the issue is two-fold. I have a very autistic niece, and I know that autism is much more common in boys. It's hard to say what family connection there is or isn't -- maybe there's none -- but it's reason enough for me to be responsible about how we proceed here. I have no intention of being foolhardy; I want to be cautious. I want to try and space out the vaccines. I'd like to split up measles, mumps, and rubella, rather than lumping them all together. I want a doctor who is willing to be flexible with the CDC's recommended schedule, who will respect that I am not acting rashly and that I am a work in progress, reading whatever I can about this issue, and am I'm not some obsessed Jenny McCarthy fan who insists that she is the final authority on whether to give my children shots. I want someone who will consider adjusting the vaccination schedule to my children's gestational age, since they will likely be preemies and I don't want their little bodies unduly overwhelmed too soon or too often with a pile of shots.

Above all, I want to be heard. But this is such a hot-button issue, and I've heard lots of horror stories about parents trying to discuss this with their practitioners, only to be waved off with lectures about the CDC and how the research is bunk and with rigid adherences to The Way It's Done. It's as if the word "vaccine" causes some doctors to become all glassy-eyed, or worse, suspicious that you are some kind of dangerous radical. When really, we're all just scared parents, and some of us have family histories that give us reason to tread carefully.

So what I'm looking for here is a conversation. That's all. I want us to be partners on stuff like this, and doctor-patient on the rest. I don't need him asking my opinion on a diagnosis but I would like him to respect that when you've been part of a family that's been touched by autism -- and experiencing just as many struggles as triumphs, if not more -- you are within your rights to step a bit more slowly into the unknown. Or at least that's what I believe; here's hoping he's with me.

Can't they leave Spencer and Heidi in Costa Rica and just move the SHOW somewhere else?

The past few days, I've been pecking away at several entries that will complete my old Egypt travelogue -- oddly enough, it was Kevin who finally cajoled me into it, because he said he missed getting to read the account of the end of our trip, and enjoyed reliving everything we did.  He's right; I do, too, and that's why I was writing it in the first place.

Selfishly I hadn't been up for revisiting a travel entry because it makes me yearn to go somewhere else now -- I am not very good at staying in one place, and I can't move away from L.A. right now, so the urge to travel gets even more potent the longer I go without it. But the flip side is, wandering down that fork of memory lane does remind me of all the things we squeezed in pre-beans, and how grateful I am for that, so eventually I'll have a raft of new entries about riding in a hot-air balloon over Luxor and cruising the Nile in a felucca.

In the meantime, I am not doing too much. My TV schedule is a lot lighter for the moment, although I did pick up I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here, because in January 2008 Jessica and I shot a series for the UK and Canada with the co-host, Myleene Klass, and she's one of the awesomest people I've ever met -- so friendly, so down-to-earth even though she's rather famous in Britain. Just a really fun person. So I'm rooting for her to do well (even as I secretly fake-hate her for how great she looks in the scenes where she's in the jungle with the contestants -- if she's wearing any makeup, it's minimal, and she totally doesn't need it, which I remember noticing about her when we worked with her). Myleene actually did I'm A Celebrity... in England, but so far they haven't really milked that for content, which they should. She's great when she just gets to talk off-the-cuff.

The show itself is a bit of a mess -- they seem hell-bent on NOT explaining quite how it works, other than in weirdly timed dribs and drabs -- and it's only really worth watching to see Janice Dickinson do un-Janice things and to be surprised by the fact that Sanjaya seems kind of charming, and to laugh at Lou Diamond Phillips reacting to being the blue-team leader by calling them Blue Diamond Phillips, etc. Fortunately, Spencer and Heidi, who are a blight on humankind, won't be on the show after tonight and ergo I won't have to endure them any longer. He is truly disgusting, although it was rather insightful watching him on that cell-phone call to Ben Silverman of NBC, bitching that all the pseudo-celebrities on this show are bringing down his and Heidi's immense level of fame. Idiot. While he IS a measure more famous than anyone else on that show, he is kidding himself if he thinks anyone in the actual entertainment industry thinks of them as A-list. Or even possibly B-list. I will give them that they are A-list if "A" stands for "Absolute Assheads." The douche even claimed they picked huge charities to play for SPECIFICALLY because those charities don't really need the money and ergo it won't matter if they decide to quit. Yes, that's a great attitude, Spencer. What a wonderful lens through which to view philanthropy. In my opinion, Dicksmack owes the Red Cross a donation in the amount he just forfeited on its behalf. There was a scene in which he and Heidi fell out of the hammock and onto the ground, which woke them up roughly, and it was the most satisfying part of the episode -- second maybe to the knowledge that Heidi is going to go apoplectic when she sees how her face looked in all those confessionals. Oh, honey. Jess and I were saying that her original face might have fared better, because at least it was a FACE, and not a construction zone.

I've also been trying to go see movies, while I can. Last night I took in Up in 3D, which was really fun -- it's a lovely, sweet movie, with some genuine brilliance in it (I don't want to spoil it, but some of the supporting creatures are imbued with hysterically terrific touches). I find it too difficult these days to place any Pixar product in a ranked list of my favorites, because there are too many that are too excellent. Aspects of Up touched me more than any other Pixar film has, but Wall-E has been running on cable recently, and the amount they were able to layer into that story without much dialogue beyond the words "Eve" and "Wall-E" is stunning. Finding Nemo has the heart of Ellen DeGeneres beating through it. Toy Story and its sequel were magic. Monsters, Inc. has things that delight me. The Incredibles brought a lot of cleverness to its slightly more adult vibe. Basically, there are too many different things about each of them that would push it near the top of my list. But I will reiterate that I'm blown away by how well Pixar has been able to create true characters and emotional depth and resonance in scenes where no words are uttered -- from the early montage in Up to the first half of Wall-E and beyond, it's amazing to think that story writers that talented with humor can shine just as much in concert with the animators in creating wordless beauty. The Up montage, which showcases the main character's life with his wife, radiated so much warmth and devotion that when it ends, the sense of loss was as tangible as the chill that seemed to creep into the theater, as if a flickering flame had gone out -- it actually had me choked up to think about either me or Kevin left alone without the other. Proof positive you don't need to use real people to strike a real chord.

Otherwise, things are quiet. It's nice, and I'm enjoying it while it lasts. The sky is blue, the magnolia tree outside is blooming, our jasmine smells fantastic, and the beans are kicking. I get a bit restless from being inside so much, but every day I make it through with Kevin, and without my kids trying to make an early exit from The Belly, is a good day. I'm content.