Dancing Brave

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."

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.

Eighteen Weeks and All Is Well

Last week I had wicked AT&T problems -- the phone, and thus the DSL, were out because of bad lines in the neighborhood -- and then Fug Madness started, and well, it was murder on my updating habits. Not to mention that one fun side effect of being knocked up is that I can't sit at my desk, or on my couch at a table, and work without getting a horrible pain in the middle-left part of my back. Usually I make it about half the day before it drives me to complete distraction. It's been GREAT for my productivity.

I'm definitely popping out. My belly button has gotten all shallow, my pants are tighter and harder to keep zipped despite my efforts to rig the button closed with various things made of elastic, and The Belly has gotten to the point where no sweater or shirt can conceal its presence. Good thing I'm not hiding this pregnancy from anyone. It's such a relief not being on a soap opera sometimes. SOMETIMES.

And I am LOVING The Belly. I pat it all the time, sometimes just gently, sometimes with a circular rubbing motion. It's so much fun to let it all hang out, you know? And the more I touch it, the more I imagine it's like cuddling my little beans. It's the best I can do while they're still gestating. Kevin likes to schedule belly time in the evenings, too, where he can pat it and give it stern lectures if the boys are giving me problems like bad heartburn. Of course, someday, I will reminisce wistfully about the heartburn problems when they have taken to giving us REAL headaches, like coming home sick because they ate sand on a dare or fed potato chips to the class goldfish. I assume boys do those things. I assume this because I did not do those things.

The heartburn has been a treat, though -- feeling like my rib cage just caught fire and is shooting flames out my boobs. I've had it before, of course, as has anyone, but not with this kind of random regularity, without any particular trigger other than my body's ennui with feeling normal. It would be tolerable if I actually DID shoot boob fire. Other than very itchy skin, it's the pregnancy symptom I have experienced the most heartily (we're not at the part yet where my ankles swell to the size of melons); the other night I was doing great until Kevin made me laugh just as we were going to bed, and BOOM, my chest exploded and I spent an hour pacing and gnawing alternately on Tums and almonds while he slept peacefully. Pregnancy is so hard on the men, poor dears. Their wives rend garments in agony and freak out every time there's a twinge for longer than five seconds, and it can be really distracting when a dude needs a nap.

I'm kidding. Well, I'm not, but Kevin has been amazing. He is not one of the douchey husbands you read about in, like, The Girlfriends' Guide To Pregnancy, which I would say is the pregnancy-book equivalent to any commercial where the wife is a stereotypical nag and the husband is a stereotypical schlub who just wants to watch The Big Game. Seriously, that book is all about how pregnancy is icky and you will feel huge and gross and you will throw sharp and heavy objects at your thoughtless husband's head, while he tries to avoid contact with the lunatic whale that now shares his bed and terrifies him with its hormonal hugeness. It is enough to give any girl a complex. There apparently is no humor in NICE husbands, so the whole book takes the easy path of making them sound, as a species, like idiot asshats while also reminding you helpfully that you will hate yourself for the entire nine-month period and possibly a few months more, so SADDLE UP for some MISERY, ladies! Ugh.

ANYWAY: Kevin takes really good care of me. He runs to the store when I can't, even if that means doing it on his way home at 9 p.m. He shoulders a lot of the cooking load. He rubs my aching back and puts lotion on it because it's dry. He came home early from work when I needed him the other day and went with me to the doctor the next morning (more on that in a second) because he didn't want me to be there alone. He is not averse to attending a breastfeeding how-to class with me, so that he can help out when I'm learning because he knows it's going to be really hard (although I might not make him do that, the offer was rather lovely). And he takes pains every day to make sure I know that he thinks I look totally beautiful pregnant and that any extra lump and bump on my body is his new favorite thing about me. I lucked out. Clearly he hasn't read The Girlfriends' Guide To Pregnancy or else he'd know that he's supposed to be a) cowering in fear, or b) asking me for really freaky sex.

I did have a minor scare the other day that turned out to be nothing, but I spent about 15 hours really upset until I went into my doctor the next morning and he confirmed that, yes, everything is sealed up tightly and the babies are moving merrily. Turns out I have a low-lying placenta, which can lead to what I will term "unfortunate leakages" that scare the crap out of pregnant ladies but are in fact not always signs of doom. And I was freaked. At one point while I was shaking and holding the phone, waiting for a return call from the doctor (bless him, he got back to me in two minutes), my eye fell on a pile of ultrasound photos on a table spanning our entire pregnancy, and I just thought to myself how far we've come and how I just could not imagine going back to square one because we are way too in love with the idea of our matched pair of boys. Needless to say, I'm so happy it turned out to be nothing immediately terrible. It's just something to monitor to make sure it doesn't stay low or get lower, and in the meantime, I have to "take it easier." It's tough to say where else on the "easy" scale I can go without slipping into an actual coma. I guess it rules out our light weekend walks. And that two-hour trip to Babies R Us probably didn't help, but how ELSE am I supposed to pick out bedding that doesn't feel horrible?

It's all worth it, though -- every freakout and back twinge and scorched chest -- and especially when I think I can feel them moving. Every night when I lie down, or if I'm curled up on the couch, my insides practically shift with me -- like I imagine it would feel if you took out my internal organs and turned the empty cavity into a lava lamp (a procedure I may have done once I'm finished bearing womb-fruit). Pangs and twinges now might be little baby hands and feet knocking on my belly, although it's way too early to tell that for sure. It's exciting to think we're inching closer to the part where Kevin can feel them, too. I do mean "inching" -- I suspect we're at least a month away -- but hey, that's a month closer than I've ever been in my life. Good times.

XY

So, I'm completely addicted to ultrasounds. It is so cool to see the beans in there moving around, floating, tumbling, even looking like they're crawling. And I can ascribe personality traits to them.

For example, Baby A -- they always refer to them based on which one is closer to the exit hatch, so there's no guarantee it's the same Baby A as before, but I suspect it is for the following reason -- was the trouble-maker a month ago, kicking on Baby B; this time, A actually reached out and started poking B in the middle of the ultrasound. And then A held its hands over its face, as if it realized we were watching and didn't want to be recognized as the perpetrator of such treachery.

I don't think I see them again for a month to six weeks -- I have another checkup scheduled but not an ultrasound, and they don't do them at the same time. Fortunately, I don't have to wait any longer to find out the gender. The technician was able to spot the telltale signs of our wee twin boys. Our identical boys. Boys!

At first, I will confess, it sounded so strange to me to have it confirmed that they're boys. It hadn't really occurred to many people that we'd have some: I'm one of three daughters. I have three nieces. I have a tight group of girlfriends who I know wanted to fuss over little girly dresses and girly hair and girly cuteness. I love my sisters to death, and therefore loved the idea of creating that sisterly bond between babies of my own. Even though apparently it comes through Kevin's line, we still just sort of assumed we'd be in for more girls. We don't know what to do with boys!

I've talked to a lot of other mothers (mostly women who are likewise close to their sisters) who had or are having boys, and most of them reacted the same way at first. I imagine Jo March, despite being fictional, felt similarly when she came from that family of five girls and ended up with boys of her own. It's just a matter of putting aside what you think you know, or thought you knew, and embracing a new reality. Although it was weird to process the idea that we'd be the first in my family to raise little men, I quickly became rather thrilled by the idea of exploring what a mother-son bond means, because given my background that's even more uncharted territory than simply being a mother at all. And then, of course, I embraced that this means Kevin will have to teach them all about the facts of life, and Those Strange Feelings. Score!

Want to meet them? I'm putting the ultrasound pics after the jump, just in case there are people who wanted to know but don't want to know. You know? Anyway, allow me to introduce their fetal selves to you (note: no NSFW baby bits are exposed in these photographs):

All Is Well

Oops -- I forgot to drop by Friday and note that the beans are fine, and the sonogram was great. After my post about how nervous I was, I had intended to come here and let you all know that my mental drama was indeed all for naught, and that life is good. But then I frankly just forgot because Jessica and I got swamped by winnowing down the list of eligible Fug Madness celebs.

I'll post details later!

Checking In On The Oranges

History proves that I am not the LEAST absent-minded person in the world, so the fact that I put away the ice cream in my refrigerator last night (and didn't notice until lunchtime today) can't be blamed on pregnancy entirely. But I do think the fact that I've twice left the house with an unlocked door can be written off to the mind-scrambling hormones. The second time, as I went out on some errands and took with me some garbage, I actually recited to myself, "Go back and lock the door, go back and lock the door," but by the time the bag made it into the container, the mantra was gone and I wheeled around, merrily got in my car, and drove away. Whoops. Both times I came home and, realizing with a thud what I'd done, I checked that our TV was still here. This says a lot -- disturbingly -- about my priorities. Like, screw it if they've stolen the crystal! Take my goddamn laptop! What about the TV?

My next ultrasound is tomorrow morning, and as with all my others, I'm getting mildly antsy. Maybe even anxious. Nothing will be as bad as that first one, I don't think -- the one where I sat there wiggling my feet, kicking at the air absently, silently begging my womb to have an actual baby in the sac and not just air. It's that moment when you realize that, no matter how much you've told yourself not to get your hopes up until it's for SURE, you are already completely in love with the so-far-phantom child and it will hurt physically to find out it's not real.

All subsequent ones, though, I just panic that maybe something is wrong. That one of the babies disappeared (although fortunately, now we are past Vanishing Twin point, I believe), or one stopped growing, or... the list goes on, and it's not fun. It's for pessimists. The thing is, I don't actually truly think any of these things has happened, but I can't stop myself from being afraid. Because I spend the entire time between ultrasounds getting excited for the next one, and right on the verge of it, my mind comes to a screeching halt and goes, "WAIT. What if it's not as happy as you expect?" And then I start to think, well, what if I'm not as big as I'm supposed to be and it's A SIGN? What if I should have felt a flutter by now? What if not having food cravings MEANS SOMETHING? What if the fucking toxic-smelling fumes emanating from our new dishwasher have WARPED THE BABIES? (Seriously, I think they are warping ME.) What if I didn't take proper care of them while traveling? What if, what if, what if? I love them too much already, am too attached to the idea of my twins, for it to be anything but two beating hearts and two growing beans. Hence the nerves. Any other wrinkles, we'll take as they come, as long as they've got pulses and brains and they're getting bigger.

I think it's too soon to find out the sex, which stinks, because it means more waiting. I am getting nice and round, though; I'm up about ten pounds, my stomach sticks out, and my butt is getting unmanageable. The next step for me is finding a prenatal yoga class -- I'm on the trail of a few near my house -- so I can keep my muscles from atrophying, and possibly forestall further proliferation of the cellulite that's spreading like a virus down my thighs, although I think that's a futile fight for now. And of course, I need to make sure the beans (or the navel oranges, as that's apparently how big they are supposed to be by now) are thriving in there. That's step one. Everything else can wait. Fortunately, I only have to tap my toes and twiddle my thumbs for 20 more hours.

Week 15 Commences

So naturally, after barreling out of my first trimester with big announcements and equally sizable glee at how well I was feeling, things have taken a tiny turn for the queasy.

It's not too bad, actually. When we were in New York, I'd be a little unsettled-verging-on-seasick in the mornings, because unlike at home, I wasn't rolling out of bed and straight into the refrigerator. Sneaking a Ginger Snap before my shower was about the extent of it until my hair was dry, and I was dressed and bundled up and ready for my free pastry at the (very nice) breakfast buffet in the lobby. Then I slipped back into the routine of never feeling completely normal until I'd eaten a nice sizable lunch -- but I armed myself with some ginger chews in case of emergency, and a scrunched-up plastic bag in my purse on the offchance that something ugly threatened to happen. (It did not. Well, not at the hands of my stomach, anyway. I can't vouch for what my face or my prematurely deployed -- but ridiculously comfortable -- $12 Gap Maternity jeans may have done to other people's stomachs.)

Upon coming home, though, I started getting headaches. Nothing crippling, just ever-present dull aches for which I am only allowed to take Tylenol. Which is as helpful as taking an ice cube. Given that I would rather not take anything unless I'm desperate, I held off on using the pills except in instances where I absolutely had to take the edge off in order to, say, leave the house and acquire sustenance. Nausea also came back, lightly, but almost on cue half an hour to an hour after I'd eaten. Luckily, I have no food aversions, so simply eating ANYTHING tended to settle things. But it made for a rough start to Oscar week.

By Thursday, things had normalized, and by Friday I felt great -- perfect timing for Carrie's birthday cocktail gathering on Saturday night. It's the first time I've seen anyone but Jessica while sporting any semblance of a bump or bump-like configuration, so that was really fun. I'm addicted to rubbing my stomach. And I figure, I might as well do it while I think it's enjoyable, before it gets so huge that I'm wailing about how I just want to see my FEET again, already, please.

And of course, then I woke up this morning way too early and never felt right thereafter -- nausea snuck back into my life, I woke up from a nap with a wicked headache, and it's still gently throbbing away, reminding me that I should not get too comfortable with feeling relatively normal.

If this is the worst of it, though, then I still got off easy.

And I would like to sing the praises of my "spring '08" -- hence the deep discount -- jeans. I love that I got them on such sale because they are considered out of season, as the style is Long & Lean, which Gap itself considers one of its evergreen cuts. They look exactly like dark-washed regular Gap jeans, except that there is no zipper, and the waistband is about four inches of soft navy-blue cotton that covers up some elastic. They are comfortable for days when I'm sick of fastening my tightening regular pants with a hair elastic and eventually be all that fit. I can't wait until I'm so addicted to them that I stop wearing non-maternity pants altogether, ever, for the rest of my life.

Jumping Beans

First order of business: Thank you all so much for the virtual hugs and the love and congratulations. While I'm sure there are some out there who are quietly thinking, "Holy Jebus, it's a cruel world that lets that woman reproduce," the outpouring in the comments has been awesome and I've felt so thoroughly supported by everyone this entire time even though most of us have never met. I've said it before and I'll repeat it: The Internet can be a beautiful thing.

Keeping a lid on all this has been very difficult, in part because you guys hopped on and came along with me through the IUI and IVF journeys, and I felt like I was leaving you stranded. Kevin agreed with me from the get-go that it was important to have this outlet to talk about the fertility process, because it's so potentially fraught and complicated and scary and overwhelming. We knew I'd need a place to come and let it out, especially because of how much it helped me to read other ladies' blogs while I was going through it, or to hear from the women who reached out to me -- some going through IVF, some back in July when I was learning about my probable PCOS diagnosis. There's nothing certain or even always common about any of these experiences, but getting to explain my half of it and hear other people's stories has helped immensely. For that reason, I never wanted to hide what we were doing, because if anyone else needed to ask questions I wanted them to know I'd be happy to answer anything as it pertained to my own experience. It can feel like a lonely road, but it doesn't have to, so I was never about hiding.

But we didn't think ahead to what would happen if it worked. Honestly, we never really thought I'd be the girl who hits the IVF jackpot on her first try. Without being pessimistic or anything, we always figured it'd take a few rounds and that it'd get harder as we went. But then all of a sudden, I was pregnant. And there was this group of my friends who knew, because they've known all the details of my treatment as it happened, and there were the folks who read this blog, and then a bunch of Kevin's friends who didn't know a thing. We always said that if we'd been asked directly, we'd gladly cop to what was happening -- but dudes being dudes, his friends rarely asked. Your pal's wife's womb is not exactly the first thing everyone thinks to ask about at poker. So, it started to feel weird that so many people knew it all and others knew nothing, mixed with the fact that a couple of Kevin's friends (but I don't know how many, nor how often) have found this page and occasionally check in on it. The last thing we wanted was for one of them to find out we'd gotten pregnant by reading it on the Internet. It became a balancing act. And then those little superstitions crept in about not saying anything until the end of the first trimester; I was oddly philosophical about it, figuring that all the people we'd tell are the same people who we'd share with if the worst happened, but Kevin got itchy. And understandably so. Frankly, I always figured I'd be that itchy, so it surprised me that I was calm. But out of respect for that, and the other reasons I've mentioned, we decided it wasn't right to say anything here until we'd felt things had progressed far enough to start telling his best friends.

Another thing that delayed it: That seven-week ultrasound. So I'll pick up where I left off.

Jan. 5: Seven-week ultrasound

When we discovered we had two beans, the nurses all got really excited. They don't see identicals very often, or at least, not this way. So they all seemed truly fascinated and thrilled, and squealed and cooed over the photos when we exited the ultrasound room. What a great job that must be, because for all the heartbreak they must witness, the joys must be amplified that much more.

"Are you puking?" one asked.

"No. Not YET, anyway," I said, still a little stunned.

She laughed. "Oh, boy. Well, you will be. You DEFINITELY will be doing a lot of that."

However, the twins news came with some potential complications, and not just the prospect of copious vomit sessions. They were so tiny, snuggled up against each other in there, that it was impossible to tell with certainty that a few high-risk factors weren't at play. For one, they could be conjoined; for another, they could be what they call monoamniotic -- both developing inside one amniotic sac rather than two. From what I understand, there is a larger casing called the chorion, and within that, it's ideal if your identical twins are each in their own smaller yolk sac (this is called monochorionic and diamniotic). If they're inside the SAME smaller sac, a.k.a. monoamniotic, their umbilical cords can get commingled and tangled and squeeze each other and risk cutting off air or nutrients. It ups the probability of bedrest and dangerously pre-term delivery (we're talking only 28 weeks in some cases), plus it can just flat-out impede development. We needed to wait two more weeks to see a clearer picture.

In short, as with EVERY part of pregnancy, we'd waited this long only to wait some more. At this point, we only told immediate family that we had two beans, keeping the rest a secret from ALL our friends until we knew what we were up against here. I won't lie, we were scared. But we were also exhilarated. That day, we heard their little heartbeats for the first time. That was... surreal. There is no other word. Even though it was me on the table, me getting probed, and the contents of my womb up there on the flat screen, there was still a strange disconnect between what I was seeing and being in my own skin. With no sensations of pregnancy at all, it almost felt like watching someone else's movie. A really sweet movie with a nice plot twist, but still something that couldn't possibly belong to me.

As the two weeks progressed, with two strong hearts going like crazy in there somewhere, we just coached ourselves to calm down and focus on the blessing. Since we couldn't talk to anyone else in town, we'd frequently call each other just to say, "TWINS!" Sometimes we'd e-mail the word. It still didn't feel real, but at the same time, we were awed and excited. Kevin had his first nice chat with my belly during this time, and I'd find myself rubbing my stomach in disbelief, hard-pressed to imagine even ONE living thing in there, much less two. I looked bloated but my pants still fit; however, as a sign of good faith, I tucked away my smallest jeans for good.

Jan. 19: Nine-week ultrasound

I won't mince words: This ruled. The twins were cooking along in their own individual amniotic sacs, and weren't conjoined in any way. After hearing two 179 BPM heartbeats, we got to see one of those really advanced pictures where they take every angle and make a 3-D composite. Not only could we see traces of a face, but an arm and a leg. Our little beans were people.

Plus, it was fun seeing the shock on the nurses' faces when I told them I hadn't puked even once. Around this time, I was noticing increased thirst, and a tendency to feel a little unsettled in my stomach if I waited too long between meals -- particularly if I didn't eat quickly after waking up, or if lunch came late, and I drank too much water too quickly in the meantime. After a nice lunch, it always eased up and I felt normal again. Me, Miss Pukey Pukerson in her youth and an expert vomiter throughout college and my twenties, had avoided even one date with the toilet. I think my sister with kids wanted to kill me.

Satisfied, and armed with a DVD of the beans as well as a long string of photos, we gave ourselves the green light to start telling people. I was having a few ladies over for TV that night, so I showed them the ultrasound pics and waited for confusion to spread across their faces. We hadn't told anyone in person yet, so Jessica's roaring "NO FUCKING SHIT!!!!!" was especially satisfying. Eventually we got a few of Kevin's friends in one room to share it with them, and finally, we were all able to let loose on the very worst of our twins jokes -- singing that old Coors Light song ("... and TWIIIINS"), for instance, or suggesting the most unfortunate or kitschy names. I noticed a bit of a weight lift off Kevin's shoulders. As much as we were enjoying it before, he seemed to feel freer now, like the pressure of bottling it up no longer existed. As if telling people made it all feel more substantial.

So naturally, we packed up the beans and took 'em to the Super Bowl. At this point I am compelled to point out what a shame it is that Notre Dame's hoops team took such a disastrous dive through the standings this season, because my beans are undefeated in post-season play. ND won its college football bowl game, and the Steelers ran through the playoffs to win their sixth Super Bowl. If you want me to root for your team, I am for hire.

My stomach, by now, looked a bit bloated and as if I'd been snacking a tad over the holidays. I was starting to pooch over my jeans, but nothing an artfully placed hair elastic (bridging buttonhole and button) couldn't salvage. I veered from being afraid I wasn't gaining enough weight -- TWO beans, after all! -- to worrying I was showing too much too soon. I did catch myself on Super Bowl weekend doing that annoying thing that Hollywood actresses often do, which is, putting their hands on their bellies strategically as if to say, "I AM NOT FAT. SEE? PREGNANT. DO NOT CALL ME FAT!" Specifically, I am referring to YOU, Samantha Harris of Dancing With The Stars. But I couldn't help it -- all these scantily-clad crazies with flat stomachs were cocking their brows and checking out the room at the parties we attended, and I felt dumpy in comparison. Why it mattered, I don't know, but there was just one of those icky competitive airs in the room and I let it bother me. Stupidly. Also, I wanted it to be clear why I was taking so long to go up and down the staircases. And if it encouraged people to give me a wider berth and not bump into me like asshats, well, even better.

Feb. 4 and beyond: Eleven-week ultrasound up to the present

This was the best of them all. We didn't get the wacky 3-D angle, but both heartbeats were still kicking -- 171 and 176 now; it's normal for them to decrease slowly to a more natural rate the closer they are to being born -- and, in fact, so were the beans. In addition to seeing a full bladder (aw, taking after their mother already) and a spine in each baby, we saw them having their first fight. Baby A wriggled around from the get-go, waving its arms and kicking its legs at its sibling. Baby B tried to take the high road for about ten minutes but finally roused itself and started fighting back, and they prodded at each other until the end of the ultrasound. It was amazing.

Still, even as my tummy pokes out further and further -- I've put on about nine pounds so far, and that doesn't include whatever heavy muscle tone dropped away early and got replaced with lighter fat -- it's hard to reconcile what I see on our DVD of these ultrasounds with my own body. It's not something I can feel from the inside yet, so the idea that right this very second my babies could be jostling each other or moving around, or yawning, or napping, is almost beyond comprehension. In fact, what brought it home that they're inside me, even more so than these technologically marvelous ultrasounds, was going to see my actual obstetrician for the first time (fertility docs tend to release you after 8-10 weeks). He held up the Doppler to my stomach, and when I heard an actual heartbeat come out from beyond my skin, from somewhere buried in my belly, I got chills. That really highlighted for me that, yeah, those little ones are in there. And they're growing. And about now, they're the size of peaches, hopefully around 14 weeks big -- my week-to-week turnover day is Monday -- and getting all the rest of their internal organs in place. Did you know the makings of their intestines actually travel down the umbilical cord and into their abdomens? I didn't.

I don't get to see them again until March 6, so I just have to assume in the meantime that Fashion Week agreed with them. It would be nice to have a reassuring peek, but I'm consoling myself with knowing that it's not that much longer now. It's two weeks. I've done two weeks. Two weeks is NOTHING at this point. I can take it. Doesn't mean I won't obsess every time I get a cramp in my stomach, even though I know they're generally just uterine growing pains, but I can be strong. I'll see them soon.

The REALLY fun part is, we have a photo of the embryo that used to be both of them. We also have a shot of it right after my doctor transferred it in; essentially, we got to watch our kids happen, and now when they get old enough not to find it creepy, they can see how close they really are. How it all began. How it all started with one lucky embryo.

Oh, yeah, and then this happened, also.

Somewhere between the third and eighth day after my IVF egg transfer, my friend Carrie and I went out to dinner. As I approached the restaurant, I felt a tiny drop of moisture hit my head, and reached up instinctively to brush it away -- but, peering up at the giant tree I had just passed beneath, I thought better of it.

"Carrie... is there something on my head?" I bent toward her and she peered at my hair for about half a second before picking off a tiny globule and wiping it on a post.

This, parenthetically, is one reason Carrie is a wonderful friend. She takes action. I vividly remember a night when Lauren and I were too scared to kill a large spider hanging out over the vicinity of Lauren's pillow, so Carrie drove the ten minutes to our place at 11:30 at night to squash this thing in her jammies and then went straight back home. Carrie means business.

Of course, the glob turned out to be a tiny pellet of bird poo.

"Well," Carrie said philosophically, as we headed toward a restroom to clean up her hand and any residue on my head, "they say that's good luck."

"Yeah, right," I laughed.

Beta Day: Dec. 18

To get the test results, they draw blood befoe 9 a.m. and send it off to th lab to analyze the level of the pregnancy hormone hCG. Supposedly, a 5 is the lowest "positive" and if you get any number between 5 and 50 (some use 25 to 50 as their benchmark; close to 5 is, like, the MINIMUM you need for a false positive) most clinics will have you back in two days later to see if it at least doubles. My IUI beta came back at 6, and sure enough it dropped. Some positive betas are in the hundreds; some, the thousands, the latter usually but not always correlating with multiples.

I'd been feeling mostly fine, but for some stomach twinges that felt awfully like cramps. Nothing that couldn't be explained away by my progesterone supplements just as easily as by pregnancy, and I didn't like my odds. I don't know how I expected to feel; I think just somehow, intangibly, different.

After the blood draw, I felt peaceful. What would be, would be; this was one test I had no influence over when it came to the grade, and an odd calm settled over me. We would know. The two week wait had come to a close and the next step would reveal itself in a matter of hours. I came home and took a nap, then showered. And right when I took off my bra, it happened: My boobs bounced out of that thing with a heavyness, to the point where I stood stock still for a long ten seconds and considered the feeling. For the first time, optimism crept in -- or, perhaps more accurately, I dared to hope a little. Come lunchtime, as I was making my usual sandwich, I just started talking. "I know it's too late," I said. "I know you've already made up your mind. But if you're in there, if you decided to stick around, I promise you it will be worth it." I talked about how ready we were for it to join the family. About what an amazing dad Kevin is going to be. About how lucky it was to have him here, involved, loving, eager, full of every quality a kid could want in a father and three times as many more. How badly I wanted this for him, and for me. How I wanted a chance to give it the kind of life my parents gave me. How I want so badly for my parents to know my children, and how much they will love their Grump and Grammie. And how I couldn't promise we wouldn't screw up, but I could swear to give it my heart and my soul. And that we would have a really, really good time.

It's not like me to chat into the ether, but I guess I needed the catharsis. I needed to have said it. The whole time, I was uncomfortable praying about this because I am such a lapsed Catholic. I pray for other people when they need it, but that's for them, not directly for me. It felt dirty somehow to ask for a favor when I'd given nothing in return. Then I thought, well, I'll go to Church every day and pray for anything ELSE, like putting out good vibes into the world or something; even that, though, felt shallow. Like tricking God, or bartering. So I left the prayer to people who deserve more to be heard, and just tried to take care of myself and breathe.

At 2:45, during Martha Stewart and just as I was wrapping Christmas presents to distract myself, the call came.

261.

"Congratulations," the nurse said.

I hung up and cried.

Beta 2: Dec. 20

The first person I had called was Kevin, who of course claimed to have known all along that it would be positive. Then I called my sister who'd done IVF, then my mother, then my other sister. I IM'd the girlfriends who knew about the IVF. I thought long and hard about putting up a post here, but the timing didn't feel right. And then we commenced waiting again. Naturally, the lab couldn't process my blood test on a Saturday, so after they took my blood for round two, I had to hold on for two extra days. This was torture, wondering if it hadn't doubled -- maybe it was a chemical pregnancy, essentially a false positive or an early miscarriage. I don't remember a lot about these days except the sensation Kevin and I had of being hugely excited and also keenly aware that we had a long way to go. I was about as freshly pregnant as you can be, and it's quite amazing how tempting and tantalizing it is to think ahead. I had already been filing names away mentally, but that got even more obsessive. We wanted to discuss the nursery. Mostly we wanted to hug each other and never let go, because in that moment everything changed and we were more bonded than weve ever been before. And we wanted to remind each other that, no matter what, we two would be okay just as long as we held tight. We wanted to be certain, but of course, there is no certainty. Not yet, maybe not even until they're out and in your arms.

The second test came in at 600. We'd more than doubled. Another hurdle cleared. I had gotten pregnant.

First Ultrasound: Jan. 8, six/seven weeks

The science of pregnancy confounds and enthralls me. For one thing, they count from the start date of your last Billy Blanks, even though at that time your eggs don't even exist yet and you're two weeks away from ovulation. So even though we know the exact date sperm met egg in its sexy petri dish, and the date said egg landed in my womb, they still start counting from that nebulous spot on the calendar. Ergo, at my first ultrasound, two weeks after my second beta, they counted me six weeks pregnant. After I got there, they decided I was at seven weeks. You'd think it would be more exacting, but I wasn't complaining -- seven weeks meant I was further along than I thought.

We spent the wait time enjoying Chritmas morning together, not wanting to be away from each other for even five minutes. In a way it was the most romantic time we've had in ages; my doctor preferred no hanky-panky yet, so we just curled up together at all times and got lost in the warmth and the enormity of what we felt, what had happened, what it meant to know we'd taken a huge step toward becoming a family in a richer sense of the word. It was a bit like falling in love all over again. It's cheesy, but it was wonderful. I would just look at him and think how there is no one else in the world I would want by my side in this.

But it wasn't without jitters. At every step of the way, there's another obstacle that could crop up, another waiting period around the corner. Right before we went out to dinner with some friends, the night before the ultrasound, I got a sharp twinge in my gut. Uterine growing pains or something worse? There's no way to turn off your brain. Especially if you watch a lot of soap operas. It also can happen that an embryo latches on and gets comfy, but a fetus doesn't start to grow, leading to a positive pregnancy test but then either you miscarry or go in for an early ultrasound and see the sac empty. And I wasn't puking, wasn't queasy. Nothing hurt. My boobs didn't seem different. I wasn't bigger. The unlikeliness of it all washed over me anew, and as I sat there on the table with Kevin at my side, I turned to him and said, "I just don't know about this."

He squeezed my hand. "I do."

They flipped on the machine and got to work. There was my uterus. There was a blob. And there sure seemed to be a blob inside the blob.

"Is that the bean?" I asked, wondrous. Kevin and I looked at each other and grinned widely. My eyes got a little wet.

"That's the bean," the nurse smiled.

Then she paused. And let me tell you, that pause lasted an eternity.

"Actually, it's TWO beans."

Another pause. Kevin and I gazed at the screen, then at each other, nonplussed.

"WHAT?" we sputtered. "You are JOKING."

"Nope. See? One bean, two beans."

Turns out that somewhere between the third and eighth day post-transfer, right in the window where a lucky bird dropped its load on my skull, our little embryo -- the one my pal Jen called "The Chosen One" -- decided it wanted some company. So it split.

"Congratulations AGAIN," she said. "You're having identical twins."