Happy Birthday from the Hospital

Generally on holidays I like to sleep in, but some strong and frequent contractions early this morning sent us to the hospital, where we were told that I was dialated to a 5, the doctor was on his way, and we were going to have a set of babies two days before my scheduled C-section.

Jeff kept cracking jokes, trying to distract me from the contractions. It didn't work.

Being told that I will soon no longer be pregnant, and I get a spinal block in the meantime? That worked.

The angle makes this look even bigger than it was, but still...look at that huge belly! It's like Sputnik! It's like an orange on a toothpick!

I like this angle much better. Baby A is the one with the hat, by the way. She weighed in at 5.10, while B was 5.9. Not too bad, girlies!

Daddy's pretty happy. 

I was a little groggy from surgery and pain killers, but I'm pretty happy too.

Paige isn't quite sure what to think. She was excited, and cooed at the cute babies, but was quickly more interested in exploring the hospital room than her new sisters.

As far as names go, we're still not quite sure, though we've been calling Baby B--who's been flipping every week, and actually changed from vertex to transverse while they were monitoring her this morning--Boo, short for Busig, the Swedish word for rascal.
Overall, everything's going well! My only complaint is that I'm drowsy from the pain killers. I can handle drowsy though. Babies are healthy, I'm feeling good, and I'm no longer pregnant! Happy Memorial Day!

Birds, Bees, and Bellies

We've started seeing some really pretty birds from our balcony. There's a pair of cardinals living in the tree across from our apartment, and a couple days ago we saw a really pretty yellow oriole.

For some reason, this little bird has adopted our apartment. I think that he must have seen a stinkbug or something  in our blinds one day, because he walked back and forth along our door, peering in, and occasionally trying to fly into our living room. After a while, he started coming to our kitchen window too, peeking and trying to fly in, usually when we were eating. I'm pretty sure whatever bug he was first interested in is now long gone, but he still comes a couple times a day to check in on us. We call him Humphrey.

In other news, our cherry tomato is doing super super well. We weren't expecting it to grow quite so fast, so we're suddenly in desperate need of a tomato cage. Paige is really excited about the plant. She pokes at the dirt and asks how plants eat, and when the tomatoes will come. She also does her best to attract bees by putting on her tutu, dancing around, and singing, "Come on, bees! Come eat the tomato flowers! They're yummy!" She gets a little nervous and runs inside when the bees actually show up though.

That's pretty much it around here. Oh, and I have a giant belly. I'm two days shy of 36 weeks now. Doc says I'm measuring 43 weeks gestation. That's apparently on the smaller side of twin bellies, since he says he's seen women measure 53 weeks. But at least I'm not one of those crazy pregnant ladies.  Jeff took Paige to go to the bathroom at the doctor's office and someone had left a urine sample in there.  Paige came out asking if she could have some of the apple juice. We told her maybe later.

Budding Artist

There's not a lot to report here. Most of what we're doing is shuffling things around while we wait for the big excitement to start in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, Paige has really taken to drawing, and is pretty impressive for a not-yet-3-year-old. This was a family picture she drew the other day. The three faces to the left are Paige, Mommy, and Daddy. The line across all the mouths is chapstick. Grandma lucked out with legs, arms, and hair. She's dancing just above Grandpa, who also got hair. One of the two babies is at the top, but I think the other one might have been cut out before we got a picture. I know Michelangelo and Van Gogh had a tendency to destroy their own work--maybe it goes with the artistic territory? Or it just goes with being almost 3. Either way, I'm still impressed.

Easter

I wasn't going to make Paige an Easter dress this year, but Paige is outgrowing all her dresses, I didn't like anything I found in any store, and it got to the point where I'd rather sew than waddle around the store answering the "any day now?" chorus.

She seems to like it. She really likes the pockets.

As for Easter itself, some local churches put on a free annual Easter Egg hunt and Paige had a blast. She hugged the creepy bunny,  petted a real bunny, ate lots of chocolate kisses, and told every girl how much she liked their pretty dresses.

Her favorite though was definitely the bounce house. She had two turns, and would have stayed in there all day if we'd let her.

I sure love this goofy girl.

Cookie Cutter

There's a joke that talks about a blonde woman going to the doctor's, and when he tells her she's pregnant, she responds, "Is it mine?" Well, if I had any doubts about these two cupcakes I'm currently baking, it was removed by a couple headshots they got at the hospital today.

Baby A (the donor, if you're wondering) was wiggly and uncooperative, so we couldn't get an awesome shot, but you get the gist. I almost gasped though when I saw the pictures of Baby B:

I swear I already had that baby. See?

That mouth! That nose! They're my nose and mouth. I've always been partial to them. I hope the three other people that now also have them like em' too. They're apparently dominant traits.

Inevitable

Paige has been really into scissors lately. It keeps her occupied for amazing amounts of time (under close supervision obviously), but since we didn't own any safety scissors, it's not an activity we've done at home until yesterday. Grandma brought Paige a pair of cute safety scissors when she came to watch her, and they'll been her favorite toy since.

They kept her happily entertained for almost two hours today until I started to make lunch, and Paige realized she was hungry enough to investigate. When she started eating all the shredded cheese and playing with the "cheese house," I told her that she needed to get down and wait for lunch to be ready. She started to cry, then ran over to the desk, grabbed her new safety scissors, and lopped off a blonde lock before I could move.

A talking-to, a tantrum, and a time-out later, we no longer own a pair of safety scissors. 

In reality, the cut wasn't too bad, it was hair instead of a book or a picture, and it's something that every child does at least once. But I expected Paige to cut her hair out of curiosity rather than rebellion. I'm a little puzzled as to how to react to rebellion and angst. I guess that's something you just have to work out as you go.

Hospital Highlights

Doctors talk about odd things sometimes, particularly when things are going well, which for the moment, they seem to be. I'm still on modified bedrest, but if things still look good next week, I might be allowed to slowly start increasing my activity level! For now though, here are my favorite quotes from my recent medical encounters:

• She did fantastic! She didn't even need any narcotics!

• I think we spilled 200 ml or so on the floor. We need to make sure to keep track of that. 

• No, her cervix is right there and it looks great. That there? That's poop.

• Look at that beautiful bladder! I'm just going to stare at that picture for a minute.

• Do eat foods you do like. Don't eat foods you don't like. Avoid certain gassy combinations like beans and brussel sprouts, because that's just unpleasant.

• Yay for being normal! We love normal! 

• She's moving around a lot, which is awesome, but it makes my job hard. 

• Your bladder is very full. You might want to empty it soon.  

If I have to spend a lot of time in the hospital, at least the company is good. Everything going well is a big plus too.