A week or so ago, I visited my ob/gyn for the first time since we found out we are having twins. He answered a lot of my questions and in case you were interested I'll share them here. I am treated like a regular pregnant woman until week 28, when I'll be put on house arrest and have an ultrasound once a month. This is due to the size of the babies; at this week most babies are 2 1/2 lbs. Well, I have two in there, so my body will most likely read 5 lbs and think it's time to start contracting and getting ready for labor. This is bad as we need them to stay in there for at least 8 more weeks. At 36 weeks, my babies will come home with me, anytime before that and they'll be put in the NICU regardless. Our real goal is 38 weeks, that would be the equivalent of 40 weeks for a singleton. (Notice I'm already picking up the lingo that mothers of multiples use.)
Anyway come June 15, I can putter around the house all I want, but I cannot go on walks, go to the store, pick up my boys, or anything in the like. Which I can be ok with as long as the babies come full term and I don't have to be put on bed rest exclusively. My doctor actually said I'm prime for having twins since I had my first two around 40 weeks, give or take 5 days. My body knows what it's doing, it's done it before. And that's pretty much the most of it. I now have about 5 weeks of normal life before I will be home bound for hopefully 8 to 10 weeks.
Something I do know, I'll be big and uncomfortable and probably won't feel like doing much anyway. I feel like I'm about 35 weeks now, as far as my energy level and aches and pains. My doctor also mentioned that we will try to have a vaginal delivery, but due to all the things that could go wrong. One baby could be in place, but the other could be sideways. There is no way of knowing, and we'll just have to see.
Which brings us to the unknown.
You may recall my need for control I shared
here. Well either I need more practice at it, or I graduated to the next level of control free personality - I'm going with the second, it makes me feel better. Lately we have been met with multiple items that are unknown in the future for us now.
First comes with the twins.
Will they come early and need to stay in the NICU and require a whole lot of savings to pay for?
Will they come later in August and be able to come home with us and alleviate all the worry and financial stress?
Will I be able to nurse them both? I hope so.
Will I have to be placed on bed rest? I hope not.
How will I deliver them?
There is no way to know any of these, so for now I'm just doing what I can control. Making them quilts, finishing Christopher's first year scrapbook, I'd like to make matching ties for all the boys, and suspenders for when they are blessed. I recognize I might not get it all done, but I feel it's good to have a good list for when I'm on house arrest.
The second big issue we can't control is with a home. We'd like to buy a home. We put a bid on one we loved, but were outbid by out-of-staters with more cash on their hands. Now everything we see doesn't compare. So the big concern here is
when we buy a home. We are not ones to just jump into a HUGE financial strain unless we absolutely love the home. So until that home or homes come on the market, we sit and wait. Luckily we love our neighbors and ward, and our townhouse is big enough to hold the new additions with a little tweaking.
Our newest tactic for this is to prepare our home as if we are staying. Most likely renting a storage unit to put all the items that just take up space and try to organize as well as we can to make room for the twins here. We also think it will be easy to move from this point as well, as most of the things we don't really need will be packed and out of the way. A win win idea we feel.
Last Monday we had a pleasant surprise on our doorstep. A
brand new (adorable!) pack n' play, something we needed to buy. We
don't know who gave it to us, it just said from friends. We started
thinking of who it might be, but we couldn't. There were so many people
we thought of, and we feel so blessed to have so many friends and
support in this area. If we did stay here when the babies are born, we
would be surrounded with friends. What a great thought!
Sorry for the ramblings of a pregnant woman, but it's been quite the past couple of weeks and it's good to get it all written where I won't forget.
