Confessions

Tons of random ramblings at 9-weeks-old….

• It’s dangerous for me to go to the baby section at Target….everything is so cheap so I go a little too crazy! Can’t resist sundresses for Honey and polo onesies for Champ.
• I remember when I was on bedrest, a lot of folks IRL and in blog comments told me the worrying never ever ends when you have kids. This is definitely true, but I must say that the relief that the babies made it into the world safe and sound still has not worn off. I do not miss the intense anxiety of pregnancy one bit.
• Whenever someone asks me the babies’ birth weights, I tend to add a disclaimer along these lines: “But I ate a ton of cheeseburgers and sheperd’s pie and milk shakes and protein during pregnancy!” I need to let it go.
• Even though I was anxious most of the time, I loved every moment of being pregnant. I was pretty worried I’d get the baby blues after birth, but I didn’t. I think being so grateful to be able to walk around and do chores and lift things again took the edge off (since I’d been on bedrest for weeks).
• I’ve been getting phantom kicks since the babies came out.
• The babies are tiny celebrities whenever I take them out. People go crazy for twins. They deserve the attention, sweet sweet things!!!!!
• I’m still amazed and grateful and over the moon happy that I can breastfeed. I was so so so so so worried I wouldn’t be able to.
• I love bonding with the babies while nursing, and I love providing nutritious breast milk for them, but pumping all of the time takes. a. toll.
• Plus, I miss my small boobs. They never grew or got sore during pregnancy, then BAM, right after giving birth, they arrived. I can’t fit into any of my button-up shirts or old tops.
• But it is pretty cool that hubs mentions how “awesome” my boobs are at least once a day. 🙂 I have a serious rack, it’s out of control.
• Even though we’re NOWHERE close to thinking about more kids, I do hope and pray that my cycle/period magically comes back when I stop breastfeeding. I want it to work again. (Pregnancy has been shown to “re-set” the body in some anovulatory women.) I think about that way too much.
• Even though I’m BFing AND I’m anovulatory, hubs and I are using condoms just to be really really really safe. It seems so strange to use protection, considering the lengths we went to for our babies.
• Condoms suck.
• I REFUSE TO GO BACK ON THE PILL. I still blame it for my anovulation.
• I wish I was skinny for my college reunion this weekend. I know that’s totally vain, and I just had twins, and yada yada….but I just don’t feel comfie in my bod right now. I have these huge boobs, a mushy tummy, a soft jawline…it’s okay, it’s just hard to be on display, if that makes sense? OF COURSE our babies are 200% worth it.
• Even though I miss my pre-IF figure, I will say that breastfeeding burns a ton of calories. I’m almost at my pre-pregnancy weight—which is insane considering the amount I eat these days—everything just seems to be situated totally differently.
• I’m running (shuffling) a few times a week, too. I sent an excited text to my little sister last week that I was up to running for 33 minutes straight and she wrote back, “Only that long, are you injured?” Uhhhhhhh, thanks? She doesn’t get that even though I’m “a runner,” you can’t take this much time off, give birth, and then have the muscle strength or fitness to bang out a five-miler. Kids!
• I picked up the babies’ birth certificates downtown yesterday afternoon and tears welled up when I saw their names on those official documents and after signing for them as “Mother.” Wow wow  wow. It will never ever get old, I am in awe of my amazing luck and life.

I think that’s enough random-ness for one night! xoxo

Home again home again, jiggity jig

I survived the wedding weekend and the 40 hours away from Champ and Honey and hubs! It ended up being really fun, and I am SO HAPPY I was able to be there to support my friend and watch her take this huge step of marriage in her life. I did miss the babies constantly and I called/texted/emailed hubs a dozen times to check on them. I brought one of Champ’s swaddle blankets with me and cuddled up with it on the plane rides and at night so I could smell their sweet baby smell while I was away. And anytime a wedding guest asked if I had pics of the babies, I whipped out my phone and showed them a few of the three hundred pics I have saved on there of the babies. 🙂 Their ears must’ve been ringing alllllllll weekend long.

I realized that it’s been FOREVER since I was truly in a social setting. Hubs and I went out to dinner on February 13 (his brother was visiting) and then the next morning the pre-term labor stuff happened and I was put on bedrest for five weeks, and then the babies came and I’ve been a hermit who only leaves to take walks, etc. Of course we’ve had friends over to visit, and we went out to dinner on my bday last month, but I haven’t been ACTIVELY social in about three months. I walk around the hourse in my lulu pants and glasses. I live on coffee and granola bars. It felt like I was being released into the wild! A blow out! Make-up! Pictures! Dancing! Small talk with six other bridesmaids! Cocktail hour! A sit-down dinner! A seven-hour long wedding reception in which to meet new people and catch up with old friends!

I felt like I went from being a hermit to a social butterfly. It was crazy and overwhelming but actually completely wonderful.

And OH MY GOSH was it amaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing to walk in our apartment door yesterday afternoon and to find my chubby babies waiting there. I felt like my heart was going to burst. We spent the ENTIRE afternoon snuggling and cuddling together in my bed. 🙂

I’m glad I got the social rust off, as we are heading to our 10-year college reunion in a couple of weeks. AHHHHHH!!!!! I reserve the right to change my mind, but the current plan is for all four of us to fly (!!!) to the East coast and set the babies up with hubs’s parents and spend the first night at their house. Then hubs and I will head to campus for a day and night sans babies. Then hubs’s parents will bring the babies up to campus on Saturday so we can introduce them to our friends. I actually ordered Honey a dress and Champ a polo shirt in our school colors, so I think this is really and truly happening.

If you had told me, when they were born at under 5 pounds, that we would be able to (physcially and emotionally!) take them on a plane trip at 10-weeks old and introduce them to our best college friends, I would’ve thought you were crazy. But their ped has given them 110% clearance to travel. And I think it’s going to happen….

So yeah, basically I have two weeks to try to get my body in a place I feel good about. Honestly? I just don’t have the time or energy to exercise and lift like I need to in order to get my figure back. And I eat even more these days (breastfeeding makes me super hungry) than when I was pregnant. It’s not a good time to diet. (Of course, I don’t really need ice cream at night, but that’s another story!) Being a couple months postpartum and seeing tons of peeps you haven’t seen in 10 years = not ideal timing. I’m going to do a post on recovery from bedrest and birth + exercise + eating, etc at another time. But these babies are (of course!!!!) worth this soft body with its ginormous boobs!!!

Sweet little things

I keep thinking about things I’d like to post, but I get distracted. So here’s another bulleted post of this-n-that in the meantime!

• I am so incredibly happy. 🙂 Snuggling the babies melts me into a puddle of pure love and awe. I can’t believe how LUCKY we are. We love our sweet little babies so so so so SO much. Thank you, lord, for bringing them into the world safe and sound. I still can’t even believe this is my life, I am so grateful!!!!
• We were so very very very lucky that our babies didn’t need NICU time. But they were born very small—even for their gestational age and for being twins. I am plagued with guilt about their size. Even though I know it’s not my “fault”— and that I ate and ate and ate to grow big, strong babies—I feel responsible. Why can’t I let this guilt and anxiety go and just be 110% thankful to my body for all that it accomplished?
• Since the morning after we got discharged from the hospital, we’ve been going to the pediatrician every 3 to 7 days for weigh-ins. At the last check-up, they had gained weight for the first time. (Yip!!!) They still haven’t made it back up to their birth weights, but I think we are getting close. Their little tummies and cheeks seem to be filling out and they eat like champs.
• To help them gain weight, our ped has us on a strict every-2-hours eating schedule. Plus, we feed a baby whenever he/she is hungry even if it hasn’t been two hours….all to maximize weight gain. This makes for, literally, round the clock feeds. I’m trying to breast feed them more often (in the beginning I wasn’t allowed to do it much because the babies spend precious calories on the breast) because the current process is awfully time consuming (change a diaper, try to get a baby to take some milk from the boob, feed the baby a bottle, maybe change another diaper, pump, make a bottle, wash the pumping parts…..and repeat with the next baby). Whew!
• Seeing pics of other newborns kind of makes my jaw drop. Other infants look SO FREAKING HUGE! I know we will look back on these tiny, feedings-every-hour days very fondly, but right now I am so so so looking forward to those “3 hours” in between feeds that other new Moms talk about. And also to our babies chubbing up. They only have a few outfits they fit in and it kills me seeing their skinny, wrinkly legs and arms, just waiting for fat deposits. Sweet little babies.
• I cannot wait for the spring weather to arrive and for the babies to be big and strong enough for me to take them on walks by the lake and out and about! Grow babies, grow!!!
• It is SO AWESOME not being on bedrest. I have been having a blast taking out the trash, walking all over the apartment, cooking dinner, simple stuff!….in retrospect, I can see what a toll bedrest was taking on my mental and emotional state.
• Speaking of emotional states….I feel overwhelmed and exhausted a lot of the time, but cuddling with the babies always makes me feel on top of the world. There are even brief and glowing moments of “Okay, I think I might have some semblance of a handle on all of this and everything is going to be just fine.” Those fleeting moments are usually right after a hot shower, a gulp of coffee or a sip of wine. 🙂

35 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I felt safe moving more than a centimeter every few seconds, I’d be doing a ridiculous happy dance right now! YIP YIP YIP!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂 Great job, sweet little babies! Great job, ute! Great job, cervie!

I feel like labor has to be very imminent. I am having a ton of snotty discharge, which is what happened when I went from 1cm to 3cm. And Baby A is giving me all sorts of crazy pelvic pressure. Most of the time I just can’t believe they are still in there, safely and happily hanging out and growing and getting bigger and stronger as my cervix opens up. I know this sounds crazy, but I worry about Baby A just popping out….I know, I’m nuts.

Bedrest is still my norm, though I have taken Dr. Zen’s advice and made one mellow outing each day since Monday. On Tuesday, hubs’s MIL flew in from out of town and the three of us went out to dinner. On Wednesday evening, she drove me to the salon for a haircut. Yesterday morning, she drove me to the dermatologist. IT WAS AMAZING TO BE OUTSIDE! Of course I always go right back to horizontal position as soon as I get home and the furthest I (slooooooowly) walked was from a curb to a chair at each outing. But still, it was awesome. She also did a ton of errands for us, which was so kind and has made me feel so much more “together” (Costco, Target, various returns I haven’t been able to do, etc). We are so lucky to have such wonderful Moms—I only wish they lived here instead of having to take plane trips to visit!

I know my updates are super-boring these days, and I’m sorry bloggies!! But this is my life, this is what consumes me: One more day, one more day, one more day.