Holy wow

Okay, I'm almost 31 weeks, my shower is tomorrow, the nursery's getting close to being done...and I have two gigantic babies in my belleh! I have no idea how this all happened???

I've neglected my blog so much I'm surprised it's still here. I expected to find the online equivalent of a malnourished orchid left to wither and die, but alas it's still here!

So, new pictures coming this week. My appointments are getting more frequent. Had my first NST (both girls passed with flying colors!), and will have one with every visit to the peri from here on out.

Baby A is still breech, although it feels like she's hanging out in a hammock across the bottom of my uterus. It seriously feels like I have a three-pound trout flopping in there when she moves around. Baby B likes to play with my belly button (J says it's because I wasn't thoughtful enough to provide them with toys to play with in utero) and spends most of her time in a transverse position across the middle of my tummy, pushing out as hard as she can. It is entertaining to see my belly pop out by as much as an inch in places when she gets going!

I know that's not much after an eight week drought, but it's Friday afternoon and I'm ready to be done! I want to take my elephant ankles home, lay on the couch and do nothing for at least three hours. Then I'll go to bed. ;-)

Better hurry up!

I have an ultrasound to post, and I have to hurry because as of tomorrow I should have another picture! First of all, I can't believe that I've become so unbelievably bad about blogging that I'm going two weeks between posts. And second of all, I can't believe I'm going for ultrasounds every two weeks now!

This pregnancy is seriously flying by. Which is weird, because I mostly feel like I'm either sitting at my desk at work, lying on the couch at home, or sleeping in bed. My activities aren't quite that restricted these days, but it feels like it!

So, here are the girls. It's quite possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen. Baby B appears to be giving her sweet sister little smooches on her noggin. Either that, or she's whispering in her ear, "If you don't stop kicking me, I will put your bra in the freezer every single night until we leave for college!"

22 weeks, 5 days.

PIcture Friday

I just don't have a lot of words lately. The babies are still munching away at my brain cells, and I mostly use the ones I have left to keep myself awake at my desk. So, here are some pictures to fill in the gaps.

The belly at 20w4d:


















The reason why my belly looks like that (20w5d):


Definitely two little girls in there! Oh, and three fibroids. But my partial placental previa has corrected itself, so that's reason enough to have a little party!

Doc says everything looks good, and they're measuring right where they should be!

115 Steps

From my desk at work to the bathroom. I think that's entirely too far. And I have a feeling it's only going to get worse!

I have pictures from our Orlando trip this weekend. I'll see if there's a good new belly shot in the bunch. It's definitely bigger than it was last time I posted.

We have our next appointment with the MFM on Friday. Looking forward to seeing two healthy babies again, and hoping to verify that we are, in fact, having two girls!

One belly and one question

Okay, so I've gotten to almost 19 weeks and have posted exactly one belly picture. Well, what can I say? Here's another one, taken at just over 18 weeks. I still find myself holding in my abdominal muscles. I try to force myself to relax, 'cause it's obviously not doing any good, but there's just something about a big ol' belly hanging out that makes me tighten those muscles. Am I just a freak, or does this happen to other people as well?

The question part of this post comes from my husband. I am fully aware that everything I am about to type is going to make me sound insane, but he asked me very nicely to pose this issue to my faithful readers, and I promised I would.

The thing is, we have a ticklish couch. It's true. If J tickles the couch around me, it makes me squirm and giggle. We thought it was just me, but when my stepdaughter was here for her Spring Break, she reacted the same way when he tickled the couch with both of us on it. She is now trying to blame me (apparently she thinks she had a bout of sympathetic giggling??), but I'm pretty sure it's the couch.

J also tried tickling my MIL's loveseat when my stepdaughter and I were seated on it, and it didn't have the same effect. So, clearly it's our couch. Right?

Now, the part he doesn't understand is, all three of us (my stepdaughter, J and I) can tickle my actual belly (in an attempt to tickle the babies' feet, of course), and that has no affect on me whatsoever.

I believe his question is, how is this possible? How is it possible that him tickling the couch I'm sitting on makes me collapse with laughter, but him tickling my actual belly does nothing but make me smile?

I don't have an answer for him. If he doesn't believe that the couch is ticklish, I don't know what I can do to convince him.

I'm still here

I know, you all probably thought I took these babies and ran away to Mexico to live on a beach somewhere. Well, I didn't. The truth of the matter is, life is just percolating along, and I haven't taken the time to write. Since we've chatted last, we've started painting the nursery, bought a couple of cribs, and started a kick-ass art project that I can't wait to share with you when it's a little closer to being done.

We've also hosted out-of-town company, watched a few good movies and a few bad movies, eaten KFC's Double Downs (yes, really) and gone to the Farmer's Market.

But none of that is what I want to talk about today. Part of the reason I feel I have so little to post about during this pregnancy is that I still haven't decided what it's like to feel pregnant. I'm hopefully halfway done (if twins can make it to at least 36 weeks, that's great!), and the fact that I'm actually, genuinely pregnant still hasn't sunk in.

And that's all due to our struggles with infertility. Nothing about getting pregnant, staying pregnant or having a child will ever be normal for us. It just won't. And that's okay, it's just making for a unique experience over here.

This is National Infertility Awareness Week. If you know someone going through it, please read this article. If you think you might know someone going through it, please read this article. If you might ever have any reason to spend 30 seconds in an elevator with someone going through it, please read this article.

Thank you. And everyone who has, will or does struggle with infertility will thank you.

My poor husband is grossly outnumbered

As of today it looks as though we are adding two little girls to our household! Combine that with me, J's teenage daughter and our girly dog, J just doesn't have a fighting chance.

We had a long anatomy scan today at 16w5d, and both babies look great. Baby A is now 6 oz. and Baby B is 5 oz. I know I'm completely biased, but they are the cutest little alien-looking thingies ever! It amazes me that the same two babies can be perfectly adorable in profile, and at the same time look like the Scream mask head-on. The technician assured me that that will correct itself before they arrive.

Fibroids are still there but not getting bigger (excellent news), and Baby A is partial previa, but the doc doesn't seem concerned at all. She's got plenty of time to move up and out of the way of the cervix.

When the technician tried to count fingers on Baby B's left hand, she decided to play patty cake just to make things difficult. I thought I was going to melt. We also watched her make sucking motions (or gossiping with her sister?). Baby A was the perfect angel this time, snuggled up to her sister.

It's official. I'm in love.