Archive for November, 2009

We’ve been blessed to have twins on the way, a wife now at home until she delivers and a healthy son under a roof with food and jobs and reliable transportation.

For that, plus our families, friends and doctors, we are thankful.

There are thousands of things out there that we are thankful for, and one of them is the joy of turning off the computer.

The computer will be off until Monday morning when I return to the pharmacy.

Enjoy your family this long weekend, we will.

We had yet another appointment with High Risk OB at Delnor again Monday and while I was able to avoid the dreaded licorice flavored taffy, I wasn’t able to hide my disappointment at not being able to get a 3D shot of my youngest son’s face. But petty grievances aside, my kids are doing well.

During the scan they measured brain, head, legs and arms, as well as measuring fluid and height and weight. Compared to each other and their last measurements, Mason and Leah are slated to continue kicking mucho ass and are in the 60% percentile for their ages.

Wahoo!

Mason is 2lbs.  11oz.
Leah is 2lbs. 13oz.
Both are around 14inches long at the moment.

They have also completely changed positions. Leah is now head down along Julie’s left side and Mason is now head up along Julie’s right side. They playing “yin & yang” yo.

The weird thing now is that Julie can’t really tell who is moving when. With the exception of the “coasts” of her globe-belly, movements near her “poles” could be either the feet of one or the head of another.

I’m not really going to worry about who is doing what because all I’m really good for is staring at her belly and then pointing and saying aloud “Man, that’s frickin’ freaky shit.” Which I’ve done in public a few times. Averting people’s attention away from her belly and onto my cheeseball face is one of my coping mechanisms. I’m not trying to steal the attention per se, I’m just trying to lessen the staring directly into Julie’s magic ball of bebe.

We’re under 90 days until the twincinerator launches. And by launches, I mean slithers from wifey’s vajayjay.

Yay!

Regarding getting the 3D shot of lil dude 2.0, he was facing Julie’s spine so I was out of luck once again. No amount of shaking, prodding or tickling was going to get that little fetus flipped. I offered to stick my hands in there, but that seemed a bit much just for a photo op.

We are just outside of week 28 and Julie’s size and uncomfortableness has reached a point of hilarity that I cannot ignore any further.This took place this week and I find it funny, and knowing that Julie has left her office for the day, she will not see this until Monday.

• I was carrying my asleep son upstairs to bed when our phone rang. I wasn’t about to answer it and Julie, laying flat on the couch was the only other person available. She tried lifting her head to start the process, no go. She tried to swing her legs forward to get her head off the pillow, no go. I stopped in my tracks and watched a grown woman with a medicine ball under her shirt shimmy and shake her way to the edge of the couch where she threw her legs over the side of the couch, fell to her knees and slowly pushed her self up to standing.
  No. She did not make it to the phone in time. They hung up. Possibly from laughing too hard.

There’s no way I can keep these to myself any longer.

We had our 27 week OB appointment yesterday and while Julie’s growth is steady and looking good, her activity level is about to be drastically altered. I keep telling her that she’s having twins. She keeps ignoring me.

During our visit with Focus On Women (*which won’t be Focus On Women next time we see them in two weeks), the doctor went over the usual questions like:
*Do you know the sexes of your twins? Yes doctor, you ask us that every time.
*Any swelling of the hands or feet? No. Just this huge ass belly yo.
*Any hard time breathing? Of course. Especially when my husband’s pullin’ 2 footer’s with the local hooligans.
*Any grouping of contractions of 4 or more per hour? Well, yeah.
*Any pain? Yes, everywhere. Not to much here, or here, but right here *she makes circular motions around the bell*
*Are you going to the mall later? No, keep spelling mister.

The trend I’ve noticed as the semen donor, housekeeper and wife flipper (when she gets sweaty I flip her over and powder the moist side) is that when she has a stressful day at work, she is a contraction machine until the following morning. A rough day at work doesn’t mean she’ll have a relaxing time at home because it takes her nearly 12 hours to get back to Juliostasis (Julie’s homeostasis). So in actuality, a bad day makes for a bad week because right after she’s calm again she has to go right back into the stress festival at work.

So I let the doctor know my concerns about these contractions potentially leading into a pre-term labor situation and the fact that her blood pressure shouldn’t be poked and prodded by an up and down work environment. I wanted her off her feet and I said so.

The doctor was already planning on bed rest for Julie at week 28, we just didn’t hear him actually SAY it so I wanted to at least say my piece.

My’s pieces weres saids.

Julie will not be returning to work after the Thanksgiving holiday to SIT AND INCUBATE.

Regardless of her boredom and the potential stress from not being able to wipe her own ass, home is the where she’ll sit and I’m extremely relieved the doctor was already heading in that direction.

If he wasn’t on board, I might have had to throw a tantrum like my soon-to-be two year old is now perfecting the art of.

Thank the vas deferens my Julie will have time to RELAX before we never, ever, ever get the chance to again.

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned since discovering my wife was preggo with twins, it’s that I am a large culprit of the stress she feels. Especially now that she’s now larger than she was when she bore our son in January of 2008, and we still have more than two months to go, I see a lot of things that I do cause her unneeded stress.

It’s true; a home without a mom can fall apart pretty quickly: dishes collecting on every flat surface, laundry piling up in between couch cushions, late notices stacking up, toddler fingerprints all over your kitchen knives, matchbox cars in the dryer, boxes from diapers stacked into a fort in the front room where I hide after work…

It’s all happening isn’t it?

I never considered myself one to allow my family to live in filth, but at one point last week I walked downstairs fresh from a shower wearing only a hand towel, stepped over a bag of dirty diapers that had been tossed from upstairs the afternoon prior, and dug into the dirty laundry looking for a pair of drawls only to find a pair of gym shorts that, after a quick smell test, met my low standards at the moment.

That’s when I stopped and took in the carnage. I had completely let the house go to shit while my beautiful wife struggled to even get off of the couch. Combining my son’s recent trip into flu-ville, my wife’s cramming for work related certification tests and my recent increase in work load at the pharmacy – the house was neglected and it was taking its toll on my wife because she felt it was her obligation to keep everything tip top.

Looks like I slipped up. When Julie was dealing with severe morning sickness I took over everything without thinking twice. Laundry routine, dishes routine, bathing and feeding routine, everything seemed doable. Then Julie started to feel better and I fell back into the luxury of having a teammate to help tackle the day to day. Well, she’s gone again.

Her energy level is only above “crap” for a few hours a day, her skin is uncomfortable to be in, her hips seem like they’re made of jello, she has a hard time breathing, her contractions are increasing in frequency and intensity, she feels sorry for not being able to help with anything around the house, oh, and she’s fricking huuuuuuge so nothing fits her anymore! Even my clothes are of little consolation because while I’m an XL, I certainly never pushed a belly out that far, even during my binge drinking years.

I’m happy to help whenever I can, but now it seems like this never ending pile of laundry isn’t going to put away itself.  So I’ve turned off my brain again for full on super-dad mode. I’m now taking each task and just doing them without dread, complaint or avoidance.

I think I’m more prepared for Julie to go on bed rest than she is, seeing as she’s still trying to work a full day AND act awake when she gets home. Maybe the fact that she would be no longer allowed to work by her doctors would give her the message she needs right now, which is to SIT THE F*%$ down, put your f^*#ing feet up and enjoy E!, that crappy John & Kate show and a little soap opera action.

Women carrying babies are like drunk men, they just can’t stop until they’re either hospitalized, sedated or knocked the f*^% out by a flying right cross.

I’m not one to beat a broad up, but I’LL SHAKE THE SH*T OUT OF HER!

Bed rest, here we come, I’m being patient, but you’ve gotta get my wife to sit, stay, good preggo wifey.

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