- I woke up at 4 so why not write?
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cassieverde
- June 28th, 7:05
Basically ever since I first went on bedrest I've been packed and ready to go. The threat of going into labor with no endpoint but delivery or the possibility that the next day may entail getting put on hospital bedrest with no chance to go home until the babies are delivered has a way of focusing your attention.
My last appointment on Tuesday went smoothly enough but I have a feeling they're looking for any excuse to admit me for the rest of the way. The ultrasound tech estimated that the girls were both around 4 pounds last week, so I'm carrying a full load already with weeks to go before lungs are fully developed and all that. It's all starting to make me really nervous. I know lots of people do it but things seem impossible at this point.
How must they feel? Packed tight for sure. some of the really big kicking has toned down, I'm guessing there's just plain no room to wind up to deliver a big meaty blow. But plenty of pressure and body parts making themselves known in ways that run the gamut from strange to really painful. Four hands, four feet, 2 rock hard craniums, 2 butts, 2 spines, a lot of hard surfaces making themselves known to me.
I feel like over the course of this last week there was a big growth spurt and I already felt full term. The pressure on my pelvic floor is pretty intense, I've definitely been having more contractions this last week despite my meds. and cumulatively the overwhelming physical aspects of it all has me pretty convinced that when I go in on Monday they're going to say I need to stay there 'til the end.
I'm dreading that but in a way I kind of hope for it too. For one thing it would be a change of scenery, for another I guess I'd feel secure knowing I was as close as possible to help, intervention, and all of that.
As far as preparation for the girls arrival here at home goes we're way behind. My MIL has been taking care of the boys, D is still working a lot but thankfully no longer on the road all the time, but really this house isn't going to have enough space for everybody. By today's standards. But really we'll be fine. No-one will be sleeping in a sock drawer. My MIL is staying in the room the girls will eventually occupy but really they're going to be here with D and I for a while in a bassinet and the top of a pack n play if not actually co-sleeping when it gets down to that.
The boys already share a room, each is in their own bed so they aren't going to feel disrupted or displaced by the twins in that sense at least. As far as clothing and all that we are going to get by with a combo of recycling some of the boys infant wear and stuff friends and family with girls have donated us. We aren't lacking in any serious way, but it is a definite hodge-podge and let's face it, infants don't care so neither do I. Besides, zero I could do about it. I just am not into going on internet shopping sprees for matching everything. Changing the guest room into a nursery is taking a backseat to my MIL having a place of her own while she helps us out. I don't know how we'd have survived w/out her coming to stay. She's not a saint but neither am I.
Every day I just do my best to accept the limitations of the situation and not let it get to me too much.
I think I am learning some more about humility. I am also going to have to come to terms with vanity and my relationship to my body. Having the boys made for some changes that took getting used to that mostly I refused to get used to. In some ways that vanity was a good thing because it gave me a kick in the ass when I needed to pull myself back together and get back into shape last year. Really that ended up being more important health-wise, but it was nice to look better too. I don't know what to expect from my body a year from now, but it's hard to believe that the wringer I've been thru will somehow magically revert to my expectations for my "normal" shape.
I'm hoping that after the normal course of breast-feeding I will be able to have a reduction because they're just insane.
I'm rambling.
Really, honestly. I'm pretty scared. What woman isn't at this point? I am amazed to have come this far and I can't believe it, looking back. I've got at least 2 weeks more before there's anything to feel slightly comfortable about as far as development, and really 2-3 weeks more beyond that would be closer to ideal. And besides looking like that is a million miles away, part of me is just saying "bullshit, there's just no way." I don't know if I should chalk that up to my mental state and try to deal with it the way I've dealt with all the other hurdles so far - or to believe it is some form of intuition, my body telling me it can't take this much further.
Regardless, it is plain scary. When I first found out I was pregnant again I was upset and unsure, and then when I found out it was twins that intensified my doubts and sense of upheaval - but really I am unbelievably invested right now. I never thought I wouldn't be, but I couldn't relate to it. But it is still surprising to look back and feel the immensity of the inner change in feeling, from shock bordering on disappointment to intense investment.
I don't know when it happened, I don't know if the number of hours in bed and the sheer endurance of this ordeal somehow heightened everything. Or if it is just hormones or what. But I feel this crazy, disproportionate primal kind of desire to protect these babies. Stronger I guess than what I feel for the boys. Maybe it's long hours of fear of going into labor or I don't know. But I am overcome sometimes in the oddest times with almost panic, but it isn't panic because I think a part of me knows there is no room for panic. It's just a fierce kind of determination to see things thru. All of that fails to describe it even slightly.
I think if I read someone say that in a novel or a magazine I'd be "yeah, yeah, people feel protective of their babies, okay. I get it." But this is profound. And I don't think the fact that it is so patently NOT profound intellectually has anything to do with it. It seems to me more than a primate's instinct-driven biological imperative. But I'm inside it so who knows? Maybe that is all it is. But it feels huger than me, for sure. And I'm kind of awed to be inside it.
It's weird because it's also been tinged with moments of despair and frustration and boredom. So I have this extreme soup of emotions. Not all the time, and sometimes it flips like a switch, but a lot of the time it is a melange of all sorts of things. It's freaky.
Bottom line. Just trying to maintain.