O, Worthy Car

We bought a new car today. And I found myself hysterically crying saying goodbye to the old one. Now, let me clarify that I am not a car person at all, don't really know much about cars, don't really care much about cars beyond the color. My old car was a beautiful and unique color of bronzy brown, but that's not why I was crying. Well, that's not most of why I was crying.

I was crying because we bought that car on the East Coast on the day we found out we were pregnant with the boys. We bought it to be a Mom-mobile. We were so naive and confident that on the very day we found out we were pregnant, we bought a car. We were SO naive and confident that we did so without bringing along infant car seats and strollers to make sure they fit, which is why we now needed to buy another new car to be the Mom-mobile. But regardless of the reality, that barely-old car represents our time with the boys and it was hard to let it go.

That car carried all of us across the country. It witnessed all our hopes and dreams and expectations of life with twin boys. It carried us to the hospital in Oregon, it carried Bruno around Portland, and ultimately it carried us, empty-handed and broken-hearted, away again. It witnessed our fresh grief, our first stabs at dealing with tragedy. It carried us through that time, to and from meetings with HAND, jobs interviews, house hunting. It witnessed countless tear storms from me as I learned how to navigate the Bay Area and re-learned how to navigate life. It carried us to Tahoe and Mammoth and Napa and Santa Cruz. It safely delivered me to auditions and rehearsals and performances. And to endless, endless doctor appointments. Including the appointment confirming Baby A and Baby B's existence. And all the subsequent ones preserving that existence.

I cried saying goodbye to that worthy car, that naive, first-time parent mistake of a car that carried us through such a profound period of our lives within its bronzy brown frame.

Our new car will be a great car too, I've no doubt, and will witness great moments in our evolving family. The Girl-Mobile. And guess what color it is?

Greeeeeeeen!!!!

The Day My Mother Tried to Kill Me, aka: Break, Water, Break!

Dr. R, who is going on vacation at the end of this week, wrote me to tell me to keep walking.

My mother, who is very excited to meet her newest grandchildren, has taken this edict very seriously. So yesterday, when Bruno dropped me off at her house while he wheeled and dealed with the fellows at Subaru, Mom got me on my feet and out walking.

Her neighborhood is just gorgeous. All of Northern CA is at this time of year, but her neighborhood is a beautiful mix of fabulous houses, stately old trees and positively prolific flowers, all of which Mom seems to know the names for. She started off at a clip, I pulled her back to my toddler waddler pace, and all was well. For the first ten minutes or so.

Somewhere in those ten minutes, I was asked how I was doing, and whether I needed to return home or whether I could continue on for another block or two. Bravely, I opted for the additional blocks, and forward we continued. A few steps later, and I found myself in a scene from some movie where the main character is experiencing the results of having taken hallucinogenic drugs: the block in front of me stretched forward and away, seeming to have no end. My mother was babbling away at my side but I couldn't understand a word she was saying. All I could think about were my throbbing Fred Flintstone feet and my burning, overtaxed lower back.

Mom, to her credit, noticed my shift of focus and asked if I'd like to turn around and head back home. 'No', I heard myself reply, 'You say it is only one more block to the turn around, and I'm supposed to walk, right?' We continue another quarter of a block, and it dawns on me that this may well be the longest block I have ever encountered. Longer than a long NYC block, longer than THREE long NYC blocks. A woman pulls her mini-van in ahead of us, and I consider begging her to drive me back home. I continue plodding past the lucky woman, who has already reached her home and can sit down whenever she wants to. I hate her a little.

We take step after painful step, Mom naming every flower we pass, and finally turn the corner and begin our return journey. Mom points out a brand of mini-van she is considering buying and I hear myself snarl, 'I don't care. How far is your house'? A few more steps, and Mom stops to admire a majestic tree. 'If you stop my forward motion, I will kill you', I threaten. We are both giggling now with the absurdity of my panting agony. Mom cautions me to move to the right to let a jogger through, and I am lapped by an octogenarian. I mutter that I think I could be lapped by a turtle right now and the octogenarian power walks past and tells me to hang in there. A few more strained steps, and I see Mom and Dad's place. Eye on the prize, I leave Mom in the dust and head straight for the door, calling out,'Which one is your reclining chair?' 'Why?", Mom wants to know. 'Because I'm going to go break my water in it' I reply, and we find ourselves in hysterics.

A full 24 hours and four walks later, and my bag of waters is still intact. These girls are as stubborn as each of their female ancestors.

Whenever You're Ready

Dear Baby A and Baby B,

This is your Mama and your Tata here, writing to let you know that whenever you guys feel you are ready, we are ready for you. We know it has been a long journey for all of us filled with ups and downs, and we know we've sent you quite a wash of cortisol and adrenaline and such in our worser moments, but we did the best we could and tried to mitigate all that stuff with as much good nutrition and sleep and joy as we could muster. Hope you didn't mind all the kale.

We've cleared beautiful spaces for you in nearly every area of our home: your nursery, of course, awaits you, but besides that, we have a co-sleeper safely attached to Tata's side of our bed, so he can hear you and touch you and smell you all through the night. We have several of the many bouncy seats set up for you in the living room, cabinets dedicated to your bottles in the kitchen, a freezer to store extra breast milk in the laundry room, and a futon set up in our office for the comfort and rest of all the family members and friends lining up to help take care of you. And yesterday we got a new car to chauffeur you around in safety and style. You haven't even arrived and already you have altered the topography of ever area we inhabit.

Mentally and emotionally, we've done our best to clear space for you too. We've read the books and talked to friends, trying to comprehend the radical change you are about to drop into our lives. We've joined the clubs and posted questions. We've talked and thought and cried about your brothers, trying to work through our feelings, to separate the events of their births and your births as much as we can, and we promise to keep doing that sort of work, to protect you from our past, to allow you to only be enriched by it.

We are scared, no doubt about it. We know, despite all our efforts, our research, our purchases, that we have no idea how to care for you, because we don't know you yet, don't know who you are or what you will need. But we are also excited beyond measure to try. And to fail. And to try some more. Excited to see your faces, to watch you see ours. Excited to learn to nourish you and calm you. Excited to learn from you. Excited.

So, we just wanted to make it clear, after all this time of trying desperately to keep you inside Mama, that whenever you guys feel that you are ready, we are ready for you.

All our love always, -Mama and Tata.

A Moment

Saturday morning and everyone is still hanging in. Feeling pretty happy. Spent the better part of yesterday freaking out because I discovered my beloved Dr. R is going on vacation starting June 4th (!!), but that was yesterday and this is today. Today I get to enjoy these last few days pregnant and take in what a miracle it is that we have made it to this point. Thinking about my sons a lot too, and looking for how to include them in all this happiness. Don't want to leave them out. I know Bruno and I will find a way.

Had another song rattling in my head. This one is from Hello Dolly. Think it might be the last post in the "book" when someday I publish PedroandArcher.blogspot.com:

"And that is all that love's about
And we'll recall as time runs out
That it only
Takes a moment
To be loved a whole life long"

Cedric, without The Stitch

Wednesday we went into SF to have The Stitch removed, and to be honest, it was a somewhat traumatic experience. We were excited and nervous on the drive in, wondering how much more time we would have after The Stitch was gone. Bruno realized, for the first time, exactly how close we are to having children in our arms (knock wood), and it was sort of adorable to watch it dawn on him. I, on the other hand, had been a bit of a whirling dervish this last week, trying to finish everything, whatever "everything" is, before the removal date, just in case. On that car ride to the surgery, I calmed down and Bruno rev'ed up, and we finally met somewhere in the middle.

Dr. K visited us before the surgery, and the rest of the team introduced themselves and everyone was full of excitement and congratulations for our having made it to this moment. I was led to the OR, got my spinal, and then the trouble began. I am, in all areas of life, very sensitive. Turns out this is true with anesthesia as well. Whatever dose the anesthesiologist gave me turned out to be WAY too much. Not only could I not feel anything below my waist, I couldn't feel anything below my neck. I couldn't feel my chest. It didn't seem to me like I was breathing. The truth was, I was breathing, but the combo of the cement-like numbness and the weight of the twins on my vena cava lowering my blood pressure was giving me the impression that I couldn't breathe.

I panicked. Completely panicked. I begged them to let me move. I moaned. I groaned. I dry-heaved. Then my blood pressure took a real dive and heard them discussing medicines to bring it back up. I don't remember all of it. I do remember being absolutely desperate for everything to be over, and finally hearing myself say out loud, "OK, Morse, pull it together". I blocked everyone out, concentrated on taking whatever breaths I could and on the in breath thinking, "I love Bruno" and on the out breath thinking, "I love my babies". And I kept doing this until I heard them tell me they were done.

I don't remember moving to recovery. I do remember waking up there still unable to move or feel my legs at all and wondering whether I was paralyzed. As the feeling slowly returned to my lower half, I became aware that this particular hospital bed was shaped like a roller coaster track. I have never felt so uncomfortable in my life. Again, I felt desperate to move. But this time I was strapped in to two NST monitors checking to make sure that both the girls were thriving post surgery. I heard a heartbeat throbbing away having little periods of rest and acceleration, just like it was supposed to. But despite the fact that there were two monitors, I was only hearing one heartbeat.

Before I panicked, I called the nurse and asked if perhaps she had both monitors tracking the same baby, and whether she could move one of the monitors to try to find the other baby. Turns out, yes, the numbers on the two monitors were exactly the same and for an hour now they had been monitoring the same baby. But she wouldn't move the monitors because she was a post-op nurse, not a labor and delivery nurse, so I had to lie on the roller coaster bed, wondering whether Baby B was OK, wondering whether Bruno had been told anything, wondering how my parents were holding up with no news.

Dr. K, who was performing other surgeries that day, eventually arrived, moved the monitor, found Baby B, and another 40 minutes went by without Baby B having any accelerations. I drank juice; they gave me sugar water through my drip: no accelerations. Dr. K was summoned again, used an ultrasound machine this time, and still no accelerations. He ordered a specialist to come up, and finally, seconds before she arrived, Baby B woke up and performed two brilliant accelerations in a row. Oh, thank G-d!

All and all, not the best day we've had. But certainly not the worst either. After Baby B proved that she was OK, just, like her Mama, sensitive to meds, Bruno presented me with a small plastic bag. In it was something that looked like a tie-dyed piece of corn husk. I pondered the pinkish yellowish strand for a moment, and then gasped with recognition: The Stitch! Dr. K had apparently given it to Bruno after the surgery, along with the news that as soon as it was removed, Cedric dilated to 3cm. G-d bless Dr. K and G-d bless that Stitch.

Two days post surgery, and everyone is doing well. The girls had a follow up NST and both passed quickly and easily. I can feel all my limbs and am none the worse for wear after my un-fun surgery day. Bruno is still rev'd up, reading parenting books and looking into buying a new car. And Cedric, dear Cedric, is still holding out at 3cm dilated, even without his back-up band.

And we're all waiting to see what happens next.

All the Way Home

Well, it's getting kind of exciting around here: 35 weeks today with cerclage removal scheduled for Wednesday at 35 weeks and 2 days. Baby A weighed in this week at 5lbs, with Baby B still out in front at 5lbs 8oz; both girls aced their non-stress test. Cedric is holding strong at 2.7, and while Ursula is kicking up a bit of a ruckus, contracting with relative frequency, she's rather weak at the moment, so no one is worried. Both the girls are still head down, so the question will be whether all this training work she's doing will leave Ursula strong enough to get the job done on the big day. Which really, could be any day.

In news on the home front, the nursery is finished and I LOVE IT. I am still totally in love with the green color of the walls. And the rest of the elements, despite my eclectic style which compelled me to draw from all different collections and vendors, came together perfectly. The foundation of it all is the cribs and changing table loving donated by the girls' Aunt and Uncle, and previously used and loved by all four of their cousins, and the crowning touch are curtains sewn with love by their Grammy. There is family and love and energy flowing out of every corner. And, of course, a gliding loveseat with matching poof ottoman in Chocolate Chocolate Chip microsuede fabric. Of course.

Most exciting of all is to be able to get excited about silly froo-froo like green walls and poof ottomans. To have a few "normal" moments of pregnancy. To waddle to the laundry room and wash loads of tiny little socks and sweet little onesies with ruffles on the butt. I know that soon the glow will be off the laundry, but right now I have the joy of doing it without the fog of either terror or severe sleep deprivation. I'm taking my moments where I can get them.

Speaking of moments, Saturday marked my triumphant return to the Farmer's Market. For an entire grief-filled summer, and then a foggy fall, and then a bleak winter, and then a regenerative spring, and then another summer and another fall, I looked with deep envy at the pregnant women strutting through the Farmer's Market, collecting produce and well-wishes alike. Then I got pregnant, and got stuck inside my own four walls. And now, it is finally my turn to strut and collect.

I waddle out of the house, and groan my way into the car (was it always so low. And so small?) Arriving at the market, I heave myself out of the car, and begin to waddle toward the market (were the cars always parked this close together?)

In my fantasy version of this Farmer's Market strut, I lithely and happily amble amongst the organic fruit, selecting choice morsels with which to nourish my little ones. In slow motion as people see my beautiful belly, their faces light up, they ask when I am due, ooo and aah when I mention twins, and wish me the best of luck. I glow and receive my admirers with a blush and bashful look in the direction of my non-swollen feet.

Yeah. In the real version almost as soon as we start to make our way through the stands, I want nothing more than to return to the car. My feet hurt, and my hips ache, and the downward pressure in the down there area...well, let's just say if pregnant women got to feel this part first, they would have no issue with weathering bed rest. Any well-wishing stranger who dares to make eye contact with me is met with a face filled with such strain and desperation that they quickly look away again. As we linger at each of our favorite stands, the best I can do is quietly will Bruno to pick the fruit quickly so I can sit down again. And as we round the top of the market where the quilt-clad woman with the guitar sits singing "Time in a Bottle", the sentimentality of the song is too much for hormonal me, and I feel the tears pushing into my eyes. No, NO, hell no! I am not going to cry over a Jim Croche song, for G-dsake! Oh, but yes I apparently am, and when Bruno notices the tears running the down my face the best I can do is shake my head with the shame of it all.

I lumber my way past the remaining stands, clinging close to Bruno, avoiding the stares of the well-wishing strangers wondering why the enormously pregnant lady is openly weeping. As we head back toward the car, Bruno asks how my triumphant return to the market was. I admit the discrepancy between my fantasy and my reality, and, after heaving my way back into the incredibly low-to-the-ground car, we laugh all the way home.

Upright, right?

34 weeks.

34 weeks.

Bruno and I slapping hands in the bedroom this morning in triumph. We got here. To 34 weeks. Remember 21 weeks? And 24 weeks. All the fear and worry and doubt.

And here we are, months later. And the restrictions are beginning to lift. I'm to practice sitting upright, and standing and walking a little. This morning we ate breakfast at the dining room table. I sat up in a chair, and I poured our juice, although I forgot I could now drink out of a glass, and poured mine into the biking squeeze bottle I've been attached-at-the-lips to for the last 11 weeks. I sat eye-level with my husband, and fell in love with his face all over again.

He went to work, and I shuffled slowly back and forth from table to fridge, putting away the jams. I lit candles and sat at the table in our only comfortable chair, wondering whether one could add a dining room set to a baby registry. I read a book on twins and sleep and I fell asleep in the chair; ah the third trimester.

At 9:30, only two hours into uprightousness, I am already beginning to feel it. Aches and pains and pressures in new and weird places. There might have been some merit to this lying down all the time thing. The task at hand is how to plumb the line; how to find the balance. To regain strength without pushing too hard. To weather the pain of rebuilding, but to know when I've gone far enough for the moment. To resist trying to get back to where I was all at once. Maybe not to try to get back at all but rather to get somewhere new from here.

It all feels so familiar.

All Is Well

33.5 weeks, and all is well.

Baby B was a bit of a pisher today for the NST test, refusing to be monitored. But a persistent nurse and much pressing on my belly finally revealed that she, along with her more cooperative sister, are still thriving in-utero.

Cedric is doing his job admirably, and is definitely relying on the help of The Stitch; he is funneled pretty much down to The Stitch, but we still have 2.5 cm of length below The Stitch, which is great for this point in a twin pregnancy.

And Ursula is doing the best she can, poor overworked gal. She feels the need to contract more and more these days, and especially at night, but they are only Braxton Hicks contractions and they are having no negative influence on Cedric. He hasn't taken up drinking or smoking, for instance, so no one is worried.

All told, a great report. So great, in fact, that as of Monday (34 weeks) I will be back on modified bed rest, allowed to sit up, and walk outside for 15 minutes a day, and cook a little, and occasionally go out to eat or go for a brief shopping trip. So, all together now: WAAAHHHOOOO!!!!

And then I have a litany of blissfully normal end game pregnancy symptoms to report:

My hands have become stiff and swollen, especially overnight and first thing in the morning. I've been knitting and on-line shopping to keep them limber.

If I have the audacity to eat a cruciferous vegetable or a member of the legume family, I pay dearly for it for the next several hours, as do the olfactory senses of any poor soul who has to be around me. And much to my and Bruno's dismay, Ratka's delicious Sarma (stuffed cabbage) is definitely off the menu until post-birth.

I am also becoming outrageously emotional. Yes, peanut gallery, even more so than usual. Case-in-point: this weekend, my father excitedly told me he was thinking of bringing me a hamburger and fries for dinner. Too much salt right now makes me swell to incredibly uncomfortable proportions, so I very rationally burst into tears because I did not want a hamburger and fries for dinner. My father patiently, although somewhat bewilderedly, waited for me to dry my tears and tell him what I did want for dinner. Which turned out to be eggs and toast.

This brings to mind a story from my childhood. When I was around 4, I found out my mother was making liver for dinner. I announced to her that I did not want liver for dinner and that if she was going to make liver for dinner then I was going to run away. My Mom, in her ever-pragmatic way, counter-announced that she would help me pack. So we went upstairs and packed a suitcase for me and a suitcase for my doll Julie, and, Julie and suitcases in tow, out the door I went. And ran away to my neighbor and best friend's house. I knocked on the door and after being told that my friend was not at home, declared that that was OK and I would be downstairs playing with the Wizard of Oz action figures.

My friend's Mom called my Mom and said, "Sandy, I've got Lisa over here. What would you like me to do?" To which my Mom responded, "Keep her." And all was quiet for a few hours, until it occurred to me that I'd better find out what this household was having for dinner. When I found out they were having eggs, I decided liver was better than eggs, and I ran away back home.

Oh yeah. And the times, they are a-changin'

Taking the Tape Off

This weekend, we painted the nursery. Well, Bruno painted the nursery and I did all the heavy-duty angsting about the color.

For months now, I've watched my fellow June Due Date friends order their nursery furniture, select their crib sheets and clean out and rearrange their houses. I've listened with a mixture of envy and amazement as they set up registries and had baby showers: how can these women have the audacity to believe their children would actually arrive, unscathed and on schedule and without horrific disaster arriving to take away all their dreams.

I couldn't even participate in discussions about hospital tours or birthing classes. "Why do we need those things anyway," I carped. "I figure I'll just show up at the hospital and they'll tell me where to go and what to do." Truth was, I was weeping with terror at everything I was missing because of my paralysis, my inability to allow this pregnancy to become real.

And then I passed 28 weeks, and things started to change. My cervix was termed a work of art by my perinatologist. Four bouncy seats appeared in my living room, and my office furniture disappeared from bedroom #2. The vacuum left behind pronounced itself "a nursery" and demanded to be filled. I started surfing the web, looking at baby store sites and setting up little registries, small tests to see if the sky would fall.

And then I was 30 weeks, and I had ordered a chocolate polka-dotted gliding loveseat and matching poof ottoman. The babies were still thriving and the sky was still over my head and I was now dreaming in pink and green. And having a little fun

And this weekend as we round the corner on week 33, Bruno painted bedroom #2, irrevocably changing it into our nursery. I spent nearly as much as it cost to paint the room on paint samples, which Bruno dutifully painted all over the walls. This one was too minty and this one was too hospital-ly, and this one was so saturated I feared the room would look like an ode to Kermit the Frog. Nothing was right. On Thursday, Bruno announced that he was painting the room on Saturday, and that I'd seen quite enough paint samples and it was time to pick my color and get on with it. Time was up for messing around in worried anticipation and indecisive lack of commitment.

Saturday arrived, and Bruno started prepping the room: he carefully taped all the moldings, the windows and doors and junctures with the ceilings. He pushed the cribs and changing table to the center of the room and protectively covered them all. My mother and father showed up with cans of the color I'd finally selected, and Bruno started to paint.

At first, it remained about the task at hand: Bruno marveled at his newly found painting skills, and he and my mother gently tortured me about my color choice angst, calling out things like, "Oh dear, this looks awfully hospital-ly!" I couldn't discern the joke, and burst into tears, leaving my poor father to comfort me. He did so by stating, with a wink and a grin, "Oh, I don't know; I thought it looked more minty."

The afternoon went on, and my parents left and the painting was nearing completion. Bruno turned on some music, and as I lay on my bed listening, I realized it was an album we had listened to nearly incessantly on our cross-country trip when I was pregnant with the boys. I filled with feeling, remembering how happy we were, how innocent, remembering our dreams for our family. And realizing we had never gotten to this stage with our sons, never gotten to lovingly design a room devoted to their care and comfort, never changed the color of walls to celebrate their coming into being.

I started to weep, and I knew that somewhere in our house, Bruno was doing the same.

I got out of bed, and wandered the rooms, finding Bruno hunched over the deep sink with the brushes, tears dripping off his face. I hugged him, and we both sobbed together, and I heard him choke out, "It should have been blue." I made some lame joke about how I probably would have made him paint the room green for the boys too. He allowed himself a small smile, and allowed me to blot away his tears, and then ordered me back into bed.

And on the way there, I passed by the now-nursery; the walls were the most beautiful shade of green. Not minty, not hospital-ly, but some cross between a grass-stain and new leaves and early spring. It is perfect, just what I dreamed of, and I love it.

A few minutes later, Bruno asked me if I were ready to commit to the color, because he was about to take the tape off, and, once he did that, we were done. No more second guessing, no more equivocation. I told him I was ready. And I meant it.

Windows

So, we are coming to the home stretch. Never thought I'd be able to say that. 32.5 weeks and things seem (knock wood) to be continuing well. And I'm starting to get sentimental about pregnancy, feeling like this terrifying, treacherous and yet also profoundly beautiful experience is about to be over, probably forever, and there are things I don't want to forget.

I never want to forget the look on Bruno's face when he feels one of his daughters kick or squirm. The delight and wonder in it. Waking each day to "family cuddle", where we spoon and both tune in to the movements of our children, and Bruno tells me tales of their antics the night before when he came to bed and held my belly as I lay passed out, drooling into the pillow. His one-on-two time.

I never want to forget the other night when I walked by our full length mirror, naked, and dared to look in: I was moved to tears by how stunningly beautiful my body is right now. In my garish maternity moo-moos, with my bed-hair and my round, round face, I find myself appalling, but when I caught that glimpse of just my body, my belly enormously round and smooth and housing our family, I found myself to be just gorgeous. I stared and stared and cried with gratitude, until Bruno came and found me and hurried me off my feet, agreeing that, 'yes, your body is beautiful, now get back in bed'.

Of course, I have other kinds of moments too. I have now become completely addicted to my progesterone shots, and the day before I get my next fix I can pretty much count on being a miserable excuse for a human being all day long. I'm fairly sure my mother learned how to text message just so she could safely communicate with me on these days.

And going through everything we have been through hasn't helped me become any better at or less neurotic about decision making. I've spent days obsessing about nursery paint colors and glider purchases despite having sworn to no longer allow such inanities to suck up my energy any more. I guess keeping a sense of perspective is life-time work.

I thought, in my time on bedrest, I would read 800 books, but I found I just didn't have the brain for it. I think I read 2. And I thought maybe audio books would do the trick, but when I realized I'd been listening to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao from Volume 2 instead of the beginning, I just didn't have the gumption to start again, or to start anything else, for that matter.

I've knitted. And loved the colors, the textures, the pattern-making mathematics of it all. And I've tutored, which miraculously my brain has continued showing up for each week. Tutoring has been a total blessing during this journey, grounding me, structuring my day, and funding my extra-curricular activity on buybuybaby.com.

As I lie here on the living room couch, typing this somewhat rambling post, a pair of birds who nested in our Tiki Room are teaching their babies how to fly. The little ones keep mistaking our windows for air and flying into them. It is odd and disturbing and sweet all at once. As I prepare to leave this nest, this nesting, and launch into the next stage, I can only hope not to run into life's windows too hard.