White Flag

I am wrestling with some angel inside myself, and finding myself ready to surrender.

I've always been an info gal: gotta know! We did a CVS with Pedro and Archer without doing any other tests first: we just wanted to know for sure if anything was wrong, and we chose CVS instead of the less risky Amnio because we were planning to be on our cross-country trip during our Amnio window. I could just scream when I think now of how blithe we were, and how we tried to micro-manage everything, really believing that we could. Now, here I sit with statistics for downs syndrome that, while certainly not bad, are far from comforting, sitting right on the cusp of a positive test, a red flag. I can chose to know for sure, and take the higher risk involved with amnio for twins, piercing my uterus twice when we are working so hard to keep it calm and non-contracting. And then if (pu-pu) we find that one of our girls has downs, take the 5-10% risk that in terminating one twin we lose them both.

Or, I can surrender. I can say, "99.7% is a really good chance that nothing is wrong. I'm going to have faith in that, and if one of them has downs, then Bruno and I will be really really upset, and then we will suck it up and learn all the lessons and blessings in raising a downs child. And her sibling will also find her way to learn and grow from it.

"But", my mind screams, "this is not who I am at all!!! I am a gal who needs to know!! I need to manage!! I don't want my life changed by a special needs child!!" Except, my heart seems ready to surrender. It doesn't want to take any more risks of pregnancy loss. It doesn't want to need to know that last 3/10ths of a percent. It wants to lean back into the pillows and stay calm and see what happens next. And I am going through the stretching and tearing and growing pains of expanding into that new person.

Just The Facts, Ma'am, Week 16

Cervix is looking great: strong, no funneling, stitch holding beautifully. Measurement was 4.2, which freaked me out 'cause it seemed smaller than at my OB's where it was 5, but peri says forget the number, 4-5 is all the same thing with just differences based on equipment and technicians. Phew!

Genetics, Integrated Screen: Trisomy is rock bottom at 1 in 100,000. Neg screen for neural tube disorders. Downs is somewhat of a disappointment at 1 in 300. We sat down with the genetics counselor for a while to try to understand what this means for twins. The long and the short of it is, for twin moms with our numbers, 1 in 300 of them will have a child with downs syndrome. It sounds so much lower than my sister-in-law's numbers of 1 in 2500, but 1 in 300 is a 99.7 percent chance that everything is fine, and there is a high rate of false positives with multiples. And, they didn't find any soft markers in the ultrasound. They are going to do another ultrasound in two weeks, but right now, I think we are leaning toward no amnio and just taking the leap of faith that all is well.

Sex: OK, ready......two girls! Apparently, we don't do anything by halves!

A good friend of mine summed up all this information with the following pronouncement: "This sounds like fantastic news, all the way 'til High School!"

Numbers

It has been 11 days since my last blog post, and I have been through approximately 34 mood swings, 63 bouts of paranoia, 176 glasses of water, 231 trips to the bathroom, 14 episodes of The Tudors, 1.4 books (shameful!), 44 attempts to meditate (6 of them moderately successful), 66 meals (OK: 74), 8 hours of tutoring, 16 searches on Google to look up imagined symptoms, 3 occasions of being unnecessarily short with my mother, 9 naps, 500 Facebook log ons, 6 conversations with the insurance company, 3 moments of "having words" with Bruno and 4 good cries.

Wednesday we get our numbers back from our second trimester blood work. These numbers theoretically tell us the percent chance that our children have certain genetic disorders. We will also get numbers describing how long my cervix currently is, numbers telling us how all the limbs and parts of our children are measuring against what they are supposed to be right now, and the number of ounces they each weigh. We'll be told the number of weeks and days they are each measuring and the number of weeks and days my uterus is measuring. We'll hear the numbers of my weight and my blood pressure and my temperature. We'll be told the number of times a day I can stand up and the number of times a week I can leave the house and how many minutes I can shower for.

Meanwhile, I am keeping close watch on some numbers of my own: today I am 16 weeks along in this pregnancy, which means we have 140 days until I hit 36 weeks (full term for twins), 112 days until we hit 32 weeks (great chance for twin viability), 84 days until we hit 28 weeks (the first time we will feel a little safe), 60 days until we hit 24 weeks and 4 days (the time at which we lost Pedro and Archer), and only 36 days until we hit 21 weeks and 1 day (the time we discovered my cervix was open).

And only 3 more hours until I can respectably go to sleep and count myself another day closer to bringing our children to safety

Closing the Chest

When we left the hospital in Oregon, we had a cardboard box used to hold breast milk bottles filled with our last tangible memories of our sons: the baby blankets they were wrapped in, the little woven hats they wore, the diapers for preemies, which hung off our teeny tiny pre-preemies. The stretchy beaded ring Bruno bought for me to wear when I became too swollen to wear my wedding bands. Two little pandas my Mom got to decorate the hospital room. Cards and cards and cards, sent to cheer us on during our stay and then accompanying flowers to acknowledge our loss. Hand prints and foot prints of our darlings, tucked into paper boxes given to us by the hospital, a card signed by all the hospital staff who helped us through this time, MIT baby blankets we'd optimistically ordered while in the hospital, certificates of baptism and blessing, the wrist tags they'd worn identifying them as ours, ultrasound pictures of them along the way, photos taken the day of their birth and death, and finally the tiny sage colored urn, decorated with small enameled flowers that holds the remains of our sons.

It's been sitting in the closet in that cardboard breast milk box since we got home, and periodically we take it down and go through the contents, each time commenting that we need to get something beautiful to replace the cardboard, but knowing we didn't have the heart or stomach to shop for it.

So we passed the task on to my wondrous Momma. Who has been culling the antique shops of the area, looking for such an item, guessing at our taste and at the dimensions we need to house this love and this pain. Patiently, she has bought and returned offerings deemed by us to be too big or too small, too plain or too or ornate or just not us. Or perhaps we just weren't ready.

Yesterday afternoon, hours before 2009 drew to a close, my wondrous Momma showed up at our door with a new candidate. She put it on our table, took a step back and started in with her usually disclaimers about how she could return it if it wasn't.... Bruno and I didn't even have to confer with each other. It was perfect. It was exactly what we would have picked if we had been able to do this task ourselves. Hugs, tears, thanks, and wondrous Momma was off, task completed.

Now it was our turn. Our selection stood on our table for several more hours as we continued our lives around it, knowing it was there, but not quite ready to deal with it. As the sun set, we took the new, handsome but simple, small, dark-wood chest, with its subtle metal clasps and details, into the bedroom, and took out the cardboard breast milk box for the last time. Piece by piece, we transferred our memories, looking at each card, remembering the love and support Archer and Pedro generated in the world. We looked at their little selves, captured on camera by our loving nurse, and we cried, so sad that we couldn't bring them safely into this world. Piece by piece, we transferred them to their new home, the discrepancy between this and what we wanted to offer them not lost on us.

And then we were done. And we closed the chest. Its not locked and we can open it whenever we want, but our boys and their memories now rest in a place of beauty, selected lovingly, respectfully, by family.

And now it is 2010.

Bruno, sentimental heart that he is, couldn't yet recycle the breast milk box; it still sits in the corner of our room. We'll see how long it takes him to let go of that.

Economies of Scale

This morning Bruno and I each stepped on the scale. I'm up 14 lbs now in as many weeks. Bruno thought about this for a moment, grinned, and then came out with the following pronouncement:

"You're going to weigh more than I do by end of this".

Grrumph grrr son of a....

Next time, he gets to carry the pregnancy :)

Publically Pregnant

So today is a good day: we had an appointment with the OB and my cervix is long and strong, the babies are kicking around growing well and my worry-o-meter should be fed for the next week or so. My appointments are scheduled every two weeks, but I notice that I only seem to be able to make it about a week before my outer shell of resilience is worn through and every little thing becomes a potential symptom to get hysterical about. My docs know this and understand, and so I schedule with them every two weeks but there is a tacit agreement that if I start going mental before that, I just call the office staff and they squeeze me in. So far, it has been an appointment every 5-7 days or so. So be it.

So, today should be a good day. But apparently there is something more going on with me today than just post-traumatic stress worrying, something terrifically hormonal and very, well, pregnant. I am just extremely, extremely emotional today. Everything is making me edgy and weepy, from TV commercials to the way my new haircut looks to the woman working at the kitchen-wares store where we stopped on the way home from the doctor's to return a flawed holiday gift.

My lovely mother has been trying to buy a wine decanter for my husband for more than a year now. She keeps asking what kind he wants, and he offers nebulous mutterings, avoiding a firm answer. So this Christmas, Mom simply went out and bought him one at a local store. And after one use, and with no egregious bumpings of any kind, the thing cracked. Oft.

So back we bundle it into its original packaging, complete with gift receipt, and bring it back to the store for a refund on a flawed product. And by we, I mean me because I'm the one who typically handles these kinds of interactions for our family. I approach the counter with my box and gift receipt and explain the situation to the saleswoman who comes over to "help" us.

Actually, it turns out, this woman didn't come over to help us; she came over to say "can't " to us. I have a real aversion to people like this under normal circumstances, but apparently I am REALLY put out by people like this when I am under the hormonal influence.

"I remember inspecting this item before it left the store. It didn't leave the store like this." These are the first words our friendly customer service representative speaks to me after I explain why I am here. She then goes to consult another store worker, who says, loudly enough for Bruno and I to hear "The store was really busy that day. There was a huge line. I got the item off the shelf for the woman but I have no idea whether it was damaged or not."

Our gal returns and flatly says to me "I can't return this." I suggest that we could just exchange it for another of the same kind. "We don't have any more" she crows. Bruno pipes in that he would consider taking a different kind. "We don't sell any others" our saleswitch lobbies back.

Why do people like this chose to work in customer service industries?

I remind her that her boss has said that the store was too busy that day to properly have checked out the object, and that we are assuring her that we did not mishandle it. She snaps as her only response, "That's not my boss." Oh, I truly dislike people who delight in saying no to everything, who refuse to think around corners, who have no interest in satisfying their customers. I can feel my rising hysteria, disproportionate to the, albeit frustrating, not in any way tear-worthy situation. And yet I feel the tears a comin'. I push away from the counter, say to Bruno, "I'm pregnant....I can't...can you...?" and head toward the exit. I flee the scene before I become disastrously inappropriate (images of knocking the decanter off the counter, enjoying the sounds and sights of its shattering, and leaving this stringy haired she-hag to clean up the mess have flitted through my hormonally afflicted mind), and I hear our friendly representative growl, "What did she say?!"

I pace the cool streets trying not to cry, reminding myself of the relative importance of successfully returning this decanter in the face of all else. I'm doing OK, until Bruno pops out of the store moments later, waving a small white piece of paper. He takes one look at my face and bursts out laughing, which causes me to burst out crying. "I hate people who say can't so much!" I wail. "I know," he comforts, as he takes me into his arms, continuing to laugh. "Let's get you fed," he suggests.

On the way home, he explains that we now a have a store credit for the full amount of the decanter and that, upon hearing that I was pregnant, the woman apologized to Bruno for upsetting me. I stew for a bit about why we couldn't just have gotten the freakin' refund for my Mom, and then Bruno reminds me of the good doctor's report we've just had, and assures me that I'll feel a lot better after lunch.

And as always, he is right.

The Day Of A Thousand Cheetos

OK, not really Cheetos. The Whole Foods all natural version of Cheetos. But still...

It started out innocently enough: after breakfast and second breakfast, and our trip the Farmer's Market and lunch and my 20 minute walk and second lunch (hey, don't judge until you've been pregnant with twins), I climbed into bed with my book and my water bottle for my doctor mandated mid-day lie down. Oh, and I also brought my cell phone and the land line, and the as of yet unopened bag of Cheetos.

I propped myself on my pillows, arranged the phones, took a swig of water, lay down, opened my book and opened the bag of Cheetos. Bliss: reading my trashy vampire novel (hey, I've already plowed through the first three, and it has now become apparent that the only way out is through), lying in my warm bed, eating Cheetos one by one, licking my fingers clean when the powdery orange build-up reaches just the right level. Bruno is out taking a hike, so I have a uniquely unmonitored afternoon: no one is walking in to the room to switch out my Cheetos for persimmons or some such nonsense. I take advantage, and continue to indulge.

And I read and I snack and I curl my toes with the decadence of it all. And at some undefined point that I always fail to notice when left alone with a bag of powdered cheese covered corn puffs, the tide begins to turn. I start feeling a little repulsed, a little sloth-like, a little depressed, even. Which makes me want more Cheetos, to get that bright cheddar high back. Now I notice that I'm thirsty, so I start guzzling water. Which makes me have to pee a lot. Which makes me start to get afraid that maybe I've got an infection. I talk myself off that ledge, and I reach for more Cheetos, just to take the edge off, you know?

And now I'm nearing the bottom of the bag. I don't want another day of cheesy corn snack temptation, so I feel I'd do better just to finish them off. And I loathe myself a little with each crunch, but I protect my future days by polishing off that wicked bag. I clean myself up, clean up the bed, hide the evidence, and drink water to the point where I'm swollen up like a balloon. I have a momentary panic attack and pull the bag out of the trash just to check whether "yeast" is one of the ingredients: it isn't, phew. Crisis averted.

Bruno comes home, ready to make me first dinner. I can't! I've just consumed a thousand calories of all-natural food of the devil. I'm grouchy and bloated and strung out on sodium and powdered cheese. As he begins listing possible dinner options and my stomach starts swimming in a highly dangerous fashion, I realize I'm going have to 'fess up. Bruno looks half dismayed, half amused, and we compromise on a punitive salad, to be choked down by me any time between then and bedtime.

I have just about finished that salad now, dear readers. And as I force my last bite of arugula and shredded carrot, I swear I will never eat Cheetos again!

Well, at least not a whole bag of them all in one sitting.... :)