Odds and Ends...

Our childbirth class was long, but interesting. We met a lot of other twin parents-to-be, and one triplet parent-to-be. It made us know that we're not in this alone in the world. A mom and dad came in with their 7-month twins and their big push was to not try to be heroes, but to ask for and accept help... so that's going to be our plan :) We got to watch videos of both vaginal and C-section births, which were a little gory, but which give a good perspective on how things might go! (We forgot to take pictures during the breathing exercises. The best part was the instructions for the partners on how to give soothing massages!!)

We finished putting up the border in the nursery!
I LOVE the way that it looks, and I'm excited to get cribs and a dresser in there! Here's a picture of my belly (21+4 weeks)....
I feel enormous, and the back pain has been getting worse. Dr. Davenport says that pregnant women tend to sloop their shoulders forward, so she told me to do a mini-backbend over a stack of pillows at the end of the day (and to try to have better posture). Hopefully my muscles get stronger soon, so that I don't feel like such a whiner!

Our appointment today went smoothly. I'm up 16 pounds from pre-pregnancy. I'm not sure if I'm going to make 24 pounds by 24 weeks, which is what the books say is appropriate for twins, but at least I won't be too far off! All of my vitals are good, and the babies heartbeats were 142 and 146. It looks like the one on the left is head down and the one on the right is breech; the latter is probably the one that is kicking my bladder on a regular basis! I still love feeling them kick :)

The practice that we go to is switching hospitals because UTMB's labor and delivery patients have outgrown their capacity, mostly with public patients, so the private practices are finding other hospitals. We've been moved to St. John's, which is actually a LOT closer to home, which is great, and which is a really nice hospital. They have a Level II Nursery, which is adequate, but not "the best" (which would be a Level III NICU). As long as we don't deliver before 36 weeks, we should be just fine there, but if we go early, we'll have to go to UTMB... we'll just have a different doctor. It's not ideal, but we understand their rationale... if we didn't have a twin pregnancy, we'd probably be jumping for joy! We'll still have our appointments in Galveston, which is ideal for Dan, since it's about 5 minutes from his work, and he can take his lunch hour for them. We asked a lot of questions and she said she'd give us more information as she got it.

The babies are finally letting me eat ice cream... I have been craving blizzards of late :) Yummm!
We didn't get pictures today... we'll probably get some good ones at the next Level II ultrasound, which is scheduled for December 6, at 24 weeks. Something to look forward to! In the meantime, we'll keep providing pictures of my vastly blooming belly :)