Feeling human again

HI! So by now you know the big news (we had our babies), and I will get to posting on that whole story later, but wanted to share my thoughts of this current moment. I am very very happy to be feeling pretty damn good right about now. Here's what got me to this wonderful state:

1. A long hot shower
2. Brushing my teeth
3. Vicodin
4. Putting on my white fluffy robe (gift from Kaiser hospital)
5. All bodily parts and functions feel like they're operating correctly
6. Ability to get up and down on my own (out of chairs, beds) and walk around whenever I want to move objects from one place to another, feed myself, etc etc.
7. Cat on my lap (Napoleon)
8. Knowing I have two very healthy babies waiting to see me tomorrow morning in the NICU
9. Knowing I will be able to go to bed tonight and not be completely uncomfortable and waking up every 30 - 45min.
10. Progressive success with the milk factory

Joy!

Rampe Twins (19 photos), by Matt Rampe

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
http://www1.snapfish.com/fbshareredirect/p=825281246249128801/l=1670284016/g=1666679/redirectURL=share/otsi=SALBBL/AlbumID=824701016/a=1666679_1666679/usercomments=I_xqd%20like%20to%20share%20my%20Snapfish%20photos%20with%20you.%20Once%20you%20have%20checked%20out%20my%20photos%20you%20can%20order%20prints%20and%20upload%20your%20own%20photos%20to%20share./counttext=19%20photos/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish

This is almost getting "normal" (32 weeks)

Ok truth be told, I'm posting this a day early as 32 weeks is officially tomorrow. However, I've gotten pretty good at this bed rest thing and have no doubt that I will make it through tomorrow without adding to our family. 32 weeks is a milestone, that six weeks ago, seemed a lot more tentative but I'm happy to report that other than getting larger by the day, not much has changed.

I now have weekly doctors appts on Wednesday afternoons just to be sure I'm not missing anything, but otherwise am just holding out on bed rest until I deliver or am released which I guess might happen at 36 - 37 weeks or so. Though at that point I probably won't be *able* to move even if I wanted to...but we'll see!

There are a lot of things we still need to do before the babies come home, like buy cribs, rearrange things, get rid of all of our personal belongings to make room for baby "stuff", oh yeah and go through labor and delivery. Luckily we have lots of baby clothes, thanks to bags of hand me downs and various purchases by friends and family, it's nice to have one less thing to worry about there.

My mom has been staying with us for the last two weeks making my life on bed rest even easier (no getting up to get food - just call mom!). I know this has helped us make it this far and will help me keep the boys incubating till 34 or 36 weeks or more so they can pop out screaming healthy and ready to walk (or something - just not too much time in the NICU please). Matt is also quite happy to be getting lots of meaty, protien filled meals which I need at this point and mom is great at making.

Everyone always asks if I'm bored, and I'm still not really there yet. Some moments are definitely less exciting than others, but it's really not that bad. I could do without the discomfort that bed rest + 32 weeks with twins offers, but such is life and I only have 6 or 7 more weeks MAX to go I'm sure. I can easily do this for that long.

Oh and I haven't been to the hospital in over two weeks which is soooo great given my track record mid-May - mid-June!

Mini Rampe Reunion

Two weekends ago we had more Rampes in our house than ever before! Here's a photo of the extended family together: Jason Rampe, Sally Rampe, Rivers Rampe, Matt Rampe, Kristen (+2) Rampe, Roxanna Rampe, Scott Edmonds (a Rampe by matrilineage), Jeff Rampe and Sang Tran.

The Sunday afternoon involved some BBQ, some beer and some assembly of train sets and baby swings. The question is where and when will the next Rampe Reunion be?

Yes, we're home! (30 weeks!)

Sorry this is coming so late, and if you've been waiting on the edge of your seat, I did manage to get discharged from the hospital on Monday evening and came home, off all drugs and ready to be on home bed rest yet again.

The hospital stay was a little less fun in the beginning this time because they gave me a HUGE dose of magnesium sulfate, which is really no fun. It wasn't as bad the first time but this time I was hot and thirsty and miserably groggy and uncomfortable. Not to mention I had to use a bed pan! But anyway I survived and the tikes are still where they belong. The latest word from the doc that discharged me was that we're probably done with all meds to stop contractions/labor and they'll just let me go at this point. Granted it's still pretty early to have babies, but much better than 26 weeks and I think they don't want to keep pumping me full of chemicals in the meantime (ok with me).

So now I'm allowed 10 contractions an hour (or so - I think I get to decide a little more now that I've been through it so many times). Every day is still a great milestone to not deliver and we are hoping to make it to 34 weeks at the very least...please keep the positive vibes coming our way!

On Tuesday when we celebrated 30 weeks, we opened the baby shower gifts for the shower that didn't happen except for a few fabulous visitors to the hospital in Hayward. Here's a current family photo for you. (Complete with Matt trying out putting a Dad tattoo onesie from Jenny on the teddy bear)

Hold on for the ride

Many things are unclear right now, but we do know that the boys are going to have to come through in a big way on Mother's Day each year...

This Friday I got a text at work from Kristen - it was time to play ambulance since her contractions had spiked to 12 an hour. Even after having her contraction limit adjusted upward, this was still too high. So we took off to the hospital on a nice sunny Friday afternoon. SF was full again, so we opted to visit our friends in Hayward again.

I think the best words to capture the experience of our third trimester are "rollercoaster". After being called out of comfortable home bedrest on Friday (that pleasant, slow climbing on the rollercoaster), we arrived at Hayward in the triage department where Kristen was promptly examined by a doctor who told us we may be delivering babies the next day (this would be that sudden cliff-like drop in the ride where everyone looses their stomach and screams before going through 5 upside-down twisty turns). Kristen got put on a very heavy dose of anti-contraction medication, which made her feel very hot and groggy. She also got put on a clear liquid diet (meaning only can eat popsicles and soup broth - diabetic popsicles and soup broth mind you). When I came in Saturday morning she was looking pretty miserable from the drugs, but the upside was the contractions slowed dramatically and it looked like we would probably stave off delivery for at least another day (sudden corner turning and ascent up another big hill).

With a full day of hospital ahead of us, we decided to have a very scaled back baby shower (aka - just a few people came to visit). It was great and I think Kristen really appreciated seeing and hearing from everyone. I personally want to say a big thank you to everyone who calls and visits etc. - it is a huge help physically and mentally to have so many caring family members & friends and I know there is no way we would have gotten this far without you (I for one would have lost my mind long ago).

Saturday night Kristen and I had dinner and a movie in the hospital - Chipotle and a DVD from the Blue Planet series (the ocean version of Planet Earth). That's pretty much what a date night looks like for us right now, but we both enjoyed it.

Sunday we are still in the hospital although Kristen may get to go home tomorrow if her cervix behaves itself. The head labor & delivery doctor informed Kristen that the drugs they have at their disposal haven't been scientifically proven to actually postpone pre-term birth (rather they slow the contractions - which aren't 100% correlated with delivery surprisingly). So his advice was to just stay as relaxed as possible and lay low as long as possible since the women who seem to last longest in this situation are the ones who stay relaxed.

To that end we are going to up the bedresting efforts and try to keep Kristen laying down and relaxed as much as we can. We are almost at 30 weeks (Tuesday) and are going for every extra day we can get!

Thanks again to everyone for their thoughts, prayers and help!

29 Weeks!

Another week! Here's a rundown of what happened over the last 7 days:

May 27: bed rest
May 28: bed rest
May 29: bed rest
...

ok, I'll spice it up a bit:

May 27: bed rest and post the "28 weeks" blog entry

May 28: count 11 contractions in the evening. follow procedure and drink 16oz water and recount, with 7 - 9 (some I wasn't sure of). called nurses, who of course said "you have to go in", find out SF is full again so requested Hayward which I learned is 45min away not 30. hung out in triage at Hayward from 10pm - 2am discharged with a prescription for Procardia to reduce contractions.

May 29: Slept. Matt worked from home (yay!). Had pizza and coke for dinner with Matt and Scott.

May 30: Chris and Emilie came over and cooked chicken piccata for dinner. (yes my life still revolves around food). Came up with a list of "real movies" that I can add to my NetFlix queue.

May 31: Practiced bed rest skills all day with Matt who is busier than ever caring for me and keeping up with his job, oh and taking a dip in the SF Bay to prepare for his upcoming aquathon. The bay is about 52 degrees cold +/-.

June 1: Contractions, which were down to about 4 - 5 per hour with the medicine, are now back up to where they were (7-8/hour). Can I enter my uterus in some sort of strength contest? I think I'd win with all of the workouts it's fitting in.

June 2: 29 Weeks! Bed rest all day then Emilie and Matt cooked dinner and a quiche for me to feast on for my diabetic breakfasts over the next several days. Being the greatest friend ever, Emilie also did some shopping for me as I'm outgrowing articles of clothing that I know Matt would prefer not to shop for. I know I'm entering new territory here because my new bra has not one, not two, not three, but FOUR rows of clasps at the back to secure everything into place.

28 Weeks! (&GD)

We made it to the next milestone! Last night Matt and I celebrated 28 weeks complete with party hats, bubbles, some sweet treats and we made a little paper chain that's now hung on the wall with a paper link to tear off each day until 38 weeks. The chain is colorful and cheery and looks nice against our blank living room wall, in that 2nd grade sort of way :-).

Speaking of sweet treats, as if bed rest wasn't enough of a medical pain in the arse, let's add to that my recent diagnosis of Gestational Diabetes! Yes ladies and gentlemen, the results are in and it's official. I will get a call from a dietitian soon to schedule an appointment to talk about meal plans and learn how to use my soon to be purchased glucometer. Ohhh boy! So - anyone dying to send a care package my way should probably include nothing but grilled chicken breasts and plain milk (blagh). The good news is that I've got plenty of time on my hands to track my diet and stick myself for blood, so why not go on a little "oh so that's how that food affects my blood sugar" educational exercise. Let's hope I can escape without having to use insulin.

Why does Kristen have gestational diabetes you might ask? I have the same question. There's no way to pinpoint the exact reason, but the answer, once again, could be because I'm carrying twins. Of course it could also be linked to my obesity issue or my smoking habit.

Here's a blurb from some non-authoritative website:
Multiple Pregnancies often have an increased occurrence of problems like gd and pre-eclampsia. The effect of twice the hormones may overload the insulin sensitivity of moms who might otherwise not develop gd in singleton pregnancies. Moms with twins or more should be monitored earlier and possibly more frequently. Some studies have found that dizygotic (fraternal) twin pregnancies were more likely to have gd than monozygotic (identical) twin pregnancies, probably due to the number of placentas (producing twice the hormones to interfere with insulin usage).

Given that, I have also read that it's possible to have identical twins with two placentas if the egg splits early enough - so the jury is still out on that question! (I do have two placentas)

Anyway back to the pleasant stuff. (oh one more unpleasant thing first - I now wake up every 30 min at night to change positions because my hips/back get sore, it's a real pain in the side - but I'm hoping that some yoga stretches will reduce this!). So - we made it to 28 weeks! That's two weeks more than the direction I was heading when we checked into the hospital. This week the buns are blinking their eyes and putting on more baby fat!

Birthday Boy

This weekend was my birthday and I had a great time. It was somewhat tempered by two factors (1) Kristen is on bedrest, and (2) I am another year older (the later may have more to do with any slowdown in action).

Here's a thumbnail of what I did on my birthday:
8:30AM - Got a card in bed from wifey
9:00AM - Waiting outside my barber shop, coffee in hand, for my birthday haircut
10:30AM - Running in Golden Gate Park with my friend Chris for 45 minutes
3:00PM - Fired up the grill to make Beer Can Chicken over the next 3.5 hrs
6:45PM - Scarfed the chicken, beans, grilled corn and half bottle of wine (wine was all me)
7:30PM - Cousin Scott came for a visit and dropped off a nice bottle of scotch which was tested and approved by those non-pregnant in the room

Yes, a good time was had by all.

27 Weeks!

Last night, Matt, Emilie and I had our first of hopefully many weekly non-birthday celebrations. I made it to 27 weeks! One week ago this milestone was a lot more tentative, but today, having made it one week (and a day now) and following another *scheduled* (this is good) doctor's appointment, I have lots of optimism.

We met with a perinatologist in San Francisco today and got checked out again. Dr. Field said that everything looks good for me and that I'm "doing great". I now feel like I kind of have my pregnancy a little more under control and have a better idea of when things are heading south. Of course I still get to spend all day lying down, but I think I can definitely make it to 31,,,,34,,,,maybe even 36 or 37 weeks! Granted I will look like a Beached Whale by the end of it all, but I also will get two healthy kids out of the whole deal.

Tuesday May 12th - and how my life changed!

On Tuesday May 12th, I started my day working from home, before heading to a scheduled doctors appointment. The appointment was with the Pre-Term Labor department and it was for an education session with a nurse to teach me the signs of pre-term labor. Being pregnant with twins landed me automatic referral to the program at Kaiser which they have set up to educate and monitor "high risk" pregnancies. During the visit I met with RN Jill Bascom who sat me down in a little office room and started to go through the materials describing pre-term labor symptoms. Luckily I didn't have any of them...or at least that's what I thought. As we were sitting there, the RN looks at me (sitting 5 ft away) and says "I think you're having a contraction right now". To which I answered "really"? She points out how hard my belly is, I think to myself "this is how my belly has always felt for the last few weeks".

Luckily for me, this woman was observant and on the ball - she took me back into their little clinic area and hooked me up to some monitors. Long story short, I was contracting every 2 - 3 minutes and didn't even know it. I had always thought this stretching sensation was a little baby bum or head poking up in my belly. I thought a contraction was something that would be more painful, and would make more surface area of my abdomen hard, not just the baseball size shape that I felt when it was happening to me. I've learned a lot since May 12th!

Nurse Bascom tried to get me over to Labor & Delivery (i.e. the hospital), but I think they were full. Instead I got a quick appointment with an MD in their suite, he did a pelvic exam, determined that I wasn't dilated (good news), and prepared a FFN test (fetal fibronectin). He ALMOST tossed out the test after finding out via exam that I wasn't dilated because the risk of being in pre-term labor with no dilation is low (at least that's what I gathered). Thankfully he did decide to send it to the lab just to be sure. After that I went home.

As part of my pre-term labor education I was told that I need to lie down and monitor for contractions twice per day and call the hotline if I have more than 6/hour. So, I laid down that evening, and since I was still a complete novice, got done with the hour having no idea if I had one giant hour long contraction, or none, or something in between. I was not at all confident in my ability to know what the heck a contraction really was. So, I called the hotline. Long story short again, the nurse on the line there pretty much dismissed me and said if I wasn't feeling any that was good and to do it again in the morning. I was kind of ok with this because I had just been checked out by the doc and sent home, and had another appt scheduled for three days later (and I didn't feel bad/laboring in my mind). So that was the good news for 45 minutes until I got a phone call from another doctor who had received the results of the FFN test - it was positive, which is another indication of pre-term labor. She wanted me to go into the hospital to be monitored...oh and by the way the SF hospital is full, you have to go to Hayward (30min away).

No problemo - Matt and I stopped the oven warming up for a frozen pizza dinner, packed a few things and headed out. I called my boss to say I might not come in to work the next day or so (wish I had thought far enough to say "and maybe not for the next six months" haha).

Matt and I got to Hayward and I got all settled into my hospital gear. Got another pelvic exam from another doctor who found (or made!) me 1cm dilated. This was the worst exam I'd ever had in my life - quite painful and no gentleness involved. But anyway, I guess you don't go to the hospital for pleasant experiences. That doc ordered me on magnesium sulfate to slow the contractions, steroids to help the babies lungs mature in case they were to be delivered early, and an appt with the Perinatologist the next day. Matt left around 12:30am and I survived the night in the hospital. I had a few visitors the very next day and Matt came back in the afternoon to keep me company. Magnesium sulfate is no fun, leaves you hot and thirsty and kind of groggy. At 4pm the Perinatologist came in and did an ultrasound - the bad news was/is that my cervix was only 1.5cm thick...he typically likes to see 3.5cm on a twin mom at this stage. A pregnant cervix does not get thicker, so what damage is done, is done, and the hope is just to keep it, and the contractions from cascading me further into labor.

I spent two more days in the hospital and finally got released on Friday afternoon, after another ultrasound from the Perinatologist who got some better images and measured my cervix at more like 1.7cm (not that it grew, but maybe just a better angle?). He felt good that things weren't getting worse and my orders were to go home and be on strict bed rest (that means 22 hrs/day ladies and gentlemen!) with monitoring from the pre-term labor nurses who call me each day. I get to get up and go to the bathroom anytime, and get to make some quick (5min) meals and eat them, shower maybe every other day, and that's about it.

Since we've been home things have been sort of up and down. I'm better at knowing when I'm having contractions, yet there are other signs that I wonder about sometimes (is that low back ache from the way I'm sleeping? or is it yet another pre-term labor sign?). I pretty much quit work with about 0 hours notice (sorry guys - I promise I'll be back later this year) and have been working hard at just relaxing which is not as easy as it sounds when you also have to learn a million new things about your own body and how to read different signals it's giving you.

I would like to give a huge thank you and apology to all friends, family, co-workers who have sent their well wishes my way, who have visited, who have not visited (this is very much appreciated too!!), etc. It took me this long to get the energy to sit up with a laptop and type out my story for all to see...the whole two way communication thing is still a tiring thought, so if I ignore your call or say I don't want visitors, please don't take it personally. Call Matt or Emilie for updates on me, both have been fabulously helpful and are making my life much more pleasant. Hopefully if things ever get kind of regular or boring on bed-rest I will be more up for talking/writing/etc. For now though, I'm not bored at all, so don't worry about me.

Oh and for the "how did this happen" side of the story - I'm not sure there's a very clear answer. What I'm telling myself from what I've pieced together, is a few things 1) I have twins - which automatically is more of a burden on the body than a single baby, 2) I'm not exactly the largest woman on the block, the bigger you are the more adaptable your body/womb/etc is to handling the excess capacity, 3) I'm pretty active, it's not easy for me to be "somewhat relaxed" which is why bed rest is probably a good thing for me. Until Tuesday I was pretty much up and about (sitting/standing) all day long, with maybe just a little extra sleep each night. This is not exactly what my body needed I guess.

As for my pregnancy timeline, on May 12th I was at 26 weeks, which is just barely in to the "possibly viable" state for the babies, but definitely far from developed and ready to live on their own. Each day is a milestone at this point and probably every week they stay inside me for the next month is 3 - 4 weeks less in the NICU when they come out. We really want to get them as far as we can, especially past the 31 week mark (June 16), and even better if we can get to 34 weeks before delivering. More than that is great too but the long term issues get less and less the further you get into the 30-week zones.

Also, if anyone else is ever faced with bed rest, I highly recommend getting some cats and a great husband. The cats are GREAT at this bed rest thing and have been showing me just how to do it since the moment I got home and Matt had been a superstar in getting me what I need to be comfortable and trying on some new culinary skills to keep his wife and two boys fed, which is not easy despite only burning calrories laying down.

I'll post again when I'm up for it - in the meantime please leave comments on the blog or send me emails, I love to get both.

Mother's Day

Matt and I had a wonderful mother's day last Sunday. He found the most fitting card - depicting two kids that looked like twins, one dad, one orange cat and a pillow that looked like Pascal (our other black and white cat), with mom passed out on the couch. The caption said "Oh No" and inside read "The Server's Down!" "Time to relax and enjoy mother's day".

We spent the day relaxing around the house, took a quick trip to IKEA to get an idea of what cribs are all about, and went out to Cafe Gratitude for dinner which was delicious!. I received several "happy mothers day to be" greetings from people that day and cards in the mail. I'm so glad to have such a great husband, family and friends! Here are a few photos of the not-so-pregnant and so-pregnant perspectives of me...

Preview of Coming Attractions...

Kristen & I went to a consignment sale hosted by the San Francisco Parents of Multiples club last week. For a mere $5 each, I picked up what will be an instant classic this winter... : )

Baby Shower & Registry Info

Mark your calendars! Our baby shower will be on Saturday June 6th, at our place in San Francisco. My fabulous matron of honor Emilie will be planning the party and I'm sure it will be lots of fun! I'm also hoping that we'll be lucky enough to contract with our personal pastry chef (Amy) for some delicious sweet goodies for the event.

As for registry stuff, we have two real registries:

1. Amazon and


2. Babies R Us

There are also some other things we'd love to have:

1. Gift cards for IKEA to buy cribs, other baby furniture and fixings (can't order online, have to call: 1-800-434-4532)
2. Small Paul White 0-3 mo. size long sleeve Julius Monkey onesie (JUST ONE - long story which I'll explain to whomever finds it cute enough to get us, but we do have another just like it already).
3. Gift cards to Target, Babies R Us or any other stores where we can get the "other" baby items that we've undoubetly left off our request list (as if I have any idea what I really need for this adventure!)
4. Used stuff/hand me downs/re-gifts! We're quite happy to receive anything we need that fits into these categories too! (except maybe the car seats)
5. Anything super cute or fun and otherwise irresistible from local little baby stores. We definitely prefer the practical real gifts from the above lists, but if you just can't help yourself they have so many cute things to buy at these places.

I will keep updating this particular post as things change or if we receive some of individual things listed above so we don't end up with 8 Small Paul onesies.

Easter at the Edmonds

This is really part two of Matt's triathlon post below...following the early morning athletic event we headed over to the Edmond's (Matt's cousins) in Sacramento. We had a great Easter dinner and lot of fun catching up with Liz, Hal, Hal's Sister Susan, Barrett, Amy, Scott and a few neighbors.

Wedding in Indy

This past weekend Kristen & I went to a friend's wedding in Indianapolis. Kristen had the honor of being a "groomswoman" for the groom Justin. Ironically she wasn't the only pregnant woman there - in fact the other woman was in the wedding ceremony, was 38 weeks and was wearing the same dress!

This is Kristen & me in the center of Indianapolis before the wedding.

belly

belly...

Gettting...

BIGGER!!!

: )

Triathlon!

This is somewhat unrelated to the buns, but Dad (aka - me) finished his first triathlon this weekend at the UC Davis Sprint Triathlon! It was a nice, sunny day in Davis (near Sacramento). There was a field of about 180 competitors - many of which were on college triathlon teams.

The swim was 0.5 miles in a pool, followed by a windy 18 mile flat bike course, then a 4 mile run on the campus. My time was 1 hour 53 minutes. I was happy to have 1) finished and 2) broken 2 hours (my goal going in). It was definitely a good time and a confidence builder for the several other races I signed up for this year (including the race in September).

So the moral is ... maybe I can finish my race in September???

Twins on Bessie St

A few weeks ago, I finally signed us up as members of the San Francisco Parents of Multiples Club. They offer lots of online information, posting forums, an annual consignment sale, meeting groups etc etc all focused on people with twins (or triplets or more...and no octomom does not live in northern california).

After joining I scoured through the roster to see if there were any other expectant or new parents remotely close to me that I could befriend...after scrolling through several member listings within the same zip code and finding a few that were on nearby streets, you'll never guess what I found...another expectant mother on Bessie St!

For those of you who don't know where we live, Bessie St is exactly two blocks long. I figured I'd be lucky to find anyone pregnant on our street (or within a few streets) - let alone someone with twins! Natasha & Steve are expecting their set two months before us. We've already met up for dinner and to watch an educational video "The Happiest Baby on the Block"...I guess parenthood is officially starting, luckily we'll have some partners in crime to experience it with!

To Do List

Anyone who has lived with me knows I am a list maker. Here is a list of things to do with my sons / necessary son-raising equipment:

1. BBQ
2. Bikes
3. Big-Wheels
4. The 5 gallon lego set
5. Water balloons
6. Watermelon (in summer)
7. Magnifying glass, paper, (ants optional)
8. Model rockets
9. Science books (how stuff works)
10. Dirt
11. Play clothes
12. Worms
13. Matching outfits at holidays (sorry Kristen, it runs in the family)
14. Tonka trucks
15. Gallons of milk (soy)
16. Otter pops
17. Rain boots
18. Bath toys
19. Toy fire truck (with annoying siren mysteriously broken...)
20. PJs

Dubble Trubble

Today I did what any good expectant father would do - I had some of the guys over and brewed beer in honor of my two twin boys. The beer is a Belgian dubble that I named "Dubble Trubble". The beer went into the primary fermenter this afternoon and should be ready to drink in 3-7 months (conveniently around the time of the twins' birth). The beer will be part celebratory (when they are born) and part self-medicating (after they are born).

All in good fun. Will post a pic or two if I can dig up some good ones.

And The Winner Is...

Well the Gender Lotto results are in, and it's Two Boys! Hard to believe that out of 25 friends/family participants there were only 4 lucky winners: Betsy Burhman [Kristen's Aunt], Liz Edmonds [Matt's Cousin], Claudette MacMillan [Matt/Kristen's former co-worker], Jennifer Hebert [Kristen's Step-Mom]. We owe each of you $1.56...

There have been request by close family for photographic evidence of the pregnancy, so hopefully we've fulfilled that with the picture below. I'm about 18.5 weeks pregnant and the photo is from today.

By the way - welcome to our blog! For those of you who are new here (which should be pretty much everyone except Rian and Jess who got the url early) - you may want to start reading from the bottom of the page upwards. As for how often we might post something here - who knows. I think weekly might be a good goal, but no promises. Also, please definitely post comments for us, we love to read them!

Hunger - All Day, Every Day, And All Night Too

From my last post, you will have noticed that I crave "Food". Ummm, yeah, I pretty much can't get enough of it. The worst is when I wake up in the middle of the night (usually 3 - 5 am) STARVING so bad that I can't sleep at all any more until I get up to eat. My food of choice at this hour is usually yogurt. It's easy, sweet and takes zero preparation other than opening the lid and grabbing a spoon. Second favorite if I think I'm not too hungry is chocolate soy milk.

I generally buy out the entire produce section at Safeway each week - coming home with a huge assortment of fruits mainly, and whatever veggies I need to cook with meals for the week (plus some for snacks too). Right now I'm also enjoying girl scout cookies, mmmmm.

I try to eat a BIG lunch during the week, because I always eat out and can get some good hearty food for my $7 - $10. Dinner is a challenge because I'm often tired from work and can't be bothered to cook...but then of course I get cranky. If I'm hungry, DO NOT STAND IN THE WAY OF ME AND MY FOOD. I might spend 20 min preparing something, but I generally can not carry on a conversation at the same time, I must focus solely on food prep and getting to my destination of tasty food in my belly. I am pretty picky on food at home, lots of vegetarain stuff (sorry, Matt) and very little meat because it just doesn't taste good unless it's smothered in sauce (e.g., taco night, spaghetti, soup, etc.) or if Matt made it on the grill (always good!).

I was worried a while back about not gaining enough weight but I think I'm on track now. I'll know more this week after my next doctor's appointment and 18wk ultrasound.

Here's me all the time:

Cravings? - February 28, 2009

Everyone always asks if I have "any weird cravings". My answer is generally no because nothing bizarre sticks with me enough to want to eat it all the time. What I do crave is:

1. FOOD (more on that in the next post)

2. Anything that sounds good when someone mentions it and I can't let go of the idea (2 - 4 x per week)

3. Fruit

To elaborate on #2, here's a little story of how this shakes out. One fine Saturday morning I was at my favorite pre-natal yoga class and one of the other students mentioned that someone in her office was far along in her pregnancy but was still pretty tiny so that most people didn't know until another person said they had ordered in cupcakes for her baby shower.

At this point I became fixated on the word "cupcakes" - almost like if you looked at my eyes you'd see little images of cupcakes spinning in circles...it was all I could think about. So I went home, showered, had some lunch (well I probably had lunch before I showered) then decided that I needed cupcakes. And, well, living in San Francisco, it's easy to get spoiled on cupcakes and I was aware taht I didn't just need any cupcake, I needed Kara's Cupcakes. So I made Matt drive me accross town to the Marina district to pick up these fabulous creations. Luckily we were having Emilie and Chris over for dinner that night so I could justify buying 8 of them! (don't ask how)...Matt kept the car occupied while I feasted my eyes on the most delicious sugar creations in the world (aside from anything my Grammy bakes of course). I selected the 8 best cupcakes then we headed to Fort Mason to chow down. And yes they were as good as I was hoping!

Baby Shower "#1" - Feb. 21, 2009

Here comes about four posts on everything I've been up to in the last month or two since I don't seem to be any good at doing regular blog posting. My mom came in to town on President's Day weekend to attend the infamous Clothes Swap hosted by my friend Grace. Since she was going to be around that weekend, and probably not again until there are two little squirmy grandkids running around, I decided to kick off my baby shower extravaganza with "Baby Shower Number 1!". Now don't feel bad if you haven't heard about this until now, I'm planning on having several more and you're bound to be on the invite list for one or more of them.

This one was particularly intimate, with three guests: Mom, Emilie and Ami. My party planner and matron of honor extraordinaire, Emilie, planned the afternoon at a lovely little Tea House over near Golden Gate Park. We each had a nice pot of tea and some finger sandwiches and desserts and I learned what I could from the experienced moms at the table.

I was also lucky enough to get a few fun gifts too! Some cute little baby outfits from mom, Lucien the Rabbit from Emilie (stuffed animal), a virtually indestructible copy of Goodnight Moon from Ami and also from the Amin family but suggested by young Arjun - a music cube toy!

Twins - Holy Cow!

People say raising twins can be overwhelming - well I can already tell you that just getting ready for them is overwhelming. Here is a snapshot of some thoughts at week 16:

• Kristen and I have probably read through 5+ pregnancy/child related books to date (with many more in the que). That information will cover us for maybe the rest of the year at best.
• There is a barrage of new things you need to buy or consider buying during pregnancy or for your kids. Onsies, cribs, bassonets (not a word that was in my vocabulary last week), expanding stomach cream (during pregnancy), bela-bands (tube top like thing that holds kristen's pants up these days), boppy (I still don't know what this is). And we haven't gotten around to navigating what feels like dozens of incrementally different nursing bottles, much less given any real thought to early childhood development - like what kind of music, books, stimulation, educational environment, medical, etc. they will need once they are here.
• Speaking of expenses - day care on its own for two pretty much wipes out my entire year of earnings. (And to add insult to injury - tax breaks for kids are a joke). Then add on all other child related expenses - food, health care, new furniture, equipment/toys, etc. Oh, and also realize that to get into a daycare program that is halfway decent, you have to apply many months in advance and hope that you can get admitted for a spot when your child is ready to go. Then cross your fingers that they have two spots.
• Wondering how on earth Kristen is going to 1) learn how to feed the kids 2) teach them how to feed 3) get them on the same feeding schedule 4) do it all soon enough after they get home so she doesn't literally have to feed for 24 hours every day. (12 feedings / day / baby x 1 hr / feeding x 2 babies).
• Realizing that the triathlon I have been training for since summer 2008 falls precisely 1.5 months after our expected arrival of twins. Perfect! If it was, say 2 weeks after they were born, maybe I could get in a few workouts (using 100% adrenaline) and call it a "taper" to the race day. But 1.5 months with sleep deprivation, a needy wife, two new babies and the almost guaranteed lack of exercise does not spell ideal training circumstances. Add to that the fact that this will be a 3 hour triathlon starting with a 1 hr swim in 50 something degree open water - not something you want to hope you can fake your way through.

All is not doom and gloom though. Kristen and I are upbeat. Overwhelm at times, but upbeat.

I really am pregnant!

And welcome to our new blog that just might capture a teeny bit of this whole adventure. By my calculations I'm about um, 14.5 weeks? I think that's right, I don't always keep the best of track of these things, especially since with twins it's all a crap shoot when they'll be born.

This week I think I look like I have a big beer belly. However, not everyone I talk to (well at least last week) saw a lot of "showing". Matt ran across this great comic which really sums it up: