Jesse's upstairs rinsing off before we head to the hospital.

I took a five hour nap today.
I was trying my old tricks.
I even had Jesse's permission to be completely useless.
But then my phone started ringing, and when I looked at caller i.d., it was the NICU.
They said they needed permission to do something to Reese.
After coming down stairs to explain the situation to Jesse, I called them back.
They need multiple witnesses for my permission over the phone, so one after another...

"This is Emelda, do we have your consent?"
"You have my consent."

"This is Kimberly, do we have your consent?"
"Yes. I consent."

"This is Dr. Han, do we have your consent?"
"Yes."

I'm beginning to think that the only way to cope with a situation of this magnitude, is to fake it.

Today I found myself saying,
Everything is going to be okay.
Somehow, that actually made me feel better.

The doctors have told us to educate ourselves on all the medical terms and procedures we're confronting. When I asked them if we'd be able to do anything with that information, they said, "No... But knowledge is power."
"But then.." I said, "I do want to know what's going on, but knowing doesn't actually help anything, does it?"
They grinned as though I missed the point and were too tired to go over it again with me.
"We don't want you to challenge us. But we want to empower you with knowledge."

Jesse kindly countered that we don't feel empowered. That we feel quite powerless no matter what we know or don't know.

And that's the closest thing to a story I have to tell today.

Jesse's ready to go. He's sitting on the stairs waiting.

People

They've given me little dolls to rub my scent on.
A tag wrapped around each neck, explains they were donated by the local Catholic church.
I imagine someone like Nanny sitting around with a bunch of other ladies like Nanny, speaking softly while putting together these simple creatures.
I have two.
One for Elliott and one for Reese.
They're made of printed fabric.
The head is a ball tied off at the neck. The body is the remaining fabric, left to drift like a ghost.
Reese's doll has puppy dogs in strollers.
Elliott's has tractors.
These are the ones I have with me.
There are also two more in their beds right now.
This way we can switch them out, so I can smell them, and they can smell me.

I lay them in my lap with a few pictures taken in the NICU, while I pump breast milk.
As the days go by, the storage bags get fuller.
I count the ounces as though it were some measure of my love; my usefulness. When I'm done pumping, Jesse seals the bags and brings them directly to the nurses.

Tomorrow I get discharged. I go home just one day short of a month after my arrival.

The nurse has told me that getting the staples out wont hurt.

I don't want to go home.
I want to stay here and be on bed rest for eight more weeks, like I'd planned to.
I want to be put in a coma til time has caught up with us, and everything is as I wish it were.

But tomorrow I go home and begin reclaiming a part of my life. I do feel a deep need for some normalcy. I want to cook my own food, set my own schedule, and see people in a normal way, rather than being visited.

The full force of this experience is approaching me. I'm glad it wasn't sooner, as the staples in my belly couldn't withstand that kind of breathing.

They always said that each day I kept the babies in my belly was like three on the outside.
Maybe I needed three days inside myself, before I was ready to receive today.

I am all love.

Most of the time it makes me laugh,
and sometimes it makes me dream about wolves,
and right now it has me a bit oozy.

It's more than I could ever hope for, or dare to have.
With nothing equitable to give in return.

It is... Saturday.
Reese and Elliott are behaving so far. Reese taunts me by aiming himself right for the birth canal. Reminding me of a skydiver waiting for the hatch to open. He's quiet most of the time, only kicking enough to let us know he's still on board. Elliott rolls and pushes all day long. I imagine he's telling me jokes in morris code, and I laugh very loud so he can here me.
Yesterday the nurses let us wheel down to the NICU for an informal orientation. In the past few days we've come to accept that things might go faster than we desired. The NICU was far less scary than I had imagined. To our great fortune, a young mom happened to be visiting her twin boys. She let us roll up and talk to her for a few minutes. She couldn't have been more positive and praising of the staff and experience.
Leaving, I wondered if we had been duped.
If this sweet girl we had been speaking with was in fact an animatronic creation on loan from Disneyland.
Regardless, it had worked. I was feeling much better. I was feeling like things might get very difficult, but they wont get tragic.

We're pretty familiar with all the nurses now. An unexpected favorite is Vicky. She has a strong Taiwanese accent. She's brought in movies for me to watch. Jesse refuses to join me for Joy Luck Club. Vicky loves Jesse. She calls him "Brian Pitt". We don't want to correct her.

Friday marked 27 weeks and as much as I didn't understand the women who blog about "making it", I am beginning to catch on. I've gone from completely laid back and mostly dismissive of subtle aches and pains, to a person who repeatedly tracks the development and health statistics of preterm birth.
Otherwise, I'm beginning to come down from the height of my anxiety. It's my nature to believe that bad things wont happen to me. My dreams remain positive, though they've changed. Now I dream that they're completely healthy and able to nurse, but they're premature.

Although everything in my life is centered on this pregnancy, I still have moments when I stop and feel like I'm only just finding out there are babies inside me. In only a few months at best, we'll move on to something so different that we wont have time to look back on the days we spent here.
As of now, it's really unimaginable.

Last night they finally moved me upstairs to the post-partum unit that I've been hearing about. Jesse took four trips of his own with all my things before I was rolled up in a wheelchair. As the nurse pushed me into the elevator I was smiling ear to ear. I realized that my new home wouldn't be much different from my old one, but I hadn't set foot out of room 316 in a week. The prospect of new kinds of hospital furniture was enough to get me fantasizing.
Upon entering the fifth floor, I was excited about some things and disappointed with others. The nurses behind the nurse station were wearing polo shirts and looked very young. My room was more private, but also about a third the size of my old room. I had also gained an entire wall of window to look out, but Jesse had lost his bed.
Against one wall are two hospital bassinets. This I like very much. I'm facing them from my bed and look at them often.
Trying to imagine a baby in each one.

After Jesse had unpacked all my things, Colleen and Dave came to visit. It was very nice. Jesse and I smiled at each other in approval of our new location.
When the visit was over, Jesse made a bed on the couch and we turned out the lights. We laid in silence facing each other. I said, "I don't like this room."
He said, "Me neither."

At 4a.m., Nurse Karen came in. All the lights came on instantly, and in her most day time voice she told me that it was time to monitor the babies. She then proceeded to audibly argue with the machine she couldn't get to work. Eventually she pulled in another nurse to help her. Jesse and I communicated our murderous rage when ever we made eye contact.
In the nine days since we arrived at St. Jude, I've had a lot of nurses, and a lot of monitoring, and this woman was exceptionally incompetent. She was apparently oblivious to the fact that she had just woken up a pregnant woman who is having enough difficulty sleeping in a hospital. When she did get the monitors on, she didn't even check to see if they were catching anything before saying that she'd be back in twenty minutes and, "Would we like the lights off so we could sleep?"
I told her that she could keep the lights on.
That we weren't going back to sleep.
When she left the room, Jesse and I had to find the right place for the monitors and hold them in place. An hour later Nurse Karen came back, blaming someone else for letting her keep them on so long.
When all was done, that beautiful window next to me started glowing with morning light. It was going on 6a.m.
I managed an hour or two of sleep before waking up to breakfast. I had a nightmare that my blood pressure rose and the nurses weren't letting me have visitors. I dreamed that my belly was very big and my belly button kept distending like a hernia.

Today we have Nurse Nancy. When she went to give me a thermometer, Jesse almost attacked her. I had to do some damage control before she left. When she was gone I asked Jesse, "What was that all about?"
He explained that he just didn't like them interrupting my breakfast. That the nurses down stairs never interrupted my breakfast.
I understood where he was coming from, but asked that he let me do the talking in the future.
I ate what I liked of the breakfast, and Jesse had the rest.
I turned on my side facing the window. I saw a cloud that looked like a baby. I watched it turn into Snoopy and then disappear all together.
Jesse asked me if I wanted a coffee. I turned to my side facing the wall and said no. He asked if I'd like him to close the blinds, and I said no. He sat quietly for a moment, and I told him he should get out and run some errands. He obliged.
At 10:45a.m. I called the nurse to tell her that my medication was due at 10a.m. She said she'd look into it.
Okay, why don't you look into it.

The moral of the story isn't that this place sucks.
It's far from sucking.
If this sort of thing had happened in the first three nights, we wouldn't have given it any thought.
So I guess the moral of the story, is that you never want to stay in a hospital so long that you know when people are screwing up.
Because it will piss you off far more than it probably should.
And last long past your 12 o'clock jello parfait.

I asked Josh for pictures of Lola. Well, it was more like a demand than request. He's obliged, and I don't think he knows how much her face does for me.
My recent favorite is attached here.
Lola discovered the art of hair product by means of peanut butter. Her aunt Louanne would be so proud.


Lunch is done. Knitting is done. The health care summit go's on long past schedule.
At around 12p.m. a couple was moved into the bed next to us. We never saw them from behind our dividing curtain, but could pick up on some of the conversation. She believes she's having a boy. Her husband's name is also Jesse...
Now that it's going on 2p.m., they've moved out for a cesarean.
I miss them.

Another doctor drops by to ask us how we're doing. He tells me that I look pretty stable. He says that as soon as they can do an ultrasound they'll be ready to move us up to a more long term room. I guess the new concern is that one of the babies is a bit smaller than the other, even though both are well within healthy weight range for their age. I'm neither concerned about this, nor am I surprised that they've found something new to cause delay. I'm in a hospital. Hospitals are for sick people, and so they are bound to find a way to qualify my being here.

Nancy Pelosi looks exceptionally human-like today.

24 1/2 weeks

I guess this is day 3, though it's still dark outside. I managed about two hours sleep before waking to the monitor beeping. It does that when the paper runs out.

I feel a bit like static. There's no use in getting upset, but happiness isn't quite the emotion either. Being admitted to the hospital has turned the natural progression of pregnancy into something more like a long business trip. One in which I'll count the days and look forward to meeting my quota. This is hardly something to complain about given the circumstance, but here I am. Unable to sleep. And that really wouldn't bother me if not for the worry I feel that this lack of sleep means to some extent that the babies aren't getting what they need either.
My doctor stopped by around 8p.m. last night to tell Jesse and I everything we'd heard previously through our nurses. He ended the conversation by saying that many women on bedrest experience problems with sleeping and that if I'd like he could prescribe Ambien.
I hadn't mentioned that I was having a hard time sleeping.
We thanked him for the offer but said we'd see how things went in the next few days. In the same manner that one might politely turn down an invitation to the bathroom for a line of coke.
When the doctor left the room I immediately asked Jesse to search "Ambien during pregnancy" on the internet. He said, "There's no way you should take that!" I said, "Of course I know that. I want to see just how Hollywood our doctor is."
The results were about what we expected. Ambien's effects have not been studied in pregnant women. Ambien has been found in umbilical cords, which means that it crosses into the placenta. Babies born with Ambien in their system can experience withdraw symptoms.
But it wouldn't take these warnings for most people to understand it's a bad idea. Just having witnessed people who stay up a little too long after popping an Ambien, is reason enough to surmise that you don't want it anywhere near a developing fetus.
And it's kind of appalling that someone might suggest it to a person who is at high risk of delivering highly vulnerable, premature babies. Point being, we're not huge fans of our doctor, but we keep educated, and so we feel pretty in control.
Jesse sleeps in the bed six feet next to me. Last night he tried cuddling with me in my own bed. It was great therapy, but I guess it was irritating my uterus. Within a few minutes the nurse was in to nicely tell us that Jesse needed to vacate. He got out and we watched my belly on the monitor. Sure enough, the line went from hilly to practically smooth. We gave each other puppy eyes as we acknowledged that Jesse was in fact braking the peace in my uterus. Jesse shuffled along to his bed and passed out shortly after.
He's said that he's sleeping remarkably well here. I feel so lucky that we get to be here at St. Jude. The staff is warm and welcoming with the both of us, and dads are encouraged to be as involved as possible. They purposely chose a room that would have a spare bed for him. The building we're in is only a year old. I'm most impressed with the flat screen t.v.s and the nourishment room outside, where Jesse can charm sodas and snacks from the staff.
We'll most likely move up to the antepartum ward tomorrow afternoon. I believe there will be fewer nurse visits and monitoring. Most importantly we can get to moving in. Some people go as far as hanging posters. I'm opting for a few choice pictures of my niece Lola, my baby icon.

A few entertaining thoughts I had today:

1. I gave up sitting and walking for lent.
2. Between me and my cervix, Jesse has become the Jane of our Brady Bunch. My cervix being Marsha, and I guess that makes me the cute one.
3. Always keep the lady with the speculum happy.

Information for the day:

1. We're all incredibly healthy.
2. We're mostly bored; not scared.
3. Tests say that these babies have a 98% chance of not delivering in the next two weeks. That doesn't surprise me. I think we'll go much longer than that. Not only because I feel that way, but because I've done a lot of my own research on women in my same position.
4. Hospital food isn't all that bad when you have incredibly simple tastes, and I swing both ways in that respect.

My lovely lady bump.

In the morning I give myself as much time as I need to find the right outfit. Sometimes that means a pair of yoga pants and a tank top that no longer covers my belly button. Other days, like this one, it means a short and shiny gold dress over leggings.
My inspiration: Courtney Kardashian of the reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
Her style says, Armenian pregnant club girl. I guess that's what I found appropriate when preparing for my sister and mom's visit today. Granted, I'll be laying on the couch with a blanket up to my waist, but a gold dress should never stay in the closet for more than a couple weeks.
More importantly, my body is outgrowing my wardrobe options exponentially. In just a few more weeks I may be forced to wander the house in a pea coat.

Today marks day 13 of my bed rest. It's given me a lot of time to Google absolutely whatever comes to mind, such as:

24 weeks pregnant
bed rest 24 weeks
24 weeks twins
bed rest fitness
bed rest survival

Admittedly, "whatever comes to mind" is pretty much the same thought re-worded.

And of course, there are the belly pictures.
I can't get enough of them.

I'm at least daily looking for new pictures of women pregnant with twins. I recently realized that when I pass a mirror, I'm checking out my belly instead of my face. As obsessed as I am, I have a hard time taking pictures of my own. Maybe my internet searches are at fault for my modesty.
I've seen too many supposedly sweet pictures of pregnant women posed in the nude, in sexy Santa Claus costumes, or laying on their side in black lacy underwear. Apparently, Demi Moore's classic Vanity Fair cover made every woman in America believe it was acceptable to pose with their belly as though it were a prop.
A sexy prop.
And while I believe pregnant women are more than entitled to be sexual, I think it's insulting to say that you're documenting your pregnancy when you take that glamor shot, naked with airbrushed angel wings.

Hmm. I'm hungry again.