32 Weeks and Counting...

We are now 32 weeks and 1 day! Yeah!

Yesterday was our 32 week ultrasound and checkup. We planned it just right. Our daughter isn't allowed in the building where the ultrasound appointment is so we made the appointment for 10:30am and made arrangements with a great friend of mine that lives near the hospital to drop our daughter off on our way and pick her up right after so we could grab lunch before our Dr. appointment. When I made the appointment the receptionist assured me we would most likely be done by noon. Which was perfect as my friend needed to leave by 12:30 to take her daughter to preschool.

Perfect timing. Makes sense right? Nice try.

We dropped our daughter off right at 10:15am and were checking in for the ultrasound by 10:25am. Yeah! We waited our turn and somewhere around probably 10:45am we got called back to an ultrasound room.

We got settled right away and she greased up my belly and began. She went through all the usual things, checking me and the babies. The first thing she told us about the boys was that Baby A was head down and Baby B is breech. That's what we were hoping to hear. If Baby A had still been breech we would have been looking at a probable c-section, but with him head down we can go ahead with a planned VBAC. Baby B's positioning doesn't matter as much because Baby A will 'pave the way' for him, as long as he doesn't end up a few lbs bigger than Baby A.

Unlike our other ultrasounds I found that the images on the screen were not very clear. The boys are so big now that instead of looking up and going, "a foot! ooh, look at his little nose", etc. what we saw was a large mass of limbs. Occasionally I would realized I was looking at ribs or a femur, but for the most part it was hard to tell what anything was unless she happened to be measuring it in that particular moment. Needless to say the days of cute pictures to post and share are over until they arrive. We tried to get cute little face shots, but both boys were turned inward and the closest we got was a glimpse of Baby B's nose. :-)

The machine our technician was using was apparently new and she was either new to the practice or new to the machine because there was a lot of 'figuring out' going on during our appointment. Which probably contributed to the fact that when she finally said we were all done and she'd let the doctor know we were ready it was already 12:15pm.

My DH had to leave to go pick up our daughter before we could meet with the doctor. I sat for half an hour in the room by myself waiting. At some point our technician poked her head in and said something about it being just another minute, but after waiting over 40 minutes I was still without a doctor to talk to.

In the meantime my husband had picked up my daughter and parked on the street just down from the building to wait for me. They had been sitting in the car cranking the a/c for over half an hour and we needed to eat lunch before our 1:30pm doctor's appointment.

I finally poked my head out and found a nurse I knew.  After she promised to find out what was going on I went back in and waited another ten minutes before the doctor actually came in. She didn't give an explanation for the delay and since I was beyond ready to go I didn't ask but got right down to finding out what she had to say so I could leave.

She went over the findings with me. The boys were doing great! Baby A was weighing in at approximately 4lbs 3 oz putting him around the 46th percentile. Baby B weighed about 4lbs 7oz. putting him around the 58th percentile. She said that was based on singleton weight, so as twins they were doing great! She said whatever I'm doing, keep it up!

She recommended starting weekly stress tests from here on out to not only check in on the boys once a week, but to check their fluid levels at the same time and make sure they don't start running low or showing a significant difference in levels of fluids in each sac.

At almost 1:15pm I finally thanked the doctor and headed out of the building. Down the elevator, out the front door in the 90+ degree heat, around the building and about half a block down the street to where my poor hungry husband and daughter were waiting.

We decided to grab a quick snack in the cafe of the building where my doctor is so once we parked I dropped them off on the first floor and then continued up the elevator to my doctor, got signed in and filled my water cup from their nice cold water dispenser. Ahh..sweet relief.  Off to the bathroom to leave my urine sample and I settled myself in the far corner of the room where there were plenty of empty seats expecting a long wait to see the doctor. I figured we'd camp in that corner and dive into some calories before I got called.

I sat down and on the other end of the large waiting area I heard, "Miss Markez?" "Did you say Marquis?" I called. She laughed, "I'm sorry, Marquis."

I leveraged myself out of the chair where I had just landed to enjoy my cold water and waddled the length of the room muttering something about the room not looking so big the last time I was here. The nurse laughed and took me back to the scale.

At my last appointment 2 weeks ago I was happy to find I had gained 30 lbs on my pregnancy, bringing me up to about 163 (the weight I was the week my daughter was due). I couldn't wait to see how great I had done since then. I stepped on the scale and she stopped playing with the pieces at 165.

"Only two?" I asked.

I must have looked as disappointed as I felt, because she smiled and said I was doing great. Off to the examination room for a blood pressure check. Not sure what it was, I was so hungry I wasn't paying as much attention, but she didn't mention a problem and neither did my doctor.


My phone beeped and I saw a new text from my husband. They had arrived in the office to find me gone. I texted back which room I was in and then stood in the doorway and waited. Of course they would have found me no problem, but I was so hungry that I wasn't taking any chances on them getting turned around.

As soon as my daughter spotted me she yelled Mommy and ran straight to me to give me a hug and proudly show me the package of baked cheetos she was already wearing as much as eating. These are the moments I call Loopholes. We eats so healthy 95% of the time that when moments like this arrive, it is what it is.

I hopped, okay carefully climbed, back up on the table to sit and my husband produced a cheese bagel with cream cheese and a fruit salad. I love that man! I devoured my half of the cheese bagel/cream cheese sandwich in record time and sat back with a sigh while we watch our daughter, now full of refined sugar and color dyes, zip around the room like a fly in a jar stopping only long enough to eat a bite of strawberry or a grape.

Calories consumed I had a few bites of the fruit salad too while we waited.

When the doctor came in I had to finish chewing so I could say Hi. He didn't mind. :-)

I gave him the update from the ultrasound.

"Baby A is head down."

To which he replied, "Who hoo!" throwing his arms in the air like I had just scored a goal.

"And Baby B is breech."

He waved a hand, "Bah, who cares about that!" he said with a smile.

I asked him since we were looking at a VBAC what kind of time frame he was thinking.  He looked at his calendar. I jokingly said, "November 2nd sounds like a good day, they'll be 37 weeks."

"Nice try Mom," he replied, with a knowing smile. "38 weeks."

He went back to his calendar and decided that since 38 weeks would be November 9th, we'd plan for November 8th as D-day.  If I don't go into spontaneous labor, then this will be my induction day.

Now that I knew I had one day shy of six weeks, I wanted to know how big he expected the boys to be. He said at their current growth rate he expected between six and seven lbs each. Not a bad size. I think he is leaning more toward six lbs though, because I mentioned that my daughter had been 7lbs 4oz and his reply was that hopefully they wouldn't be that big, with a laugh.

He checked my cervix and happily announced I was not dilated at all and was 25% effaced. Good news!

See you in two weeks!

So off we went, happy our boys were healthy and on track, and torn between excited and terrified to realized that in less than six weeks they would be here in our arms!

Down the street to Soup Plantation for a much needed late lunch. It was already 3 o'clock when we sat down to eat and usually our daughter eats lunch around noon and takes a rest around 2pm. With her still tired after being sick last week, we knew she wouldn't last long on the drive home.

Sure enough we were five minutes down the road when the soft sound of snoring drifted up to the front seat. She slept all the way home, transferred to her bed without a peep, curled up and went back to sleep after barely stirring.

We were starting to think she was going to sleep through the night when my Hubs and I realized we were getting hungry around 7:30 or so. He went on an In N Out run and about two minutes before he got back she woke up and climbed in bed with me.

Everybody ate our dinner, watched Scooby Doo and then went quietly off to bed. We all slept great!

We finally got to call all the grandparents and give them a more accurate arrival date. Or at least a deadline for the latest they will arrive. Now everybody can start making travel plans to come and see these two little imps when they arrive. And did I mention the part where family comes and visits and helps out. I like that part A LOT. I'm going to have my hands full and my husband is only going to be taking a few days around the birth since family will be arriving so he can take the bulk of his time off after everybody leaves to help me transition to doing it solo during the days.

Less than six weeks to go and I will get to meet my little boys face to face. I can't wait!!!