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OB Round-Up

Now that I am treated to bi-weekly visits to my OB's office, I think I have met most of the doctors who might be on-call when I go into labor. Unless I schedule a C-section, which I'm still undecided about for reasons that will become apparent as we Meet the Docs....

First up, Doctor Newbie, my regular doctor. Well, she's new to the practice, not necessarily to being a doctor -- although she's plenty young, so she can't be that far past her residency. I like Dr. Newbie pretty well. She's confident and knowledgeable, just a teeny bit brusque, but I can deal with that. At my first OB visit, she told me that as a practice, the doctors had all decided to schedule C-sections if one twin is breech. This is important, as we had quite a lengthy discussion about it. She told me that since not all the OBs were comfortable trying a version during labor, they had all agreed not to do it.

Next, Dr. Frownyface. She's got a good 25 years on Dr. Newbie. We didn't discuss labor and delivery because she was too busy freaking me out by scheduling a fetal fibronectin test. It was negative, for anyone interested. (Also, negative is good.) Even though I don't know Dr. Frownyface's opinion on the C-section debate, I feel pretty confident in saying that she would not be my first choice to deliver my babies (not because she ordered the test -- caution is good -- just because I didn't feel comfortable with her).

At my next visit, I met Dr. Man -- the only male OB I've met so far. According to Dr. Man, if the presenting twin is vertex, I can try for a vaginal delivery. Once that baby is delivered, he said, we'd try to turn the other one. (Really!? Reeeeeaaaallly.) His only caution to me was that I'd have to be prepared for a C-section if that baby wouldn't turn. I liked Dr. Man, he was very personable. He did, however, use a portable ultrasound machine rather than Doppler to look for the baby's heartbeats. This, he told me, is because he "has trouble" finding two separate heartbeats with the Doppler. Confidence-inspiring, yes?

Yesterday's appointment was with Dr. Amish. Another young, female doctor, which I appreciate. But... the heat index in Minneapolis has been hovering around 100 Degrees for the last several days. The air conditioning in the clinic, while effective, isn't exactly what I'd call Arctic. Yet Dr. Amish entered the exam room in a crisp white long-sleeved shirt buttoned up to her neck, a wool (!) cardigan, and a heavy black ankle-length skirt. Fortunately she is capable of using words like "cervix," or we might've had a serious problem.

Actually, in one of those ironic twists I so enjoy, Dr. Amish's one-twin-is-breech policy is the most liberal yet. Not only did she assure me that I could attempt a vaginal birth if I so chose, but she even suggested that a breech delivery of the second twin was possible if a version failed. Dude. Their staff meetings must be fascinating.

Next time I go, I'll see Dr. Newbie again, and one way or another she and I are going to have another long discussion about this. I don't feel the need to have my birth plan all set in stone right now, but I would really like to understand how I could've misunderstood her so badly at our first meeting.

As for that birth plan, I have a lot of mixed feelings. I would like to try a vaginal birth if I can. I don't want to have to recover from abdominal surgery while trying to care for three children. On the other hand, I don't want to go through labor and one vaginal birth only to need a last-minute Cesarean. That would mean having to recover from BOTH. Yuck.

There's also the argument that by scheduling the surgery, I would have some control over the timing and the doctor who would preside over the birth. Since they do have such differing opinions, it might be nice to know what to expect. And it might make things easier for Raisin if everything was scheduled. No need for a scene like, "Mommy's water just broke! Um, don't worry!"

Basically, I have no sense of The Right Decision. For now, I have decided not to decide. Procrastination rules!

And the Winners Are....

Jane, for the twin names of Apple and Orange! (I also loved the idea of Lemon and Lime, but I knew I'd keep forgetting which one was supposed to be which. But thanks to Karen and Jane for that idea!)

And K., because I'm stealing her suggestion of "Jelly" as a name for one of the twins, and turning it into "Jellyman" for DH (you know, like Finding Nemo with the sea turtles -- it's a lot funnier if you say it with the surfer-dude voice).

Jane and K., if you're willing to give me an email address, you will be receiving an Amazon gift certificate as your reward. Please email me at "grapemn AT comcast DOT net" to claim your prize!

Thanks to everyone who sent in ideas. This was fun for me. And really, that's the most important thing, right? Of course right.

It's Amazing

...what 11 hours of sleep will do for a person. (Well, 11 hours minus all the times I woke up to pee, shift positions, or try to convince one fetus or the other to stop kicking me.)

Yesterday I told my mom I wasn't sure why I'd ever wanted to be pregnant again. My back hurt, my legs hurt, my feet were swollen, my nose was running, I felt feverish (that's probably less from the pregnancy than from the summer cold I have), and the morning sickness was back. When my dad came over last night to help DH finish up the dry wall in our basement, my mom came to entertain Raisin and put her to bed. I myself retired at approximately 6:45.

Today, while you won't find me leaping tall buildings in a single bound, I think I could manage to sidestep a building of Legos. I may even be able to stay awake until after the sun sets. We'll see. (It sets LATE in Minnesota in the summer, ok?!)

Winners of the Baby Blog Name contest will be announced on Monday. Happy weekend!

Name My Babies

Well, not really. We have real names all picked out already -- names our moms don't even know, so don't try to trick me into giving those away.

But I do need your help with the blog names. To avoid confusion, Raisin will stay Raisin and I will remain Grape. DH and the twins are up for grabs.

And if I pick your name, I'll even consider possibly giving you a prize maybe! Who can resist an offer like that!? Bonus points for names that are vaguely fruity or at least food related because I kind of have this theme thingy going sort of.

Jane and Karen, your suggestions are already in the running.

I Wonder....

Have I always been this clumsy? Just this morning, I have dropped the following on the floor: my contact case, two washcloths, the cap for the orange juice, the twist-tie for the bread, and my book. Is it really always this bad, or am I just more aware of it now that retrieving the dropped item involves a sumo-wrestler pose and some serious defiance of gravity?

How can we convince Twin A (I'm still working on blog names. So far I've come up with Banana Boy and Berry. Are those too lame?) to flip himself over? His sister is actually the presenting twin right now, and she's vertex, so that somewhat lessens the chance that a C-section will be necessary. Having them both vertex would be awfully, awfully nice, though. Berry seems to be similarly minded; she delivered a swift kick to her brother's face while we were watching the ultrasound on Friday. Just wait until you don't have all those membranes and amniotic fluids to protect you, buddy.

When my mom comes over to help me for a day, and I suggest that she could vacuum up the icky spiderwebs from the laundry room, and she instead spends two hours scrubbing the entire room including the floor, is she really just trying to get things back to the way she "knows" I would want them, or is she subtly pointing out that the room was never that clean even when I wasn't pregnant?

Adaptation

Once a Plan is in place, I generally prefer that it be left alone. DH views a Plan as a work in progress. He will continue to research options, and if he finds something he likes better, he'll change The Plan. Just like that! Who cares if Plan 2 is better than Plan 1? The point is we had a Plan, and now The Plan is gone. What will become of us? Oh, the humanity! (And you can all just shut your traps with your "logic" and your "reasoning." I ain't buying.)

This is the area of our relationship that is most likely to spark Serious Discussions. For example, we might Discuss which of us is possibly more rigid than tempered steel, and which of us is maybe CHANGING THINGS AGAIN OMG PLEASE STOP CHANGING THINGS. During these Discussions, I am fond of pointing out that I am much more flexible than my parents. Being less crazy than your family of origin is proof of some kind of evolutionary success, I feel. That should count for something, even if it doesn't discount the fact that I am a pathological stick-in-the-mud.

Raisin falls more often into the Today Should Be Just Like Yesterday camp. I can't tell yet whether that is simply a function of being two, or if that's her own personality coming through. If it is, in fact, the latter, then we may have some work to do towards ensuring the continuation of my Evolution Plan.

Case in point: Before we left for California, the hairdryer started making a suspicious noise. My MIL has one for us to use while we visit, so I didn't replace ours right away. On Tuesday, Raisin and I shopped at Target, and I quelled my inner need to buy the exact same hairdryer (they didn't have it), and purchased a replacement. I even used it yesterday morning, and I feel that, in time, the new hairdryer and I may come to be good friends. (See? Positively brimming with flexibility over here.)

Last night was the first time I attempted to dry Raisin's hair with what I now realize is Satan's own hairdryer. It dares to be "chrome" in color. "BLACK ONE, MOMMY!!! BLACK ONE!!! [sobs hysterically]" Also, it is clearly "too loud! Mommy, too loud! TOOO LOOUUUDDD!" (How this can be, given that the old hairdryer was decommissioned because of the suspicious noise, I do not know. Nevertheless. TOO LOUD.)

Any bets on how many days I will spend explaining that the black hairdryer is broken before she accepts this new intruder? And if DH is able to fix the old one (he wants to tinker with it to see if he can diagnose the problem), will it meet with as much resistance if/when it is reintroduced?

Parenthood is so glamorous.

(Oh! That reminds me. I had another story about the glamour, and it's really not long enough for its own post. On Tuesday when we got back from Target, it was already Raisin's bedtime. I decided to skip her bath, until I went to change her diaper and discovered that it was full of sand (MOMMY GUILT ALERT. SHE SPENT AT LEAST 3 HOURS IN THIS CONDITION.). Since a bath was now in order anyway, I asked DH if he thought I should wash her hair, too. "Nah," he replied. "Just rinse out her butt." Now, I ask you, in what other stations in life do you ever get to utter THAT phrase?)

Hello. I'm back.

For the record, I was going to use this as a title for this post, or this. So it's not my fault that the actual title is so lame; all the good ones were taken.

We got back Sunday, and I spent yesterday catching up with all my blogs -- I mean, important work emails. Now that I know what's going on with you, I'd like to write a brilliant and witty post summing up our vacation. I would like to write a post like that, but I yust can't think of one, so yust forget it. (Stop laughing at me. Stan and Doug are awesome.)

Anyway. Raisin was incredible on the plane. She was thrilled with the airport ("Look, Mommy! Another airplane!!" "You're kidding, Raisin! Where?"), and she handled every leg of the trip exremely well. I think she cried during one landing, but was quickly appeased with a Dum-Dum sucker.

That was just one of many things on this trip that made me realize that I am now raising a child, not a baby. For example, she spent a great deal of time dressing "myself." Also, she loved playing in Grandma and Grandpa's pool. The second day, she realized that if she stayed on the steps, she could "swim alone" and not be carried around by an adult. Offers after that to swim into deeper waters were met with great suspicion. She even slept in Grandma's day bed, and only fell out once (she sleeps in a big-girl bed at home, but we don't have a frame for the mattress, so there's not far to fall).

We went here (courtesy of Go City Kids, courtesy of Jinkies!). If you are traveling to Orange County with young kids, I highly recommend it. All the rides and activities are designed with little children in mind, and Raisin had a blast. Much cheaper than any of the bigger theme parks, too. By the time we left, we were intimate friends with the carousel guy; it was situated right in the center of the park, and Raisin couldn't pass the "horsey!!!!" without getting another ride.

In summary: excellent trip. I am totally hott in a maternity bathing suit. California is sunny and warm. My child is all grown up (sob). I'm back at work, and it sucks. DH and I have already counted the weeks until our August vacation "up North." (About 6, if you're wondering.)