Into the Second Trimester

From the Twin-Daddy:

Last Thursday our kids hit 13 weeks.  Hello Second Trimester here we are!

I learned some new things while Linda, Kate, and Eric were visiting.

Unbreakable Dishes Are Your Friend

First, Linda asked if we had plastic dishes for the kids.  We didn’t have any, and we carefully served the kids with glass and ceramics without any drama or shenanigans.

I personally hate plastic because I feel like it is cheap and kind of gross for dishes.  Of course, my attitudes are going to have to adjust because when you have got two kids with almost no precise muscle control, you are going to be throwing a good number of your dishes on your floor.  Accept this as fact.  Consider how foolish you once were in your fragile dish lifestyle and move on.

Know Where Your Next Pit-stop Is

Next, San Francisco hates pregnant women.  Seriously.  Ladies of a certain ‘pregnantial’ state have a pressing need to pee every 17.5 minutes.  Visit San Francisco and you will find a swarm of establishments that happily tell you they do not have a public restroom.

It’s like an alternate universe in which a man sitting behind a counter somehow ignores a pregnant woman with a desperate look and her legs crossed and goes back to reading his paper.  That might be fine for me, but when it comes to my pregnant wife I’m less forgiving.  After 6 different stops looking for a public bathroom, I was ready to run interference while she discretely peed on the floor of a local merchant.  It would serve them right.

Some Serious Discussion about the Potty Issue:

The actual reason for no public bathrooms in big cities is because of the homeless problem, and San Francisco is no exception.  There is a discussion to be had there, but it gets into some pretty tense politics. If you want to skip this, I have marked the pick up of the article in red below.  (Read along at your own peril.)

In the 1960s California’s LPS Act was meant to provide mental patients with rights but the effect was that it became harder to commit a mentally ill patient to a state hospital for longer than a couple of weeks.  (That’s 3 days of observation and 14 days of commitment.)

These people were then supposed to be passed down to local communities.  The same year governor Reagan signed the LPS Act, he simultaneously cut 1700 mental hospital staff positions and closed some state hospitals.  The funding for local community mental health care never materialized and the mentally ill often became homeless.

They would occasionally be committed to either a medical facility, a short term mental facility, or a prison in a sort of perpetual revolving door.  A new class of chronic mental patient developed who was repeatedly committed and released.  Without insurance or any preventative medicine services they often become physically ill requiring regular emergency room visits.  In rural communities, the issue isn’t as obvious but when you concentrate populations into an urban center it becomes more serious.

• The good news is that a mentally ill patient is able to exercise certain rights.
• The bad news is that the state abandoned many of these people to the streets.

City merchants don’t want the homeless & mentally ill in their stores. By denying access to a bathroom they attempt to screen out these people.  Because the LPS act is now the basis for all mental health care in the United States both the good and the bad parts became national.

The VA prepared a report on all of this in 1999 that is worth reading for the history of the LPS act by Carla Jacobs.

• History of LPS by the United States Department of Veteran’s Affairs

Sadly, I don’t see an easy solution to the problem, but the VA report has some recommendations.

End of Politically Tense and Serious Discussion

Here is the moral to the bathroom story for guys shepherding a pregnant lady. Always keep your eyes open for a Starbucks.  They have a public bathroom, snacks, and bottled water.  All of these are essential to maintenance for your particular queen-mum.   Say what you want about pervasive coffee-houses.  Getting my wife successfully into a bathroom in downtown San Francisco when everyone else was turning her away made the three dollar coffee taste pretty good.

Music to Give Birth to…

The other item of note is that Mary has expressed some interest in having nice music while she is in labor.   I’m expecting Beatles and Mozart in her set list but you have to admit that a playlist called ‘childbirth‘ is going to be pretty interesting.  I encourage you to think abouts songs you might add to your own personal list.

WifeWatch 2010

Food

Any day the wife eats spinach is a good day.

Mood

Mary’s big birthday present from me this year was a pair of Birkenstock sandals with padded soles.  Why is this a good pregnancy gift?

1. Pregnant women get aching feet.
2. At some point pregnant women cannot even see their feet.  Getting her comfortable slip on sandals means she doesn’t need to ask Twin-Daddy to tie her shoes.  She has got enough to worry about as it is without that on her plate.

Sleep

Mary’s wake up reflex is on a hair trigger now.  I expect this is another evolutionary Mommy-trick to detect predators.  At the point when Ninjas attack our house my wife will hear them regardless of ninja stealthiness and having instantly awakened will locate them by scent alone.  Then she will lecture the ninja on the importance of family responsibility, protein, and regular trips to the bathroom.

Babies Countdown - The Double Header

187 Days until September 9

• Thursday, March 11 is Twin Week number 14.
• Thursday, March 18 is the next OB-GYN appointment.  (There is a good chance we can learn the gender of the twins here if they give us an ultrasound.)
• Thursday, April 8 is Twin Week number 18 and Halfway Home Day.
• Thursday, April 22 is week 20 and we should be feeling regular baby kicks by then.  (By this time we should also know the gender via ultrasound provided the little ones have not been shy.)
• Thursday, May 7 and the twins become viable as early as 22 weeks.
• Thursday, May 20 and 90% of twins born at 24 weeks survive and that number only gets better from here on out.
• Thursday, August 12 and we hit our goal of 36 weeks minimum.  From here on the twins could come at any time.
• Thursday, September 9 and we hit 40 weeks.  This is our due date even if we expect the twins to possibly come sooner.
• Sometime After the Delivery - 4.5 months of the Twinsanity Interval.

We’ve just completed week 13, and we are completely out of the first trimester! ***General celebration!*** While there are still risks, we have fortuitously navigated through the dangerous waters of the first trimester and avoided the extra perils caused by age and having identical twins. Our two little babes have come a long way. Here is a recap of some of their basic information:

Thurs., Jan. 21: 7 weeks

• Twin A: 9.4 mm, 6 weeks 6 days old
• Twin B: 9.9 mm, 7 weeks old

Our little California raisins.

Thurs.,Feb. 4: 8 weeks 6 days

• Twin A: 22.1 mm, 8 weeks 6 days old
• Twin B: 23.2 mm, 9 weeks old

To give you a little perspective, our two little ones were each about the size of a grape.

Fri., Feb. 26: 12 weeks 1 day

• Twin A: 75.2 mm, 13 weeks 4 days old
• Twin B: 75.0 mm, 13 weeks 4 days old

The Amazing Duo are as long as a peach but not as round!

Let’s see how much they’ve grown:

The Amazing Duo at 7, 9 and 12 weeks.

As you can see, the Amazing Duo more than doubled in size between weeks 7 and 9, and they tripled in size between weeks 9 and 12. By week 12, they also looked a lot more like tiny little babies (though still with fairly large heads in relation to their bodies). It’s also extremely important that their sizes stay close to the same early in their growth, so they’ve done a good job there too. I’ve added not stealing each other’s food and blood to the twins’ prenatal training. What all is on the list?

• Stay healthy.
• Share the space.
• Share the food and blood equally.
• When the time comes, heads down and faces forward.

Pregnancy Symptoms

As the pregnancy-symptoms shuffle comes to a close, I’m left with a few enduring symptoms, primarily fatigue (doubled by my allergies at the moment), indigestion and constipation. I fell asleep early in the evening last night only a few hours after a 2 1/2 hour nap because I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. As for the other two symptoms, I’ve found some remedies that work for me. Much earlier in the pregnancy, I started drinking a daily cup of prune juice (you can buy brands that call themselves plum juice if you find the name unappealing) which has helped keep me running smoothly. As for the indigestion and heartburn, antacids do help, but I’ve recently started to chew a little candied ginger instead. The ginger seems to be more effective in relieving my heartburn quickly.

The Wait

Now the wait is on. We are waiting until we can feel those little ones moving inside regularly, until we know if they are 2 little girls or 2 little boys. We are also watching as my belly continues to grow and my bellybutton gets bigger. At the moment my mammaries are determined to give the belly a run for its money, and they have maintained a small lead in their measurements. However, I’m not sure they have the endurance to keep that lead over the course of the race.

These photos were actually taken right before we completed week 13 (March 3rd). I’m wearing some of my genuine maternity clothes. Thanks, sisters! Plus, Puck got to make an appearance with me because we found our tripod.

Click once on an image to see the full image. Click a second time to see it larger.

These photos are from Feb. 22, the Monday we wore our twin shirts to school and work (though I wasn’t wearing sweatpants to campus). Shakti gets some loving attention and photos too.

Click once on an image to see the full image, and click a second time if you want to see a larger version of the image.

At midnight Oklahoma-time, my twins surprised me with a birthday present and card. They got me a heart monitor so that we could hear them moving around and later in the pregnancy we’ll be able to hear their heartbeats. I also discovered how talented my twins are. They not only fence but also write poetry. In my birthday card from them, they wrote me a lovely little poem:

Dear Mom,
You can’t see us as we grow
But there is something you must know–
We both listen as you are speaking
And feel the love from your heart beating.

We can’t talk yet but you must trust
Our hearts beating are love from us.
We both love you is what they say
Hugs from inside on your birthday.

Puck and I took some time to listen to my belly for those tiny heartbeats and the thumps of movement, and we look forward to hearing more as they continue to grow.