Homefree Day

Today our boys are 28 weeks old, and we’ve finally reached Homefree Day! What is Homefree Day? It’s the much anticipated pregnancy benchmark when 90% of children born at 28 weeks survive, and survival rates only continue to improve from there. It is, above all, reassuring to know that our babies could be born now and have a decent chance of survival. Now, all we have to do is keep taking care of them and let them get bigger, stronger and more ready for the world outside.

Our Boys

As their dad said in his last post, Settling In, Dominic and Alexander have been on the move of late. In the past two ultrasounds they were hanging out as bunkbed mates, but in the last week they seem to be shifting around a bit more. Usually, Alexander likes to push out night and day on the upper right (when you’re looking at me) side of the belly – sometimes with his head and others with his little hand. At times he’s pushing out all across my upper belly, and you can feel him from head to rump. Dominic tends to hang out lower, and he doesn’t push out on Mom as much – though we do suspect that might mean he’s pushing on his brother. He occassionally pops out with a large bulge on the lower left (again from the perspective of someone looking at me), and in the last week or two he’s started kicking more.

The Belly

The Full Moon Belly

The hugeness of the belly means that whenever I stand up now I have to take a moment or two as my body adjusts to the weight shifting. It kind of feels like a sudden shift in my center of gravity and sometimes of late it feels a bit like a bowling ball suddenly rolls forward inside my belly. Stand. Wait. Adjust. Then walk. Surprisingly, one of the pregnancy symptoms I haven’t hit yet is a lot of back pain, and that’s a blessing.

Dad Update

Puck has been wonderful about taking over the nightly excursions to the backyard with Shakti, and he often wakes up on his own when she gets up. If I shift around too much or start to get up, he startles awake and anxiously asks, “What? What? Is it Shakti? Are you okay? Do you need anything?” Hopefully, he’s still managing to get enough sleep.

He’s been working on different sections of the house too. He got our entertainment center all put together last night (just a few more things to get plugged in), and we bought some carousels for our corner kitchen cabinets. He’s also been making headway on the man-cave. We hope to do some work on organizing the nursery this coming weekend.