Hey.
See that title up there?
Yup. I gave birth. And now I’m going to write about it, partly because I want to get it down on paper before time and sleeplessness (oh, the sleeplessness) steal it from my memory….
And partly because in those final few weeks of pregnancy I scoured the internet for stories about women giving birth to twins, so I figure I should probably give back to the community, as it were.
I’ve got four kids, a horse I rarely see, a husband I vaguely remember, a dog I never walk, a house that’s never clean, and laundry that’s never done.
Obviously, this is a really good time for me to take on a new venture, right? I mean, after all, this used to be called “The Blog of Becky: How Not to Live Your Life”. I need to live up to it, right?
Anyways, the title is self-explanatory: I’m doing the “Write 31 Days” thingie. In case you’ve never heard about it, for the month of October I will write 31 posts in a row, about a certain topic. I’ve been planning on participating in this for several months, and as such, the topic I have chosen in:
How To Be A Crappy Mom
I’d like to say the reason I chose this topic is because I spent several days coming up with a witty title, cross-referencing it against other people’s ideas, referencing the 31 topics I would address, etc, etc………
But if I did you know I’d be lying.
The truth is that my older boys were wild with energy tonight so we went to McDonald’s and let them blow off steam… where they filled up on sprite and fruit & yogurt parfait instead of eating dinner.
Yay, me.
Now they’re crashed out in bed, whereas my twins are now refusing to sleep. I have no idea why they’re refusing to sleep, although I suspect it’s because their bellies hurt because I’ve fed them bananas too many days in a row and now they’re constipated.
Double yay me.
I could feed them nice organic baby food I got from the store, prunes or veggies or something…. but I forgot to pick some up from the store, and now it’s late and I don’t wanna go.
Triple yay me.
So, there you have it. It’s 9pm at night, I have one kid latched on my boob, and I’m awkwardly typing over him while his twin sister whines in my husband’s arms as she waits her turn.
I mean, I could nurse them at the same time but I can’t tandem nurse and fit the laptop on my lap at the same time. Priorities, you know?
Also, I just remembered I really need to research the Gluten-Free festival I promised I’d take my oldest son to tomorrow, but instead I’m on Facebook, and if I don’t finish this up in less than 3 hours I will miss out on the “31 Days” aspect of 31 Days, and and and….
And “How to Be a Crappy Mom”. It’s not the sexiest topic, but it’s probably the only topic I have plenty of material for without having to think too hard.
So, there you go. I apologize in advance for the content quality. Perhaps the quantity will make up for it? I’m so out of practice in actually writing, instead of just sounding out the words in my tired, tired head. I really mean what I say: I apologize in advance for the content quality – I’m hoping it will pick up by the end of the month.
And now, in the spirit of “How To Be A Crappy Mom”, I give you:
Rat
I gave birth three and a half months ago.
It is SO strange to type that out. I feel like between exhaustion and the simple act of caring for twins I completely lost a chunk of time. One moment it was winter, and then I went to the hospital on February 29th, labored for a little bit, pushed for a couple of minutes and out popped twins.
I loaded them up in the car two days later, marvelling during the ride home at the hints of flowers popping out on trees that marked the arrival of spring. We drove home, unlatched the car seats and walked the new babies inside…
And now it’s summer.
I feel like a DVD with a scratch. I never felt the time pass, even though I was awake for most of it, what with nursing ’round the clock. Where did the spring of 2016 go? I have no idea, but it was 100 degrees this past weekend, so I’m pretty sure summer is here.
There hasn’t been time for much other than living in the moment, especially not much time for writing. The words are still there, rattling around in my sleep-deprived brain, but I just don’t have the spare hands for the typing. I’ve been working on a post here and there, as well as a “birth story” post for the past… well, three months. I intended on having the story of their arrival typed out within the week so I could remember all the tiny details.
At this point, I’ll be happy to post it by the time the twins hit kindergarten.
And you know what?
That’s okay.
It’s more than okay. These are my last babies, and while it doesn’t make for good blog posts or even a great social life, I’m simply allowing myself to enjoy them as much as possible, because having been through this twice before, I know exactly how fast the first year flies by.
I am content and happy with my life, my four kids, my family.
In fact, I’m so content and happy it actually makes me feel a little uncomfortable. There’s a small part of me that wishes I was unhappy with simply hanging out, that wonders if I’m becoming… well, placid. Isn’t that why they used to recommend breeding fractious fillies? To calm them down? Shouldn’t I be uncomfortable and itchy, struggling against the bonds of a minivan (I had to get a Kia Sedona to fit everyone…. and I actually love it. Oh, how the mighty have fallen) and angry at the fit of my mom jeans?
….and yet I’m not. Oh, sure, if I had the chance to go on a secret mission where I travelled to Europe and saved the world against Nazi Zombies I would totally go….
I’d look just like this, only with slightly fewer tattoos
….But if I did go I’d have to bring along my breast pump and pump every two hours to avoid clogged ducts. I’d also have to arrange daycare for four (FOUR!?!) kids, which would be so expensive I’d have to save up for it… and even if I could arrange it, who would cover my shifts at the library?
Daydreaming about big adventures has gotten so complicated as of late, which is why I’m sticking to daydreaming about horses.
Speaking of daydreaming about horses….
Now that I’ve sort of caught everyone up on what I’ve been up to since January, you can help me with a very important question:
Which imaginary horse should I imaginarily buy? I mean, we’re just going to ignore the fact that I barely have time to see Caspian as it is. I definitely don’t have the money or time for a second horse right now. We’re also going to ignore the fact that this imaginary horse is being bought in addition to this guy, who I’ve already imaginarily bought from Scandia Morgan Farm:
This is Scandia Anthem, and I’ve been drooling over him since he was born. He’s not even for sale, yet I’ve been imaginarily buying him for years now.
This new imaginarily bought horse is one that I am going to put in my imaginary pasture on the imaginary land I don’t own. He/She is going to grow up and (aside from learning basic manners and maybe ponying a couple of trails) will just grow up and be a horse until around four years old… at which point the twins will be old enough for me to start really working him/her.
Now that you know the rules, which one should I nab?
Currently we have three contenders:
Contender #1:
This little red colt was only born this week, so he’s less and impressive and more adorable with that ribby, just-born look. Still, everything seems to be put in the perfect place as far as his conformation, and he comes from a long line of GORGEOUS Morgans.
Here is mom:
And here is dad:
Scandias Trademark
And here is Grandpa:
Marvelous Intrigue
I mean…. ’nuff said, am I right?
Contender #2:
Look at her! She’s 14.2 at two years old, so she’ll be plenty stout enough to carry me and not make me feel too big. Plus, she’s stunning.
Here is mom:
Scandias Lady in Red
And here is dad:
Marvelous Intrigue
As you can tell, I’ve got a thing for Marvelous Intrigue – I think he’s put together gooorgeously and all his colts and fillies grow up with that same gorgeous look.
Anyways, since the filly’s older I won’t have to wait as long to start her. I’m not a big fan of the yearling stage, so I’d get to bypass that stage as well.
Contestant #3:
BLUE EYES. I don’t care if you don’t like blue eyes… I’ve got a thing for them. It’s silly, I know. But LOOOK. IT’S A BLUE EYED BUCKSKIN MORGAN COLT.
Here is mom:
And here is dad:
UDM White Water… photo credit to the very talented Heather Moreton: https://www.flickr.com/people/desertnightcreations/
I guess, in the interest of being a nice person I should mention these horses are actually for sale, and that I suppose you could for-real buy them. You can find them here:
Scandia Morgan Horse Farm
and here:
I suppose I would even forgive you if you did buy them out from underneath me, but only if you promised to update me with regular photos.
Things newborn twins care about:
Things my hormonal body is telling me newborn twins care about:
It goes on. And on. And on. I know the twins don’t care about this stuff – in fact, it’ll probably do them more harm than good for me to exhaust myself and then sit around sniffing paint fumes, but the urge is still there. I also from previous experience that a week after the birth I’m not gonna notice the baseboards, ever again…. but man, it’s hard to ignore the urge.
In case you are ever curious what it feels like to be a nesting pregnant woman, it’s JUST like this commercial.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get out of the house so the baseboards will quit mumbling at me.
What a quiet, abandoned little blog.
Except it’s not abandoned – I swear! And believe it or not, I’ve been writing in it semi-regularly… it’s just that I haven’t been publishing any of the words I’ve been writing. There’s a reason for that:
Dude, lately all I have left in me is whining.
On the one hand, I’m missing out on documenting what it’s like being pregnant with twins. On the other hand, maybe that’s not necessarily such a bad thing.
See, it takes a certain amount of energy to be able to present bad things in a funny light, and I gotta say: energy is not something I have in abundance these days. Aarene from over at Haiku Farm wrote a piece about her many-spooned days (if you have no idea what I’m talking about when I reference spoons, there’s a place to click inside her post). I was reading it the other day and I realized how very, very few spoons I have nowadays. If I’m going by Aarene’s description, I’m getting by on about 15 spoons a day.
Basically, I’ve become a giant lump on my couch… and that’s okay. That’s what my body is telling me it needs, in order to grow two people at once to (hopefully) full term. Over the years of living with Rheumatoid Arthritis I’ve learned to respect my body when it tells me to SLOW DOWN, so I’m doing it…
But it’s kind of depressing to do nothing but go to work, cook dinner for the boys, and sit on my couch. Writing is one thing I can do while I permanently indent the couch cushion with the imprint of my behind, so I do write occasionally… but when I go back and read what I write, it seems like all I do is complain.
And when the twins stumble upon this blog many, many years from now, I kind of don’t want them to read post after post of me complaining about them.
I mean, when they go see their therapists over how I’ve ruined their lives, I’d like it to be for something good, you know?
Anyways, now you know why I’ve been quiet. There are quite a few blog posts in my drafts folder that I might clean up and post at some point, and quite a few more that I’ll probably just toss, but that all seems like a lot of work right now, especially since up until recently I’ve been sick. Right after Christmas we all seemed to catch that lovely cold/flu combo that’s been going around. Mine ran its normal course and seemed to be getting better…. but right when I was about to deem myself healthy, the virus (or whatever) returned with a vengeance and decided to take up residence in my lungs.
Let me tell you, you don’t know fun until you’ve been hacking your lungs out while pregnant with twins. The other day (yesterday? The day before? I dunno, it’s all started running together) I started a coughing fit. Again. And even though I had JUST finished going to the bathroom, and even though I was crossing my legs while coughing (trust me, it helps), I coughed so hard I peed my pants. Again. Even though I was wearing super-duper triple duty giant kotex to try to prevent that.
Luckily I was at home so I just sighed, stripped down, and hopped in the shower. Besides, the steam would probably help the cough, so I could kill two birds with one stone.
Unfortunately, even though I was maxed out on Robitussins and Vicks Vapor Rub (yes, I put it on the soles of my feet, too), I just couldn’t seem to quit coughing. The good news is that the shower steam helped my cough be productive.
The bad news is that my super annoying body felt the phlegm coming up and thought, “Oh! Oh! I know what to do when stuff comes up your throat!” and I started puking.
Puking in the shower seems like it would be a good thing, but it’s not. Without the toilet water to prevent splash back your tub ends up looking like a deranged Jackson Pollock painting, and it takes forever to go down the drain, and it’s just gross, okay?
The icing on the cake was that between coughing fits and vomiting my nose was like, “Yeah, you’ve abused me too much for one day” and started to bleed. In case you’er curious, trying to stop a nosebleed in the shower is an exercise in futility – the warmth keeps it from clotting.
So there I was, standing in my own vomit and phlegm and pee and blood, and I thought.. “Man, not again. What is this… the second time this week? Third?”
And at that point I did start to laugh a little bit, which I’m sure would have looked psychotic to anyone who might have wandered in at that exact point, but it just kind of struck me as funny that I wasn’t phased by it, and that my first thought was “not again”. I mean, what if this was my super power? Some people get super strength or super invulnerability. I just got super….fluids?
I don’t think they’ll be making a Saturday morning cartoon of me any time soon.
“No…. no… don’t put up the signal!!!…. Crap. Too late. Heeeeeeey, there, Super BioFluid Girl. We’re, uh… We’re good. We’ve got everything under control. You can go home, it’s okay.”
I think the cough has mostly run its course and now my body is just coughing for the sake of coughing. It’s pretty normal during the day, but then nighttime hits and I cough. And cough. And cough. AND COUGH AND COUGH AND COUGH AND COUGH. After several days of only getting 2-3 hours of sleep, and not in a row, I broke down and begged my doctor for some meds. For the record, I gotta tell you: Tessalon Perles are the BOMB. They’re these little tiny pills which make all the coughing go away. I’m telling you, they’re amazing. They make me believe in magic again.
I took some last night and crashed about 8pm. I woke up to go pee and/or change positions in bed every two hours on the dot until just shy of 4 am… which would normally sound like a bad night’s sleep, but when 4 am rolled around I realized I felt so rested I might as well just get up for the day. It felt amazing to get that much sleep. I know it’ll be different with twins, but I just can’t wait to actually give birth. I’ve always found that I sleep better with a newborn than I do during those last few weeks of pregnancy. At least if I’m awake I’m awake with a purpose, you know?
So now you know what I’ve been up to: gestating and sitting on my couch. I haven’t seen Caspian for…. for weeks, honestly. I’ve learned I have to go early in the day, instead of late at night. I prefer to go to the barn around 7 or 8, because then all the other boarders are gone and it can just be me and my horse… but lately, by the time 7 or 8 rolls around I’m too tired to do anything except be overwhelmed with how much I want to go to bed. I made plans to go spend an entire evening with him awhile back, but we had freak flooding that day.
The next time I decided I was going to go, regardless of how tired I felt, we had a freak wind storm.
I told The Bean I was going to go on Christmas Eve, come hell or high water….. and it snowed. Hell or high water I could handle – icy roads and snow seemed like too much to take on without snow tires or chains.
Then I got sick, and I can’t in good conscious go and infect everyone at the barn. The barn owner’s husband is over 70 years old and susceptible to lung sicknesses, so I need to stay home until I can keep the hacking and coughing to a minimum.
The good news is that I know he’s okay – there’s a reason I’m paying more for a barn that’s further away, and that’s because I trust them to take better care of him than I can.
The bad news is… Caspian? He’s a horse, right? I think he’s…. he’s grey-colored, right? Cross your fingers I get to see him on Saturday – that’s my goal. I think we’re (knock on wood) running out of natural disasters to prevent me from seeing him.
28 weeks pregnant with boy/girl twins: I’ve been taking weekly pictures so I couldn’t NOT take a pic this week, but man, I just had no smile left in me that day.