Weeks 30 & 31

Everything seems like it’s whizzing by, but in that weird way like it happens in movies.  It’s moving so fast that it’s all a blur, but then suddenly, it all slows down so quickly that you only have a second to focus your eyes, realize what you have to do next, and then, it’s all speeding past you once again. Like in the matrix.  I didn’t even realize that I hadn’t blogged and updated in so long.  The days are all sort of meshing together.  Alas, here I am, updating you all on our crazy lives.

Thanksgiving day was great!  We had dinner at my parents with my siblings, and then shot over to Callie’s parents house where we got to have some more dinner.  We went home, and quickly passed out.  Callie was having a hard time sleeping.  For the next few days she was having some really weird pains that she hadn’t experienced before, tons and tons of miserable heartburn (that wouldn’t let her sleep and in turn wouldn’t let me sleep!), and more contractions than usual.  They have been coming on stronger and lengthier than they have before. Sunday afternoon, we went to my parents house for a little while (Yes Callie is still on bed rest, but don’t worry!  My parents put her on the couch to lay down and won’t let anyone go near her) and took our annual Christmas card picture.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

We usually take it on Thanksgiving day, but since my sister was in hospital after having given birth on Wednesday morning, we decided to meet Sunday. Mami made lunch (she doesn’t really cook anymore since it’s just her and Papi at home so when she does cook, we all get really excited and race over), and took our pictures.  Callie was complaining about how uncomfortable she was most of the day, and we ended up leaving a lot earlier than we usually do.  In the car, I convinced Callie to call the Dr. and see what the recommendation was, at which point she realized that she had left her phone charging at my parents house.  We turned around and head back to my parents to get her phone. She used my phone to call while I was inside.

As I walked back to the car, I could see Callie’s concerned face.  The Dr. said we should go to he hospital and just get it checked out.  The pain she was feeling sounded like some round ligament pain (probably from the growth spurt they are having) and that the contractions didn’t sound like they were close enough or any different than normal, but with twins they have to be extra cautious, so it was probably best to come in.  Since Mary can’t travel out of the state of NY and our hospital is on the NY border in CT, we had to go home first, call my in-laws to come watch her and put her to bed (school the next day), and then get going to the hospital.  Let me just say, I freaking LOVE Greenwich hospital.  If you live in metro NY or CT, this is the place to be.  I’m so glad that our boys get to be born there. So we get there, Callie gets strapped onto all the monitors, and we wait.  The contractions are the same as always.  About every 12-15 minutes or so, but they do realize that they are rather long.  The Dr. came in to check her, but her cervix was the same.  Still short, still not dilated.  We joked around with the nurses (we can be so incredibly inappropriate!) and then about 5 hours, 2 bags of fluids, Breaking Dawn 2, and 1 steroid injection later (to help with the babies lungs in case they do end up coming early) we were sent on our way.

Monday Callie had a follow-up injection (it’s a series of 2 shots within a 24 hour period) with our OB, and had her 30 week appointment on Wednesday.  MAN OH MAN are those boys huge!!!  Usually the weight of twins isn’t divided per se, but they are usually smaller than a singleton.  Well, apparently our boys didn’t get the memo because not only are they weighing in as if they were each singletons, but as if they were about a week and a half ahead singletons!!!  Normally at 31 weeks, babies weight anywhere between 2 1/2 to 3 lbs, but Levi is weighing in at 3lbs 7oz, and Noah is weighing in at a whopping 3lbs 13oz.  Talk about chubbas!!!!  They still weren’t cooperating with the ultrasound tech.  Both are still head down, but they were facing Callie’s back again, making it impossible to get a face or even profile shot of them.  We do know that Noah has tons of hair (visible by a little white halo around his head) and Levi has little sprouts that are starting to come in. IF the old wives tale is true, that’s probably why Callie is having so much heartburn! I have a feeling that Noah is probably dark-haired like our donor (or I like to say, like me) and Levi has red hair (hopefully my little ginger like Cal’s).  Callie’s cervix is still holding at around 2cm, which is decent..  At least it’s not thinning, and still closed, so that is great news!

I think they are having a growth spurt again because Callie has been devouring everything she sets her eyes on.  Last night she pretty much ate through half a batch of brownies before they even cooled down enough!  This week we discovered that the boys LOVE hearing the ABC’s, but only when I sing it.  Callie sings it and they couldn’t care less, but I sing it, and you can literally see their little arms and legs going CUH-RAY-ZEE under Callie’s skin.  It’s totally their jam! I come home from work, and say, “Hey Buddy! Hey Bubba! Wanna hear your jam?” And let the dancing begin! It cracks me up! They also love it when I read them “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.  They start wiggling around like, well, caterpillars!  They love sticking their butts out so Callie can rub them.  They are little freshies! Aside from that, friends, we are just a few weeks away.  If the boys don’t come naturally by 38 weeks, we’ll be having an induction, but we hope that won’t be the case.  I have a feeling they will be here in the next 3 weeks or so, but Callie thinks they are coming Jan. 14th!  I dunno…we’ll just have to wait and see…

FINALLY IN THE 30’S!

7 WEEKS TO GO!

Babymoon

Provincetown at the tip of “The Cape” in Massachusetts is one of our favorite places in the world.  We love that quaint little seaside town feel.  The smell of the salty air, the beautiful sunsets, the shell and sand alleyways.  It’s all so intoxicating.  We decided that celebrating our 4 year anniversary and a well deserved Babymoon there, would be perfect!  We packed up our things, Mary’s things, and Laney’s things early Saturday morning, left our half unpacked apartment just as it was, and dropped the ladies off at their respective babysitters (other foster parents we know) for the week.  We hit the road at about 1pm and got ourselves ready for a 5+ hour drive with a ton of snacks for Callie, plenty of water, and of course, our usual road trip soundtrack, “Jagged Little Pill”.  We know every word to every song, and crack each other up with our best impressions of Alanis Morissette’s little screechy yodel.

We got there around 6:30pm, dropped our bags off at our cottage so we could change our clothes (it was chillier than we thought it would be), and went out to grab a quick bite to eat.  We made it an early night so we could go back and “sleep”.  We really needed to “sleep”.

OUR HUMBLE ABODE FOR THE WEEK

Day 2 consisted of a pretty late start.  We hardly ever get to sleep in anymore (8 am is a sleep-in for us) so at 11:30am, we woke, got ready, and head out for a nice walk through the town.  We had breakfast at our favorites breakfast spot, visited loads of shops, grabbed a cool shark tooth mood necklace for Mary which we knew she would love (and she did! She won’t even take it off to shower so that she “doesn’t lose it”), had delicious homemade sherbert, and enjoyed each others company electronic free.  It was nice to have conversations about random things with Callie again.  Parenthood leads to lots of conversation about the kids, their development, what they did that day, what made you crazy, and what made you smile.  We hardly talk about adult things anymore, so I really treasured the hours worth of conversations that we had about all types of different, random things. Our second day ended with a steak dinners and a bottle of O’douls. Day 3 was a great day! We woke up really late (almost at 12pm) got ready and made our way into town.  Our 4 year anniversary.  It was a day to reflect on our love, on who we are as individuals, and on who we have grown into as a couple.  Every time I looked at her, I was overpowered with so many emotions.  I held her hand tighter that day, kissed her a little harder.  Images flashed in my head of the first time we held hands, kissed, made love, talked about marriage and starting a family.  Nothing in my life has ever felt as right as being next to Callie, and now our love has risen to the next level where we get to share it with our beautiful boys.  To celebrate, that day we decided to do a tour of the Pirate Museum.  It was actually pretty cool! That’s one of the things I love most about Callie.  She’s an undercover nerd like I am, and loves learning weird, random and totally useless facts about pretty much anything.  In this case, it was about the pirate ship “Whydah“.  It. Was. So. Freaking. Cool!  It’s the only real live pirate treasure ever found! We got to touch real “pieces of eight” (silver coins) that date back almost 300 years! We could have touched coins that were handled by Captain Sam Bellamy himself.  It was pretty awesome! All of the artifacts were found on the ocean floor, after searching for over 5 years for the fabled ship, all under almost 15 feet of sand.  It was all pretty neat!

Afterwards, we decided to take a walk on the beach.  It was a beautiful evening, with a slight chill in the air that was perfect for holding hands and walking pressed next to each other.  We laughed, drew in the sand, took some fantastic pictures, watched a seal show up and disappear, and placed our hands on Callie’s belly as the boys squired and wiggled and enjoyed the beach and fresh air right along with us.  That night we went out for delicious lobster and some karaoke, where I gave a shout out to my lovely lady and my boys and sang, “Just The Way You Are” by Bruno Mars that left most of the people in their seats all misty eyed, including my Callie. My boys were apparently moving around all over the place when they heard their Mama sing!

YUM!!!

Day 4 started later than any other day on the trip.  We didn’t even get out of our rental until 1pm, which made it increasingly hard to find a spot for breakfast.  We did find one ( but they only served the very specific menu items with no substitutions), and while we ate, we say this guy…which was pretty funny! He was watching all of the people walk up and down the street and looked like a human if you watched him long enough.  That day, we took a trolley tour around the town from the restaurant laden West End and back around to the Art District on the East End.  We learned some cool things, like each house (if built before the 1900’s) has a little blue plaque in the corner that tells what year it was made in and who owned it.  We also learned that cranberries were indigenous to that area. They used to be called “Crane Berries” because the leaves looked like cranes! I KNOW RIGHT!?!?! Also learned that the Pilgrims settled in Provincetown first, but after about 2 months, and land that was un-tillable and no fresh water, they shot straight over to Plymouth.  Lots of cool stuff! We had some more lobster for dinner (You can’t beat a 1 1/2lb lobster for $15!), ended the night with some more (drag queen) karaoke which was pretty hilarious, and then went back to our cottage.  Before we went inside, we noticed that the sky was so clear that you could see what seemed like every star in our galaxy.  We stood there staring at the sky and said, “If everything is gonna be okay with the boys, you’ll let us see a shooting star.” Wouldn’t ya know, that right as I finished the sentence, a star streaked, big and bright, right across the sky! Callie and I both gasped and laughed. The universe has had so many ways of letting us know that the boys, our girls, and that we, as a family, are going to be okay.

Our Babymoon ended Wednesday morning, and it was awfully sad.  We weren’t ready to head back to our real lives.  We wish we could have just stayed out on the Cape, just the two of us, for at least a couple more days.  On the drive back, we held hands the whole way, asked each other what the 3 best things about the trip were, and looked forward to seeing our little ladies.  We promised to always make one on one time for each other, and that no matter how crazy and busy our lives get, we will always communicate what we need and do our best to give the other what they ask for.  I’m lucky to have a woman like Callie and I promised to never forget that. I don’t think I ever could, even if I tried…

An Emotional Hot Trainwreck of a Mess…

And that’s just how I have been feeling!!!  I don’t know what is going on, but it feels like I am getting all of Callie’s pregnancy symptoms.  She feels great AMAZING, and I, on the other hand spend most of my days wishing we were together (we work opposite shifts and my days off are Friday and Saturday, so we get one day for “family day” per week), crying as I listen to music and catch up on my TV shows (Thanks A LOT “The Fosters”!), craving chocolate like it’s no ones business, and dealing with the soreness/tenderness of my breasts as I continue on my journey to try and establish a significant milk supply/flow to help sustain my twinfants. I’m basically feeling everything that Callie is feeling (with the exception of the actual babies, which she technically isn’t feeling yet, although this morning she sent me a text that she THINKS she might have felt one of them but it might just be that she was really hungry) even though I’m not pregnant.

As I was driving to work at 5am, I was listening to a CD that Marco made for our drive up to this past weekends hike. Ed Sheeran (with his amazing soothing voice and fantastically ginger hair) started playing a song that I had heard before but never really paid much attention to.  To make a long story short, it has to do with miscarriage and is incredibly touching and heartbreaking (Ed Sheeran – Small Bump).  When I tell you that I needed windshield wipers INSIDE my car, that is no exaggeration.  The waterworks were in full effect.  My first thought was , WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!?! I started to analyze why I have been feeling the way that I have, not just recently with the whole pregnancy, but for the better part of the past 2 years while simultaneously scrolling through FB.  I was reading a friends post about vulnerability and allowing yourself to be vulnerable, and then it hit me!

For the better part of my life, I was very guarded, as I’m sure many of us are.  I grew up in a family where everything was great, and don’t you dare say otherwise.  “Don’t you dare cry, or I’ll give you something to cry about” kind of home.  Don’t get me wrong, I had the best time growing up.  In retrospect I had the best childhood that anyone could have asked for.  I lived with my loving, accepting, tolerant and encouraging parents who drove us to all of our soccer, field hockey, basketball, softball games and swimming, karate, and attended every concert or musical that we were in.  I have 4 incredible siblings that I would die for.  We are all very close in age (I’m 31, sis-almost 29, bro-27, sis-26, bro-25 as of yesterday) and spent lots of time in cramped spaces, like 8 hour road trips to Niagara Falls.  I wasn’t allowed to go ANYWHERE unless all the ducklings were right behind me.  To this day, family dinners on Sunday at my parents are a non-negotiable, and I love that about my family.  We all live within 10-15 minutes of each other with the exception of my youngest brother who lives in Brooklyn, but him and his boyfriend visit all the time and probably spend the most time at my parents of all 5 of us (Yup! My handsome and hilarious younger brother is gay too and has been with his partner for almost 3 years).  If I’m to speak candidly, (and why wouldn’t I?) sadness was just one of those emotions that got pushed away.  “What are you sad about? Look at how great your life is!” Although this was probably said to teach us to appreciate everything we have and think, “Hey! It could be worse!”, for someone as emotional and sensitive as me, it was pretty difficult to deal with.

I learned very early on to bottle up my emotions.  To cry only in the shower where no one could see me.  To wait until my sisters had fallen asleep so that then, and only then, I could grab my pillow and scream into it until I couldn’t scream anymore.  To take out my aggression and express my anger on the playing field.  To become these characters in the school plays and musicals and in some ways live vicariously through them, even if it was fictional and temporary.  All I really wanted was for my mom to kiss me and my dad to hug me when I was sad or mad (they did plenty of it all the other times, believe me – my family is incredibly affectionate), but they rarely did, and even then it was awkward and uncomfortable.  So being sad or angry was just not something we did well with.

Being or allowing myself to be vulnerable was out of the question. It would mean that I could be hurt, and the hurt would lead to sorrow, and sorrow would lead me into this abyss of darkness, despair, and depression.  For a long time, I lived my life devoid of anything that would lead to the risk or possibility of getting hurt.  For the better part of 16-26, I was just a mess.  Drinking, drugging, cutting class, obsessed with my relationships and my inability to let them go, and not allowing anything to effect me emotionally.  A lot of people even went there, and called me ” A cold-hearted bitch”.  It’s fine because I totally owned it.  I might have even been proud of it! I didn’t give a crap about anything. You’re mom died? Sorry! People die everyday.  You’re dog died? He’s a freaking dog! You lost your job? What the hell am I supposed to do about that? (I didn’t really feel like this, I swear it, but I wasn’t sure how I was really supposed to feel or express any of it) I was so numb that on 3 separate occasions I tried to take my own life (19, 21, 26).  At 26, I decided I didn’t want to feel that way anymore. Another failed 4 year relationship and I was done.  I committed myself to an inpatient hospital where I spent 2 months of my life doing Intense therapy, DBT, and acknowledging that my way of coping was not effective at all.  After that, I moved back in with my parents (who after the birth of my niece have become emotional wrecks themselves and have NO ISSUES WHATSOEVER showing us tears of joy, relief, sadness, anger and every other emotion you can possibly think of).  My mom visited me in the hospital every day, brought me dinner every night, asked how I was feeling, and listened.  Really listened.  They actually said, I HAD to move back home and that they weren’t taking no for an answer. I have no way to repay them for what they have done for me.  They helped me enroll in a full day outpatient DBT program which my dad drove me to M-F and picked me and asked me what I learned about myself every night at dinner. That gesture in itself was therapeutic.

One of the most important things I learned was to embrace being vulnerable. “Open myself up to these things? What the hell for?!?” But the more I practiced, the more I realized that for every possible little bit of sadness that I let in, I was also letting in possible joy.  Even when there was sadness, I had all these amazing feelings of happiness to override that.  That feeling sad wasn’t that bad! You feel it, recognize it, and move on.  I could actually feel things and come out the other side a better person.  Like, really feel them, and feel them with people and for people, and have an appropriate response.  What I realized the most about allowing myself to be vulnerable was that it actually felt like I was living.  I wasn’t simply going through the motions.  I was truly knee deep in life.  All these things were coming at me from every direction (my aunt who is my second mother getting diagnosed with beast cancer, a huge fall out between a ton of my family members, trying to start a new relationship after nearly 2 years of selfishly working on myself, losing a great paying unionized job as a carpenter in NYC because of my time in psychiatric care, moving from the NYC where I had been for nearly 10 years back home to the suburbs which I had outgrown) and I dealt with them.  And I wasn’t the worse for wear. Who woulda thought! I was alive and feeling, and that was okay with me.  Better than okay!  It was amazing!  So now, after having analyzed this, I see that my pseudo-pregnancy symptoms are just me living and feeling and accepting.  Of course I feel sad when I hear the terrible news about someone losing their precious baby, or when pets leave us, or even when something as simple as a rain storm ruins our one family fun day that we had been looking forward to.  How could I not!?! So even though they are sad tears, they are still happy tears for me.  My kids will always know hugs and kisses and validation of their feelings.  They will see their Mamá cry, breakdown, pick up the pieces, pray, laugh, dance, and love.  A Mamá with a big ole’ vulnerable heart.  Mi corazón estará abierto para ustedes…<3

My amazing family…