Twin Pregnancy, Part I: Not Twice The Fun

Let's face it, I'm that annoying bitch who makes pregnancy look easy.  With both my pregnancies I never had any morning sickness, no high blood pressure, no bed rest, and from behind I never looked pregnant.  My first pregnancy I didn't even need maternity clothes! I glowed, had some great cleave, and my butt got nice and bubbly.  But before you stop reading, I want to provide the back story to this twin pregnancy:

We moved in mid-July from the cramped 1 bedroom I used to refer to as "the hobbit hole" as it was mostly underground and the ceilings were a measley 7 ft high.  We didn't go far- just upstairs to the two bedroom unit that had become available.  I didn't do much of the moving, was cautious of lifting and there was no truck involved.  The move consisted of lugging the belongings out the door, turn left, walk up the steep grass hill, turn left again, go through the gate, up three stairs, and then we were in. It felt like a dream with it's normal height ceilings, lots of windows and 2 whole bedrooms.  Our previous arrangement had us sleeping in the living room while our son had the small bedroom, very cramped for all of us.  In addition to moving my boyfriend also got a job at a used car dealership, quit the convenience store, and resigned from the volunteer fire department.

I made it until Mid-August working in housekeeping.  The heat made pushing my cart up and down the halls unbearable.  Not to mention my sense of smell was amplified and I would now get a headache and feel nauseous when I smelled other people's body odor on the sheets I was changing or the urine smell from the toilet.  My boss was great though and allowed me to transfer to the laundry room, which was air conditioned and close to the bathroom and break-room.  I had a fine time spending day in and day out folding king sized linens, pre-treating makeup stained washcloths and yelling at people about where they were supposed to put their dirty rags at the end of the day (I had some inappropriate suggestions).

I got big, I didn't realize it because it didn't look that big looking down on it but whenever I caught a glimpse in the mirror from the side it was like "holy crap batman, will that ever shrink back??"  I didn't gain any weight, I lost about 15 pounds and regained it by the end of my pregnancy and was oddly the exact same weight as I was the last time I weighed myself pre-pregnancy (not a number I was particularly happy with, mind you) only now it was mostly babies.  And although you might think it's unhealthy to not gain any weight, keep in mind all those cocktails I was no longer taking in empty calories from, I ate normal and the babies were well nourished.

Sleeping became hard to do.  If it wasn't heartburn it was lower back pain or being so stuffed up I couldn't breathe effectively enough to sleep more than 10 minute stretches without my body thinking I was about to drown or something.  SUPER ANNOYING! And it was only when I went to bed, not stuffy during the day.  I tried everything, 25 pillows stacked up, humidifier, hot tea, saline nose spray, capzasin nose spray (like snorting a line of hot peppers, but very effective) and finally those little springy strips you can put on your nose to open the passages up.  The only thing that worked was DOING ALL OF THEM, EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.  The back pain was probably the worst, since I couldn't lay on my back I had to lay on my side, we even moved the bed so I could still see the tv (it was mounted to the wall) and after a while I'd need to roll over because the arm I'd be laying on would fall asleep.  The process of rolling over took more steps than a Vermont turnaround, and if I didn't do everything mechanically right a sharp pain would literally disable me and make me cry, and I'm no sucker.  All of the trouble sleeping made work twice as exhausting.  It also didn't help that a lot my tasks were delegated to the new girl for fear that I would go into labor prematurely (not my opinion but my boss', no matter how many times I told her the doctor's hadn't put any restrictions on me) so I literally sat on a stool for 45 minutes out of every hour, playing Angry Birds, then for about 15 minutes I would fold and put away whatever came out of the dryer.  I was not allowed to go organize the laundry chute, load the washers, deliver linens to the floors, it was unbearably boring and I ended up asking to leave early most days.

At around 28 weeks my boyfriend and I came to a decision that if I wanted to stop working and just enjoy the rest of my pregnancy, I could.  He was successful enough at his new job as a used car salesman that we could get by without my income for the next few months.  I gave work my notice that I would be done the next week, they got cake for my last day, I cleaned out my locker, yada yada yada.  Off I went to days of laying on the couch watching crappy daytime television and knitting my little heart out.  I didn't mind doing the housework, I always did it before but now some things became annoying, like the bottom of my belly and shirt getting soaked doing dishes, kneeling down to scrub the bathtub but only being able to kneel for a few minutes at a time because my knees couldn't handle it, and the annoying habit that my boyfriend had of putting the vacuum away behind the couch (couch was kitty cornered so there was space behind it) which I honestly tried and tried to lift it up and over the couch and maybe succeeded once but it felt like I had pushed myself too far.  My mom started coming by almost weekly to help "decorate".  She is an interior designer and I'm the kind of person who moves so often I never put pictures up on the wall, let alone hang curtains.  She made us some great curtains, helped rearrange the furniture, and helped make my son's room a little less generic looking.

I had a baby shower, I think 1 friend showed up in addition to a few of my cousins, 2 of my 3 sisters, my mother, and 2 aunts.  I don't want to say it sucked ass because I know my cousin put forth the effort to throw the shower, not her fault there was a "snowstorm" and no one could make it, it probably didn't help that it was a couple of weeks before Christmas either. I still got some cute clothes, and diapers etc that I needed.  It's hard to be appreciative though when you are already down to one income and don't even have enough diapers to last a week with twins.  These thoughts really sparked my anxiety but slowly and surely making small weekly shopping trips to the local "children's resale chain store" I pretty much reached "hoarder" status with baby clothes and also managed to get my "two of everything" list completed for fairly cheap.  Craigslist really helped as well, early in the pregnancy I started perusing craigslist for cribs because I knew that they would probably be the most expensive things for us.  I lucked out big time, found a post for 2 identical Ikea cribs from a home that also had twins, $100 for the pair. This really helped me to be on the ball with shopping, I didn't pay full price for anything.  I will share my shopping tips later on, for now I'm just laying out the back story for you, letting you get to know me and the journey so far.