Restless

Last week I felt like a caged animal. Like I could pace back and forth for hours because I couldn't do anything better to appease the feeling. I'm not the most motivated person on the planet, as the general state of my kitchen can attest, but when I feel like accomplishing things I tend to be a bit of a juggernaut. I'm also in the middle of at least five different projects that had to be put on hold once the twins started to complicate life and there are no less then 20 more on my list including building at least one more bed from scratch, replacing tile, reflooring three rooms, refinishing cupboards, etc. So I feel like there are always so many things I could be doing except that I'm physically not able to right now which makes me crazy when I feel restless. I suppose this is probably related to what people call nesting. I DID clean out my fridge. But in my brain I want to finish painting the outside of my house instead of putting new shelf paper down. I want to finally tile my kitchen backsplash instead of washing and folding tiny clothes. It's making me a crazy person and I'm not even on bed rest! I would be a terrible bed rest patient.

Today was another visit to Dr B for Mike and I and the babies. We started on a high note with the tech saying my cervical length looked good. I didn't catch the length and I'm annoyed because I wanted to see if the shorter length last week might have just been a different tech measuring weird but whatever. I don't need to borrow any stress over my cervix when nobody else is concerned. Then I could have kissed her when she told me there were two little heads snuggled together right at the bottom! These boys are capable of both being head down at the same time! Hallelujah! Cooper went back and forth from feet/legs to the front to feet/legs towards my right side while Lincoln sort of did the same so his little feet were kicking his brother most of the time. I've been more and more stressed about the logistics of a c-section while trying to work out my feelings and what would make me the most comfortable in that situation so it was like a beacon of hope that these boys were showing me that they know how to get in the right positions. Unfortunately, things went a little downhill from there.

Cooper's fluid measured right around 2.5 cm which is down from the 4ish he had two weeks ago which was down from the 5 before that. Lincoln's fluid was around 7.8 cm which was up from the 5ish of both previous measurements. Last time I was able to not think much about it because it was only a small change and only one boy but this week we're way way too close to officially being in stage I again. Stage I TTTS is when the donor twin has less than 2cm of fluid and the recipient has more than 8cm. Cooper's bladder looked good and all his blood flow measurements were healthy and normal so things definitely aren't as scary as they have been. Lincoln's bladder was really full and most of his blood flows were good but one number was at the very top of normal so it's something they will be watching closely as well.

The other concerning bit was that there is now a size difference. I wasn't really convinced of the skill of the ultrasound student who peeked at the babies last week and of course the perinatal center has better equipment so I trust their measurements a lot more but I was pretty surprised to see that their numbers were so different just five days apart. Cooper measured about 2 lb 3 oz with a belly measurement in about the 7th percentile. Lincoln measured around 2 lb 7 oz with a belly measurement in a much more appropriate 34th percentile. She was having a hard time getting Cooper's belly measurement because he had too many limbs in the way and refused to be still so my hope is that that number is a little off but with TTTS we can't be too surprised that he's smaller. It was really only a matter of time but I was hoping we would have several more weeks of both boys being big and strong before he fell off their growth curve. Womp womp sad panda.

So the boys have bought me a ticket to more time in Dr B's office. I will go back every week for the next 6 at least (six weeks of appointments printed out is a LOT!) for a biophysical profile. This includes a 30 minute strip of the babies' heart rates which I can only imagine is a tricky business with two wiggly naughty boys. Then they've scheduled us for 30 minutes per baby for the ultrasound afterwards. She said they have to get a certain amount of time watching each baby breathe and that can take some time. So I need to find some good books to load on my Kindle!

As you may be aware from your Facebook feeds, today is Valentine's Day! We have an amazing friend who was willing to keep our wild 3 year old for as long as we wanted (seriously, I couldn't have kept my sanity through this pregnancy without her, she's amazing) so Mike and I were able to make reservations at a cool downtown restaurant for lunch after our appointment and we stopped to do some mattress shopping in between. I can only imagine how ridiculous I looked rolling onto and off of all the mattresses in the store but the salesperson managed not to laugh at me the entire time. She really earned any potential commission she would get! Before that fiasco we spent a few minutes at Target where Mike tried on pants and I'm fairly certain I had a panic attack. Thankfully it was short lived and I managed not to truly need to lay down on the floor but I was really close for a minute. I have suffered from severe anxiety for a long time but thankfully only have acute panic attacks while pregnant and even then only rarely. Unfortunately their rarity makes it hard for me to realize what's happening at the time and only in hindsight do I realize what it means when I feel like I can't breathe and might faint and then need to throw up and then get really hot and want to run away but also want to lay on the floor and never move again. Thankfully it was very short lived and I was able to shake it off and enjoy flopping around the mattress store and then eating way delicious italian food. I feel like the waiter was a little put off by the small amount I was able to eat and I wanted to explain that it was amazing and I was just too full of babies but the opportunity never presented itself.

I hope you had a day full of love and joy whether it was with a special someone or your tiny loves or a furry valentine. Keep us in your thoughts this week and we'll all hope that these boys will shape up before next Tuesday so I can sleep again.