Week 33 belly pics

Five hours until 33 weeks

News of the day:

• Walk-through of new house to take place at noon, Friday.
• Closing to take place at 1pm.
• House is almost totally packed, thanks to family and friends. Jeff's on his way out now to get some white packing paper for the last of the dishes, glasses, etc.
• We're having takeout the rest of the week, due to tableware being packed. There are worse things.
• We had tornados, lightning, thunder, and gusting wind/rain all afternoon today. I love these spring storms but they are a little bit scary! Plus I didn't make it to the window to close it in time, and Jeff had another huge mess to clean up when he got home. Luckily we have a dehumidifier!
• I just discovered the wonders of lanolin. Primarily for sore nipples related to breastfeeding, it is a miracle product! Best lip balm ever.
• Casey the diaper lady (CNY Diaper Express) came over last night to give us a demo. Thankfully she made Jeff diaper the doll first, so I got to watch him do it. It's actually way easier than I had expected (maybe even easier than disposables), so I'm really excited about getting set up and using the cloth. We're going to sign up for a 10 week package so we won't have to deal with any diaper laundry for the first 2 1/2 months. After the 10 weeks we'll evaluate what we want to do from there--continue the service, buy our own cloth diapers, or switch to disposables.
  
• Babies still in belly. Two different people exclaimed yesterday that 32 weeks is great--only a few more weeks til we're out of the danger zone. After seriously contemplating the babies' birth at 24 weeks (and every day since), 32 weeks seems like a miracle. The "danger zone" to me was when they might not (or likely would not) survive if born then. From 30 weeks on, my friend Claire the OB-GYN says, it's all gravy. Not that the goal isn't still to keep them in for longer! I can almost feel May (which seemed like an eternity from February 28, when I was first admitted to the hospital in NYC), and June 3 (scheduled cesarean birth day) seems like not that far away. Though when I sent him a picture of my belly from about a week ago, my friend Severin said he'd never seen a more pregnant lady before in his life. And his mom gave birth to triplets!
• A friend with twins told me today that the great thing about having twins is having a free pass on all the things you're "supposed" to do with your single baby if you are a "good" mother: breastfeeding, cloth diapering, babywearing, vaginal birth. Honestly the cloth diapers seem easier than the disposables, at least in the short term (and WAY cheaper), and I am committed to breastfeeding as exclusively as possible. But the rest is triage! We'll do the best we can, and no one can give us (me) crap about it because hey, did YOU have twins? No? Then shut up. And if you did, then you're a champ and awesome and all of that and still, shut up.
  

Punjab and Habib it is!

Thanks to everyone for voting. We feel good now about our choice, knowing that our friends and family have given their approval! Get ready to welcome Punjab and Habib Genovese to the world!

32 weeks and 3 days today. At my OB appointment Thursday the sonographer estimated their sizes at 4 pounds, 1 ounce and 4 pounds, 7 ounces. They are both at about the 50th percentile for singletons, which is really amazing. Also amazing: I have 8.5 pounds of baby in my belly. Plus two five-pound placentas, plus a ton of amniotic fluid. Crazy! My belly also measures the size of a woman 41 weeks pregnant with a single baby.

If there had been any doubt about how the babies were going to enter the world, it was shredded when the sonographer reported that Baby A (the one closest to the cervix) is head up, with feet in frog-leg position down by my cervix. Therefore I will have a cesarean birth. It's good to know now so that I can plan for it. The latest possible date would be June 3, when my doctor has scheduled a cesarean, but she is not optimistic that we will make it that far. We'll see.

I've already told the babies that they are going to have to stay put until at least May 1, because we are moving next weekend! Closing is scheduled for Friday, April 29 in the afternoon, with walkthrough preceding and moving to take place on Saturday. We're hoping for better weather on move-in day than we have had this week--rain, snow, hail, wind, and cold.

We have been very grateful to have had lots of help this week from our parents, who have packed, cooked, grocery shopped, done laundry, and cleaned. Thank you!

Team Sickbo

Mama Lovebo: still on bedrest.
Daddy Lovebo: home in guest bed with flu.

Lovebo animals: happy to take turns sleeping with one and then the other of us.

We are a pathetic bunch!

Week 32 belly pics

First Team Lovebo Poll

Vote for your favorite twin names!

31 weeks, 1 day

Good news:

• Babies still in belly.
• Spring has sprung in Syracuse. Daffodils and crocuses have emerged, windows are intermittently open, and snow boots have disappeared from our front door.
• The week has flown by with visits from friends Sara on Tuesday, with her new cutie Preston, and Emily on Wednesday, with HER new cutie Eleanor. Friends plus babies is the best way to pass the time!
• Hemangioma is GONE! I developed a blood blister sometime while I was in the hospital in NYC 6 weeks ago that had morphed into something much more massive and disgusting. The dermatologist I saw yesterday (finally!) asked if it was a third fetus, it was so large. They cut the sucker off and stitched and burned and it is now gone! Hooray!
  

Bad news:

• OB canceled my appointment for tomorrow and I couldn't reschedule. Oh, well. I am just so sad to miss out on another opportunity to sit motionless on my back while a contraction monitor tells us all what I already know--my uterus contracts painlessly all the time! surprise! And to have the sonographer give me that disappointed, scolding look while she says my cervix is yet shorter, though a) there is nothing to be done to stop the shortening, and b) there is no reason to believe that the shortening will lead to preterm labor. So why do we do this test again? Because they own the ultrasound machine? And they measure the babies' heartbeats to confirm they are alive when, meanwhile, they are both visibly kicking out my belly. I'll see them again next week.
• House closing is most definitely not happening tomorrow, as scheduled in the contract. Which leads me to this piece of good/bad news: as much as Jeff and I do not know very much about real estate law, it appears that real estate attorneys do not know much about real estate law either. It seems to me that if the contract specifies April 15 as the closing date, that's the closing date. But I would be wrong. Our closing may be in 10 days, or may be May 1, or may be sometime after May 1. I appreciate that Jeff is handling the details of all of this, so I will let him give 'em hell for me.
• No real estate showings at our current home this week as yet. Someone wanted to come this morning at 8:00 a.m. and I told them no, that was not going to work. I think the realtor then tried to threaten me that these buyers would not be able to return at another time, thinking that I would care whether these buyers would be able to return. Little does she know that my incentive is to make it impossible for anyone to see the house, because I have to get up out of bed and dressed and then have strangers walk all around my house and peer into my closets while I watch. I have been very accommodating but 8:00 a.m.? No.