Baby Update: 37 Weeks

So, I am officially full-term today. Yay! Everything continues to look good with baby girl. At my doctor's appointment today, she was measuring at approximately 7 pounds and only a few days ahead of schedule. I got to see her practice breathing, opening & closing her mouth & fists, and wiggle around a bunch. No pictures from today -- like the doctor said "At this stage in the game, it's hard to be photogenic in that small of a space!"

I am still feeling really good and find it a little hard to believe we could be having a baby any day now! Still plugging away at the diabetic food plan (and still harboring somewhat nasty thoughts towards carbohydrate restriction & very limited treats -- Easter candy, I hardly knew you!). However, it certainly has its benefits -- I have not had any swelling in my feet/hands like I did the other two pregnancies, and I've only gained 3 pounds since February! I even painted my own toenails this weekend and wasn't ashamed to wear sandals! So, there's that. Although on some days I'd gladly suffer the consequences just for a bag of Cadbury Mini-Eggs....

At this point, the plan is still to deliver between 38-39 weeks. The doctor won't pinpoint a date for me until my appointment next week, but he said he's leaning towards May 9th or 10th. So that means only 12-13 days until baby (unless she decides to come on her own before then, which would be great)!!!

We are as ready as we'll ever be -- Grammie was here for Easter and we redecorated the girls' bedroom (post coming soon on that), the crib is set up, baby clothes are washed and in the dresser. All that's left on my list is pack a hospital bag, get a haircut/color, and decide how we are going to arrange four carseats in the minivan! Anytime you're ready, baby girl!

Baby Update: 34 Weeks

I cheated -- this is from last week @ 33 weeks

 



Last time @ 33 weeks -- I think my belly literally was 2x as big! 


 

Am I the only one impressed with myself for only waiting 4 weeks between updates? Yes? Well, thankfully there hasn't been too much to update on. The weeks continue to fly by as we get closer to meeting this little girl. I am starting to slow down a little, but am still feeling quite good. But as the nurse pointed out yesterday, compared to carrying twins last time, this should be a walk in the park! Last time I couldn't sit, stand, walk, sleep, breathe without discomfort at this point...so really, any complaints this time around are pretty minor.

Blood sugars are still under control and one more benefit of all the healthy eating is the fact that I haven't gained any weight since February. Weird, huh? I asked if I should be concerned about that, and they said as long as the baby is growing then my weight is really not relevant. Kind of strange, but I will oh-so-gladly sacrifice my body's fat reserves for the well-being of this child. :)

I am being monitored weekly with growth ultrasounds and non-stress tests to make sure the baby is continuing to grow (but not too fast!) and is getting adequate blood flow & moving around like she should. I found out this week that one concern with gestational diabetes is that sometimes the placenta can start to deteriorate earlier than it should, so they like to keep a close eye on things to make sure it's still functioning well. Everything is A-OK in that department, if you're staying up at night worrying about my placenta. ha!

At this point, it's hard to get many good ultrasound pictures since she's pretty much folded up like a pretzel in there, but it's always fun to see her moving around in there. At my 34 week appointment yesterday, she and my belly were both measuring about 1 week ahead of schedule, and they gave her estimated weight as 5 lbs 6 oz. They always add the disclaimer that this late in pregnancy the estimate is accurate +/- 1 lb, so that's a pretty wide margin...funny to think that she is about the same size Maguire was at birth!

But in any case, she is growing fine with still technically 6 weeks to go until my due date. My doctor says we'll continue to monitor weekly and make tentative plans to deliver around 38-39 weeks if she keeps growing like she is. So, we could be less than 4 weeks away from baby!

Adventures in Potty-Training

Alternate Title: The Hardest Thing About Raising Twins Thus Far (including twin pregnancy, pushing out two babies, nursing two babies for 18 months, any of it. This wins the prize, hands down.) 

{Note: This all happened in early March...I must have needed a little time & distance away from the experience to be able to blog about it.}

Okay, so it wasn't the worst thing to ever hit our house. I'm sure being 7 months pregnant while undertaking potty-training twins had a teeny bit to do with it. But I knew there was no way I was going to do three kids in diapers, so away we went...

We started out Day #1 with 20 pairs of assorted super hero, Cars, & Toy Story underwear, two potty chairs, a huge bag of M & M's and Dum-Dum suckers, and plenty of Lysol. After about 2 hours of our potty experiment, I came to the conclusion that 2 boys + 2 potty chairs + pregnant me did not equal a lot of space to move comfortably in the bathroom....so out to the living room came the potty chairs...

The first few days were pretty rough. I think the first day, we had 7 accidents and only one success. We quickly discovered that the boys had two very different responses to the concept of potty-training.

Alex had little to no patience for sitting on the potty chair, and would pee on the floor almost immediately after getting up. Nice.

Maguire. Oh, Maguire. For some reason, he loved sitting on the potty. Loved isn't even a strong enough term. He would plant his little butt on that potty and refuse to move. For hours. He would pile up a little selection of toys & books around the seat and be all set for lengthy periods of time. Needless to say, he had the majority of our first several successes. But the kid can't walk around with a potty chair glued to his butt, so we had to frequently remind him to "get up and take a break." No sooner would he get up, we'd hear "Ooh, ooh! I need to go pee!" And back on the chair he'd sit...

Somewhere at around day #5-6, things started to make sense. Thank the Lord.

Here they are, both proudly proclaiming "I pooped in the potty!" Such a proud moment. For all of us.

We spent the next week weaning Maguire from his constant potty-sitting, but as you can see we all grew pretty used to the idea....Alex even liked to "read" him books while he sat.

This picture really has no story to go along with it...it just cracks me up. Potty training as contact sport.

I'm happy to report we've weaned off all the rewards (M & M's, suckers, chocolate chips, stickers) and both boys are fully trained! Yay! I'd say the process took about 2 weeks from start to finish. We cured them of the "potty chair in the living room" problem when we visited Grammie's house

in mid-March.

One last funny potty-related story: We've obviously been reinforcing how grown-up the boys are for wearing underwear, peeing in the potty, telling us when they need to use the bathroom, etc. The other day we were at Walmart & talking about it as we shopped.

In the middle of the (very crowded) produce section, Maguire was kind enough to provide me with some positive reinforcement when he loudly proclaimed "And Mommy, I'm very proud of you. You are a big girl who wears underwear every day!"