I can’t believe my maternity leave is nearly over. I decided to take only 6 weeks off this time, but I’m going to start slow (0.5 FTE) and ramp back up to full-time over the next bunch of months.

Jordan and Casey are doing so well. They’re finally having some of that fabled “quiet alert” time, don’t appear to have colic (knock on wood), and maybe are starting to smile just a little bit? I finally got their day-night reversal corrected, and now they wake up only once or twice in the night. It’s pretty nice. We do have a fair bit of simultaneous crying (think “howling monkeys”) during the day, which is difficult for me to handle, but I do the best I can and hope the one I can’t comfort as well will forgive me eventually.

Mothering twins isn’t twice as much work as it was with a single baby, and in some ways, it is a little easier. But this is what I seem to spend nearly all of my time doing…

They are gaining weight impressively quickly – Jordan is 9 lbs, 4 oz, and Casey is 9 lbs, 12 oz – and I haven’t needed to give them any formula at all. “Normal” weight gain with breastmilk is 0.5 to 1 oz per day during the first month or so, but the girls each have been gaining 10+ oz per week for the past few weeks. It’s very cool.

Oops, gotta go, someone is crying…

June 24, 2010

Jordan Keiko Bockol (pictured on the right)
8:25 PM
6 lb, 10 oz (3010 g)
19 1/4 in (49 cm)

Casey Mariko Bockol (pictured on the left)
8:35 PM
7 lb, 9 oz (3420 g)
20 1/2 in (52 cm)

We are home and doing well. The girls did not need NICU time, and both were breastfeeding within hours of birth. This was a successful VBAC of twins (Baby A, vertex; Baby B, footling breech). Labor was ~10 hours from start to finish. I had a membrane rupture induction (failed), pitocin induction (successful), an epidural, a “small” tear, and NO SURGERY.

Thank you for your positive thoughts and prayers. Will talk more soon.

Sometimes, when easily distracted, I find it useful to take on a small project with guaranteed good results. Enter bead stringing kits! Our tiny town has a sweet bead shop, Glass Garden Beads, and I wandered in there last week, birthday money in hand, to see if I could score a quickie.

And score I did!

The large beads are murky green, the smaller beads are shades of gold and green, and the seed beads are muted blues, pinks, and greens. It’s not a combination I normally would be drawn to, but it made me think of old tapestries, damask wallpaper, and flocked upholstery. Kind of museum-y colors, if I had to take a stab at describing it.

This was a kit that had everything included (beads, findings, instructions, everything but pliers). Actually, the instructions were minimal – literally just a b/w image of the final product. I had to search teh Internets for tutorials on making wire wraps, how to apply crimping beads, what to do with those strange C-shaped beads (turns out they are covers to go over crimping beads), and so forth. I like that it doesn’t look professionally made, esp if you look near the closures, but it doesn’t look like a fifth-grade craft project, either. I feel pretty wearing the set. (That last bit is saying a lot, frankly, as my body image has taken quite a beating with this pregnancy.)

I’m guessing (though I don’t really know) that the kit was not a bargain – in the spirit of full disclosure, I paid $30 for it. But I didn’t have to design anything, I don’t have any leftover supplies that I don’t know what to do with, and it sated my appetite for a rapid, eye-pleasing item that I will probably wear for years. I know it would have been considerably more expensive if I’d purchased a handmade set like this at a craft show. Likely down the road, I will look at the jewelry and remember that I made it in the days preceding the birth of my two daughters.

–

Speaking of the twins, we have achieved a major milestone. As of today, the pregnancy has gone 37 complete weeks. The girls are, quite literally, full-term babies. Who would have guessed, way back in November, when I was forced into sick leave after having emergency procedure after emergency procedure, that I was capable of this? (ETA – Sorry if the above text was misleading. I was on leave for ~2 wks but have been working FT since.)

I was in line at a Chipotle over the weekend, and a young woman (late teens, perhaps?) ahead of me literally did a double take as she saw me ambling toward her. She said to me, “Your stomach is SOOOOO big!” I eyeballed her and said “Yes.” And then I added, in case she was a moron, “I’m pregnant,” in a slightly peevish tone. She asked, “Is it twins?!?” I nodded. “That’s why you are sooooo big!” (Seriously?)

I know I keep wearing the same clothes for these pictures — I hardly have anything that fits now!

A funny thing has started happening to my body, actually. Although my overall weight has stayed roughly the same for the past couple weeks (about 38-40 lbs gained [47" belly]), I am rapidly losing bodyfat. My cheekbones are back. My double chin is fading. My wedding jewelry fits on my fingers again. I’m still cramming 4 or 5 smallish meals down per day, but I’m clearly not keeping up with the babies’ caloric demands – they seem to be eating me up from the inside out.

Hmm, is that a spider on the ceiling?

People who have not seen me regularly seem genuinely surprised by my appearance, and a lot of women are exclaiming about how GOOD I look for someone so far along in a twin pregnancy. Honestly, I feel like a lumbering whale and am in constant, fairly severe pain (the ligaments that normally hold my pelvis together are failing in a dramatic way), so although I admit the praise seems somewhat odd, I also find it very heartening. I suppose it’s something like running a marathon and hearing strangers lined up on the street, cheering you by name.

This 1976 photo of me resurfaced recently from the family archives… Since we just celebrated Meredith’s second birthday (plus, my birthday is today, woo), I thought it would be fun blog fodder for a follow-up post. Almost makes me want to do a Young Me / Now Me photo… Maybe when I find that perfect yellow dress (*snort*).

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In work-related news, I am pleased to tell you the very first book that I edited has now been published! Presenting…

If you go to the Amazon preview (click on the picture of the book to be magically transported to Amazon), on page ix, you will see my name acknowledged in the Preface, along with many others from my work group who busted some serious booty last year to get this book to its top-notch form. In the era of .pdf files and electronic communications, I must say it is so cool to hold this book in my hands! It is relatively small (compared with other board review books), but it still has a nice hefty weight to it. :) Go team!

Thank you for all your kind birthday wishes for Meredith. It really was a happy day for all of us.

–

We went to a restaurant over the weekend and I had the embarrassing experience of being too big to fit into a booth table. I sat down facing outward and tried to swivel in to face Matt… Nope. Could we slide the table over at all? No, it was bolted to the wall. Shucks. We asked to be reseated, and the manager or someone came out to find out why (ie, was there a problem with the server?). I was mortified. Hi, me and the watermelon I’ve shoved under my dress are too big to sit here. It’s not you, it’s me. We were quietly led to a new table, and it was fine after that.

We met with the OB on Wednesday and also had another ultrasound evaluation. The OB says the girls are good to go, that I can go into labor at any time and they won’t try to stop it. I had read that intrauterine growth for twins typically slows after 30-33 weeks (I just finished 35 weeks), but my babies are measuring unbelievably large.

Based on the skull cross-section dimensions, abdominal circumference, and thigh bone length, the estimated weights as of yesterday are 6 lb, 2 oz for Baby A and 6 lb, 15 oz for Baby B. That’s more than 13 lbs of baby! (For the record, I’ve gained 38 lbs [right on target, yay me] and have a “waist” circumference of 46.5 inches.) They each are measuring larger than singletons of the same gestational age (65th and >90th percentile for A and B, respectively).

The ultrasound tech warned us that size measurements at this late stage are not particularly accurate, but he said he was fairly certain he was within 8 oz of the actual size. (The OB also said that the margin of error for weight measurements was about 10%.) Given that the average size of twins at birth is 5.5 lbs, I think we’ve done pretty well here! I am really pleased and kind of proud of myself. I’m still hoping for bigger babies, so they do have some growing to do if they’re going to meet my (mostly arbitrary) goal of 7.5 lbs – the avg weight of a newborn singleton – but I feel very lucky that we’ve come this far. As far as how I’m feeling, I’m in a lot of pain (“discomfort” doesn’t even come close to describing the searing crotch pain), but it’ll all be worth it if we don’t have any NICU time when they are born.

My little girl is now two! What a privilege it is to be her mother and to be a shepherd in her blossoming life. Please indulge in me as I travel briefly down memory lane…

June 2009 – first birthday

July 2009 – learned to stand by herself (and learned to walk just a few weeks after that!)

August 2009

September 2009

October 2009

November 2009

December 2009 – did NOT like being in the snow

January 2010

February 2010

March 2010

April 2010

May 2010

A month-plus ago, I went shopping for maternity skirts, figuring I could grab a couple of elastic-waist numbers to wear for the remainder of the pregnancy. Well, color me surprised – many designers apparently expect you to wear a skirt with the waistband at the apex of the bump! Huh? I tried on 3 or 4 skirts and was dismayed by how uncomfortable they were.

I have a pair of maternity pants with a stretch panel that goes very high – it starts immediately under the bra, pulls over the bump, and merges with regular pants at the hip level. If you don’t mind multiple layers over the torso while experiencing the heat of pregnancy, I think these are acceptable. Still, I think the Japanese Weekend line of clothing really gets it right. Their elastic OK waistband goes *under* the belly, which is much more comfortable, imo.

In a fit of pique, I decided to – what the heck – make myself a custom-fit maternity skirt. I pulled out my copy of Sew What! Skirts and sort of followed directions for drafting an elastic-waist skirt. The instructions tell you to make a 2-gore skirt — essentially, a front piece and back piece, with the grainline going down the center front and back. This makes for an oddly unflattering garment because the resultant skirt lays like a flat bedsheet across the belly and then hikes into folds and drapes around the side seams. If you look at the Sew What! Skirts flickr pool, you will see what I mean.

Since I can’t seem to do anything without making it excessively complicated, I decided to make an 8-gore A-line skirt with 2″ of ease around the hips. The waistband is 3″-wide elastic, cut to a length that fit comfortably around my body, and I used a remnant from this t-shirt to cover it. I basted and checked the fit before serging the seams. To decide where to attach the elastic, I tucked the skirt under the waistband, pulled until the hemline seemed mostly even, and drew where I wanted the waistband to land. I gathered the skirt in 2 parts (front and back) to match the waistband, checked fit, and serged it all together. You can see how sloped the waistband had to be to go under the babies but still go over my rear.

I did have some problems hemming the skirt. I didn’t do so well with my new chalk hem marker – I probably was leaning in to make the fabric touch the dispenser, and I sure as hell couldn’t see what I was doing on the back half of the skirt – but I tried 3 times (the last with Matt’s help), and I couldn’t get a straight hem to save my life. I ended up just pinning by eyeball, trying it on and rotating in slow circles in front of Matt, and readjusting when he would say things like “Is it supposed to be higher in back than in front”? I serged the edge and hemmed it by machine (blind hemstitch). And here it is!

So… Does this outfit make me look pregnant?

I wish I could wave my hand in a carefree manner and tell you in lilting tones that I just knocked this out in a couple hours one afternoon, but truthfully, this little skirt probably took about 20 hours from start to finish. Matt questioned why I was investing so much time on a piece that I would not wear for very long, but I think it was a good experience. Or that I gained experience, anyway, handling fluid fabric, using my serger, drafting a pattern, fitting a waistband, etc.

Sewing has been a constant sore spot for me. I am lousy at fitting, and it doesn’t make sense to me to spend the time, effort, and money to make my own clothes if the fit is worse than RTW. But I felt encouraged by this mini-interview with Kenneth King. I felt better when he said that I should “expect to destroy several acres before you get good” and felt he was talking directly to me when he said, “If you are afraid to make a mistake, afraid to ruin some fabric, or afraid to waste some time, you won’t ever get really good at this craft. It’s the dues you pay for becoming proficient.” Thank you, KK. I expect I’m at least halfway toward destroying my first acre, anyway.

So here’s how I look right now:

Remember the quote from Dave Barry – “You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.”

I’m big enough that random people (mostly men, actually) at work, the grocery store, gas station, etc, ask me how I’m feeling and when the baby’s due. I breezily say, “Oh, about 2 more months,” and they boggle in disbelief, the unspoken response being “But… but you’re already so HUGE!”

Sometimes I will tell them it’s twins. Sometimes I just smile.

…or “On becoming someone I am not.”

I was the slowest, clumsiest kid I knew growing up. Literally. I was always in the “mush pot” when we played Duck-Duck-Goose in preschool, games of tag ended when I became “it” because I could never catch anyone, I was famous for having staggeringly bad nosebleeds after catching yet another rubber kickball with my face, etc. We have family vacation pictures from when I was 8 years old, with bandaids prominently displayed, after I tripped on NOTHING in the Jefferson Memorial and yet managed to peel layers of skin off my knees. I have scars on my right shin from 6th grade, when I fell as I climbed the basement stairs – before the lighter marks faded, you could measure the distance between stair corners by the scars on my leg. In high school, during a tennis lesson, I managed to “catch” a tennis ball in the little v-shaped area between the racket head and handle. (C’mon now, you couldn’t even do that if you tried!) I have many, many more examples, but you get the idea. I am probably still one of the slowest, clumsiest adults that I know, but I have not tried to join a group sporting activity in 20 years and thus have no means of verifying my status.

Physical activity was not something that was emphasized during my childhood. Sure, we had bikes, jump ropes, hula hoops, and other toys like that, we took swimming and ice skating lessons, too, but my parents’ focus always was on developing one’s cognitive talents. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, it’s just how it was. As an adult, my physical activities are largely limited to those not requiring any physical coordination, rule memorizing, or skill – primarily, I walk (sometimes jog) and lift weights. Sometimes, I exercise on cardio equipment. I own a bike – but the last time I rode regularly was in 2004, when it was part of my commute (Red line to Alewife, then down the Minuteman trail to my then-backyard). I have a Wii Fit but honestly really suck at all the games, and that trainer is SO JUDGMENTAL. (Plus, I get tired of seeing my Mii sagging in disappointment after losing at everything. Hey, did you know that if you completely FAIL at the soccer-heading game, your Mii pounds its fists on the ground in existential angst while the teammates all stay far, far away? And seriously, how is that fun?)

I think the problem is that I haven’t found a physical activity that I really enjoy enough to want to develop the necessary skills to do it well. (Well, other than DDR, but after a fairly serious DDR-induced knee and ankle injury in 2000 or so, I didn’t go back.) I also have issues with activities if they feel like I’m wasting time. If I get on a bike, I want to get somewhere, not ride around aimlessly. I mowed the lawn for the first time last summer; it took me more than an hour to do the entire yard, and the DAMN GRASS ALL GREW BACK IN A WEEK. It was terribly unsatisfying. I want to do something, not just move for the sake of moving. (If I had any experience in construction, I would totally be all over home DIY projects like building a deck.)

I really want my girls to grow up with an active mom, someone who doesn’t groan or need a hand to get up from the floor, someone who has no trouble hoisting a child in the air, someone who can run and jump on playground equipment with them. I’d love to have outdoor activities that we can enjoy together. The thing is… how do I get there from here?