The Night of a Thousand Panties

As most of you know I am currently pregnant with twin boys.  I am now in my 33rd week and quite enormous.  It has actually been a fairly easy pregnancy other than the discomfort of two babies wrestling for space.  This week I think baby A is head down, directly on my bladder and baby B has his head in my ribs and bum on my bladder. As a side note:, unless you have been pregnant with twins or more, there is no comparison to 4 arms, 4 legs and two heads fighting for space inside my belly, no singleton pregnancy is like this no matter how big the baby. Needless to say, I have to pee about every 30-45 minutes and my bladder has shrunk to the size of a pea. 

Earlier this week I came down with a bad cough, sore throat, nasal congestion, sneezes, all of the crummy winter cold symptoms.  Because of being full of child(ren) and having already birthed 3 babies, I am wise to the fact that I may "spirtz" occasionally and that crossing my legs while sneezing or coughing is always wise.

Nothing could have prepared me for the "spritzing" that happened this week.  I mean, it was more like a damn sprinkler.  I went to bed Tuesday night around 9 with a mild cough and I woke up at midnight with spazmic, body shaking, hacking coughs that came out of nowhere and every time I had a coughing fit I wet my pants.  No amount of leg crossing could stop the veritable Niagra Falls that would occur when I coughed.  I was so feverish and out of it I could not think clearly enough to do anything but change my panties and pajamas as needed.  I would change, and then immediately need to change again.  I was sitting in the bathroom with the shower on the hottest setting in hopes that the steam would clear the gunk from my lungs, so fortunately for my husband, I never "wet" the bed (although I did have a coughing fit while sitting on the couch, oops).

So when morning came, my loving husband insisted that I call the doctor.  When I called the nurse asked me if I was "leaking fluid", meaning amniotic fluid, you know, like if my water had broken.  I said no, but that I was wetting my pants, when I had a coughing fit.  She wanted to know if I had felt much movement from the babies, I responded that I had not felt as much movement as usual, but that I assumed they would be less active since I was ill.  She said she wanted to check with the doctor and call me back.  So the doctor called me back and insisted that I go to Labor and Delivery at the hospital for monitoring of the babies and that they would figure out how to check my lungs there. 

I cobbled together some dignity, took a shower and when I got dressed, I realized I had gone through all of my "sensible" panties.  All I had left was my "sexy" panties.  When you go to Labor and Delivery you know they will be seeing your panties.  Really, who wants to see a woman who is 33 weeks pregnant with twins and having frequent incontinence wearing a lacy tanga or a filmy thong?  I found a semi-appropriate boy short that was mostly ruffles and headed to the hospital.  Oh, I forgot to mention that Maggie had an important appointment  so Casey took her and the baby and I took our 14 year old with me,  again, what 14 year old wants to see her mother in any kind of anything other than a granny panty. 

After I was checked in and dressed in a gown, they hooked me up to the monitors, exposing my panties to my 14 year old and the nursing staff.  Anyhow, I texted my husband to let him know that I was in Labor and Delivery room 4, he thought I was "in labor", and texted back that he was on his way and should he starting calling family.  Shoot, I meant I was in the Labor and Delivery part of the hospital.  Major text miscommunication.  I called him immediately and let him know all was well and no babies yet. 

I repeatedly told the staff that this was an over reaction and that I was fine and just needed some antibiotics.  Nope, they tested me in all the uncomfortable ways, and then the doctor came in.  He was a man.  Dignity once again lost.  He informed me that it was an over reaction and I was fine.  He gave me a prescription for antibiotics and sent me on my way.  He also suggested in the most pitiful way, that incontinence would likely be resolved once the twins were born or the cough was gone. Yeah, I figured as much. 

Sorry if you were hoping for a more provocative post.

L&P

Ode to my 14 Year Old

First I would like to apologize for the lack of activity on the blog as of late.  However if you have been keeping up with our downward spiral as of late then you would have been able to predict of that of course the battery to the laptop would crap out.  So really you only have yourselves to blame.

If these things are real then I need... all of them.

Moving on...
We spend a lot of time on this blog speaking to the challenges of special needs parenting and trying to manage our toddler.  We spend a lot of time greasing our ill lubricated wheels since they are the squeakiest.  I wanted to spend some time complimenting the wheel that helps keep us traveling smoothly.  I am speaking of my oldest child.
 Whenever I take my kid to school late (which is often) I have to walk her in and fill out a little form that states that I am excusing her tardiness and the reason for the late arrival.  I assume that the motivation for learning why we are late is so that they can make some kind of spread sheet or bar graph depicting how many kids were late and for what reason in order to determine what, if any action can be taken by the school to reduce late arrivals.
One may safely assume that the heavy hitters on such a study would be; slept in, traffic, and alarm clock malfunction.  Due to the radness of my child, there will be a few new categories that must be added to this study. Included in our reasons for being late are; had to destroy Deathstar, zombies, elves, all that jazz, ninjas, dragons, the mummy, sparkly vampires, tardis malfunction, and bears.

True, it is more likely that all of these crazy awesome, if not 100% accurate reasons for arriving at school late will probably be swept under the excuse rug under the heading of "other", but this is just a small example of the all consuming coolness that is my daughter.
When I look at her I am struck with an emotion which can only be described as equal parts pride and envy.  I call it Prenvy.  Pride at how mind bendingly, reality splitingly, life changingly amazing she is.  Envy at the fact that she is miles ahead of where I was at her age.  My kid is 14 years old and is already better at everything that I wanted to do when I was 18.
At 14 years of age she is surfing, winning archery tournaments, playing Dungeons & Dragon's on a regular basis, and en route to becoming a legitimate professional entertainer.  At 14 years of age I was still pretty sure that there was some way that I could become a real life Batman.

Without the nipples though

She has lived her whole life knowing that her sister's health is fragile and any plan that she has made may be shelved due to Maggie's crap immune system.  She has taken this reality of her life with grace and minimal whining.  Well, much less whining then I would have done... still do.
It's weird looking up to someone that you are raising, but it is something that I find myself doing regularly.  

L&C