Progress...

Hall:

• White shelf unit move to the family room
• Clear and move bookcase to bottom of the stairs
• stuff from shelves to eaves

Kitchen:

• Clear surfaces
• Clear Fridge top - Goodness knows where to...
• Sort baking crates
• Clear white shelf tops

Sitting Room:

• Move Desk up to landing
• Clear and re-organise bookcases
• Clear clutter from behind door
• Hang pictures
• Boxes to eaves storage

Family Room

• Move pine trofast to boys' rooms
• build castle n train table
• Clear sideboard
• Clear windowsills

Landing

• Laundry bags away
• Move white chest of drawers
• Set up desk
• Put away washing

Our Room

• Move wooden chest of drawers
• Move in white chest of drawers
• Move washing basket

Boys' rooms

• Clothes away
• Pine trofast in

Spare room

• Washing away
• Bookcase move to landing
• Build cot 2

Things to do...

Someone suggested that as Im frustrated by the enforced sitting on the sofa, I should use my time writing lists of things to do - particularly things for J to do...

So I started, and I have 8 pages of A4...

I've just written an abbreviated list of stuff J has to do before he's allowed to watch the rugby tomorrow. He laughed when I read it to him, he'll learn....



Things to Move and Organise...

Hall:

• White shelf unit move to the family room
• Clear and move bookcase to bottom of the stairs
• stuff from shelves to eaves

Kitchen:

• Clear surfaces
• Clear Fridge top - Goodness knows where to...
• Sort baking crates
• Clear white shelf tops

Sitting Room:

• Move Desk up to landing
• Clear and re-organise bookcases
• Clear clutter from behind door
• Hang pictures
• Boxes to eaves storage

Family Room

• Move pine trofast to boys' rooms
• build castle n train table
• Clear sideboard
• Clear windowsills

Landing

• Laundry bags away
• Move white chest of drawers
• Set up desk
• Put away washing

Our Room

• Move wooden chest of drawers
• Move in white chest of drawers
• Move washing basket

Boys' rooms

• Clothes away
• Pine trofast in

Spare room

• Washing away
• Bookcase move to landing
• Build cot 2

What time is the rugby on?

Choosing a birthday

We went along to my consultant appointment anticipating a conversation about booking an elective caesarian section for around 37 weeks.
Twin 1 is currently transverse, and if that situation continues then there really isn't any option. A planned c- section is without doubt the best way to bring them into the world in that situation.
We weren't expecting to simply be asked "well after next week [35 weeks] when do you want to have them?"

The problem you see is that my last 2 labours were what they call "extreme precipitate" once things got moving properly the babies were in a hurry and arrived in under 2 hours.

So if my waters break or I start to go into labour, with twin one transverse then they are going to have to move very quickly to avoid cord prolapse etc.

Thing is, if it happens at night then realistically it's going to take an hour to an hour and a half to get me into theatre, by the time they've assembled teams etc.
So we're left with a near impossible risk calculation to do.
We're weighing up the dangers to the twins of being born early but in a controlled situation.
Against the benefits of reaching full term, but risking a passage perilous into the outside world.
And somehow we have to decide what's best.

My previous pregnancies having all reached 41 weeks (or almost) is reassuring, but equally my body decided it was time to evict each of those three as their weight hit the 7lb 13 mark, and the combined weight of the twins is considerably higher than that already.

Anyway, they can't come yet, the house is a mess!

I've been in hospital...

Sorry for not updating.
We've had a bit of a week of it.
Father in law left on Friday and the weekend was a whirl of social engagements. Mostly for the children! When did my diary stop being a neatly written reminder,  full of drinks parties and dinners out and become a scrawled mass of playdates and "Jungle House" invitations etc?
Saturday was football for Sam and Josiah joined him for the first time - I am proud mummy of both the "Player of the Week" - Sam - and the "Best Debut Player" - Josiah.
It threw it down part way through but the boys played on.
After lunch Josiah had a party to go to so I released Ben into the soft play centre and J played mini golf with Sam.
Sunday was Sam's day for parties and we took Josiah and Ben to try the mini-golf which they loved.

Back to school on Monday and a welter of PE kits and book bags, returning notes etc. There was a space available to park so J took them in while I waited in the car.
I had some pain at the top of my bump but it felt muscular or positional rather than anything else. Still at J's insistence I phoned the midwives who gave me some advice on relaxing anything that had been pulled - paracetamol and warm bath mainly.
It worked and all seemed well.

I got up on Tuesday feeling tired but physically better. We chased the boys into uniforms and sorted packed lunches. As I strapped them into the car though I had a contraction. Not a mild one, full on agony. All down one side of the bump and around the bottom.
They continued throughout the drive. At school there was no where to park so though I could really have done with staying put I walked them into school. It takes a few minutes but in that time 3 teachers stopped me to ask if I was ok. I clearly wasn't.
I got to the car and J drove straight to the hospital. We didn't stop to phone. My notes were in the car but I couldn't phone, the contractions were agony, one on top of another.
The ported wheeled me from reception to the maternity ward. J bringing Ben.
On the ward the midwife said "you're in labour aren't you?"
"I don't know" I gasped.
"I think I do" she replied and told the porter to wheel me straight into delivery.

They set me up on the monitors instantly, as soon as I lay down the contractions eased a little but the toco showed them strong and clear all the same.

Phoning the on-call ob-gyn consultant she told him what she was seeing and thinking and about my two most recent very fast deliveries.
He said he was on his way but told her to waste no time and give me the first of the two steroid injections I would need to mature the twins' lungs for an early delivery. And to get set up to give me the necessary drugs to try to stop the contractions.

J rang my friend Sam who said she was on her way to the park with her son and mindee and would swing by the hospital to collect Ben and take him along too and then keep him as long as we needed.

J took him down and I had the first steroid jab. The consultant arrived to examine me take swabs to check no infection was causing early labour, scan for positions etc.

The good news was that my cervix was closed - phew!
The scan showed that twin one had moved quite dramatically in a few days, possibly all that morning, causing my uterus to start contracting. Unhelpfully though, he'd gone from breech with his head on my right side, to transverse with his head on my left.
If this was going to be labour and delivery it was going to be a c-section. They warned the theatre.

They put a cannula in, I'm very hard to cannulate so this took some time and they ended up using the tiniest one they had and then got the drip started.
They kept me on the delivery suite until they contractions had subsided to less than three in every ten minutes which took a couple of hours, though well before then they were far less intense and then took theatre of standby though they continued to prepare scbu.
Then they moved me to the ward and J collected my hospital bags from home.

Sarah and Sam between them took care of the boys until school pick up time and J popped into work and then collected them, he fed them and then Sarah and Sam came back to put them to bed while he came back in to see me.

Embarrassingly, just as a road accident is certain to happen when you are wearing your oldest knickers, this happened when my house was the messiest it has ever been! We've been reorganising the children's bedrooms and the family room, and I've been having tot take it a bit easy so other, normal, housework has taken a nose dive.

And my two friends with lovely clean organised houses were now in mine!


They were wonderful those two, they tidied up a bit and got the children to bed. Next morning Sarah dropped the big two at school and then had Ben for the morning before dropping him off at Sam's.
The doctors let me out at lunchtime, when I'd had 24 hours on the drip and a few off it and the contractions had been settled for a while and I'd had 2 steroid doses.

J brought Ben back at about 3.

Mel, another friend, collected Samuel and Josiah from school and took them to her house for tea with her son, Sam's best friend. J collected them at around 6 and we got them to bed. Everyone was exhausted!

This morning Sarah arrived to take the boys to school and Sam a bit later to take Ben to charge about at soft play.
They have put their foot down those two and insisted on coming in to clean and organise next week while I keep my feet up.

Honestly, friends, what would we do without them?

The best things...

I got back from the scan surprisingly upbeat, as I said and picked up a card from the postman, he'd tried to deliver 2 'packages' the day before and they were waiting for me at the post office.
Having loaded children and granddad/ father in law into the car we headed off to get football boots and shin pads for the middle child, who is going to start playing football with his big brother's squad on Saturday.
On the way we stopped at the post office to collect what I imagined would be two jiffy bags containing 4 hand knitted baby cardigans and 6 sleepsuits from my mum who'd said she'd picked some up in Asda.
So imagine my surprise when I found 2 big boxes waiting for me...

I "met" Rebecca on line 7 years ago. We were both planning our weddings, mine at the end of 2004, hers at the start of '05.
I remember liking her right from the start.
Weddings over she returned from her honeymoon expecting her daughter and I found out Sam was on the way almost straight afterward, so Sam and F are very close in age.
Then, soon after I found out I was pregnant with Josiah, she too found she was expecting again. And her son was born a few weeks after Josiah.
By now we'd met for real and knew were were proper friends, so when she found a lump a few months later and then had to go through mastectomies and chemotherapy and all nature of other things I wept with her and for her and her family.

I have seldom been happier in my life than when she was told she was in remission. Or more scared than when, after we had a long weekend in Paris last april she confided that she was scared it might be back. When she was told her fears were unfounded was one of the few times I've been even happier!

I have a lot of friends, some I see often, some I haven't seen for a long time, most are people I can kick my shoes off with and drink tea or wine with and chat to for hours, no matter how long it's been.
Rebecca is one of those, she's also one of a very few I can let see me at my most vulnerable. One of the few I'd chose to have with me in labour etc.

And the parcels were from her. From the moment she knew we were having twins and how hard shopping was over here she started to collect things, beautiful things, things I'd have chosen myself. And the parcels were full of these things.

How do you say thank you for a present like that?
How do you say thank you for a friend like that?

Rebecca, I love you darling.

xxx

Breech presentation

I had my 32 week scan yesterday.
All is well, babies are growing well - scarily well! and measuring in at approximately 9lbs between them with twin 2 a little heavier than twin 1.
I still can't quite get my head around there being two of them...
There's still plenty of fluid around then both and both placentas and cords are doing a great job. So far so good.
They are also both in a transverse/ breech presentation.
I asked at what point their positions were likely to be "set" because their size and lack of space meant they couldn't actually turn anymore, and was told that this could be it. They might still move and become cephalic, but twin one has his bottom fairly low down, not "engaged" but not far off, so that could be his position for the rest of the pregnancy.

Which will of course mean a caesarian. I have an appointment in about 10 days with the consultant and I guess he'll scan me again then so we'll get an idea if they're still mobile, and if not I'm assuming we'll be discussing booking an "elective" c-section at 36/ 37 weeks ish, so it really is good news that they're a decent size.
It seems odd to think that I will then know the date my babies will be born in advance. A far cry from going overdue with the others ans waking each morning to wonder "is this the day?".
Though this is by no means certain, they could always decide they want out before any planned date.

I'm surprisingly ok with the idea of a caesarian considering how much I wanted as natural and non medicalised, a labour and delivery as possible.
It was never about an emotional need to push my babies into the world. I don't consider women who have had natural childbirths anymore entitled to use the phrase "gave birth" than those who went under the surgeon's knife. For me it's all all about giving life to what started as a tiny bundle of cells, not about how you deal with the short few last hours before they take their first breaths on the outside. I think in Spain they refer at it as "Giving light to a baby" I like that. bringing them from the darkness into the light.
No, it's not about wanting to labour, it was about not wanting to make labour something it didn't need to be filled with intervention and drugs and so on. If there is a medical need then that's easy, I'll do what they think best.
And if it does end up as a planned caesarian then we can make that work well, maybe we can drop the boys at school in the morning, ton our way to the hospital and then J can collect them at the end of the school day to tell them about their brothers. And my mum need have only Ben to worry about.

I got home to the best parcel I have ever received in my life, literally. But there's another post in that story!

Special Care...

Sorry I've not been updating. I've had a busy - and exhausting - week.
My Father in law came to stay on Friday so I spent the week preparing for a house guest. I also went into frantic "nesting' mode a bit I think, no one can come and help with the children when I go into labour while it's all in this kind of a mess! So we're getting there though there's still a way to go yet!
I've been batch cooking too, trying to ensure we don't all starve once I'm out of action (or die of malnutrition on Fish and chips and sausages!
With Paul (that's the Father in Law) here J and I were able to go together to the birth and labour breathing class yesterday.
There were only 2 couples there, us and a lovely young couple expecting their first baby. She's tiny and has been told her baby is likely to be a nine pounder! I'm quite relived my older three were all around the 7lb13 mark and with heads that were/ are slightly small in proportion to their bodies!
No, 2 around 6 and a half pounds each would be ideal I think, small enough that I don't feel like I'm going to explode and big enough that they don't have all the additional problems associated with tiny babies.
Still, we have a growth scan on Tuesday (Valentine's day) so we'll know more then.

While we were at the hospital for the class J and I asked if we could have a look at the special care unit. We'd been advised to do this by various people, fear of the unknown never being a good thing.
I'm so glad we did. For the first time I'm glad that I am having these babies here.
Unlike Emma, who I mentioned in my last post, pregnant with quads, who has had to come to terms with the fact that because she will need 4 incubators etc her babies will probably be split between hospitals initially, here there are 4 "spaces" and because of the size of the population it's incredibly rare that more than one of them is in use at a time - extra good news because in March the airport here will be closed for a few days and we have no idea what that might mean in terms of emergency evacuation if needed, given that the air ambulance is a chieftan plane - the midwife didn't know either but suspected that the Barclay Brothers (the famous millionaire twins from Sark) might well offer their helicopter in that case, as they have before, which would be exciting, but perhaps not the kind of excitement we need!

Anyway, as well as the 4 incubators etc the special care baby unit here is separated from the maternity ward by a door. Just a door, so if it come to it and my babies are there I won't have the hours of waiting for a porter, nurse of midwife to take me to them that you read about in books and see on television.
Even if I'm not up to moving myself I can't imagine a situation where someone won't be able to spare the minute or so it would take to get me from A to B.

I saw a tiny baby while I was there though, born at 32 weeks (where I am today), now 34 weeks and doing well.
We'll be fine.

Quads!

No not me, phew!
But I've been reading the blog of a lady called Emma who has a 2 year old son and is expecting spontaenously conceived quad boys.
http://www.emmasquaddiary.blogspot.com/2012/02/wk26-day-6-congratulations.html#comment-form it's true, there's always someone who has it way harder than you do!

Quiet Baby...

I realised at about midday that I'd barely felt what they're now calling twin 2, the left hand one, move for at least 24 hours.
It'd been on my mind as a niggly thing but at about midday I acknowledged it.
I called the midwives at the maternity ward and my consultant actually answered the phone, he's got a very distinctive South African accent. He listened to what I had to say, and said he thought I should come on for a CTG.
J was taking the boys to the park and so, though he'd have liked to have come with me, he dropped me off at the hospital on the way.
When I got there there was a bit of a stir as another woman had come in for similar reasons and was hooked up to the twin CTG. Rather than have them move her I said I'd wait and they did some other antenatal checks while we waited.
There was protein in my urine sample - just protein + as they record it, but it was there. My BP was up for me, though still in the bounds of normal. And I have some oedema around my hands. In the later stages of pregnancy I remove my beloved and expensive, engagement and wedding bands and wear instead a £30 9 carat gold wedding ring we bought in Asda in my first pregnancy. It's a slightly larger size but more importantly (because I've never had significant swelling) I wouldn't be utterly devastated if it had to be cut from my finger. They sent the sample off for analysis. I should hear something tomorrow.
"Hmmm" said the midwife.
I was hooked up to the machine - the other lady having left, reassured and apologising for being "a headcase", I'm sure she's not incidentally, her first baby was born by caesarian section at 26 weeks, following an airlift to Southampton because of severe pre-eclampsia. Any mother who has done that deserves to have the odd bout of paranoia in my opinion.
It took a while to site the two monitor belts, but once they were in place twin one performed well, hitting the markers quickly.
No so twin 2. The midwife brought me a cup of apple juice to try to get him moving, and the heartbeat was clearly there, but he was indeed, very sleepy.
Eventually he hit all the markers and I was allowed to come home.

I've to monitor it for the next 48 hours though, and head back if he stays quiet.
"Rest and get ready for the babies" - well there's a contradiction in terms.

J'll move the bedroom furniture and build the cot in a bit. Well, once the rugby finishes...

I nearly caught the plane home today...

For a whole variety of reasons, not least that shopping on this island is impossible.
No where, no where stocks tiny/ early baby sized vests and babygros, You can get hideously overpriced "outfits" but standard white/ blue/ cream sleepsuits with poppers in packs? No.
No where, no where, stocks nursing bras above a G fitting. Only 2 shops actually stock them at all and they're hideous. Honestly even if they fitted I wouldn't put my grandma in them (And she's been dead and gone for years!)
When I queried this I was told "They don't make them", oh yes they do! "Ah but these are comfortable" - the girl was about 18 with a flat as a pancake tummy - "Have you worn one?" I asked.
"Well, no..."
I asked who bought their underwear in for them - it was a man's name... Hmm there's a chance that might explain a bit.
In M&S I was told, by the store manager, "You could order on-line" well yes, but not from M&S as the franchise doesn't allow you to order unless it's delivered to the store, "I think you can," she said. I sighed and pointed to the other staff members, all shaking their heads, "No, you can't". "Oh!" She said, 'well, I'm new..."
We need a booster seat for the tallest child in the car, the kind that means you can chuck it about - and access all the seats, and we need a bouncy/ rocker/ swinging chair or two for the babies. I looked on the "Toys R Us" website and found what I wanted, I put them in my "basket" and checked delivery. Apparently we're a "remote island" and they don't deliver to remote islands. I closed the site down.
They emailed me to ask why I hadn't checked out.
We went to the local shop (for local people!) that stocks both. Only they don't, not any more.

I bought a changing mat....

No idea what I'm doing about the rest.

Sighing and moaning mostly...

Phew...

Phew for a couple of reasons!

I'm actually starting to get the house and all the jobs that need doing under control. I'm hoping that this weekend will break the back of it, J has had a similar wake up call to the one he got in our first pregnancy - this time the sister of a work colleague has had her baby at 33 weeks.

My mum has arranged with her physio that she can miss a few weeks without having to go back onto the waiting lists, so she's set to come over from around 34/ 35 weeks and then stay for the duration.

My Father in law has booked flights to come over at the end of next week and then stay for half term, so I won't have all week alone with 3 children, he'll be here to look after Ben for the 32 week scan, and to look after all 3 while J comes with me to the birth relaxation class.

Best of all I went out for dinner with 2 friends earlier in the week. I met Sarah (who looked after Ben while I had the nuchal scan) and Sam (who is our regular babysitter/ irregular Childminder!) at the school gates when their daughters and Sam were all in reception together last year and they've become good friends.
They were incredibly reassuring, day or night, if I go into labour and there is no one here but J and I, Sarah will come, even if it means sleeping on the sofa.
Between them they will get the boys to/ from school and keep Ben occupied.

I honestly can't tell you what a relief all this is.

It also means that the uk friends who offered to fly over to help out (Rebecca, Lisa, Liz. I'm looking at you!) can come later and enjoy baby cuddles!