Livin' Large

Well, I passed the 28 weeks mark a few days ago, which means I'm now in my third trimester. Although, given that I'll probably deliver at or around 36 weeks instead of the usual 40, I suppose the math should be a little different. But anyway.

As you can see, I just keep on getting bigger. (Though people continue to tell me I don't look as big as they would expect me to; they may just be saying it to be polite.) My weight gain has now surpassed 30 pounds, and I'm definitely feeling heavy. My back is frequently quite achey, getting up and down out of chairs or bed takes some doing, and picking things up from the floor is a real pain in the ass. I don't know how women with toddlers manage being pregnant. In my experience, keeping after toddlers requires a lot of picking things up off the floor (sippy cups, goldfish crackers, globs of play-doh, little plastic toys). And it strikes me as rather dangerous to leave them there if your view of the floor is obscured by a large, burgeoning abdomen. Hats off to those moms out there who have managed it.

The end is certainly within view now, and it's exciting. I feel as ready as I think I'm going to. In fact, in general, I've felt much more emotionally and psychologically solid in the past few weeks, even as I feel less comfortable physically.

Some part of me, I think, decided it had had just about enough of fear and doubt and neurotic churning. That part said, step aside, ye lackeys, I'm taking over. It's time to get excited and googly-eyed about these babies, ready to welcome them into the world and love them, ready to dive into the intensity and earth-shattering change of parenthood, in all its splendor and squalor.

Or, to quote the great John Prine, "Your heart gets bored with your mind and it changes you."

Of course, there are still moments of panic and disproportionate moodiness: Me, yesterday, at Babies-R-Us (shudder) with A., struggling to fit infant seats onto the double stroller frame I'd bought off of Craig's list, realizing they wouldn't fit, and that I'd wasted fifty bucks. Sitting in the car on the way home in tears, pouting, whining, "I don't want two babies! Why can't I just have one baby like everyone else?" Wah, wah, wah.

In other news, we've met with a couple of pediatricians now; the first one didn't impress us. She came off more like a PR exec than a doctor -- suspiciously well-coiffed and bearing a glint of something like lunacy in her eyes. Also, strangely, there were almost no toys in the waiting room; just a little table with a jigsaw puzzle on it. Hmm... The second doctor was much better: young, laid-back, friendly, accessible, and quite sharp. Also, they had good toys. We're going to meet with one more doc before we decide, but I'd be very happy with #2. (Who knew you were supposed to interview pediatricians? Not me a year ago, that's for sure.)

Well, the ole novel is a calling. I spent an hour yesterday roughly outlining what needs to happen in the next few (final!) chapters, and have no excuse for stalling.

Ultrasound on Tuesday. We expect the twins to be in costume. Here's hoping they are also both heading in the head-down direction, and growing beautifully.