My husband's company gave us our first baby shower on Friday (right before my midwife appointment). I feel so blessed to have so many people care about us. It was kind of funny, though, since most of his company is young single guys, many from Italy (it's a tech start-up).
I was kind of wondering what they would get us, since at that point, almost nothing was bought off the registry. Turns out that they pooled their money and asked my sister what they could get us that was BIG. I didn't register for anything over about $150-$200 (car seats and the cosleeper), and I guess they had a lot more than that. So she told them that we really wanted a jogging stroller that converts to a bike trailer, and they bought us the nicest, most expensive one they could find. It was a wonderful surprise, and I can't wait to use it, although it will be at least 7 months until we get our first opportunity.
In the last few days, quite a few things have been purchased for us, including most of our expensive stuff. My husband's business partner and his wife bought us a car seat, and I'm thinking we should make sure it fits in the car this weekend before someone buys us the other one. I'm really looking forward to the next two baby showers now, except that I don't really like being the center of attention. Ah well, it's the price to pay for being pregnant. With twins.
The other price to pay is continued insomnia. It's been days since I've slept through the night, but for the most part I can eventually get back to sleep and on the weekends sleep in until I get 8 hours. I've been trying various alternative remedies, but nothing seems to work. The husband is pushing for me to try meditation, which I've never been particularly good at.
Working is getting much, much tougher, because it's rather hard to do on 4-6 hours of sleep per night. Also, I was told (after a year of being promised otherwise) that I will not be considered for promotion "until I return from my maternity leave" (while everyone else at my level, and with less education and time at the job, has been promoted). I'm sure there's something illegal in that, but I don't know if I care anymore. I only have 5 workdays left, including my baby shower. I definitely plan to not go back to that particular job.
And our house! It's finally coming along! We got our wood floors delivered, and they will start installing them on Monday!!! I'm so excited about that. Especially because I can finally start moving stuff in and setting up a nursery. Actually, the room I was thinking of for the babies' room is uglier than I realized/remembered. The wood floor will make a huge difference, and I think trimming back the plants in front of the windows will, too. The walls are stark white - I'm thinking of painting them sage green, and wish I had thought of it earlier, but now I'll have to paint after the floors are in, maybe next weekend. And one wall is covered in that 70's style grass-cloth, with relatively ugly sconces, but I might leave all that for now (especially since our remodeling plan will eventually call for putting a closet opening in that wall). It will look much better with colored walls than white ones.
They've also demolished the bathroom completely and have just gotten started on rebuilding it. I'm hoping that it will be done a couple weeks after the floors, but perhaps I'm being too optimistic. We don't really want to go live there until that bathroom is done, although we theoretically could. Either way, we're going to start moving boxes, books, extra furniture, baby stuff, etc. I can't wait! Taking care of the yard and pool will be so much more manageable when we're living there.
Well, it is 5am, and I've been up since 3:30. Seems like a good point to try to go back to sleep. Hope all's well and that everyone's having a good weekend!
It sounds like things are just truckin' along for you. I've got the insomnia thing going on too, although I've been getting a couple of nights a week where I get decent sleep.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine how busy you must be with the renos and work and everything. Try not to overdo it!
What sweet men to get you such a kickin' stroller! You'll be back to your exercising ways in no time. :) Try to enjoy the baby showers despite all of the attention. I hope the car seat fits!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fabulous gift that stroller was. Very nice. I hope you managed to get some more sleep. Good luck with all the house stuff.
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited that your house is coming along so quickly - I'll keep my fingers crossed that the progress continues this way. Also, what a great gift from your hubs' coworkers - something you will most definitely use!
ReplyDeleteI'm finding my job is the same way - they've procrastinated and proctrastinated on giving me a raise and now I think they'll delay it until after I get back from leave (which is friggin' October). My competitive career-minded self is pissed, my mother-to-be self doesn't really give a crap (mostly because I'm thinking of telling them to shove it when my leave is up). Five days left... I'm so jealous!
I'm a first-time visitor, having finally thought to see who GracieInBrooklyn follows after reading her blog for about a year. Sorry - I should have started reading earlier, not least because our twins, Oliver and Isabella, have just turned 15 months old, the result of our 5th (and what would have most definitely been our final) IVF after the dreaded 'unexplained infertility' too. My wife is an astonishing woman, and I'm sure that your DH feels exactly the same about you.
ReplyDeleteYou have a whirlwind of excitement (and sleep deprivation) to come. Already to this point, it has been the most amazing experience, and all the emotional heartbreak that we went through (which is most definitely still with me) has all been worthwhile.
I'm a TTC blog reader and commenter, hoping that I can offer some sense of hope and advice - that it can stil work approaching 40 and after 4 previous failures, but it's also incredibly nice to find people for whom the treacherously bumpy road still leads to their dream destination.
There are so many practical tips that I could offer, but it's probably not fair to fill up your comments box with them. The top five would probably be:
1) Have changing and sleeping arrangements upstairs and down - you don't want to be traipsing up and down stairs all day, which is definitely what it feels like at the start.
2) Don't get too stressed out about breastfeeding both at every feed - my wife managed 2 weeks, with mixed success, and it just made her feel partly bovine from the constant feeding or expressing, and partly an inferior mother when there wasn't enough or when the pain was too much. You'll be knackered and hormonal enough, don't give yourself the extra stress. And if your DH is like me, he'll love helping out through the nights.
3) Enjoy every single second of the attention when you're out and about with them. Yes, people will ask daft questions ("Are they identical?"..."No, the one in blue is a boy and the one in pink is a girl.") and will also pry astonishingly considering they're strangers ("Are they natural?"). You'll definitely want to ping a personal question back, like "And does your husband satisfy you in bed?", but you'll resist the temptation. Always allow an extra half an hour to get around the supermarket though - everyone will want to stop you for a chat... :)
4) You don't need two cots for quite some time - we had them sleeping next to each other in a single cotbed for about two months with no problems, and only really moved them because we'd had the other cotbed delivered, rather than them running out of space.
5) Get some help. Can't stress this enough. If your Mum lives nearby, sign her up for literally a month. Find a reliable Mother's Help. It's an incredibly difficult task to look after them, especially if you need to recover from a c-section like my wife did.
But already I've spouted off more than I should. I'm just really, really excited for you - and I don't even have a clue who you are! That's just the excitement that having twins brings. Congratulations - and I'm now going to stay tuned to keep up with how you're getting on.
Take care,
J