19w0d: Half-way

Yes, I know a singleton pregnancy is 40 weeks (actually though, anywhere from 38-42 is "normal") and so 20 weeks is the acknowledged half-way mark, but not for me! My OB has already said she won't let me go past 38 weeks (and my doctorsister agrees with that call), so for me 19 is my max-half. 37 weeks is full-term (for any baby), so I'm already more than half-way to that. And my personal goal is to keep Itsy and Bitsy (who might have names--we've got one, just unsure on the 2nd, and I'll share once we've decided for sure!) inside until February, which is about 35.5+ weeks.

So halfway! Hang in there, baby boys, we're doing great!

My baby brother's birthday is today. Which means October Birthday Fest is officially upon us. My doctorsister (Oct 15th) was in town, and so we celebrated her and my brother together. Normally, I would be thrown in too (Oct 20), but it was deemed too soon. My grandparents, however, are celebrating with me on Tuesday. And everyone wants to know what I want.

Baby stuff.

Baby stuff is what we're asking for my birthday, Christmas, and my husband's birthday (Jan 23). And for the two showers I'm apparently having (more on that later).

So, equipped with two internal penises (penes, apparently, is the correct plural), I decided to man up.

My husband and I hit Babies R Us yesterday. (SPOILER: We didn't buy anything.) It wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I did stay clear of clothing and toys (the awwwww-inducing areas of the store). We focused on: carseats, strollers, cribs, boppys, bouncy seats/swings.

So up first, carseats. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, and yeah no. We took my husband's car, to determine which infant seats could fit in it. Answer? None! At least, not comfortably. The clerk kept arguing with us, saying "it fits just fine behind the passenger seat though". We did explain about the whole twin thing, and believe it or not, twins need separate car seats (despite sharing a uterus, which does seem rather unfair). So we're just going to go with the ever-popular, extremely safe Graco, and a new car for me. We might get an extra base, possibly two, for my husband's car, but we've decided we'll just switch cars with frequency, and whoever's not at work (or whatever) gets the babymobile, and whoever's leaving takes the Carefree Car.

Especially since we might have more kids.

I'm not making that decision now, obviously, since I don't know what raising twins will take out of me. My husband, when we found out it was twins, said "we're done". It broke my heart. I haven't nagged him, figuring he would come to a decision on his own, and I'd rather all our children be wanted, even if it meant only two (please let these boys both live!), than to get my wish at the expense of my husband. And we did have a serious conversation about it a few weeks ago.

Growing up, I wanted 6 kids. When I reached my mid-twenties and was unhitched (and developed my plan of using a sperm-donor at 30 if I wasn't in a serious relationship with a man at that point), I decided on 4 instead. I told my husband this very early on in our dating career. (He wanted kids but had no firm ideas on amount.) Infertility made me reconsider. By the time of our last transfer, I had mentally down-sized to 2. I mean, two years, six embryos transferred, an awful fert report, at my emotional end, no baby in sight--2 seemed down-right greedy, and more seemed shameful and, frankly, a journey I didn't think I could endure.

But as challenging as this pregnancy has been, everything now seems easy again. I mean, 2 babies in just shy of 3 years (counting from tossing the Pill towards hopeful delivery) really isn't that bad. And I'm convinced that the emotional mess of IVF and trying for another baby will be very different than trying for a baby at all. Finances won't change, and that may prove to be a limiting factor. But aside from that...I see know reason to have a cut-off at 2 anymore. (Again, might change my mind once they're here.)

And my husband, and I am sooooo lucky!, is now on the same page. The wait-and-see-but-possibly page.

I read an absolutely hilarious sentence that immediately made it clear that the Salt Lake Tribune had just full-out copied the article from the AP. It was about Mitt Romney. The sentence described his family as "huge" (or maybe "enormous"). The dude has 5 kids. 5 kids, in Utah, is not a big deal. 5 kids for Mormon families is pretty much expected. All of my Mormon friends growing up came from families with 6 or more kids. 8 kids is not unusual. 10 is where we start saying "big". 12 plus takes you into "huge". And yes, I know families like that, more than one. My family, until we acquired the step-siblings, was on the smaller side, at 4. Most of my non-Mormon friends, whose parents chose to live here for whatever reason, came from families of 3+ as well. I only had one friend who was an only child, and she moved her from England at 11. (And she's one of my baby-shower-throwers, and is very awesome.)

So I might be a bit biased when it comes to "perfect family size". But I loved growing up with my siblings, and playing with all the siblings of my friends. We never "didn't have enough kids" to play a good game of kick-the-can, hide-and-seek, basketball, Monopoly, Rook, whatever. It only took a handful of calls to organize Capture the Flag, full-fledged soccer games, huge camp-outs in someone's back yard. I want my kids to have the same experience.

Which, by the way, is why I was so surprised at the dearth of double strollers at Babies R Us. I know twins are still kind of rare, but seriously--BIG FAMILIES! And they didn't even have the much-recommended Double Snap and Go! They only had 2 side-by-side doubles, one of which was a very cheap, flimsy sort, which I believe is called an "umbrella" stroller. And they had maybe 3 back-to-front ones, which looking at solidified my decision to go side-by-side. (They also didn't have any other twin stuff--no twin boppies or Pack N Plays (ugh, we will bypass that entirely, thanks)--which wasn't a total shock, but was a disappointment anyway.)

So we'll be ordering a few key things from the internet, apparently. Although we plan on checking out Target and the like too, but aren't hopeful they'll have everything we want.

I've got to run, so I'll finish all this up later.