30w6d: Pretty Much Ready

I am kind of in awe that I will be 31 weeks tomorrow. I pretty much went directly from fearing a miscarriage to fearing extremely premature babies. (I can't even allow myself to be afraid of a still-birth...it's like touching a hot stove. My mind--for once!--protects me from that by drawing back involuntarily and daydreaming about other things instead.) Premature babies are often a reality with twins, and what with my cervical funneling at 21 weeks and then being told (up until Wednesday, of course) that I would likely be induced early due to Atticus's growth, I had solid ground to think I'd never see "the 30s".

But here I am. Not only am I not having Thanksgiving babies (as originally feared), I am, in fact, not having 2011 babies. Damien's weight is only an estimate, of course, but if it's close, he wouldn't even be "very low birth-weight" if born right now. Just low. No very. Atticus might very well escape that label himself.

My babies might be more than 32 weeks old. I might even make my 8th month of pregnancy!! I've been telling everyone "We're hoping for February babies", and it seemed like a pipe dream. But it very well could be our reality.

Or at least, it's no longer absurd to hope.

Still.

After yesterday's wacky NST (and my doctorsister said she wasn't surprised, that my uterus measures full-term, so it's doing its full-term things, but that that can happen for a month or more. And my actual OB's office never called, so they can't be too concerned...), we decided we shouldn't put it off any longer.

My husband and I are greedy, cheap bastards. Our philosophy for buying baby things has been: well, let's see what we get given and then buy the rest.

I know. We suck. In our defense, we already spent more conceiving these babies than most parents spend on...well, I would guess the first 2-3 years of life, unless they have really awful maternity insurance. And also...well, as difficult as my relationship with my mother can be at times, one thing she has never not been is generous. Same goes for my grandparents.

Anyway, with my birthday, Christmas, my up-coming baby shower (which is indeed happening, Jan 7th), and my husband's birthday (Jan 23rd), we figured we'd be ok waiting. And we have been given a ton. Our cribs, stroller, little tiny clothes (though I've heard you can never have enough...), silly toys, a changing pad, a baby bathtub, and even a swing. And giftcards intended to be used to purchase their carseats.

Going off the philosophy that what babies need are: something to eat (my boobs, but should that fail, every grocery store sells formula, so it's not hard to procure), something to wear (got the first day or two covered, at any rate), something to poop in (we have some cloth diapers already and might do disposables during the first few weeks, which again can be bought at any grocery store), a safe way home from the hospital, and a place to sleep, we were nearly there.

So today, we bought their carseats and their crib mattresses and a few sheets.

Babies R Us surely thinks we are woefully understocked...but I think, at this point, we've got the necessities. Everything we need to bring them home. Anything else is just gravy.