35 Weeks Sees Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!! For the past 3 Valentine's days, I have bought Kyle non-lovey dovey gifts. So, in keeping with tradition, I ordered Kyle some UNC (University of North Carolina) onesies since he didn't have any for our twinnies. I thought it was only fair since I have 3 UK ones, that he should get an equal amount! It hurt me greatly to pay for a non-UK item... but it's amazing what we do for the people we love ;-). Kyle bought me some beautiful flowers and some chocolate (yummy)! We celebrated Valentine's Day the night before, because we had a coupon that didn't work on Valentine's. We went to a cute little seafood restaurant that sat on the harbor and we could see the water and all the boats. It was delicious! I tend to forget sometimes that by belly is as big as it really is and therefore I will have restrictions. We sat in a booth which was silly because my stomach was touching the table, but we couldn't move the table, so I had to sit up nice and straight so it wasn't too uncomfortable. Don't worry, Kyle asked if I wanted to move to a more comfortable table but I said no because booth seats are always cushy. :)

I'm happy to say that I have successfully made it to (and completed) 35 weeks, with twins no less! A lot of people with twins don't make it this far. I just wish I knew how much longer they were planning to hang out in there or if I will have to be induced or schedule a C-section! My goal for them is to grow and weigh at least 5.5lbs each. For a singleton baby, the weight would be about 5.5lbs at this point, but obviously with twins mine will be smaller than that right now. I'm just a little bummed I have to wait until I'm almost 37 weeks to know how much they've grown. Patience is a virtue! Or so I'm told...

Kyle had 2 concerts at the beginning of this week...so as the local groupie for the Marine Corps Band, I attended them both. I even rode with him down to the location hours beforehand so I could be in close proximity to him in case anything happened to me. Lucky for me, I have a phone with games and a Kindle with books. I guess sitting in a church waiting for him to play is not much different than sitting on my couch waiting for him to get home. On the second day, I sat next to a cute, older couple who liked chatting with me. I pointed out who Kyle was and the lady said, "oh, he's handsome!" Of course he is, I thought! At the end of the concert she slipped me a $20 bill and said, "Enjoy your Valentine's Day!" I tried to give it back but she refused...reminding me of my own grandmother. It was incredibly sweet and I can honestly say that we applied that $20 to our Valentine's meal.

I was happy, though, because Kyle only had a 3 day work week since he was off on Monday and Friday. That certainly made me happy :) He has a 4 day weekend the next 2 weekends, and I'm ecstatic...especially if I somehow go into labor during those weekends!

Symptoms:

• I gained a whopping 5lbs this past week. Holy crap, I about died. I almost weigh more than I ever have before (Jan 2009 after I got back from a semester in Europe). I've gained about 37lbs total at this point and if I have to continue until almost 38 weeks, I could easily reach 50lbs which I was pretty determined not to do. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. 
• Crazy vivid dreams - some of these are like sci-fi movies. One of them allowed me to look at my stomach and actually see the babies through my skin, swimming around like they were in a pool. Very weird, but certainly not the strangest. 
• Belly button sticks out. It's still weird, and yes, I do try to push it back in! It just pops back out, so I don't think I can do anything about it for the next few weeks.  
• Swelling - I have had to take off my wedding rings which makes me sad. I hate taking them off! My fingers feel fatter, my feet do too. I feel like my face is bigger. I just feel big, everywhere, all the time!  
• Discomfort & Pain - I don't have many places that don't hurt or cause any problems for me.  
• Constipation - sorry if too much information but it's causing some pain the past few days and it's incredibly frustrating. 

Giving up sweets for this year...is not really going well. Granted, I am still firm on not giving my twins sweets (sorry to all of you who want to), but I was ruined in this department since I was a baby. I've always craved sweets, even prior to my pregnancy, and during pregnancy that hasn't changed. I might need to adjust my new years resolution to "eat sweets in moderation but not daily" instead of "no sweets except holidays/birthdays." We'll see. I really don't want to give myself an inch though, because I'll take a mile. Kyle is just as bad as I am which makes it worse since neither one of us has the will strong enough to be completely healthy like I want. I can say that our meals have been healthier though, so I guess that's a positive thing!

I had another baby monitoring session this week. It took longer than usual because the lady who does only monitoring sessions wasn't there today, so the nurses who are also running around dealing with women in labor/delivering etc. were setting me up. Both babies are still doing well. At first, baby on the left (which was Baby A but is now Baby B) had a higher heart rate than they like, but they believe it was due to my temperature being a little higher than normal. The nurse gave me some water, and I was watched for quite a while and it turned out fine. Baby B is is no longer head down, which doesn't surprise me. The left side of me is always moving like crazy! That one will be our little acrobat while Baby A (on my right side) seems to be a lot more docile and just digs its butt into my ribcage. Baby A is head down, and the doctor doing the ultrasound said it almost looked like they were sucking their thumb, but he couldn't tell. Seems to be taking after their momma! I was a thumb sucker until I was 9 years old! Not exactly something I am proud of.... Anywho - I did have some contractions but they were irregular so nothing to worry about.

Well, I guess my feelings of being huge were confirmed. I had a nurse come into the room at one point and say, "whoa, looks like you're about to pop! How far along are you? 39 weeks?" I just smiled and said, "nope, only 35 weeks but with twins." So I guess I am rather large, which is true, but that's okay. I have 2 weeks max at this point until I have two little babies in front of me! Crazy to think about.