Bob Loblaw's Law Blog

Mmmm-mmm goodness

schmooops — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:04:12 GMT

It's amazing how some simple things can make a house smell SO good. I'm making a Bordelaise sauce to go with double cut rib chops for dinner, and just the simmering vegetables in wine makes the house smell like the French Laundry (coincidentally where this recipe hails from).

Can't wait to get the rib chops going next, oh so yummy, with sauteed mushrooms. My only regret is that it's not chanterelle season, so we are making do with shiitakes instead.

The great garage cleanout of 2009 part 2

schmooops — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:47:00 GMT

We have some stuff that we're going to send to Goodwill unless anyone here wants it. (We had LOT more but the movers took a bunch of it with them, which made us only too happy. I am thinking they probably do quite a little side business on Craigslist with used furniture and stuff they volunteer to take off the hands of people they move for.)

P.S. We aren't asking for money for any of this stuff, just claim it if you want it!

However, our patience for storage only last as long as it takes for Goodwill to send a truck here for this stuff.

Twin bunkbeds - also can be used as individual twin beds.

Round occasional table - the kind you put a round floor length tablecloth over. We also have a gold tablecloth you can have after I wash it (it's terribly dusty).

~~19" flatscreen TV/DVD combo~~

~~Villeroy and Boch china, Melina pattern (four or five place settings, I can't remember.) This is really pretty china and hardly ever used.~~

~~I also didn't take pictures of these, but we have several pairs of boy's snowboarding boots, ranging from about a size 5 to a size 7. Good quality stuff, at least a couple of pairs are Burton.~~

Let us know if you're interested in any of this stuff!

The great garage cleanout of 2009 part 1

schmooops — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:18:26 GMT

Yesterday we were exceedingly productive, especially for a pregasaurus*, a husband with a neck problem that's landed him at the chiropractor three times already, a 13-year old with an angst complex and an 11-year old ADHD case who has the attention span of a crow on Red Bull.

*Sunny, I am thinking you are fine with abdicating the throne on that title

We picked up the baby furniture on Friday night at Babies R Us. This required us to rent a UHaul pickup truck and to remove the seats from the Denali to get everything home in one trip. Once we saw the size of the boxes of all the stuff, we realized we were either going to kill ourselves trying to get it in the house, or we were going to need help. We ended up putting some of it in the garage and leaving the rest in the Denali until yesterday, and decided to hire some movers to help with getting it all in the house.

Yesterday morning we all got up and started with cinnamon rolls (such good planning on my sweet sweet baby's part; he had us all prepped with food and snacks for the day of labor. We moved the guest room stuff to the basement (actually we did that on Friday), cleared out space in our bedroom for crib #1, and got the guest room ready to magically turn into the nursery.

We then spent the next several hours moving stuff around in the kids' room downstairs, as we gave Jeremiah the queen sized bed from the guest room. He is very happy with a "real" bed. Zach inherited Jeremiah's captain's bed and the twin bunkbeds are on their way out. This required a lot of reshuffling of toys and furniture and such in their room. The most amusing thing was finding several of those girlie flyers that they hand out in Vegas in various places in their room - supposedly a "prank" their dad played on them by stuffing them in their backpack before they left. Sadly, I could actually see him doing that, and the kids were embarrassed enough that I didn't think they purposely had collected them.

We left all the heavy lifting to the movers I hired to help with the furniture. Those who have been to our house know that we suffer from interminably small stairwells and there is just no way we were going to attempt to move furniture through them. Professional movers (Action Movers, in case anyone needs them, they are GREAT) are such the win for stuff like this. They spent a little over an hour here and had moved a TON of stuff, and helped to clear out about half of the stuff we were going to give to Goodwill in the bargain. No tax deduction for us, but then again, no hassle either.

As if all that wasn't enough, William and the kids pulled every single thing out of the garage and we cleaned it out, sorted through all the crap, and took a full truckload of garage and miscellaneous crap to the dump. We put everything back in an orderly fashion - snowboarding and camping gear in order, Christmas decorations sorted and cleared out, trash packed up and ready for trash day tomorrow, bikes parked so that we can actually get to them ... it's awesome. I meant to take a picture of it before we moved the trash cans back in and the goodwill pile, but I forgot. We do still need to take about a hundred paint cans to the Household Hazardous Waste center; we'll try to do that this week sometime.

The day ended with William assembling the first crib in our bedroom, which is a perfect match of our bedroom furniture. The color and style of the crib makes it look like we bought the whole set together; it is just beautiful. He had assembled the glider rocker the night before, which is next to the crib in our room. This morning he assembled the second crib, and we're nearly done with this whole adventure and ready to get into the business of filling these dresser drawers with baby stuff!

It could be a lot worse

schmooops — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:41:49 GMT

I spent the morning in the oral surgeon's office, followed by my regular dentist. The oral surgeon extracted my fractured tooth (which was much easier than I thought it would be, since it all came out in one piece, thank goodness.) He then cleaned out the infection in my gums around the tooth (a world of yuck) and placed the implant and bone graft. He finished up by placing the temporary abutment and sent me to the dentist to have the temporary crown placed.

Other than the fact that it took about 12 shots of novocaine throughout the procedure to get me and keep me anesthetized, it was really pretty straightforward. I felt some pain here and there but nothing excruciating, thanks to premedicating with Vicodin. I am also extraordinarily grateful that I have a temporary crown already instead of one of the other alternative tooth-replacement options. They can't always do the whole thing in one shot like this; I guess I was lucky to catch it early enough before any significant bone damage had been done.

Now the real fun begins ... I can't brush until tomorrow afternoon, and they told me to expect bleeding, swelling and probably bruising on my face. Also, the pain is supposed to be worst on days 3/4 postop, which means I will probably not be so helpful this weekend in the Great Garage Cleanout we have planned. Hopefully I will recover more quickly though, or at least, the Vicodin will keep the pain at bay so I am at least somewhat functional.

Off to renew my ice pack!

Hey Dominique (or others interested in geocaching)

schmooops — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:25:01 GMT

We are discussing going to this this weekend, probably Sunday. Somehow geocaching seems apropos for our heathen selves to be doing on Easter.

Interested in maybe joining us?

Three years and counting

schmooops — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:13:29 GMT

Three years ago today, people. It's been a wild, wonderful ride so far and promises to keep on the same way. I love this man so damn much that it makes my heart feel like it will burst.

Economy, consider yourself properly stimulated.

schmooops — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:39:39 GMT

As many of you know, we bought a new car this weekend. The process was interminable as always, but in the end we are the happy new owners of a new '08 GMC Yukon Denali. We feel good for having given something back to our poor suffering domestic automakers, and even better for having benefitted from the huge rebates and discounts currently available (and government backing in case the automakers go poof). End result is that per my credit union, we got the Denali for about $2000 under what they could have negotiated for us for this same vehicle, which is pretty smokin' good.

A few lessons learned (or things I was reminded of, having been through this new car purchasing experience several times):

*Do your homework ahead of time. Know what the invoice price is (available on lots of places online, including Kelly Blue Book and Consumer Reports, and know your trade in value (also available at Kelly Blue Book). Know that they are probably not going to give you the wholesale value for your trade - they will give you what they think they can sell it for at auction, which is even less. In our case, we just didn't want to be hassled with selling cars, and the Jeep was in need of at least $1000 in rear brakes, so we didn't try to haggle on that.

*Know what kinds of options you want and what their value is. Also investigate the price of the extras that they will throw at you when you sit down in the finance person's office: Lojack, extended warranties, GAP protection, paint/carpet treatment, chip protection, etc. You are generally better off declining ALL of their proposed add-ons and buying them elsewhere if you want them. Por ejemple:

**We are getting Lojack, but 30 seconds of internet research told me we could get the high end of it for $870 total instead of the $1095 the dealer wanted. We told this to the dealer, and they agreed to match the price with no hesitation.

**We are getting an extended warranty through my credit union, where we'll pay $1400 for a credit-union backed 7 year/75k mile bumper-to-bumper warranty with zero deductible, good at any authorized repair center (read: places that accept a credit card) in the US or Canada. The dealer's best offer was a 7-year/60k mile warranty with a $100 deductible per occurrence for $2100. No contest.

**We are also getting GAP insurance through the credit union. It's not expensive and totally worth it as long as we have a balance on the car which is more than the car is worth (generally true for at least the first two years).

*Know what you want and why you want it. Our logic for buying the Denali,

We shopped this weekend and tested the Honda Pilot, Toyota
Sequoia, Toyota Landcruiser and the GMC Yukon Denali. Our criteria
were: must have third row seating, must fit 2 infant seats in the
second row without impacting the driver or passenger seats, must have
decent Consumer Reports ratings for reliability (meaning "good" or above
for the model year in question) and safety, must have full side curtain
airbag protection, LATCH in all rear seating positions.

Ideally we wanted good cargo space in addition to third row seating, and
if possible, decent gas mileage. And a toilet made out of solid gold,
but that just wasn't in the cards, baby.

We were able to write off the Honda Pilot and the Landcruiser without a
test drive, since they were too small to fit two infant seats in the
second row without impacting first row legroom (we brought ours along to
test it). We are both tall, so this is an important consideration for
us.

We drove the Sequoia and the Denali, and also considered the Yukon
Hybrid. We ended up writing off the Yukon hybrid since it was in its
first model year (which is never a good thing to buy), and also because
it didn't have a roof rack at all nor any option for one except
aftermarket racks. Since we know we'll be putting snowboard racks and a
Thule box on it, we wanted a roof rack preferentially stock.

Between the Sequoia and Denali, both had identical Consumer Reports
reliability ratings for the '08 model (very good). The Sequoia had
slightly more cargo space behind the third row, but the third row seat
folds into the floor instead of being totally removable, which impacted
the overall cargo space significantly. The Denali was much nicer
inside, much more of a luxury SUV than the Sequoia, which felt like a
big truck. There were definitely good and bad points to each of them,
so it ultimately came down to price for us. We ended up with the new
'08 Denali, at a smokin' good price due to the huge rebates and
discounts to the dealer.

Oh, and the dealer we chose is the #1 Cadillac/GMC dealer in the 5-state
area, so I am not concerned with them going bankrupt anytime soon ...
whether GMC does is a different story, but there are significant
government backups in place already in case that happens.

Long story short: New swank Denali, black on black, fully appointed, very happy family.

Music

schmooops — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:22:34 GMT

I really need to get back to listening to music again. I know this is probably short of heresy to most of the people on my friendslist, but I rarely listen to anything anymore unless it's coming from William's office or my kids' computer. I don't drive enough to listen to the radio, I rarely watch television programs featuring new music, and I don't do any of the streaming radio things which could potentially open me up to new stuff. I can't remember the last CD I bought or music I downloaded from iTunes.

I've got an iPod full of music that I rarely want to listen to, mostly because I have an extremely strong sense of nostalgia around music. I can be transported back into times of extreme pain, sadness or happiness just by hearing a song, and even though the emotions aren't all bad, I don't usually want to go there. Even the happy moments are usually associated with times in my life I've moved past, and I just prefer to live in the here and now.

As a result I've found myself mostly listening to classic rock lately since I was young enough (or not born yet) when most of it was coming out, so I don't have that overwhelming sense of nostalgia that surrounds anything from when I was a teenager through most of my adulthood. I usually do okay with compilations from the 80s too, since that was mostly stuff from my young and stupid teenager days and I can mostly laugh at the memories now.

I don't know exactly where I was going with this post. I spose I should probably coordinate with my husband, who is constantly on the hunt for something new to listen to and could probably direct me to ten different places to find some new stuff.

23 weeks 2 days

schmooops — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:08:22 GMT

Total weight gained: 27 pounds
Blood pressure: Averaging around 125/80 (pretty good!)
CL: Holding steady at over 4 cm, but shrinking

Ultrasound pics can be found here. I think you have to have a Flickr account and be one of William's contacts to view these. Yes, I am internet paranoid even about my unborn children, so STFU.

So here I am, having almost reached the elusive viability timepoint (24 weeks). It drives William nuts that I measure the progress of this pregnancy by such things, and I guess it is a somewhat clinical viewpoint on the whole experience. Hazards of what I do for a living, I spose.

In any case, I am feeling pretty good overall. I do tire really easily and hear that this is going to only get worse in the upcoming weeks. My blood pressure has been fairly cooperative, though I have my hypertensive days (usually correlating with stressful work days).

Sizewise, like Leon, I am getting LARGER. My MFM specialist told me last Friday that I've got the combined fetal mass (which includes amniotic fluid, placentas and all that) of someone at 38 weeks gestation for a singleton. That puts some of the sciatica, fatigue and backache into perspective and simultaneously scares the hell out of me ... what are the next 15 weeks going to be like?

I'm also sporting around way more booty than I care to think about. My boobs seem to have leveled out their astronomical growth curve (for now anyway) and I am now just struggling with finding the right bra to wear on any given day. I've tried professional bra fittings including those at maternity stores and I just can't get comfortable. I don't wish this on anyone and will look forward to the day when these puppies are gone (though I may then be in the market for reconstructive surgery, sheesh). Sorry sweetie, I know you like them, but you don't have to lug them around every day.

All that said I am basically on target weight-wise. I gained the requisite 25 pounds by 20 weeks and am really starting to understand why since I've only gained a little bit since then. I am ravenously hungry when I wake up every morning but a bowl of cereal suits me fine, and then I'm not hungry for the rest of the day. I eat anyway, because I know that if I don't I'll feel worse by the end of the day, but I can't get down the volume of food I supposedly need to be eating. I am working off the assumption that I can use some of the aforementioned booty credit towards baby growth in the next three months.

I don't recall whether I posted it here or not but one of the other big advances since my last post is that William and the kids can finally feel the babies moving from the outside. That's really cool and such a special part of the process - it makes the whole thing so vivid to them.

They are moving around a ton now, too. I had started to feel the fluttering of Baby A at around 16-17 weeks. Baby B took a bit longer to feel because his placenta is anterior, which means it is in between him and my belly. It's kind of like having a pillow between us. Now that they're both bigger and stronger, I can feel them kicking the bejeezus out of me throughout the day. At my last ultrasound I watched Baby A doing his Stomp impression on my cervix - it was a rather Kubrick/Willy Wonka/etc experience to see it and feel it at the same time.

I mean to take pictures sooner or later but just haven't gotten around to it. I am generally not feeling my most attractive lately (despite the oral surgeon telling me I look great and that pregnant women are sexy ... way to creep me out before I have an invasive procedure with you next week, dude.) It also doesn't help that my beloved Sony Cybershot died on me at Christmastime. It had a long and healthy life and took some great photos, but it's definitely time for me to replace it because William's camera is more work than I need to deal with for something as silly as a belly shot of myself. :)

I am hoping that with my anticipated work stop date of April 15 (gotta love high risk care, I'm not due till July) I will be able to relax a little bit more and enjoy some of this pregnancy. So far we've not made any progress on important things like the nursery, but that should change soon. I did just buy my first baby purchase - an infant carseat - so we can take it with us shopping when we look at new cars this weekend. We've also got a ton of other stuff we need to sort out like the babies' room furniture - we had chosen everything at Babies R Us and now it turns out that we can't even order it until May. I am thinking we need to find some different furniture, because by May I will be exponentially larger and thus less able to assist with babies' room putting-together activities.

I can't really think of much more to say at this point. Upcoming notable activities include another epic ultrasound (growth scan) at my April 10 visit. If we don't end up in the room with 3-D capabilities for that visit we'll probably go do a commercial 3D(4D) ultrasound sometime between 24-28 weeks. Other than that we're just on the normal trajectory - trying to take it easy and avoid bedrest if possible, and to keep the little guys in there for as long as humanly possible (goal: no NICU time.)

Soccermom mobiles

schmooops — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:07:23 GMT

We're in car shopping mode now, what with twins coming and all. We've currently got a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Prius. The total mileage driven on both cars last year was less than 6,000 miles, and we almost never drove both vehicles at the same time. Thus, we are figuring on trading both cars in on one vehicle, but the caveat is that the one vehicle must have the following:

No minivans. No way, no how.
4WD preferred but AWD at a minimum.
Safe in the snow, can pack it full and go camping.
Third row seating which is not horrible for kids in the way back. Ideally we should be able to put two babies in car seats in the second row and have the older kids in the third row without too much issue.
Cargo space behind third row seating. (Is this a pipe dream?)
Not horrible gas mileage (ditto)

Our current considerations are the Honda Pilot, Toyota Landcruiser and the GMC Suburban/Yukon XL (not the Chevy Suburban, which gets far worse marks from Consumer Reports.)

Any experience, thoughts, opinions?

Patrick's fault

schmooops — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:32:52 GMT

Make your own! - just turn down the speakers first.

Woohoo!

schmooops — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:17:11 GMT

Thursday: House gets cleaned for real (professional cleaning instead of my kids)
Friday: Kids leave for CA for a week
Saturday: New couch and ottoman arrive!

I am so excited about this. That's what I call a birthday trifecta.

p.s. anyone want a thrashed ~~scratching post~~ couch and loveseat? Espresso colored leather, expertly clawed to death by Donner. If not, it's no big deal - the delivery people will take the old ones away.

Miscellaney

schmooops — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:10:54 GMT

I'm too tired these days for proper updates. Not sure what's up with that, considering that I am just 22 weeks along in this pregnancy gig. This is supposed to be the good trimester. If the third trimester is supposed to be more tiring, then I think I will likely not be able to get out of bed.

I do think it is probably related in part to the cold I got several weeks ago, which is still hanging on to a small degree. I am mostly battling an ongoing cough, which often keeps me up at night, hence, tired.

Anway. Here's the brief (ha) version of what's going on.

After months of debating, I finally joined Facebook and Twitter. Though I have a bunch of friends who switched to Facebook for their primary social networking site ages ago, I have been holding off, not wanting one more timesuck in my life. The trigger for me was when William finally got on board with both and started pestering me to join (Twitter, especially), and so I did it.

So far I have to say I'm not feeling the love for either service that others seem to feel. Facebook seems to be exceedingly superficial and Twitter just seems to be a way to IM a lot of people at once, most of whom don't seem to really care all that much since it's not directed at them. That said, I am using both occasionally (FB = my name, Twitter = Jillitweet) so if you're interested, there is that.
~
Went to Whistler with the family this last weekend. Epic snowboarding was had for all except me. I hate having to miss out on that but still enjoyed the time away. Importantly, my kids had a fantastic time and we enjoyed spending time with friends.

Kitties missed us terribly. Our usual cat-sitting suspects were with us in the mountains so they were largely on their own. They did receive a visit from chiaspod, which was wonderful and greatly appreciated. However, this did not stop them from complaining nonstop for two days upon our return. Blitz is still claiming any free lap he finds and in the absence of one, he finds pieces of William's clothing to lay on (most amusingly, William's underwear on the bathroom floor this morning.)
~
Work is kicking my ass. Well, not so much work as people at work (my boss and my employees). In any event, I foresee myself going out on leave quite a bit earlier than I anticipated. I was planning to work as long as possible, but I am so tired of the whole situation that I am just thinking a nice long "vacation" of modified bedrest might just be the ticket to give me some much-needed perspective on my job. I am considering some other opportunities for when I come back, as well.
~
In entertainment news, we saw Watchmen at the Imax (loved it), the BSG finale (annoyed by it, mostly) and just finished season 1 of Mad Men (OMG I love this show - WHEN is Season 2 due?). There's a bunch of stuff like this - The Riches, Weeds, etc. that we've gotten into lately and then gotten stuck waiting for months or longer for the next season to come out. Hate that. William's answer to it is to just quit watching anything until the series is totally over and then watch the entire thing at once. Not sure I'm on board with that idea.
~
My birthday is coming up this weekend. Whoopee.
~
I have a fractured tooth in a very unfortunate location (#9, front and center). This tooth was injured when I was a kid and has been root canaled and veneered since then. The fracture is horizontal to the gumline (bad), which means an implant is about my only recourse. I am not happy about this, especially considering that I have this whole pregancy gig to finish out here. I've got an appointment with the periodontist this afternoon to discuss options. I am pretty much insisting on having as much done while I'm pregnant as possible, given that doing anything after I have the babies will be exceedingly difficult. Luckily my perinatologist agrees and gave me a note stating as much in case the periodontist or reconstructive dentists give me a hard time.
~
Next babymakin' appointment is Friday. I never updated after the last one (see above as to why) but suffice it to say everything is peachy and the kids are growing like mad. They were at the 99th and 100th percentile for size at the 20-week growth scan, which was awesome for twins. My goal is to avoid the NICU completely, and them being big fat babies is a key part of achieving that goal.

Last, and probably most important, William and the kids felt the babies move last night for the first time. They've been kicking me like crazy for several weeks now but I haven't been able to get William to feel my belly at the right moment until now. He was amazed. There is nothing like that - seeing the first real physical connection between my adored husband and his babies; it's one of the greatest moments ever. It was pretty fun to see the kids' reactions too - they both felt them after William did and they both just squealed with laughter (and then proclaimed it "weird" like any self-respecting adolescent boy would).

All in all, the fun part of the pregnancy is definitely on. :)

OMG

schmooops — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:21:07 GMT

I can hear the sound of zombies being killed ... in the bathroom.

That's just so wrong.

Someone's got a case of the Mondays

schmooops — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:32:56 GMT

Zach's essay

schmooops — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:14:59 GMT

Zach had to turn in an essay today for his science class. I have no idea what the assignment was, but here is his essay:

"It's Not As Nice When You See It Twice"

No! Seattle is over flowing with sewage! If we do not clean up soon our cities might over fill with sewage! Plus it might shoot out of our toilet!

If we do not start to save energy, sewage might over flow our toilets and it will spray all of the sewage from our septic tank in to our bathroom and we will have to clean up! G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Smelly Stenches)

If we do not clean up it could lead to the lakes and the animals might get sick and what do we eat? Fish! So the fish will get sick then you will get sick, go to the hospital and die.

If we do not clean up we will not have food, we’ll not have bees and worst of all we will not have mother earth to live on.

Sick sick sick sick sick sick sick.

schmooops — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:57:25 GMT

That's me. Sick to the power of 7.

I started noticing myself going under on Sunday. I was in Vegas for work and was making presentations all afternoon, so I attributed my dry scratchy throat to the desert air, the smoky casinos and all the blabbering.

By Monday I was coughing on top of that, but I felt fine otherwise. Monday night was miserable though - no sleep, coughing, dry dry dry.

Tuesday I was still thinking it was related to the dry air because I felt 100% fine other than the coughing and the dryness. I changed my travel plans to leave Vegas Tuesday night instead of Wednesday AM and flew to the OC, where I was at least guaranteed a hotel without smoke and slightly more humidity.

Wednesday morning I woke up with no voice to speak of, and feeling like hell. I cancelled all my meetings and got on the next flight home, made some homemade chicken noodle soup and my sweet baby and kids took good care of me all evening.

Yesterday I was getting worse, now adding a horribly sore throat on top of everything else and hacking up half my lungs every time I cough (which is frequent.) I gave in to William's requests and went to the doctor, where I was told basically what I expected to hear: it's viral, no antibiotics, here's a mild prescription cough medication, rest, drink lots of fluids and don't take anything, preggo, or you might KILL THE BABY(ies). I spent the whole day on the couch and went through an entire box of Kleenex. My nose feels like it has been sandpapered.

And though I thought the last week was bad at night, last night was unbelievably bad. Coughing all night long (my chest just burns and aches with every hack), nose running, sneezing, sinuses filling so that if I dared to lay down I felt like I was alternately drowning or having icepicks stabbed through my sinus cavities.

I'm feeling great today, as you imagine. We went to the drugstore and restocked on Kleenex and I bought a neti pot. I came home and tried it out and had about five blissful minutes of clear breathing through my nose. I was about to sing the praises of the mighty subcontinent of India until my nose immediately stuffed itself right back up. I'm now right back where I was before the lavage.

I won't give up just yet; I understand these things have a great reputation and all, but for now I'm still wishing I could load up on Sudafed and take a nap.

18 weeks tomorrow

schmooops — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:28:52 GMT

Weight gained: 22 lbs (goal: 25 lbs by 20 weeks)
BP: 132/84 at the doctor's office on Friday
CL*: 4.5 cm

So yesterday I had another ultrasound and visit with the perinatologist. Babies look great, they were both sitting breech in there. I'm not sure why that even matters at this point, since they are likely to change positions 1,000 times between now and when they decide to make their debut.

The peri went over the results of the amnio with me in more detail. She showed me the chromosome patterns (yes, they are definitely boys. there goes my last hope for a girl. *sniff*). When she pointed at the 23rd pair, she said "Do you see how much shorter the Y chromosome is than the X chromosome?" I told her yes, and she said "That's why men are missing so much stuff ... like how to ask for directions, how to say 'I'm sorry' ..." I like her a lot.

All kidding aside, our little boys are genetically perfect and they ruled out spina bifida as a bonus. Being that I'm carrying twins, they can't do the usual serum screening test for that, because it's not accurate, so this was just more good news.

She also looked over the rash that has managed to overtake all of my extremities this week. She confirmed that it is not any of the scary pregancy rashes, but probably just contact dermatitis. If you've ever gotten this diagnosis, it basically means "you have a rash from something, and we don't know what." She advised me to take oatmeal baths at night and Benedryl before bed for a few nights to try to get the itching to stop, since the scratching releases more histamines, which makes it worse. I did both of these last night and got a blissful night's sleep, though I've been groggy all day today.

We also discussed another clinical trial they are conducting that they wanted me to consider. This one is to test the efficacy of taking progesterone shots between 18-25ish weeks of pregnancy to see if it reduces the risk of preterm labor. I had considered it, but a quick Medline search showed me that a couple of studies were just published in the New England Journal of Medicine (which is one of the most reputable journals in existence) in January that basically showed no benefit of 17P administration in either twin or triplet pregnancies. I asked if there was any difference in the study design, and the peri said she didn't think so, and that the study was being run by their corporate offices (Obstetrix, a national high-risk OB consortium), so she wasn't all that familiar with it. I politely declined further participation in that study - I see no reason to bombard myself with even more hormones at this point, especially for no proven benefit.

Next up on the pregnancy parade is another detailed anatomy scan at 20 weeks. Yay, two hours of ultrasound. After that, they are going to let me go a whopping three weeks without seeing me. What a vacation. Whatever will I do with all my free time?

Aside from all that nonsense, I am actually feeling pretty good. I'm still traveling for work quite a bit, trying to get in the last things I need to do before I go on leave. I do get tired out more quickly than normal, and I don't move as fast as I'd like to, but I think I'm doing pretty well. I am relieved that the morning sickness has abated completely, and so have the headaches I was getting every single day. They always say the second trimester is the golden period of pregnancy, but I never felt it until this one.

*CL = cervical length. This now gets measured about every two weeks until I'm around 30 weeks, when they'll check it weekly. They like to keep a close watch on it since a shortening cervix can indicate preterm labor is coming on. This is particularly important to watch with twins. The real fun of the whole thing is getting reacquainted with the fondly-named "dildocam" since abdominal ultrasounds aren't accurate enough to measure cervical length. Aren't you glad you read these updates?

Just a quickie

schmooops — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 05:50:10 GMT

We've been in Laguna Beach all week since I've been in a leadership training course. Awww yeah, you are all so jealous. (It actually has been pretty good. Two more days of it though ... I'm getting pretty burnt already.)

Anyway we got word today that the amnio results are fine. Presumably they confirmed the gender but they didn't mention it to William on the phone and I was in training at the time. I'll double check on Friday when I go in for my next visit and ultrasound.

Anyway, yay for (chromosomally) normal babies! One less thing to worry about.

In other news, I am itchy itchy itchy. Palms of my hands, soles of my feet, across my belly and boobs and last night I had a new spot - both arms. I was awake for about 3 hours in the middle of the night with itching. It's too early for any of the usual scary pregancy rashes so this is probably just estrogen overload. Still. This is what being driven mad feels like, I am sure of it.

More tax fun

schmooops — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 02:21:20 GMT

I had my tax appointment earlier this week. As usual, I left the appointment with a to-do list; specifically, information he needed collected to complete my return. One of these bits of information was the total cost of improvements we've made to date. *groan*

I have all the receipts set aside from the 2.5 years of renovations, but I hadn't yet summarized them because you usually don't need to do that until you sell the house. He needs it this year though since we are claiming the home office deduction for William's office space, so it meant I had to add all of it up.

I spent the majority of the afternoon entering it all into an excel spreadsheet. I had a small heart attack when I summed up the totals of the improvements, but then I realized I'd double entered some things where I had both estimates and invoices for the same work. I deleted the duplicates and removed about $50,000 of stray costs, but even so the amount I spent between 2005 and 2007 on renovations is just staggering. It makes me sad that the market is where it is, because with all that trouble and expense I'd probably lose some of my initial investment in this house if I sold it today ... I'd recoup the cost of the renovations, but I figure I'd be down by probably $100k in equity.

Such is the world of real estate, though. I know it's a variable investment, and over time it's one of the best investments a person can make, but it still hurts to do the math at times like these.

(btw, I say "I" instead of "we" because the investment in this house and most of the equity built was mine, pre-marriage. I don't mean to exclude my sweet sweet husband from the financial party fun, but it's actually better this way for him tax-wise since I take the loss.)

Taking my mind off my really bad day

schmooops — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:51:23 GMT

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
Yes, I was named after two characters (Jill and Allison) on the late 60's primetime TV soap opera "Peyton Place".

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
About three hours ago

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Not anymore. I used to have beautiful handwriting. Now I have the handwriting of a serial killer.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Rare roast beef.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Oh yeah.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Depends on what kind of person the other person was, really.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
It's my first language.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
No, no, no.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Muesli, prepared overnight with yogurt, fresh fruit, the whole shebang.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
No.

12. Why is there always a question missing from these things?

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
The banana ice cream sundae at Palisade.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Their eyes and smile.

15. RED OR PINK?
Red.

16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
My huge ego.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
My mom.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?
Oh shut up

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Black track pants and leopard slippers. I am very fancy.

20. See?!? There's another one missing.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
My printer cooling down.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
At the moment, black.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
In my present delicate condition, citrus.

Normally, lavendar, lemongrass, vanilla, and the bouquet of a fabulous Cabernet Sauvignon

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
One of my employees.

25. HOW DO YOU KNOW THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Friend of friends.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Mud wrestling. I don't do sports.

27. HAIR COLOR?
Almost black, and the shade is natural except for the miscellaneous grays I am covering.

28. EYE COLOR?
Green

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Yes

30. FAVORITE FOODS?
Too many to list here.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Uh ... I don't remember. Something we rented though. We've been watching more television series on DVD lately.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Blue.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Summer, now that I live somewhere with a winter.

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
Yes.

36. People! Proofread much?

37. DESCRIBE YOUR PENCIL CUP....
Oh my god, these questions are getting lame. It's black mesh.

38. FAVORITE ARTIST(s)?
What medium?

39. WHAT BOOK(s) ARE YOU READING NOW?
The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD
I don't use one, but I need one since my optical mouse doesn't work very well on my desk. I'm improvising with a purple file folder instead.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
Weeds and Twin Peaks.

42. FAVORITE SOUND(S).
Silence

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
If forced to choose, I'd probably go Beatles, but the Stones have been growing on me.

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Japan.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
No, but I have a special purpose.

46 WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Do you want to know my mother's maiden name next?

47. FAVORITE PIECE OF JEWELRY?
Wedding ring, of course.

48. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER?
Plotting chiaspod's bachelor party.

To my loyal fans

schmooops — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:15:21 GMT

Sorry that I haven't had a chance to update since the amnio on Wednesday. I've been busy and stuff, plus, y'know, twins. I love that I have a built-in excuse for everything these days.

Wednesday's appointment was really long. First we had to do a two-hour ultrasound where they check and measure every single bit of each baby, head to toe. I can't begin to imagine what ultrasounds are like when you're pregnant with octuplets, by the way. Might as well just move in to the ultrasound room, especially given how frequently high order multiple moms are monitored.

After the ultrasound they counseled us again on amnio and offered me a clinical trial (which I agreed to; it is a study designed to see if they can determine genetic abnormalities by testing maternal serum instead of amniotic fluid. I'm all for keeping people from having to do this in the future if needed, plus I feel like I'm giving something back to my chosen field of employment, yo). We met with yet another of the perinatologist team at Swedish (they want you to meet with all of them ideally throughout the pregnancy).

This guy wasn't as obnoxious as the last guy, who gave me an extreme answer for every question I asked him. (Vivid dreams? You might want to consider therapy or do a sleep study. Headaches? Here, let me prescribe you Vicodin or Percoset. Shortness of breath? Well, you know, could be heart failure. Guess to some degree that's what I get from specialized medicine - I was the proverbial nail to this guy's hammer.) Anyway, the doc from Wednesday was very nice, very accomodating, but also very young. He was also the one who was scheduled to do my amnio.

Despite the usual bias against baby docs, I know from my own experience that oftentimes the guys in their late 30s or early 40s in highly specialized practices are the workhorses while their more senior colleagues spend more time on the lecture circuit than they do actually practicing medicine. As a result, I wasn't terribly worried that I was going to have an invasive medical test done by a newbie, but I was still a tinge more nervous than I'd been going in.

We finally got called in for the amnio and they got the whole shebang set up. They advised me that they usually have to do two sticks with the needle for twins, once for each gestational sac. In order to differentiate between the two twins, after the first amnio they'd inject a small amount of dye into the first sac so that they'd know if they tapped that one again by mistake. They advised me that it'd take about 24 hours for me to process the dye through my kidneys, which meant I'd be peeing blue for 24 hours. I was amused.

Once they started the ultrasound guidance, however, it turned out that the position of the babies was just right so that they'd only need to do one tap, since they could just pull the needle back after the first sac into the second sac. Cool with me, but it meant no blue pee for me, alas. They discussed the positioning of the babies and agreed on the game plan: Baby A was on the left side and lower (first sample), Baby B is on the right and higher (so second sample).

They prepped my big huge belly with betadine and warned me with a count to three before they stabbed me with a needle about 6" long. It's a super thin needle, but damn, it hurt pretty good going in. It probably doesn't help that most moms are pretty nervous at this point due to all the advising of risk of miscarriage and all the other horrible things that could happen.

They withdrew three syringes full of fluid from each sac, which took forever due to the small gauge of the needle. It felt like my insides were being sucked out, which, well, they were. (Actually, I am pretty sure that the sensation I felt is entirely due to the needle and not the actual vacuum action of the syringe.) We watched the ultrasound screen intently to make sure they didn't nick either of the babies on the way in or out.

Once they finished, they cleaned me up and then started the most absurd discussion. Despite the fact that there was a perinatologist, a radiologist and two nurses in the room discussing the game plan up front, they were not able to agree on which sample represented which baby at the end of the procedure. They kept mixing up the position of the babies ("A is right and lower ... no, A is left and higher ... no, B is left and lower").

William and I were looking at each other with incredulity, and I finally said, "Y'know, you are not inspiring a lot of confidence over here." We then proceeded to tell them which baby was which, and they relabeled the sample tubes. Ultimately we realized that from our perspective, as long as both babies come back as normal, we don't really give a whoop if they mixed up the samples - but I am sure they won't view it the same way.

After that fun experience we packed up and got out of there, and my sweet baby took care of me for the rest of the evening (not letting me lift stuff, he got takeout for dinner for us, watched another disc of Weeds). I was fairly aware of the puncture site all evening, but again I think that was more in my head than anything.

So far so good, it's now 36 hours later and no fever, no water breaking, no leaking fluid, so hopefully all is well and my paranoid honey will agree to some of the activities that lead to babies in the first place soon.

Whew

schmooops — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:49:04 GMT

Just got done sorting all of the stuff I'll need to take with me to the CPA next Tuesday for my tax appointment. Once again I call attention to my mad organizational skills; between my OCD and my anal-retentiveness (is there really a difference?) I have every receipt carefully filed away, sorted, categorized, and the major categories entered into an excel spreadsheet for ease of calculation of the massive grand totals.

I am very interested to see the outcome of all of this. Between William's new venture into self-employment and all its attendant income and expenses, my stock sale, and some other notable huge expenses/deductions we'll have for 2008, our taxes will be very interesting at the end of the day. I'm not being at all aggressive this year, because I have at least two major deductions (in-home office and medical) which can each independently trigger an audit. Even so, I think (hope, pray) we're going to see a decent return this year. I just am really hoping for enough to cover the 2008 property taxes on the house; that seems like a fair trade to me despite the "OMG you are giving the government an interest-free loan" stuff.

I do think there could be a tiny chance we could end up on the wrong side of the tax equation, though ... it's possible that the aforementioned stock sale pushed us into a higher tax bracket and we haven't actually paid enough taxes this year. Let's just hope that doesn't happen.

In any case, 2009 - two more deductions! H'yeah!

15 weeks

schmooops — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:21:24 GMT

Weight gained: approximately one ton (okay, really, 17 pounds)
Morning sickness: cautiously optimistic that it's gone, baby, gone
BP: 128/90

The most notable occurrence this week in our babymakin' world was lunch yesterday, when we went out with a group of friends to celebrate a a dear friend's birthday. We had one baby at the table, two pregnant women and a surprise announcement from a third she is also pregnant with twins. She had just found out about the bonus baby, and she looked exactly how I felt for the first trimester of this pregnancy - pretty much nothing short of terrified.

It's hard to explain to people sometimes how scary this is. The whole "dude ... twins" thing is funny and all, but when it's you, and you already have kids, and you're putting together the pieces in your head about how crazy your life already is, and what it's like to live with a newborn, and then multiplying all that by infinity by adding two more to the mix ... well, it's pretty hard to feel that rapturous joy that you're supposed to about being pregnant at all, much less excited about twins.

I am happy to say though, that despite all that and the bag of chips that was the complications we experienced early on, I'm finally starting to really feel excited about this instead of just nervous and scared. I think it also helps that I'm feeling better physically - I have gone nearly a whole week without feeling pukey 24/7, and have managed to stay up late enough that I can actually go to bed with my sweetie, which is surprisingly important to both of us.

This upcoming week will feature a few notable events as well. Today I get to stay home all day because I have to do a creatinine clearance test since I keep failing the urine dip stick tests at the perinatologist's office. This fun experience involves collecting 24 hours' worth of urine and taking it in to the lab, and then they draw blood and compare the creatinine levels in the urine to the blood. The point with the whole thing is to assess your kidney function, which can be impacted by high blood pressure (which I have, sorta ... I am routinely at around 130/90 during pregnancy).

This test is being done more as a baseline than anything, despite the previous dipstick failures. Chances are excellent I'll have to do this again later on, especially if the hypertension continues (which it no doubt will) and to monitor for signs of preeclampsia (which I had with Zach). Good times!

I also get another formal ultrasound this week. They'll do both transvaginal and transabdominal ultrasounds every two weeks from here until around 28 weeks, when they'll be weekly. The TV is to check for cervical shortening, which can signal preterm labor. If they start to notice any cervical shortening, it means pretty much immediate bedrest for me, which will continue for the rest of the pregnancy. I didn't have any cervical competence issues in my previous pregnancies, so here's hoping that is just a precautionary measure. The TA is to check on heartbeats, anatomy, etc. We'll probably also do a 4-D ultrasound somewhere around 26 weeks or so, which I am looking forward to. Those are really cool.

Last but not least, I'm having amniocentesis on Wednesday. We're already over 95% sure that we've got two chromosomally normal guys in there based on the earlier testing we've done, but we're going forward anyway as advised by the MFM specialists. I'd appreciate all good thoughts and mojo and whatever y'all have to offer, since this procedure does carry a tiny bit of risk. We do have a very experienced perinatologist doing the procedure, which helps reduce the risk to less than 1%, but it's still a bit scary nonetheless.

Once we get the results back from the amnio (a tragically long 2 week timeframe), I think I will have a much higher degree of confidence about everything. To William's dismay, I still somewhat look only as far as the next test, the next ultrasound, etc. ... but I am hopeful that between knowing conclusively that we're in the clear on the genetic front and being able to feel them move here shortly, things won't feel so tenuous in the weeks to come.

Progress report

schmooops — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:45:01 GMT

13 weeks 0 days
weight gain: 12 pounds
"morning sickness": the worst misnomer ever

I've officially graduated from my first trimester. I've been hoping that the tiredness and nausea would give up like all the books say they should. So far, though, not a lot of luck on that front. I have days occasionally now where I go for almost a whole day without feeling like I'm going to hurl, but those are infrequent. This is much worse than either of my two previous full term pregnancies were.

Despite the ick I've still managed to put on a decent chunk of weight. I eat ALL THE TIME, not so much because I'm hungry but because I'm taking to heart the recommendations from my MFM specialists. They really want to see me gain 25 pounds by 20 weeks. Not sure I'm going to get there, exactly, but I'm giving it the old college try. I never thought I'd get sick of Ben and Jerry's, but I am.

The reason for the weight gain recommendations is that multiples are often born very small, both due to earlier than normal births as well as less than optimal maternal weight gain. Part of that is that it's hard to gain weight in the third trimester when you've got two babies taking up all the space in your abdomen. Overall, I am trying to gain enough that we have big healthy twins, with the ultimate goal of not ever visiting the Level III NICU at Swedish. Still, I can't help feeling like a gigantic pig. It doesn't help that I'm huge already and everything I wear mostly makes me feel fat rather than beautiful and pregnant and glowing and all that stuff.

I've been having some of the most bizarre, vivid pregnancy dreams lately. Oddly, several of them have featured my mom, who died five years ago. In my dreams, she's alive and just part of my world - like for example I dreamed that we were getting ready to go to the inauguration. Well, I guess that's not really part of my normal world, but you get the idea.

I went shopping today to try to find some tops I'd like. Not too much luck on that front. I just look fat in everything. I was also dismayed to find that I can't even fit in a D-cup bra at the moment. I desperately need some new bras but I don't even know where to go at this point. I spose a Nordstrom visit will probably be in my very near future; I was hoping to get away with some cheap Target bras though since this isn't exactly a permanent condition.

In other news, I told my boss about the pregnancy on Friday. She was genuinely delighted. I knew she would be, and that she'd be supportive of me, but I didn't want to tell her earlier due to the complications going on. She commented later on that she couldn't believe I'd held it in this long. I didn't mention that that isn't really all that unusual for me. I'm not big on sharing all the little and big dramas facing me with everyone around me, which makes it hard when I really do need support.

Next visit with the MFM is Wednesday. I have a list of things a mile long to discuss with them - my blood pressure, the Braxton-Hicks contractions I'm already feeling, the headache I get every. single. day. at noon that lasts till I go to sleep, whether the shortness of breath I am experiencing is normal, and whether I should be concerned about my breathing patterns during these bizarre and vivid dreams. (William actually woke me up the other night because I was breathing so erratically.)

So there you go, consider yourself updated!