The girls are here!! Finally!
They were born last Saturday July 22nd.. 4 weeks early. I guess the spicy Mexican dinner may have helped! I went to the hospital late in the afternoon last Saturday after much debate.. I thought for sure they would send me home, but much to our surprise I was actually in labor! Yee ha!
About 3 hours later, I was having a c-section, and the girls were born less than a minute apart. It's been a blur since then.. lots of visitors, tons of food being brought over.. amazing support from my family and friends... My husband and I are getting no sleep, which we expected. We've been out a couple of times, just back to the hospital for bloodwork (the girls were jaundice, but are doing much better) We are quite the attraction, with our huge stroller, and tiny bundles lost in the car seats.
The boys are adjusting well, they love their babies!! My time online is going to be limited.. the girls are currently napping, and the boys are watching a show.. Here a few pics from this past week...

Here's my husband suited up for surgery.. He looks like a terrorist in a haz-mat suit!

And here are the boys at the hospital for a visit. They were both getting over colds, but had no problem dressing up like doctors!

Here are the girls this morning.. exhausted from keeping us up all night!!

Last night the family and I went to Marguirita's for some labor inducing spicy food.. It was spicy, but has yet to start labor.. although I will say I've been contracting much more than I was before and am seriously considering calling my dr (again..they're going to get so sick of me!) Anyway, while we were waiting for a table at the restaurant, which wasn't long because we went early, my husband and I noticed 2 women in the bar, gawking at me. They were literally pointing and one I could see one of them saying "oh my god" Now, I know that my belly is huge, but c'mon. Couldn't they have at least waited til I wasn't looking in their direction to point at me?? I just laughed though, I guess people are going to gawk.. I do look seriously over due with what people assume is just one baby. I've gotten a lot of questions asking me when I'm due, last month?? haha..
There is at least a light at the end of this uncomfortable tunnel.. And I'm starting to see it.. I've started to dilate, which is great news. It could be this weekend.. let's just keep our fingers crossed!!

The baby shower, and recent hospitilization

This past weekend, my sister and friends threw me a surprise baby shower. It was very nice, and I have to say that I have the most thoughtful people around me! I got a ton of great gifts, all sorts of cute girly clothes, tons and tons of diapers and wipes, quilts, knitted blankets, a stroller and car seats. My brother in law made all the food (he's such a good cook!) including my favorite- scallops wrapped in bacon.. yum!!
It was a very nice time, and I was touched that they even did this for me.. it is after all the 3rd shower they've thrown for me!
In other news.. I just got home from the hospital.. I thought (again) that I was going into labor. Last night I started having some nasty contractions, called my dr and she had me come in. The monitored me over night, and despite all the contractions that I was having, it wasn't causing me to go into labor. More practice for my uterus.. should it really need this much "practice"??? I mean, I have 2 other kids.. doesn't it know what to do already?? Oh well. My dr thinks I'll go soon, either in a couple of days, or a couple of weeks.. great! It's going to be a lot of fun just walking around with these contractions, that are as unproductive as me!

The house hunt is back on.. We are the most fickle people on the planet.. This time it really wasn't our faults.. we had decided several weeks ago to stop looking and to just stay where we are until we're in a less hectic time in our lives.. I don't think that having 2 new borns and trying to move is relatively smart..but anyway, my husband's sister called us with this "great opportunity" and told us we just had to check it out.. It's a pretty good deal, and after much discussion, and much agonizing, my husband made an offer tonight. They accepted, and are waiting for us to sell our house. I should be jumping up and down, right? Our house isn't even on the market yet.. and our realtor friend is telling us that we should sell it ourselves, to save money.. And another thing, this house that we've made an offer on needs an awful lot of work before we can live there.. all new flooring, and some major cleaning. What the hell are we thinking????????

Free Stuff..

I don't know how she does it.. but my sister can win anything on the radio. She's won an amazing amount of free stuff, including tickets to a Patriots playoff game last year, numerous cd's, tons of concert tickets, dinners, movies I think.. just a buttload of stuff.. Half the time, she has to use my name because of the radio stations rule to be fair, and allow you to only win once a month. She calls from work, has a nice phone system in which she can do so, but to me, it's more than that, and I can't explain it.
This morning, she called me and told me to put the radio on. I guess she won tickets to a "Meet and Greet" with Fiona Apple and Damien Rice next Friday night, and had to use my name. I never did hear them announce my name on the radio, and god knows that I won't be going to meet good ol' Fiona, but my husband may get the chance to.. we'll see.. My semi-psychic friend has told me that she thinks I'll have the babies next Friday.. But I guess my sister and the dj had quite the conversation, about how she was pregnant with twins, and that she had two kids at home, and that yes, in fact this did make her legally insane. The dj asked her if she was drunk when the twins were conceived and her "hell yes" response could have been what kept their conversation off the radio, or the dj telling her that he would leave his wife for her..
Anyway, I hope that they mail me the tickets and that I can find someone who wants to meet Fiona Apple, or Damien Rice.. not that I wouldn't want to, but I'm going to be having my babies that night (I hope! ;)

Moo- Mama!!

Here I am this morning (on the bottom) at about 35 weeks. There I was at about 26 weeks on the top.. It doesn't look too much different.. but shit, it is! I can't wear those pants anymore, or that shirt in the top pic. And back then, I could show my bare belly without traumatizing too many with the stretch marks.. Yikes.. Anyway, I'm having contractions as I type.. I've been having them all day.. but it means nothing!!! It's just practice.. ugh.. it's driving me fucking crazy!!

The DNA results are in...

Finally, after 34 years of not knowing what kind of twins we are.. the mystery has been solved. No one will ever have to suffer through the story of our placenta ever again, or witness the annoyance on our faces when posed with the never ending question of identical or fraternal?
Much to my surprise, my sister and I are identical twins! I thought for sure because I was having twins myself that we were fraternal (it's much more likely to have twins yourself if you're fraternal rather than identical) Only 20% of all twins are identical, so aren't we just so special?? Haha!!
I'm so happy to finally put to rest the story I've told all my life.. now we can continue on with a brand new (even longer) story about how we never knew and had dna testing done.. and yada yada.. I promise I won't. My response to that one often asked question will now have a simple one word answer: identical!

And they're back...

Well, I knew 10 minutes after their return I would wonder why I missed them so much!! It's back to reality for me.. no more guilt free naps, reading, and watching movies.. back to making breakfast, lunch, dinner, and getting the boys to pick up their toys, among a million other things that I didn't have to do for 3 days.. I was certainly happy to see them though. They came back yesterday, all stinky from the campfire, and filthy from tree pitch. They looked so good to me! My husband promptly gave the kids a bath, and got some of the stink out of them. We went out for subs later, and then paid a visit to his parents. My mother of course had to stop in and say hello.. she asked my oldest son if he was happy to be home, or if he would still rather be camping. He told her he didn't know how to answer that question, and left it at that. He didn't want to hurt my feelings, but I knew he would have rather been camping some more.
Anyway, tomorrow I have yet another dr's appt. I've been feeling very crampy today, so I'm taking the medication to help stop any contractions.. If I can keep these babies inside me for another week and a half, then my dr won't try to stop labor (I'll be 35 weeks) a totally appropriate time for them to join us!!

Still Home Alone...

I thought for sure that my family would be home by now.. It's Monday night, and they aren't coming back til tomorrow, which is fine, but I must admit, I'm going a little stir crazy. I'm not used to having time to myself, not this much anyway. I've been looking around at my house, and seeing a ton of things I could be doing (if I weren't so uncomfortably pregnant) And that's driving me nuts! My inability to be productive..
I called my husband tonight, when I hadn't heard from him by 8. I felt like I was intruding on their vacation.. but that's just me being my ridiculous emotional self. I sent the camera, and camcorder with him and asked him to take plenty of pictures. When I asked him tonight if he had, and he said he'd taken a few, I kind of started giving him shit. But in a playful way. It ended up with me crying, and him feeling like shit for me crying. I know I'm just being this pathetic emotional mess, but I miss them, and really wish I was up there with them having fun.
I'm sure tomorrow when they come home, I'll wish I had some more time with my peace and quiet.. but for that moment when I was feeling sorry for myself, I wished that they were here right now.. poor me..

Home Alone

My husband and boys left yesterday to go camping til Tuesday.. I must say, it's awfully quiet around here.. I was quite disappointed before they left that I wouldn't be joining them this year, I love camping. Four of my husbands five siblings also went, with all of their kids. We did this last year, and it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately with my "condition" sleeping in a tent and being so far away from any medical care I might need required that I stay home.. Now that I've had almost 2 full days of peace and quiet, I must say, I'm loving it! I miss them like crazy, I really do, but I haven't had this much "me time" in years. I've been reading, watching movies, napping without feeling guilty, doing whatever I want! My sisters took me to breakfast this morning, and my mom brought me out for dinner tonight.
My sons don't even notice that I'm not there, which is great. Everyone thought my youngest would be devestated not to be with me but judging by our 2 second phone conversation tonight, in which he said "hi mom" and "bye", I can safely say he could care less. Anyway, I'm off for a long shower, and then maybe another movie.. ahh.. I feel like a single person!