The Thinker and The Relaxed One

We seem to be trundling along nicely at the moment. 16.5 weeks now and it's definitely obvious to the general public that I'm pregnant. We were at a wedding party on Saturday and someone came up to congratulate us out of the blue. Just a couple of weeks ago it wasn't clear whether I was with child or just had a protruding stomach. I doubt at that point anyone would have said anything. I don't fit into any normal clothes anymore either. Very generously, I've been given some very cute maternity clothes by my sister-in-law and J the Elder's niece (showing my age).

We had our 16 week appointments last week, one with the regular OB and the other with the perinatologist. Both went well. At the OB visit they used the doppler to hear the heartbeats - that took some of the nerves out of the peri visit the next day, since we already knew we had two lovely heartbeats. My OB also measured my belly at just over 20 weeks. The peri visit was great. We saw our little poppets going about their daily lives. They were moving around alot, but at one point our little boy was posing as the Rodin sculpture "The Thinker" with his little fist on his chin, as if pondering some extremely serious matters. Our little girl, by contrast, was chilling out with her tiny feet crossed and both arms behind her head. At one point she turned fully towards the "camera" and looked straight at us. It's just amazing. I haven't felt any movements or flutters yet, but am told this should begin happening in the next couple of weeks. I can't wait. I suspect soon after the first flutters, they'll start kicking me properly.

I'm still feeling considerably less than stellar. My morning, noon and night sickness is definitely better than it was before and I'm up and about every day, but it's still extremely unpredictable. As a result, I've landed myself in some embarrassing situations. Let's just say my cookies have been tossed in various North Atlanta and Florida locations. Strange aches and pains have now also made an appearance, as expected. All my organs must be being pushed out of the way so it's no wonder that I'm getting some rather strange sensations. At the moment it's quite a strong pain under my left ribcage, especially after I eat. Lying on my right side seems to provide some relief, so I think something's being pushed or pressed under there. The peri looked at my kidneys on ultrasound just to make sure nothing's stuck or blocked but it all looks normal.

We've started thinking about the various jobs we have to do before the babies come. I'm a bit torn about the timing of all the preparations. On the one hand, I don't want to be over-confident and start too early, but on the other hand I'm concerned that I may need to go on bedrest at any moment and then I wouldn't be able to do anything at all. Since we were having other work done on the house, we did have the future nursery painted a lovely greeny-blue, but we haven't bought any items for it yet. However, we've been given quite a few things by friends and family, which is fabulous.

One of the bigger jobs is selling my beloved Audi TT convertible and buying a sensible car. Our attempts at selling it have so far proven extremely entertaining. Offers have included at dirty envelope full of cash (not nearly what it's worth), a trade for a Dodge Ram pick-up truck and a trade for cash and a scooter. And this despite our specifying in the ads that we're selling because we're having twins and are buying a car that's suitable for this new situation. So, we still have the TT for now. In terms of the new car, we were considering a mid-sized SUV (we're not fond of the huge ones), but we're now a bit concerned about the small trunks in those kinds of SUVs. Much to our surprise, we're currently flirting with a VW Passat estate (station wagon). Not the prettiest of cars but not too ugly either and overall it does seem the most sensible choice, from the point of view of space and heaving two babies in and out without having to lift them too high.

We have a full weekend of classes on multiples coming up this weekend, which should be interesting. It may also help us work out what we really need and what's totally unnecessary. We started our registry yesterday and ended up only putting a few things on it for now, since we both got totally overwhelmed going around the shop and seeing all the stuff you supposedly can't live without (erm, baby wipes warmer?). We both had to have a lie-down afterwards to recover from the experience......