Baby Showers - 3 down, 1 more to go

You all should be so proud of me. I made it through three baby showers, and am still alive. And, if I may say so myself, I thought I handled it pretty well. The first shower was thrown by my old class (last year’s students). They were so excited, given that it was a first for many of them – ha, little did they know that it was my first, too! Lukas and Lilli received an enormous amount of cute clothing, bath accessories, and all kinds of other fun things. Not to mention the yummy cupcakes and other goodies. It was a fabulous introduction to the world of baby showers, and I am so glad it happened with “my” kids.

Baby shower #2 happened a week later at school as well, but this time with colleagues. What a fun event! Hosted by my old teaching team, everyone (including me!) had a great time. I cannot believe how many wonderful things were given to me and how excited people were to celebrate with me. The staff’s generosity was amazing and took my breath away. We received items that we didn’t know existed and a ton more cute clothing. I swear, our kids will be the best dressed babies around…definitely a lot better dressed than I am (-: By now, our living room was filling up quickly with gift bags, diapers, clothes, and everything else one could possibly imagine. (I have thought about working from home while staying home and I have found a great business idea – baby shower gift bags! I can seriously fill multiple shelves!). We emptied one bag after the next, making sure to write thank you notes as we went along. While Ben put together the Pack’n Play, I took off at least 1,000 tags from all the clothing and started doing baby laundry. Just this past weekend, Ben put together the swing…we are set.

The 3^rd shower happened just a few days later at my neighbor’s house. Another diaper drive contributed to our huge arsenal of diapers (we can provide diapers for a handful of newborns!), while friends and neighbors continued to add to the stylish wardrobe of the twins. This, coupled with fabulous food (thanks to our neighbors Kristi an Tiffeny) and some creative games, was the perfect opportunity to catch up with old friends and celebrate the anticipated arrival of our twins. Unfortunately, it also added to our growing baby-mania in the living room. A week later, however, we are pretty cleared out downstairs and have stored most baby items upstairs. All laundry is done for now, all bigger items are put together, diapers are sorted and put away, and we are pretty much ready (okay, not really!).

My last shower is next weekend with my German friends – looking forward to another round of fun (and more stuff to find storage for!).

All in all, I feel very blessed and appreciative of every single person who contributed to gifts, participated in the baby showers, and keeps sending us positive thoughts. We are so grateful to have each and every one in our lives and cannot wait to have Lukas and Lilli be a part of this extended family as well. As far as baby showers go, I feel like a pro, and can honestly say that all my anxiety was so not worth it! Oh well, we live and learn, right?

Ultrasound gone wrong

I know many of you have been waiting for the ultrasound update, so here it is. The week started out with a regular ultrasound appointment, which – no joke – lasted exactly 17 minutes. Granted it was performed by some Chief of Ultrasoundtology (I’m sure that’s not his exact title), it was so fast that I barely got undressed before the guy proclaimed, “we’re done!”. So disappointing. I guess both babies looked good, weighing in at 3 lbs 5 oz. (This was around 29.5 weeks). Needless to say, I didn’t get any pictures, but one – of Lukas’ penis! Really?! That is one thing I really did not need to see. The doc was very proud of his picture….geez! I left there thinking that the 3D ultrasound we had scheduled for the weekend (right at 30 weeks) could only get better. Little did I know.

We went to “Prenatal Universe” in Tacoma somewhat suspiciously after the guy had told me that he only does ultrasounds on the weekends because he has another job during the week. His “business” consisted of a one-room basement Suite in the Tacoma Mall building. I was glad that Ben was there with me, although in retrospect I have to say that the guy was very professional. Our appointment was at 1pm and by 3:30pm we still did not have any good pictures. Neither baby cooperated; in fact, they both had their arms crossed right in front of their little faces. The guy had me get up, climb stairs, eat something sweet, drink water – nothing worked! The pictures that he was able to take were scary (at least to me). Both babies looked like freakish alien clowns, another image I really do not need to ever see again. I seriously thought the images would give me nightmares. Thankfully, they didn’t, but it was still a strange, and disappointing, experience. I know the guy felt really bad, too. He spent 2 hours with us and didn’t even want to charge us a dime because he felt like he was not able to get any good shots. While we briefly considered coming a week or so later, the guy honestly said that it probably would not get any better, as space would get smaller and smaller. We never did go back and are now waiting for the next normal ultrasound, hopefully not with Dr. “Check-out-this-cool-penis”, but with one of the ultrasound techs who know what they are doing.

Updates

Finally some promised updates. These are in no particular order…just haven’t had the chance (okay, haven’t had the motivation!) to upload them.  Not sure how people do it, but I have truly lost most of my motivation to do anything. Gotta take advantage of the 5-minute or so bursts of energy, they certainly don’t happen very often.