Chomping on Twizzlers....

...know why I am and can chomp on chocolate twizzlers? Cuz I don't have gestational diabetes!!!! Yey! I'm so excited....read on for other exciting doctor news.

So, today was my first day out since October 10th. The first day I wore shoes since October 10th. The first day I fixed my hair. Put on makeup. Rode in a car. Ate in a restaurant. It was bound to be a good day.

We started at 8:25AM with a fasting blood draw. I wasn't able to eat anything since 10PM last night (which actually turned out to be a lot easier than I thought). After the first draw, I had to down a syrupy sweet clear drink (think Sprite with 10 extra shots of syrup) in 5 minutes. After that gets down the pipe, they then draw blood every hour for three hours (still not able to eat or drink anything) to test how your body reacts to the sugar. Mark and I camped out in the waiting room for the three hours. Luckily, we found comfy couches and a spot to raise my legs. He played Texas Hold 'Em on his Palm Pilot; I read "So That's What They're For" (a breastfeeding book given to me by the local president of our La Leche League, my sister --- she's not really the president but she's very pro breast feeding). And I checked my Blackberry every few minutes for any major advertising emergencies.

As we're sitting in the waiting room, this girl looks at me and says "You look like you're having twins". Good thing I was, huh? How insulting would it be if I weren't?

After my last draw at 11:30, Mark and I headed out to grab lunch at BJs in Danville (a yummy steak and ribs place that we probably won't get to for the next 18 years now). They tried seating me at a booth, but unfortunately I couldn't fit in the booth and had to sit at a table. There was a table of ladies lunching across the dining room actually laughing out loud at me. I actually didn't react to them...normally I would have shot some dirty look or made some loud comment back.

Anyway, after lunch, we headed back for another appointment - this time with the midwife. Now, up until this point I dreaded my appointments with the midwives (at the hospital, they rotate you through the different midwives so you get to know all of them). However, I found my past appointments with them to be rushed and unimportant. They never measured me or listened to the heartbeat because their appointments always coincided with my ultrasounds with Maternal and Fetal Medicine (the high risk department) and I think they just always used that as an excuse to not do a full exam. Besides, with a twin pregnancy a midwive wodn't deliver the babies anyway. An attending physician and a team of doctors will. However, today, we got a new midwife to see who is 2 months old to the hospital; she spent the last 18 years at Johns Hopkins (sold me immediately; I guess I'm a sucker for brand names). She spent more time with us at this appointment than our past midwife appointments combined. She measured me; checked the heartbeats; gave me some signs to look for in case of early labor; talked about the doctors that would deliver and offered to set my next appointment with an attending doctor who would most likely deliver the twins. Plus, she told me some things about how I was taking my iron and calcium supplements (I'd been taking them both at the same time --- apparently, not the best idea - they could almost cancel each other out).

After our appointment with her we met with the hyperactive lactation consultant. Wouldn't you think a lactation consultant would be calm and reassuring and mom-like? Not this whack job. She came through the door like Kramer on Seinfeld and didn't stop talking -- well she did for a few minutes, only to let me get out some of my concerns about the viability of me breastfeeding twins? Since I'm a little freaked out about the concept of breastfeeding but understand fully that "breastmilk is best", I told her of my concept to pump exclusively. "Well, let me play Devil's Advocate," she said. Oh here it comes, I thought. "You'll still have to clean bottles." That's the best she has? I'd still have to clean bottles versus having babies hanging from me every two hours? hhhhmmm...let me think about this.

Our last appointment was our ultrasound and consultation with MFM. My mom met us for this appointment as she was anxious to see an ultrasound. Well, our ultrasound techs (as well as our babies) put on a show for my mom. I knew that they wouldn't get any still shots of Max because he literally has not stopped moving for two days. He is constantly moving (oh yeah, they want me to do fetal movement counts where if I don't get 10 movements in 2 hours, I need to call them...I can get 10 movements off these babies in 3 minutes). Jillian cooperated quite nicely and we got a lot of great profile shots of her and they turned the 3D machine on so we could get the 3D view! That was amazing. She has the chubbiest cheeks!

Of course, since Mark and I compete on everything, we had a bet on how much they would weigh. My estimation was 3 lbs (which I thought was overly optimistic); he said 2.4 lbs (which is right on track for how far along we are). Drum roll, please. Jillian weighed in at 3 lbs 13 ounces and Max weighed 3 lbs 5 ounces. The techs and the doctor were absolutely amazed at their size. They said they've never seen twins this big this early. I'm measuring 3 weeks ahead of where I should be. For singletons, Jillian is in the 90th percentile (that means that only 10% of single babies at this gestational age are bigger); Max is in the 75th percentile. They're off the charts, of course, when it comes to twins.

So the weight is good, but we still need to keep them cooking a few more weeks yet. The lungs really aren't fully developed until 32 weeks, so while they may seem big enough for life outside the womb, there's still a lot of development that needs to happen so we can take home big, chubby, healthy buddah babies (oh yeah, the doctor gave us his Buddah cheer --- yelling "Buddah! Buddah! Buddah! once he saw the size).

Anyone taking part in the Pavone Baby Pool? Think December.