Baby bags

I finally bought a new baby bag...

JJ Cole Technique bag in Black Damask  (Nice and big @ ~19x12x7in.)

I already have the little changing pad and pacifier pod set in this pattern, which is a little redundant, but I can use them in my Vera Bradley Miller bag.

But it's a great deal on Hautelook (if you need an invite) and sans pleather.  It's laminated canvas, which may be splitting hairs, but I have a strong aversion to pleather.

There aren't many bags out there designed for two and I wasn't crazy about the patterns of the Skip Hop Duo Double (18x14x4), but the Duo in Blossom is also cute, if a bit smaller.

It also comes in the Dash Deluxe...

And because there is no such thing (in my book) as too many bags, I got this one too...

Skip Hop Studio tote in Plum Burst, a great deal at Land of Nod... (pleather!? ugh!, online shopping fail...)

Baby names (and post #400!)

Sorry for those looking for a big reveal, we have yet to 100% finalize our babies' names and likely won't be sharing them much in advance of their arrival.  But when we do, I'll be sure to explain all the thought that went into them. :)  But I've been reading articles about a recent study that showed that nearly one in ten new parents regret the name they chose for their kids, up significantly in recent years.  Ouch! 

The top reasons given were that they bowed to peer pressure and chose "trendy" names and that their chosen name ended up being much more common than they realized.  Sadly, both of these are completely avoidable with a little common sense and research.

Given that my full name (Katherine Eliza) is traditional (as are all those in my family) and DH's (by Indian standards) is of a similar ilk, we were not terribly interested in bizarrely unusual names for the sake of being different, but rather ones that would mean something to us, hopefully grow well with the babies, and not scream anything other than that they are what they will in fact be, citizens of the world.  So we passed on common Indian and American first names, and plan to forgo the tradition of using DH's name as a middle name, but give them third names after his late father and my mother.  It also probably goes without saying that we weren't interested in matching twin names, unisex names, names inspired by popular culture, made up names, or anything that is misspelled for the sake of being clever.  There is plenty of that out there already.

The first names we are looking at don't happen to be in the top #1000 (by SSA measures), though the middle names are, but are not actually that unusual.

How did you come up with your baby names, even if you are not yet pregnant?

Seven weeks of bed rest down, nine to go!

I can't believe we're a week away from being half way through bed rest to babies!  My weekly outings to the OB make slogging through the rest of the week worthwhile and we finally got an ultrasound again this morning.  We are on the cusp of 27 weeks and rounding the corner to third tri and the babies are still thankfully looking fabulous and growing like weeds.

Baby boy (A) is estimated to be 2lbs. and 10 oz. (holy chunker), which is the 77th percentile, and a week and a half ahead.  He is now breech (the kids both decided to completely rearrange my uterus at the same time earlier this week, that was fun) so the OB is making me a C-section date, though we can obviously cancel it if he decides to move back to head down like he has been.

Baby girl (B) is est. to be 2lbs. and 4 oz., or 58th percentile, and is now a half a week ahead.  She is now head to my right (switched from left), which puts both babies' heads next to each other. She is still transverse, but now more scrunched up since they are getting bigger.

So we are on course to potentially have near 7 lb. babies even if we go as early as 36 wks., which would make me infinitely happy (I told you we are not small people).  My cervix is still doing its wacky thing, all dynamic above the stitch, opening and closing to up to 1.5cm.  But the stitch is holding, which is what is important.  Now on to third trimester!

Financial/legal goals/to dos

As we prepare for the twins' arrival, we've got some things to do...

Increase life insurance to $2M for both of us and add disability for me (must wait until post-pg for me)
Update wills, set up trust and designate guardians for twins
Ramp up existing 529 education/college savings (to target reco of $1K/mo/ea.)

Other:
Refi back to 15 yr. mortgage when rates hit 3%
Pay off remaining 30% balance on new cars, eliminating non-mortgage debt
Make max IRA contribution for me

And when I go back to work (TBD):
Max out pre-tax child care and 401K savings accounts
Build up savings accounts
Finish remaining planned, but not imminently needed home renovations (kitchen/master bath/patio)

A month on... (& nearly 26 wks)

A month ago today, we had the emergency surgery that saved our babies.  It is still difficult for me to wrap my head around all that has happened.  To say that we feel lucky is a huge understatement, but as my step-mother told me frankly it was actually me that is responsible for them still being around.  By going to the hospital and seeking out an MFM promptly after we learned of the funneling, we made it known that we were not going to follow their passive stance and wait for the inevitable terrible things to happen, we were going to fight my failing body with everything that we had.  If I had waited the two weeks that the not my regular OB had told me to be seen again, it likely would have been too late.  As even on bed rest, 12 days later I quickly began to dilate.  While that should just make me feel good, it was a huge burden that was really overwhelming for me to carry for the several weeks as we waited to get to viability.  It is terrible to feel like you are the only ones who care about what is it stake.  They were not just 20 week not yet viable babies to us, they were/are our babies that we had already fought like hell for and were not just going to sit by and see if maybe we were lucky, they might make it.

We are coming up on 26 weeks, which is again not a major milestone, but is ever closer to the end point.  If the babies were to be born in the coming week, their chance of survival would be at least 85%.  The cerclage, which still appears to be holding, is now ten weeks from coming out.

I actually put real (non-yoga) clothes on today for my big trip to the OB, but don't get too excited I still don't do hair and make-up.  This dress makes me look bigger than anything else I've worn.

No gestational diabetes!

Or anemia!  Yippee!! The risk of GD is much higher with twins (7% vs. 4% w/one), and significantly higher than the risk of the "complication" we've had (IC=1-2%), but we are thankfully good.

I found this information in Dr. Luke's multiples book to be really interesting and thought I'd share.

The amazing growth in baby's head size by weeks of gestation...

And the huge difference in avg. hospital care costs (per baby) and days spent in the hospital by weeks of gestation at birth...

Keep cooking babies!!

From supernanny to superpatient to supermom...

This time of year always reminds me of school and work, which for me have always been synonymous, until this year of course. I started working as a babysitter (gulp) 23 years ago, as soon as I turned 12, and it was a significant source of income for me for many years, helping me pay for travel in high school and work my way through college. It has been so long, in fact, that some of my former charges now have kids of their own. I started my first "real" job four years later, working at a local apple orchard in their retail store w/my sister E for three fall seasons, which I'm also always reminded of this time of year.

I remember being so excited to start babysitting as soon as my mother would let me. First for neighbors, then co-workers of my parents (half the drs. in town), teachers, and referrals (including the couple who owned our local athletic club, setting me up for a summer getting buff and working in their day care). I literally worked for dozens of families before I got out of high school. I've always loved kids and it was undoubtedly great experience for someday becoming a mother myself, and also for experiencing first hand how other households were run. I ended up continuing in college, almost by accident, when it came time to decide what to do for the summer. When I decided I wasn't going to NYC to intern on Wall Street, I lived in during the three summers w/two families in Hyannisport and also worked weekends during the school year for the same Boston area families. Exactly a decade after I started, I "retired". Had I been more entrepreneurial at the time, I would have started a business, like fellow babysitter extraordinaire/college classmate Genevieve Thiers, a fellow Chicagoan who founded sittercity.com. She's quite a dynamo, and is now ironically expecting twins herself.

So now for over a decade, after as long immersed in all things kids, I've been shaping my adult life and grinding in the corporate world in preparation for when I would finally become a mother myself. Sadly, the last three years we have also been immersed in the world of infertility medicine, but we are obviously thrilled to finally be planning in real terms for our kids/family to come this fall. Like most women, I always considered staying at home, but I don't ever think I ever really thought I would. IF (and now bed rest) definitely ended up forcing my hand, which like when I got sick w/mono at the end of that last summer in college, forced me to cull the unnecessary out of my life. Though I couldn't be more thrilled to be solely focused on our family, for now anyway.

Though the more I think about SAH long term, the more I think that I will end up going back to work at some point, either for myself or back in the corporate world. While it is certainly an honorable vocation, it seems many SAH either because that's all they've ever wanted or been able to do and/or because paying for care for their children is just more than they would make in the workforce, making it less of a choice. From my experience, I think it is really important for children to have positive interaction and myriad role models outside of the family, thus making room for mom to have other interests.  And obviously the resources that are brought to bear by working, provide their children opportunities that those living more simply to SAH are not privy to.

So after all this time, it is so wild to think that in ten or so short weeks, I will have my very own kiddos. :)