My Mechanics

Tom's been working on the motorcycle that Kris left to him after Max's passing. Nicky was helping him out. This was last week while I was sick and they were both doing a lot better than me at the time. Nicky hadn't yet come down with his fever and Tom was getting over his.

Time for a new belly picture!

Finally got around to having Tom snap a belly pic of me. It's after work, after grocery shopping, after dinner, while Nicky was in the bath and I'm still sick. So you know, I'm not at my most glorious.



Let's compare this to the belly pics taken with Nicky. Just for fun.



Just going by how my old maternity pants fit, I'm as big or bigger than I was at the end with Nicky it seems! My old maternity pants I wore in Nicky's belly pics were really tight when I wore them to the ER last week.

This is going to get interesting.

Update from the House of Sick

Well it's Saturday, and while I'm still sick, I do think I'm getting better FINALLY. Today I only ran a fever once, which is a huge improvement. I was also able to sleep all night and then for most of the day today, which I'm sure is helping too. My ears popped last night, and for a few minutes I could hear, then the left one, the worst one, did it again just a little while ago. It's stopped up again, but maybe this means they're starting to drain and heal. I am running low on the Tussinex, which is scary, but we'll see. Maybe I'll be feeling even better tomorrow and won't need it anymore. I'm hoping I can return to work Monday. It's driving me crazy that I've had to take all this leave when I really need to save every bit for maternity leave, but there was no way I could have worked this past week.

While I've been sick, work has progressed on the nursery. The walls are all sheetrocked, and taped and sealed. They'll be ready for primer now and the new door to be put in. Then it'll be painting and flooring and base boards. Maybe another week or so I guess. I'd have taken more photos, but I've misplaced the camera and am too tired and sick to search for it. That's one thing I will look forward to doing when I'm well again, getting the house organized! It drives me nuts to have it all in disarray. Tom's been working on the important stuff, like laundry and dishes and cooking, but the organizing has had to take a backseat to everything else with both Nicky and I sick.

Which speaking of that, I don't know if I posted about Nicky being sick or not. He'd seen the pediatrician the Thursday before last, same day as Tom went to his doctor. While Tom got an antibiotic, Nicky was declared to have a cold and just need over the counter stuff to handle symptoms. He started running a temp (about 101 or less) on Sunday night though, so Monday Tom called again. They asked about his activity level, which was still high, and said he'd be ok, just keep giving him OTC meds.

Then Wednesday night he was up coughing hard. I know that cough. That's the cough I had so often as a kid where you'd cough and cough till you threw up. I was in there soothing him and helping him blow his nose, patting his back, all the tricks I know. And then he finally did spit up a bit. I carried him into the bathroom and called Tom for help. It was about 3am, and Tom was sleeping. Poor Nicky was so upset and feverish. He kept coughing and finally threw up again a time or two. When he got his bearings he saw he'd thrown up on my shirt and said "Oh no, Momma!" he was so upset. I just kept soothing him and telling him it was alright.

I got him and I both into a steamy shower and we just let the water wash it all away. The hot water and steam helped keep him warm and eased his breathing (and mine, because face it, I was as sick as he was). After a while I called Tom to get ready and handed Nicky out to him to wrap in a big towel. We got him all settled back down and medicated with what little we could. He'd already had the Delsym, which is 12 hour, so we gave him the Mucinex Cold medicine and a fever reducer. After getting him settled back down to bed, which took forever, I told Tom that he had to call the pediatrician in the morning and that I wanted Nicky seen today. And if they weren't giving him an antibiotic then I wanted a better cough medicine and decongestant for him.

Tom called in the morning and got Nicky in for an 11am appointment. I was too sick to move, so they went without me. Turns out Nicky had a double ear infection (the nurse couldn't figure out why he wasn't screaming in pain) and probably was developing pneumonia. I knew there was something going on with him. He has a very high tolerance for pain, and the same thing happened last year with his ears. He just doesn't slow down, even when really sick. They came home with amoxicillin, same antibiotic Tom and I are on, and an albuterol inhaler. (How they expected a 3 year old to use an inhaler without a spacer or a nebulizer is beyond me. But we're trying to get him to use it as properly as possible.)

Fortunately Nicky has bounced back nicely. Ever since starting the antibiotic he's been feeling much better. Less coughing already, and no more episodes of throwing up from the coughing. He's slept better too. We did manage to keep him somewhat subdued for Thursday and most of Friday, but today he was back to his normal self. He even played outside in the backyard (temps were in the 70's today here) and got filthy dirty. That's gotta be good for him right? A nice warm bath after that and he seems to be doing pretty well. No more fevers either.

Now if I could just bounce back like that!

Just some more baby pictures.

Finally figured out the new scanner and scanned the ultrasound images we received yesterday. Both babies were moving around constantly and the tech just referred to one as baby 1 and the other as baby 2, and honestly I can't recall which was which! Sometimes they were transverse (both sideways in my tummy) sometimes head to head and sometimes head to foot. Then sometimes they were perpendicular to each other. They have plenty of amniotic fluid and still obviously have space to wiggle and flip.

Here's one of them in a nice profile shot.


And the other one. She's turned just slightly away from the camera so you can't see her nose.


This is one of the tops of both their heads. They'd flipped around and were probably whispering secrets to each other.


And this is one of their spines, but I'm not even sure which one!


I think it will be a lot easier to tell them apart when they're here in person.

As for me, I'm doing a lot of sleeping in 3 hour shifts. Still sick, but I think maybe the pressure in my face has lessened a bit. It doesn't hurt quite as much. Or maybe that's the codeine helping too. We'll see how tomorrow feels. As it is though I think I won't be making it in to work at all this week! That's so frustrating as I'm really trying to save up my leave for when the babies come. I hope I'm back to work next week at least.

I'm still sick, but the babies are doing great!

It's been a long day. I slept at one point last night for 3 hours in a row, which felt like a miracle. Today I managed to make it through till my OB appointments. Donna stayed on an extra day so she could stay home with Nicky. That was really nice. It was a long appointment and it would have been so hard on him to go. He's still running the occasional fever, but no colored mucus and his energy level is still pretty good. Donna is actually starting to come down with the cold too though, so she's planning to head home Wednesday so she can be closer to her doctor should she need to go in.

Anyway, I went to the ultrasound appointment first. I had to wear a mask while in the doctor's office just in case. The ultrasound took some time because the babies were just squirming around in there. We got a few new ultrasound pics, including a nice profile of each of the girls, so I'll have to get those scanned in soon. One baby is measuring at 1 pound 2 ounces and the other at 1 pound 4 ounces. Perfectly on target. They have plenty of amniotic fluid and are very active.

After the ultrasound we were snuck out the back door into the hallway and through another back door into my OB's office. We were trying to avoid unnecessary exposure to others and also to keep from freaking anyone out from my coughing.

I've only gained 2 pounds in the last 3 weeks, so doing great with that. My blood pressure was perfect at 116 over something, which was a relief. I'd been worried about that with all the medicines I'm on. My iron levels haven't changed, but they're optimistic that those will improve as I continue the iron pills. We'll check again at the next appointment.

My OB was wonderful, as always. I wish he could be my primary care doc all the time. He listened to my symptoms and went over the list I'd brought of all the medications I'd been taking. I wanted to make sure they were all ok with the babies and that they were all ok to take together also. He agreed they were all fine. He was concerned that the z-pack of antibiotics hadn't helped at all though, and that I wasn't able to sleep. He said he was fine with me taking the Tussinex, which is the awesome cough medicine I've had before and Tom had when he was really sick. He said he wouldn't have me take it early in a pregnancy, but it's ok now. But I can't take it along with the other two cough medicines (Robitussin DM and Robitussin AC).

Together we decided to switch me to Augmentin, a more powerful antibiotic (same one Tom is on) and if I'm not feeling better by Thursday I'm to call and we'll have to see about a chest x-ray and maybe IV antibiotics. He looked at my ears. I was worried about the amount of pressure, and yep, they're really angry in there. Sounds like I have a virus, but it's gone into ear infections, a heck of a sinus infection and a lung infection of some sort probably. Hopefully the new antibiotic will help.

Sleep will help too. As soon as the Robitussins wore off at 5pm I took the Tussinex. I waited till 6pm so I could take my Tylenol dose and then laid down to sleep. Not only did I manage to sleep for about 4 hours, I also was able to do it with my cpap mask on! That was so nice. I woke a few times for a second or two, but easily drifted back to sleep after adjusting my position a little. I am afraid to sleep on my left as that is the ear that is so painful. My face hurts, and now my left jaw and teeth hurt. I can't even chew on that side from the pain. I hope the antibiotic works on that fast. So I'm sleeping on my left side and had to just adjust a bit as my hip started hurting.

Four hours of sleep were great, though my head felt twice as stuffy as before the nap. I was due for Sudafed, but not for Tylenol yet, so I ate soup and toast and took Tylenol as soon as I could. I sat up with Tom and stared at the movie that was on for about 2 hours or so. Now I'm back in bed and ready to try to sleep more. The only bad thing about the Tussinex is that I can only take it every 12 hours. Hopefully it's effects will last that long.

Anyway, we'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow. It was such a relief to see the babies are doing great in there. Thank you guys for your positive thoughts and prayers. Keep them coming, they're working.

So, So Sick (Updated)

Just to vent a minute and let you all know what's up with me. Tom and Nicky have been fighting a cold for about a week or two. (Since Nicky restarted preschool on Feb 1st, of course he brought home germs right away.) Well I thought I'd escaped unscathed till Thursday. Even then I thought oh, just a cold. No biggie. Even went to work Friday. Even DROVE MYSELF TO WORK! Tom was hopped up on his wonderful cough medicine (that of course I'm not allowed to have) and couldn't drive.

But by the time I got home Friday I was running a fever. I got an antibiotic called in from the on-call OB and have been on it since Friday night. Well it's not doing a damn thing, and I seriously don't ever remember having a cold or flu this bad ever! (Excluding that stomach flu that put us in the hospital, that is always the worst ever.) I haven't slept since last Wednesday night for a full night, and haven't gotten more than 15 minutes to one blissful 2 hour stretch of sleep since Friday. I'm running on total empty now. The OB's office actually gave me a script for cough medicine with codeine in it today which I've already taken, on top of the normal cough medicine. And I still can't stop coughing. The pressure in my ears and sinuses is just immense. My whole face hurts.

I go in for my regular OB appt and ultrasound tomorrow afternoon. So we'll see what they say then. I'm actually afraid they're going to stick me in the hospital since I can't sleep and have asthma (although thankfully breathing isn't actually hurting me anymore) and my belly button is really hurting from all the coughing. I'll have to post to let you know what happens after the appointment if I have a chance. If I don't, then I'm sure Tom will be calling around to update everyone.

Any and all prayers are welcome! If you do call, I'm probably not going to be able to talk. Talking makes me cough badly. But you can talk with Tom. Thank goodness he's finally getting well! Nicky's started running a fever last night though. His doctor's office doesn't want to see him again yet (he went in last Thursday) but if he still has it tomorrow I'll probably insist he be re-evaluated. He might need an antibiotic too. Poor baby. Thankfully also, Donna came up on Thursday night and stayed. She helped take care of Nicky and brought me tea and stuff while Tom was either recovering, or today helping Greg with the room. They bought sheetrock and a new bedroom door today and started on the sheetrock. Sorry no pics. They've actually not done work since the last pics until today. We've just been too sick.


UPDATE: So within about an hour of that post Tom called the on-call OB again about me. I could hardly catch my breath from coughing so much and I was already on the darn codeine stuff. The OB suggested we head to the ER for a chest xray.

So at 9:30 we went to the ER and left Nicky with Donna. We were triaged pretty much right away and the triage nurse was very nice. But the ER was packed. We waited until about 11:30 and then while I went to the bathroom, again, Tom asked about the wait time. There were 15 people ahead of us, and some of them had been there for 5 hours. I had to walk around a man squirming on the floor on a thin blanket who was probably in the midst of a gallbladder attack or something horribly painful. I figure if they're making him wait, we're not seeing anyone till morning anyway. I was running low on my medicines and hadn't thought to bring them all with me. Pretty soon I'd have been in even more misery than I was already in.

So we left the ER and headed home. We got home just in time for me to take more medicine. I took a steamy shower to help me breathe and even managed to doze off sitting up for about an hour. I woke coughing and dreaming of the ER. Finally could take more Tylenol. I'd never broken my prior fever, even on the 2 Tylenol I'd taken right before going to the ER. It was 100.5 when I woke and took more.

So now I'm up, killing time on the computer, eating a snack and drinking hot decaf tea. In 1.5 hours I get to take more codeine stuff.

Oh, Tom said my blood pressure was a little elevated in the ER. I wasn't paying attention and he didn't recall the exact numbers. We'll see what it says tomorrow at the OB.

The Nursery: Renovation Days 3, 4 & 5

Yes, it is 5am. Not my usually blogging time, but I'm sick and can't sleep anyway so why not. Just caught Tom and Nicky's cold yesterday. I suppose I'm lucky to have made it so long without it, at least I will hopefully be better by Monday. For the record, coughing when pregnant sucks bad. Round ligament pain hurts.

Ok, so the renovation has been making progress daily. This is really great!

Day 3 The floor was completed:







Day 4 The wiring was fixed. Now there is power in every wall. There had been originally, but they'd messed around with the wiring when they'd finished the room and installed a closet.





Day 5 The new windows went in! This makes me very happy. I was afraid this would be a bear of a job as the windows are kind of an odd size. But they were able to get some energy efficient vinyl windows, more expensive than aluminum (which is in the rest of the house) but more efficient and looks much nicer too. I think we'll have to invest in those for the rest of the house eventually. (If I can remember to keep the receipts then I should be able to use that as a deduction on next years taxes too.





Next is caulking around the windows inside and out and then either the new door or sheetrock. I'm not sure which happens first. Probably sheetrock. Oh, or maybe they'll fix that hole in the wall between the nursery and living room first. That would be nice. I think all in all while this will take longer than one week, it is moving along at a pace I can handle right now. Something new is getting done each day and that makes me happy.

Today the babies are 22 weeks old, and in one more week they'll be considered viable. It's still way way too early for them to arrive, but we're entering a new phase for sure. I'll have to get a new belly pic up for this week. Some days I feel and look so huge! Some days not as much. I think it must have to do with the way they are lying in there. Last night, Tom felt the babies kicking for the first time for certain. They're in there moving around! It's so wonderful to be able to feel them move. Maybe I won't feel that way after they get bigger, but right now it's a very reassuring and wondrous feeling.

The Nursery: Renovation Days 1 & 2

Day 1 of the rennovation proved quite fruitful. Tom finished getting everything out to the POD and ripped everything down to the block walls. He took out the closet, and all the old insulation, and although a window broke in the process, he also got everything out of the house. This is what it looked like after Tom finished with it:







Day 2 was the first full day of having Greg here to work. He and Tom installed the joists, footers and most of the floor. More photos!







I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Photos, because I'm tired but I promised

Behold! Pics of the new furniture, taken as soon as we got home, so in a very messy house. Ignore that part. Okay?

The new dining set. There is a leaf we can add too. We have these 4 chairs and a bench that can go along one full side when the leaf is in. The bench is in the living room for now.


Ta da! The new sofa and the bench from the dining set which is serving pretty well as a coffee table for now actually.


Daddy and Nicky posing on the sofa. Now with extra boogers looks like.


Apparently Nicky wants to be a photographer too, so he took our photo. This is me after a full day of working, 20 weeks pg with twins, anemic and exhausted. I have looked better I'm sure.


Nicky of course looks fabulous even after a full day playing at school. Ah youth!

Things are moving in the right direction

The septic tank people pulled up this morning with two huge trucks and an excavator (which Nicky LOVED! It looked just like Scoop from Bob the Builder.) and started working on digging up and replacing the drain field.

While we waited for our opportunity to get out of the driveway, Nicky and I watched them dig it up from his bedroom window. (How cool is it to be a 3 year old and have a real Scoop digging 15 feet from your bedroom window?) Nicky explained all about what they were doing for me. He was so cute. Anyway, Tom went out to talk with the head guy and found out that there really appeared to be NO drainfield there at all. Apparently back in the 50's they just stuck a clay pipe onto the septic tank and just fed it all into the sandy soil of Florida. Super. Well, it's really RICH soil now! And now we'll have an actual drain field that does it's job. No more worrying about the bathroom flooding anymore! Hopefully they'll be done by the time I get home today.

After Tom took Nicky and I to work and school, he headed back to the house where he met up with Greg who is going to be helping us renovate the den. We originally were going to make that a master bedroom and then make our room the babies' room. But I think we've changed our minds. It's just going to be so hard to put a good, functional closet in that room, and so instead we're going to just make it one big open room, have it be the babies' nursery and use an armoire instead. When we go to sell we think that will actually be a good thing. They'll see it shown as a bedroom with an armoire, and yet it can function as a den, a living room space, game room, etc. And this way we also don't have to move all our furniture. It puts me so much closer to having a done nursery, and that's what my main goal is at this point!

Greg and Tom measured and discussed plans, and Greg thinks they can do it in one week! I hope so! That would be fabulous. Such a burden lifted when it's over. Tom already has the POD to store stuff and has been trying to empty the den, but he's also had two separate colds over the last week and been pretty much out of commission till today. He said he should have the den empty and ready to start work on Saturday. Very exciting!

AND on top of all this, Tom also just received our delivery of furniture! He said everything looks awesome. I can't wait to see it tonight! We have a new sofa and dining set. Finally! I'll have to take photos for you all to see.

What a day! So much getting done, and moving along. Now if we can just do our taxes. That $ is going to be what gets the nursery decorated and pays the hospital for the delivery. So pretty important!