The End is Sometime in the Next Eight Weeks

Ellie’s pregnancy hit 30 weeks this weekend. This is an important milestone. Ellie is certain to deliver within the next eight weeks, meaning that her current gestation and final gestation time when measured in weeks both begin with “3.” This makes them almost the same number, and signals the end is near.

The fetuses are still in the stage where every additional day in the womb is a priceless gift, the perfect location to develop physically, avoid the NICU, and tag team on a game of “kick the bladder.” Their development is still progressing at a staggering pace, constantly sprouting new pieces, but soon they’ll slow their development to maybe a couple new hairs per day. At 32 weeks, most fetuses have fully developed lungs. At 34 weeks, virtually all fetuses have fully developed lungs. At 36 weeks, fetuses are generally considered fully developed and are using their remaining time in vitro to bulk up. At 36 weeks plus one minute, I expect Ellie to enter the hospital demanding they perform that c-section they offered and end the excruciating misery of carrying twin fetuses plus all their baggage because, of course, she can’t wait to bond with her new babies.

Before the twins can come, we need to finish preparing our home for their arrival. The furniture is mostly ready for them. In the children’s bedroom, we have two dressers to hold everyone’s clothes. We’ll need a third dresser eventually when the twin’s clothes grow too big to hold in one, but I figure it’s easiest to save money now even though that means I’ll have to navigate the residue of three children to put a dresser in place. We have one crib for Abbie and one crib for the twins in the hopes that they’ll be able to share sleeping quarters for a few months instead of keeping each other awake sharing germs. Not that they’ll sleep in that crib before they’ve established good sleeping patterns, a process that could take several weeks. That way they only wake Abbie once a night for feedings, and when they do Abbie will be old enough to threaten if she doesn’t go back to sleep.*

Our bedroom is prepared for the twin’s arrival. We’ve moved enough of our crud off the floor to free enough space to fill the floor with baby crud. We have a Pack ‘N Play set up next to our bed so when they cry at night, mommy and daddy can care for them while Abbie continues sleeping blissfully in her room, allowing her to wake up refreshed and better able to concentrate on inventing new ways to grab her parents’ attention. We still need something to hold the twin’s clothes in our room, but fixing that is as simple as dragging some white shelves up from the basement, setting them up in our bedroom, hearing Ellie tell me that I grabbed the wrong white shelves from the basement, and swapping out the proper white shelves.

The biggest thing left for furniture is we still want a rocking glider for our bedroom. Or is it a gliding rocker? Either way, we want one next to our bed for late night feedings. We already have a rocking chair, but we’d like a glider to replace it because with a toddler and multiple pets running around the house, it seems unsafe to have a piece of furniture that involves two large wooden planks constantly rocking up and down on the floor with a couple hundred pounds of pressure. Plus it’s uncomfortable sitting in our rocking chair, a Spine-gulator 1500 model. Money and space is tight though, and if need be, I can survive a few weeks in the chair, or “Ol’ Shooting Lower Back Pain” as I like to call it.

With furniture mostly ready, we’re free to concentrate on little things. With a clear mind, I now see only one last thing we need. Thanks to this added concentration though, I find a new one last thing every day. One day we needed a car seat, and so we bought it. The next day we needed more bottle nipples, and so we bought some. The next thing on the list is a stroller. After that, I might make enough frozen custard to last until we can go out in public again (12 years) the next item. Because the end is near.

* “Abigail Leigh, if you don’t climb back into bed right now I’m going to feed the twins again in three hours, and they’ll really scream then.”