35 weeks and 4 days

I wasn't going to do any pictures for you this time because it's just getting ugly from here on out. But, rules were made to be broken, right?

There seemed to be great response to the eclipse series of photos so here is the next installment. It's a Mark Eclipse. The expression you see in this picture is the expression he gets every time he sees me these days - even if he had only turned away for a brief moment. I'm pretty shocked too every time I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

There's not a lot to say these days aside from, "Ugh. My existence..." I am extremely tired (I type, as I reach for my Ambien) and there's not much I can do due to my... well, due to my current existence.

Moving most parts of my body requires a plan, focus, much effort, and often the support of another being. I find that I usually move every 30 minutes due to my call of nature. My bladder carries 1 tablespoon of liquid while my feet, ankles and legs carry a few gallons. I've been thinking a lot lately about the term "kankles". Where does the "K" come from? I can understand "fankles" (the "F" is for fat). I can understand "chankles" (the "ch" is for "chunk" or "chubby"). I can especially understand "nankles" (because there are "No" ankles). But why "kankles"?

As an update to my kankles obsession, Mark has reminded me that it is no a"k" in kankles, but a hard "C". The "C" isn't a derivative of "Christi", but in fact "Calf". A "cankle" is the loss of deliniation between the calf and the ankle. In my instance, I'm still sticking with the word "nankle", and i might as well start introducing the term "nalf" also since my legs just seems to be an continuation of the elephant knees I've also recently developed.


At my most recent doctor visits, there are currently no signs of me going into labor anytime soon (though things can change in an instant!). My doctors have now ordered to me to get out and get moving, see the world, help these babies along the way. We dediced to go out to dinner. Keeping the above pictures in mind, imagine me showing up to an all you can eat buffet. Just kidding. But I have gone out to eat a couple of times. Tonight we went to Buffalo Wild Wings with the other ENT residents. I just sat back in the booth with a big goofy, grin on my face, just happy to be out in the world! People might have suspected me to be a little crazy, but when I stood up those people realized they better not mess with me, I could easily smoosh them. Also, as part of my prescribed activity, we had our last backyard baby pool of the summer. It was great, Mark put a sun lounger and a little table next to me in the water. We spent the whole afternoon watching Cooper dig up pebbles and place them at my nankles.

There are so many little things that happen to me during the day that I'd love to tell you about. But, as my friends and family, I chose to spare you the graphic details of my current existence. I need to keep a little mystery, don't I?

Pictures from the last month

Nugget's profile. Do you see that sweet smile lurking?
Peach's face amid umbilical cord and other stuff. Look at those squishy cheeks & lips & nose!

Peach mid-yawn. This picture was really cute when it was live action and you could see her purse her lips, suckle, smile then let out a big yawn. Caught at this moment she looks a little more like Munch's Scream. That is also Nugget's foot right in front of her face - looks kind of like his heel is about to go into her mouth!

Peach's foot and toes. Notice how the toes are wrapped around her umbilical cord. This picture is proof that Mark is the dad!!!

33 weeks 5 days & a roach

We are getting close to the 34 week point that I never thought possible - yay! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can still go home at 34 weeks (this Friday) as my Dr's once suggested. Based on my ultrasound Monday, I have remained stable for a few weeks now and the kids are still looking perfect. Once I hit 34 weeks the Dr's say the kids will be at a very safe point for being born (that would be the equivalent of a singleton baby being born 3 weeks early). They feel it is very important for my mental health to get out of the hospital and into my own environment to try to derail the onset of "bed rest psychosis". So, if I go home and end up going into labor the next day, there are no (out of the norm) worries about any one's safety and at least I'll have had a restful night in my own bed with Mark & Cooper. Obviously I'll continue my strict bed rest at home, especially considering I have no energy to do anything at all!

Today my nurse was Casey. She waddled in, almost 36 weeks along and 3 cm dilated. She said this was her 2nd to last shift before she was going to take off to give birth. I felt horrible guilt as she carried in my breakfast tray, changed my sheets, went in and out of my room to help other patients. At lunch time Amanda brought me my tray and informed me that Casey was no longer my nurse - she was now a patient in Labor & Delivery. I knew I shouldn't have let he change my sheets!

Now you're probably wondering where the roach comes into play in this post... don't worry it's not me loosing my mind amid this bed rest psychosis I'm slipping into! It's more an observation as to why health care costs might be so high! On Friday of last week I was in my room visiting with a friend who happened to notice there was a water bug (aka roach) trapped in the air vent above my bed. Alarmed and amused we watched the poor fellow pace back and forth inside this steel cage and realized that's where he was stuck for the rest of his life. My human friend left and I soon decided that this roach, even if he wasn't human, would make a good companion. I sat in bed and watch him pace, rest, circle, and meander for a couple of hours. After lunch I decided that befriending a roach was probably not in my best interest. I asked the nurse to call maitenance and have the poor fellow removed.

A maintenance man arrived and, moments into the rescue, he called for backup. A second maintenance man arrived and they banged away at the vent and couldn't open it enough to get my little friend out. Their failure meant bigger guns had to be called in and my room had to be closed down and I had to move rooms for a 3rd time during this hospital stay. We then waited one hour for housekeeping to finish "cleaning" my new room (aka, finish watching her stories in the room she was "cleaning"). A little bit later an outside pest control man was called in to euthanize my poor friend in the air vent. The rest of the day was spent mourning the loss of my newest friend and looking out my new larger window in my now smaller room.

The next morning I woke up to the sound of construction coming from my old room. Two air conditioning repair men had to climb through the vents and internally disassemble the vent to remove my deceased, former friend. One hour of hard labor which involved hammers, saws, grunting and swearing lead to the grand re-opening of "Willis Knighton South's Ante-partum Corner Suite". It took 5 men and 2.5 hours of labor to rid a room of one measly roach. So when you look at the grand scheme of things, roaches are to blame for the extraordinary costs of our health care system.

31 weeks 4 days

As my dear brother Ross said, "It's a Christi Eclipse"

34th Birthday - A Hospital Extravaganza!

My 34th birthday came and went without any babies making an appearance. Woo-Hoo!!! We hoped we’d make it this far but really weren’t sure we would. So the patient waiting continues to all of our pleasure.

My 34th birthday was also a lovely day! It started just after 6:00 am when the nurse woke me up for my morning medicine. A few moments later the door opened again and I was very surprised to see Mark walking in the door. Just as surprising was the bag of Czech Stop Bakery kolaches, danishes and peanut brittle. Super yum! Since candles aren’t allowed he brought along a bic lighter and held it next to the apricot Danish as he serenaded me with Happy Birthday. I blew out the candle and made a wish. Actually I lie because everything that I would have on my with list is either already true or is about to come true! Instead I had a little moment of birthday thanksgiving and gratitute.

The rest of my day was filled with birthday phone calls & texts. I imagine there are some emails and facebooks messages waiting for me until I can log back into the system. (This is being written on word, then will copied and pasted in case you’re confused about my time frames or questioning my knowledge of verb tenses in the English language). Honey & Giddo (aka Ann & George) spent the day with me. We watched a movie, talked babies, laughed about a million different things, ate some muffaletta, and even managed to sneak in a five second snooze. They were so sweet to bring me a thriving ivy plant and tall and graceful bamboo plant (they’re supposed to bring wealth apparently!).

Mid-day Mark surprised me with a real birthday treat – a pre-natal massage right there in the hospital room (by a masseuse of course, not mark!). It was great and was certainly something I was dying to have but never would have gotten for myself. I got some other little goodies and they all managed to have an underlying theme of pampering myself (I guess it’s for now- while I still can pamper myself, and not be drowning in Pampers).

In the evening we shared a lovely meal from the local Indian restaurant, Indigo,.and moved onto to my mini birthday cake from Honey & Giddo. It was delicious! Some more good news from my birthday-in-the-hospital extravaganza was I managed to eat exactly what I wanted and my silly gestational diabetes all stayed within the acceptable range (woo-hoo! I wasn’t going to get in trouble!).

Thanks to all for helping to give me a great birthday. Now we just have to wait patiently for the next birthdays in my soon-to-be not-too-small family!