No offense intended to anyone with religious leanings, but now that my body very clearly contains 3 separate people with their own personalities, thoughts (and especially) sleep schedules the title just seems to fit.
I’ve been strangely “unbusy”. I find that I can lay for hours on the couch in a semi-awake daze – something my overactive brain has never once in my entire life allowed me to do. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of things that need doing, I just have ZERO drive or motivation to do any of them. My baby brain is bad. I didn’t do anything – work, manuscript writing, housework – last week. I just….couldn’t. I would open a document to start working, have a contraction, lay down and then go to sleep. Wake up, eat, watch soccer, remember I was supposed to be working and lay down again. This is totally unlike me.
I’ve physically gotten to the point where I make other people visibly uncomfortable. Even the saleslady at Motherhood told me to go home and stay home when I went in to get measured for nursing bras. So, the only time I’ve really been out the house for the last week or two has been to go to child birthing classes. I went to a breastfeeding class and a birthing center tour at the hospital where I’ll deliver, and the last 2 Sat.’s we went to birthing classes – one at the hospital and one at a local birthing center. BTW, I highly recommend taking those kinds of classes. Even my husband agreed that they were useful and says he feels much more confident now. At the “hippie-dippie” natural birthing class (as my husband called it) I just jumped right in during introductions and told them that I was pregnant with fraternal twins as a result of egg donation. The teacher and one of the other ladies then both said they had (or were having) children as a result of IVF. During the break several couples came up to us and asked very good and thoughtful questions about how we arrived at that decision and what the process was like. And, of course, everyone had a story about a sister/friend/aunt/cousin who was infertile and how hard their struggle was. Granted, this was by its very nature a supportive environment, but I was quite pleased that my first foray into “telling strangers” went so well.
Anyway, the babies are really big and I am super uncomfortable. They’re also very active which is great, but they’ve actually split my abdominal muscles in 3 places from all of their squirming, which isn’t so great. The nursery is finished (I think) and we have just about everything ready to go. My bags are packed for the hospital. My birth plan is ready. Now all we have to do it hope and pray that Baby A will turn head down so that I can at least TRY to implement my birth plan. I really want to try and do this “pioneer style” – no meds at all, completely naturally if possible. I know people think I’m crazy, and it may end up (for any number of reasons) that this won’t happen, but I feel like the whole conception process, as grateful as I am for it, was so medically orchestrated and outside of me that I want this to be just me. Me and my husband and our babies. I want to feel it all. Maybe I’m looking for some extra legitimacy – some additional “I carried you and birthed you and I am your mother” fodder for down the road, I don’t know. I just feel strongly that I at least want to try. I want to prove to myself that my body isn’t broken. I felt for so long like I was defective, like less of a woman, because I couldn’t get pregnant. Now that I’ve watched my body grow these babies I want to, once and for all, wipe away those feelings of defectiveness and feel powerful. I want to prove to myself (and to my boys and my husband) that just because I couldn’t do one little thing (like produce a viable egg) doesn’t mean I am any less of a mother or a woman. Wow. Writing that down it becomes clear to me that the only person I need to prove that to is myself. Huh.
Here’s the latest bump picture – my mom says I look like a mongrel dog with the big belly and the protruding ribs (not as visible in this picture as in real life). hahaha! I swear, I’m eating constantly, but these little fellas are just sucking it out of me. I’ve currently gained just shy of 50 lbs, so I’m on track for weight gain, I’m just ALL BABIES.
Hope is something you pee on 
You look absolutely positively stunning! And though I understand your motivation to go au natural, don’t be too hard on yourself if it doesn’t work out. You’ll do what feels like the right thing during the process and I have faith everything will work out beautifully!
Yes, I can see why you’d want to conquer natural childbirth when you put it like that, and I’m glad to hear you’re also playing it by ear in case things get sticky for whatever reason. I’m crazy excited for them to be born and for you to be Mom!
You look great! Good for you for just relaxing and not doing much… and watching lots of soccer! Good luck with the natural birth – I hope it works out!
You look amazing though!
“I want to prove to myself that my body isn’t broken. I felt for so long like I was defective, like less of a woman, because I couldn’t get pregnant. Now that I’ve watched my body grow these babies I want to, once and for all, wipe away those feelings of defectiveness and feel powerful. I want to prove to myself (and to my boys and my husband) that just because I couldn’t do one little thing (like produce a viable egg) doesn’t mean I am any less of a mother or a woman.” —I just want to say that this is beautifully written, and I identify with it completely. You look amazing and powerful.