Adventures in Diapering

Today we went to Alana’s Cafe or, as the twins know it, “Breakfast Restaurant.” It’s their absolute favorite restaurant. When Mark told Julia while changing her diaper that we would be eating there she began kicking him and declared, “I’m kicking you because I’m so happy!” And at the restaurant James chanted excitedly “Pan-cakes! Pan-cakes!” as we were led to our table.

It was also St. Patrick’s Day, in case you’re wondering about the shamrock driver’s cap.

After eating here we always let the twins run around the courtyard and climb the stairs of the gallery next door. Soon we noticed a distinctive smell for which parents of young children are particularly well honed. I’ll let Julia explain what happened:

“I have to go poo poo.”

“I’m going slow now because of poo poo.”

“Poop!”

Then Mark was suspicious about the contents of James’s diaper, and asked him, “James did you go poop?” Here’s what James, the world’s worst 3-year-old liar, told him: 

“No. Don’t smell me.”

I should backtrack a moment to mention that James had been constipated the last few days so I’d been plying those kids full of whole grains, fruit juice, fruit, fruit, and more fruit, and of course beans (which some would say is also a fruit, albeit a magical one). My attempts to battle James’s constipation the last few days having finally been successful, we all proceeded to the fold-down trunk of our Prius, a.k.a. the Mobile Diapering Unit.

I took out the baggie of wipes and found exactly three wipes. Uh oh. I cleaned Julia up with two, leaving one for James. After wiping Julia, Mark surveyed my handiwork and said, “I’ve seen better wiping jobs.” Channeling Donald Rumsfeld, I told my backseat diaperer of a husband, “You go to war with the army you have. Not the army you wish you had."

“Listen up. I also have some thoughts on potty training.”

Now it was time to change James. James tends to produce one massive poop a day so leaving one wipe was a big gamble, especially with the earlier constipation situation. As I removed his diaper Mark rustled through the diaper bag and announced that there were no more diapers. This has never happened to me before. I searched every inch of that bag and the car and confirmed he was right, all the while cursing myself for not refilling the diaper bag. We were literally s--- out of luck.

Always bet on black. Or brown.

In the meantime I had finished removing James’s pants and - just my luck - he had a diaper so swollen with poop that, not to get too graphic, the last inch of each of the legholes was yellowish brown. You know how you can tell at the beach where the high tide has receded? Well, James’s legs were stained yellow almost all the way to the knee.

We considered our options. Put James’s jeans back on and go home? No, that was a ticking time bomb. Send Mark running to a grocery store? None in sight. Swap babies with someone else in the restaurant? This might have been a viable option a year ago but it seemed too late now.

If only we had a convenient pumpkin...

Mark suggested wrapping James up in the thick changing cloth like it was a cloth diaper. That seemed like the best solution. We didn’t have any way to pin it to stay together but figured it would mostly stay together after it was jammed into pants. I decided this was a better idea for Julia since we planned to have her start wearing underwear for the first time that afternoon anyway.

So I turned to Julia, pulled down her jeans and ripped off her diaper, leaving her bottomless in a parking lot. Julia kind of looked around like, “What just happened?” Then I tended to James with the one wipe and a few dried out ones Mark found on the floor. Tim Gunn’s voice echoed in my head: “Make it work.”

“I don’t approve of the use of my words and likeness in this context. Carry on!”

By the time I put a freshly diapered James down Julia was very upset. I put her back onto our Prius changing table  and she started whining that she wanted her Mickey Mouse diaper back. Unsatisfied with our attempts to market the changing cloth as “fancy big girl underwear,” we realized we weren’t going to be able to convince her. I even started to take a pen out of my purse to draw Mickey on it. She began sobbing and I could see this was going nowhere fast.

The only acceptable diaper

That’s when I left Mark and the twins in the parking lot and raced inside Alana’s to beg table to table for a diaper. Thankfully, at the second table I approached, a 2-year-old’s mom took pity on me and gave me one. It was a size too small but at this point I would have made even a newborn diaper work. Julia took one look at this plain white diaper and started bawling, “I want my old diaper! I want Mickey!” I took out the stickers I keep in my Mom Bribery Kit (a.k.a. my purse) to decorate it. But Julia wasn’t having it and eventually, when it was clear the bargaining wasn’t going to work, I just put it on her and dressed her despite her cries. And kicks.

And this is why we can’t have nice things go nice places.

Another picture of playing in the courtyard:

I have a special delivery... in my diaper

What I Didn’t Know About Being Pregnant

There was A LOT I didn't know about being pregnant until after I got knocked up. Here are some of the highlights that for the most part aren't in the books:

1) I was super clueless when I walked into my first maternity store. I pulled pants off the racks in my size and then the next 5 sizes up because I thought I would increase several sizes when pregnant. Stupid me - the sizes are the same as when you’re not pregnant - they just make them for your current shape plus a belly.

2) When they say, “stay off your feet,” stay off your feet. I think the instructions were to not be on my feet for more than an hour and a half at a time, but I really didn’t understand why, and since I worked out regularly I thought I was fine. In my third or fourth month I walked around the mall like I normally would for four hours. (I know... that sounds like something you shouldn’t do - pregnant or not - just for your own sanity.) My feet were swollen and I was in a world of hurt afterwards. No, not as swollen as my feet in these pictures (back by popular demand):


After giving birth because of pre-clampsia and hypertension

After the long drive from San Diego to San Jose

Generally I think the work-out instructions during pregnancy are very contradictory. You're told to both exercise and to stay off your feet. At what point do you transition from exercising just enough to needing to stay off your feet? (Exercise for 1 hour? Fine. More than 1 hour? Stay off your feet!) I stopped running as soon as I found out I was pregnant. A nurse told me that while it was safe to run, many women experience chronic incontinence problems later on because of it. ("You had me at incontinence.") I moved on to the eliptical machine instead and then, when my belly got in the way, walking for a half hour while I called to chat with my parents and in-laws.

3) Speaking of feet, your feet are always on display, especially as you get farther into your pregnancy. In my case I couldn’t wear heels - my shoe wardrobe consists of only heels and sneakers, no in betweens - so I went to the pregnant lady’s standby, flip flops. Be sure to get pedicures (or get your husband to do it).

4) I only learned about the line that goes down your stomach once I read a book on pregnancy. I’m surprised this isn’t mentioned more often.

5) Daddies-to-be never read the pregnancy books. I gave Mark a single chapter to read and he never read it. One of us had to read the books on what to expect before the birth and in the year to follow and that, of course, was me.

I like how this mom-to-be is already resigned to her fate of bringing a screaming, free-time-killing baby into the world and is already wearing unflattering mom outfits. Maybe Mark would have been more motivated to read his chapter if I'd had the updated version:

She seems to say "Yay! A baby is on it's way! And I can still wear hip, fitted clothing! Read me, Mark! Read me!"

6) Only 1 in 5 mothers-to-be experience their water breaking. (Note: all the literature now says “bag of waters” but I cannot get behind this trend.) TV makes it seem like all pregnant women experience their water breaking. I turned out to be one of the lucky 20%? (Actually I'm really glad my water broke since I then knew I was going into labor. I wouldn't have wanted to arrive at the hospital like the previous four false alarms, unsure if I was going to deliver. At least I knew there was nothing I could do about it and I could just enjoy the delivery.)

My water breaking was like this but in a bed. And I just want to take this opportunity to mention again how Mark forgot to bring me a change of clothes when I left the hospital after the delivery so I had to put on my water breaking clothes and underwear.

The delivery was like just like this. Two pale babies fell out.

7) Making a baby registry is really daunting. I started researching and reading reviews for each item on Amazon, Target, and Babies R Us. (I knew I was in trouble when I started reading reviews on things as mundane as travel wipes.) I did way too much research and it took me a couple months to put it together!


Advice:

1) Go to Motherhood for full panel tummy pants. Some gals like the kind of pants where your baby gut hangs over the waistband but I was not one of them. I actually had to buy another pair of jeans (from Motherhood) when my first pair from Old Navy eventually got too tight across the belly (but then again I had twins). I wish I’d gone to Motherhood in the first place. They had corduroys, too! (And for those of you not in the know, A Pea in the Pod is ridiculously expensive. Avoid.)

My beloved maternity corduroys. (Not on me.)

Me at 22 weeks in my beloved maternity corduroys with Candice

2) Originally I planned on buying a dresser and putting the changing table on top of it, figuring that I would want a children’s dresser anyway and a changing table could only be used for a short amount of time. However, instead I highly recommend getting a changing table for cheap on Craigslist like I did. Changing tables have cubbies for everything you might need, and the changing pad fits nicely on top with a little guard rail.

3) Make a baby registry with a trusted mom friend. My friend April volunteered to help me and she explained what things were (flannel pads, waterproof pads, piddle pads...), and guided me on what to buy.

4) Bring glasses (if you wear them) to your ultrasounds! I was recently reminded of this by my pregnant friend Sara who forgot hers for an appointment. Invariably at every appointment I’d get ultrasound gel splooooted across my abdomen and then I’d realize I’d left my glasses in my purse. Without them it’s hard to make out the already hard-to-make-out action of the moving fetus (or, in my case, fetuses).

5) And finally, be sure not to be constipated after you deliver, and if you are come up with a plan on how to solve it with your doctor. A friend of mine gave herself an enema at home. That would have been a much better alternative for me than going to the hospital, waiting around to see a doctor with pain so bad it made me cry (someone who's had this problem said the pain was WORSE than child birth), and taking 8 hours until the problem was finally resolved.

Post-Preggers Health Fun

After all I'd heard about complications with C-sections, I was very very grateful this part of the delivery went as smoothly as it did. Since the babies were on the small side the incision was smaller, too, and all in all the delivery was very easy. That said...

The twins were delivered on a Monday, I checked out on a Friday night, but then we were back at the hospital 12 hours later. I was suffering from severe constipation, which sounds funny but was seriously the worst pain I've ever experienced. Since I didn't have any contractions after my water broke on the day of the twins' birth, it was like the constipation was my way of experiencing childbirth pain... except at the end I gave birth to a multitude of little brown babies.

My septuplets

I'm sure everyone wants to know how constipation is treated in the ER and the answer is the physician first removes impacted poo with her fingers, and if that doesn't work, administers an enema. Both are no fun. (In other news, I can't BELIEVE people pay to receive enemas.)

My doctor?

Then three days later I was back in the ER, this time because of high blood pressure. I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia (which can cause very high blood pressure) after having given birth, so I probably came down with it in the last week of my pregnancy. (For those of you keeping score at home, this pregnancy had 4 pre term labor scares - 2 of which landed me in the hospital for over a week, 2 months of bed rest, gestational diabetes, severe constipation, and finally pre-eclampsia. Such are the joys of a multiple pregnancy, especially when you're "older".) In case you watch 19 Kids and Counting (don't get me started on how having 19 kids is child abuse), the Duggars' 19th child weighed 1 pound, 6 ounces when she was delivered in her 26th week (which is when I had my first pre-term labor scare), because the mother was diagnosed with pre-clampsia. There is a risk of seizure to continue with a pregnancy so the babies are often delivered early. I also found out that I have a 30% chance of pre-eclampsia if I'm pregnant with a singleton in the future.


Here I am with my parents while wearing my dad's hat. My feet and legs were super swollen because of high blood pressure related to pre-eclampsia. Those flip flops are the only shoes that would fit.


Check out my scary cankles on my last day in the hospital.

I ended up in the ER after I saw my perinatologist (Asian female Doogie) and she sent me to the ER to have my blood pressure monitored. There's nothing more reassuring than lying on a gurney while being checked into the ER, and hearing two nurses discuss how I need to be given a room right away because I am a seizure risk. I was also told that having blood pressure rise above 150 puts you at a high risk of stroke. (This made me worry that a stroke was imminent though I think they just meant "higher risk of stroke.") Nothing can play with your mind more than being hooked up to blood pressure machines and trying to relax to keep the numbers down while told you're at risk of grand mal seizure and stroke.


Scary puffy feet close-up! It was worse than last time when my cankle doppleganger was Miss Piggy!

I had to monitor my blood pressure at home for several weeks with a blood pressure gauge. A few times when my numbers were too high, I had to call the perinatology center and they instructed me to lie down for an hour in a dark room with no outside stimulation - not even TV (the horror!) - to bring down my blood pressure. I was really sad for a few days because I finally was off bed rest only to be told not to move unless absolutely necessary. I wanted to finally spend time with my new babies, and be able to do simple things like walk around the house and set up their nursery. Thankfully my numbers were back to normal about a week after my ER visit.