Curly Wurly and Flake

I am rather disappointed that I have had no cravings. I thought it would be cool to have John run out and get me pickled herring at 1 am. Instead, I think about things I have always thought of my entire life, which all include chocolate. Since I'm trying not to eat a lot of it, I decided to focus in on only the chocolate products that are worth my sugar intake. I'm not eating any of that generic chocolate crap, like raisins or peanuts covered in non-milk-based chocolate. I want quality.

Thanks to my sister, I was once again turned on to Cadbury. I had forgotton how creamy that chocolate is. Since it is a U.K. company, I cannot get all of the amazing flavours they create, like Curly Wurly (milk chocolate over a caramel strip) or Flake (flaked and rolled milk chocolate). They even have mint flavoured! For now I will deal, but I am seriously thinking about placing an order with an import chocolate shop. Please place an order with me if you are interested!

OK, this is not a craving. Possibly an obsession??

Anyway, here is a list of items I obsess over on a daily basis:

1) Oreo Double Stuf- I could eat a row of these every day. And that's being conservative.

2) Cadbury Irish Creme- it's like Bailey's caramel inside!

3) Cadbury Fruit and Nut- the old stand by.

4) Snickers Dark- imagine this as an ice cream bar?!

5) Elvis Peanut Butter and Banana Cups- these are no longer being made : (

6) Tagalong (Peanut Butter Patty) Girl Scout Cookies- can't wait until March!

Does carrot cake count as a vegetable?

Well, it did yesterday. And the cream cheese frosting? Yep, that's a serving of dairy.

Hey, I'm just letting you know.

21 Weeks

What's your sleep number?

Turns out mine is 349XYZ#$%&!

I'm only 20 weeks and already going to bed is an intricate operation. Did you know that pregnant women should be sleeping on their left side? All of the time? You can't sleep on your back because your uterus will flatten on your babies and the blood can't circulate. You can't sleep on your right side because your heart does not pump the blood down there very good. I also have this problem of my hips killing me because I'm in the same position for so long.

Here is my set-up to prevent middle of the night uterine collapsing in a semi-comfortable manner:

- Two pillows stacked longways along my back so I if I roll over I can't.
- Two pillows stacked between my legs. This allows many options of comfort: 1) two legs under stack, 2) one pillow between legs, 3) two pillow between legs, 4) one pillow under both legs, 5) one pillow under lower leg, second pillow between legs.
- One little pillow in front to hug and not roll too much forward.
- One pillow under head.

Somehow I still wake up staring at the ceiling.

Now try getting out of a pillow fortress 3 or 4 times in the night to go pee, careful not to pull a ligament. It's not so much getting out, actually, it's getting in.

Ouch!!

OMG! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

Last night I awoke with the most terrible pain ever. Twice. What I had was round ligament stretching pain- for two hours total. Yes, there were tears, fetal positions, and legs propped up on walls last night. Shout out to John for all his help. I will probably be getting this pain often. Yay.

"The pain is felt in the lower abdomen and groin area. There are two cord-like muscles located at the top of the uterus that extend through the abdominal wall and end in the vulva. Throughout pregnancy, the round ligaments will stretch and grow with the growing uterus and this can cause pain for the mother."

I don't know whose round ligament this is, but I was in the mood to gross people out.

Somehow I only heard about this in my pregnancy books. Why? I'd like to ask that to all the mothers out there I know. They conveniently forgot to mention this. I realize that I'm having twins and have to stretch a lot more, so they are off the hook for now. From what I see on T.V. (Baby Story), my belly will be the size of a hippity-hop, one of my favorite toys from the 70's/80's.

Making my belly a hippity-hop for halloween would much more interesting than the typical pumkin.** What do you think?

**Disclaimer: In case you are unaware, I am very sarcastic. The picture to the right above is photoshopped by me and I would never really do that to my belly. Unless I felt like being a smart ass..... oh, wait. Never mind about the disclaimer.

My Bad Week

It's a Boy! It's a Girl! Two of the most exciting moments in my life.

The worst moment of my life: "We think your little boy may have some anomalies."

I thought I might stop blogging. This was supposed to be a funny blog! I decided to put it off for awhile. My life was completely frozen. His problems are very personal, but they will be very public in about four months, so dealing with it and "coming out of the closet" should be a good thing.

Our little boy has two problems, which right now, according to our doctors' current thinking, are probably associated. 1) There might be a heart problem, which could be nothing or pretty severe. Confused as I am? Basically, we have to wait a month to return to the pediatric cardiologist to see what he thinks. His gut feeling is that it probably isn't worst case scenario, but he will be able to tell in October. 2) Arm abnormalities. The only thing we know for sure is that he is not moving is left arm and that the forearm is missing a bone- or the two bones are fused.

I have found a support site for parents of children like this. It sounds like we just won't know much until he is born. It could be a number of chromosomal abnormalities that have caused the arm problem, more if it ends up involving the heart. I cannot believe that we are the 1 out of 100,000 parents to have this happen to their child. It was a spontaneous altering of a chromosome; it just happens. I refused amniocentisis because 1 out of 200 cause miscarraige and it does not test for these lesser known disorders. If something happened, we would lose both babies. If I can hit the 1/100,000 lottery, why not 1/200? From what I've read, some people actually terminate their pregnancy because of something being wrong with their arm! Can you believe that?!

Luckily, we have good people working with us at National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda (John will be working at the Navy Yard until April). We will be able to see a pediatric orthopedic surgeon before he is even born. And we will know what is going on with the heart. We are doing so much better this week and hopefully I will have more funny stories.

Before I go, I must mention our little girl or she will assault me again. I have to make sure to give her equal attention. I was laying on the couch last week all sad and all of a sudden I was being repeatedly kicked and my belly was jiggling. With a three inch leg! I really think she was telling me to knock it off. She is constantly moving around. That's how I knew I was having a girl, because in my family, the girls are the trouble makers.