Phil came home to find me upstairs, in our bed, crying.  I was wearing a robe.  My hair was a frizzy mess, piled into a clip atop my head. 
"What’s the matter?"
"Oh, nothing.  I’m just pregnant," I sobbed.  "And nothing fits.  Everything just hurts, even the sides of this robe when I try to sleep.  And I’m hormonal, okay?"  I said in a tone conveying that it was not okay, not with me.
"Yes, of course it’s okay.  What can I get you?"
"A big glass of ice water with lime and a bendy straw," I demanded.  I have six pounds of baby in me, not to mention two placentas.  I have the uterus of a mother carrying one, and I still have months to go.  And it hurts everywhere, and I need to vent and bitch and cry.  So excuse the damn baby posts.  And excuse that none of it makes sense.  This is for me, my record of nonsense. 

My hair is a nightmare lately, too.  It’s out of control curly.  I hear this happens, a hair change because of hormones.  My cousin Colleen’s kinky curls became bone-straight when she was pregnant.  I look like a muffin.  I feel like a man when I look in the mirror.  I have a lot more freckles. I no longer wear pointy shoes, or heels, or anything feminine aside from jewelry.  I don’t bother coordinating with handbags.  I want to punch people in the face who say annoying things like, "welcome to motherhood."  No shit it’s not about me anymore.  It doesn’t mean I have to be all smiles about everything.  I miss being a girly girl without elastic in her life.  I’m angry with myself for writing blog entries instead of writing in a journal to my unborn children.  I haven’t kept a pregnancy journal, haven’t written love notes to my babies yet.  I need to change that.  I still have a trimester of a chance to get it right.

I’ve already taken a breast feeding class, designed for multiples, at store called Second Edition.  Yesterday I went to a baby sign language class at Babies ‘R Us.  We’ve decided to sign with our babies and have been trying to practice with each other.  We need to practice more.  There are so many benefits to teaching children to sign.  And studies prove that no, babies who sign do not take longer to speak.  In fact, babies who sign have higher IQs and perform better in grammar school.  Not to mention how great it will be to communicate with them at such an early age before they throw fits in the supermarket.

I’m reading Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, which I find extremely helpful in preparing me for the arrival of the babies.  The author discusses the different cries, and how to interpret them (rather than just suffocate them for our own comfort).  There is so much great information in the book, so if you’re pregnant, or know someone who is, it makes excellent reading material.

I’d much rather read about how to take care of the babies once they arrive than read about what to expect during labor.  Our babies have both been head down now for the past three weeks, which scares me.  It means I might deliver vaginally, which means kegel exercises and massaging my perineum.  Dear lord, it scares me, and I think I would prefer a c-section, but whatever happens, it will happen for a reason, and I’ll trust my doctor. 

We went for a tour of the hospital the other day.  They deliver about 400 babies a month.  I saw the labor and delivery rooms, the recovery rooms, all of it.  Then we walked by the nursery.  There are going to be two babies in our lives.  Philip will be sleeping on what looked like a shelf.  We’ll be there for two or three days, depending on vaginal vs. c-section deliveries.  The whole thing makes me want to eat everything in sight.  I don’t know why.  I’m terrified in a general sense.  I’m not afraid of breast feeding.  I’m afraid of being in a room alone with Phil, without my mother being there.  I guess I’m afraid because we don’t know what the hell we’re doing.  On our tour, the nurse pointed out the shower in the labor room.  Phil asked, "Wait, people shower here during labor?"  I knew it was for women who found running water soothing, but I want someone in the birthing room who really knows what helps.  Do I sit on one of those bouncy balls? What techniques work best?  Between the two of us, we’re the blind leading the blind.  Maybe it all comes down to the nurse they assign me?  I don’t know?  How long is the nurse even there with me during the process?  I’m all over the place, and I’m all over the place.  I think I need to get out of this robe and go watch a movie or something.