Week 32 - The Final Stretch

I write you today from a magical place called 'vacation'. You may have heard that this place is just a myth, but as someone who has seen the fabled land, I can attest that it does exist.

Last Wednesday was my last day of work for at least 5 weeks. I had been debating whether or not to tell my students I wouldn't likely be coming back and I thought I had settled on no, but at the last minute I decided to tell them after all. I have a really decent class this year and I haven't been able to say that for a while. I put up an ultrasound and asked if they knew what it was. They all gasped and raised their hands. After that I had to explain what a surrogate was and that I couldn't have babies of my own. But I didn't get into the lesbian stuff. They were all super excited so I'm glad I told them.

In all actuality, I probably will be back for a week after winter break. Things are going well and the doctors fully expect them to make it to the week of the 12th. I'm actually kind of glad because that first week back is our parent conferences and I can't have a sub do those. Plus that will give me some time to adjust them to the changes in the classroom that will come with having a sub for 12 weeks. At the end of March is spring break and then the two weeks after that is my second track break and then I'll be back for good.

In the meantime, we start monitoring twice a week this week. And we registered with the hospital and did the maternity tour. It was really interesting. The hospital we're having them at is a 'baby friendly' hospital. This basically means that they encourage breastfeeding and immediate skin-to-skin contact. And they don't have a central nursery, like you see on TV and movies. The babies stay with you in the room...all...the...time. They're of the mindset that welp...you made them, you deal with them. Not to say that they don't help you out, but it's not a week long vacation in the hospital like you might imagine. Actually, they said you stay 36 hours max for a vaginal delivery and 3-4 days for a c-section before they send you on your merry way.

Oh, one other cool thing about the hospital is that all babies get tagged with a security bracelet so if they get anywhere near an exit, an alarm sounds. And we have to wear an ID bracelet for each baby. The maternity ward is locked down and visitors have to check in by video before they're allowed in.

We've been taking classes this past month. We did baby basics, which was interesting. The instructor complimented my swaddling. We also did breastfeeding, which wasn't exactly what I expected. That instructor was super preachy and anti-formula, but people sign up for that class with the intention of breastfeeding so I feel like she wasted a bunch of time telling us how great breastfeeding is instead of telling us how to do it. I figure we'll get some better help from the lactation consultants at the hospital. We are taking a childbirth class too, which might seem pointless as we're having a planned c-section. But the class goes over c-sections too and they teach you how to recognize early labor (just in case) and anyway, we're curious to learn new stuff. And we are getting the car seats installed by professionals so we know it's done correctly.

For a while we were super concerned with getting the hospital bags ready, but it turns out you really don't need to take much. They give you pretty much anything you need. And the hospital isn't too far from where we live so if there was anything we wanted or needed from home, it would be a half-hour trip at most. I plan to stay at the hospital except for when I need to go home and tend to the cats. And when I need to eat because apparently they don't feed me and I'm sure I'm far too picky an eater to eat hospital cafeteria food.

I actually do have stuff to do this first week of vacation. It's not going to be all Skyrim and picking my nose in my underwear just yet. I have a dentist appointment because I realized I hadn't been since we moved. I realized this when the appointment card was forwarded from the old address. I also have to get the rest of my vaccines and I actually do have to go to work one day because I didn't get my FML paperwork until the weekend and my principal has to sign it before I take it to the doctor. Other than that, I'm going to tidy up the joint and enjoy our new TV. We've never had one in the bedroom before but we figured that after the semester ends we'll be spending a lot of time resting in bed (and me prepping stuff for my sub). And eventually we'll move it to the loft anyway.

That's it for now. Lol, I know that's a lot and I say 'that's it' like it's a short little anecdote. Sorry, we don't have any good ultrasound pictures. The last few have been just the tops of their heads and I don't  know that they'll get any better as the babies get bigger and have less room to move and turn. We'll see, though.