Everything mostly looked fine at my ultrasound today except that one of the babies is only in the 10% percentile (very small at 4 lbs 12 oz), so the doctor is slightly concerned. Starting this week, I’ll now go for non-stress tests and ultrasounds two times per week to monitor whether the baby is getting enough from the placenta. Other than that, amniotic fluid, movements, and heartbeats look fine. Even if small, they’d prefer to keep them in as long as possible as long as everything else looks normal. If any other issues are noticed, they’ll probably just deliver them. The average pregnancy duration for twins is right where I am now, about 35 weeks 5 days, so they’re not sure if I’ll make it to my scheduled c-section either. If I do, I’ll be exceptional.

Jen, Deneb, Owen, and I had to get together one last time for a ‘glamorous’ photo shoot before we become parents.

Owen installed the car seats today. We were thinking of getting a new, bigger vehicle before the babies were born, but just didn’t have time (torn between forester, volvo wagon, and latest rav4 model, although a minivan makes the most sense, their gas mileage is terrible and they’re so “uncool” I think Owen would die!). So for now it’s our old 97 faithful sedan with almost 200k miles on it. Our days of entertaining any passengers are over. It’s just us and the babies now!

My next-door neighbor Lisa, who was due with twins at the same time as me, just gave birth to two girls, Samantha and Zoe and everyone is doing well. She was waiting to be surprised, but had thought it was going to be boys. So now we’ll have 4 girl newborns on the block. Anyway, this birth just reminds me of how close we are now!

I am 35 weeks now and they tell me if I can make it to 36, I’m good; as in they probably won’t have to go to the nicu and may have enough weight on them and could probably go home with us. At my non-stress test today, everyone looked good: amniotic fluid is still plentiful, babies’ movements are normal. It’s funny, all of their legs are sort of tangled together even though they’re in separate sacs, so the nurse couldn’t tell whose was whose. I usually can’t tell who is kicking and moving myself.

It is an important day today so I am sad that I had to miss the local inaugural festivities. Pregnancy discomfit and fatigue has prevented me from going out. Owen, Mark, Patrick, Jeff, and Rachel have gone to an inaugural ball at a local gallery and I will post photos soon.

For historical reference, the text of Obama’s inaugural address.

I hope for the sake of our children that we are able to come out of this depression, end wars for oil, put billions into alternative energy sources, lead the world in new technological and scientific advances (so it doesn’t just go overseas), overhaul the health care system (and finally implement a real national health plan), take on global warming, drive smaller vehicles, lead the world in tackling international crises, change our alienating foreign policy of the last 8 years, close Guantanamo Bay, fund stem cell research, fight lobbyist and special interest control over our government officials, stop funding wasteful personal projects and ineffective organizations, implement real oversight in our regulatory agencies, improve and spend more on education so we don’t keep lagging behind other nations (which will affect our future prosperity), become a more humane nation – to each other and to citizens in other countries, increase taxes on the richest 5%… oh, I could probably go on for awhile.

ps.. for whatever it’s worth, i do know how to rotate images so they’re properly upright, but i encountered an odd wordpress bug that is putting my images in random positions…

Owen and I went to stay by the sea to get away and relax (Oh, I hear it’s a lot harder to do this once you have two babies ; ). It felt wonderful to be able to float and take the weight off my back, as well as to receive a 90 minute pre-natal massage! I’m 34 weeks now and I can tell my body is getting closer to labor. It could happen at any moment, but my fingers are crossed that I can make it to February 13th.

On a different note, it has been very hot in the bay area. It’s a little weird and makes one think of global warming.

My co-workers threw me a little goodbye party with a generous gift for my maternity leave. I’m going to miss work (I never thought I’d say that).

My maternity leave was just approved for me to start immediately (the law dictates that I can only stop 4 weeks before my due date of Feb 28, but since I’m carrying twins and they come early, I was able to stop a few weeks earlier. Even though I’ll be bored sitting at home alone just waiting, I’m thankful, being slow and big as a house now. I seem to make people nervous when I venture out – “any moment now” is a comment I hear daily from strangers. I feel weird correcting them…. “no, it’s just twins”).

So I will have approximately the next 6 months off to dedicate to babies. It feels weird, I have been working without a break since I was 15 (me of hard-working portuguese peasant stock) and my first job at Mars Bargainland in a converted mill in the men’s clothing department back in my hometown, the post-industrial seaport city of New Bedford, MA. My salary was $3.75 per hour. We catered to old Portuguese men with an inclination for polyester and shirts packaged with a clip-on tie attached. It was a thoroughly uncool place to work and we underpaid teenagers spent our breaks smoking over the polluted acushnet river, lined with old factories that had dumped waste into the waters for years without penalty, but I digress…).

It’s ironic that my first break from the working stiff world will be spent doing more work at home than I’ve ever done in any office or store. Why the hell didn’t I ever take that year off to travel around the world?! Oh well, I am very excited about this next stage in life…

This is a silly photo that we took for our thank you notes and another of me at 32 weeks. I’m trying to capture the girth of my stomach, but I don’t think I’m succeeding. It’s simply huge! I’m starting to get some stretch marks. At weigh-in today, I discovered that I’ve still only gained 15 pounds. Not bad. The doctor said that is fine since my bones are petite. During the non-stress test today, both babies looked great. They are starting to move and squirm a lot more now.

Just when you thought Bethany was the only contributor to this blog, I have arrived with my first post…

As we sat around having a rather sober New Year’s Eve, we started to think back on the past year and wonder if we’d actually done anything all year. By looking back through Bethany’s photos we were able to come up with a list…

January:

Went to L.A. and visited with my dad, Trudy, and Zara + Jess and Chris

Spent way too much time playing Unreal Tournament

Bethany starred in an interesting photo that was later featured in a book

February:

Along with Jef and Rachel, we were extras in a scene from the excellent film Milk

Don and Diane visited from Alaska and we walked around 50% of San Francisco. Why can’t I find a picture from this?

March:

Went away for a weekend in Mendocino for Bethany’s birthday and stayed at a great inn with llamas

Attended a memorial on the beach for Mike Williams, who unexpectedly passed away. Mike was the one who turned us on to Russian Blues so without him we wouldn’t know Cooper today.

April:

My mom came for a visit to San Francisco

We were extras and contributed music to H.P.’s new movie “Fruit Fly”. We’re in IMDB too.

May:

Spent a long weekend in New Mexico and visited a pueblo and an earthship

June:

Visited Esther and Jason in Portland for a weekend

July:

Found out we’re gonna have two babies at the same time (presumably you’ve heard about this!)

The Pookies put out a new song about Chabot Space and Science Center. The band later rose to the #1 slot on hot new music site popcuts.com

Cooper arrives after flying across the country (with a connecting flight)

Around this time we started what became 3 months or so of looking to buy a house in Berkeley and learning about real estate. We even tried to buy a house but were outbid (despite the supposed mortgage crisis).

August:

We saw Radiohead and Beck with Jen, Deneb, and Mario

My dad visited San Francisco and we had some fancy pants coffee

September:

Went on a two-week trip to the Pacific Northwest to celebrate our first anniversary. While we relaxed in the San Juan islands, the economy collapsed.

October:

Bethany’s mom visited…

Sadly, she came just in time to spend a lot of her vacation helping us move out of our old apartment and into the new one in Oakland

Owen started taking a Sunday morning electronics class with Jef for the next 6 weeks. Hanging out and breakfasts ensued.

November:

We spent a lot of time buying baby stuff and decorating the nursery

Bethany was in the hospital for 4 days. Yuck.

December:

Owen got a promotion at work and finished an album

We had a great party/baby shower with great friends and some notable cupcakes

We started making a list of all the things we’d done in 2008 and then ate some pizza