Two years ago

I was in a different place both physically, mentally and spiritually. I was giant with the twins. They would be born two days later. My mom was in town awaiting there arrival. I was just ready to be finished with the pregnancy. I was so big that I couldn't even understand how big I was.

Usually when you are pregnant they will measure you to see how many weeks you are. They do this be physically measuring the distance from your pelvic bone to the top of your uterus, which is called your fundus. I think it's supposed to be 1 cm equals 1 week but I'm not certain. An average pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. So the average woman would be measuring 40 weeks when her child is born. The last time they had measured me, I was 56 weeks. They had stopped measuring me weeks before because it was really quite ridiculous. I was huge and getting even larger that that all of the time.

I was in my 38 week of pregnancy, not far from 39 weeks and I was now considered full term for any pregnancy. Half of all twins are born between 36 and 37 weeks, so I was overdue for twins. I didn't care what week it was. I just wanted the babies to get out of me.

I cried at the last two or three doctor appointments. I was hurting so bad. The doctor would remind me of the large healthy babies that I would have but I was just worried that my body would not be able to take another day of it.

I had gestational diabetes. It was controlled fairly easily with my diet but part of it was having to check my ketones every morning. I did this by peeing in a cup and then dipping a little stick in the pee. The end of the stick would change colors to tell me if I was spilling an acceptable amount of ketones. I didn't really care. I just was tired to attempting to pee in a cup every morning. There was no way to see where the cup was so most morning so that would mean that I would pee all over my hands and hope to get some in the cup. It's a great way to start the day.

I try to think of this as their birthday comes closer because it is truly amazing to me that I could give birth to two full term, full size babies. Most of the time I do not think about the amazing things that my body can do. It is something that I use and abuse everyday but I do not appreciate the magic that it can create. I get angry at the extra weight that it carries, the way that the skin hangs where people in their late 20's don't have hanging skin and the aches and pains that are already starting to come every morning. I forget the wonder of creating life and then sustaining that life with milk.

Their birthday is in two days. They will be two years old. They are amazing to me. Everyday.

This picture was taken the day before they were born. You can see my mother, #1 child and giant me. We are laying in a queen size bed. Notice how much of the queen size bed I occupy.