Birth Story Part 1

I knew that I wasn't feeling well the weekend of June 20, 2008 ... but I was a busy girl with lots of fun things to do!

Saturday was my friend Kate's baby shower luncheon at the Weathervane. It was absolutely lovely! I wish this photo (below) showed my tree trunks for legs -- they were so swollen and my poor little sausage tootsies. If we had only known then that it was the precursor to pre-eclampsia. Look at my hands -- Perez Hilton would call them zombie hands. Totally swollen, and veiny. Gross! Even my face looks puffy! I was huge. At this point, I think I weighed 170 pounds... Allen weighs 175. Nice. Anyway, I knew at this point that I wasn't feeling very well. After lunch, me and the girls walked around University Mall and window shopped. Well, I hobbled behind everyone.

After the shower, I came home and crashed on the couch. Allen was working. When he got home, we were supposed to go to a Bulls game. I was sooooo tired. More tired than I had been in a long, long time. Ever, really. I had, literally, never been that tired. My head was also aching. I was feeling pretty crummy. BUT, I was also 33 weeks pregnant with twins. So, I decided to soldier on. I wanted to relish the last few weeks we had before the craziness of twins ensued. We had so much fun at the game. Every where we went people looked at me with such sympathy. Allen had to help me up the stairs -- and had to hold my hand (for stability) everywhere we walked. I just could not get around easily. There is just something about a pregnant woman that everyone loves. And loves to stare at. Oh, yeah, at the game ... I proceeded to eat two footlong hot dogs (with mustard, no ketchup), a large nachos and cheese, two large lemonades and a funnel cake. Yum-o!

The next day, Sunday June 21, 2008, we went over to Kate and Andy's house for a cookout with our friends Miriam and the Tuchmans. I was feeling terrible. Just really, really tired ... and my headache had gotten worse. My entire body was so swollen. I was for certain that my friends were going to send me straight home to bed. But, I guess I put on a pretty good show! Later, after the girls were born, my friends told me that they had no clue how bad I was feeling. After we grilled out, Allen recognized that I wasn't feeling like myself. So he took me home and parked me on the couch. Being the physician that he is, Allen took my blood pressure as soon as I got settled down on the couch ... it was 180/100.

Yikes-a-roonie!