23 weeks pregnant – twin bump pictures! Also I am hosting baby kickboxing tournaments at present.

25 April – 22 weeks 4 days preggo with the twinnie eggos. (Also no stretch marks at this point!)

I know this isn’t the most anonymous of pictures, and therefore I am breaking my own rules, but I thought I needed to share that every single time TMD takes bump pictures, I end up with terrible sneezing. I have to lean over and really brace myself, making unattractive grimaces, in order to minimise pain and pissing myself!!

Baby bump a dump. The day I wore this shirt is also the day that I got to ride in a motorised wheelchair around a store. I am sorry I do not have a headless picture of  that shot, because I enjoy it. If you are my facebook friend, it’s now my profile picture. If you are NOT my facebook friend but are not a crazy stalker, perhaps at some point we will be friends?!

29 April – 23 weeks 1 day pregnant with the babies.

I don’t know why, but apparently now I am obsessed with sneeze photos. As you can see, this is an action shot – hence the bluriness.

We bought this top very early in pregnancy. TMD suggested I should try it on – and it fits. Shock horror. We originally bought it ’cause I liked the pattern, though it looked completely fucking ridiculous…it was literally like I was wearing a tent. Now it is all screwy fitting – lots of room across the top back, but pretty well fitting across the bump. This top is two sizes too big AND a maternity top.

This is me attempting to convey the width of the bump. I don’t know if it truly comes across.

I have lots of pictures of vitamins, daisies, and my cat, but have decided to show you the view from my latest hospital bed. Above these curtains is the ceiling – painted an apricot orange. The whole thing is like living inside a sunset. Hopefully I’ll never need to spend longer than a night at a time in this particular ward…(not because of the sunset colours, though.)

Last night I took another bath. I’ve gone from thinking they suck to feeling like they are an indispensible part of being alive. I always liked baths, but pregnancy has made them uncomfortable. No longer. My bump is so big it happily sticks out of the water of even a totally full tub, so I don’t feel I have to worry about accidentally poaching the babies.

ANYWAY. It was awesome!

Something I didn’t tell you about the hospital stay was that the first night they listened to the babies with these special monitor things – big round circles they put on your tummy. I just kept saying, ‘How cool! This is just like those baby shows on tv!’ I think the midwife thought I was weird. Moving on…

The babies sounded like they were fucking kickboxing in there. Extreme kicking on both side. And it was SO LOUD because we could hear both at the same time, and the volume was turned way up. The midwife laughed and said we were going to have our hands full when they arrived.

The interesting thing about this is that I discovered a whole new feeling of baby movement. What I had assumed were giant, killer gas bubbles abruptly shifting (you know the feeling, admit it) was actually babies. So now I’ve got low down gas earthquakes, kicks in every direction, and general squirminess. They seem particularly active around 9-11 pm.

So back to bathtime. I was feeling primo kicks, and also saw Mano kick – my bump shot upwards about an inch!! I screamed for TMD (as you do) and she came in. Mano kicked again and there was no mistaking it as us just being hopeful – even pragmatic TMD said she saw the movement. She also put her hand over it and Mano kicked again, so she felt him! Was so happy.

After awhile she left me to my own devices (that means I was reading Make Lemonade for the fiftieth time and loving it). I began to feel the gassy feelings I’d had when the babies were kickboxing at the hospital. I looked down at my stomach and fuck if it wasn’t like some sort of deathmatch going on! Both babies were kicking – saw lots of right-sideways-bump-lurching courtesy of Torre – but with both babies going, my bump was swaying slightly from side to side and sort of slow motion rippling!

I don’t know what they are doing in there, but I don’t know if it looks fun!

I think I’m going to go now as I have to pee so badly I am sure I will leak when I stand up. Add that to the fact that I’m wearing a Fat Lady nightgown my mother sent over (with a maternity belt over the top of it), and you have one hot sexy girlie. I can’t imagine why people aren’t flocking around from neighboring streets, begging to have their picture taken with me.

Tags: 23 weeks pregnant, actualize, baby, baby movement, bath, books, bump pictures, grown up, lesbian, lesbian moms, marriage, photos, twin bump, twins movement