my babies

I think I am destined to have two more boys (Sorry Grandmas). We won't officially find out the sex until December 20, but right now my gut is telling me that there are a couple of dudes in there. Literally, my stomach is in overdrive and I am constantly hungry and feeling like I am feeding a small army. Last night I awoke at 3 a.m. starved and consumed a bagel with cream cheese, 3 slices of pizza, a piece of pumpkin pie and some Terra chips; it was not all in one sitting but between the hours of 3 and 5. The unfortunate part about it was that after eating one thing I would return to bed, thinking my stomach was full enough, but then was unable to fall sleep because of the continual churning, indicating that I had to eat more. I woke up at 7 a.m. starved yet again. Despite attempting to consume as many calories as possible, a couple hours ago, after eating string cheese, I threw up. Note to self: chew your cheese better. That one hurt. Man. The funny thing was that for the first time, Eddie walked in on me throwing up. He didn't seem wierded out by it at all. He just repeatedly flushed the toilet and then lifted the lid, as if to check that everything went away. I have to admit that he has been a trooper throughout this ugly first stage of pregnancy. Many mornings I just lie on the couch and he plays around me, totally entertaining himself. He seems to understand.

I know this blog is supposed to be about everything Eddie, and of course, here I am writing about myself and the next arrival. So this brings to surface a question I am asking myself, what to do about the blog? I doubt I will have much time to blog about twins, but I want to give them their own records. It is only fair. I say this as the second born with an empty baby book and lack of any records indicating my early development other than my mother's memory, which thankfully is rather astute. Since the URL is "babywashuk" maybe I should just convert the blog to be about all of our babies? Thoughts?

ER

We made our first trip to the Children's' Memorial Hospital Emergency Room on Friday night. Eddie came down with a cold on Wednesday and on Friday morning it had settled into his chest and he was wheezing. Now this has happened in the past when he gets a cold, but it usually doesn't seem to bother him too much and it goes away in a day. But on Friday he was not himself, almost lifeless. By the afternoon he could hardly walk and would collapse to the floor and just lie there attempting to play. When Eddie got home from work we went to the ER, at the urging of our pediatrician. Because of his severe oxygen obstruction (triage classified it as a "code red" which is the most serious!) he had to receive three breathing treatments and a dose of the oral steroid Prednisone. The breathing treatments entailed pinning him down and placing a mask on his face so that he could inhale the albutural for up to 10 minutes. He screamed and thrashed the whole ten minutes and all three times. It was the hardest thing we have ever been through with him. At one moment during the second treatment I teared up, remembering the days of colic and holding him as he screamed in pain and feeling so helpless. This was a close second to that agony; the difference was that after the 10 minutes of hell, he would light up and was all playful and talkative. The drugs do make him a tad hyper, which is an expected side effect. We were there from 6 p.m. - 11 p.m. and all in all, it was not too bad. Eddie did very well just sitting there between the treatments, reading books and playing with his choo-choos. it was almost reminiscent of being on an airplane, as we of course did not want him walking around and exploring. He is still taking an inhaler version of the albutural and the oral steroid, which I am a tad skeptical about, being a naturalist. But breathing is the most important. Hopefully this is just something that we will have to monitor when he gets colds and it won't develop into full-blown asthma...I don't think I could handle regular episodes of pinning him down to administer doses of medicine. I feel like he was sort of traumatized by it too because he did not sleep well at all the two nights afterward; he woke up five times on Saturday night and was all out of sorts, even still screaming after I picked him up and sat in the chair with him. Poor guy :(