Fast forward – 36 weeks and difficult choices

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It’s become apparent that I might have less time than I anticipated to catch up on the week by week business, so for now, I’m moving into the present (or almost-present in this case.) Happy reading!

imagesCAUI1QI2It’s easy to take for granted that our medical care is always done right. After all, we expect nothing less. If a bone is broken, we want it reset. If tonsils are in the way, we get them removed. If cancer shows up on the scan, we start aggressive treatment.

However, last Friday proved that all the expectations in the world don’t matter, unless everything is done right.

I’ve been looking forward to the 36 week appointment for a long time. For me, it felt like the point in a backpacking trek when you get above tree line – suddenly, the view becomes panoramic. Now you know what you’re working with- how far left you have to go. Oftentimes, you can see the boulder field, the final ascent, and suddenly, you’re invigorated. Ready.

Knowing how big the babies had gotten was a milestone, and 6 lbs was the goal. Anything over six was fantastic, anything under would be a little harder to swallow.

So when the news came back that Baby A was 5.6 and Baby B was 5.2 lbs and ounces, (15th and 9th percentile for growth), something inside me flagged. It felt like rounding the curve of a trail into what you thought was an opening, but instead, faced another set of dusty switchbacks. Dr. Becker carefully explained that because of the low percentiles, the babies had a couple of potential problems – either the placenta was crapping out and couldn’t accommodate both of them at this late stage of the game, or they had become growth restricted.

Either way, she recommended inducing, for the sake of Baby B, who was under the 10th percentile. In four days.

Jason and I looked long and hard at each other.

Let me be clear. 37 weeks is a perfectly fine time to have babies. Their lungs are developed, their bodies are ready, and there are very few risks for complication. For twins, it’s totally normal. It simply was not what I wanted.

She gave us the weekend to think about it, and asked that I come in again on Monday to do another biophysical profile on the girls to make sure they were still okay prior to delivering on Wednesday if that’s what we decided. We left the hospital in shock. Four days.

Selfishly, as I was folding laundry that night, I started envisioning not being pregnant any more. Just four more stretched out outfits to put together. The ability to rest on my stomach. Bend over. Pick things up without having an aneurism.

But the mother side of me felt uneasy. I fought induction with Ellis tooth and nail in order for her to have an intervention-free delivery. I knew that having twins was a whole different ballgame, but I was still maintaining the hope that I could at least go into labor naturally.

Besides that – we were basing all of these decisions on one ultrasound. What if it was wrong?

32 Weeks: Tipping the scales

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At the 32 week growth scan, the girls are weighing in at 4.1 and 4.2 lbs and ounces. The ultrasound technicians figure this out by doing a growth scan ultrasound, which means I lay on my back like a bloated wood tick for an hour and watch them sonically measure a plethora of arms, legs, heads, and stomachs. It’s amazing, and also slightly confusing that there’s that much going on just centimeters beneath the surface of my skin.

After she got the reports, my doctor literally gave me a high five, and I celebrated with a Dairy Queen chocolate malt. (After all, it only makes sense to commemorate weight gain with more weight gain.)

I never thought I’d be so excited to hear that my girls were basically the same combined weight that I carried at almost 42 weeks during my first pregnancy. But the whole goal of this pregnancy has been to grow healthy babies. Babies with fully developed lungs. Babies that won’t have to spend any time in the NICU, Lord willing. Babies that can come home with us as soon as they possibly can.

For better or for worse, I have not spent any time dreaming about what these girls will accomplish in their lives just yet. I haven’t lived out scenarios of them graduating from Harvard or climbing Kilimanjaro. Instead, I’ve prayed for them to be chubby, and pink, and healthy.

This is probably not what most mothers dream for their daughters.

But then I start to wonder, why not? With all the social pressures that my daughters will face regarding their appearance, I ought to be unloading dump trucks full of prayers for them to be healthy. Live healthy. Understand healthy.

I’m not talking about being fitness obsessed, or so diet-focused that they have a meltdown if they decide to eat a funnel cake.

playingI’m talking about teaching them to love the amazing varieties of good food we’re so blessed to have access to. About having energy to play and dance to the whimsical songs in their heads. About knowing that no matter what they look like, what they are wearing, how many mosquito bites or pimples or wrinkles they have, they will always be solidly, deeply LOVED.

This morning I listened to a radio blurb on how parents who talk about health instead of appearance tend to raise children who focus on the same thing. This sparked my memory to a really great blog post I read a few years back, titled “How to talk to little girls” by Lisa Bloom. It’s short, and if you ever plan to interact with little girls, please take a minute and read it.

(PS – Anyone coming to our house for dinner is more than welcome to try this with Ellis – as long as you’re ready to read the book Yummy Yucky at least twice.)

Sometimes, the actual work of parenting seems a long way off, and I’m a big believer in being present. So I’m choosing not to worry about it. But I’m no fool – raising three girls is going to be a challenge. It will be one of the most fulfilling things Jason and I do with our lives, and one of the hardest.

But I’m starting to think what might make a sustainable, lasting impact is keeping up with my goal to raise my girls to be healthy.

To be individuals who do not focus solely on themselves, so that they have the time and energy to focus instead on the people and the world around them.

To eat ice cream and kale with equal gusto, because health is a fine balance between enjoyment and good choices, self love and self care.

31 Weeks: Nursery meditations and why a cardboard box might be easier

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Welcome to this week’s classic, first world problem: We need to start setting up a nursery.

boxHonestly, I think the third world has it right. Find a cradle, or a cardboard box. Line it with a blanket. Put it by your bed. Nursery complete.

But the privileged Western side of me says “Hey! Target keeps sending me coupons. I better at least look at them.” And I’m not even going to mention the time suck of Etsy and Pinterest, because I’m embarrassed by how many hours I can log looking at other people’s ideas for picture frames and fabric initials and homemade stuffed animals sewn out of old jeans and grandma’s floral blouses.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing bad about creating a space for babies. And that whole nesting instinct? That’s real. Because suddenly, I’m in a fit of panic about what color to paint the babies’ room. Is pink too, well, pink? Yellow reminds me of kitchens. Blue and green are hard to pick. White is impractical. So on, and so forth. We need another crib. A dresser. A rocking chair.

So I go into a fit of pregnant activity, buy the paint, open the windows, and start in. Two hours and one wall later, I realize I probably should have asked for help. My stomach is covered in paint. It is now 11 pm and I can’t even think straight, much less paint a straight edge on the ceiling slant.

The non-pregnant me would have tightened my ponytail, turned up the fan, and tackled the rest of the room regardless. (I’m pretty good at self talk and internal pity parties.)

But the pregnant-with-twins me sighs. Stands in the middle of the room. Stares at the rest of the walls. And says screw it – I need to go to bed.

This is where I’m thankful for the pregnant-with-twins me, because honestly, I’m learning a lot from this person. There’s something to be said for purposeful self care, and there’s a reason why the Old Testament commandment in Leviticus says love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Not because we need to be narcissistic, or so completely wrapped up in our own lives and bodies and selves that we cannot think about anyone else.

Precisely the opposite. We love ourselves so that we have the capacity to love others.

We leave the mess and choose to relax with our loved ones. Forgo dishes in order to play whales with the toddler in the tub. Ignore the clothes in the dryer to catch one more minute of burnishing twilight.

Why? Because these are the moments that feed us, body and soul.

Luckily, self care these days automatically equates to care for my girls. But I don’t want it to stop when I’m no longer pregnant. I want to continue to be intentional about how I care for myself IN ORDER TO have the capability to fully care for everyone else in my life.

I want to take in as much love as I can in order to pour it all back out when someone else needs it. I want to be a culvert instead of a dam – a place for love to go roaring through, nourishing life on both sides.

30 weeks: Labor wha?

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At 30 weeks, I had a startling realization. At some point in the near future, I am going to have to go into labor.

(Brilliant, I know.)

I haven’t taken any birthing classes this time around, which makes me nervous about not remembering what the process of labor was like. After scouring the web, I couldn’t come up with a single refresher birthing course that fit into my schedule. (But if I’m still pregnant on July 14, I’m definitely going back to Blooma. http://www.blooma.com/childbirth-education)

So clearly, the next logical step was to do what I do when I can’t figure out how to hang pictures straight, make meringue, or align myself in a new yoga pose. I looked up non-graphic live twin birth videos on YouTube.

For the record, this was a Bad idea.

There’s a reason that women get a rush of the happy hormone oxytocin directly after they give birth. It helps us erase the ridiculousness of what just happened and bonds us immediately with our offspring. But watching a video of a birth? Guess what – no oxytocin. No happy feelings. No babies. Just the reminder that in order to finish this process, some nebulous, unpredictable, and potentially dangerous activity is going to occur.

The good news is, when it’s all said and I done, I might be able to stand up and see my legs again. That’s something, right?

For those of you that are wondering about the logistics of birthing twins, here are some fun facts.

1.       Having twins does not mean having to have an automatic C-section.

2.       How a woman carrying twins will deliver depends on the position of the babies: the presenting baby must be heads down, and either larger or very close in weight to the other twin to ensure that he/she will handle the process of labor and delivery well.

3.       Doctors secretly laugh at people who have “birth plans”.

4.       A majority of women carry twins to 36-37 weeks. Making it to 38 weeks is like striking gold, and anything after that is all glitter and sparkle.

5.       Not being induced can be somewhat of a bargaining game, but it’s worth it to play if you’re scared of effects of Pitocin.

6.       Twin deliveries are usually faster than single deliveries. That being said, after baby #1 arrives, delivery of the second baby can take anywhere from two minutes to two hours after the delivery of the first, depending on the mood of the cervix. Yep. The mood.

7.       Delivering the placenta between Baby A and Baby B will result in an emergency C-section (uncommon, but not impossible).

8.       Labor can take place in the normal birthing center rooms, but delivery will be conducted in an operating room with an audience of no less than 9. (One doctor and one nurse per baby, a doctor and nurse for me, an on-call anesthesiologist and nurse anesthetist in case C-section becomes a reality, and any other supporting cast of characters who want to join the fun – AKA, Jason).

9.       Pain management options are the same for single births as they are for twin births.

10.   The bigger the babies are when they are born, the more likely they are to stay out of the NICU, eat better, and sleep better.

What does all this mean for me?

Baby A has been solidly heads down for months now, and since she and her sister are very similarly sized, my doctor has no qualms about a regular delivery. (Spoiler alert: at 32 weeks, the babies were 4.1 and 4.2 lbs and ounces – on target for being at least six lbs when born.) This makes me happy, given my ridiculous fear of needles and medical intervention.

In terms of going natural and non-medicated vs. having an epidural, that one’s up in the air. Ellis was born 10 days “late” via an all-natural labor, and it was great. Seriously. I’m not lying or sugar coating it. I labored for 12 hours total, pushed for 45 minutes, and welcomed my baby girl with grateful arms. If I had to rate the highest pain on the pain scale, I’d put it at an 8.

I also think it might be a little naive to think it will happen exactly that way again. Especially with twins. This is worrisome.

But so much of this seems to be about letting go. About not just talking about living mindful of my goals, or posting inspirational facebook messages about them, but choosing to make them a daily practice. About prayerful meditation through everyday action. About speaking truthfully. Honestly.

About remaining calm, even when every fiber wants to scream “How in the HECK am I going to do this?”

I have no idea what the process of meeting these girls will end up entailing. But I spend a lot of time lately flipping through pictures of my daughter’s birth, reminding myself how amazing she was. What a miracle the whole experience ended up being. How strong I felt when it was over.

Image

And how I’m never allowed to watch YouTube for anything other than home tutorials again.

29 weeks: the devil of expectations

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ImageIt starts almost a year in advance. The planning. The emails. As they get closer, the lists start circulating. A packing party is set. Canoes are picked up, and someone find a vehicle big enough to hold six. And suddenly, my husband and his friends are gone, claimed as property of the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness in Ely, Minnesota.

It’s serious business for a vacation, and they love every minute of it.

I understand why. My first trip to the Boundary Waters was at age six. Since then, I’ve returned with church, with family, with friends. It is where I first fell in love with the act of paddling, which feels meditation and worship all rolled into one beautiful, burning sensation.

When the water is smooth and evening falls, the lakes become the end of the world in the best sense. Nothing else matters – just the color of the sun sinking into the water, the cool touches of wind. The earthy, almost primordial smells of rock and pine, lake and dirt.

In the Boundary Waters, there are no expectations. Once the canoe hits the water, anything goes. You are at the whims of nature – wind, rain, fishing, fires, camp spots all become variable. Sure, you can expect to do the regular things like eat, sleep, breathe. But what you eat depends on what you catch. Where you sleep depends on what’s available. And how you breathe depends on how long it takes you to let go everything else and relax into the rhythm of being in the wild.

Wilderness has an inexplicable draw to me. I love the days, hours, minutes when I am surrounded by everything created and nothing man-made. It puts me in my place, reminding me of my role in this life as one who enjoys, stewards, worships. It’s the sense of awe I find at being outside of civilization, away from minivans and McDonalds. I become a person in a whole new context.

And when I arrive in a new context, I willingly lay aside my expectations. What is there to expect when everything is new? When you first set eyes on a lake you’ve never seen? When the fish on the end of your line comes from a world you can’t even imagine?

Expectation kills the wonder in our perspective.

It drags us down to the level of what we know: what we can do, who we can be, how we can live. Expectation makes me do things I wouldn’t otherwise do – stay up late folding the last load of laundry, manically sweep the kitchen floor, feel let down if someone doesn’t act or do what I think they should.

It takes away my freedom to enjoy what is. It replaces it with discontentment for what is missing.

After Jason left, I made it a point to put down all my expectations in the spirit of him being on his trip. I rested. I relaxed. I played when Ellis wanted to play, and cleaned when I felt like it. I cherished the time I spent with friends as equally as the time I spent alone on the couch with a book.

It was a lovely five days. Difficult, but lovely. (Hats off to single parents, or anyone who finds themselves in a solo parenting situation for a moment in time.) It was not easy.

But when my expectations were adjusted, it was doable. (Especially in the context of providing the ways and means for my husband to do something so important to him.)

And then I realized something. Why don’t I adjust my expectations more often? Why do I give myself license on “vacation”, but not in the everyday?

Pregnancy does a lot of strange things to a person. But in the late stages of the game, it makes me relax. The babies will come as they come. My body will labor as it will, and nothing needs to be controlled. It’s like riding a roller coaster with my hands clenched tight on the bar in front of me, until I finally realize that nothing bad is going to happen and it’s actually better to just let go and feel the ride. Expect nothing. Appreciate everything.

29 weeks and counting….

28 weeks: the age of viability

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too legitWhen I turned 30, my friend Brad welcomed me into the new birthday decade by proclaiming I had become a legitimate adult. And here at 28 weeks, I feel the same way about the babies. They are now legit. We’ve made it through the first and almost second trimester, and if something were to happen and they were born tomorrow, they have a very good chance of making it it through okay.

For some reason, this gives me a sense of accomplishment. Although, in reality, all I’ve really done is eat more.

I know I’ve said this before, but my job really has been that of a welcoming host for two tiny guests. And once I get over feeling all science-fiction about it, it truly is amazing. The human body can support and sustain not only one, not only two, but in my (and many other cases) three people at once. And for those that have carried triplets, quads, quints, etc., I am floored. Downright amazed.

My body, at times, seems like a machine I have little control over. Maybe a car is a good analogy, because even though every male member of my family can take apart an engine and diagnose it in a matter of minutes, I get befuddled on how to unhook the hood latch. Really, all I do is put gas in the car and drive it.

This pregnancy has been similar. For all my fears on how to handle carrying twins, it really hasn’t been that difficult. My body knows how to do the work. I just eat and shuttle myself through my daily activities, albeit a bit slower each week. And when people ask me How different does it feel to carry twins vs. just one baby?, my answer is usually the same: honestly, not much.

Yes, they move more. Yes, I’m bigger. Yes, I can tell which baby is doing what. And yes, exercise is pretty difficult these days. But here are the surprising things. I’m not really that much hungrier. I can still pick up Ellis and carry her up the stairs, give her a bath, and pick up her toys at the end of the night. I am not making more than one nightly pilgrimage to the bathroom. I don’t have any weird cravings. And sometimes, I feel completely normal.

Normal is reassuring at 28 weeks. I’m now down with grad school for the semester, and I have one Board meeting left before the babies arrive. The to-do list is slowly starting to have more check marks. Ellis read books to herself for 32 unsupervised minutes last night, and didn’t manage to fall off, down, or over anything. And Jason? Allow me to brag on my buddy for just a moment, because this week Jason was named the principal of Taylors Falls Elementary School – something he’s wanted for a long time.

I know everyone talks about pregnant hormones, but this week I’m happy to say that sometimes, it’s possible to feel very even keel. And those moments need to be recorded, celebrated. Scott Russell Sanders, in his essay Writing from the Center, says something I’ve long been thinking about. “The truth about our existence is to be found not in some remote place or extreme condition but right-here and right-now; we already dwell in the place worth seeking.”

My truth, this week, is being thankful for right-here, right-now. There are so many difficult things about pregnancy, but there are also a lot of really great milestones. And I want to mark them all, good or bad, for what they can teach. This week, life has amazed me, and I’m fully acknowledging my gratitude for it.

After all, this week, we’re legit.

 

 

27 weeks: The Pregnant Monster

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monster_roundI am starting to feel like a children’s book character of some sort of round, loveable, and slightly slobbish monster.

I snore. I waddle. I wake up in the middle of the night to eat. An odd series of marks have bloomed across my stomach, and every outfit goes in the laundry at the end of the day because I can’t sit up straight enough to eat without spilling. Normalcy seems a thousand miles and two mountains away.

It’s hard, in moments like this, to remember that pregnancy (as any difficult thing in life) does not last forever.

Night comes, and sleep runs off with the cows that jumped over all the moons in Ellie’s bedtime stories. The babies wake up and my stomach becomes host to all manner of roiling appendages. Rest becomes elusive. And in the thickest, darkest parts of the night, I start to worry. Life as it was will never return. Life as I know it is really hard. And life in the future – well, that change is anyone’s guess.

What I’m trying to remember in my cognizant, waking hours is that we wanted this change. Not because life was bad before, but because the happiness and enjoyment we found in our daughter was so unexpectedly great that we wanted our family to keep on growing. (And just because we didn’t necessarily plan for the exponential growth part of the equation doesn’t mean we were any less thrilled about it.)

But this business of change is tricky. It’s like a construction project – no one likes the tear-down, mess in the halls, plastic drop cloth phase. Or in our case, like the nursery, which remains empty and unpainted because I lack the energy, time, and creativity to do anything but stand in the middle of the room and try to imagine what it’s going to be like to have two tiny infants wailing away at one time.

I know the finished product is worth the discomfort of having life taken apart for a while. The empty gray room will grow into a place of color and laughter. My stomach will return to normal proportions and I will be able to bend over without grunting like a stuck pig. Our daughters will quickly change from infants to babies to toddlers, and two years from now I’ll be blogging about how silly it was that I made such a fuss over being a pregnant monster.

Be that as it may, 27 weeks feels like no man’s land, and waiting for change is almost worse than adjusting to it once it finally happens. So in the meantime, I’m going to eat another tub of yogurt. Take the sleep as it comes. Throw a towel over the full length mirror and put on my favorite green pants.

This too shall pass.

26 Weeks: Officially hanging up my hat

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First Board meeting on the Oregon coast

First Board meeting on the Oregon coast

I have worked at the Hazelden Foundation for the last five years. Hazelden is an amazing employer, and I am incredibly thankful for everything I’ve been able to learn and do in my tenure there. Because of my work, I have met people I never would have had the chance to meet. I have seen the ocean from both coasts. And while it may not always have been “creative” writing, I had a chance to craft and work with words at almost every turn.

This is the part where I should say that our decision for me to quit working and stay home with the girls was the hardest one I’ve ever made. But I’m not going to lie. Turning in my notice wasn’t that bad. 🙂

After I had Ellis, I spent the first half of my maternity leave learning to survive with an infant in the house. And the second half? I basically wallowed in  personal mourning for the day I’d have to figure out how to leave her. It was to no avail. After twelve weeks, I squeezed into high heels for the first time in three months and bawled the entire drive to work.

I have no interest in taking part of the stay at home vs. back to work controversy for mamas. For what felt like the longest time, I was the mom reading the magazine article about another woman’s “decision to stay home” and resisting the urge to rip the page to shreds because I didn’t have that option.

And if that’s where any of you are at today, please know that I’ve been there. I’ve hugged my friends who have gotten to stay home, and I’ve been genuinely happy for them. And I’ve also cried myself silly in the shower because no matter how bad I wanted things to change, that simply wasn’t my situation at the time.

I don’t have an easy answer here, but I do know that despite the difficulty, I was able to make a successful transition back to work after Ellis was born. It may have had something to do with three little wooden signs that line the Pat Butler Drive when you come into Hazelden. They read the words Easy Does It. Day after day I drove down that driveway, and I repeated those words. I criticized myself less, and relaxed more. I accepted the situation I was in, and I made the best of it.

This time around, things are different. Two infants and a toddler in day care are about as expensive as going on a week-long Caribbean cruise each month, and financially, we’ve had some things fall into place that loosen up the expense side of our budget. So, we’re going to give it a go.

And by give it a go, I mean I want to apply the concept of Easy Does It to my new stay-at-home life with the girls. I will not have expectations of being the perfect stay at home mom with a list of craft projects a mile long. I will not feel defeated if I make BLT’s for the third supper in a row. And I will not be upset with myself if the only thing I accomplish on any given day is making sure the girls are fed, clothed, and wearing relatively clean diapers.

Easy does it. I think I might ask Jason to make me my own set of signs to post in our driveway.

PS. I’m sorry if you come over to my house three months from now and the only thing we have in the cupboards is popcorn.

 

 

 

 

 

Week 24: Perception is 100% of Reality

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minvanFor the record, I really don’t like car shopping. Well, okay. Let me rephrase that. I did like car shopping, once, when we knew exactly what we wanted, and a really good friend who was a dealer helped us find it with zero hassle. But this time around, the specs were harder to find, and my current car sold so quickly that we found ourselves crunched. We needed something NOW.

But nothing was falling into place. We got cancelled on by a dealer when we were 10 minutes away (and had already driven an hour in rush hour to make the appointment). We had a great priced van sell out from under us 30 minutes before our scheduled appointment. We took an extra half day of Easter vacation time to test drive a promising looking ride that ended up being filthy, and piloted by a clueless college student because his uncle, who was selling the van, just couldn’t make it to our appointment.

Meanwhile, the very kind gentleman who bought my car (for his sixteen year old daughter – yes, apparently my Toyota Matrix was the perfect fit for a teenager with braces and a shiny new license) was getting restless for us to hand over the keys.

My perception of the reality of our situation was growing muddier by the day.

***

You may remember an earlier post where I worried over failing my gestational diabetes test. Yep. That was all going on this week too. And in case you’re wondering, I did have a miniature breakdown on the couch one evening. Pregnant hormones, a potential loss of pancakes, and not knowing how I was going to get to work in the next few days was simply too much.

So I stopped. Took Jason’s (right again) advice. Opened a new box of Kleenex. And had a show-down with perspective. Here’s what I saw:

  • Our car had sold just a few days after we put it on Craigslist. That part of the equation was already taken care of.
  • We had options for other cars to buy. (We just couldn’t decide on any of them.)
  • We had a perfectly functional other vehicle to drive in the meantime.

Dan Feldkamp, the awesome pastor who married us, told us over and over in our premarital counseling sessions that perception was 100% of our personal realities. In other words, it didn’t matter what was really going on – if I saw something one way, that was my reality, and if Jason saw things another way, that was his reality. What we needed to, do in tough situations, was adjust our perspective.

I remind myself of this now and then, because he was totally right (even if I secretly rolled my eyes during our sessions at hearing it so many times. Sorry Dan.) My perception of a situation changes its reality. If I allow that perception to get out of whack with a true perspective, I’m heading into dangerous territory.

***

Well ladies and gentlemen, guess what. I like my new mini-van. (new is a relative term. It’s a 2004, but it’s new to me.)

Yep. I’m going to say it again. I like my new mini-van. I like it a lot. Want to know why? Because it’s got great visibility – seriously, it feels like I’m driving a spaceship with the gigantic open windshield. It’s super easy to get in and out of – no small thing to appreciate when you’re carrying an extra 24 pounds and counting of gigantic twin baby belly. Ellis can climb in and out, and I don’t have to step on the running boards to get her in her car seat. And yes, it has automatic sliding doors. This means when I have two armfuls of car-seated infants, I can push a button and voila. The door opens I can I can pop them into place.

And in the meantime, I’ve learned an important lesson.

Perception: Minivans aren’t cool. And are apparently hard to shop for.

Perspective: I don’t care about being cool anymore. Nor do I need to let my somewhat emotional self get worked up over something that is out of my control.

For what it’s worth, Jason and I both feel like we made a good decision. Having a vehicle that accommodates our growing family is just another way we are normalizing this whole impending twin arrival situation, and it feels good. This week, we feel prepared. Kind of. Well, at least we feel like we know where we’re going to put the car seats. And this week, maybe that’s half the battle.

Week 23: Redefining the word “cool”, mini-van style

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mini-vanFor the record, I have never been particularly interested in what I drive. I think part of this stems from growing up on a farm, where the idea of form and function was just a fancy thing I read in magazine advertisements. I drove whatever had keys and enough gas, whatever could get me from point A to point B.

These days, things are still the same. I’m not crazy interested in cars. But when we made our prep-for-the-twins list and realized that the logistics of three car seats, three diaper bags, a triple stroller, and an average load of groceries were going to pack my current car to the brim, we decided it was time to buy a different vehicle.

Enter: Decision making mayhem.

What do we want? What do we need? How big should it be? Drive train? Tires? Miles? Timing belts? After looking through a slew of ads one night, I realized I didn’t have a clue. But I didn’t really want a mini-van. Why? Because….well…. um….

No one starts off wanting a mini-van. They are the official vehicle of women over thirty and grandparents over fifty. They are billed for soccer games and tennis practice. They are unmistakably family-oriented-bring-the-dog-people-hauling-machines. They aren’t cool.

There. I said it. Mini-vans aren’t cool.

And here’s where I have to eat my words. Because if I’m fair and honest, I’m not cool either. I’m 31, and am about to have three kids. I haven’t cut my hair in a year because I feel guilty about making the time and paying a sitter. My main sources of clothing these days are a collection of hand-me-downs, thrift store items, and clearance rack specials. I rinse out ziplock bags and use them twice. And I still eat graham crackers and grape nuts for breakfast. I’m pretty sure this is enough to keep me on the non-cool list for the rest of eternity.

Meanwhile, Jason wasn’t buying my lame excuse about not wanting a van. And Jason, in case you don’t know him, is the king of informed decisions. He reads. He researches. He compares. And when he buys something, (be it a sleeping bag, a turkey call, or a vehicle), he makes the best decision he can given the information he has.

I love this about my husband, because I am the opposite. If I see something I like, and can convince myself I really need it, I go for it. (Which is why I spent an entire weeklong trip in the Boundary Waters with no functioning water shoes. Hey. I thought Croc Mary Janes seemed like a good idea at the time.)

I’m also still in pregnant brain indecision mode, so I wisely decided to step back and let him make the call. And thus began our two week period of open season Toyota Sienna mini-van hunting madness. Stay tuned. Week 24 was pretty crazy.