33w & 34w: Electricity is a Good Thing

33 weeks
Not much went on during this week. We had a standard OB check-up and all was fine - completely uneventful. Also had another NST and the babies passed much faster this time; no need for the buzzer! My contractions started increasing in intensity. Some were strong enough that I had to stop talking and breathe through them. They didn't occur repeatedly, so we never called the doctor or went to L&D.

34 weeks
We are so happy the babies are continuing to bake with a (knock on wood) complication-free pregnancy. I'm definitely physically uncomfortable. Nothing that you wouldn't expect from someone measuring 41+ weeks pregnant: swollen feet that feel like bricks of jello are resting on top of them, sore hips and back, lots of pulling around my belly, and I just can't take a deep breath. But I'll gladly take all of these to keep these little ones growing and healthy.

At 34w0d we had an NST and an OB appt. Chris was able to come to both! The babies passed the NST quickly again. The OB appointment was a little more eventful as we discussed delivery plans and received instructions on what to do if my water breaks or if we think I'm in active labor. We also set a collective goal to deliver as close to 38w as possible. I was 1cm dilated and both babies were still head down!

Later in the day (Friday), Chris and I were finishing up work at home when a thunderstorm started to roll through. It seemed a little stronger than normal as the rain was coming in sideways, our chairs blew off the patio, and the power went out. We considered going down to the basement, but we checked a radar map online and saw the worst of it was over.

A couple hours later the power was still out so we decided to head out for dinner. Epic Fail. On the main road outside our neighborhood we saw several downed trees - two of which had clearly been split by a direct hit from lightning. We got to the mall area and discovered all the traffic lights were out. A few restaurants had power, but there were so many people waiting for a table they were sitting all over the parking lot. Even Taco Bell had probably 20 cars in the drive through line. We got back home at 9:00 and had cereal for dinner.

I woke up at 5:30 Saturday morning really worried about the freezer dinners we made the prior weekend for post-delivery. Around 6:15 I decided to drive to my work to see if that building had power. It did! I called Chris and he brought down the freezer meals and a pack of frozen chicken that I put into the break room freezer. He also found an open grocery store and was able to pick up a cooler and a few items for food for the day, but no ice. We emptied whatever ice was remaining in our freezer into the cooler and put a few provisions in there. I was able to get on the internet at work and discovered that the power outage was wide spread and that it would take a while to get power back. It was hot outside - mid 90's and humid. By Saturday night, we had no hot water so we took cold showers (it actually felt fine) and set up an air mattress in our living room. Upstairs was just too hot to even consider sleeping up there. Great idea for sleeping, not a great idea for me to get up. It was an adventure.

On Sunday morning we went back to work to put food in the fridge as the cooler was now too warm and to charge up our cell phones. We left to find breakfast and came across a grocery store that had ice bags!!! We filled up the cooler, grabbed our cell phones from my office and headed home. This much ice allowed us to keep some things like OJ, yogurts, and apple sauce. We picked up ready-to-grill kebabs from the grocery store to cook on the grill for dinner. We also threw out whatever was left in our freezer and fridge. Sad. On the plus side, it's clean!

Sunday late afternoon the power came back on for about 5 seconds and went back off. Just enough to get our hopes up. It repeated this two more times until just after 7:00pm it came on again and stayed on!! The house cooled down enough for us to sleep upstairs and by Monday morning we moved the cooler food back into the fridge. We both had to head out for work because our internet was still down - I went into the office and Chris went to Starbucks.

We were only without power for 50 hours. Enough to spoil anything we didn't get into work or in the cooler and enough to heat up the house to the point where we were pretty uncomfortable. No A/C + 95 degrees + 34 weeks w/ twins = almost in tears. However, we are super grateful it came back on so fast. There are still many people without power.

We hope that is the end of the pre-baby adventures! Happy 4th of July!

33w0d

34w1d
All light is from the camera flash as we had no power
OB measured my uterus at 34w0d and it was between 41 and 42 weeks.
Right on track! (Twins generally measure 6-10 weeks ahead of a singleton)