I'll Drink To That

My liver doctor is very pleased with my improvement and tells me that my liver is pretty much healed now, at last. The best proof of my liver's restored health is that he said I could have a glass of wine or beer with dinner. He just reminded me not to do any happy hours or anything. :)So, I did have a small glass of beer with H to celebrate that night (there was no wine in the house, my preferred drink.) It was more of a symbolic act than anything; I don't plan to do even moderate drinking any more. Maybe a one nice glass of wine on a special occassion every now and then, but that's it.

The doctor says that with my liver looking better, my main concern needs to be with my abdomen, which is still distended and full of intestines that aren't protected by the muscle wall. I'm told not to lift anything heavy. The abdomen has gone down significantly in size, however, and I can now wear girdle-like things that pull the whole stomach in so that I actually almost look like my former self if you stand back and squint a little. In fact, I bought a dress from Ann Ta.ylor yesterday for the boy's baptism that is only one size up from my normal dress size. And get this...the reason I needed the larger size was do to my still-enlarged bust, not my tummy. Hooray for that! While my chest is still a double D, it's not a nice double D like before I delivered. It's all deflated and droopy. I feel like my boobs just hang there. It kinda sucks. I need to do some bra shopping again.

Other changes with my body...my linea nigra scrubbed off in the shower today like a cheap fake tattoo. How weird is that? The belly skin is disgusting and crepe-like, but soft. The bad part is that I have the worst strecth marks you have ever seen along my sides, on the tops of my thighs, on my hips, and all the way down the undersides of my calves. These stretch marks are due to the way I blew up with fluid after I delivered; they are not because of the actual pregancy. They are truly horrendous, and my doctor says they will be with me for life. I feel like a zebra the way they stripe along my sides. It will be one-pieces for me from here on out. Somnetimes I'm very depressed about how disfigured I look with them, but when I consider the alternative to what happened to me, I just count myself lucky. I'm here, a little war-torn, but here.

The babies are doing great and are growing fast. I love them more each day. I get very tired some days and I often wonder what H and I have gotten ourselves into, but I know it's all worth it.

The New Normal

I'm still here...I'm just finding it hard to blog with the twins and Stefanie, our new au pair, to look after. Stefanie arrived last Thursday night from Germany and is a very nice girl. She's 19, and has experience watching baby boys, but ones that were a little older than my twins. Because the boys are still so small, she's rather timid around them, and I certainly wouldn't leave her alone with them yet. I have a month to "train" her before I go back to work. I figure if I can take care of them by myself with a bum liver, she'll be able to also.

On the liver front, things are continuing to get better. Most of my blood test results from last Friday are in the normal range now. Only my bilirubin remains elevated...so my eyes are still yellow.

Alas...a baby squeals; more later, I hope!

Home Alone!...with Babies!

Last week I finally had some good news...my blood tests showed improvement in my liver function. While my liver enzymes are still not in the normal range, they are much better, so talk of a biopsy appears to be off the table. Thank goodness! Thank you all for the prayers and good wishes. I was really worried that my condition had stagnated.

I moved back home with the babies and H on July 4, our own little independence day. H was off with me for the long weekend, and then MIL stayed with me Monday and Tuesday. After I saw that I could handle the babies much better on my own than with MIL, she went home and I have been alone with them for the past two days. It has been tiring for sure, but so wonderful. I am finally their Mom in the way I imagined I would be. I've definitely started to bond more with them the past few weeks, and I see them developing a preference for me as well. After all the people who have handled them the past two months, it is a relief to see that they do seem to recognize the woman who carried them for 37 weeks and then disappeared for almost a month.

Now I have one week to be alone with them and H before our au pair arrives. I am excited about her arrival and I know it's the right child care choice for us, but I'm sad that our time as just a family of 4 has been so brief.