New house, new ultra-sounds, hurried vacations, and the end of a 14-year record

To paraphrase Granny Weatherwax: We ain't dead.

But we've been very busy.

The last post was during the house hunt, so I'll start there. At 2:30 am April 24, we left our snug little house in Boulder in search of our new house in Mountain View. Seventeen very tiring hours later we signed the application for our new apartment. Then Dane slept for 15 hours. The following day was his birthday, which we celebrated with a hotel room picnic of tea and danishes. Then we set off to explore California. We spent most of the day at state parks out side of Santa Cruz, first at the beach, then in a redwood grove. I was feeling pretty depressed about moving to the city, so discovering nice parks close by was very encouraging. Also, it was wonderful to walk around outside after the frantic pace we'd both been keeping at work for the past few months.



So, we had a fun day playing outdoors and on Sunday morning, we got on the plane back to Boulder in a good mood. A good mood that lasted until we walked into our house and discovered that our pipes had been leaking all weekend. I won't go into all the details, but a wall was destroyed, part of the floor was damaged, getting the water back on after I crawled under the house and shut it off took two days and $1000. The wall still isn't fixed. The leak was due to a pre-existing problem that we had asked the landlords to fix. We were a very unhappy pair the night of April 26th. Our plumber, who we called at 10 pm, wasn't thrilled either.



Plumbing issues not-with-standing, we had two baby-related appointments on April 27. We woke up to an unexpected 6 inches of snow, but we were still able to get showers at the gym before our first appointment, which was with our regular OB. At that appointment, we got to see the second ultra-sound of the babies, who were suddenly looking very human and swimming around quite energetically. We also got to listen to their heartbeats on the special stethoscope. Surprisingly, the heartbeats were noticeably different, even to us. We were told that I had gained a little weight (good news), and that the babies were both measuring exactly as they should for my due date. When the appointment was over, we rushed home to meet the plumber (again).

We helped the plumber through most of the morning on the 27th, and headed to our afternoon perinatologist appointment at the last possible minute. Fortunately, the snow had melted and we didn't get very lost in Denver, so we weren't late. We had to see the perinatologist in addition to the regular OB because having twins automatically makes my pregnancy high-risk. So, they tested me and the babies for a long list of horrible probablems -- which we fortunately don't have (woo-hoo!). I had lots of blood taken and they did a high-resolution 3D ultrasound. Because I was only 12 weeks along, they wouldn't speculate about the sex of the babies. (I swear that I can see a penis in one of the pictures, but I'm a dirt scientist, not a doctor. ) They did tell us that the twins are almost certainly indentical. That dashed my hopes for a boy and a girl, but it also made a lot of sense considering that Dane and I didn't have any of the risk factors for concieving fraternal twins.


After the perinatologist appointment, we went home and (wonder of wonders) had hot running water in the house. That was very handy, since I had to do a bunch of laundry and get on another plane the following morning. I got up early on the morning of the 28th and headed to West Virginia, leaving Dane to deal with the mildew, warped floor boards, etc. All of which he did very effectively.

I was in West Virginia for two (extremely rainy) weeks. Despite the weather and lots of emails from work I had a fantastic time. In fact, I was ready to stay for the rest of the year. Even with all of the advice that was coming my way. I listened hopefully everyone's advice, and some of it was extremely helpful. But most of it wasn't the encouragement that I needed two weeks before beginning a new postdoc. Lots of very kind well-meaning people told me dolefully that they didn't see how I could keep my job after the twins are born. Of course, what I needed was happy LIES along the lines of, "Two babies are no more trouble than one," and "Planetary scientists who have twins have more successful careers." But West Virginians seem to be keen on cold facts. ("You're never going to sleep again." "You can't imagine how much they poop." "You're going to be so far away from family.") Oh, well! I figure the upside is that after I destroy my career and Dane's and my finances, we can move back to West Virginia and live in my dad's hunting camp. Coud, meet silver lining.

While I was in WV, Dane finished his job at Tech-X. To celebrate, he toured some of Colorado's breweries with his friend Nick. He also dealt with lots of move logistics, and oversaw the delivery of our moving pod. I got back to Colorado on May 12th, ostensibly to help Dane pack. Instead of helping, though, I got the flu. So, we had a fun couple of days this week, which culminated this afternoon in 1) me vomiting for the first time in 14 years and 2) us having our fourth ultrasound to make sure that the babies were ok despite having no food since Tuesday. Fortunately, everything is fine. And I'm feeling well enough to type this. Food is coming soon, babies. I promise!



That brings us up to today. A couple of other things have been going on that I should mention. Most importantly, Dane is training hard for his 3rd Dan test, which is next Thursday. This is one of the most physically demanding Taekwon-do tests, and he's been working toward it for 3 and a half years (plus the ~15 years he did Taekwon-do before getting his 2nd Dan). I'm going to video tape the testing, so hopefully we'll put some clips on the blog. I would promise some skating video, too. But my skating has become pretty embarassing since I got pregnant. You'll all just have to be impressed with Dane.

That's about it. We move at the end of next week, so prepare for another blog drought. We'll try to be more regular about posting once we're settled in Mountain View.