To-Do

B is a spreadsheet guy.  Now, I need to qualify this by saying that B is a closet spreadsheet guy and I really knew nothing of his spreadsheet needs until about a year into our relationship.  When you first look at the guy,  you might think "workout guy".  I think this is a reputation B's not too disappointed with.  The man is 6'5", 230 pounds of muscle and every single morning he wakes up and has a "protein shake" that consists of protein powder, milk, raw oatmeal and two.raw.eggs! all shaken together and taken down in about 10 seconds (don't ask). 

But the spreadsheet side to B is an intense near-addiction side that I've grown to love oh so dearly.  I started noticing his anxiety grow steadily when it had been 13, 14, 15 weeks into this pregnancy and I couldn't take care of myself let alone anything around the house.  B was keeping this place afloat solo style and I started to see him processing the "how much more of this could I take let alone all of the things we need to get done before the babies get here" thoughts around the 15 week timeframe quite a bit more.  He would drop a couple hints about "to-do lists" here and there.  This was B's subtle way of saying "oh dear lord I need a spreadsheet to keep my sanity".

I embrace B's spreadsheets.  He loves them.  I am the disorganized person in this marriage.  I'm the messy one. The one who wouldn't mind leaving dishes in the sink for days on end or dirty clothes next to the bed cuz I'm too tired to bend over and pick them up after a day at work.  Not supposed to be that way? I defy your rules!

Nonetheless, B's happiness truly is important to me.  Even though I do, often, leave my clothes on the floor or my dishes in the sink, I know that's not cool for him and I'm working on it.  But I've got to say, it's been a little harder than I thought it would be to go from doing absolutely nothing around the house because I couldn't a) stand the smell of anything and b) go more than 15 seconds standing up without feeling like I was going to yack/faint to now feeling better and wanting to help around the house but at the same time feeling like a rapidly growing elephant whilst working full-time...

I think you can all see where I'm going here.  I'm not helping much around the house still.  At all. I suck. BUT- in order to at least attempt to show B how much he means to me and how much I want to help...I made a spreadsheet!  It's pretty, and functional, and has things like checkmarks and color coding! ...but not too much color coding cuz then we'd be embarking on my own ideals of spreadsheets and not B's way of working them. :)

So I put together our "Before Babies To Do List" along with separate tabs for "Child Care" options that I've looked into, "Prenatal Classes" that I want to/have already signed up for with dates/times and "Dr Appts" that we have upcoming with the date, time, and reason for visit!!! BAAAAAAH!  I'm amazing.  Honestly.  I'm at a whole new level here- your jealousy is palpable.

Now, just the spreadsheet in and of itself is glorious and beautiful and all that...but the most important and thrilling part is that I've created "Flagholders" and completion dates(goals).  Flagholders? you might ask.  Well, I find this is only a term that my company's department's management team uses on an hourly basis- apparently it's not a commonly used word.  I shall elaborate.  Throwing out to-do items is one thing.  Anyone can do that.  But without proper Flagholders to man said items, it's all fluff.  B questioned part of this philosophy- recognizing that we both need to be a part of pretty much everything on this to-do list.  But being a part of the item does not make one the Flagholder.  Each item needs leadership.  They each need a dictatorial guide (that's not a real term, I'm just that awesome and egotistical) in order to direct the item to its ultimate success.  Take "choosing child care".  Now, there's no way in hell I'd take this one on by myself.  B wouldn't like that anyway.  But someone needs to lead the charge- set up the appointments/make the phone calls/whatnot.  Someone needs to decide when it's truly completed and come to the "we've made up our minds and we're going to stick with it" finale.  "WE'VE made up OUR minds" being crucial terms here- the flagholder doesn't always have total final say, just leadership responsibilities.

:)  I make myself happy.

Ok, so here are the three items we have officially checked off our to-do list (which at this point consists of 28 items- 3 of which can be done after the babies are born in the first several months- probably by hired help...but it grew by two items yesterday and I'm guessing will continue to do so on a daily basis...):

Baby Registry - Flagholder: One Day - Completion Goal: 18 weeks
Register at Hospital - Flagholder: One Day - Completion Goal: 19 weeks
Carbon Monoxide Detector - Flagholder: B - Completion Goal: 34 weeks (he's an overachiever)

We finished our registries yesterday online so I was a little late on that.  We registered for EVERYTHING that we might want though, including the stuff that we will want to buy ourselves (cribs, stroller, the big stuff) and not get as gifts because both places we registered (Bab.ies R Us and Buy Buy Ba.by) have discounts when you complete your registry so why not put the stuff on the registry and then get the discount when you purchase?? So that's also been great because its a running list of all the stuff we need to purchase too!

I registered online at the hospital yesterday as well and then we went to the hospital to see if we could sneak in an off-hours tour which, no, we couldn't.  BUT, I called ahead to see if we could see the NICU and they were super sweet and said to come on down at 3:00.  It was an incredibly overwhelming experience that honestly needs its own blog post to come later but I'm SO glad that we did that.  I hope to God that we don't have to spend much time there (no time would be great) but I feel much better about it than I did before and it helped soothe some of those very loud fears I've had...

Finally, B purchased a carbon monoxide detector online a few days ago and he got it on Friday, set it up, and I feel much better now.  Thanks B!!

So we're trucking right along! I have a list of three different daycares right around here that I want to call and go check out before 20 weeks, that's the goal (F that's in 4 days).  Hopefully I'll really love one of those or else we've already looked into some other options like nannies and such...that's, again, a whole other blog post. Oy.

OH!  And I've signed us up for a three day, three hours per day, Birthing and Breathing Class at the hospital which starts in about a month.  I know, I know, we're probably going to have a c-section.  But I want to be prepared in case there's a chance that I'll get to do a vaginal birth.  I'm still being realistic though.  I know.

I'm going to sign up for a Breastfeeding class, an Infant CPR class, and B wants to do the "New Dad Bootcamp" class at the hospital too!!! Yay! Those will be probably late August, early September.  Doc said to get all this stuff done before 28 weeks. Not a whole lotta time left.

So all in all, I'm feeling like a rockstar which hasn't happened much since I got the beautiful news that I got knocked up at the ol' fertility clinic... 

One more aside that I've been thinking about quite a bit but haven't really said for some reason.  I know my blog url is "wishingfortwins" and I thought that was cute and playful when we were starting out our IVF journey and I decided to create a blog for it but now that we're actually growing twin humans...I feel kinda weird about it. I don't know why I didn't really realize this before, but it kinda sounds like I'm one of those people that just really really really wanted twins and would go to google and search things like "how to make twins happen".  Those people are a little creepy to me.  I just want to put this out there that I was, in no way, one of those people.  I simply chose the url because IVF has a higher twin rate than say, hooking up with your hubby and seeing what happens. Plus, don't know if anyone out there knows this but IVF is super expensive and the whole two-for-one thing works out financially in a positive way.  But mostly, we were expecting to put two embryos into my uterus when we did IVF.  Thus, I was really hoping both would stick cuz those embryos are really like my children and "not sticking" isn't really something I like to think about when you get down to the details of it.  We got very lucky that both embryos were able to hold on this time around with IVF because I was attached to both embryos from the first moment they brought in that beautiful picture.  But twin pregnancies aren't always "lucky" if you will, and there's lots of complications that can accompany... anyway. I just don't want anyone thinking that's what I was all about. 

Ok- this was another one of One Day's epic novelistic blog posts.  Thanks for hanging in there if you did! :)