Booties

Look how lucky my boys are! My friend LuAnn made these booties for them. I took the picture from her website since I haven't been taking many photos lately, but I wanted to show them off!

Happy Easter

We are so lame at celebrating holidays. I see all these friends with cute ideas on their blogs of fun things they've done to celebrate the holidays with their kids, and we're just not that way. I realize it's probably my job as the wife, but Ryan doesn't really care either and doesn't think we need to bother celebrating until our kids understand what's going on. Luckily we had some neighbors bring over some Easter candy today so at least there was some sort of celebration. And we watched a church movie (good idea Mandy, since we didn't go to church). The real celebration will come tomorrow when we'll walk down to the corner Walgreen's and buy all the Easter candy on sale. That's our favorite thing to do. So we're usually celbrating one holiday behind everyone else.

If you don't feel like hearing about babies and stuff, maybe check back in a few months

I'm becoming a little lax in my posting. Seriously, who wants to hear about post-pregnancy and all my woes over and over since I have nothing more interesting to talk about? Except the fact that when you're sitting around nursing all day and all you have is whatever channels come in on the rabbit-eared television make you realize there can be some really LAME stuff on tv. Oh how nice cable sounds right now.

Can I say how lame the news is in Milwaukee?? Seriously, the headline story for weeks has been the potholes in Milwaukee. It was the headline when my mom was here and we laughed about it. Then it was the headline when my sister was here and we laughed about it. And it is still the headline today. Although some soap opera was cancelled so they could keep covering the current snowstorm that they'd already been covering all day. Seriously gripping coverage. "Look how much snow is on this parked car. Can you pan down to my feet? See how much snow is covering my feet?" I am not even kidding. Since I had no hands free, I had to keep yelling for Ryan to come put me out of my misery and turn the stupid thing off.

Speaking of nursing, in case anyone wonders, I have finally started trying to nurse them simultaneously. Yes, the first time I tried my sister took a picture with her cell phone because it looked so funny. I was dying that she took a picture, but she insisted I had to see what I looked like. I made her erase the picture before who knows what could happen with it -especially since Ryan kept insisting there must be a market for that somewhere on the internet. Hopefully we'll get better at this feeding. When I don't feed them together, feeding time takes about an hour and a half total. It stinks, but it's at least manageable when there's someone else around, but what do I do with my toddler yanking at me all the time when I'm by myself? Seriously, I am so terrified to be by myself with the three of them. Luckily we've had help most the time - my mom came for almost two weeks, then one sister came for a week. Ryan now has almost two weeks off, then another sister comes - and then I freak out. I almost cried when my sister left this week. It's hard enough with three people around.

I'm debating about church, even though I know it's Easter and all this Sunday - one of two holidays when even not very religious people go to church. Cash and Ryan and I all went last week and left my sister home with the twins. My other sister warned me not to go to church. We should have listened. All three of us are now sick. Ugh. On top of everything else. Like the fact that I found out I have a couple of herniated discs in my back. Really bad timing. I guess it looks like one of them is old and one is more of a fresh injury. So I'm going to physical therapy (in all my spare time??) and I got some injections today and hopefully they will help, but it's not like a herniated disc really goes away. In fact it only gets worse. And the first thing the orthopedist said when he came in the room was, "You have some pretty bad arthritis for someone your age." See, any of you who have heard me say I live in a 60 year-old body - I really was totally serious.

The placenta report came back and it looks like they're identical twins. Like I said, sometimes they still look pretty different to me, but I guess there are too many similarities for them not to be identical.


Cash is doing a little better. He finally seems to like me a little bit again now. I don't know what we'll do when Ryan is gone again though. He's definitely a daddy's boy now but I guess it's a good time for him to be like that.

Ryan's new obsession is finding a place to live in Miami now. (Remember that he must always have some obsession?) Anyone know anything about that place? We are ALL going to find a place there the end of April - yes, all 5 of us. Ryan said he could just go and find a place, but I said I was actually the picky one about this place, so if anyone just went, it should be me. Only I can't because I'm nursing two babies, and so they have to come with me, and if they have to come, I have to have another lap to take them on the plane, in which case that just leaves Cash, so I guess we're all going. Let's hope we get lucky and find something with many bedrooms for cheaper than it looks like it will be. Yes, Miami is another very expensive place to live. Besides the fact that it was also recently voted the rudest city in the U.S. Worse than NY? Can't imagine.






Thanks again to my mom and sister who saved my sanity by being here and letting me get some sleep!

It's me, not you

So lest anyone think I have hard children, I should say the problem is not them - it's me. Seriously, do they look like trouble makers?

Really, thank heavens these babies have been so good so far. They eat, look around, and sleep, and only fuss for a few hours between about 10pm and 1am - which I expected since they were like that in the womb too. As I was starting to blow dry my hair today I was thinking how nice it is to have babies who actually sleep for a few hours at at time. With Cash I knew I had exactly a half hour to do anything before he was awake again. Anyhow, they are wonderful and the two of them together are easier than Cash was, although I realize they've only just reached when they would have been full term and they'll probably wake up and be fussier soon enough.

In the meantime, I don't know why I'm such a mess. It's probably not a good sign when the high point of your recovery was while you were still in the hospital. I am just not destined to have good recoveries. Let's just say by the end of this week I will have been to the chiropractor 3 times, an orthopedist, my OB (couldn't wait until the 6 week checkup), the pediatrician (for two week baby checkups), and will have had x-rays, an MRI and two different types of cultures performed on me. Ugh.

To stay positive, however, I did think of a few more things we did right. Like the fact that I started pumping after each feeding from the very beginning - I feel much more confident about my milk supply this time. (Plus I do it in front of the computer so I'm assured my coveted personal time at the computer! You all wonder how I have the time to blog :) Also, the week before I had the babies, I had ordered some new clothes from Old Navy - comfy clothes to wear around the house that would be flattering on the post-baby bod, but ones that were still cute if people showed up at the house. When I got home from the hospital, the package was waiting for me. It was so nice to have new clothes and not feel like I still had to be wearing my maternity clothes.

As for my experiment this time - I swear the reason why the actual popping out of the babies is pretty easy for me is because the phrase "child bearing hips" was coined for people just like me. I swear my hips open WIDE up to let those babies out. Therefore, pants I wear into the hospital 9 months pregnant can't even get over my hips on the way out. So I figure while my body is still going back to normal, I'll try wearing some serious hip-sucking spandex for a few hours a day and see if I can get back into my normal clothes anytime soon. I'll let you know how it goes.

The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

That is all I have to say about yesterday.

Doing alright

Well, it's going pretty well here. Perhaps as good as I had hoped for. I think the first night home was just a fluke, and maybe they were just uncomfortable from their circumcisions because they've been better since then. Still better sleepers during the day probably, but not as nuts as Cash was.





Phoenix (left); Ashton (right)

And I've done a few things right, like sending them out of our room (where their crib is since we only have 2 bedrooms) after that first night so they only keep one person awake (namely my mom, downstairs in the living room - thanks mom!) instead of two. Also, my other good move is sleeping through one of the night feedings while somebody else feeds them so I actually have managed a few 5 hour stretches of sleep. And last night it was close to 6 hours I think. I'm not sure at what point you can let them sleep longer at night without waking them to eat, but we're about at that point where we'd welcome it, so last night they slept 4 or 5 hours straight. Oh yeah, and the other thing we did right was hide the train set Cash got for Christmas until the day we brought the twins home. That's been a lifesaver.


As for Cash's reaction - well this picture pretty much sums it up. "Um, what are these, and can you get them out of my way so I can watch tv?"

He's been a bit out of sorts, and I've had a hard time feeling so neglectful and sort of missing the days when I just had one child and could be such a doting and attentive mother, but overall he's doing pretty well. And it is cute to see him peeking in over the pack 'n play to make sure where they are once in a while.














Ashton (left) Phoenix (right)
As for the twin thing - I guess they send the placenta to the lab and that's supposed to give them some sort of idea if they are identical or not, but we haven't heard back about that yet. I think I mentioned the doctor said there were some things that made them seem very identical, but it's hard to tell sometimes since there heads are shaped differently. But based on what it looked like in the ultrasounds - one placenta with one big sac and two smaller ones, and the fact that there are enough similarities that we still think they're probably identical. The only real other way to tell is genetic testing. When I look at pictures, it's sometimes quite easy to tell them apart, but when they're all bundled up with hats on, we have a hard time. I must say we refer to them as "this one" and "that one" quite often so as not to have to use the brain power to identify them. And sometimes the same one gets their diaper changed twice instead of them both getting changed once. Ryan was pretty adamant that we put a dot of nail polish on one of them in case their heads changed overnight, so we did that. But then he decided to paint the other ones toes. So then the next day, of course I couldn't remember who had the toes and who had the fingernail.

I don't know if you remember my coveted crib bedding:










but I used that as the inspiration and begged my mom to make something comparable. I LOVE the results!! I would wait until we had them in their own cutely decorated matching room to display them, especially since this picture doesn't do it justice, but I have to put it on here so you can see her work because it's just too great. And saved me $600. The one for the other crib is the same fabrics but a little bit reversed. Love it mom! Thank you!


















As for having a great recovery, well, I probably spoke too soon.

Today was a pretty good day. I managed to get some sleep, managed to go get pedicures/manicures with my mom for her birthday, and just as I was starting to feel good about my progress, I managed to get asked twice at said nail salon when my baby was due.

The story

Phew! What a crazy few days it's been. To start with the labor story (for those who want details - stop reading if you don't!), I started having contractions Saturday night that were quite painful, and to help distinguish from the weeks of contractions I've been having, I started to have a little deja vu and remember that oh yeah, this is what the real thing feels like. But they never really got closer than 6 minutes apart. So I finally decided to go to bed. Or I should say try to go to bed since every 6 minutes (and they slowed down to about 9 minutes), I was panting through contractions. So after a sleepless night, I finally called my midwife in the morning and said that if I was in the hospital I would totally be asking for medication right now, only my contractions weren't close enough to warrant going to the hospital, so couldn't I come in and we could speed things up a bit like breaking my water or getting some Pitocin or something? Well, their practice is really adamant about not inducing twins until 38 weeks (which was two days later), so she wouldn't, but said I should wait a few hours and see what happened. So finally at about 4 or 5pm I called and said I couldn't handle it any more and I at least needed something for the pain, even though the contractions still hadn't gotten close enough together. So she told me to come in and if I was dilated to a 5 then they could break my water. So we went in and even had Cash with us because we really just thought I was going to get something for the pain, and the nurse checked and I was a 6. I seriously almost cried at that point I was so happy! So Ryan had to run Cash home, and the nurse told him that he probably should hurry.

So I got all settled in (they have sweet delivery rooms there, too bad I had to deliver in the OR though because it was twins), and then I got my epidural. I was a little worried because it was only really working on one side, so I just kept pushing that button for more medication as often as I could. The midwife came in and broke my water just after 7pm. We waited a little while and the contractions didn't really increase, and I mentioned that last time breaking my water hadn't done anything either. So she decided to start a little Pitocin and I swear I had one contraction from the Pitocin and was like, "Woah." The midwife looked a little startled, checked me again and realized I was suddenly a 10. So they wheeled us into the OR and got everything set up in there and really quite easily Ashton was born at 8:44. So from that perspective, really an hour and a half since I'd had my water broken was not bad.

BUT.

Then they did an ultrasound to check on the position of the second baby. 3 days before he'd been head down, but when Ashton came out, he must have flipped. At that point the OB that was also there told us we had three options. We could try to turn the baby using external maneuvering, we could do a c-section, or we could deliver him breech. So they tried to flip him. No success. So then we debated. And debated. For really maybe 30 or 40 minutes. (They stopped the pitocin and the baby was still up high enough that we had time.) Pretty much everyone there wanted to do a c-section. It was definitely the safer, more cautious option, and I really got the feeling that the OB felt more comfortable doing that, although she said she would do either. I had discussed this exact possiblity with a couple of the other OBs in their office and they seemed to feel ok about delivering breech. I wasn't getting that vibe from this one, which is why we were debating it so much. A little surprisingly, even the midwife was more in favor of the c-section. The other problem was that with a breech presentation they prefer that the baby be butt first, but this one was feet first - a footling breech, as they call it, which is I guess a little trickier.

Oh the dilemma. The worst case scenario that I had feared all along - getting the double whammy. Recovering from a vaginal delivery and a c-section.

Finally Ryan said he really thought it would be ok to do breech. I was glad he was confident and took a stand because I was ready to do a c-section. But then I agreed, and we decided to go for it. I figured we'd just gotten one out vaginally quite easily, and couldn't they just pull this one out by the legs fast if they needed to, or still do an emergency c-section if they had to.

So then they could only find one foot. She kept reaching in and searching around trying to find the other foot and looking on the ultrasound to locate her hand relative to his body parts, but she really couldn't find the second leg. Anyway, the baby finally dropped, his sac broke and then it was a really few tense moments of stress while she groped around inside for his leg. She finally found it, pulled them out, pulled the body out, then it was another few tense moments while we tried to get his head out. When he came out, he wasn't as responsive as the first baby had been and we were a little panicked. His first apgar scores were only a 2 (out of 10), but luckily by 5 minutes it was up to an 8. But holy cow. We had a good few minutes of looking at each other saying, "did we make the right decision???" When it was clear he was fine, I think Ryan and I both teared up a little and were a little emotional about the whole thing. It really was all ok, it was just intense and nerve-wracking for a few minutes.

Then the most physically intense part for me came - the placenta didn't come all the way out, so the doctor had to reach in and manually try to get it all out. OH MY GOSH. Good thing my epidural got working because I was seriously feeling a hand sweeping all the way up to my ribcage. Imagine how far your arm has to be in someone's body to be reaching their ribs. Ugh. The thought makes me cringe. It was nasty. And she had to do it multiple times.

But all in all, the delivery really wasn't bad, it just had a few really intense moments and a lot of worry and emotion attached to making some big decisions. We realized later that it really was a bit of a novelty these days - one of the nurses later commented, "Wow, a footling breech. You don't see many of those around here." Maybe we were crazy for making the decision we did, but we had really wanted a vaginal delivery all along, and we're glad now that we stuck with it since it all turned out fine and I didn't have to have to recover from both a vaginal delivery and a c-section.

So now we have two beautiful boys! I was wrong on my best guess - they really don't look like Cash did as a baby, and these two are going to be blondies. So far they still think they're identical - their heads just look different from coming out different directions and they have some different battle wounds, but their hair is the same, and apparently even their male anatomy has some specifically identical genetics. I don't know what that's all about, but after doing their circumcisions, the doctor came into my room and said, "Those are the most identical twins I've ever seen."

There have been some good high points too, such as the fact that I feel quite a bit better than I did after having Cash (didn't tear as bad for one thing), and I even weighed less coming home from the hospital after having twins than I did with Cash! (Not that I'm anywhere close to normal - I just didn't even lose one pound when I got home from the hospital with Cash!) I quite enjoyed the whirlpool tub they had on my recovery floor, and my only regret was that I only remembered a few hours before I went home that they had massage services available there and they had already gone home for the day!

Apparently though, there is to be no honeymoon period of newborn sleepyness for us. Last night after we got home from the hospital, I was a little dumbfounded when I realized it was 4am and we hadn't been to bed yet. Welcome to our new life!

We'll get some cute pictures one of these days when we've slept and gotten our heads on a little better.

They're Here!

2/24/2008 twin boys: twin A 6 lbs 14 oz, 19.75 inches at 8:44pm, twin B 6 lbs 8 oz, 20 inches at 9:44pm

Mom and the boys are doing great!

Preliminary names are Ashton and Phoenix, but that's still being debated.




I was going to tell the story, but have been informed that I'll miss too many important details, so I'll leave for Jen when she comes home. In brief: Twin A delivered just fine, Twin B delivered breech, but both are doing just fine. B just got a little more beat up. You can kind of see the swelling in his face compared to his brother. Pretty emotional delivery, but we're just happy they're both safe and well. Cash is still doesn't know what to make of his new brothers.