Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong: January 2009

Sunday, January 25, 2009

One Month Old

Here are the girls. They're one month old, can you believe it? It does go fast.

H at one month

M at one month (looking a little too washed out thanks to the flash)

The girls together

I'm doing ok with the lack of sleep, although the 2 hours the other night followed by being up until 2AM was a killer. I'm slightly stressed at the long list of things to do and lack of accomplishment day after day. I have a list of thank you notes to write and I desperately need to start working on the HW yearbook and somehow can't get more than a few minutes here or there to get anything done. Yes, I know I should spend less time on the computer but I've got endless emails to try and answer. And half the time, during the day, if it's quiet, I'll fall asleep. Perhaps next week I'll have a little more daytime help to get something done. I'll keep trying in the meantime.

The one thing I can say that's been accomplished in the one month is that I've lost all my pregnancy weight. I didn't say I had my shape back and it's all flabby but I can honestly say I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight. We won't mention that I was 13 pounds heavier than when I started with C but I digress. Considering I gained 50 pounds with this pregnancy, and 10 pounds literally in the last week, it's shocking to me that I'm 2.5 pounds lower than my starting weight. I guess they weren't kidding about breast feeding with twins. I certainly didn't lose it with C and still was hovering with that last 10 after a year. My belly isn't all the way back down so I've still got a little pregnancy pooch which is supposed to go away. I know my legs aren't in shape (as if they were so toned to begin with) so if I bother to actually walk a little, I'm sure that'll help. But the fact that the weight is off, especially after about 3 weeks, is huge psychologically. At least I don't feel like a big blob and I'm really close to getting back into my regular clothes. I've managed to fit into some pants with a few more really close.

G is in Tampa for the Superbowl. Another 9 days until he comes home. Ugh. Of course, it's a great job and fun for him but the timing of being out of town, now twice, with newborns at home is hard. Thankfully, we have help several nights during the week and it makes a huge difference. I know everyone said we *had* to get help and they were right. It's too hard with two and by myself, forget it. I've run out of hands and at 2AM with M screaming, it's been brutal. Now, I just need to get off the computer to take advantage of A being here and doing the 1AM feeding. I have such appreciation for her and all that she's doing to help. Keeping up with the laundry is nice too.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

More pictures (finally)

I should be sleeping but I'm not. I know people are completely giving up on me and my poor neglected blog. Computer time is limited and I can barely get through my emails so I haven't had extra time to blog... or start the school yearbook... or post on a few message boards that I frequent and the list goes on.

The girls are 4 weeks old today. Unbelievable. They were born 4 weeks ago which is different from their one month birthday. That's Friday and we'll go with the 23rd after this, but humor me on the first 4 weeks and living to tell about it. They're doing well. After the whole jaundice incident when they were a week old (I know, I need to blog that stupid story), and then we went back to the doctor last Monday to determine that they really haven't been gaining weight. M was up 2 ounces to 6 lbs. 6 ounces and H was still at 6 lb. 4 ounces. At 3 weeks, they really should've been back to their birth weight. So besides breastfeeding, we now how to supplement one bottle of formula a day (3-4 ounces) to see if that would help boost their calories and get a little meat on their little bones. While I exclusively breastfed C, there's only so much feeding I can do. I mean, there's only so much milk I'm producing. There have been several days where I've fed them every two hours and they're still hungry. One's body is supposed to produce what they need, if I'm not then I need to give them a little bit more. I'm dealing here this time. I do need to call my Lactation Consultant to see if there's anything else I can be doing to get more production but in the meantime, I figure one bottle a day is not the end of the world as we know it. And with the nanny at night, it works out perfectly that she give the bottle at the midnight-1AM feeding. It (theoretically) gives the girls a slightly fuller stomach and perhaps they'll sleep a little bit longer during the night. But we're finally on the right track and gaining weight.

So here is an official picture from today. My girls were born 4 weeks ago and they're pretty darn cute if I say so myself. H on the left, M on the right.

Plus a few photos from when Susan and Shannon came to visit us about 10 days ago. They've known C since she was about 6 months old so they're both practically family. In fact, Shannon had the honor of seeing C take her very first steps when she was 11 months old. Leave it to everyone else to take better pictures of my girls than me and I snap photos all the time.

Big Sister C & M

C & H (not the pure cane sugar)

Me & H

C, Shannon & M

Susan, Shannon, C, M & H - I love this shot!

Soon to come, official photos from Araxi.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

15 days old

Our beautiful twin baby girls are now 15 days old. Yeah, sorry for the delayed blog post but computer time is at a premium and there's so much to say and so little time. So you all get what you get and please don't get upset.

I'll try to make a long story less long but here's the recap of the last two weeks. We went into the hospital around 1:15AM on Monday night/Tuesday morning December 23. They were having a busy night at Cedars so they asked us to hang in the waiting room and come back at 2. Just what you want to hear right? But we killed the 45 minutes and when we came back they brought us right into a labor & delivery room. After much paperwork and questions, etc. we settled in and they finally started the pitocin (slow drip) around 4:30AM. We did our best to get some sleep at that point. G had just come of a hellish week of work with not a lot of sleep so I'm sure he couldn't see straight at this point. Luckily, there weren't too many interruptions for the next few hours. Let the drugs do their thing. Dr. C came in to check in on us around 8AM. I forget how dilated I was but I was progressing slowly which was fine with me. Didn't need to go 0 to 60 at any point. At about 10:50A, one of the residents came in and broke my water for Baby A. We had to break my water with C as well and boy there was a TON of fluid that came out of me. I think the doctor and nurse were a little surprised and how it just kept coming. I went from 3.5cm to 4.5cm dilated and I still hadn't had my epidural yet. I managed to go another few hours and finally at 1:25P, I cried Uncle and got the epidural. I made it a little over 5cm so I was happy. There's a reason why these drugs were invented. By 3PM, I was 8 cm dilated at stage 0 so we were finally getting close.

At about 4:45P, G got all dolled up in hospital scrubs and I got wheeled down to the OR. With twins, you deliver in the OR not in the L&D room. There were a gaggle of medical personnel, nurses, Dr. C & Dr Bob, anasthesiology, pediatrics outside the door. I started pushing and after about 5 3-counts of 10, out popped Baby A at 5:13P. A beautiful little girl and her little screams were so exciting to hear. They got her over to the table to be checked out by the doctors but everyone was fine. Then the doctors had be start pushing for number 2. I pushed and while I don't remember all of this, I know there was a flurry of action. While I felt the head start to come down, apparently on my second count of 10, the umbilical cord came out before the head. That's not supposed to happen so the doctors sprung even more into action, grabbed the vacuum thing (so I'm told) and I was told to push again even though I wasn't on a contraction. I pushed, Dr. C pulled (sound familiar?) and Baby B came right out. Another beautiful baby girl born at 5:21P.

So Baby A, who we named M, was born at 5:13P. She weighed in at 6 pounds 9 ounces and 19 inches long.

Baby B, we named H, was born at 5:21P, as 6 pounds 11 ounces and 19 1/4 inches long.

Both girls were absolutely perfect which is all that matters.

The story gets a little hairy from here... but I'll wait until tomorrow to post that. It's midnight. I need to get some sleep. But here are a few photos for you all to oogle over.

Me with M