2 month update, Merry Christmas, and Pictures of course!

I just looked at my blogger dashboard and realized that it has been nearly three weeks since my last post. THREE WEEKS! In baby time that is an eternity!! The girls have changed SO much in three weeks - it's crazy!

BUT, let me first start by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! We have been so very blessed this year, and we are so very very thankful. Last year we were in a totally different place; in the thick of fertility treatments, just coming off of our second loss, and all I wanted for Christmas was two pink lines on a pee stick and one beautiful live baby to show for it. If only I had known what 2010 would bring to us. Si jokingly said today that last year I wished "too hard" at Christmas for a baby (is that possible?!?!?!), so this year in February when we were blessed with those two pink lines on a pregnancy test, we were actually blessed with two perfect precious little babies instead of one! And we couldn't be happier. Who'd have thought that this is what our life would look like in just one short year?!


Moving right along. . . the girls are 10.5 weeks old. We were in for our 2 month pediatrician visit (and shots - BOO) on December 16th and the girls are doing AMAZINGLY well. You would never in a million years know that they were early or that they had difficulty gaining weight in the beginning.
Here were their stats:
Baby Olivia - 11 lbs 10 oz, 21 3/4 inches - 70th percentile for weight, 25th percentile for height
Baby Brianna - 12 lbs 1 oz, 22 1/4 inches - 80th percentile for weight, 50th percentile for height

Both girls are doing GREAT overall. Brianna has acid reflux so we are having to do things a bit differently with her - add rice cereal to her bottles, and never lay her down flat/always keep her elevated so she spits up less- but otherwise everything is peachy keen. The pediatrician said that Brianna has the neck control of a 4 month old, which is fabulous, and Olivia has some great social skills and has already started smiling. Olivia has been trying to communicate with anyone and everyone that will listen since she was about a month old, so we kind of figured her social skills would be a bit more advanced than normal=). In the last week Brianna has also started trying to communicate with anyone and everyone who will listen, makes decent eye contact, and smiles. Neither baby smiles every time on command, but they are getting there. I love the smiles!!!
We are very quickly moving out of size 1 diapers and 0-3 month clothes. I hope they slow down some time soon! We already have 4 mega gigantic boxes of Pampers that we are going to have to take back to Babies R Us to exchange because they grew so fast that they won't fit anymore! Crazy! Bring on the size 2 diapers and 3 month/3-6 month clothes =).

Oh, and talk about the best Christmas ever! We had the Kult Christmas yesterday afternoon and the babies didn't sleep at all the entire afternoon or evening. To say they were cranky come about 6 PM would be an understatement. Crying and fussing for 3.5 hours straight. Si was getting incredibly frustrated and I swear his hair was graying in front of my eyes. BUT, the payoff for dealing with the crankiness was an AMAZING 9 hours of sleep last night. Yup, 9 HOURS. Olivia slept from 9:30 PM - 6:45 AM non-stop. Brianna slept for the same period of time, but got up once at 1 AM to eat. I actually woke up twice to pump, and both times it wasn't because there was a baby awake. It was fabulous!!! Hopefully it wasn't a one time occurrence! We will see=). We have been working on sleep training with the girls, and crying it out (CIO), but so far hadn't seen a ton of results. . . until last night anyway. I'm going back to work part time next week so getting the girls to sleep at night was on my to-do list for the last couple of weeks. I am happy to see that it MAY be paying off!

As always I will leave you with some pictures of the girlies - enjoy!!

Me and the girlies =)


Brianna styling the bow from one of her presents =)


Daddy and Olivia hanging out in the chair =)


Grandpa Ken with baby Brianna


Grandma Pat with baby Brianna =)


Cousin Seth with Baby Olivia =)


Uncle Ben with baby Brianna


Aunt Yim with Baby Brianna

And last but not least, Uncle Jon with baby Brianna. She obviously loves him - look at her looking up at him with those eyes!


I hope you all had a wonderfully blessed Christmas!!!

8 Weeks Old Already!!

Yup, you read right! Our little princesses are 8 weeks old! They are growing SO fast now. Two weeks ago they had just outgrown their newborn diapers and outfits and now they are fitting just perfectly into their 0-3 month and 3 month clothes (how baby clothes are sized is incredibly confusing to me - why is there no standard sizing?!). Anyway, we are chugging right along, growing and changing like crazy every day=).

Sleep is still a bit of a struggle, but I suspect with twins that it will be for some time yet. Some nights we get great sleep (meaning 4-5 hours of uninterrupted sleep), and other nights we get a total of 4 hours of sleep or so, but it's all chopped up between feedings. Last night the girls did great and both went for about 5 hours solid. I woke up wondering if the girls were still okay or if they had stopped breathing overnight or something. It was immediate panic! They were both perfectly fine of course! Does every mom do that? Freak out when their babies actually sleep for a decent amount of time? I almost didn't know what to do with myself!

Our two month pediatrician visit is scheduled for next Thursday so the girls will get their shots and we will see how much they weigh and how tall they are. I'm not looking forward to the shots, but Si will be at the appointment with me so I won't have to suffer alone as I hear the girls scream bloody murder while being poked and prodded. I am looking forward to seeing how big the girls are now, and how they compare to other "average" babies. At our first pediatrician visit the girls were in the 2nd percentile and 4th percentile for weight. That was comparing them to full term newborns of course, but still, we are hoping that they have caught up some. I'm hoping they are in the 20-30th percentile for height and weight now. . .I can hope, right?

So what else is going on? Well, Si took a new job which he is very excited about, he starts on December 20th. It's a longer drive for him and he won't be able to come home over the lunch hour anymore, but it's a pretty decent pay increase so the positives outweigh the negatives at this point. Plus, we have hired a nanny to stay at home with the girls while we work. I talked to my boss on Monday and confirmed with him that 4-10 hour days would be fine for me to work instead of 5-8 hour days. So, I will be working Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I will be home with the girls on Wednesday, and of course over the weekend. Si will still be working 5 days a week at his new job, but that's okay. He'll get an extra hour or so each day in the morning with the girlies (they are early risers!).

Oh, and the crappy news of the day - I'm STILL bleeding 8 weeks post C-section. My OB did an ultrasound, and it seems that I have "retained some tissue" from the babies and need to have a D&C. BOO. That's scheduled for Friday. Oh well, I will be happy to not bleed for a while before my actual cycles start back up! I am breastfeeding, so I hope I won't get my actual cycles back for a while, but I hear it depends on the person. I probably won't be one of the lucky ones that doesn't have a period for 6 months while breastfeeding. . .I'm just not that lucky!

We got some super cute Christmas outfits from Gramz H. yesterday, so of course we had to try them on today and I had to take pictures of the girlies styling and profiling in them. They are adorable! Nice outfit picking Gramz!! See pictues below. How stinkin cute are they?!





This picture cracks me up! Olivia is our chatty Kathy baby, and in this picture it's like Brianna is trying to cork her! This is my time to shine sister! LOL!!


We also got some surprise outfits in the mail today from one of my partners in crime in Boston, so you can bet the girls will be showing off those outfits too very soon! Thanks for the outfits Allison! The girls love them!!

And here are a couple other random pictures from the last week or two. The girls have been trying to hold their heads up without support for a couple of weeks now so we decided to stick them in their Bumbo chairs and see how they would do in them. Well, not horribly, but not great either! They have the "lean" that indicates to me that they need a bit more head control before they can hang out in the Bumbos for any significant amount of time.

Here we are just a leaning!


Here we are hanging out together in the pack and play =)


Here we are hanging out on our boppies. . .and Brianna is attempting to pet Jameson. He's doing very well with them if I may say so myself =)


Okay, so that's all for now. Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season!!

We are 6 weeks old!

You heard right - time is FLYING by now! The girls are 6 weeks old today and we feel so so blessed to be their parents. I can't believe how much they have changed from when they were newborns! They are still (barely) squeezing into their newborn clothes and diapers, but I know that any day now I will try to put an outfit on them and it won't fit (they are pretty snug now!). I will probably cry the day that happens - just a warning to anyone who may be around that day! LOL.

Tonight we have an appointment with a professional photographer to get our pictures taken. We are very excited! I think she is going to do some of those super adorable newborn pics with the girls - assuming of course that they cooperate. I will bring a couple of outfits with just in case they don't.

Tomorrow we are heading out to Si's aunt's house for Thanksgiving lunch and so the girls can meet some of their extended family that they haven't met yet. I hear that the aunts and grandparents are especially excited to meet the girls. It should be a fun time!

Oh, we met a major achievement yesterday! The girls figured out that each other exist! Previously we would put them next to each other and they wouldn't acknowledge each other at all and would usually just start wailing. Well, yesterday that all changed! I put them next to each other on the twin boppy to feed them. Their eyes met, their hands met, and they started chatting away! It was precious! It was like something just clicked in their little brains, and now their lives have changed forever =).

I got some pictures of the whole ordeal (see below). They even held hands at one point, but my hands were full (I was feeding them) so I didn't get it on camera. It is burned in my memory though - it melted my heart!! The girls proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon laying in the pack n play together talking and touching each other's arms and faces. It was an AMAZING experience!

Oh, and they are looking at the camera now on command! YAY!


Here they are plotting. . .what they are plotting we don't yet know. . .=)


And still talking and communicating even with paci's in!


We continue to be on a relatively consistent eating schedule - every 3-4 hours during the day and every 4-5 hours at night. The times vary by the day of course, but we can generally count on feeding them within a pretty specific window based on the last time we fed them. Get this though - according to my information on average a 6 week old will be eating 4-5 oz, about 6 times a day. Well, Brianna eats that much, but Olivia eats way more! She consistently eats at least 5 oz and has eaten 6 oz + multiple times now. The other day she insisted on eating 5 oz every 1-2 hours! Where does it all go?! These girls are literally growing like weeds! I just hope my milk production can keep up! I have no idea what the girls are actually able to get from me (I'm sure it's more than the pump can), but I am able to pump about 10 oz every 4-5 hours now, or about 7-8 oz every 3 hours. If I wait longer during the night like 5-6 hours (if the girls don't wake up) I can pump 12 oz! That seems like such a massive amount of milk to me! I'm so amazed that the human body can do this!

Okay, I think that's all I have for now! Have a very blessed Thanksgiving!! We are proof that dreams really can come true =). I will leave you with this one last picture - this is Brianna - stying and profiling in her "turkey" hat. One of the church ladies at Aunt Denise's church made these for the girls! LOVE them!!



Have a great holiday!!

One month old!

People tell you to cherish every minute with your babies because they change SO fast. I suspect this is one of those things that you don't pay all that much attention to because between 11 PM/1 AM/3 AM/5 AM feedings, massive sleep deprivation, and 150 poopy diapers a week, there doesn't seem to be time to stop and enjoy your growing babies. We are no exception. The babies are a month old today. A MONTH! Where has the time gone?

Honestly, around that two week point I was praying that time would go faster. We were having a hard time adjusting to caring for two "preemie" newborns, Si had gone back to work, my milk had fully come in so I literally was the milk cow between breastfeeding every 2 hours and pumping, and I was getting maybe 2 hours total of sleep a night. The babies weren't putting on as much weight as the pediatrician and home nurse wanted, and I felt like I wasn't doing a good enough job caring for my babies.

What a difference two weeks can make! The babies are more on a schedule now - feeding every 3-4 hours during the day, and making it nearly every 4 hours between feedings at night. I am exclusively breastfeeding, except one Neosure bottle a night for Brianna, and two for Olivia (so dad can help with the girls in the middle of the night too). They are getting a bath every night - usually between 11 PM and Midnight - then they are both getting a bottle and they will usually sleep until 3:30 or 4 AM! We both get up and feed them when they wake up, then they are usually good to go until 7-8AM when Si leaves for work. Definitely more manageable. AND, we are probably getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night. DEFINITELY an improvement from the maybe 2 hours I was getting before! I can't wait until we sleep through the night, but I can be a bit more patient now and enjoy watching them grow up now that I'm not quite as sleep deprived.

We had our last home health visit with the visiting nurse, and the girls are doing GREAT! For the last two weeks both of the girls have gained a beautiful amount of weight - between 8 oz-10 oz each, each week! Brianna is up to 7 lbs 7.5 oz, and Olivia is up to 7 lbs 6.5 oz! We are almost the size of an "average" newborn now - woo hoo!! We are still wearing newborn clothes and diapers, but I suspect our time is now pretty limited in them. . .maybe a week. The girls are starting to grow up so fast!!!




Oh, and do they have their own little personalities or what?!
Olivia is quite the social butterfly. She LOVES to chat it up with whoever will listen! She "talks", or coos, or mumbles while she is awake, while she is sleeping, while she is playing, and while she is feeding. She is going non-stop! And the faces she makes! Cracks me up!!! I suspect she will be our little drama/speech queen. She always wants to be first, and definitely enjoys being the center of attention. In the last two days she has started holding her head up more, and is pushing up with her feet trying to stand on us. No little one, you don't get to be mobile yet!! This little daddy's girl is full on personality and life =).





Brianna is our more reserved little lady. She is patient, and more calm than her sister. Unless of course she is getting her diaper changed or getting a bath. . .then it is game on and she can scream like no one's business! She has already managed to roll over, although we didn't actually witness it. I put her in her crib on her back last week and I came back in an hour later to her on her tummy! She has been able to roll from her back to her side since she was a week old, but all the way over? That's just nuts! I suspect Brianna will be our more athletic little one. . .she always has her arms flailing as though she is swimming, and she has kicking down pat too! She is most excellent at kicking off her blankets, then crying because she is cold. We have learned that we have to swaddle her pretty darn tight. This little momma's girl is a cuddler who LOVES to breastfeed =).





As we are more on a schedule now I hope to be able to go back to following all of my fellow bloggers, answering emails within the same week they are received (not kidding - sad!), and providing updates and pics on this blog. We shall see! I am totally on my own during the day with the girlies now, so I'm hoping to be able to maintain my sanity while attempting to return to semi normal life. . .wish me luck!

Is it possible to be this tired?

Okay, so I have to admit something. When I was writing my last blog post I was SO exhausted (and of course still am) that I fell asleep several times sitting up while trying to write it. I have to tell you guys this because Si thinks it's hilarious, and really I have to agree. So there I am, sitting there on the couch, trying my darnedest to get you guys an update on the babies. I am doing the 10 rounds of Tyson (LOL) while writing and the second time that I fell asleep I fell asleep with my finger on the "e" key. I woke up a couple minutes later to two pages of "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" on my blog! I promptly deleted it of course, but really I probably should have left it! It would have been good for a laugh! We are so sleep deprived now with the babies home that we joke that we are having "e" moments - LOL.

So, the girls were in the NICU for 8 days and came home last Thursday. They have been home for about 10 days now. When we left the NICU they told us that we would need to follow up with our pediatrician as well as have a home health nurse come out to the house once a week to check on the girls - make sure they are doing well, are gaining weight, etc. Well, we had our first home visit from the visiting nurse the day after we were released from the NICU. That was interesting. Si and I make way too much money to qualify for any services or anything from the state, so we have never had the privilege (I guess) of having a worker out to the house. She really made us feel stupid - and we are both very well educated people - I know that we aren't stupid! Anyway, I digress. When we were released from the NICU the neonatologist had started the girls on Neosure for two feedings a day (a formula specifically created for premature babies - it has extra calcium and phosphorus in it which apparently the babies would have gotten their last month in the womb had they stayed in there that long). The Neosure is a higher calorie formula, so it is supposed to help them gain weight better than breast milk. Now if only it worked and the girls tolerated it well! From what I can tell it made them nothing but gassy and fussy. They spit up more and just generally seemed unhappy. I really didn't like the formula feedings, especially because I was making enough breast milk to feed both of my babies and even get a bit extra left over! If we were going to bottle feed, we could feed breast milk. Anyway, so we were on the neosure to help ensure that the girls were continuing to gain weight. The visiting nurses scale showed that the babies had lost weight (again), which of course freaked momma out (because I didn't want them to have to go back to the hospital to gain weight). She called Olivia "scrawny" which ticked me off because she isn't, and overall her entire visit just left a bad taste in my mouth. She was condescending. . .and she had no right to be.

That was Friday (the 21st? - I can't keep track of days anymore let alone dates!). We saw the pediatrician on Monday (the 24th?). She said that the babies looked great! She said that they didn't even look like preemies and that I had done a wonderful job getting them to the weights that I did before they were born=). She also said that we didn't need to continue the Neosure feedings. She said that there are better more effective ways to increase calorie intake if we need to, but there is no reason to have the girls on a formula that they really don't need that is making their tummies upset. She gave me the go ahead to breastfeed exclusively, 24/7. YAY. She would re-evaluate after we met with the visiting nurse again (this past Thursday - the 28th?), but as long as the babies were gaining at least 2/3 ounce per day, we could stick with breastfeeding only. Well, the visiting nurse cam back on Thursday and apparently her scale and the pedi's scale are WAY off. I knew that the girls had gained weight since Monday but her scale showed that the girls weighed the same as they had when we went to the pediatrician. UGH. I'm really ready to just be able to feed my babies and watch them grow and not worry about whether or not they are gaining enough weight every day off my breast milk! Why does this have to be so difficult?! Anyway, so I am thinking about calling the pediatrician tomorrow to see if I can bring the girls in simply to weigh them and make sure they are gaining appropriately. I'm really not a huge fan of the visiting nurse, so I would rather figure out with the pediatrician's office what I should or shouldn't be doing to help my babies grow big and strong!

What else is going on? Well, the girls have started to become increasingly fussy between about 9 PM and 12 AM. Last night Brianna cried for about 5 hours straight. It was torture! I felt so bad for the little peanut - nothing I/we did could calm her down. She would cry, I would cry, Si's mom would come and take her for a while, but regardless, the vicious crying cycle would continue. Thank God that Si's mom is still here though! She has seriously been a God send. I don't know what I would have done without her here for the last couple of weeks. She has helped with the babies (especially with the middle of the night crying spells/feedings), cooked, cleaned, done laundry, been ridiculously supportive. . .she is AMAZING. I am SO glad she came down to help us. She will be going back home today some time and I am SO sad to see her go. She could just move into the spare bedroom and live with us forever and I would be totally cool with it! My dad is coming to stay with us on Monday and Tuesday, but I don't think he is intending to stay the night (which is really when I need someone the most - 24/7 breastfeeding really catches up to you at about 3:30 AM when what you really need is a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep - HA!). Then my mom will be staying with us for a week, and she will be staying the night, so hopefully that will work out well. We will see. I am really hoping/wishing that we can get the girls on some type of a sleep schedule sometime soon! I mean, they are eating about every 3 hours now, so that is a schedule, but they don't just sleep in between feedings, and especially not in the middle of the night. They seem to be getting a bit better about sleeping in the middle of the night, but they definitely haven't perfected the art of sleeping yet.

Other multiple moms - when did your babies start getting a night time schedule and sleeping semi-regularly? How was dad incorporated into the nightly feedings - especially if you were breastfeeding? Si and I had talked about running a schedule where he would be up with the babies from 9 PM until 2 AM, and I would be up with the babies from 2 AM on (since he is back to work now). That way I could get 5 hours of sleep potentially (if my breasts didn't explode first - lol!). It is just immensely difficult to care for two babies on your own - especially if they are fussy. Props to all of you ladies that have done it! I am definitely still trying to figure it out. And I have SUCH a hard time letting one baby cry while I'm tending to the other. . .how do you "choose" which baby to tend to first if they are both upset and crying? And how does their cry not hurt you?

Okay, that's enough for now. I should probably try to sleep a bit while the babies are sleeping (HA!). I just wanted to drop in and let you know that we are still alive here (barely), and although sleep deprived are still chugging along on the train of parenthood=). Hope you all are doing well!

Oh, and I almost forgot to add in pictures! Sorry!
Here's the girls trying to sleep together in the pack and play =)


Here's the girls hanging out on their boppy on my lap =)


And here's the girls in their carseats for the first time when we left the NICU =)

A week old already! Birth story, NICU, and update =)

I can't believe Olivia and Brianna will be a week old tonight! The time has gone so quickly and the girls have changed SO much already! So, we will get to that in a minute. . .for now I want to share the quick version of the girls birth story, and what has happened in their little lives since that point.

So, last Tuesday I went to the OB for my 36 week checkup. He took one look at me and told me I was pre-eclamptic and that the babies needed to come out as soon as possible. My blood pressure was high, my swelling was crazy, I was having headaches, and I was seeing spots. . .all classic signs of pre-e. I was admitted to the hospital for "observation" on Tuesday afternoon. I was seen by the maternal fetal specialist (that I had last seen at 34 weeks) Tuesday night who started me on lebatalol (a blood pressure medication), and told me that he would consider doing an amnio on Thursday to check the babies lung maturity, and if they were mature then my OB could make the call on whether or not to do a C-section. This was my 5th trip to L&D. My OB told me when he sent me to the hospital that the babies would either be born on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. I was over 36 weeks pregnant with the twins, and we were all pretty darn sure that if the babies came now that they would be just fine. The specialist apparently had different plans and wanted the babies to stay in as long as possible. I was frustrated and didn't want to be hanging out in the hospital forever before we were delivered. BUT, I was willing to wait and do what was best for my babies. After a long night of spiking blood pressures, the specialist agreed to do an amnio on Wednesday morning. It came back that the babies lungs were mature (a 69 - anything over 55 is considered "mature"), so we got the go ahead for the C-section. My OB was out of town in clinic all day, but said he could do the section on Wednesday night when he returned to town.

At 830 PM Wednesday night my OB finally arrived at the hospital and we got our show on the road! They had to poke me about 5x to get the spinal done, but once it was it was really smooth sailing. Miss Olivia was born at 8:59 PM on 10/13/2010 weighing 6 lbs 1 oz. Miss Brianna followed directly after at 9:00 PM on 10/13/2010 weighing 6 lbs 4 oz. Brianna didn't get all of the fluid out of her lungs when she was born and ended up in a bit of respiratory distress which required her to be admitted to the NICU and be put on a CPAP overnight. Olivia went up to the normal nursery only to get ticked off when she found out that she wasn't going to get to hang out with her sister right away, so she decided to have a blood sugar of 24! After some formula it only increased to 45 so she quickly joined her sister in the NICU as well. Crazy kids!!

I have been breast feeding, and I have been SO lucky to have help from some wonderful nurses and lactation consultants at the hospital, as well as help from a great friend who is currently breastfeeding, and from two moms (mine and Si's). I don't know what I would have done without everyone! I am currently producing enough milk for both girls, plus a little extra to supplement with if we need to. AMAZING right? I figured there was no way I would be able to make enough milk to feed the girls, and it has taken a TON of work and commitment, but so far so good!! I am so glad I can provide for my babies in this way!!

We (Si and I) were discharged from the hospital on Sunday, but the babies have not yet been released. This makes life a little more hectic for Si and I at this point. Even though we only live about 5 minutes from the hospital, we still have been choosing to make the trek up the hospital every 3 hours for breast milk feedings, and it is really quite exhausting! We expect to be exhausted when the girls come home as well, but I think it will be so much easier not to have to worry about getting dressed, getting in the car, driving to the hospital, scrubbing in, etc. every 3 hours. We shall see. We are just SO thrilled to be in the situation we are currently in and feel so blessed to have such beautiful healthy babies=). It was worth every second of the pain we had to endure to get them here. EVERY SECOND! It's an amazing feeling to be a mom! I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world =).

What else. . .oh, since they were admitted to the NICU, we have had a whole different set of standards that we have had to meet prior to discharge. The girls have had to:

1 - Show that they could regulate their body temperature (check!)
2 - Eat properly and often enough (absolutely no further apart than 4 hours) (in progress)
3 - Lose no more than 10% of their body weight at birth (check!)
4 - Gain weight (or at least not lose) after day 4 of life (finally - check!)
5 - Maintain decent billiruben levels (14 or under) to reduce the risk of jaundice (check!)
6 - Have a minimum of 6-8 wet diapers a day without supplemental (IV) fluids (in progress)
7 - Pass the "car seat" test (the babies must be able to be hooked into their car seat for 1 hour while hooked up to the monitors - blood pressure, heart rate, respirations - and they can not have any significant decreases that could cause issues such as apnea, desats, loss of consciousness, blockage of an airway, etc.) (in progress)

So far the girls have done great with body temperatures and eating (for the most part anyway). The girls were on IV's for the first 4 days of their lives (just sugar water though), so we had a bit of an issue with having enough wet diapers yesterday after they came off the IV's, and we were threatened with the possibility of having to put the IV's back in, but that has since been resolved. We just started gaining weight within the last 24 hours so we are finally doing well on that front. Brianna's billiruben levels had spiked yesterday AM so she has spent the last 24 hours under the tanning bed lights (LOL) with her funky glasses on, but the levels finally dropped and now Brianna is working on getting back out of the isollet. We are still working on gaining weight and having enough wet diapers in a day, and we have to pass the car seat test yet, but with a bit of luck we will be released from the NICU some time on Thursday, only 8 days after birth. We have been VERY lucky. We are SO excited to have the girls home! We will miss all of the assistance we are getting with the girls from the nurses in the NICU, but we can do it=).

SO. . . I tried to upload some pictures of the girls, but for some reason I can't get the pictures to load. I will go ahead and post the information, then go back and see if I can get some pics to upload on a different post. You guys will laugh - the girlies are most definitely NOT identical. The older they get, the more obvious that becomes! Olivia has thin blond hair, a light complexion, and a bit of a double chin. Brianna has thicker brown hair and has a darker complexion. Brianna continues to be the larger of the two babies, but only by an ounce or two. I can hardly believe this is all happening! It's so surreal! Si and I are parents. . .so cool! We have been so so blessed and are immensely grateful!!!

Hope you are having a great week!!

Pics of the twins!

Here's mommy and daddy with Olivia and Brianna =)

Daddy snuggling with baby Brianna

Baby Olivia out cold on daddy's lap! She's a big time daddy's girl already!

Baby Brianna all snuggled up in her favorite blanket =). So precious!

Okay, and I just laugh at this picture! The NICU has a whole bag of "candy corn" hats for the current NICU residents. We put this one on Brianna and her face just cracks me up - like seriously mom?! Do I really have to wear this silly thing? LOL!

I would post more pics, but blogger is being weird and won't let me upload. Strange. . .well, I will post more as I can! Hope you are having a great day!!

Babies!!!!

Megan is currently busy tending to mother classified tasks at this moment so I thought that I would jump on and update everyone.

Megan and I finally were called into the operating room at about 8:30 for the C-Section. (It was only an hour later then expected due to an emergency singleton Mom, who I think had a healthy baby.) We were blessed with a healthy baby, Olivia Grace, at 9:00pm. She was born with 6 lbs and 2oz and she was 18.5 inches long. We were then blessed with a second healthy baby, Brianna Raine, at 9:02pm. Brianna was 6 lbs. and 4oz and measured 19inches long and had to go straight to the NICU due to distressed breathing.

Both girls are now in the NICU due to the fact that they are both considered pre-mature (36w2d). Olivia was having difficulty regulating her blood sugar, but as of this post it appears that it has been regulated and she is doing very well. Brianna has gotten past her distressed breathing and is doing quite well.

Everyone has been asking for pictures, well here you go and ENJOY!

Si H.

(Proud Daddy)

Brianna getting weighed for the first time.

Olivia getting weighed for the first time.

Brianna in the NICU

Olivia in the NICU next to her sister.

Will there be babies today??

I feel like I've written this post 5 times in the last several weeks, and so far every time I update my expectations don't end up happening! I thought for sure we would have had the babies by now. But alas, here I sit, in a hospital bed none the less, at 36w2d!

So, let me explain how I got here, and the plan for where we go from here. We had an OB appointment yesterday at 12:30, and my OB took one look at me and knew I was pre-eclamptic. I'm not surprised. . .I am SO swollen, my BP is crazy, and there has been protein in my urine for over a week now. He did an ultrasound scan of the girls, and as usual they look great! Both are weighing in at about 6 lbs according to the ultrasound. We got to watch them breathe on the ultrasound again - it's so cool! Baby Olivia was still head down, but Baby Brianna was still breech. He was concerned about a vaginal delivery with Brianna being breech at this point (I don't know why since he wasn't concerned before - maybe he didn't expect to deliver us at 36 weeks so he thought she would be stronger?). Anyway, so we ended up having the C-section conversation yesterday. I didn't want a C-section. . .at all. I had every intention of having these babies vaginally unless an emergency came up or something. BUT, my OB knew my feelings that we would deliver one way or the other, but not both, so he felt that the safest way to get both babies out would be a C-section. He told us to proceed to L&D at the hospital we were going to deliver at and he would have orders waiting for us. He intended to deliver either last night or first thing this morning. Well, we don't have babies yet, so imagine the fact that that didn't happen!

What did happen? Well, we were admitted for "observation", and blood work and another 24 hour urine collection was ordered. The blood work came back okay - trending downward (platelets a week ago were 144 and yesterday were 132) - but not bad enough to deliver right away (they have to be under 130 to deliver right away). My blood pressure on the other hand - all over the board!! At once point it spiked up to 180/95! Yikes! My OB requested a consult from the maternal fetal specialist that I saw a couple of weeks ago. He came in and talked to me, and essentially said I was fine. Maybe on Thursday he would consider doing an amniocentesis, but until then he thought I could just be observed. Well, my OB most definitely disagreed. My OB wanted to deliver me right away and didn't want to risk my health or the babies health at all. The specialist came in at 7 PM to see me. My OB followed up at 10 PM last night (crazy right?). The problem? Politics. Since the other doc is the specialist, my OB really needed to follow the recommendations that the specialist provided. If he chose not to, he would be subject to peer review and other not so nice things. So, he decided that his plan would be to request that the specialist do an amnio today (Wednesday) and if it came back that the babies lungs were mature, he would deliver me that night (Wednesday).

The specialist came in this morning to see me and talked about just wanting to observe me again, and potentially doing an amnio on Thursday. I asked if we couldn't just go ahead and do one today. He said sure! (Seriously, right?). They had just brought me my breakfast so they promptly took it back away, and they did the amnio. It didn't hurt at all! Brianna was TICKED OFF and kept kicking at the needle, but it really wasn't what I expected. We should have the results back within the hour. It's my understanding that the plan is that as long as the babies lungs come back as being mature, these little ones will be born via C-section tonight! They actually did an ultrasound when they did the amnio, and little miss Brianna (the bugger!) has flipped back to head down. Geez! So I will have to talk to the OB and see if he for sure wants to do the section, or if he wants to try and go vaginal again. Like I've said before - these girls DEFINITELY have minds of their own!

Anywho, I will keep you all posted! With just a little bit of luck we will have babies by the end of the day today!!! How awesome would that be? =)

***Update***
We got the amnio results back, and they were a 69. Anything over 55 on the amnio lung test is considered mature, so we are good to go! The OB called back and talked to my nurse and he is giving us the option of C-section or being induced for a possible vaginal delivery. At this point it's our call. He won't give us anything to start the induction process until later in the afternoon and until he is closer to the hospital (he is seeing patients at his out of town clinic today). So. . .the show is on the road!! YAY!!

36 weeks - can you believe it?

Hello! As of today we are officially 36 weeks pregnant with our twin girlies! That means we have officially hit "full term"! Woo hoo! Honestly, I didn't think we'd make it this far. We did though. I'm quite sure that we won't make it much further though. I am SO swollen - feet, ankles, calves, thighs, and now even my hips. I can hardly move my legs. It's crazy. My BP is still high, and I have protein in my urine. All not good things during pregnancy.

The good news? Now that we are 36 weeks, they will not stop my contractions. YAY! Now if only they would be productive and progress! Last night I had 2 hours of contractions that were 5-6 minutes apart, lasting 45 -90 seconds. I thought maybe last night was going to be the night. . . .no such luck! The contractions slowed down to about 8 - 10 minutes apart and have been like that ever since. UGH - really??? I am SO tired and sore now!!!! I called my OB, and there isn't really anything they can do for me at this point. I go in to see them tomorrow at noon and they will assess me again then (essentially for pre-eclampsia), but today all they would have done is send me to L&D who inevitably would have sent me home because I wasn't progressing. Don't want to waste my evening on that! LOL!

Anyway, I digress! I am posting some pics taken from today. I highly suspect that these will be the last pregnancy pictures taken. 36 weeks =). Enjoy!

Here's a pic of me sideways. . .


Here's a bare belly pic


And here's a couple of pictures of my legs/feet (looking down from above) - they are SO huge!




Hope you all are having a great week! I hope to have some exciting news to post soon along with some fun baby pics! Hang tight!!! =)

Update #1 for this week. . .I anticipate more!

Hi all! Sorry I haven't updated yet - I was trying my best to keep the largest number of people updated that I could, and facebook seemed to be the easiest avenue to accomplish that (for the time being anyway).

That said - I'm still pregnant and the babies are still tucked safely inside me. . .for now. . .

Tuesday, well, I guess technically Sunday, I started having back pain. I have had back pain previously (prior to getting pregnant), but I haven't had ANY since I have actually been pregnant. Weird, right? Anyway, so I starting having some back pain on Sunday. I didn't think much of it. I figured I had overdone it doing laundry or something, or I had slept wrong. Monday the back pain was still there, and was a bit more consistent. Tuesday the back pain was still there, and was getting pretty intense! I wasn't having a ton of abdominal contractions or anything so I didn't really have any idea what was going on. I decided around 2 PM on Tuesday to call my OB and get his opinion. Well, I didn't even get that much. I got "go straight to L&D at Bergan to be checked out". Sigh.

Okay, I understand being cautious and all, but seriously, I didn't think I was in labor or anything. Si and I had googled and thought that maybe, just maybe, I was having some back labor, but I had no way to tell how far apart any contractions may be or anything like that. Overall, I just didn't want to go sit in L&D and be monitored for 6 hours again just to be given terbutaline and sent home (like I was every other time I went in). AND, I wasn't any too thrilled about the prospect of them stopping my contractions if I was indeed in labor. I mean, I understand that every day that the babies are in mommy make a better outcome for the babies, but seriously. . .they are over 5 lbs a piece, we were 35w1d at the time. . .the babies would be FINE if they were born. Anyhow, I digress.

So Si came home from work and hour early, and we went in to L&D at about 4 PM. The nurses couldn't really figure out why exactly I was there since I wasn't having too many abdominal contractions that I could feel, but they humored my doc and hooked me up to the monitors anyway. Well, for once I was glad that I went in! The on call doc from my OB's office ordered them to monitor me and to check me (dilation, effacement, etc.). I was dilated to 3.5! Holy buckets! 50% effaced, -2 position. Sure, these aren't incredibly impressive results, but when I wasn't dilated at ALL before, being a 3.5 was craziness to me! The doc ordered IV fluids, and wanted to monitor me for a couple of hours to see if that made any difference in my contractions. Well, the IV fluids made me contract like no one's business! Who would have thought? They pumped one bag of fluids into me, then started another, at a much slower pace. At this point they checked me again to see if I had progressed. Nope, still at 3.5. The OB decided to give me some procardia to see if it would slow down the contractions. It did slow them down a bit, but it didn't stop them. He decided that he wanted to continue to monitor me for the next few hours to see how my contractions reacted. By this time it was 10 PM. I was STARVING, and all I really wanted to do was go home! The nurse cleared it with the doc for me to have some food (yay!) and told me that if my contractions slowed down to less than 4 per hour that the OB would potentially let me go home at 2 AM. Fine by me! So, I watched a whole pile of bad late night TV, and watched my contractions. I was down to about 3-4 per hour so I was pretty sure he was going to let me go home.

The nurse came back in at 1:45 and told me that she was sorry, but the doc wouldn't let me leave and wanted to monitor me overnight. Seriously??? UGH. So, with the pregnancy hormones, here come the water works. . . and for no apparent reason mind you. . .I mean, what's the big deal? Sure, I hadn't brought my hospital stuff with me (we live 5 minutes from the hospital and figured we could go back and get it if this was the real thing), and we didn't have anyone set up to watch the pugs for the night, but otherwise, we were bound to have babies sometime and I was bound to be confined to the hospital bed for monitoring eventually. I guess I was upset because Si was going to have to go home, and I was going to have to hang out by myself. I am SUCH a wuss! Si finally went home around 3:30 AM to get some sleep. Anyway, long story short, the OB came in first thing in the AM (at 7 AM - Wednesday) and checked me and told me I could go home. YAY!

I had a follow up appointment scheduled with my OB for yesterday (Wednesday) at 4 PM, so I actually got to talk to my OB about what our plan would be from this point forward. I guess the deal is that they really want these babies to stay in until 36 weeks if at all possible (for us that is Monday). They understand that this may not happen, but they want to try and do everything in their power to try and make it happen. They sent me home from the hospital with procardia (which has been causing me massive nasty headaches), so then they also added butalbital (to help with the headaches).

The OB did an ultrasound check and measurements on the girls, and they as usual look awesome! There is ZERO room left in there, but they are still growing and developing perfectly. He even showed us how they are "breathing" - SO cool! They really would be fine to come out whenever! Here are the approximate weights:

Baby A - AKA - Baby Olivia - 5 lbs 13 oz (head down, ready to go!)
Baby B - AKA - Baby Brianna - 6 lbs 1 oz (this little lady WAS head down last time, but has since flipped breech again! Little stinker!)

At this point the OB is most concerned about momma. My blood pressure has been elevated, there was protein in my 24 hour urine check last week (this was news to me!), and since I am dilating early and have had several bouts with pre-term labor, they think that my body is about done being pregnant. My OB thinks I may be able to last another week, but he said he wouldn't be surprised either if I didn't last but a couple of days. SO. . .that's the scoop! These little ladies are going to come when they are darn good and ready, and it isn't going to make one little bit of difference to them when that may be!

I will try to keep you all updated as new things happen. When I am actually in labor (for sure) and they aren't going to stop it I will at least do a quick post and let you guys know=). Hope you all are having an uneventful week - there's enough drama going on here for everyone! LOL! =)

34w5d and still chugging along!

Hello! For those of you wondering, I'm still here, and I'm still most definitely pregnant=). Baby Olivia has moved even further down into my pelvis making it incredibly difficult to walk around or go up and down the stairs, but apparently she and her sister are still pretty comfy in momma's uterus and they aren't showing any imminent signs of coming out!

I had my follow up OB appointment on Thursday from my follow up OB appointment on Tuesday from my follow up specialist appointment on Monday (did you follow all of that?!). . .essentially, I had my 3rd appointment of the week on Thursday, and my 3rd ultrasound of the week as well (sounds crazy right???). The babies continue to look great (YAY). They had my blood work back at my Thursday appointment, but they didn't have my 24 hour urine results back yet. My blood work looks pretty good! I'm now anemic, but really, that's to be expected at this point. I'm really quite surprised I made it this long before becoming anemic! I got my 24 urine results back yesterday, and they looked good - normal. YAY for good news!

My blood pressure still is elevated, so they are going to continue to watch it. I am of course still nice and swollen, so I am to be sitting or laying with my feet and legs elevated whenever possible. If only it helped! The edema is so gross! Si can grab my leg with his hand and literally leave his hand print indentation in my leg! That is SO not normal! Oh the joys of pregnancy!!

Oh, and I haven't posted any pics in over a week, so here's a couple of pictures from today - 34 weeks 5 days=). Enjoy!
Side shot =)

Bare belly pic=)


I go back to the OB on Wednesday for another follow up appointment, and should have another update at that time. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!.

Yet another OB appointment!

So we had an appointment with the OB today to follow up from the peri appointment yesterday. Turns out my OB was called in for an emergency C section, so he wasn't around to see me, so I saw his PA instead. The girls continue to look great on the ultrasound! They are both measuring pretty darn close now on this ultrasound machine as well, and I'm guessing that's because baby Brianna has flipped head down and it's harder to get accurate measurements on her. Their weights at the OB today were:

Baby A - AKA Olivia - 4 lbs 15 oz

Baby B - AKA Brianna - 4 lbs 12 oz

Either way the PA wasn't concerned about the girls at all and said they were doing great! Baby Olivia actually has her cord wrapped around her neck once, but the PA wasn't concerned at this point and says it's pretty common. Hopefully it doesn't stay that way though. . .I can imagine that could become problematic during delivery!

So, the babies are doing well. YAY. Momma though. . .well. . .I'm having a LOT of swelling - my feet, ankles, and legs - all huge and full of fluid. And I can't get it to go down. I have gained a ton of weight in the last month - nearly 25 lbs - and my blood pressure has gone up some too, so now they are concerned about preeclampsia. They are having me do some additional blood work in the morning and are having me do a 24 hour urine (yuck)! I go back to see them Thursday afternoon for a recheck and to discuss the results of the blood work and 24 hour urine test, and then I am scheduled to come in again on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. They are keeping a very close eye on me at this point.

So, we are keeping on a trucking here! 34 weeks 1 day, and overall doing pretty darn well! Hope you are doing well too!!!

OB and Perinatologist visits

Just a quick refresher - last Monday we ended up in L&D again because I was having contractions (again). They gave me two shots of terbutaline and sent me home with procardia and instructions to follow up with my OB on Thursday. I said I would post an update if anything "exciting" came out of our OB appointment on Thursday, and then I didn't post a thing! Well. . .

The OB does an ultrasound of the girls at every visit. I have been noticing for the last several visits that there is a pretty decent size difference between Baby A and Baby B. At the scan on Thursday this was confirmed -

Baby A - AKA - Baby Olivia - 4 lbs 12 oz (up from 4 lbs 10 oz 10 days prior)
Baby B - AKA - Baby Brianna - 5 lbs 10 oz (up from 5 lbs 4 oz 10 days prior)

As you can see, not only is there a decent size difference between the two babies, baby Olivia only grew 2 oz in 10 days. She should have grown at least 6 oz (like her sister did). She fell from being in the 70th percentile down to the 41st percentile. My OB decided to refer us to the perinatologist for a second opinion.

The perinatologist got us in for a second opinion crazy fast! First thing this morning in fact. I went in with a ton of questions and expecting bad news. I knew that if baby Olivia didn't pick up on the growth that they would consider delivering me early as she may be better able to thrive outside of momma's uterus instead of in it. I was fully prepared to talk to the peri about our options. BUT. . . according to his ultrasound machine and fancy equipment the girls are measuring very close. .

Baby A - AKA - Baby Olivia - 4 lbs 11 oz (42nd percentile)
Baby B - AKA -Baby Brianna - 4 lbs 12 oz (43rd percentile)

So, Baby Brianna flipped yesterday and is now head down too (yay!) and because of this they had a bit more difficult of a time getting accurate measurements on her, BUT, they were still sure that their weights were pretty darn close. I understand that ultrasound weights can be off at this point - up to a lb off even - but my OB personally does my ultrasounds with his own two hands, and on the same ultrasound machine each time. If there was that much of a size discrepancy, he didn't make it up! I'm so confused! I mean, I'm thrilled that the girls are doing well and are so close in weights, I just don't understand how it's possible that my OB could have been THAT far off!

We go back to the OB tomorrow evening, and he will do another u/s then. I'm curious to see what he has to say about the visit with the specialist and the difference in u/s measurements because I'm just perplexed! Oh, and my OB checked me on Thursday when I was in - 50% effaced still not dilated. Woo hoo=).

Now we are taking guesses as to when these little princesses will be entering the world. . .my guess? 35w2d. . .so 9 days from now. It probably isn't right - I haven't guessed anything correctly about this pregnancy yet! Why start now? LOL! The specialist today told me he expects me to go to 38 weeks. . .this was two weeks after my OB said that he was positive I wouldn't make it to 37 weeks. Who is right??? Want to guess?? I have guesses in for October 5th (me), October 7th (Aunt Chris), October 10th (Aunt Denise and Sarah Dee), and October 14th (my mom) so far=)

Anyway, I will update again after my OB appointment tomorrow. Hope you all are doing well!

33 Week Update and Pictures =)

Hello! It's been a little crazy around here for the last week, so I didn't have a chance to post belly pics or anything last week. That's okay though, because I have enough pictures this week to make up for it!

First, on Wednesday my grandma brought down the baby quilts that she made for the girls. I LOVE them!! Here are a couple of pictures of them=)

This is Baby Olivia's quilt


This is a close up of the center of Baby Olivia's quilt


This is Baby Brianna's quilt


This is a close up of Baby Brianna's quilt


Si was out of town in Baltimore all weekend for a friend's wedding. I wasn't allowed to go for obvious reasons (I'm ginourmous and pregnant and the OB was worried that the change in cabin pressure on a plane could cause my water to break). I was a MESS while he was gone. Pregnancy hormones are nuts!!!

So Si got back Sunday and the girls were very patient and waited until about noon on Monday to start acting up. Contractions. . .about every 10 minutes. . .starting at noon. I called the OB and he told me to come on in to his office and they would do a NST (Non Stress Test) and make sure the babies were okay. We figured it would take an hour, two hours max. Well, we got to the OB's office and it turns out that the NST machine that they have does a cruddy job with twins, so we needed to go to L&D (labor and delivery) at the hospital instead to be monitored. Sigh. The only cruddy thing about going to the hospital to be checked out is it takes FOREVER! So we went, we were checked, and 6 hours later we were released to go home. We were having contractions of course, and my uterus is nice and irritable. They gave me two shots of terbutaline to reduce the contractions, checked my cervix (still thick, high, and closed - YAY), and sent me home with procardia to take at home to continue to attempt to keep the contractions at bay. We are supposed to go back in and see the OB on Thursday to make sure all is well, no cervical changes, etc.

We have another wedding this weekend, and Si is the best man (his brother's wedding), and we are hoping for a nice quiet uneventful weekend. Fingers crossed!! Stay put and stay quiet little ladies!

The only other thing I have is we were slacking last week and didn't take any belly pics, so I made sure that we took some tonight. Here are some pictures of 33 week preggo momma for your viewing pleasure=).
Here's a couple of side views. . .



Here is a bare belly pic - getting bigger by the second!


Here is a picture of my swollen ankles and feet! Yuck!


If I find out anything interesting at my OB appointment on Thursday I will make sure to post it! Otherwise. . .until next week. . .hope you have a great one!!! =)