5 and 6 weeks old

I didn't get around to posting last week so this week is a combined 5 and 6 week old update.  My sweet baby girls are getting bigger by the day and I don't know how I feel about.  I told Matt last week that finally in my life I'm not living in the future but rather in the moment.  For the last few years or practically my whole life I have always looked to the future... To the "what's next month, what's next year, what is the next big thing to happen, etc." but for now I'm living, in the moment, taking one day at a time and I'm totally ok with it.  

I have thought about the future a little bit.  When and how long will our next baby or babies take.  Will we try next year naturally or will we skip that route and head straight down the in vitro route. I'm giving myself one year at least and then on to baby making whatever that road may be.  

The girls had their 1 month checkup last week and they both are doing great.  They both are 21.75 inches long.  Maddie weighed 7.8 lbs and Emma weighed 7.7 lbs.  so needless to say my breast combo / formula is working.  They needed to gain 19 oz and they gained 18 !  So albeit they are little and only in the 6-7% for their weight they are gaining weight just as they should. 

So how is life?  6 weeks of having twins and well we are surviving.  My mom came to help after Maddie was in the hospital.  I really needed the hell then to get back on my feet.  I've been trying as hard as I can to solely do everything but once I get behind its hard to catch up.  Feeding and holding these girls is a full time job, then throw grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, time with my hubby, and a little me time and it's a packed packed schedule.  I'm used to having a lot of down time but we don't have much of that these days.  Hence why the blog post is so late.  

So I bet your wondering.... Life with twins... How is it.  Well honestly it's great and then it's not.  When it's great it's great and when it's not it's not.  The hardest part is when both babies are crying and I (or Matt) have to console two and like babies they just keep crying!!!  Sometimes I think it's because I'm breastfeeding them and don't produce enough milk so they are hungry.  Then j get mad at myself because I don't want to give them formula yet my boobs are empty because they have literally sucked them flat and I'm tired of hearing them cry.  These are the bad days.  And the good, oh my heavens are they good.  The girls cuddle, they play, they smile, they nurse, and they barely cry.  But that's not reality of one baby not two.  So just like any new mom I am riding the roller coaster of trying to decipher which baby is crying, what she meds, chasing binkies in mouths, and totally overwhelmingly loving all of it!    Here are some pictures because I know how much you all love the pictures ! 

Melt my heart... They were holding each other to sleep.  They do that a lot. 

They are getting much more alert so we have play time on the play mat. 

Hehe

Sleeps like her mommy... Mouth wide open!  (It's Emma)

And this one ... She is looking more and more like Matt.  (It's Maddie) 

Maddies 1st Hospital Visit

Poor baby girl... Maddie had a bit of a hoarse raspy cry earlier in the week.  I had called my pediatrician and they told me that as long as she wasn't running a fever to just watch her.  Well she was fine until Thursday evening.  She felt hot to me so I took her temperature and sure enough 100.5!  

So off we went first to our pediatrician who confirmed yes she did and we would need to go to the ER.  

We saw a real nice Doctor, Dr. Kim and he layed out the plan for me.  Newborns with fevers is not something to ignore so they would admit her for 48 hours, run a bunch of tests, and give her antibiotics.  

She did great maybe better than mom.  I definitely cried when she had to stay and they told me her sister could not stay the night.  I've never been away from them for more than 15 minutes so I had major anxiety about my baby leaving me.  Thank god Matt was a rockstar and took Emma home and safely returned her to me in the morning.  I'm learning very quickly how nice it is to have a hands on husband who likes newborns because some dads would have totally panicked.  

Thankfully everything thus far is negative do after 48 hours we were able to go home.  She had a lumbar puncture and had no signs of meningitis, a urine culture hitch confirmed no uti, and blood work which indicated a viral infection.  

We are home now, resting and cuddling. 

Post Baby Body Blues

It's only been one month but I'm feeling a little sad about my post baby body.  Yes I did just spend 10 months nurturing and carrying twins but I'm having a hard time looking in the mirror and smiling.  I'm sure with time I'll start to feel better but right now... All I see is yuck.  

I tried so hard to not get stretch marks but the last month of pregnancy really did a number on my stomach.  I don't need to have the tightest and most toned body but the amount of skin that's hanging right now I'm just not used to.  

Here was my tummy 1 day before giving birth .... And yes it is rather large... A perfect beach ball

And here is my tummy today... 

I am sure some of you reading this, that have had kids, know exactly what this looks and feels like.  I'm sure I will eventually embrace the cat scratch marks or baby battle wounds as I call them but it's hard to feel "beautiful" in a body that does not look like it did a few months back.  Thank god Matt has been supportive and keeps encouraging me to not dwell on it and see what I look like in 1 year.  I'll keep you all in the loop... until then I just needed to vent and complain about the ugly that goes with having twins or babies in general.  On a positive note I wouldn't trade them for the world !! 

4 weeks old

Holy moly we actually made it 1 month as parents to twins.  My actual thoughts of raising twins thus far is.... It's just as easy as having one and then all of a sudden I realize wait NOPE it's not.  

So what makes it different.... Two to feed, two to console, two to change, two to burp, two to hold, two of ... Well Everything!  It's definitely getting easier in some days but harder on others.  I told Matt this morning that this far the feeding at night time is the hardest part I have encountered so far.  I haven't given up on breastfeeding yet (yay go me!) but my milk is definitely a lot less at night so I still have to feed and supplement with formula at night sometimes one feeding up to three.  It can take any where from 40 minutes to 1 hour 45 ish minutes.  It's gotten a little longer rather than shorter because now they fall asleep for about 5 minutes or so acting like they have gotten enough and then bang, like I got hit in the face, they start to scream and cry and out comes ninja moving mom to make two bottles as fast as she can.  

Oh and did I mention the meltdowns.  Oh my word.  These girls are going to learn to be patient eventually.  They literally scream as loud as they can while I change their diapers before I feed them.  At first it bothered me, now I just tune it out.  

As far as 2 month milestones and memories... Well they love to eat, love to sleep, and LOVE to be cuddled.  It does tug at my heart that I can't always hold two but when I can I hold one. 

We are trying to live life as best as we can but always when I go out in public the comments, smiles, stares, and stories come out.  My favorite from last week.. While in Meijer two older women both looked at me and said " oh my my do you have your hands full" as I pushed the girls and pulled a cart.  And this week a guy asked me if these were my first and last kids.  I chuckled and told him no... We still want more, 4 to be exact (however Matt only wants 3).  

We went on another road trip!  We went to our friends cottage.  We didn't spend the night but spent the whole day there.  The girls did great except for the end of the evening.  Then holy melt down.  We left about 2 hours too late.  Thank god our friends were understanding and helped out as much as they could.  

The girls are growing and getting big.  They have their one month appointment soon and we will see how big they have grown!!   

3 weeks old

Maddie, Emma, and I survived our first week without daddy.  Matt went back to work and I navigated my first week as a SAHM (stay at home mom).  For those wondering will I go back to work as a nurse the answer is yes and no.  I physically am not going to be traveling back to the city to be in the office but time permitting am going to try to work from home for a little bit (if I can do it with the demand of twins).  I worked really hard for my nursing license and do not want to lose my knowledge.  I also worked really hard for these little ones too so I'm having an internal battle of what to do.  Time will tell what my heart and sanity tell me to do.  

So what did we do... Well eat, sleep, poop, and play of course.  I live my life in three hour blocks right now.  The girls feed every three hours and to feed them in total it takes about 1-1.5 hours so it doesn't leave me with a lot of time to do stuff.  So since I'm limited to leaving the house I did treat myself and start walking around my neighborhood to get some exercise.  18 pounds to go from the 55 I gained (thank you fluid and babies) so rather than my crazy marathon running days I'll continue walking just with two babies in tow now.  

 Dreaming about their daddy.  

You might have read that and thought 1.5 hours to feed.. Yikes.  You bet yikes and double yikes in the middle of the night. I'm trying to breastfeed the girls but I'm having a bit of a hard time keeping up with the demand so in addition to breastfeeding super slow eaters I'm also bottle feeding and pumping breatmilk at the same time... It's quite the process.  Just call me the milk maid.  It's sometimes very frustrating because I would have plenty to feed one baby just currently not enough to feed two babies all day long but I'm trying.  I've only cried a few times but when that happens I take a deep breath and remind myself it's ok to bottle feed them.  If you haven't learned from my blog by now if I put my mind to it... I'm going to try EVERYTHING possible to try make it work.  So to increase my supply I've been feeding frequently, drinking mothers milk tea (woof it tastes awful), taking fenugreek supplements, and eating/drinking foods to hopefully help increase my supply.  I've seen an increase and rather than needing to bottle feed after every feed I supplement only half of the feedings now.   This is one area where I am realizing two babies are much harder than one.  I don't want to include a picture ... I'm not into showing my boobs to the public but if you're wondering how I feed the girls I tandem breast feed them and oh my is it a sight.  If you're reading this and have twins I'd highly recommend he twin-z-pillow!  

Besides eating the girls did some tummy time and played with their floor mat.... We had more visitors this week, and even went out for lunch with a girlfriend of mine.  

Sometimes I hold one and the other sleeps!

To end our first week we had a special great and were able to travel back to Michigan this weekend to see more family.  Of course we had to dress up and pretend they were enjoying Grandma Renee and Grandpa Bob's pool.  I remember when I bought these little suits and thought to myself, oh my these suits are so tiny... And now they are literally "swimming" in them.  We also went to Lake Michigan and enjoyed a beautiful sunset.  

Some of our cousins. 

That was pretty much our week except for two doctors appointments mine and theirs.  The girls are gaining weight Emma was 6.4 pounds and Maddie was 6.6 pounds and we will have our 1 month checkup soon.  How time goes fast!!! 

 A quick stroll in Mimi and papas new baby buggy!!! More cousins!!

2 weeks old

  

Well we survived another week as parents... Of twins.  Although twins are a lot of work we are loving every minute of it and if I do say so myself doing pretty well at this new parenting gig.  

We've had some good laughs this week... I'll share my top moments!

1.  Tired parents in the middle of the night sometimes hallucinate!  Matt and I both have experienced what I call "the phantom baby"... Matt and I both sleep holding or hugging a pillow.  3 times now for me I've woken up with the pillow in my arms, sat up fast, and then gently set the pillow down because I didn't know if it was a baby.  I wasn't sure if I forgot to put a baby in the bassinet or if it was just a pillow.  Matt tops mine when I asked him in the middle of the night if both babies were in the bassinet and He replied and told me one was on his chest as he pulled the pillow up and tried to explain the baby was under it... Thank god she was not and both babies were sound asleep.

2.  Whenever we go out... The twin comments never stop.  "Oh twins!! They are so cute."  Some lady who was checking out at the register literally left her lane running after Matt shouting "sir, sir, stop I want to see the babies."  We got a pretty good chuckle out of that one.  And anyone and everyone will tell us how they have a friend, cousin, etc. with twins.  We just nod our head and politely say that's great!!

3. Type A personalities and babies can be challenging.  Matt and I both have gotten mad at each other.... And both laughed after and mad up.  Matt first got

Mad at me for "screwing up the feeding order". We have a routine at night... Change diaper, breastfeed baby, bottle

Feed if necessary, burp, put back to bed.  Well one night I fed befor I changed a diaper and it was not a good flow and poor little Emma was up for an extra 30-45 minutes... Needless to say the boss aka Matt was not to thrilled.  So I've not

Made that mistake again.  Another night I got mad at Matt for intentionally ignoring the babies cry while I made a bottle.  Needless to say he was sleeping and did not hear a single cry so I got mad at him for nothing.  It will only the beginning of our madness but best of all we can turn back and laugh!  

That's all for the funny moments but each day and week seems to be going faster and faster.  The girls are still getting weekly weight checks since they are not quite at their birth weight and a little less than the ideal weight gain.  Last Monday they were both 5.9 lbs.  We go back Wednesday to see how much they have gained.