We can sleep when we are dead... sure!

oh boy....

Talk about exhausting- having twins at home.  We brought Mila home about 11 days ago and she is doing great.  So is Sebby (Sebastian).  They are precious, adorable, perfect, beautiful and all those other fluffy adjectives to describe newborn miracles.  My DH and I have helped each other out with the late night feedings, changings and cries but it primarily is in my court.  Since I am now at home just four weeks after giving birth to them and he works a more than full time job here in Omaha.  I find it very hard to get much sleep even between their feedings. As you see below- they are SUPER CUTE! :)

This is how we have it laid out for the most part thanks to the guidance of those helpful RN's in the NICU at Methodist Women's Hospital:

• wake each child slowly by changing their diapers if they are not already waking up and do so about every 3-4 hours- typically we are being told by the twins they are ready just before three hours
• then prepare their bottles by warming them in a steam bottle warmer and feed them

This process is a good 20 minutes for the feeding as the nurses taught us that over 20 minutes of feeding is too much for newborns as they are then burning more calories than consuming.  The diaper changing, burping and getting them back to sleep could be another 20 minutes.  So, with twins we are spending about a hour or more per feeding time.  This makes it very hard to get myself back to sleep.  I am spent.  I get the baby blues thing now.  Baby blues are the mildest of the levels of sadness felt by 70-80% of new mothers.  I find myself happy one moment and sad the next.  It is just exhausting.

I love my children so much, it's just very very hard to raise them thus far.  Challenging.  I don't know about you but I hear every little coo and grunt they make so I wake easily.  I have found that their binkys can be my worst enemies and after researching the situation of them falling out of the mouths of newborns, I have decided I need to cut back on my use of them.  Pacifiers were given to them in the NICU as they are proven to increase weight gain in preemies by strengthening their sucks early on.  But, when putting them to bed and they have their pacifiers falling out of their mouths- it can become disturbing to them and fast.

Last night (Christmas Eve), Nate stayed up all night and watched the babies.  Why did he stay up all night? Because he was worried he would sleep through a feeding and he knew I needed sleep like something severe.  I actually messed up the spiral ham and the cinnamon apples I made for Christmas dinner on Sunday here at my house for my side of the family.  I was a very grouchy and irritable person that day and it was totally out of my hands and out of my control.  My husband has been working way too much: evenings, days, weekends, holidays for the most part that when he works I am expected to handle the babies both while he sleeps and while away at work.  Of course we have discussed on many occasions how this is not conducive to twin life for new parents who both want to be hands on.  This just makes things more difficult- primarily for me.  I have never felt to selfish as I type this but I am tired.  Sigh.  True story.

Tomorrow the twins are 4 weeks old.  It's crazy.  Very crazy... We spent so much time in the hospital and in the NICU that 4 weeks just flew by.  Mila was released on a Friday weighing 4 lbs 2 ounces I believe and by Monday she was 4 lbs 7 ounces.  Sebastian was at the dr that Friday and was weighed in at 5 lbs and by Monday he had plumped up to 5 lbs 9 ounces.  Their pediatrician said it was better than textbook for both of them.  We waited a full ten years ever so impatiently to start a family and this is exactly what we wanted and wouldn't trade it for the world.  We wouldn't have it any other way.  Just wish it were easier.  We look forward to them sleeping more through the night.  :)

The Twins Arrive in Small Packages

They are here!  

Well, in the NICU but making progress.  They arrived via c-section on Wednesday, November 28th, 2012.  We had went in for an amniocentesis the day before at my perinatal doctors office but realized that Mila was squished up under my right rib and was not growing much anymore.  We skipped the amniocentesis and went ahead with the scheduled cs the next day at noon at the Methodist Women's Hospital in West Omaha. 

When the babies were born they were:

Sebastian Marcus 4 lbs 9 ounces and 17" long, 12:22pm
Mila Lorren 3 lbs 9 ounces and 17" long, 12:23pm

They are healthy, just extremely small.  I will go ahead and blog the rest of the birth story a little later.  Time to go visit them in the NICU.

Our hearts swell.  They are absolutely amazing little turkeys! Ahhh, LOVE! I am complete.

Amniocentesis: Lung Maturity at 36 Weeks

36 weeks? Wow!  Tomorrow is our amniocentesis to check for lung maturity.  If it's positive the scheduled c-section will be the next day at 1:30.  I am very excited for tomorrow. More excited than scared. I did think they would test both the twins but my perinatal doc said we will choose just pick one sac to test.

If the dipstick test shows my protein level is a 1 or 2 they may just do an emergency cesarean section due to preeclampsia.  Up until now I have only had traces of protein spilling over along with several symptoms including high blood pressure, floaters, headaches, anxiety, etc.  My blood pressure is normally low since knocking off 145 pounds but the last few weeks it stiffly teeters on 140/90.

When arriving at my appointment tomorrow they will first be doing the urine test and an ultrasound to find the area where there is easy access to the amniotic sac of either twin.  If the dipstick test is acceptable then it is time to do the amniocentesis.  An amniocentesis is a fast procedure that scares many. Its when a hollow needle is used to drain a small amount of amniotic fluid from the mothers uterus.  The fluid is then tested for cells that can determine the maturity of the unborn child's lungs within an hour.  They will monitor me for about thirty minutes to ensure there are no complications such as water leaking from the amniotic sac or start going into labor.

I'm thinking that by 3/CST we will know if Wednesday, November 28th will be our twins birthday. :-)

Little This & a Little of That (a recap & more)

I find it amazing that I have embarked on the third trimester.  It's been a crazy journey this year.  From traveling to 18 cities in 2 months for work holding back our IVF process to injections, severe all day morning sickness, at home health coming to give me an IV, a lot of time in bed and several appointments-- I now see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I am 27 1/2 weeks along with di/di boy girl twins and proud as any mama can be.  We are both so proud.  Nathan and I wanted children since getting together over ten years ago.  Last October 2011 we started the fertility journey after nightmares in the adoption process were reoccurring.  The last being a local girl pretending to be pregnant with another girls child that she would adopt to us.  We had it.  No more.  Last October we were told that Nathan had no sperm.  We were told that we could not have children together.  THEN we went to Dr. Maud Doherty and our lives changed.

Nathan did a testes biopsy and we found out within 15 minutes that there was hope and swimmers! Yay! Best news ever!  Insurance doesn't cover donor sperm. Boo!  But we no longer had to take that route.  So... our journey began and here we are now.  Just a few short months away from delivering our beautiful twins: Sebastian Marcus and Mila Lorren (me-la lor-ren).  We couldn't be happier.