Category: Uncategorized

In the midst of twins

Arthur and Lewis are doing well. Right now I feel like Jessica and I each have our own role. She’s taking care of our new twin girls and I’m doing my best to keep Art and Lew’s life normal or at least close to. Art already seems to be in a little less control of his body, but he also hasn’t napped for three days straight. Alot of places to go and new really big things to think about for his little self.

Jessica was reading in a twins book (or perhaps just a baby book?) about how it feels good for Art and Lewis when people continue to ask about their lives and what they’re doing and not just about what they think of their new sisters. I  just want them to feel like they’re still important and thoughtful and everything isn’t just about these two new strangers invading their formerly peaceful home.

Art’s preschool Willow will be a wonderful constant for him. There, nothing will change. His friends, the attention he gets. It’s a constant. Here’s a recent post his teacher and our friend Jen made on the school blog:

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Today was such a big play day. There were at least 6 major castles built. 5 books read. The animal stacking game was played about 6 times. The magnets were played with by 3 kids. Dyed our golden capes. The colored pyramid blocks were played with with all day long in rotation. Soleil played with the train for a good hour. I checked in with her at least 6 times. It’s all she wanted to do. Well she did take a break for snack, but went right over after snack. Art and Si built this today and I asked them what it was and they said it was “so they couldn’t fight each other.”
It was a beautiful preschool day. It was full of friends and games and fun.

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Anyway, as I was telling Jessica earlier tonight when I slipped off to the hospital while Bubbe fixed dinner for the kids–I miss the girls and look forward to getting to know them better. I actually haven’t spent much time with them and have instead stayed at home and put Art and Lew to bed stuff. So it’ll be great when they come home tomorrow. I know Arthur and Lewis are really looking forward to it, too. Lewis asked about them and wanted to make sure they were coming home.

Birth acknowledgements…

Hello world from the proud birther of VBAC twins!  (One by breech extraction, no less!!!)  I am enjoying a precious moment of quiet with the two sleeping girls.  I just got up from a nap myself and now that I have a moment wanted to say something to my fans…

Well, actually, I really do want to say something.  First of all, I am super proud of how it all played out.  Proud that I was in a hospital that would let me, pregnant with TWINS, do a vaginal birth after two cesareans (I'm a little bit of a birthing celebrity among the team here).  Proud that I DID IT!!  I'm grateful that the old scars stayed intact, grateful that the team knew how and was willing to pull the second baby out by her feet, grateful that they were able to revive her breathing once she out.  I'm grateful that they let me in at all!  When I started labor the midwife unit was  technically "closed".  They had already sent more than one mom to another hospital because they were at capacity, but they squeaked me in because, as my night nurse told me, they were afraid that the other hospital would not let me try the VBAC.  (She said that when I called to say I was in labor and that I was expecting it to go fast she put me on hold and the team had a little pow-wow about where they would put me and how they'd work it out.)  I'm so thankful and proud that my cousin Cait was there.  When I was in the throws of it I would remember that Cait was in the room and I was proud that my strong, beautiful cousin was a witness to something that was so hard to do and special and cool.  It was great!
Of course I am very thankful that the stars aligned and the babies were able to reach full term and the VBAC was successful.  It all went without much of a hitch, and I do not take that for granted.  My sister is probably waitiing to hold her premature baby in the special care unit right now or pumping so that little Charlotte can have some breastmilk.  And Emily is no less capable or willing to carry a baby to term or birth non-surgically than I am.  The cards played differently for her.  This time around my best efforts got me to full term.  Thank goodness Emily put in her best efforts, too.  She carried her baby to almost 34 weeks despite dangerously low fluid, staying on strict bedrest in the hospital in addition to at home, and now, only four days old, Charlotte is breathing without assistance and getting more and more skin to skin time with her parents every day.  I'm so happy to hear about every step Emily and Mike take closer to getting Charlotte hold with them.  You guys are doing great.
But as proud as I am of birthing these twins I must say I could not have done the great incubating I had done without Ben.  Really.  Ben made it possible for me to take a nap EVERY DAY, even if it meant being late to work or juggling kids or being super sleepy himself.  He helped me eat a lot and made me lots of hard boiled eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches and protein shakes and even got me a family size gallon of ice cream so every shake could be amply spiked with ice cream.  He got up with kids morning after morning so I could get more sleep, excused me of all night time cleaning up, emptied the dishwasher every time and cleaned the kitchen every night, brought laundry up and down–and anything else that I pointed at…  He just gave me the space, the time and support so I could focus on growing big, healthy twins.  And whenever I felt bad about him running himself ragged he reminded me that my job was to "grow those babies" and not to worry about it.  I really don't think they would have gotten so big and healthy or stayed in so long if they weren't given all that extra focus allowed by Ben.  Thank you so much, Ben.  You are my teammate and my real love.  
So this is my Acknowledgements page in the book about our family.  I've been alone most of the time here at the hospital while Ben has tried to give the boys a "normal" day before the babies come home (another sacrifice – he has spent precious few hours alone with his daughters since they were born yesterday morning) so I've lots of time to feel warm and fuzzy about everything.  I'm just really happy.  Everybody's babies are out and we can all start the long journey of becoming new families.  
I just can't stop smiling about it all.

Some photos from today.

The boys hold a baby for the first time. They were super excited for this moment. I took some lovely video that I hope to post in the next few days.

Art must have told us three or four times that he really wanted his baby to wake up so she could see him. He even tried a manual start…

Bubbe and a baby.

“Papa, look at her face when I do this.”

My brother Josh and his wife Ashley stopped by do see and smell the girls.

Birth photos.

Jessica’s cousin Cait took these wonderful photos of birth this morning. Jessica will write a little more over the next few days about the birth, but some brief notes. Labor started around 6:45am Friday morning and took four hours. Jessica had c-sections for Art and Lew and she was hoping to have a normal birth with the twins. And she did it! She did it all by herself. They had paged the fellow who gives epidural but he didn’t get the page and by the time he actually arrived Jessica was already pushing–beyond the safe time for an epidural. I was actually sorta pissed but in the end it worked out for the better I think. I think Jessica was really happy
to have done it all on her own. I can’t tell you how impressed and proud of her I am.

And the babies are doing really great. Nursing and sleeping well. As Bubbe mentioned, birth with twins happened with such less complications than Art or Lew. What a fun surprise!

Art and Lew visited today with Bubbe. They each held a baby and I took some lovely little video. Art so badly wanted his girl to open her eyes but she was fast asleep. He tried to manually pry them but it didn’t work. He did get a nice scrunched up face and a squeak.

Still chugging along.

I had another check-up today. I weigh 185 pounds! My fundus/uterus measurement is 46cm and the babies are still one head down, one across the top, sideways. On Monday, if I indeed make it that far, they will discuss induction since they don’t like twin pregnancies to go much longer than 38 weeks, which I will be then. But for now I am just a walking, ticking time bomb.

Ben and Lewis came to my midwife appointment and Lewis wanted to sit on the table with me.

Then I laid back so the midwife could feel the babies’ position and measure and listen, but first my uterus decided to demonstrate its contraction powers!  Power belly!

Tonight I was in full force, unloading the dishwasher, cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, taking potty chair contents up the stairs and then again, and again… And then at night I inevitably start to get a little anxious, hoping I’m going into labor for this reason or that.  I’ve been losing a little too much sleep over it the last couple nights.  Ben said, “At least if they babies were born you’d be losing sleep with a purpose!”  He’s right.  

Jessica’s Chinese Kitchen delivers!

The other night, my first night officially Full Term, I made Chinese Feast at our house. A three course meal including sweet and sour cabbage, snap peas with water chestnuts and pork in chiles. After we ate as a family and enjoyed the wok hay (fresh seared taste from the high heat) I packed up two ceramic dinner trays for Em and Mike at the hospital. Oh what fun! I couldn’t wait to present their dinners in such a silly and fun way! And the next day they had a baby. Woo hoo!