Make Sure They Are Breathing!

We usually get both babies to sleep in their beds sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 at night. I know, it seems late, but we are still counting the sleep between 6:30ish and 8:30ish as a nap. We could do bedtime after the ~6:30 feeding, but we've tried and they fight us pretty hard at that time.

Our nights are starting to transition from up every three hours (feeding for one of those which means we get two hour stretches) to more consistently getting a three to four hour stretch of sleep beginning at 11:00 and then up every three hours until morning. It is amazing how wonderful a three to four hour sleep feels when we had been living on a series of naps for weeks on end. By the way, we are following 'one up, both up' for feedings. There is no way we could survive feeding one, sleeping for a half hour, feeding the other which could go right into feeding the first one again, and so on. So, when one wakes up hungry they both get fed.

This past Saturday night, or technically early Sunday, I woke from a sound slumber to Chris shaking my arm saying with a slight panic in his voice, "What should we do?!" 

Me: What do you mean? 

Chris: Em, look at the time

Me: *roll over, look at the clock: 3:56* What? Have you been up tending to them?

Chris: No. Have you?

Me: No. This is crazy.

Chris: Right, so what should we do?
Me: Go make sure they are breathing!! 

Chris: *flies out of bed and comes back* Well, they appear to be fine. 

Me: Good, then we should just go back to sleep

And back to sleep we went until 5:45am. That's right - seven hours. BOTH babies slept for a seven hour stretch. It was heavenly and I'm praying for more nights like that. 

More Smiles!

We caught Kate smiling on camera this morning! Here she is:



We also got a new comment this afternoon. We were at Costco, I was pushing the stroller with the two car seats and Chris had the shopping cart. The lady handing out cereal bar samples stopped me and said the usual, "Oh, twins!" Then she says, "Are these your trainers?" What? Trainers? I was honestly trying to figure what she meant and drew a blank. "Um...I'm not sure what you mean?" Lady: "You know, your trainer children. Are these your first?" Yes they are. "Well, then they are your training children." Alright. Have a nice day.

A Visit to the RE's Office

We brought the babies to the RE's office to see Dr. NFB, our IVF nurse, and the rest of the staff yesterday. It was really fun to see them. I'm so glad they had us come at their lunch hour because we would have felt really uncomfortable walking into a waiting room full of patients with two infants. On our way out, Dr. NFB jokingly asked us if we are having more kids. As we both looked up at her to find out if our no-funny-business doctor was being funny she said, "oh, bad timing for that question?" with a huge smile on her face. :-)

It is surreal to know that we had already taken Kate & Harrison home from that office once - as 8 & 10 cell embryos - and now we were walking out with those same babies in car seats. Amazing.

Smiles!

We have now seen smiles from both Kate and Harrison!

Harrison started giving us hints of a smile last week and then clearly gave us reactive smiles on Saturday, 9/8. He is also starting to make noises and coo back at us. He noticed himself in the mirror above the swing and will smile at his reflection. Kate joined the party yesterday, 9/11, and gave me four reactive smiles in a row while we were playing on the floor. This is really fun and I look forward to more interaction with them. I was able to catch Harrison smiling on video (link below) and will work on getting a video of Kate soon. For now, enjoy our little guy:

An Encounter Outside Labor & Delivery

My OB's office is located at the hospital where we delivered. We were there last Friday for my 6 week postpartum check up and brought the babies to meet the staff. The appointment ran long so Chris had to dial into a meeting before we could get back into the car. While he was on his call, I walked the hospital hallways with the babies in the stroller praying that they wouldn't scream. I've given up praying for them to sleep. I wish I looked like the put-together-mom, but in reality I was wearing maternity jeans on an 85 degree day, going on 4.5 hours of broken sleep, and on-edge waiting for the ticking time bombs in the stroller to go off as I held a pacifier in Harrison's mouth with one hand and pushed the stroller with the other hand.

I walked past the elevators to the labor & delivery unit just as a clearly new dad loaded with bags and flowers got off. He saw us and said with curious eyes, "How old are your twins?" I said 6 weeks today. The excited dad then says, "We just had twins, too! We are bringing them home today! How is it?!" I looked at the eagerness in his eyes, saw that he was expecting me to tell him that it's wonderful and all I could get out was, "Uh....er....exhausting. [quick, think of something positive] But great. It's really great." The new dad was not phased at all. He said, "Cool!", and continued bouncing down the hallway. As I watched the kick in his step, I wanted to tell him that the only way he's walking with that much energy in the next six weeks is to get two wailing babies out of the grocery store. But he'll figure that out on his own.

Catching-up

I have not had a chance to update my blog since the babies were born. Newborn twins are hard! If I'm lucky enough to get both to sleep during the day then I have a small window to do things like run a load of laundry or eat without a baby or two on me. And sometimes I just enjoy cuddles with a sleeping baby. If it's between the hours of 9pm and 6am, we attempt to sleep.

Anyway, we are just starting to settle into somewhat of a routine and I'm hoping to get a bit of time here and there to keep documenting our adventures. I'll go back and fill in posts as I have time, but for now I'm just starting off with current goings on.

July 27: Happy Birthday, Brown Twins!

The babies were born Friday night, July 27! I'll post more details later...for now I'm lucky to have both mostly asleep and one hand free to type. We are both so very much in love with these tiny little ones.

Harrison Ronald Brown
10:11 pm
6lb 4oz
18 inches

Katherine Elizabeth Brown
10:52 pm
5lb 9oz
18 inches

Harrison & Katherine - 07.27

Harrison - 07.30

Katherine - 07.29

37 weeks: Still Pregnant!

Wow, I never thought we'd make it this far, but here we are - just over 37 weeks pregnant with our busy babies. I had two non-stress tests last week and both babies passed quickly. We also had an OB appointment and everything continues to look great. Our next step is to try to talk these babies into arriving very soon. If they don't, they are getting the boot at the end of the week.

We are so ready to meet these little ones, but there are definitely parts of pregnancy that we'll miss. One of them is sitting on the couch at night watching them move all over. One thing we won't miss is being a spectacle every time we go out in public. We usually make a bet with each other before going in somewhere on how many comments will be made. On Saturday, we went out for our last date night pre-kids. We did not get out unscathed.

We walked in to the restaurant and Chris told the hostess our name and reservation time. Her mouth dropped open and she finally managed to say, "uh...inside or out?" Inside. She led the way to the table and walked between two occupied tables to get to ours. Chris and the hostess slide through fine. I, however, could not. What does one normally do when they cannot fit straight through? Turn sideways. I tried this and quickly realized that was a mistake. The lady at one table started frantically telling her husband to pull in his chair and the lady at the other table just sat there with her mouth open. Ok, cool. I found another route...while everyone inside the restaurant watched. This included one table where three people who previously had their back to me turned around. Awkward. We sat down and the hostess had to come back to ask our name to cross us off the reservations list. Seriously? Apparently "pregnancy brain" hit her hard.

Anyway, we enjoyed our dinner and before standing up to leave I checked that the runway to the exit was clear. It was, but we had to pass through the bar to get out. When we got to the bar, one guy in a group of people gives me the once over and says very loudly, "Oh my god." Which of course makes everyone else look, too. He must have repeated, "Oh my god" four times before we reached the door. THEN he says to his party, "Did you see how big that girl was?" Um, douche bag, this girl still has two working ears. And this cannot possibly be the craziest thing you've ever seen.

We laughed all the way to the car and stopped at the grocery store to pick up ice cream and tylenol PM on the way home (I just now realize how cliche that sounds - ice cream and drugs. For the record, Chris wanted the ice cream and he picked out the flavor).

37w1d

With Chris!!! Date night!
Notice my use of the hand of the top of the hip?
It's supposed to make you look slimmer in pictures.
Thought I'd give it a try this week. It didn't work.

36 weeks: Ice cream!!

I'm thrilled and honestly, surprised, to still be pregnant! I had read and heard so many stories of complications and early deliveries with twins that I assumed that would be us, too. Not to mention I started having braxton hicks contractions at 17 weeks. However, all is going really well. Don't get me wrong, I'm physically tired and have a lot of standard end-of-pregnancy discomforts, but I don't have any health problems and I'm fine to go out to eat and run errands. Now if I could just do those things without random stranger comments. Yesterday a lady grabbed my hand and prayed a blessing for the babies. At least she didn't touch my belly...?

We had our last growth scan on Wednesday and the MFM said everything looks fine with the babies. The tech snagged a few pics, but the babies are too big and just look squished. Next time we see them, it will be in person!

Baby A
Sex: Boy
Position: Vertex (head-down)
Heart rate: 139
Estimated weight: 5lbs 15oz

Baby B
Sex: Girl
Position: Oblique, but still mostly head down (she's on a diagonal - yes, my belly is lopsided)
Heart rate: 140
Estimated weight: 5lbs 3oz

The 36 week NST went really fast and the OB appointment went well. She said I'm 50% effaced and 2+cm dilated.

Back to the title of this post. At the beginning of the pregnancy, Chris made a deal with the babies that if they stayed in until 36 weeks, they could have ice cream. If they didn't, I guess they couldn't have ice cream until they were out on their own as adults. :-) For the past six months we have been telling the babies they can't come yet because they haven't earned their ice cream. On Friday, July 13th, they made it! Unfortunately, they have to wait a little bit longer before they are allowed to eat ice cream, but they don't know what they are missing yet. I will continue to eat it for all three of us.

36w1d

35 weeks down/35 days to go!

Well, 35 days to get to 40 weeks, but they will likely come earlier than that. Based on the last appointment with my OB, she is aiming for evicting them around 38 weeks if they haven't come on their own. There are several different opinions on the matter, but some studies show risks start increasing around 38 weeks for twins. The human uterus is really only made to carry one baby. After a while, it just cannot fully support the nutritional needs of two babies. For some twin moms, this point occurs earlier and is evident by slower or no growth in the babies. This is why we go in for growth scans with the maternal-fetal medicine specialist every four weeks. My ideal situation would be to go into spontaneous labor at 37-38 weeks, but I don't think I can mind control this one. :-)

I was 2cm dilated and 25% effaced last Friday at 35w0d, although this really means nothing as far as labor timing. We have our last growth scan with the MFM this coming Wednesday. That's about it for now!

35w0d
Taken just before some guy buying socks in Costco asked me when
I was going to have 'that thing'. When I said, "A couple of weeks," he replied,
"Well, I'd say you are going to have 'that thing' any minute."
Thanks, Doctor! Oh, and stop calling my babies That Thing.