Hope you all had as nice a one as we did!! More pictures to come!
Friday, December 25, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Lily The Big Sister
A lot of things have changed in Lily's life this past week. With the arrival of our twins, Lily started her new role in life as big sister. It hasn't always been easy, but so far I think the transition has been going better than I expected it would!
We spent the last couple months of my pregnancy talking up the babies to Lily, explaining to her what would be happening, and getting her excited about all the ways she can help out. We always made sure that she was as involved in the pregnancy as possible. She was always excited on days that we went to "the baby doctor", as she came to call my OB. (Oddly enough, on my last OB appointment the day before my induction, Lily out of nowhere was calling my doctor by name! ) Lily loved listening to the babies heart beats and giving my belly kisses. We knew she loved the idea of babies, but weren't sure how she would handle them coming home, and having to share us with the new babies. She was so excited both days we were induced. While leaving ( with me a teary mess because I had never been apart from Lily over night before!) she waved goodbye to us and said "bye Mommy!! Go have babies!!" She really seemed to be excited about the new babies!
After they were born, we were so eager to get home to Lily and introduce her to her new sisters! As soon as we got home, Lily brushed us off and ran straight for the babies. We introduced her to them, and she went back and forth between the two car seats saying "This is Eleanor! This is Violet!!" She was so in love!
Lily holding Ella, caught in her "all done" pose:
In the past week that we have been home, Lily has really shown what a good helper she really can be! She loves to help feed the babies their bottles, and cover them up with their blankets. When they cry, she runs to the bassinet saying "Violet crying!!" And will sometimes try shushing them or singing them a song. She loves helping with diaper changes, because she gets to hand us the diaper and wipes, and then throws out the dirty diaper for us! She just loves being around them! Several times a day she asks to hold the babies by sitting on the couch with her arms out and saying "take the Ella! Take it!!" (we could do without her quickly removing her hands and saying "all done!" whenever they make a peep!) She always wants to know where both babies are, and will repeatedly ask "Where Ella? Where Violet?" until she gets a sustifactory answer. Every morning she looks for them!
Supervising Violet's first time in the swing:
The sweetest thing she has done so far with the girls is count their fingers. She loves to sit next to us and count each finger one at a time. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5! Five tiny fingers!!" She also loves to ticket their feet, and compare her feet to theirs. She's just so gentle with them, and love to give them cuddles and kisses!
Holding Ella Again:
It hasn't all been easy though. We have noticed that while he LOVES her new sisters, she is having a hard time with giving up some of our attention. She's having a hard time with listening to directions and discepline. She's very quick to cry if something isn't going her way. She's been having a hard time at nap and bed time, especially if I can't be there to help her get to sleep because I'm feeding a baby. Hopefully this doesn't last long, and we will all find a balance quickly!
Holding Violet:
We are so proud of how well Lily has taken to her new role though! We had anticipated her being rough and overly jealous of the twins. But for the most part she is just thrilled to have them around...as long as she gets a chance to cuddle with Mommy and Daddy too!
Holding Violet again:
Our new family:
Friday, December 18, 2009
Twins are here!!
Baby A: Eleanor Rose, Born on December 16th at 6:31pm. 7lbs 1.7 oz, 20 inches:
Baby B: Violet Anne, Born on December 16th at 7:27pm. 5lsb 10 oz, 18 inches:
Mommy and Violet:
Daddy and Ella:
Ella:
Daddy with Violet:
Ella:
Ella on the left, Violet on the right:
We're still in the hospital, so our selection of pictures is limited until I get home and have a chance to look at what is on the other camera, but I wanted to get a few pics up for the grandparents, who I know are all eagerly waiting to meet their new granddaughters! When I get the chance I'll write more about their birth and first few days. As of right now, we are all healthy and happy. We are overjoyed with our new family!! Looking forward to Lily finally meeting her new sisters tonight when we go home!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
No babies today...
So after 12 hours at the hospital, with about 9.5 of those on the pitocin, they decided to send me home ! My contractions never got really strong on the pitocin, and I wasn't progressing any, so it was the right decision. I'm disappointed we didn't get to meet our little ones today, but this is better than labor ending in a c/s because of failure to progress! Now I have the opportunity to get some more rest, eat some, and hopefully things will pick up on their own over the next day or so. If not, I'll be going for another nst on Monday, and then a doctors appointment on Tuesday! Pray for us that things get starting on their own this weekend!
Babies Coming Today!
Today is finally the day! We got to the hospital at six this morning, and started the pitocin at eight. Not much going on now, cross your fingers the babies cooperate and everything goes smoothly for us! Next time I post, we'll have two more babies!
Monday, December 7, 2009
NST From Hell, and No Babies Yet!
37 weeks, 6 days pregnant...and still no babies! I can't believe we've made it this far!! The waiting is starting to get to me though. Maybe we'll have babies this week?
Last Friday we had our regular scheduled NST. As usual, I had something sweet before going in to get the babies moving. Friday it was hot chocolate with a little bit of coffee. Right away it was clear to me that this might have been a mistake and stimulated the babies to much. We had a really hard time keeping the babies on the monitors, because they were both moving around so much. A couple of times they took B off the monitors so we could just focus on keeping A on the monitor, who was moving around so much! I had the nurses sitting with me most of the time chasing down A. I was on the monitors for 2+ hours (closer to 3 hours I believe), and during the times we could keep A on the monitors for longer stretches, we could see that A was having a lot of heart beat decelerations. A's baseline heart rate was also lower than it normally is. (normally A's baseline is in the 150's...Friday it was in the 130's when it was steady. When A would have decels, it would get down to 120bpm! ) A's line on the strip kept going up and down like crazy.
This ended up landing me a biophysical profile, which is an u/s where they watch the babies for movement and other things. Of course as soon as I got down their, both babies go to sleep! The u/s ended up taking an hour because we were waiting for them to start moving again for us! Finally they woke up, and the tech was able to get what she needed. I got a couple of exciting things from the u/s. First, we found out baby B is actually head down!!! The body is transverse, which is why the heart beat is high, making us believe B was tranvserse, but the head is down...so really B is in an oblique position. Hopefully this means once A is born, B will just slide into place! Crossing my fingers! A is still head down...with the head very low. She couldn't even get a look at A's face at all. All we could see of A's head was the back of the skull. We got a beautiful picture of B's face though! This is the best picture we've gotten all pregnancy!
I think B looks a lot like Lily already!
They sent me back up to my room, where they wanted me hooked back up to the monitors. At this point I had been at the hospital for 4 hours, and hadn't been able to get in contact with Sean at all, who was outside in the car waiting with Lily! Luckily he had been able to get a call in while I was down getting my u/s, and was filled in by the nurses on what was happening, so he went out to get Lily some dinner.
Before getting hooked back up, my doctor came in to talk to me. They found out on the u/s that baby A has low fluid. This could be the reason A was having decels, and was possibly in distress. She told me that if A was already in distress, labor would make things worse. She started saying that at a minimum she would probably be keep me over night for monitoring. At that point I started thinking I was going to end up with a c-section that night! She also checked me then. I'm now 2cm dilated, 70% effaced, and baby A is still at -1 station. So we've had some progression! I finally got in contact with Sean at this point, and told him to run home and pack our bags! I was convinced we were having babies either that night or the next morning!
Back on the monitors I went, and luckily both babies were looking a lot better now! Baby A stopped having those huge decels, and they were staying on the monitors better now. I was having a lot of contractions at this point though...probably from the stress of this appointment and dehydration. I was contracting about every 3 minutes. They were getting pretty painful too, because I was stuck on my back. Luckily they started spreading out after I got some more water though. I was monitored for another 2 hours, and my doctor was finally relieved enough that Baby A wasn't in distress, so I was able to go home, with instructions to come back the next morning for another nst. I was so relieved to be able to go home that night! For a while I really thought they would be coming that night, and we were not prepared at home at all! This was the kick in the butt we needed to finally get my bags packed though!
So that was my NST from hell. In total I was at the hospital for 6 hours. It was pretty stressful for a non stress test! Luckily the nst I went to the next morning went well, and I was only there for an hour! We've spent the rest of the weekend doing last minute things around the house. Thankfully I feel a lot more prepared now in the event my next NST tomorrow doesn't go well. Part of me has a feeling my doctor will just want to induce sometime this week because of the low fluid, and honestly, I'd be happy with that. I think it's about time for these babies to come out into the world!
I'll try to keep everyone updated on how tomorrow's doctors appointment and nst go!
Last Friday we had our regular scheduled NST. As usual, I had something sweet before going in to get the babies moving. Friday it was hot chocolate with a little bit of coffee. Right away it was clear to me that this might have been a mistake and stimulated the babies to much. We had a really hard time keeping the babies on the monitors, because they were both moving around so much. A couple of times they took B off the monitors so we could just focus on keeping A on the monitor, who was moving around so much! I had the nurses sitting with me most of the time chasing down A. I was on the monitors for 2+ hours (closer to 3 hours I believe), and during the times we could keep A on the monitors for longer stretches, we could see that A was having a lot of heart beat decelerations. A's baseline heart rate was also lower than it normally is. (normally A's baseline is in the 150's...Friday it was in the 130's when it was steady. When A would have decels, it would get down to 120bpm! ) A's line on the strip kept going up and down like crazy.
This ended up landing me a biophysical profile, which is an u/s where they watch the babies for movement and other things. Of course as soon as I got down their, both babies go to sleep! The u/s ended up taking an hour because we were waiting for them to start moving again for us! Finally they woke up, and the tech was able to get what she needed. I got a couple of exciting things from the u/s. First, we found out baby B is actually head down!!! The body is transverse, which is why the heart beat is high, making us believe B was tranvserse, but the head is down...so really B is in an oblique position. Hopefully this means once A is born, B will just slide into place! Crossing my fingers! A is still head down...with the head very low. She couldn't even get a look at A's face at all. All we could see of A's head was the back of the skull. We got a beautiful picture of B's face though! This is the best picture we've gotten all pregnancy!
I think B looks a lot like Lily already!
They sent me back up to my room, where they wanted me hooked back up to the monitors. At this point I had been at the hospital for 4 hours, and hadn't been able to get in contact with Sean at all, who was outside in the car waiting with Lily! Luckily he had been able to get a call in while I was down getting my u/s, and was filled in by the nurses on what was happening, so he went out to get Lily some dinner.
Before getting hooked back up, my doctor came in to talk to me. They found out on the u/s that baby A has low fluid. This could be the reason A was having decels, and was possibly in distress. She told me that if A was already in distress, labor would make things worse. She started saying that at a minimum she would probably be keep me over night for monitoring. At that point I started thinking I was going to end up with a c-section that night! She also checked me then. I'm now 2cm dilated, 70% effaced, and baby A is still at -1 station. So we've had some progression! I finally got in contact with Sean at this point, and told him to run home and pack our bags! I was convinced we were having babies either that night or the next morning!
Back on the monitors I went, and luckily both babies were looking a lot better now! Baby A stopped having those huge decels, and they were staying on the monitors better now. I was having a lot of contractions at this point though...probably from the stress of this appointment and dehydration. I was contracting about every 3 minutes. They were getting pretty painful too, because I was stuck on my back. Luckily they started spreading out after I got some more water though. I was monitored for another 2 hours, and my doctor was finally relieved enough that Baby A wasn't in distress, so I was able to go home, with instructions to come back the next morning for another nst. I was so relieved to be able to go home that night! For a while I really thought they would be coming that night, and we were not prepared at home at all! This was the kick in the butt we needed to finally get my bags packed though!
So that was my NST from hell. In total I was at the hospital for 6 hours. It was pretty stressful for a non stress test! Luckily the nst I went to the next morning went well, and I was only there for an hour! We've spent the rest of the weekend doing last minute things around the house. Thankfully I feel a lot more prepared now in the event my next NST tomorrow doesn't go well. Part of me has a feeling my doctor will just want to induce sometime this week because of the low fluid, and honestly, I'd be happy with that. I think it's about time for these babies to come out into the world!
I'll try to keep everyone updated on how tomorrow's doctors appointment and nst go!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
37 weeks
At week 37, your pregnancy is considered full term, meaning baby is likely to thrive after birth. Baby spends these last weeks in preparation for the outside world… meaning careful refinement of the blink, suck, inhale and exhale. Meconium, which you’ll probably find in the first diaper, is accumulating in the intestines. If (okay, as) you worry about giving birth, consider what it’s like for the little one. During the journey out of your womb, baby will produce more stress hormones than any other time in life.
I made it to full term!! I'm so excited to have made it this far, and still relatively healthy! Sure there are the common aches and pains that come with a twin pregnancy (much worse than the pains of a full term signleton pregnancy!) But it's all stuff I can deal with. I'm so gratefull to have gottent his far with now bedrest or serious complications! Most twins are born at 35 weeks...so I'm really happy to have given these babies a nice home for a little longer, and their chances of having any NICU time is slim at this point! Also exciting is that I've made it till December! I really wanted them to be born in December, and now they will!!
Yesterday I had a doctors appointment. I'm a fingertip dilated, and baby A is at -1 station. Lets hope baby A is locked in there! B is still transverse, but I'll be giving a natural delivery a try as long as A stays put! Hopefully B turns head down after A is out! I'm still measuring 42 weeks. NST's continue to go well.
Tomorrow night is the full moon. A lot of people say that can put women into labor. Cross your fingers for me that the moon has some effect on me tomorrow night!! :) Now that they are full term and we've hit December, I'm ready to meet our little guys, and finial find out what we are having!!
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