Tag: Twins

Posted on

Twins 8 month stats

Nat and Avit turned 8 months old just 3 days ago. And I’m already writing their monthly post! What?!? I know! (ok, so obviously september 30 wasn’t 3 days ago now, but i really did write this post when it was, so i’m sticking with my original punctuality)

Since I just got around to their 6 and 7 month post a few weeks ago, though, this one will be very short and sweet. Their next checkup isn’t until 9 months, so I have no new growth stats to share, and pretty much everything is exactly the same as that last post.

They still aren’t sleeping through the night. They still show minimal interest in solids, so I’m not wasting the time I don’t have trying to force them and then cleaning up more giant messes. I’ve tried Cheerios with both of them, too, and I’ve never seen babies do a worse job trying to get those tiny circles in their mouths. Avit seemed like he wanted to eat them, but he couldn’t actually get any in his mouth; Nat actually pressed his lips closed and pulled away when I tried to feed him one. Fine then, be that way! I loathe the spoon-fed baby food stage anyway, so I’m just going to wait until they can feed themselves better.

I do think this lack of food is contributing to their nighttime wakeups, though, so just yesterday I started giving them an extra bottle during the day. Nat has started throwing in this early nightly wakeup again that is enough to drive me insane. He clearly does NOT need to be waking and having another bottle anywhere between 8-11, because he used to sleep from 6:00 until at least 2 a.m. easily and consistently. So I’m just pumping them as full of milk as I can. I’ve switched their first 2 bottles of the day to be all breastmilk; I’ve added a third bottle that’s half milk, half formula; I’ve switched their last 2 bottles of the day to be all formula; and I’ve changed their bedtime bottle to be 8 oz. instead of 6 oz. like all the other bottles are. So we’ll see.

Avit still steamrolls all over everything, including Nat. He is literally 1 knee “step” away from crawling, and each day I am shocked that he still hasn’t fully figured it out. Don’t worry, he still squiggles and rolls his way all over the place, though. (update – he finally got that second knee going for a real crawl 2 days ago. look out!) Nat is still content to just lie on the floor and roll around. No sitting or crawling in sight.

So that’s about it. They still amaze me daily, and I still can’t believe we have twins. One big thing is that they have their first flight coming up at the end of this week – HEAVEN HELP ME! 4 hours on an airplane with all 5. Twice. Fun. I hope I survive. I will need coffee. And wine. Lots of both. (this has happened now also, but i will have an update on that later)

Here are all the monthly comparisons again:

Lana 8 month post; Morrison 8 month post

Photos – Della, Lana (combo of these 2 this month), Morrison, twins.

Now all twins. Until month 9 (pray for sleep!)…

 

Posted on

Twins 6 and 7 month stats

Clearly I have neglected this blog yet again, since the twins are almost 8 months old. And because of that fact, I’m doing something I’ve never had to do yet – combine stats posts. Oops. Oh well, at least I’m finally getting them written here.

Life is very busy these days. I often think back to when I started this blog after Della was born – I would sit at my desk at work and post daily, sometimes multiple times a day. Ha! Hahahahaha! If only I had that kind of time now. I mean, no, I don’t wish I was back sitting at a desk all day again, definitely not. But now I get to actually sit down for any length of time longer than 5 minutes without that time being spent folding laundry so infrequently, my poor updates are few and far between. I mean well, really I do. I constantly have a running list in my head of post ideas and kids’ pages notes that I need to write. But I only have so many hours in a day, and I do need to sleep. At least try to sleep with these two little maniacs in our room, anyway.

So anyway… I’ll give you their 6 month well check stats, then a quick update on what they’re up to now (since who cares what they were actually doing at 6 months, oh, so long ago), and a bunch of pictures as usual.

Nat

  • Height:  27″ (67%)
  • Weight:  17 lbs. (40%)
  • Head:  43.2 cm (45%)
  • BMI:  16.4 kg/m2 (25%)

Avit

  • Height:  26.5″ (44%)
  • Weight:  17 lbs. (40%)
  • Head:  43.6 cm (58%)
  • BMI:  17 kg/m2 (40%)

We can already see that these two have distinctly different personalities. Avit is pushing himself up to sitting (and has been for a couple weeks now); can move himself around a room through a combination of rocking/rolling/sitting/repeating (everything but crawling so far); loves to grab anything in sight and mess with it or try to eat it, including Nat’s head or arm or buns, my leg (yes, the other day i was standing on their blanket in the living room and Avit grabbed my leg, wrapped his arms around it, and started licking it!), and all their toys; and generally not nap when I’d like him to. And just 2 days ago he pulled himself up on the edge of the coffee table to standing! Good lord. Nat is much more content to just lie in his spot on the floor, play with his toys, roll over here and there but nothing crazy (no ending up on the opposite side of the room or in the corner facing the wall under the jumperoo like Avit), and take his naps like good little babies should. Sometimes they actually get on opposite nap schedules – Nat takes a decent morning nap; Avit does not. Then after lunch I put Avit down and Nat wakes up for the afternoon. Turds.

I just consistently started solids last week. I tried them a while ago, and neither one had much interest at all, surprisingly. Avit loved his first taste of oatmeal and wanted to grab the spoon and do it all himself. But then when I tried other things like sweet potatoes, he would barely take a bite. Nat got his start at solids later than Avit because I was giving them at dinner time to begin with, and Nat was always taking his 3rd nap then (yes, 3rd nap of the day). So he missed out for a while, but once I gave him his first bite of sweet potatoes, he loved them and actually did a lot better at eating than Avit. Now that we’re into the school routine again, I’ve begun trying to give them their solids at lunch time instead, since dinner time always gets so hectic. Some days it works out that way, some days it doesn’t, but they seem to be doing fine with them at either time of the day.

They both have their bottom front 2 teeth and got those about a month ago. And they instantly started biting me with them while nursing, so that’s super fun. Fortunately I only nurse them once overnight and sometimes once around wake-up time now with bottles of pumped milk and formula throughout the day, but that still hurts when it happens!

Speaking of bottles, they’re still on the same bottle schedule that they’ve been on for months – 4 bottles per day (roughly 9:00 a.m., noon, 3:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m.) that are each a mixture of mostly pumped milk and a little formula. Nat just recently caught up to Avit with having a 6 oz. bottle each time; he had been stuck at 4 oz. for the longest time while Avit chugged down 6 and basically as much as you would give him. Chunk.

Like I said earlier, naps aren’t always the most consistent. Nat can usually be counted on to take 2 solid naps a day if we’re not walking to/from school (I’ve stopped putting him down for that last early evening nap and just stretching things out until bedtime instead), and Avit is happy to take normally just a longer afternoon one. For the past couple days, though, the stars have aligned and I actually have gotten all 3 boys to nap at the same time after lunch for a couple hours, and I haven’t even been giving the twins their solid food. They’ve had colds the past couple days and are all stuffy, so I’m not forcing them to try to swallow mushy food along with all their snot. If they could do that regularly, I’d be happy for them to drop morning and early evening naps all together.

Bedtime is pretty much right after that last bottle, so they’re usually in bed by 6-6:30. No, they are still not sleeping through the night, so everyone can stop asking. They have both done it, sleeping until 5:00 or even 6:00 the next morning, but neither does it with any consistency at all yet. Their schedules are fairly regular with the wake-ups, though – one (usually Nat) wakes around let’s say 1:00 and 5:00; the other might wake up then, too, but lately it’s been in the middle of the other two wake-ups instead, somewhere in the 3:00 hour. So there’s a decent chunk of sleep for the first part of the night, then those early morning hours can get dicey. Nat likes to throw in a crying jag in the 10:00-11:00 hour every couple nights, so that’s real fun, because I know he certainly doesn’t need to be eating then but usually the only way to get him back to sleep is to make him a little bottle. So we’ll see. Hopefully they figure it out soon. Morrison didn’t sleep through consistently until between 8-9 months, so I’m not really that surprised that these 2 aren’t either. And now with school mornings again I get up at 5:30, so I just try to go to bed as early as I can since I know I’ll be up a number of times before my alarm even goes off.

They do make up for my lack of sleep during the days with their smiles and general happy attitudes. Lately Avit has started doing a ton of talking, with “da-da-da” and “ga-ga” sounds and even mimicking Ryan the other night when he was saying hi. Nat does more of a “singing,” with high-pitched little squeals and shrieks like Lana used to do, plus a ton of raspberries blowing and motorboat noises. It’s pretty hysterical. And they both get huge chuckling belly laughs going, which is just amazing. When I pick Nat up, he loves to grab the sides of my neck, pull in real close to my face, and act like he’s going to eat my nose. I love it!

They both still love the jumperoos, being held and played with (obviously), their show on Netflix called Little Baby Bum (i don’t know what it is, but this show has total baby mind control. they can both be screaming crabby, and i’ll put them on the living room floor and turn that show on and they instantly quiet), pacifiers and snuggling into their muslin blankets to sleep, being in the stroller and car, reaching for and grabbing toys now, and watching and interacting with all of us. The big 3 love playing with these little guys, too. I just switched out all their 6 month clothes and brought up everything 6-9, 6-12, and 9 month sizes, and I swear those are all going to be too small soon as well. They’re in size 3 daytime diapers and I just bought the first pack of size 4 overnights. I’m hoping that trying overnight diapers now will help get them through the nights better, too. Yeah, we’ll see.

So, that was more than a quick update, but life is pretty great with these little guys. Like Della said in her note to me last summer when I was so upset when we found out we were having twins, it’s going to be fun! It is a shit ton of work, and every day has to be a very controlled level of chaos or else it can get overwhelming, but I think I’m doing a pretty good job. Plus the big 3 really are excellent helpers, which is a lifesaver. It still sounds so weird to me to hear myself say we have 5 children. I think it always will!

Now for the monthly comparisons. I don’t think I had started writing here when Della was 6 months old, but I’ll give you Lana’s and Morrison’s 6 and 7 month posts:

Lana 6 months; Morrison 6 months; Lana 7 months; Morrison 7 months

And here are all the pictures – Della, Lana, Morrison, then the twins. Whew! Let’s see if I can get their 8 month post written before they turn 16.

 

Posted on

They have arrived!

The twins are here! Well, they were here over a month ago now, but you know very well how this blog works. Something happens, I want to write all about it, then I finally get a chance to do so anywhere from 1 to 6+ months later. I hate that it works that way because I remember the days when everything I put on here was much more timely, even daily, but that just isn’t how life works around here anymore. C’est la vie.

But I can’t let another day go by without formally introducing you to our 4th and 5th (and final!!) babies, so here we go…

Since I was pregnant with twins and incredibly old to be having babies (once you hit 35 you’re considered advanced maternal age, and your pregnancy is labeled geriatric. no joke. they really know how to make a girl feel good.), my OB didn’t want me going much past 37 weeks before delivery and definitely not past 38 weeks. So we set an induction date of Wednesday, January 31. This broke the tradition of all of our children being born on Sundays, but the date did end in a 1 like the birth dates of all the others (Della = 1, Lana = 21, Morrison = 31).

It was also a good date because it was a super blue blood moon – a supermoon, a blue moon, and a total lunar eclipse all at the same time. This cool phenomenon hadn’t occurred for over 150 years before then, so I’d say that makes these little guys pretty damn special.

I was scheduled for 8:30 that morning, so my mom came up the day before to get settled in for this, I made sure the girls had rides to and from school for that day and the rest of the week just in case Ryan wasn’t able to do it, and Ryan and I headed to the hospital shortly after 8:00.

We got checked in and settled into our delivery room for the day, and things got started. And then they stopped and we waited. And waited some more. The anesthesiologist who was going to come in to do my epidural was apparently having a busy morning, and I was obviously low on the priority list, thanks a lot. He finally came in and started to set up his little table, but then he got a phone call, said he had to take it, and left the room. Wtf, dude? I looked at the nurse like what the hell is he doing, and she apologized, saying he really is not supposed to do that at all. So she went out to find him, and Ryan and I sat waiting again.

When she came back, she said she had discovered he was dealing with a family emergency that day, so ok fine, we cut him some slack. I finally got the epidural in shortly before 11:00, and thankfully that went smoothly. I never got one with the first 3 kids, because I’d heard horror stories of the needle and it getting messed up in your back. And I really enjoy being able to walk, so I didn’t want anyone screwing around with my spine. But having to deliver 2 babies in a row sounded horrible, so there was no way I was going without one this time around. The giant needle containing the numbing medication hurt like hell, but once that was done he got the catheter in and the real medicine pumping through, and I had none of the immediate side effects he warned might occur, so we were all set.

Ryan and I started watching Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on his computer and just waited for the pitocin to get labor going. I’d had so many Braxton Hicks contractions in the months leading up to then that I assumed I’d be at least 2-3 cm dilated by that morning. However, when they checked me after I’d gotten all hooked up in the bed, they found I was only 1.5 cm dilated and not effaced at all, so we were basically starting from scratch with zero labor signs. Awesome. There went my hopes of getting these little guys out by early afternoon.

Things were going boringly, yet fortunately pain-free thanks to that massive needle that had been shoved in my back hours earlier, when I got uncomfortable and wanted to shift positions. I was afraid of knocking the catheter out of place in my back, so the nurse helped me roll more to my right side and sit up just a little. Then I started to feel kind of funny, then really bad, then things took a turn for the worse. My blood pressure plummeted to 50/29, my heart rate dropped sharply, one of the babies’ heart rates dropped too, and I passed out and started throwing up the juice the nurse had given me at first to try to bring my blood sugar up. Ryan said my eyes rolled back and my legs jerked out straight, so he thought I was having a seizure. It wasn’t, it was the blood pressure drop that was a bad reaction to the epidural, but the nurse hit the OB team button, a bunch of people came rushing in, the new anesthesiologist jammed a needle full of something into my IV bag, and I came right back. As soon as I opened my eyes, I felt a million times better and found out what happened. To me, it just felt like I needed to go to sleep and closed my eyes. I missed all the action.

So I stayed lying down for the rest of the day, and we continued our waiting game and show watching. They broke my water mid-afternoon, let’s say around 2:00, and then I expected things to really pick up as they had with the other 3. Nope. More waiting. I finally started to feel some real discomfort and almost pain a couple hours later, after watching some contractions go off the chart and not feeling a thing. I really didn’t believe the epidural was truly going to work until I realized those mountains on the printout were massive contractions and I had felt nothing the entire time. So anyway, when I told the nurse I was feeling a lot of pressure and kind of some pain, she checked me and it was time for babies! Wahoo, finally! But holy shit did I get scared then.

They had to wheel me into the operating room, and my heart rate was probably through the roof. I was so nervous! Yes, I’d given birth before and all went smoothly, but this was a whole new ballgame. Two at once?? Plus after the bad reaction I’d had earlier in the day I really had no idea what was about to happen. We had to be in the operating room because with twins, the NICU team is automatically in there to immediately take care of the babies when they come out, just in case. Plus there was my OB, the med student (resident? whatever he was called), the anesthesiologist to monitor the epidural and turn it off as soon as I was done, and all the nurses (thank god for those nurses! they are saints). So they covered my hair, made Ryan get in his bunny suit/hair cover/and booties, and we set off down the hallway.

When we got into the OR they made me shift from the bed I’d been in all day to a tiny, hard slab of a bed that I swear was about an inch wide, and I knew that was going to be a bad idea. My hands had gotten so swollen and painful from the carpal tunnel and all the fluid they pumped into me by the end of the day that I was practically in tears by the time of delivery because they hurt so badly. Both Ryan and our main nurse took turns trying to massage them and applying heat packs. So my hands were inflamed and useless, yet they wanted me to push myself up and over onto this other bed. Not a chance. So I had to alternate wriggling my lower half and hauling my upper half with my elbows to move myself, which made my stomach churn into knots. Wonderful. By the time I was fully on the miniature OR table, I was ready to throw up again. And again and again and again. That was miserable. I was afraid I’d be barfing and pushing out a baby at the same time. Disgusting.

Poor Ryan got the glamorous job of holding my puke pan, and his services were needed again when they made me move down to the end of the OR bed. Why didn’t you just make me go there in the first place? But I got that all out of my system before it was time to push, thank heavens. Since I couldn’t feel any of the contractions whatsoever, I told them they were going to have to tell me when to push and get these little ones moving. So they did. And after just a couple rounds, Baby A came screaming into the world. He was Nat Jennings Rau, born at 5:02 pm, weighing 6 lbs. 3.5 oz. and measuring 18″ long.

10 minutes and a few more pushes later, Baby B made his appearance. He was born sunny-side up and, as such, swallowed a bunch of amniotic fluid on his way out, so it took a minute to get him going and crying when he came out. But once they made sure he was ok, we met Avit Jerome Rau, born at 5:12 pm, weighing 6 lbs. 0 oz. and measuring 19″ long.

Perfection.

A very happy, relieved ending to what for me was a long, painful, fear-inducing journey. I was elated to be done being pregnant, since this one caused me the most pain and discomfort by far. The heartburn was more severe, the carpal tunnel pain was excruciating, and the 48-pound weight gain was about a dozen pounds more than I’d gained with any of the other 3. It was the first time I actually could not see parts of my body, putting on and taking off socks was a nightmarish circus act, and every physical act made me feel like I was about 120 years old. Plus the absolute unknown of birthing and raising twins shadowed the entire pregnancy for me, so much more so than any excitement of getting to meet 2 more brand new little people. But once they were in my arms, I was thrilled to welcome them into our family. I still can’t believe we brought 2 babies home this time!

(i cannot get that picture of Ryan rotated correctly to save my life, so sorry)

So there it is. The final birth story for this family. Of 7. What?!?! That still sounds unreal, and I’m sure it will for a long time. Never ever ever did I envision having 5 children, nor did I ever want to have 5 children. But now that we do, it is pretty amazing to say that my body carried and birthed 5 beautiful, healthy babies, all of whom are currently thriving and happy.

The big siblings came to the hospital to meet the babies on Thursday after Della got done with school, and they were all instantly in love. Actually, they were more interested in playing in the big hospital room that I got for my recovery stay and getting food, but you know, they still love the twins.

(can’t get Nigh-Night rotated either, dumb blog)

We went home mid-day on Friday, after both the twins and I cleared all our checks for discharge. My mom stayed with us through that weekend, then Ryan had 2 weeks off work, which was amazing. We all got to take naps every day, and I was able to sleep in until just before the girls got off to school, so that extra sleep that I didn’t have in the early days with the other kids was a lifesaver. Then my mom came back up for a week after Ryan went back to work, yet another lifesaver. Friends and neighbors have also been massive helps, bringing meals and giving the girls rides to and from school. Simply not having to leave the house with all these children has been a tremendous sanity saver for me. The twins still have no morning schedule to speak of and nights continue to be iffy, so if I had to try to get all 6 of us ready to get out the door by 7:45 each school morning, I’d probably be out of my mind by now.

Yes, it’s hard work with the countless diaper changes daily and feeling like I spend fully half my time stuck under a feeding infant or 2, plus taking care of 3 other kids, one of whom is in the thick of potty training right now. And yes, I’m exhausted. But I’m really, truly happy. I thought having twins would be the worst thing to happen to our family, but I could not have been more wrong. These spectacular little faces make it all worth it.

Welcome home, little Nat and Avit! We all love you oh, so much!