This morning both Elijah and Rowan had slight jaundice, so they are now under the phototherapy lights. It is kind of cute, since they look like they are taking a suntan. They have these little foam “sunglasses” on and are only in diapers. I won’t get to hold them much until they are done with the lights, so that’s kind of a bummer. At least I will still get to feed them though.

My swelling is at it’s peak, my feet are like two sausages! It’s kind of funny. Michael went climbing this morning and had to head into work to tie up some loose ends before he goes on parental leave.

Rowan, looking a little sad to be cooped up under lights

Elijah, sunning himself

Today was a pretty eventful day! I got up and got dressed in regular clothes (since hospital gowns are not the most attractive thing to wear) and went to see Rowan in the morning. It was a looong walk over to the nursery, I was determined to do it without a wheelchair. When I got there, I realized I forgot a part for the breastpump, so I had to go all the way back to my room, then come all the way back to Rowan’s room. I was shocked to see a thing in his head and was worried. It turns out it was just the IV, and they couldn’t get another site. Poor baby! I held him for a couple hours then went back to my room for lunch. I saw Dr. Hamilton and she officially discharged me. I ate some lunch, got the staples out from my stomach. I thought it would be horribly painful, but I could barely feel it. Then I came back to Rowan’s room to await the arrival of Elijah. He came at about 3:30pm and I finally got to hold him! Michael emptied out my old room and moved everything to the nursery room. The only bad thing about this room is that we can’t use our cell phones. It’s not all that important now, since we are all together. After that, we both went home to drop off some stuff, visit the cats, and picked up some dinner. It was the first time that I left the hospital since checking in last week. It was surreal! We came back, ate, and I started learning how to feed both of them. Since I’m not producing any milk yet, I practice getting them to latch on, feeding them some formula, and then try to pump. Rowan is more aggressive with the latching than Elijah, but I’m sure we will get it down soon. Both of them are so cozy when they are swaddled, that I have to unwrap them and wake them up to get them to eat. The night nurse, Nicky, was very nice and patient and taught me a lot. Michael got the night off since he has been runnning ragged for a week. He won’t get off so easy after tonight!

Ok, ok, I know everyone is dying to see pictures of these guys. I was always one to be upset at blurry or too bright newborn pictures, but alas, the only thing we could grab was our crappy digital camera and of course the crappy camera on our camera phones. So, these will have to do. I’m very sad that we don’t really have good pictures of Elijah, since most of the time he has been covered with tubes and wires. Only today he got all of that stuff off, and he’s breathing on his own. They are both doing really well, they will hopefully start feeding Rowan breastmilk tomorrow. I have been in and out of bed trying to visit with Rowan as much as possible with this screaming headache from the spinal block. Michael also dropped by with the flash card reader so that I could upload some pictures. It was good to see him, I felt like we haven’t seen each other in a loooong time. He also had a poloroid picture of him and Elijah without all the stuff and it was a really cute picture. Too bad it wasn’t digital.

This is a picture in the OR, and that is the
most I got to see Elijah without all of his stuff on

Elijah with all of his gear on

Elijah stopping by for a visit before being
transferred to Children’s Hospital

Rowan, the ham

Me and Rowan hanging out

Rowan gives us a big yawn

Rowan, my little Eskimo, one day old

awwwww….cutie pie Rowan!

Michael went over with Elijah to Children’s Hospital to get the echocardiagram to check on his heart. And can you believe that his heart is congenitally corrected, which means he doesn’t have to have surgery! So, even though his heart has the transposition, the other parts of his heart have formed to “fix” it. He basically has a heart that is “backwards”. I did read about this, and asked the doctor if it was a possible scenario, and he said that it was, but not likely. It must be a mother’s intuition or something. It was the best news ever! So all this planning that we did will have to change (we will no longer have to stay in Seattle), and they will be keeping Elijah at Children’s until he can breathe on his own and then they will bring him back to Evergreen to be with his brother and we call all be together. This was the best Christmas gift anyone could’ve ever given us! I’m still here recovering at Evergreen, and Michael has been staying at Children’s.

This morning I woke up feeling a little weird. I had pains in my stomach, but I wasn’t sure if it was just regular pains or labor pains. I thought labor pains would feel like the braxton-hicks contractions, but just stronger. But these were completely different and they didn’t tighten my uterus, so I just assumed it was something else. After an hour or so, I noticed that the pains started becoming regular. I woke Michael up from his very deep “sawing logs” type sleep and asked him to time it for me. The contractions were about 1 minute to peak and 5 minutes apart. After timing a few of them, the doctors and nurses swarmed in, and they were a little peeved that we didn’t call them right awayl. We had no idea that I was in labor though. Anyways, the doctor checked me and I was already 3cm dialated and 60% effaced. That was kind of surprising. I did my best to concentrate on relaxing (what an oxymoron) and let my body take over instead of fighting it. We also had a great nurse, Lisa, who birthed her children using the Bradley method. My labor progressed really nicely and quickly, and before I knew it, the contractions were about 2 minutes apart. The doctor checked the babies with an ultrasound and I was sure that baby B turned head down, but the baby was breech. I was around 6cm dialated already and we would have to make a c-section decision quick. Michael and I asked the doctors and nurses to leave us alone for a few minutes to think about what we should do. It was a really nice 5 or so minutes, just the two of us, making a really big decision as I’m breathing through contractions. We decided to do the c-section, because of all the risk factors involved. After we made the decision, everything went pretty quickly. I was rolled into the operating room and given a spinal. I was shivering throughout the whole procedure, it was just cold. There were a million people in the OR, since there was a team for each baby. It was a very surreal experience, and I was a little sad that I couldn’t really hold the babies right after birth, I could just touch them. Michael was so cute because he brought over the 1st baby to me and we were both all smiles. Baby B needed more attention since breathing was difficult, and they were getting ready to transport the little one to Children’s. Michael followed both babies and I went back to my room, trying to call my parents. Their line was busy the whole time, I thought it was my dad on the internet, but it turns out that Michael got a hold of them before I did and so they were calling all of Hawaii. I was still under the influence from the spinal, and it was weird to send signals to my feet to move, but not getting a response. After about 6 hours, the drugs wore off and I could move. After the drugs wore off, the transport team stopped by to let me visit with baby B before they went to Children’s. The poor thing was just covered in wires and tubes and strapped down. After that, I went to see baby A. It was an amazing thing to finally hold my baby! Sooooo, here’s the info for what you’ve all been waiting for! Our twins are fraternal boys, Baby A is Rowan Muir Stanton and Baby B is Elijah Michael Stanton. We will post pictures as soon as we can.

Michael finally brought in the smart card reader so we have internet today! He went home and spent some quality time with the cats since they were a little peeved that we weren’t there. I was at the computer getting everything hooked up so I could check my mail and stuff. The stay is so much more tolerable when you have internet access! The only bad part is that it is dialup (remember that?), so it’s a little slow but tolerable. We got a visit from our friend, Steve, who was in town visiting his family. It was good to see him, I haven’t seen him in awhile. This evening’s “monitoring” session was absolutely horrible, it took them super long to find the babies, what was supposed to take 30min - 1 hour took 3 hours. Then the IV that was in my left arm decided that it was no longer useful. I felt a weird pressure on my arm and when I looked, it was huge!!!! My arm looked deformed. I called the nurse in and they pulled it out. I was horrified, but the swelling went down pretty quickly (but we did manage to get a picture of it). They took out that IV, and put in another one in my right arm, but it is out of the way and so far is my favorite IV site! What a weird thing to be happy about. We stayed up late watching Harry Potter III and Michael fed me some food from home and it dripped all over the bed! Still nothing, everything’s the same.

We were supposed to have a small Thanksgiving gathering with some friends (Michael put it together at the last minute), but we had to cancel of course. It’s very painful to be in a hospital room not able to get out or have any kind of internet connection! Michael went home a few times to get stuff and he got the laptop but forgot the smart card reader so that we can connect to work and get internet through there. I’ve been spending the days sitting around watching movies and getting bored out of my mind. It’s pretty lonely whenever Michael is not here, I’ll really miss him when he goes back to work next week (if I haven’t delivered by then). He did go by our friend’s house to get some turkey for me since the food in the hospital leaves much to be desired. It’s plain awful. We had a nice dinner though, we both sat with crossed legs on the bed with the food tray between us, lit some candles and ate some turkey, stuffing and all the other stuff. We found out later that we couldn’t have candles. Nothing really has changed, everything is the same.

Last night, I was working late at home and when I was done (about 1:30am), I got up from my chair and my water breaks. At first, I was like “did I have to pee that bad?” I sat back down, not knowing what to do. Luckily, the bathroom was close by, so I ran over. I decided that it was definitely not pee and woke Michael up. Poor thing, he was so sound asleep and sawing logs. He woke up with a puffy face and in a slight panic. He ran around trying to get things together and calling the doctor on call to see what we should do while I was on the toilet. Every time I would try to stand up, more fluid would come out. The doctor called back and told us to go to the hospital. It took us a little while longer to get everything together and off we went. When we got to the door, the phone didn’t work outside, so we had to go around to the emergency entrance. It wasn’t a busy night, and everyone looked at me with big eyes and said “oh no”. I said that we were trying to get into the maternity entrance but the phone didn’t work. That kind of gave them a little relief. So, they put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me there. Apparantly, the maternity center left the door open because they knew the phone wasn’t working, but we never checked the doors. I got wheeled into a “observation” room, where everyone didn’t believe that my water broke. I was like “there is no way this is pee”. And they were like “we’ll see, it’s probably just discharge”. They took my blood pressure with this machine that thought my arm was 10x smaller than it was, I had welts on my arm after that. Then the nurse had to collect some of the fluid with this speculum thing that had sharp edges, when she pulled it out, it was really sore. But then everyone believed that my water broke. They admitted me and put me into one of the labor rooms. By this time, it was about 4am. They put me on an continuous IV and monitoring. The first poke they did for the IV, the nurse missed my vein, so they put it in my hand. That really hurt, not only going in, but the whole time it was there. And it was my right hand, so I couldn’t do much. Later in the day I asked them to move it because it was just too much. They didn’t let me eat in case the doctors wanted to deliver. But the doctors decided that the best course of action is to give me antibiotics, and wait until labor starts or until I get to 36 weeks. I went in to get an ultrasound, and it was baby A whose membranes ruptured (sac broke), and baby B was head up. But they are fine. I’m still telling Baby B to get head down, since now my doctor will only deliver vaginally if both babies are head down. I also had to get some steroid shots to help their lungs develop. The first one was very painful, the second one (12 hours later) was almost painless, since the nurse knew how to do it. Dr. Walker came in a visited and told us the course of action (stay in the hospital for a max of 2 weeks until delivery), and then we got moved to a more comfortable room in the antipartum unit on the 4th floor. The bed is way more comfortable. They took me off the continuous IV and monitoring and now doing it every few hours. I now only have the IV whenever I get the antibiotics (every 6 hours), and the monitoring every 4 hours. The monitoring is a pain since sometimes they can’t find the babies heartbeat (especially baby A since there is no fluid) and I have to sit still. It seems weird for a baby to be ok without having any fluid around them. So what we’re watching for now is any sign of labor or infection. It’s a waiting game….

YAY! Another milestone done. I went to the doctor’s (ob) today, just for a checkup and got kind of scolded. This doctor said that I should mainly see my primary doctor for my visits. I told her that I wanted to meet all the other doctors on call, *my* doctor told me to make appointments with the others. So, I guess she has a different philosophy. She then went on to say how my weight gain is above normal and to not worry about it. I then told her that I have twins, and then she said “oh, ok, well, then you’re doing fine”. And pointed again, why I should see my regular doctor. She also did get on my case for not having a care plan yet, but I am working on it with Melissa, the twin nurse. This is the last appointment that I will have with a non-regular doctor, since I have already met them all. I don’t see what the big deal is though, since the doctor doesn’t do much at these appointments anyway. I guess it gives them the opportunity to read what all the other doctors said. One thing good it did though is light a fire under our butts, Michael finally installed the two car seats in the car (one in each), and I cleaned off my desk and put more stuff in the suitcase.

It’s been a few weeks since I posted an ultrasound. I think the last one I posted was at 28 weeks, 5.5 weeks ago! These babies are now around 5 lbs each, which is good news. I stayed at home today and I got carried away with work, so I was really stressed out making it on time for my 4pm appointment. I was supposed to pick Michael up from work but didn’t even have time to do that. So he met me at the doctor’s office and told them that I’m about 10 minutes late. It was ok since they were running late as well. Everyone said that I look really good and healthy for carrying 33 week twins. I personally think it’s because I wore a nice sweater and gave everyone a big smile. Dr. Walker did do part of the ultrasound, just to check up on things, and then a tech came in and did the rest. It was really weird because if she didn’t get the right gestational age for the measurement, she would just delete it and do another one. That seems pointless. The very good news is that both babies are now head down! It was amazing because baby A was breech just yesterday. I was so happy! They didn’t see anything of concern at today’s ultrasound, and this might be my last visit to the MFM office. I did inquire about the fluid in the brain that Dr. Walker saw at 25 weeks, but he said that it is no longer something to be concerned about. I also asked about bedrest, and the doctor said that I’m so far along that it doesn’t matter, just rest when your body tells you to. I was a little sad because now I can’t tell work that I can’t do anything since I’m on bedrest. It’s not like that they expect me to, but you know, I’m getting low on sick leave. I also found out why I don’t really get hungry sometimes. Since the stomach triggers the brain to tell us that we’re full, I have this huge thing always pressing against my stomach signaling that I’m full all the time. That makes sense. Anyways, I really wanted to get a 3D scan today, so after I was done with all the “regular” growth measurements, we went into another room and got some. It’s pretty amazing the imaging that can be done.

Baby A

Here is baby A, and it’s kind of a drugged out look, since the doctor couldn’t get a good scan (the baby’s head was low in my pelvis and turned around). He could only get a scan of the profile, and the computer generated the image from that. The nose and mouth look deformed, but that’s only because the baby’s face was pressed up against something.

Baby B

Here is baby B, quite a good picture I thought. The thing in front of the face is supposed to be an arm, but it’s a weird looking arm. Again, it’s because of the scan and what was included in it.

So, as if that wasn’t enough, we went to a Paula Poundstone concert this evening and had front row center seats! She was really funny, and the best parts are when she interacts with the audience. Of couse, being in the front, I was asked questions. At first she asked me “What do you do”, but both Michael and I swore that she said “When are you due?”, so I said “any day now”. And she went into this whole thing about parenting and told the story about how her cat would groom her son’s head. She asked if they were our first kids, and I said “yes, and they’re twins”. I could hear the crowd kind of say “oh!” all at once. Then she asked me what I did and I told her I worked at MS as a tester. I panicked at that point because I could see her line of thinking and it would send MS spiraling down. Good thing for me, she didn’t know too much about computers and software, so I was off the hook. After the show, several people came up to us and asked about the babies and told us stories of their kids. Ah, my 15 minutes of fame.