Today was another uneventful day as far as the babies are concerned. We did hit another milestone though, and that is that I breastfed them both all day (7am - 9pm)! I usually breakdown sometime in the day for a nap and tell Michael or Mary Ellen to bottle feed them, but today I managed my naps around their eating times. Michael was going to go hiking today, but on his way out, he got rear-ended in a 4 car accident! And in our “good” car too! But don’t worry, he is fine and the car has minimal damage (the bumper is messed up). He wanted to get stuff taken care of today, but the woman’s insurance won’t do anything until everything is confirmed and that it was indeed her fault (ahem, he was rear-ended!) So, we’ll have to wait until Monday to get our car fixed. Another thing to add to our list of things to do. It’s a good thing that the babies weren’t in the car!

Today Michael and I spent a lot of the day sleeping. Luckily for us, the babies cooperated and slept too! Shaun and Scott came by for a visit after our nap fest and they sat patiently through all of Michael’s climbing videos and through a feeding. I think they have seen the most “stuff” with the twins - they also sat through the car seat fitting the last time they visited at the hospital. They gave us some Christmas ornaments for the tree, which when I looked at it, Shaun gave us most of our ornaments! Other than that, it’s been a pretty uneventful day.

Our friends Bob and Mardi came over for a visit and to take our Christmas pictures. It was a cold and slightly rainy day, but we decided to go to Cottage Lake anyway since Christmas is just around the corner! We walked over to get some exercise (it’s about 1/2 mile away) and the babies slept the whole way there, through most of the picture taking and the whole way back. They really like being in the slings. It was fun having someone else take the pictures this year. Usually we do it ourselves or pick one from one of our rock climbs. Bob brought his own camera and I also had him take some with our digital camera as well. He hasn’t seen the digital camera yet, so he was really impressed at how it looks and feels like a regular SLR. The camera convinced him that he will need to get one in the near future. We talked about photography on the way back and I think I got him excited to do stuff again! In the evening, I went to get the film developed and run some errands. The pictures came out pretty good, we have one picked out that we need to scan and send to Costco. I’m glad most of the process can be done online and I don’t have to go there twice!

The boys are 3 weeks old today, hard to believe! They already do feel bigger, not as tiny and fragile as when they were born. We got a lot of stuff done today, the biggest accomplishment was the “tough love” I had to give Rowan for breastfeeding. He gets really fussy and then we eventually give him a bottle. Today, I stuck out the crying and screaming and was greatly rewarded. He now latches on fairly quickly, within a minute. He used to take at least 10 - 15 minutes and by that time he’s tired and doesn’t eat as much. We also gave them another bath. We only have the chair thing and not a tub, so we filled the tub and I got in there with them. Michael undressed one baby, handed him to me, I washed them, then handed him back to Michael who is waiting with towels. This bath went a little better than the last, probably because I could get a better grip on them. But it got a little crazy when I was done with Rowan (he was second), since they both started crying at the same time. They calmed down quickly though. I love their hair when it’s freshly washing since it’s really nice and soft.

Michael also got a Christmas tree today. We usually don’t get one, but decided to so we have somewhere to put their presents. It would be pretty sad if we didn’t celebrate their first Christmas!

We also had a weird thing happen, both babies lately started sucking the bottles, but not really eating. We were getting worried, since they were doing that with the “easy flow” nipple as well. I looked at the bottle nipple and noticed that nothing was coming out! I felt so bad since both of them were really trying to eat!!! I guess stuff gets gunked up in the hole after awhile, and we’ll have to check it now and then to make sure stuff is coming out.

We spent the evening eating a pizza and watching Return of the King. It’s hard to watch a movie nowadays with full attention!

Michael totally cracked me up today! Since Rowan hasn’t had a poopy diaper in 24 hours, the doctor said that when it comes, it will be explosive. And sure enough, he was right! Michael had the luck of changing him and I was feeding Elijah. All I heard was “Oh my god, oh my god, the horror! This is the worst ever! Oh god! Oh, ok, now he’s peeing all over my shirt! Oh god! Oh man, how horrible! Geez!” I was laughing and laughing. Rowan got cleaned up ok but basically had to give him a bath with the wipes!

This evening I took a trip out to Target and Top Foods to pick up the prescriptions and some food. Michael had to hold the fort down for a couple of hours. I didn’t think it would be too bad since we just fed them before we left. While I was at Top Foods, I got a call. Michael said “Kris, it’s a disaster!” But his tone of voice was very calm. Apparently, both babies were crying and they were neither hungry or needed a diaper changing. He whipped out the pacifiers and that seemed to hold them over until I got home. He did a great job calming them down and keeping everything under control.

Here is a used-to-be-rare-but-now-very-common
sight of Michael doing laundry

This morning was stressful, but I found it to be quite comical. Michael doesn’t fare very well in the mornings and we had a 10:30 appointment with the doctor. The feeding took longer than expected, Elijah just would not stop eating. Rowan was fussy at the breast so we decided to give him a bottle. He looked like he was eating from the bottle but he was faking it! So, we had to give him the “easy flow” yellow nipple bottle, which we thought he graduated from. It was very weird. That really frustrated Michael and then there were diaper incidents and all kinds of stuff piling on top of each other. The icing on the cake was that Michael put on Elijah’s outfit backwards and so it was really tight around the neck. He got so frustrated, he was stomping around the house and yelling at himself. I took over the clothes and then I only had 10 minutes or so to pump some milk to take on the road. Luckily, we had the diaper bag ready to go. We were a little late, but not too bad. We really liked the doctor, he’s a nice guy. The boys both weigh over 6 pounds now, which shocked us. I knew for sure Elijah gained weight because he is constantly eating, but Rowan was surprising because he doesn’t eat as much as his brother, but he caught up in weight. We were also concerned because they haven’t had a poopy diaper in about 24 hours, where in the hospital, they were going all the dang time. The doctor told us that it’s really normal for breastfed babies to go a long time in between, sometimes 7 to 10 days, but it is usually not that long. I wish someone at the hospital told us that, it would’ve saved us some stress and worry last night. We have to go back next week to check their weights again, and then two weeks after that. The only thing that they had was some yeast in their mouths, so I have to get some liquid Nystatin for that. They just got a lot of “yeasty beaties” going on! After the appointment, we were both starving, so we decided to go to the Woodinville Cafe for lunch. The boys did very well, both slept through the whole meal. This pregnant woman passed by and asked how old they were, and told her husband “see, we CAN go out!”

Michael and I have been doing really well so far. With Mary Ellen’s help, we have gotten really organized and getting settled into a routine. I usually take over during the wee hours of the night, and take naps in the morning. The babies and me are night owls and Michael gets his energy during the day. Although he takes naps with us as well. Today I decided to get out of the house and I went to Target to pick up some supplies and also to the grocery store to get some food. It was nice to get out, put on some normal clothes (no nursing tops!!!), and shock myself by being able to fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans. It was a little tight at the waist but everything else fit really well. I’ve been wearing my pregnancy clothes after the birth just for comfort and lounging around the house. I’m still not at my pre-pregnancy weight, I probably have about 5 pounds to go. Thank goodness for breastfeeding and it’s calorie eating and uterine contracting qualities! Mary Ellen was really impressed with how mellow we are and told us several times that we are doing really, really well for being new parents. I think I impressed her most when I was breastfeeding Rowan and he was screaming and being fussy (he doesn’t like to “wait” for the milk) and I was relaxed and cool as a clam, telling him to relax and take it easy and he will get his food. Sure enough, after a few minutes, he calmed down and started eating. It’s the hardest thing in the world to keep calm while your baby is screaming, but since I had so much practice relaxing for the birth process, it just naturally carries over. The trick is to get enough sleep to be able to remember to relax!!!

We had another visitor today, our friend Theron. He was really here to see Michael and drop off a climbing DVD, but whatever.

We tried to keep the enviornment as close to the hospital as possible, but unfortunately, since I can’t measure how much the babies breastfeed, I was up almost all night feeding one or another. That was ok though, Mary Ellen came over at 10 this morning and I was able to take a really good nap. When I woke up, Michael and Mary Ellen cleaned and organized the living room and it looks really good now! Mary Ellen helped us set up a schedule for feeding, breastfeeding, etc. for the day and night. I’m sure it will work out much better than last night. Michael has been really good running errands and cleaning, while I’m just a milk bar! Rowan has been having a hard time breastfeeding and today I didn’t give in to his frustration. After about 15 or 20 minutes, he settled down and did it! It was a sweet reward!

It’s been nice to have high speed internet again, uploading pictures went so fast!!! And I missed TiVo!

It is really good to be home, but what a mess! Our postpartum doula, Mary Ellen, came over to help us get organized and set up for the babies. She is incredible, and we are so happy to have her here. Her experience with many sets of twins has proven invaluable! In our kitchen, we unfortunately got invaded by gnats, and we couldn’t figure where it was coming from. We finally found the source, it was the garlic jar! We got rid of it and now the gnats are gone, thank goodness. Mary Ellen went to the store with Michael to get some last minute stuff. I had to call numerous doctors to set up follow up appointments and feed the babies. Hope we survive the night!!!

Well, the boys did all their feeds in 24 hours, so we are out of here! We won’t actually be discharged until sometime later this morning. There were a few moments where we weren’t sure if we were going to make it. Rowan didn’t eat 5 cc’s at one feed but he made it up in another. Elijah sometimes would be slower than normal and need a diaper change in between. But the anxiety is over and we can finally rest easy. I took a trip to the Special Care Nursery (just a few doors down the hall) and visited with the first nurse that we got to know (Nicky), and let her know that we were finally going home. She said that she would check up on us from time to time (through the other nurses) and see how we were doing and she was so happy that we’re finally going home! Can’t wait for high speed internet and the comforts of home again!