The twins have arrived!!

This post is a bit late… but alas, I’ve only just GOTTEN the time to post.

This is not my birth story post, just a quickie.

The girls were born via-scheduled C-section on Wednesday, October 5th.

Kara was born at 1:05pm weighing in at 5lb 9oz

Summer was born at 1:07pm weighing in at 5lb 7oz

We have been Busy Busy BUSY!!!! Kara came home at 5lb 1oz and Summer came home at 4lb 15oz. Neither required any NICU time

The pediatricians have been pushing us to get them to their birth weight. It’s been a struggle, but we’re getting there. Kara was 5.4 at her last weigh in and Summer was 5lbs exactly at her weigh in. The minimum they want is 1/2 oz per day. And that is what Summer is achieving.

We are required to feed them every 2hours and try and get in at least 2oz each (1/4 cup). They rarely hit that 2oz mark, and average between 1-1.25 oz a feeding.

We got some clarification from the doc that the 2oz is the goal.. phew. I thought we were failing terribly. Also the 2 hour interval is to be maintained, not skipped or pushed out. We were allowed to push out one interval a night on feeding so we get a period of about 3-4 hours of rest time for ourselves.

Luckily, the girls are AWESOME sleepers in that regard, so we can get a good solid sleep in. However, being such great sleepers has had it’s downside in that it’s very difficult to wake them and keep them awake during their feedings, hence the reason they do not finish the 2oz they need.

Our routine is as follows:

- Wake the babies. (we each get one and stick to that one each day)

- Change their diapers. (this is imperative, as it is the ONE act that gets them to wake up. COLD baby wipes are key!!)

- Feed them. Right now we are bottle and breast feeding Kara. And Summer is being fed via bottle and pumping.

- Put them down to sleep. (since the previous step can take up to 1.25 hours, this leaves us with about a 45 minute window to sleep, only if the girls go straight to sleep and STAY asleep during that time, before being woken up for their next feeding.

Note: Feeding the babies isn’t as easy as putting a bottle in their mouths.

— Kara has problems with sucking down her milk from a bottle like a monster… and she tends to do this by filling her mouth up and then not swallowing, and then she inhales some of the milk and chokes up everything. We have to make sure she breathes in between every couple of sucks so that we know she is swallowing properly. There have been times that I’ve pulled the bottle out of her mouth and she appeared to be sleeping. Then I would pull down her bottom lip, look inside her mouth and see a puddle of milk sitting under her tongue. ACK!!!!! Then I’d tip her on her side or forward to empty it out. She is a stinker.

— Summer isn’t as alert during her feedings as Kara is, so keeping her awake is hard. She tends to require more time b/c she is not as strong on the bottle. She will suck on the bottle even when she is sleeping, and she manages to swallow properly and doesn’t choke. But she just takes a loooooong time. Doc says it’s normal for them to be this sleepy at this stage, so we’re taking it in stride.

So that is pretty much our lives right now… it’s all about the eating, sleeping and pooping.

We haven’t had any friends over to the hospital during our stay or over to our house since we’ve been home. Life is too overwhelming with the girls to be able to hold a even a short conversation with friends. Finding the time to shower has even been difficult… but we’ve had family here to help and they don’t seem to mind if we are smelly and gross looking .

We hope to have friends over sometime next week or the week after, once our schedule starts to open up. That is if the girls get back to their birth weight, at which time we can start pushing out the feedings to every 3-4 hours. YAY!!!

We had a little scare with Summer at the hospital with a choking incident, and since then we’ve become a little paranoid about people holding them. I know everyone offers to help with the babes, but it’s more stress to hand them off to someone else who is not familiar with holding them and their feeding issues. So for now, we are just doing everything with them ourselves, or letting the grandparents hold them b/c they know about the issues and have learned to deal with them properly.

Things around the house aren’t in the greatest order. Our bedroom is probably the biggest mess, but we don’t want people cleaning up in there to help us out!!! And also having friends/family cleaning the house and doing our laundry is a little weird to us…

The best thing we can ask for is FOOD. If you want to visit, bring food!!! And then we can all sit together, relax and EAT!!! That is the one thing we would love from visitors! LOL … I know it sounds a little greedy, but we are horrible at remembering to feed ourselves, and then the lack of energy just doesn’t help with the sleep deprivation we’re already getting. Even if it’s just a light snack, anything to munch on is much appreciated.

Before I had kids, people always told me the best thing you can get people who just had a baby is food. I never realized how true that was until now.

Here I am ranting about food b/c I have yet to eat or drink anything this morning and it’s already 11am.

Pulling myself away from the computer is hard though, b/c I probably won’t get a chance to return for a few more days and I really want to post their birth story ASAP… while everything is semi fresh in my head.