Nolan Allen and Dean Lee

Alright... the birth story.  I want to write this down before I forget too much of what happened.  Also I'm sure there are at least a few people out there who are like me who enjoy reading birth stories.

For starters, I was ready to be done with the pregnancy when I was about 35 weeks along.  Couldn't sit comfortably anywhere for longer than five minutes, didn't have motivation to do anything... the works.  So when Thanksgiving FINALLY rolled around, I was stoked; probably didn't seem that way, but any nervousness I thought I would have just didn't exist at all.  I was just so done.

I slept ok Thanksgiving night, surprisingly enough; had to be up to call the hospital at 630am to make sure they had room for me to come in for my induction (when we had to do this with Nettie's induction we had to wait about five hours before we could go in) at 730.  Lucky for us, there was no wait!  So we got everything loaded into the car and headed to the hospital. (My brother and sister-in-law were in town for Thanksgiving so they were kind enough to watch Nettie when she woke up until Sam and Jess could get her for the day.)  We registered at the hospital, blah, blah, blah, and made our way up to Labor and Delivery.

Once we got to our room, I changed into one of those super attractive hospital gowns (which I couldn't tie closed in the back btw) and the nurse got me hooked up to the heart rate monitors.  We sat and waited for a little while, assuming that a doctor would be in soon to check how dilated I was, but unfortunately, they got called away first to a delivery and then to a c-section, so we were bumped a few times.  The doctor didn't make it in until noon; so during that time we just monitored the babies and I slept a bit.  My poor nurse, though, baby B (Dean) did not want to stay on the monitors for the life of him.  She was in and out of our room constantly, spending about 20 minutes each time trying to find his heart rate.

Anyways, noon rolled around and we were finally seen by the doctors.  They did a quick ultrasound to make sure that both babies were head down (or at least A, which he most definitely was).  Even though both babies were head down, they told me that if it came to it, they would allow me to try for a breech extraction of baby B if he somehow flipped because of the fact that I had already had one baby who was of a pretty good size (Nettie was 8lbs 2oz).  That was awesome news to me, as I was definitely hoping to avoid a c-section at all costs.

Once they confirmed that the babies were head down, they checked to see how far dilated I was.  Now, I was hoping for a couple centimeters at best since I hadn't really been having any real contractions or anything like that.  When she checked me, I was about four and a half centimeters dilated!  Best.  News.  Ever.  But really, I was that far along probably because of the fact that Nolan had been head down and extremely low for a couple weeks (remember how uncomfortable sitting was for me).  We were given the go ahead to start pitocin (finally) and I think it was around 1pm that that began.

At first it definitely wasn't bad at all.  Mildly uncomfortable at worst, and I remember it being like that with Nettie too.  I was able to take a nap at some point during this, because my epidural request came at about 430ish pm.  I wasn't super uncomfortable then, either, but I wanted to be prepared cause I could feel things getting worse, and on top of that, the nurses had talked about breaking my water, and I remember how painful it was for me after they did that with Nettie.

So the anesthesiologist came in and "attempted" to place the epidural... three times.  I don't blame him for it being so hard, I'm almost certain it's cause I couldn't hunch forward very much, but hey, I had two people inside of me.  What matters is that I got one.  It did take awhile for it to take affect on the right side of my stomach though, which was annoying, but oh well.

After the epidural, the doctor came back in to check my progress and we were up to just about six centimeters.  We decided that it was a good time to break my water, so they did that, and Tucker told our nurse quite a few times that after they broke my water with Nettie, everything sped up a lot with the labor.  It seemed kind of like she just acknowledged what he said, but didn't really believe him. 

Well, it definitely picked up.  They broke my water just right around six o'clock.  I could feel the contractions get worse (cause the epidural took awhile to affect the right side of my stomach), and the unmistakeable feeling of pressure started to get reeeeeeeeally strong, like hard to ignore strong.  I kept telling my nurse this, and I asked her when they would check me again to see how far I was dilated and she said something like two hours after breaking my water.  Nope.  NOPE.  That wasn't gonna happen.  I told her to check me.  She did and said I was something like an 8.  The pressure just kept building and I was seriously struggling with not pushing.

So another fifteen minutes goes by (I think) and the nurses shift change starts to happen.  My original nurse started to catch the new one up on what was going on, and with each contraction I kept telling them the pressure was just about overwhelming.  So the original nurse suggested the new nurse check me again just to be safe.  10 centimeters. 

Things moved really quick from here.  Because of the fact that we were having twins, we had to be moved to an operating room to deliver; the reasons being there were two teams of pediatricians that needed to be present (one for each baby in case of problems) and they wanted to be able to have the option of an emergency c-section if something started to really go wrong.  Tucker had to get some scrubs from them to wear into the OR, and so they got those for him, but got him a set of medium sized ones.  He came out of the bathroom where he was going to change and said something along the lines of, "Someone will have to get me scrubs that are substantially bigger than these."  If I wasn't so focused on not pushing I would have laughed.  It did make me really nervous that he wasn't going to get into the room before the boys were born though.

They made him follow (scrubless) as they started to move me to the OR.  I'm not exactly sure where he changed, but he came in shortly after they made me scoot from my bed to the operating table (which was really hard to do between contractions and numb legs).

Legs went up into the stirrups and they told me I could push whenever, which was good cause my body was already pushing without me doing anything.  I think I pushed three times and there was a big release of pressure.  Nolan was out!  They swept him to the other side of the room to start checking him, then they broke Dean's water and told me I could keep pushing if I felt like it.  It took a little bit before I felt like my body actually could push again, but once I did, it was only two pushes.  Tucker said that with each baby that came out of me, my stomach dropped about six inches.

I can't even begin to describe how much lighter I felt after they were both out.  It was a very weird feeling.  They checked out the babies while the doctor stitched me up (which was painful, by the way).  Both of the boys checked out well and so once they were done with me, they shifted me back to my first bed and handed me the boys for transport back to our room.

So yeah, I went from a six to a ten in about an hour and super quick pushed those boys out.  It went fast.

Since then, everything has been great.  Both boys are nursing well, though Nolan hasn't quite started to gain weight yet (we're going back to the pediatrician on Friday to see if he's made any progress).  Dean was measuring high for his jaundice levels while we were still in the hospital and he still looked a bit yellow today when he got checked out at their first appointment, so we have to go get blood tests for him for the next five days to monitor that.

But really, the boys are great.  And coming home with them was fairly easy cause Nettie went to stay with Tucker's sister Barbi for a little while.  She still hasn't really been introduced to her brothers yet, and I really miss her.  It'll be nice when she comes home.

That's all for now.  I'll sit down to write another post hopefully not too far in the future.

Terrible Twos

Wish my 100th post could be about something better, but... ugh.

So recently Nettie is prone to throwing tantrums if she even slightly disagrees with you.  Screaming 'no' and picking up random things just to toss them on the floor again.  Just being a brat, in general.  Today, I sent her to church with Tucker (cause I woke up reeeeeally late), cause she enjoys being in Nursery.  Well, 20 minutes before church is supposed to be over, Tucker comes home with her saying she was kicked out for "being disruptive" and not behaving.  She's turned into that kid that you always tell yourself your child will never be. :( 

Granted, she's only a brat half the time; usually she's an absolute doll.  I'm not sure if this is just a phase for her or not.  It's entirely possible that she's just not getting disciplined properly, which then is all my fault cause Tucker only sees her for maybe two hours a day.

I'm going to try being more earnest with timeouts this week; maybe that will help a bit.  I don't want to resort to spanking cause I don't want her to learn hitting (but I think she's already picked it up from somewhere cause she tried hitting me earlier when she was having a tantrum), but honestly, I was spanked as a kid, and I remember being so afraid of getting spanked again that I wouldn't even dream of doing "bad things" again.  I don't want Nettie to be afraid of me though...

Anyone have any advice?

I've tried explaining to Nettie why she can't do something or whatever the situation may be, but she's so beyond listening during her tantrums that I doubt that works, and that's the sort of thing that people seem to say you're supposed to do.  Do we just stick with timeout?  Do we wait for her to mature a little bit more?

Just ugh...

It's November...

Didn't think November would ever get here, and now here it is!  I think we're pretty ready for the boys to get here.  I can't move comfortably anymore or get up off the floor or crawl around.  It's hard to imagine how I'm going to function through the rest of the month.  I don't have motivation for just about anything anymore (cooking, cleaning, going places), so there's lots of sitting around and Nettie is always super excited when Tucker comes home.

Speaking of Nettie, we seem to be losing naptime.  Even though she still definitely needs it, I can't get her to sleep hardly ever in the afternoons anymore, and I don't have the energy to fight her on it.  Oh well, earlier bedtime I guess.

We've been in our new apartment for a month now, and really like it... or well, I like everything except for the fact that it's two stories.  But I stay downstairs for the most part anyways.  Nettie's potty-trained completely now, and she only likes to go potty upstairs in her bathroom, so that's kind of annoying (cause I still have to help her pull down her undies (doobies, as she calls them for whatever reason)), but it's getting better.

I'm 33 weeks and 4 days today, so only about three weeks left to go before the induction date (they could always come sooner).  It's kind of funny, I thought that the closer I got to my "due date" the less worried I would be, but I seem to be worrying more now that something is going to happen and one of the babies won't make it.  That terrifies me.  More than likely it's pointless worrying, but the support groups I'm in on facebook have a good handful of women that had situations like that.  I know the odds are not high that something will go wrong, but I still worry, and will continue to until both babies are here safe and sound.

I would write more for this update, but I just spent three hours sitting at WIC with a toddler that doesn't like to cooperate for longer than about half and hour and I'm not in a super great mood.  I'll try to get another post up before the boys get here though.

22.5 Weeks

K so last time I posted a picture, I was 20.5 weeks along.  Conveniently, I'm wearing the same shirt this week for my picture, so maybe differences in size will be easier to see?  I dunno, whatevs.

Aside from looking somewhat shocked in this picture, I think I look a little bigger.  Feeling slower each day, for sure.  And I can feel that dealing with tantrums (which have become a daily occurrence :( ) or dragging screaming child from the park or store is really hard on me.  I probably shouldn't be doing that sort of thing though.

Speaking of the screaming child, I should probably do a little update about her.  And really, for the most part she's adorable and sweet.  She's just reached that age where if something frustrates her, even a tiny bit, she flips out and can't control her emotions.  We're working on it, and have become very familiar with timeout.  This past Sunday we got to church and sat through sacrament meeting in the foyer because she was angry that she couldn't go to nursery immediately.  Or well, I sat in the foyer, Tucker took himself and Nettie into the clerks office for timeout.  I would say it's embarrassing that she acts like that, but I mean, she's just barely two years old, and a majority of kids go through similar phases.  We've just gotta get through it.

But really, she's mostly just a sweetheart.  When I ask her where the babies are she pats my tummy, though I don't know if she quite understands exactly what that means.  A few weeks back we decided to start leaving the side of her crib down (with a big box pushed against the side) so she can get out on her own in the mornings.  This has actually worked pretty good, the only downside is she comes out about 5-10 times after we've put her down for the night asking for different things.  She knows if she asks to go potty when she gets up that I'll oblige and won't just send her back to bed, so that's usually the request.

Lately her favorite tv show is Jake and the Neverland Pirates, which I'm ok with, cause it's not annoying at all like some little kid shows are.  She even understands what Halloween is because of the show, so if she still likes pirates by October, I'll probably try and put together a pirate costume for her.

Eh...

So I fiddled with the blog stuff a bit cause I was bored this morning.  Sorry if you don't like it.  I'm still trying to decide if I want to leave it this way or not.

21 Weeks

Ok, so not quite 21 weeks, technically that's on Friday, but close enough for me.  Anywho, I finally took a "belly picture", something I've been putting off cause I was afraid I just look extra fat lately and not actually pregnant.  I know I definitely feel pregnant; like, can't lean forward when I sit without multiple kicks of protest, have a hard time getting off the floor when I sit down to do things with Nettie, have EXTREME round ligament pain (it's bad... really, really bad), and I can never seem to find a comfortable position when I sleep at night (I sleep on the couch currently cause our bed was just too hard for me with the whole having to sleep on my side thing).  Enough rambling, though.  Picture!

Disregard the fact that I have to use our tablet to take a picture; it's currently the only camera we have (Nettie dipped my digital camera in the sink).  For comparison, this post was me at 24 weeks with Nettie.  Apparently I didn't take any pictures of myself sooner than that when I was pregnant with her.  Oh well.  I definitely look bigger in this picture, though I'm sure some of that just has to do with the weight I've added on since two and a half years ago.  If I actually make it to 37 weeks... I'm kind of scared to know how big I'll be.

In the worry department this week, there are a couple of things.  Least worrisome, we have to move.  Apparently you can't have more than 2 adults and 2 kids in a 2 bedroom apartment.  *Sigh*  When I talked to the office here at our complex about it, they gave us the option of transferring to a 3 bedroom place here without any penalties or fees whenever we want (we just signed our lease again in June), or they said we could just wait till our lease was up next summer to move and it wouldn't be a problem.  So we had the choice of moving with or without babies, and we've decided to do the move before they come.  Basically by either the end of this month or the end of September we'll be in a new place.  Woooo?

Worrisome thing number two: the internet.  This is mostly my fault though.  Whenever I get bored, I got searching for stuff about twins, twins support sites, random blogs, etc, and all that you ever find (or at least a very large majority of the time) is the tragic scary stories about people delivering at like 24 and crazy NICU stuff, or losing one of the twins, or other sad scenarios.  I'm making myself paranoid.  Also, a thing called TTTS (Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome), which is something that can only happen with identical twins.  Basically because both babies umbilical cords are hooked to the same placenta, stuff can happen where one baby is receiving more blood and nourishment from me and the other starts to fall behind in growth.  This can develop at any time in the pregnancy, and can come about fairly suddenly.  TTTS is one of the reasons they like to do so many ultrasounds with twins (so far I've had a doctor's appointment every month, a separate ultrasound appointment, and a home visit nurse person), but from what I'm reading, I'm on the low end of what is standard.  Most mo/di twin pregnancies have ultrasounds every two weeks after you're 16 weeks along.  I'm gonna ask about that tomorrow at my appointment.

Third worrisome thing: potty training.  I've decided to try and do this with Nettie probably starting next week, but I honestly have no idea how to even go about doing this, even though I've read lots of stuff on it.  Although, she's pretty good about going poo on the potty if I catch her before or in the act of it, haha!  Today, for instance, she started concentrating real hard, so I asked her if she wanted to go on the potty but she said no and ran off, then I went about my business getting her a drink of juice ready, but she came in really upset with me, still with the ultra-concentration face on and wouldn't let me do anything till I took her into the bathroom and set her on the toilet.  She had held pretty much most of it in till we got there.  It was impressive.  So, that sort of thing is encouraging, but Nettie has a drink with her pretty much all throughout the day, so pee is going to be another story.  I doubt she has any idea about what bladder control is yet.  Blah.

I think that's it for this post though...  Can't believe I actually wanted to sit down and write something up.  Haven't been motivated like that in forever!

18.5 Weeks

I have a feeling the pregnancy is going to drag on and on.  It has only been three weeks since we found out we'd be having twins.  That's it!  Just 3 weeks!  It seriously feels like it's been forever.  Maybe it's dragged cause there's been so much going on during that time frame?  I dunno.  All I know is I'd like it for time to speed up and feel normal again.  Bleh.

Next ultrasound is a week from today.  I'm going to try and see if they'll take a picture of both of the babies heads together so I can actually prove there's more than one baby in there.

We bought car seats this past week.  I happened to be near a Babies R Us with my mom while she was in town, so we stopped in and they let me test out a bunch of them in my car.  Ended up going with the one I really wanted, but probably wasn't going to get because it was way more expensive than the Graco candidate.  But there was an awesome sale on one of the Chicco designs in the style of car seat I needed, and you get an extra 10% off when you have to buy multiples of stuff (woot?), so I got the Chiccos for the same price I would have gotten the Graco for.  I like'em.

Now my mind is focused on breast pumps.  I really, really, REALLY want to be able to breastfeed this time around.  With Nettie, I could only do so for the first few months (maybe till she was 4 months old?) cause stupid birth control pills sabotaged me.  Not doing that again.  But yeah, breast pump.  Me and Stephanie are planning on going to the Kids Exchange thing this week at the Fair Grounds, so maybe I'll find something I want there... but I've got my heart set on the new Avent pump.  Haven't talked to Tucker too much about getting one yet.  Maybe I can convince someone to gift it to us?

OH ALSO!  Circumcision.  I'm kind of torn on this issue.  It's not covered by Medicaid (which is what we have currently for the pregnancy), so we'd have to pay out of pocket for it to be done.  As far as I can tell with all the research I've done, there is no medical difference for circumcised or uncircumcised boys, like cleanliness or whatever.  It's purely a cosmetic thing.  Which I mean.. only 60% of American baby boys are circumcised nowadays apparently, so it wouldn't be weird for them in the locker room later on...  Ugh... boy parts.  I think I'm fine not having it done.  Both because I don't like the idea of my poor little ones possibly being in extreme pain and also because I don't want to fork out an extra couple hundred dollars if we don't have to.  Tucker has remained silent on the issue so far.  Anyone have any opinion or.. something.. on the subject?

Lol at the post, by the way.  Breast pumps and circumcision.  Oh goodness...