Life With Twins

Life with Twins!

So my last post was about my birth story and how the BIG DAY went. The past few weeks have been a blur. The Twins are 3 weeks old now. My friend Jessika has twins and told me if I don’t document everything with Pictures and Video I will totally forget this time in their life. Mainly because with twins you’re so sleep deprived that you’re running on Auto pilot most of the time. Boy ain’t that the truth. I think it’s like that for all new parents, but more so with twins. Exhausted doesn’t even begin to describe the level of tired I feel. There is no word that I have found yet to describe it.  Billy’s parents just gave us a nice camcorder, Yay!!! I can’t wait to shoot video and make movies on Billy’s Mac with iMovie.

So this is my stomach over the past few weeks. It’s gone down a lot. After I had the babies I still looked super pregnant. Mainly because my uterus was so stretched out and hadn’t gone down yet.  Right now I’m 3 pounds away from my pre-baby weight. Woo hoo!!! The more I pump the more my uterus shrinks and my stomach goes down. The weight has just fallen off. Besides holding babies and doing a ton of squats just to pick up or put down the babies that’s about as much exercise as I get. I think pumping helps to.  I hear you burn 500+ calories a day pumping and breast feeding alone.

So my babies are soooo cute!!!  I think they are cuter in person.  Pictures don’t do them any justice. They are Identical twins. At times they look exactly alike and then at times they look nothing alike, it’s really weird. Weston is still about a half pound lighter then Wyatt. Wyatt’s face is a lot fuller. I think once Weston catches up with Wyatt they will look more alike. 

At the hospital right after they were born the nurses did their normal tests after they were delivered. They inspected every part of their bodies to see if they had any differences like freckles or birthmarks and they found that they did not. They told us their Super Identical. At the time they were born they were about the same weight Weston was 5.5oz and Wyatt was 5.6oz. Before they were born I was like, “Oh I will totally be able to tell them apart.” Then the first time I saw them in the recovery room I thought, “OMG!!!! They look exactly the same. How am I going to do this???” It didn’t help that I was drugged up on pain killers. It took me a good 2 weeks to be able to tell them apart. I refused to take off their ankle bracelets in fear that I would pull an Uncle Jessie on Full House and Mix up my babies. Hahaha… I think it’s easier right now cause Weston is so much smaller than his brother.

Here is a picture from the hospital when the babies were the same weight. As you can see they totally look identical here. With their skinny little faces. 

This picture was taken a few days ago. Wyatt (L) is gaining weight no problem and his cheeks are filling out, as to where Weston (R) still has a skinny little face.  

Right now we have the babies on a schedule. As of this week we feed them every 2 ½ - 3 hours during the day and every 3 ½ to 4 hours at night (or pretty much whenever they wake up) we are on their schedule. Before this week we were feeding them every 2 ½ hours during the day and every 3 hours at night.  The doctor is really pushing these feeding schedules so that we can get them back to their birth weight. He gave us a goal that we must get them to gain 1 ounce a day. Our 2^nd week we totally met our goal. Last week Weston hit his birth weight and as of Tuesday was 5.6 pounds YAY! Wyatt also gained 5 ounces and was 5.0 pounds. Since Wyatt is still under his birth weight we had to bring him back to the doctor this past Tuesday to see if he’s up, we totally met our goal and he was exactly his birth weight of 5.5 oz.  We have been feeding him the same amount as his brother, which is 60-70ml a feeding. Which is about 2 ounces. Their bottles are soooo tiny. The doctor said full term babies drink 2 ounces at birth (60ml). So we are there, Yay! As of September 29th they were 39 weeks (if I were still pregnant). They will be considered full term babies on October 6^th which if I was having one baby would have been my official due date.

Tandem Feeding

 Weston (Left) Wyatt (Right)

So I’m super scatter brained so I’m hoping I’m not writing about things that are off topic or backwards. Life with twins is great but so tiring. I still have a hard time believing that they are mine. I think with your first child it’s so new and different that it takes longer to sink in. So this may sound bad but I will be totally honest. I don’t know if this happens to other new parents but it’s weird because I haven’t felt like I have a strong connection with them. I just feel like I take care of them. This feeling changes everyday though and as the days pass I do fall more and more in love with them and a bit more connected then the last. As soon as I had them I went next door to my mom’s house and told her this. I felt so bad like I was a bad parent that I didn’t have this amazing connection. She assured me that it’s totally normal and to give it time and it will soon come. I still feel like a bad mother because of this, I’m hoping I’m not the only one. Maybe this is something new mom’s don’t talk about cause their ashamed? I don’t know. But one thing I do know is I love them so much and I give them my all 24/7.  Billy and I are their slaves and will do whatever it takes to keep them happy. We try to give them the best of the best; cribs, toys, strollers, etc.  We want to be great parents and try really hard to be just that. I know with time we will get there.

The babies in one of their Rock-n-play's, seconds later they were both crying and not liking being squished together in one. 

So let’s see life with Twins…………..Like I said is beyond exhausting. But I love that they have each other. Once they are old enough to interact and play together it will be so awesome and a lot easier.  Every Morning goes something like this. Their schedule gets them up around 7-8am we feed them, change them and normally in the morning they will not go back to sleep right away. If they do, then awesome, that means I get to go back to sleep too, Score! If not and they stay awake I do morning play time. We have 2 baby Einstein activity mats and I will lay them down on them and let them stare in awe of the flashing lights and hanging toys. I will also put them on their sides facing each other so they can interact together. It’s sooooo adorable to see them baby talk and coo at each other.

Stretch Marks!!! I know a lot of the girls wanted to know if I had gotten any stretch marks because at the time I was pregnant I had ZERO that I could see. Well once I had the babies I still looked fully pregnant because my uterus was sooo stretched out having twins that it still made my tummy look huge. All my girlfriend asked, Whoa how long is it going to take for that to go down. I wanted to say Ummm I just had “TWINS” LAY OFF!!! I didn’t really hid my belly though because I really didn’t care that I still looked pregnant. But after about one week my stomach went down some and Surprise Surprise Stretch Marks!!! Haha… I got a few light colored marks on a small part of the lower left side of my stomach right next to my kidney scar. I’m super excited that that’s all I got. Yay!!!  As of right now It’s been 3 weeks and my stomach has gone down so much. Your uterus shrinks every time you breast feed or pump. So the more you do it the faster your tummy goes down.

Breast Feeding! Well when pregnant my plan was to breast feed. I thought, oh it will be so easy to breast feed, just hold them up to the nip and I’m all good. Ummm NOT!!!! Breast feeding is really hard and not only that but producing milk is hard too! I worked with lactating consultants, nurses and doctors multiple times a day everyday when I was in the hospital. They all said the same thing. Since my babies are preemie they are not strong enough to latch let alone suck hard enough to express milk from my teet :-P This was frustrating. So what I do is pump and bottle feed which works out great cause we can feed them at the same time and get them on a tight feeding schedule.  Then last week the worst thing ever happened, my milk supply cut itself in half and at times even less than half. This was Horrible because they are now eating more and doctor’s orders were that we needed to get them to gain an ounce a day. So we have to supplement with formula and mix it with breast milk. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if the formula didn’t upset their little tummies. They got super gassy and it gave them really bad poops.  (we just switched formula and it’s helped their little bellies a lot)

So I asked around and spoke with the Doctor on what I could do to increase my supply. So I now am drinking Mothers Milk tea, More Water, trying to remember to eat more, and from time to time I will drink a Guinness. I’ve began pumping every 4 hours and within the last few days I’ve noticed that my supply is picking up. Pumping is really no fun. I feel like a milking cow and when I don’t pump a lot of milk its super depressing. If I had one baby there would be no problem at all, I’d have plenty.  But the fact is I’m feeding two babies, so when there is not enough it makes it super frustrating and I feel like a failure.

Here is a little look in to what it sounds and looks like when both babies are not very happy. 

A few of my all time favorite baby things right now are the boys Rock-N-Play’s, I recommend them to any new mother. They are great for traveling too. These are all the boys will sleep in right now. They are great to because the bottoms are rounded and so when we have long fussy nights I can rock them in their Rock-N-Play’s.

Also my other favorite thing is baby music. Our friend Matt came over with music called Rock-A-Bye’s and what they are are super mellow baby lulabys of rock artists like Nine inch nails, Metallica, Bob Marley, Nirvana, the Beatles, Aerosmith, Dave Mathews and the list goes on. The boys love them and listen to them to go to sleep every night. I love them to and they also help me go to sleep every night haha… Check out the website http://www.rockabyebabymusic.com/?nav2=false .  They also have a Pandora station called Rockabye Baby!

Other things I love are WubbaNub’s http://www.wubbanub.com/index.html. They are little stuffed animals attached to soothie pacifiers.  They are supposed to be good for your child’s motor skills. But they’re great because you will never lose their pacifiers again. The boys love to hold on to the little stuffed animals that are just their size, as they suck on the pacifier. Not to mention it’s so darn cute. You can find these little guys at The Learning Center stores.

Oh and I really loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee the stretchy swaddling blanket’s.  I don’t know what brands they are but the 40x40 stretchy blankets are great for swaddling our little guys. We have nice bigger blankets but they’re too big for the boys right now.

And our life saver right now is Gripe Water. The Boys have a lot of gas and when their little tummy’s get upset we give them Gripe water and it gives them instant relief and before we know it they’re burping and farting within seconds/minutes. It’s pretty crazy to here a 5 pound baby fart louder than you, hahaha… The only thing I hate about it is that it’s like black iodine color and stains clothes.  It’s tastes good though like sugar, the babies will go from screaming crying to happy and asleep in minutes. I think this is a must for babies with Colic, in my opinion.

36 weeks Pregnant & The Birth of Weston and Wyatt

36 weeks Pregnant & The Birth of Weston and Wyatt.

This picture was taken Sunday the night before the babies were born.

 Sunday September 9th 2012:

Well I’m writing this while still pregnant. I thought it would be nice to have one last journal entry before I had the babies. So it’s Sunday at 10pm, I’m hoping that I will be able to go to sleep soon. I surprisingly feel really relaxed and mello. Billy seems a bit nervous and went to bed at 9:30pm to see if he could fall asleep. We have to be up at 4am-ish and ready to go by 5:10am. OKAY that just gave me butterflies eepp!!! I decided this morning that I would sleep in one last time and slept till 11am, which I realize might not have been the best idea. Ha!

So all I did today was research overnight bag checklists online and triple check my hospital bag since I will be there for 4 days. I did manage to hit up Yogurtland with my girlfriend Kelly one last time.  Buddy has such a doggy 6^th sense and totally is a bit freaked and knows something is up. The poor little guy, I’m sad to leave him for so long but hopefully he will be okay with some doggy play dates we set up for him.

Today I came to the realization that even after insurance this labor is going to cost us a fortune. I got super mad at myself that I just realized this now and have not saved any money to help pay for the upcoming hospital bills. I have great insurance but heard that it’s like 2K to have a baby at Kaiser and I freaking go to Good Sam which is WAY more expensive. Plus I have to stay extra days because it’s a C-Section. I’m Flippin so scared to see how much this is going to cost us. F-word!  Right now with disability pay I’m getting $800 less a month. On top of that my insurance is going from $164 a month to $725 a month just to add the babies. I hate the freaking health care system. It’s so ridiculous.

Today my legs got super swollen and one ankle swoll up. It’s such a weird feeling. My stomach is getting so huge and grew 1 inch this week. Also my stomach is getting sooooo heavy it’s crazy! I still can’t see any stretch marks but I will see tomorrow once my stomach starts deflating to see what kind of damage was done. Hehe.

So tonight the anesthesiologist called me and introduced himself and went over everything with me as far as what tomorrow is going to be like.  He asked if I had any questions and I said no you pretty much told me everything I see on those baby shows and confirmed everything I was expecting.  So yea! I saw my Mom tonight and called my Dad and am all set for tomorrow. I can’t wait. I’m super sad that this is the last day I will be pregnant cause I really love being pregnant but it’s gotten to a point where I’m so huge I’m about ready, my stomach can’t stretch any farther.

So I’m going to try and go to bed its 11pm and I’m hoping to at least be asleep by 12am and get a good 4 hours of sleep in.  Goodnight!

Monday September 10^th the BIG DAY!!!!!

Billy and I both managed to get about 3 hours of sleep. We got to the Hospital at 5:30am on the dot! We checked in and they got me all dressed in my grown. I was sooooo nervous that my stomach started cramping up. I think my nerves were affecting the babies. So I get my IV’s put in and Billy got dressed in his scrubs and we were all set.  At 7:45am the nurses come and grab me and we walk down in to the operating room. Which looked a lot different then I expected it to. Billy had to stay in the room while I got my epidural. The guy missed the first time so it took 2 tries to get it right. Once the Epidural was in almost instantly my lower half was numbed up. So they began prepping me and I got the sensation that my doctor warned me about. I felt like I couldn't breathe. It’s such a horrible feeling. I kept thinking mind over matter over and over. A nurse they rubbed my belly a few times and I felt as if I could breathe again. Fewwwwwwww THANK GOD.

Soooooo scared, waiting for the nurse to walk me down to the OR

Billy in his scrubs <3

I love this picture of Billy. It sums up how tired we both were and nervous.

Billy and I excited, scared and nervous getting ready to head to the OR

At this point they brought Billy in. I had free access of both hands and so I held Billy’s hand and at 8am we got started and the cutting began. I was so scared like OMFG this is happening I can’t believe it. All these people are here for me. There were probably about 10-12 surgeons and nurses in the room.  While I was lying down I looked up at the lights shining down on me and what I saw I couldn't believe.  I could  actually see in the reflection of the lights the entire surgery as it was happening. I thought it was soooooo cool. So I watched most of the surgery but got freaked out and had to look away right as the babies got pulled out. So at this point the doctor says okay it’s time lower that curtain.(in my last blog I wrote about my birth plan and that I wanted to see my babies as they got pulled out)

 Meet Weston Glen Young

At 8:07am Baby A aka Baby Weston Glen Young was born. He weighed in at 5 pounds 5 ounces and was 17.5 inches long. He cried instantly and the sound of his cry brought a tear to my eye. It was so surreal. They then lifted the baby up and showed him to us and I must say it was pretty indescribable the feelings and emotions that I had at the first site of our little boy. He was so cute and tiny I was just in shock.  I couldn't believe that within minutes he was in my stomach and now he was out. I began to cry and then remembered OMG I have more babies in my belly and started smiling and giggling to myself.

This was right after they pulled Weston out, I was so excited to see Wyatt I couldn't stop smiling. 

The light you see in this picture is where I could see the surgery in the reflection 

Meet Wyatt Thomas Young

At 8:09am Baby B was born aka Baby Wyatt Thomas Young. He weighed in at 5 pounds 6 ounces and was 18 inches long. Just like his brother he cried instantly. I was so happy to hear his little cry. They then held him up to show him to me and he was bigger than his brother.  I was soooo happy both babies were out and appeared to be okay. I had a huge smile on my face and was overwhelmed with happiness.

I know most of you aren't expecting to see this, but here is the video of the birth of our Twins Weston and Wyatt J

After she showed us the babies she handed them off to the nurses who took them out of the OR and in to a baby station area they had set up in the next room they came over and grabbed Billy and took him to go with the babies. I then hung out and got stitched back up and was like OMG I can’t wait to hold them and see their faces up close. Two nurses then ran in and they each had a baby and were so giddy and happy they said “OMG you have twins! They are prefect and everything looks good.  We are going to take them to recovery with Dad (Billy) to meet you.”  I then look over and there are about 5 nurses who put Billy in a wheel chair and then hand the babies over to him, one in each arm. I then watched them wheel him off to recovery.  It was such a funny, happy site. Everyone was so happy for us. It was such a great feeling.

Both babies looked great and did not have Jaundice, Woo Hoo! 

At 9am I’m all stitched up and they wheel me over to the recovery room. I arrive to see Billy holding one of our babies. I was soooo excited to get my hands on them.  First things first they gave me pain medication because the epidural was wearing off and the pain was setting in. They then placed the baby on my bare chest with his little naked body because his temperature was low and we needed to bring it up. Luckily the other baby was fine (the baby Billy was holding) I looked down at my little boy and was just in shock I couldn't believe he was mine.

Right away they had me try and breast feed the boys. Unfortunately because they are preemie and a month early they were not strong enough to latch and suck to get milk. So we then gave them formula. They both had low blood sugar and we needed to bring their blood sugar level up from where they were at in the 40’s to the 50’s in order for them to not have to be taken to the NICU. It took us a good hour or so to get their levels up but lucky for us we were able to.

They then put a baby in each arm and wheeled me over to the Mother Baby Unit where our hospital room was, we would be spending the next 4 days there. Over our stay we found that 2 babies was no joke!  Hahaha… Hospitals don’t have nurseries anymore so the babies stay with you in your room the whole time. Which I didn't mind and wanted anyway. Since they are preemies and so small they wanted us to feed them every 3 hours.  It was such a process because they wanted me to try and breastfeed first, if that didn't work then we had to formula feed them and then I would need to pump each time afterward and whatever colostrum I could get out we had to put in syringes and feed it to the babies that way. This took probably an hour and a half each feeding.  Not to mention the babies were so tired that we had to constantly try and keep them awake, this slowed down the process even more. So our game plan was to change their diapers first to wake them up, then feed them and try to keep them awake.  With nurses coming in and family and friends it did make things a lot harder, in that we never had any down time or had any time to rest.

Billy stayed with me the whole time. I felt so bad for him because he had to sleep on this tiny chair bed. We decided to really push for leaving on Thursday (they wanted us to stay till Friday). Each night they gave us the option to take the babies for the night so that we could rest. We took full advantage of this. They would take the babies at 11:30pm-12am and bring them back at 6:30am. While they had the babies over night they would feed them check their blood sugar levels, weigh them. They did the car seat test at night also. It was really nice getting rest. Even though I was getting woken up every 2 hours by nurses who were either checking my vitals, giving me pain meds, refilling my IV, or the IV alarm would go off if it was empty or if the line got pinched. It was very tiring.

These are the boys returning from the over night nursery. They would always sleep together, The nurses said they loved it and slept better together then when they had them sleeping apart. They also wrote a B on Wyatt's beanie so they could tell them apart :)

Thursday we got to leave Yay!

 We got discharged at 11:30am. We packed up the room and they told us we could take everything but the linens.  So we stalked up on Preemie Diapers, Breast pump bottles and accessories, Gauze, Vaseline and much more.  As they wheel chaired me out Billy carried both boys in their car seats. We found that people LOVE TWINS!!! We got stopped probably 3 times just trying to get to the front door. Billy put the babies down next to me while he went to get the car. Since we were at the front entrance of the hospital everyone coming and going stopped to take a look at the babies. At one point a small crowd began to gather around them. I thought Damn these kids are more popular than me and they've only been alive for 4 days, AWESOME!!!

Here are some photo's of our room :)

The white chair with the pillows on it is Billy's fold out bed. :(  Poor Guy!

These were the babies beds. The picture below is of them Hanging out together. 

It was the craziest feeling bringing the babies home and having them in the house.  We were all prepared for their arrival physically but nothing can prepare you mentally. I just starred at them for a long time and took it all in. They still didn't feel like they were ours, it was so surreal.  I thought to myself, Wow my house is now a home.  I have my Husband, my dog and now my beautiful babies J

The babies lost weight after they were born. This is totally normal, in the womb since babies have an umbilical cord they are constantly getting nutrition 24/7 and are gaining weight. Once born the cord is cut and it’s up to you to feed them and keep that weight up. Most babies lose 10% of their body weight at birth. Below is a list of how their weights have fluctuated so far. J

Weston Weight

Baby A

9/10: 5.5.

9/12: 4.12

9/13: 4.11

9/15: 4.14

9/20: 4.12

9/25: 5.0

Wyatt's Weight

Baby B

9/10: 5.6

9/12: 4.15

9/13: 4.14

9/15: 4.10

9/20: 5.1

9/25: 5.6

Well I will write more hopefully sooner than later. For now I will give you just the birth story J Thanks for reading!!!

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35 weeks with Twins! This is my Last blog post before the babies arrive.

35 weeks pregnant with the Twins

Billy and I on Saturday (35 weeks Preggo)

So I have big news. This will be my last pregnancy post before the babies arrive.  I know a lot of people have enjoyed following my pregnancy with the twins and I’m oh so very grateful for the love and support everyone has shown me. I can’t tell you how many times I have had people tell me when I’m out and about how much they love my blog and love following my pregnancy, it’s very flattering. Thank you all for the support you have shown me.

So I get a lot of comments from people saying I bet your ready to have them or you must be miserable at this point in your pregnancy. But to tell you the truth I really love being pregnant. I’ve had such an easy pregnancy with the twins. I know that’s very hard to believe but it’s been really great. I’ve enjoyed every second of it. I really am going to miss it. Although the last 2 weeks have been pretty difficult it’s still not that bad.

So I have a lot to write about. I have I huge announcement that I will get to later but first I will start off with new symptoms I’ve had this week. First off I will say I’ve had lots and lots of contractions and big ones at that.  They are a lot more painful and take my breath away. Sleeping and lying down is becoming painful and difficult, my stomach feels sooo heavy and turning from one side to the other while lying down has been really difficult.  Pillows are my best friend. As of Sunday my stomach has dropped a bit. So it makes it harder to sit and walk. I feel like I’m sitting on the babies or body parts, It’s a really weird feeling.  I officially walk and waddle like a pregnant lady with full on huffing and puffing and moans and groans. Hahaha…. I also can’t tell if I’ve just gained weight or what but I feel like overnight this week my thighs grew huge. I don’t know if they are swollen or if it’s because I stopped working out a month ago and all those trips to Yogurtland have gone straight to my thighs.  Also the twins are growing at a rapid rate and that has left me in a ton of pain.  In which the pain makes me super nauseous.

This is what my couch has looked like for the last 3 months. I LOVE PILLOWS!!!

During my pregnancy I've tried to take really good care of myself. I'm a vegetarian for one so I've tried pretty hard to make sure I get enough vitamins and protein. I take these expensive ass Vegan prenatal pills from whole foods to make sure I'm not missing out on the essentials. I have not eaten any fast food through out my entire pregnancy (nor do I ever eat fast food). I try to eat right and healthy and I'm pretty lucky I haven't had a huge appetite during my pregnancy. I was working out but not very much and pretty lightly since I'm high risk. My pre pregnancy weight was 134 my current weight is 167 for a total gain of 33 pounds. Not to bad if I say so myself.

So I wanted to show you what my body does when I have a contraction. Yes it's actually visual. 

So this is what my belly normally looks like, nice and round. 

When I have a contraction it feels like a huge cramp and my stomach (uterus) gets super tight and changes shape. Kinda like a Charley horse where you can see your leg muscle cramp up.

This is my stomach during a contraction

Crazy Huh!!!! 

So since I have so much to write about I will try to go in order by day. So last week I scheduled myself a pregnancy massage. This was the first “professional” massage I have ever had. Why you ask, because I hate them and I don’t like people touching me aka rubbing my shoulders.  If you try I will spazz out and ask you to stop. I freakin hate it. So I go to the prenatal massage and the lady that did my massage was in her mid 50’s and very chatty. She couldn’t believe I was carrying twins and said I look better then all of her singleton patents. Well this woman talked my ear off the whole time and did not talk about peaceful stress free things. She talked about labor and her pregnancy and whenever there was a quiet moment she would say hummm what else should we talk about. I left there feeling exactly the same as I did when I walked in and super confused like what the hell just happened. The massage was not good at all either. She was super nice but I would never ever go back to her or recommend her.  She was even drinking a togo’s soda and checked her cell phone. WTF????

I just got a few pictures back from my Maternity Photo shoot. I can’t wait to see the rest.  But here are a few shots. The photographer that did the photo shoots name is Kamram Zohoori, his website is www.picture2000.com . This photo shoot was a solo shoot with yours truly. Like I said, I can’t wait to see the other shots we got and I can’t wait to put a few of them in the nursery.

Here are a few photo's

This one came out really good you can actually see Baby B & A's little heads on their ultrasound pictures

So I’ve been thinking lately how the hell am I going to breast feed? I know its totally normal but as a new mother I’m like ehhhh.... It just seems so awkward and different.  The human body is an amazing thing. Not only can I make little humans but I can produce food for them and nurse them in to big babies. Sorry if I sound like a crazy person haha.. It’s just one of those things where I think WOW this is really about to happen. So this weekend I started researching on youtube and in my pregnancy books how to breast feed. I was so shocked at all the video’s I found of women totally topless and care free walking through all the steps of what works best for them for breast feeding and showing step by step what they do. I found one with a woman who demonstrated how she feeds her twins at the same time it was very cool.  I’ve also be researching how to care for circumcised babies. I mean there are just all these little things you have to think about and I totally want to be prepared. I hear parenting is a lot of trial and error and that lots of thing come naturally. I know Billy and I will make great parents, it’s just scary having such a huge new responsibility. 

Sooooooo I filmed a video. Ohhhh snap, yes I did. This video is of the babies heartbeats, I haven’t told a soul about this video till now haha… It’s gotten 63 hits since Sunday, woo hoo I’m famous…j/k. This video is of me using the fetal doppler that Billy’s parents got me for my birthday back in May. In May I was about 5 months pregnant I think and was still not feeling the babies move because my placenta has attached itself in the front of my uterus. Which means every time they would kick or move they were kicking placenta which cushioned the blow and left me feeling nothing most of the time. You would think with 2 babies I would be feeling lots of movement but really I was not. It wasn’t till about 5 ½ to 6 months where I felt them all the time.  So this video is pretty crazy in that I’m not wearing any makeup what so ever. I’m just chillin in shorts and a sports bra, yes that’s how you know I’m pregnant. My old self would NEVER be seen in person, a photo let alone a video with no makeup on.  My face is getting puffy from the pregnancy and the angles aren’t very flattering. But what the hell, I really don’t give a rip. Haha.. So here it is a video of the babies heartbeats on the fetal Doppler. They are both different tones, I figured someone would get a kick out of it. Enjoy!

So here is the HUGE news! If you’ve read this far, thanks! I know this is a really long blog. I just have so much to get out being my last pregnancy blog. Any who, like every Tuesday we have our Non Stress test for the babies. This time they were both pulling a Baby B from last week and there heart beats weren’t really fluctuating. The tech told me they like their heart rates to go up and down at least 4 times between 120-154 beats during the NST. So this time I made sure to shake my belly and drink cold water and sure enough that woke them up. Woo hoo. She said if I couldn’t get them to wake up she was going to buzz them. Which I guess is a giant vibrating buzzer that wakes them up. This week they monitored them for almost an hour, which was sooo boring.  But I’m glad everything went well.

This is my view for all my Non Stress Tests, It's the corner of Hamilton and Bascom next to the Classic Car wash. 

We then head in to our ultrasound for their growth test. I’ve been looking forward to this ultrasound for a very long time because we got to find out how much the babies weigh.  So what they do during this type of ultrasound is measure all their body parts, head, belly, legs etc. and then come up with an estimated weigh of each baby. So the Babies have gotten really big in the last month Baby A is 5.6oz and Baby B is 5.15oz. Which means I have 11 pounds of full on baby weight in my belly. Last month the babies weighed 3.8 and 3.12.  

So I bet you can’t guess who my ultrasound tech was this time. My BFF, the broken English guy! UGH! He was really nice to us because we have seen him the last 3 weeks in a row, but man this guy is just a sloppy ultrasound tech. He sprays the gel out super high so that it splatters all over the place and gets on my clothes and even face. Like really bro?  He must be new because my last 3 ultrasounds have been horrible and painful with this guy. Anyway he managed to take a penis photo and a photo of Baby A’s head J which I was really happy about but as you can see his photo skills aren’t that great he took 3 of the same shots and its only half of the baby’s head.  But I will say their heads have gotten so big in the last month. So we finish the ultrasound and the Doctor comes in, this time we got the doctor I really like. She said everything looked good but didn’t want me going past my scheduled delivery date which is September 17^th.  So all seemed well and we leave the High Risk Facility.  

Baby A's big Ol Head hahah...

  

It's hard to believe how big the babies have gotten here is a picture of them cuddling at 12 weeks. You can see their little baby heads. 

HERE IS THE BIG NEWS!!!

This is where we get a phone call that changes everything. We drive over to Billy’s parent’s house and while I’m hanging out in the kitchen talking to His mom and sister Billy runs in and tells us all to be quiet.  We all were a little confused because we didn’t know why or who was on the phone. But then Billy says okay go on what do you have to tell us, I have Gina here (he was on speaker phone). The doctor then goes on to say that after we left she started to go over the ultrasounds and the measurements of each baby and found that Baby A is not developing at the same rate as Baby B. Baby B’s measurements right now are normal and on point for a 35 week old fetus. But Baby A’s belly measurements are 2 weeks behind and not growing at the rate it should be, his legs are 1 week behind and is head is on point and measuring just fine. She said that it looks as though the blood flow is being delivered to the brain just fine but it doesn’t look like his blood flow being distributed to all of his organs properly.

She said at this point she doesn’t think that it’s causing a huge threat to where we need to take them out right away but said she was going to suggest to my doctor that she take them out next week. This made me instantly start to cry. Billy’s sister and mom then hugged me while we listened to the doctor continue on.  Billy told her that we have an appointment with my doctor that will be delivering our babies Wednesday (TODAY) and that she should call her tonight and tell her the test results so that she can reschedule our C-Section ASAP and we can go over everything with her. She then says she’ll call her right away and hung up.

 Well I didn’t find out till 10pm Tuesday night that I had a missed call on my phone and had a voicemail. So I listened and to my surprise my doctor had rescheduled my C-Section within 15 minutes of that phone call. Sooooooooo my new delivery date has been rescheduled. The babies will be delivered at 36 weeks on Monday September 10^th at 7:30am. Which means I have 5 more days of being pregnant. Its so surreal I just can’t believe it.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me if I was going to keep my blog up after the babies are born. My answer is maybe but I don’t think I’ll have time. I will definitely do a delivery blog with how everything went and the whole experience through my eyes.  As for 1 blog a week, I don’t know if I will have time.  But I’m sure if I have a moment I will blog about life as a twin mom. I guess time will tell, I will be a walking zombie. Haha….

So I've decided that I wanted to write out a birth plan for my C-Section. I know most people don’t for C-sections but there are a few things that I want for my delivery and so below is what I will be requesting. I’m sure that all these things come with labor and delivery but I’ve never done this before and want to make sure these things are available to me.

Mother to be: Gina Young 

Partner (Husband): Billy Young

Practitioner: Dr. K….

Due Date: September 10^th 2012

Delivery:

Partner (Billy) present at all times while transferring mother and babies to and from surgery and during the surgery.

I would like a spinal/epidural for anesthesia. I would like the catheter to be placed after the anesthesia has taken effect.

I would like to see the birth of my babies, please lower curtain so I can view the babies emerging. We would like to take photographs of the baby immediately after the birth.

Free one hand for me to touch the babies if possible.

After Delivery:

I plan on breast feeding once the babies and I are reunited in the recovery room.  I would like assistance establishing a correct latch at the breast and establishing a breast feeding routine with a lactation nurse on staff.

I would like my babies to be circumcised prior to us being released from the hospital.

So yeah that’s it, short and sweet. Hopefully I will get all my requests especially the curtain. If I could I would request a mirror so I could see the operation taking place but Billy said No hahaha… He can’t hang with that. So I will just request them to lower the curtain so we can see the babies right after their pulled out.  

My belly measurements this week are in, since last week my belly has grown 3/4th's of an inch and measuring at 44 inches. As you can see my stomach is really red and irritated because I've gotten the dreaded pregnancy rash as of last night. F-Word!!!! It's soooooo itchy and painful. I don't know how I'm going to wear a shirt to go to the doctor. I might rap my stomach with saran wrap. 

Well I’d better rap things up. Again I’ve really appreciated everyone’s love and support throughout my whole pregnancy. I’m so lucky to have such a great response from everyone.  I really didn’t think I’d get the response that I’ve gotten. I mean I’ve gotten 1,300+ blog hits in the last 2 weeks alone. Never when I started this blog did I think that would ever happen. I figured I would write this blog and my close friends and family would read it. I didn't want to bore everyone who was uninterested with long Facebook posts of what's going on with my body. I’m so greatful, thank you all for coming along on this journey with me. The next time I  post here you will be seeing 2 identical twin baby boys. 

Their Nursery