MERRY CHRISTMAS

Well we have officially celebrated our first family Christmas with the girls. Here are some pics of the 3-day event!

Here are Audrey and K after a hard day of celebrating at the Flemings....note how cute the onesie is!Brooke is very excited about opening presents with the Shows family!
D and K with the girls on Christmas morning...we are sure next year will be quite different at this time as the girls will be slightly more active and excited about the event!
A and B just relaxing in the leather chair...this was short-lived as the girls kept sliding around on the chair!
After a long day of Christmas celebration (including our first trip in the Baby Bjorns)

SIX WEEKS!!

Hard to believe but the girls have been here for over 6 weeks. They are so cute as will be evidenced by the pictures later in the post. As everyone has predicted, they are starting to "protest" a bit more and are not just content little girls who only sleep and eat. They now let us know if they are displeased with something that is going on. We are trying to follow the basic ideas in Babywise and so far the schedule has been working. We have already dropped a feeding (YEAH!!) and are working on stretching the girls from 9pm to 6am...currently we still eat once during that time when they start to scream for food. Unfortunately it seems to be a different baby each night that wakes up hungry, and of course we
then wake the other up and feed them both...but then we never know how long could the other one have gone. We have also recently had to go to a larger bottle...4 oz was just not enough! Our girls are eaters (as of last week Audrey weighed 8 lbs and Brooke was 10 lbs) We have also had to move up sizes. We finally moved Audrey out of preemie diapers and clothes and into Newborn (Hurray she is finally newborn!) and simultaneously had to move Brooke out of Newborn and into 0-3 mo and size 1 diapers (she is finally 0 months!!). All my matching outfits have been thwarted thus far as they are in different sizes, but some very smart people gave them some NB and 0-3's for Christmas so now they can match...if they can both avoid giant spit-ups and blow-outs (where does all of that come from??)
Enough of all that chatter...here are the pictures

Audrey after a meal...can you see why we go through so many burb cloths, bibs, and outfits??
Brooke in the sling...K is trying to find the best options for transporting them when we all go out and about.The girls with Gramma Hazel...they are looking so cute in their little pants! (I LOVE the little pants!!)The girls just being adorable as they nap!

GETTING SOOO BIG...

It is just amazing at how much they have grown in these 5 weeks. Audrey has almost doubled in weight. Here is a photo from the hospital (11/15) and here she is this past weekend (12/15).










And here is a picture of Brooke. Again in the hospital and then today. They are getting HUGE!!









We love to pose them around the house...so here are a few from that (the spooning pic is for you, Lisa and Leslie):

CHRISTMAS PICTURE

Here we are in our Christmas picture...the first of many since K keeps buying adorable Christmas outfits!

ONE MONTH OLD!!

Well yesterday marked our girls' one month birthday!! Hard to believe that they have been out and about for one month. Here are some updates followed by some pictures:

• we are now taking care of the girls totally on our own and have come up with a pretty good schedule...though we are already trying to investigate how to drop the 3 am feeding. Fortunately people have been kind enough to bring us food, so we have not actually incorporated cooking into our schedule.
• the first day that K was on her own started off poorly. She was washing some bottles and pumping stuff in the sink in the bathroom. She stopped up the sink and then went to warm the bottles. Several minutes later, she realized that she left the water running....water was all over the bathroom! K had to take all the stuff out from under the sink to dry it and somehow managed to pull off part of the cabinet in the process (it was one of those fake drawer pieces and K decided to pull on it to get it to open so she could clean it) Lesson learned: new sinks don't have that little drain hole that we thought all sinks had. But other than that and the occasional projectile body fluid, life at home with the girls has been great.
• K and the girls have made weekly trips to the Dr to get them weighed (I think that they are regretting telling her that she could just pop in whenever to get them weighed!). As of yesterday the weights are Audrey 6lbs 15oz and Brooke 8lbs 15oz!! They are huge!!
• We have gone for several walks around the neighborhood in our double snap-n-go stoller, though the weather seems to have cooled off a little too much for that right now.
• K and the girls went to have pictures taken this past Monday. The normally sleepy and quiet babies apparently decided to be spit-up machines and became quite fussy. But all in all it was a fun outing and the pics ended up very nice (needless to say since A and B are so darn cute!)
• We have made one social outing to visit our "twin friends" Carter and Olivia. They are almost 1 and quite mobile...K wonders how that will work when A and B are both mobile and you have to keep up with where two of them are. How old do the kids have to be before you start putting those kiddie leashes on them??
  

Well that is all we have done....well that and take a million pictures (Hooray for digital!) So here are a few:

THE FIRST 3 WEEKS

Well it is hard to believe, but we have had our little girls for almost 3 weeks!!...which is funny because when K turned her calendar to December she saw that this Monday is our scheduled C-section.
First, here is info about K...since if I put this at the end no one will read it because the girls are the stars now. K is feeling really good. The first couple of days were doozies because as it turns out c-sections are more painful than she thought. In fact it is major abdominal surgery, and we have the video of the surgery to prove it (and yes we are making people watch the video, but don't worry it was shot by D from a vantage point up by K's head. The best part is watching how they pry open her belly with these giant metal things!) However, by the time K was discharged she was feeling much better. K is excited because she has already lost 30 pounds as demonstrated in the pictures.

Now the girls. As of the last post, we only had little Brooke home with us. But Audrey was a super-star in the NICU and was able to come home well ahead of schedule. She came home only a few days later on Tuesday. So we were able to spend Thanksgiving together as a new little family.

The girls are absolutely adorable (also as demonstrated by the pictures). So far they sleep a lot and eat even more!! So far we are on a 3 hour schedule for sleep, eat, and active awake time. The awake time is very loosely interpreted as "active." The feeding and diapering part takes about an hour to an hour and a half (only one blow-out so far and only one projectile pooping) then we "play" for about 20 minutes and then back to sleep.

We went to the pediatrician on Wed the 28th for a weigh-in. Audrey is up to a whopping 5 lbs 2.5 oz and Brooke is topping the scales at 7 lbs 1 oz.

We are still working to figure out their temperaments and identifying who is making noise through the baby monitor. So far they consensus is that Brooke is laid-back (read sleeps all the time) but stubborn (read will just look at you and purse her little lips) and seems to look more like K. Audrey is the little mover and talker (read is constantly grunting and wiggling and just making lots of noise) and looks more like D. Audrey seems to cry only when hungry and Brooke seems to cry only when she has escaped from her swaddling.

There are so many pictures, but here are a few.

THEY HAVE ARRIVED!!!

Pics: Audrey with D after being fed. Brooke in her car seat on the way home. K with mom in front of door sign (if you enlarge it you can see all of their info-thanks Crystal T. for the neat penmenship)

We did not get the finish the poll, but we went with the leader as of Monday. So welcome Audrey Elizabeth and Brooke Elise.

This will be a quick posting, but just wanted to get a few things out. K went for her nonstress test on Monday, November 12 and basically the doctor thought a few things looked "suspicious" and that Brooke may be under some unknown stress. So at 1:30pm we were told that we would be having the babies at 4pm. Thank heavens that D was already there...though he had to go back home, get stuff, and be back in time for the c-section. He made it back by 3:30 (and did not get a speeding ticket!!) and we were into the operating room by 4:30. The girls arrived at 5:00 and 5:01 and all were surprised at what a huge weight difference there was. They were less than an inch apart in height, but Brooke outweighed Audrey by over 2 1/2 lbs!! (yes everyone has made jokes about Brooke stealing all of Audrey's food) Even though they were small, they are absolutely adorable..and if you don't believe us, you can ask my sister and our parents!! My sister got some great pics of the weighing and all the immediate stuff (which I will get from her and share later). The girls were in the NICU but mainly just for temperature regulation and to gain weight...they did not have any tubes or any of that scary stuff.

K and D were discharged from the hospital on Friday (they let us stay an extra day since the girls were there) and Brooke was discharged on Saturday!! Audrey is still in the NICU, but she is doing fantastic. Her temperature is already at the set point (though she won't leave the incubator until she weighs more) and her weight is now up to 4 lbs, 1.6 oz (she is a really great eater!) Hopefully she will be home in a week....by that time, we will have just now adjusted to having one baby and can start the whole cycle again with both!

We are so thankful that they are doing great (thanks to all of you who have been faithfully praying for us) and we can't wait for everyone to meet them!

HERE'S THE NURSERY...

Well our nursery is almost finished...a few odds and ends left, but all the furniture is in place.

WEEK 34!!!

Well we have made it to week 34!! K is still having problems posting pics to the side, so here is another belly pic. As you can see, K is huge!! As a dear friend mentioned, K "should get a back up beeper and some yellow lights for when you move that belly!" I believe D almost died from laughter when he read that!! Fortunately there are only 23 (or less) days left of this giganticness.

Here are some general updates/thoughts:
1. K and the girls have had 3 non-stress tests. 2 of these we flew right through and the girls passed with flying colors. The middle test took much longer because Brooke's heartrate just refused to go up and stay up. They even had to buzz/vibrate her--very funny to think what she must be thinking of that!

2. K and the girls have had 2 Biophysical profiles (BPP) done. These are ultrasounds where they are looking for certain things to make sure they are moving, breathing, good tone, and good levels of pressure and fluid. They scored an 8 out of 8 on both of them (they are such little stars!). They also gave us some "cute" pics of them...in one of them Audrey is sticking her tongue out at us.

3. This is the most interesting (well in my opinion): At today's BPP, we found out that Brooke has moved!! That's right--K's belly is so big that they can still flip around and she won't even know it! Brooke is now also head down...no more interlocking (so if you didn't read the last post, there really is no need now) So we don't know what this means for birth yet...we see the doctor on Monday.

4. Our nursery furniture has been resolved. We are getting the second crib but not the 6 drawer dresser (apparently this won't be in for another 6 - 8 weeks...of course we were told about 18 weeks agao that it would be in in 12 weeks, so we really have no confidence at all that it will ever be here.) So we are getting a smaller one with 2 less drawers. But at least we are actually going to get it tomorrow! The nursery will finally be complete.

5. As a random aside, thanks to all of you who have voted for our middle names--especially those of you who voted for K's choice!

HERE'S THE LATEST....

Well here is K at 32 weeks. We went to the ultrasound doctor on Friday. The doppler pressure, fluid levels, cervix, and growth of the girls looks good. We did learn a few interesting facts: K will for sure be having a C-section because the girls are in an "interlocking" position....as K is not certain that there is room for one to come out at a time, clearly two of them locked together is just not going to happen!! So basically both of their heads are in the middle of the belly looking at each other. Brooke's head is higher and her body is curving around below Audrey. (She is breech and when she kicks I am pretty sure that her foot is going to come flying out!) Audrey is the lower head, but her body is curving up so her feet and bottom are crushing into K's ribs (this is K's description not the docs) Basically if you picture a yin-yang position that is what the girls are doing.

Fact number 2: The girls are growing so well!! They measure various body parts and then do some extrapolating to figure out how much they are weighing. Brooke is estimated to be 4 lbs 9 oz and Audrey is estimated to be 4 lbs 2 oz!! We are so excited that they are both over 4 lbs!! The doctor said that there is about a +/ - 10% margin of error, but that still looks good to us!

Picture Caption: This is K doing her best Mark Mangino impression. If you did not see any of the University of Kansas football game this past weekend, you will just have to trust me that this is pretty dead-on. He was wearing a very similar outfit this past weekend on the sidelines!

THE TIME NARROWS...

K had another OB appointment today. It was pretty uneventful...no pelvic exam...yeah!! K did get a flu shot, so tomorrow the left arm will be quite sore! K also had blood drawn just to check her H and H levels to see if she is getting anemic. K is always tired, but apparently that is common but just checking to make sure all in the normal range.

K goes back in 2 weeks. Also in 2 weeks she will begin having a fetal nonstress test (NST) every week at the hospital (in the same little testing place she went for contractions). This is frequently done with insulin dependent diabetics. The test just monitors their heartbeats and any uterine activity (aka contractions). They want to see the girls move and see their heartbeats correspondingly increase to that movement. This shows that they are getting enough oxygen and the placentas are working correctly.

So the delivery time has an ending date: December 3rd. K is on the schedule for a C-section on that day...this assumes that all stays normal (no labor or dilating) and that all the NST results show the girls are reactive. So the countdown begins...

PICTURES OF K

OK so I usually post these off to the side, but I have tried this about a million times today and apparently there is something crazy going on and I am just unable to do it. So here is my belly!! Apparently my belly is so large now that most shirts I have do not actually meet the pants...which seems odd considering these are maternity clothes and they know your belly will be getting bigger!! (Notice in the first one how the front of the shirt is up quite high). As a result I have had to start switching over to bottoms that have a higher belly...note middle picture. Though really I would prefer for all of them to be low like the last...which is actually how I wear most of them especially when not out in public. Oh, this is me at 30 1/2 weeks...just 4 - 6 more weeks. I read today that at week 31 the babies should go through a growth spurt. So stay tuned for the next pic!

HEALTH CHECK-UP

So this post will be kind of long as K attempts to totally update on all health related stuff that has been going on. So if you love details, continue reading. If not, here is summary: K is doing fine and A&B are growing well.

• Contractions: well it turns out that K has been having periodic contractions for a couple of months now. She thought it was just the babies balling up. In retrospect it does seem odd that they would always do it at exactly the same time and that they would stay that way for exactly the same amount of time. (as our OB said " well they were balling up, but that was because the uterus was contracting in on them"). The frequency of these had greatly increased and so we went to the hospital for some monitoring (they have a whole little clinic for monitoring labor and delivery people). Turns out these were happening about every 5 minutes and this is more than the Docs like to see. So got some shots there to reduce the contractions which was effective. Since K responded well, she was sent home with some oral medication (which is actually med for asthma!) and instructions to rest (so no more work), drink lots of water (can't even explain to you how much water they want K to drink), go to the bathroom frequently (as if that was even an option), and take the meds. The difference has been AMAZING!! K is only having around 10 a day and can now feel the babies moving so much more (and these are actually them moving!).

• OB: Had an appointment on Wednesday. K is still going to keep taking meds to keep the contractions away. K goes back to see him in 2 weeks. The plan is to keep resting, drinking water, and taking meds. They want to keep the contractions away at least until 32 weeks (currently 29 weeks), so I will keep on the med until then. After that, they may ween K off them. (guess they don't want to block them forever, and the lungs are supposedly pretty well developed by then in twins.) And then the longest they are going to let K carry them is 36 1/2 to 37 weeks. So we are narrowing down the arrival time--pretty much the month of November up through Thanksgiving...weeks 32 - 37!!

• ULTRASOUND: everything looks good here too! again K is unable to recognize pretty much anything-- But they are moving well and developing well. In a confusing turn of events, Brooke who we've been calling Baby B (on my left) is now actually Baby A because she is lower. So it is confusing when the doctor is talking about Baby A and he means Brooke and I think Audrey...but we got it all straight (I think!) So I will refer to them by name to ease confusion. Brooke is on the left side and is head-up. She is still the bigger girl and is estimated to weigh 3 lbs 4 oz which is in the 68th percentile for singleton babies. Audrey is on the right side and has moved up a bit (thus the rib pain) and is ready to go with her head down. She is estimated to weigh 2 lbs and 13 oz which is in the 48th percentile for singletons. So they are both growing well (hard to believe that there is 6 lbs of baby in K!!) We go back for one more ultrasound (around 32 weeks) and the Dr. will make his recommendation for type of birth. If nothing changes it will be a C section.

Belly Pics

Originally I put all of my belly shots on the side of the blog. Well, since I want to keep this documentation I have created a post that lists these shots by date. It is crazy to see how HUGE I got. A few of the last pictures also appear in later posts, but I wanted them all here for side by side comparison.

May 28, 2007

June 3, 2007

June 21, 2007


July 8, 2007

July 24, 2007

August 11, 2007

August 28, 2007

September 12, 2007

October 1, 2007

October 14, 2007

October 27, 2007

November 8, 2007