Photo Fun!

Before you enjoy the pictures...we are very excited to congratulate my sister Karlee and her new fiance, Matt!  They got engaged in Door County this weekend and we are thrilled to officially welcome Uncle Matt to the family!

I've got lots of new pictures to share!  Enjoy :)

Madison enjoying the playmat.

Kate-  She's awake and alert much more often than Madison.

Madison

 This picture and the one below really show their size disparity.  Madison is nearly two pounds heavier than our "Peanut", Kate.



Kate's tiny feet :)

My dad got to meet the twins this past week when he returned home following the end of the baseball season.  My dad has many years of experience being the father of three girls--I'm sure he will share lots of advice with Chad!

I love how they are holding hands here.  That's Kate on the left and Madison on the right.

So how are things going here?  Pretty well, actually.  Lauren is adjusting and LOVES her little sisters.  At first, she had a hard time sharing Mommy and just wanted to be with me at all times.  I have been trying to spend time alone with her each day and that seems to be helping.  Chad and I are doing well also.  He is halfway through with his month-long paternity leave.  We feel so blessed and fortunate that he was given this time to be home.  He has been a HUGE help to me.  As far as sleep goes...that was one of my greatest fears about having twins.  I thought that sleep would be non-existant.  Turns out I was wrong!  These girls are sleepers and that's just fine with us.  I know that this won't always be the case, but we're appreciating it while we can.  I am breastfeeding them both, so I feed them their bedtime feeding around 9:00 and then we lay them down for the night.  We typically have to wake them to nurse between 1:00-2:00am and then again between 5-6am and finally between 8-9am before coming downstairs to start our day.  So Chad and I are actually getting some decent chunks of sleep ourselves.  I feed them every 2.5-3 hours during the day but their doctor gave us the okay to let them go every 4 hours at night if they are sleeping.  Sounds great to us! 

Tonight, Chad's mom is coming to stay for the rest of this week.  We are looking forward to having another set of hands to help us.  Have a great week!

Love,

M

Its a Crazy Life!

So what could elicit such a reaction as the following from our Kate?

 Yep, bath time!  Until their umbilical cords fall off, both girls have to have sponge baths.  This was always Daddy's job when Lauren was little.  It's still his job.

 Madison was much more calm although she didn't stay that way the whole time.

 Daddy and his clean babies!

 Nap time with Madison.

Madison on the left, Kate on the right.

 When Lauren woke up this morning, she exclaimed "this is going to be a busy day!  I have so much to do to take care of our two babies!"

 This is Kate, although half the time we call her "Peanut" or "Katie-Bug".  At about 4lbs 11oz right now, she really is a peanut.

 Here's Madison.  She is totally Lauren's "mini-me".

 We have a Pack-n-Play in our family room now for daytime naps.  We also have two in our bedroom to ease into the nighttime routines.  The first two nights home were really rough.  Monday night I think Chad and I each got about 2.5 hours of sleep total.  Ugh.  Tuesday night was a little better.  In fact, when Kate woke up around 7a.m., I fed her and Chad took her downstairs for the day.  I told him I'd just sleep until Madison woke up and then feed her and bring her down.  She didn't wake up until 11:00a.m.!  Woops.  I coincidentally also did not wake up until 11a.m..  Chad let me sleep--thankfully!  Last night though, we put the girls to bed at 9 and we went to bed too.  Then they were up together to eat at 12:30, 4:00 and 7:30.  We felt like we got an awesome night of sleep because of some long chunks of deep sleep.  Both of us felt really well-rested today!

 Today we took our first walk to the neighborhood park!  Lauren loved it.  The twins slept the whole time :)

 Since Kate is so tiny, she's in preemie outfits.  Here she is above, modeling her favorite from Lauren's friend Sophia.  Big sister Lauren wanted to stay in her jammies since the colors matched Kate's outfit.  Kate is wrinkling her forehead--I call this her "little old man face"!

Daddy having story-time with two of his girls :)

What else can I share with you?  Chad was given a month-long paid paternity leave.  What a help!  I think he plans to go back part-time after the first two weeks though.  My mom has been a God-send and is here for about the first two weeks as well.  She has been keeping us up-to-date on groceries, meals, laundry, cleaning as well as helping with Lauren and the babies.  Lauren is adjusting well....but is having some attention-seeking behaviors already.  These are things not normally typical of her behavior, such as using "potty language", being really loud and silly and just flat out not listening to Mommy or Daddy.  She also likes to yell at us lately.  These are very frustrating behaviors for us but we keep reminding ourselves that this is a HUGE life change for her and she is used to having our undivided attention.  We are both making an effort to do things alone with her but it's still less time than she's used to.

As for the babies, they are doing very well.  I am nursing both of them.  Madison nurses like a champ and acts as if she's been doing it for months.  At our doctor's appointment Tuesday, Madison was weighing in at 6lbs 8oz, so she's almost back up to her birth weight.  Kate was weighing in at 4lbs 11.5oz, so she has a little more way to go.  Because she's so tiny, her facial muscles aren't strong enough to elicit much milk when she nurses so I am using a supplemental nursing system with her.  It's basically a tiny feeding tube that I use to administer my pumped breast milk.  I attach it to my body when she's nursing and use a syringe to give her my milk.  This way, she still gets enough breastmilk while learning to nurse.  The doctor estimated that I'd need to continue this method for 5-7 days.  The good news is that I can tell Kate is getting stronger every day so I think she's have it figured out very soon!

As for their personalities, we can't really tell with Madison because she SLEEPS.ALL.THE.TIME.  Seriously.  I mentioned today that I haven't really seen her eyes because they are always closed!  Even when Kate is laying beside her screaming her head off, Madison is sleeping peacefully.  As for Katie-Bug, she is alert more often and is often looking around wide-eyed.  Both girls can be really feisty though, especially when getting their diapers changed.  Oh!  And I can't forget to tell you that Madison gets the award for going through the most diapers at once on the changing table...FOUR!  Yep, my poor Mom was trying to change her and every time she put a fresh diaper on Madison, she pooped or peed in it before my mom even had it securely fastened.  Speaking of pee and poop, I know I expected to go through a lot of diapers and wipes, but this is crazy!  It pretty much always smells like baby poop around here.  Awesome. 

It's a crazy life...but we are very blessed.

Love,

M

We're home!

After a very peaceful four days in the hospital, we are ALL home!  Here's a quick "before" picture that was taken the morning of my surgery, right before we left for the hospital.

This is my new favorite picture :)  Kate is on the left and Madison is on the right.

Here's Madison in the delivery room right after she was born. 

The screen behind her lists her weight:  6lbs 13 oz.

Here's Kate right after delivery, weighing in at 5lbs 3oz.

Cuddle time together.  Kate on the left, Madison on the right.

I think this is Kate.  Not 100% sure though :)

This is yet another moment when Chad and I looked at each other and said "oh my gosh, there's TWO!"

The proud Daddy!

Here's a quick recap of our last four days...when we arrived at the hospital on Friday morning, they didn't have our "reservation".  We walked up to the labor & delivery counter and told the nurse we were there to check in for our 12:30 c-section and we were met with blank stares and a response, "we don't have a 12:30 c-section today".  Uh, yes you do.  We were sent to wait in the waiting room while they figured out what had happened.  They called my OB who confirmed that I wasn't crazy and was in fact supposed to be there.  They also called the hospital pre-registration department who confirmed that yes, I had pre-registered.  So somebody just forgot to pass that info along to the labor and delivery department.  Not like they are that important and would need to know that info, right?!?!  Anyways, they scrambled and got us into a room.  I put on a gown and was put on a contraction monitor while the babies' heart rates were monitored.  Then the anesthesiologist came in to talk with us and the OB did too.  At about 12:20, I was walked into the OR to be prepped while Chad stayed out in the hallway to put on his scrubs.  I got a spinal block and was helped to lay down flat on the surgery table.  I found it hilarious that "best practice" in surgery now requires them to ask you three diferent times to state your name, date of birth and the reason for the surgery.  It's a little unnerving to be laying draped on a surgery table, numb from the chest down and to have your obstetrician (who I have seen more than 30 times in the past few months) ask you why you need surgery today.  I should have said I was there for knee surgery just to see his response!

Chad was brought in to the OR when they began the surgery and the babies were born within two minutes of one another.  The anesthesiologist gave us the "play by play" details and described for us when he saw Baby A's head and then shoulders emerging.  When we heard "it's a girl!", we were totally sure that Lauren's prediction of a boy and a girl was correct.  So when we heard them say "it's another girl!", we were shocked! 

I'll continue with more details later.  Breastfeeding is going really well, but it is VERY demanding of my time.  Maddie is crying for food right now :)  Also, we got confirmation today that they are fraternal twins, not identical.

Love,

All of us!

PINK PINK PINK as Pinkalicious would say !!

[by Chad]

After 6 months of Lauren declaring "1 of each", she walks straight into the delivery room and before being told what we had, she says "TWO GIRLS" and boy was she right. 

Mindy gave birth to two beautiful, healthy baby girls this afternoon. The girls both spent about 3 hours plus bath-time in the NICU following the delivery but were stable the whole time and just needed observation for steady breathing. Mindy is doing great and had a much better recovery than following Lauren's birth so we are thankful for that. Overall we could not have asked for a better experience so far. We are blessed. 

Here are the numbers.

Kate Marie - 5lbs 3oz, 18.5inches - 1:05pm

Madison Audrey - 6lbs 12oz, 20inches - 1:07pm

 

Welcome to the World Little Angels. Tomorrow.....your first Badger Football game.

Good Night.

Growth Scan Results

Well, we aren't delivering today.  At my appointment this afternoon, Baby A was estimated to weigh around 6lbs 4 oz and Baby B was estimated to be....7lbs 11oz!!!  I find it hard to believe that that's correct but it at least means that Baby B has shown great growth in the past two weeks and did not need to be delivered.  Woohoo! 

As for the biophysical profiles, Baby B passed right away in about 3 minutes time.  Baby A on the other hand did not pass in the first 30 minutes and needed an extra 15 minutes.  The only problem was that we couldn't see Baby A doing his/her practice breathing.  They need to see 30 consecutive seconds of practice breathing and the ultrasound technician finally gave up when she saw 27 seconds of it.  If she hadn't seen that though, she said I'd be sent over to L&D to have a non-stress test to make sure Baby A wasn't stressed.  But the perinatologist decided that 27 seconds was sufficient and I was sent on my way.

So now we wait for Friday!  I'll post when we have big news :) 
Love,
M

37 Weeks and 5 Days- Revised!

Here you go...a new side-profile picture that I took this evening.  I have officially outgrown pretty much all of my maternity clothes.  Thank goodness for the Bella Band, which is the extra elastic you can see between my shirt and my pants.  I wear them with everything now and they keep the bottom of my baby bump covered.

And for fun....here I am at 39 weeks pregnant with Lauren.  Sheesh.

I will post the growth scan results tomorrow afternoon unless I am sent to labor and delivery.  Then I guess you'll get baby news instead :) 

Have a good night!

Love,

M

No news yet :)

I've heard through the grapevine that many people are checking this blog daily for baby news.  Sorry to disappoint, but I'm still hanging in there SUPER pregnant.  I'm feeling pretty good though, considering I must have 12+ pounds of baby in me.  Since Lauren went to preschool this a.m., I slept in until about 8:30 and then enjoyed some morning television before trudging up the stairs to shower.  I'm sleeping SO well on the couch--I may not want to go back to sleeping in our bed after the babies arrive!  Lauren actually asked me about that yesterday.  She loves to cuddle with me on the couch in the mornings and yesterday she said, "Mommy?  Aren't you excited to have the babies hatch out of your tummy soon so you can sleep in Daddy's bed and cuddle with him while you sleep?"  Awwww....she has noticed that we haven't shared a room at night now for a good month or so.  What a sweetheart.

My big excursion today was to the grocery store.  I did well and only had to use the bathroom once in the middle of shopping.  Thankfully there's a bathroom in the back of the store near the meat department.  Who knew?!?!  It's funny to see people's reactions too when they ask me about my pregnancy.  Today, a lady who was working there stopped me and asked me if it's a boy or a girl.  I replied with "actually, I'm having twins on Friday and don't know what they are."  She was shocked!  Then Lauren announced to the person bagging our groceries that Mommy will have two babies hatch out of her tummy in just four more days.  They seemed pretty shocked too :)   I now officially have NO regrets that we didn't find out what we're having.  I love the suspense and the excitement it brings!

I know I haven't posted a side profile picture recently.  I'll try to remember to take one tomorrow and I'll post it for you.  Wednesday is the big growth scan.  If either baby is showing a stalled growth pattern,  I think I'll be headed to delivery.  Otherwise, Friday afternoon at 12:30 is the surgery.  And life will never be the same....

Love,
M