Julia

Yeasty

I just love Caroline's eyes.

My mother's blanket collection continues - this is the gender neutral pink one she created. As you can tell - very masculine. She did the blue one you admired, by the way, and was very flattered by your compliments, so thank you.

Edward is nursing so this is a one-handed effort. I think I (we) have thrush. Is that a pediatric call or an OB one, do you think? Bear in mind that my OB has a nurse line and a cheerful obliging staff who would willing take one's word for white coated tongues and newly burning nipples; unlike the pediatrician who has no such phone-able nurse and a perverse desire to bring small babies into their germy offices in 0 degree weather.

I'm just saying. 

And I CANNOT BELIEVE that the Giants beat Green Bay at home. I CANNOT BELIEVE that Eli Manning (ELI MANNING. You KNOW how I feel about him) is going to the Superbowl. I take small consolation from the fact that the Patriots will use his bones to floss their teeth. I just can't like the Patriots. I suppose there is something admirable in perfection but they leave me cold.

PS Actually the patronage was not blog-oriented. I always think ya'll are helpful. I mean, except for those of you who are clearly whackaloons and post comments that are the written equivalent of wearing clown shoes. I just smile tolerantly in those cases and am grateful for the diversity of humankind. And the fact that you are not my neighbor. When I mentioned being patronized I was thinking about the post-hospital call nurse who asked if I was breastfeeding, wrote down my response and then proceeded to state five painfully obvious things very. very. slowly.

PPS I know that the widget is not working. Julie looked at it for me and declared it hopeless. Utterly utterly hopeless. Something about RSS feeds. If it continues I will ask the good people there to investigate.

Eat

New photo plus post up at REDBOOK.

See that? I zig, I zag. Post here, post there... you never know.

Caroline (pronounced to rhyme with wine but I am not all tweaked about that. I mean, if you want to rhyme it with win it doesn't bother me. also, the Kennedys? like Rose and Ethel and whatshisname P? THOSE Kennedys? man, that NEVER occurred to us. I suppose Edward Caroline and Patrick must just be names that appeal to the post-generation Irish with conflicted aspirations to both heritage and WASPdom. or something) had a feeding tube for the first couple of days. A thin blue tube that ran into her nose and then down into her stomach. It reminded me of my terbutaline pump in that it was made of the exact same stuff and I was similarly terrified of accidentally ripping it out. The logic behind the gavage was that she was too weak and sleepy to eat and they did not want her weight dropping much below four pounds as that would make her even weaker and sleepier. It took a few days for her to actually take a bottle and we cheered when she got through 3 cc's before collapsing in exhaustion. At intervals during her hospital stay we experimented with breastfeeding, enough to conclude that the spirit was willing but the flesh was... well you know. She would latch and suck but 1) she never got anything out and 2) she would then be so tired from trying that she failed to take a bottle for hours afterwards. We focused on getting her weight up (with formula. and minuscule quantities of expressed breast milk. from a bottle) and I would only let her fool around with nursing a little. I figured we could sort it out after she was able to stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time. In the meantime I tried to breastfeed Edward as much as possible.

Edward was bigger at birth but still, let's be honest, something of a runt. He dropped to just over five pounds by day two and he had some nursing issues. Like Caroline he was willing, but like Caroline he was not particularly effective. The lactation consultant and I experimented over the course of the week with him and breastfeeding and the scale and bottles and the supplemental nursing system and eventually concluded that he has a weak latch and not a whole lot of stamina. He would get some breast milk (maybe half an ounce) and then tended to pass out or just pacify himself. So he was being supplemented as well (with formula. from a bottle.)

Gradually, as they both get bigger and are able to effectively nurse for longer periods of time, I am breastfeeding them more and bottle-feeding less. Last night, for example, they just nursed all night. This morning Caroline just breastfed but Edward was still hungry after nursing so he got some formula when he was done with the breast. Tra la la la la.

It is all completely different from how I handled the first few weeks with Patrick (exclusively breastfed, sheer misery, urgent care at 6 days for dehydration as I did not realize that a) my milk had not come in because b) his latch was all wrong, breastfed for a year regardless, so fucking stressful that first month though) that it feels like cheating. I nurse, I pump, they get formula, expressed breast milk, whatever... why, I even give one or the other a pacifier when I am feeding A and B realizes that s/he is so hungry that they will DIE if they are not fed THAT SECOND scream scream.      

I know this is all completely wrong and in theory I have messed up both babies so that neither will ever eat again but... it's working. They are both growing like small weeds (Steve just bought me a scale. I cannot wait to see how big they actually are but Edward is out of preemie and into Newborn and Caroline has graduated from the TEENY preemie clothes into the tiny preemie clothes. also the little hats no longer fit her) and I expect they will breastfeed exclusively at some point in the not so distant future. Or not. I am not stressing about it.

My milk supply, by the by, is still kinda crappy and I am just glad that I do not have to keep anybody alive via pumping. I get about two ounces every two-three hours. Since this is a 900% improvement (yes I smell like maple syrup) over last week I think it is a victory but I am not particularly optimistic that it will ever skyrocket from there.

Oh and I loathe being patronized (who doesn't?) It makes me cranky.

Patrick walking in the door... now. Yes! Peanut butter and jelly is so easy.   

Pictures

Caroline

and

Edward

And I put a couple of posts up at REDBOOK this week.

Hope you are well.

2008

I have two new children, no internet access, 500 stitches in my, um, well anyway but I wanted to check in and say hi and thank you for the good wishes and oh WOW, I have two new children.

Caroline Jane and Edward Drake are here and in general good health and high spirits. Caroline was 4lb 2oz and is still in the NICU (well "special care nursery" - nothing critical and she is their only patient) regulating her body temperature and gaining weight. Edward was 5lb 15oz and other than some jaundice (which worked out beautifully as it bought him a night in the nursery as well) he is fine. They are both remarkably hairy, hers is black and his is a medium brown. Eyes newborn color. Both cute, of course, particularly if one is partial to babies or monkeys or baby monkeys. 

I am camping at the hospital with him as a border. No internet but I will check in as I can. I hope to be home with them both by this weekend but we'll see. Jumbo birth story post going up soon at REDBOOK, so check the sidebar for that if you like. My mother tells me that if you click from that handy widget that Julie made me it will take you right to the post without making you watch Citizen Kane first. Not sure if that is true, but why would my mom lie?   

The babies are here!

Julie here, posting for Julia.  Two new babies, a boy and a girl!  Julia expects to return home Sunday and will post details soonest.

Eve

I am getting another cold but we are just going to ignore that fact. Otherwise I will cry because if it is half as bad as the cold from which I just recovered I am in for a miserable week. Alas.

Happy Christmas Eve to you, should you celebrate it, and a very pleasant and peaceful evening to those who do not. Although I am never offended to be wished a happy new year in the Fall, I can imagine that an assumption of presumed cultural Christianity might get a bit tedious for people of different faiths. In DC it was simply not done to blithely wish people Merry Christmas or ask how they enjoyed their Easter services. Here people start cocktail party conversations by inquiring what church you go to or, my personal favorite, there was one time when someone specifically asked me which LUTHERAN church I attend. I almost choked on my bourbon. But I digress. I wish you both happy and merry.

Steve is wrapping presents behind me so I am not allowed to turn my head. I would be watching the Monday night game but it is, um... not a lot of parity in this one. I note that there seems to be a Bridezilla marathon in progress which I keep accidentally clicking back to while I type (my new favorite bridal reality show line: "It's my wedding day! I deserve a new pair of shoes!" Can't really argue with that can you? Steve observed, "Sure as long as she gets them for $15 and then uses glue and fake pearls to dress 'em up." This actually made me a little teary. I had forgotten I did that, and was suitably touched that Steve remembered. I was one thrifty bride.)

I have pulled out a few presents for Patrick to take to my friend's house (just in case in case we have to bolt in the middle of the night) but I doubt it will be necessary. I have felt much less like I was teetering on the brink of labor for the past several days. Not sure why but there it is. I got new orders from the OB this morning, which was rather exciting. The nurse called and said that rather than come in for an NST today and then the usual BPP/NST/appointment on Wednesday and Friday my doctor wanted me to 1) stop the Heparin tomorrow [huzzah!] and 2) stop the terbutaline and monitoring on Thursday and they would see me Thursday for an NST. I think the assumption is that we will then have the babies this weekend. MIght not happen that way but we'll see. I'll ask what the logic is before I pull the terbutaline plug but I suspect 13a's continued shrimpiness and my new propensity towards rapid unexplained weight gain and  temporary blindness are contributing factors.

More later.

Solstice

Hi! How are you? I am fine. We had some snow here this morning. It is very pretty. Yep. Definitely going to be a white Christmas in these parts. Steve is holding out hopes that Carolina will be able to beat Dallas tonight (speaking of two cities that will NOT be getting snow for the 25th as far as I know) because a Dallas loss will help the Packers during the Playoffs, but I am just not sanguine.

What?

Why are you... ?

Oh, right. The babies.

The 13s continue to lodge (comfortably, it is to be hoped) where they have been for weeks and weeks: little 13a nestled sweetly between my kneecaps and 13b ("b" for "big head") mixed up with my left lung and other points south. I had an appointment late yesterday and wound up, as per usual, in L&D for a few hours. This time (in an attempt to keep things fresh no doubt) I was vetted for possible preeclampsia, the atypical presentation kind. When I walked from the bathroom into the ultrasound room during my OB appointment, chattering like a squirrel as I do, I suddenly lost my ability to focus and there were five swimming ultrasound tech faces where only one should have been. Not wanting to lose a patient on her watch (who would) she called for backup and after a blood pressure check and a few minutes repose I was fine again. No worries. Later, however, the nurse noticed that I had gained five pounds. Since Tuesday. This seemed excessive by any standards and by the time I saw the doctor I was flushed and felt weird. So they sent me up for blood work and a couple of hours of baby monitoring. Blood work was fine and I started to feel better so I got to home. And here I am.

My most recent goal was 36 weeks but it turns out I am greedy and having achieved this milestone I have now set my sights on 37. What's another seven days? Surely I can stay pregnant for another seven measly days, right? I know I am supposed to be all anxious to get this over with and move on to the next stage, but I am just not. Not only do I think another week will give the babies a nice boost but once they show up I am pretty sure I will no longer be able to lie around on the couch watching Bridezilla every time Steve and Patrick leave the house (that's a secret by the way - I might have started this bed rest reading philosophy and feeling lofty but the situation has deteriorated since then). Speaking of Steve and Patrick, I wanted to murder them last night. They kept me company during my monitoring last night and all I wanted was for Steve to keep the child happy, quiet and contained. All Patrick wanted was to ride the wheeled stool as fast as possible from one side of the room to the other. Who knows what Steve wanted - he turned on the television (ostensibly to find something with which to sedate Patrick) and was instantly sucked into some random college basketball game; and it left him incapable of both speech and reason. I am seriously wondering whether I want either of them to come within a mile of me and a hospital ever again. I think there might be something in the ages old notion that childbirth is a womanly sphere. My nurse walked in, sized up the situation in about a millisecond (slack-jawed father, basketball, whooping child, squeaking stool, white knuckled mother) and promptly sent the Big and the Little down to the cafeteria to get pizza. She then said, "I think I will wait a few minutes before I take your blood pressure."

Ah... women.             

PS If not for the dismaying proximity to Christmas (I think four days after is infinitely preferable to three days before for some reason) and the whole 36 weeks thing, I would be tempted to favor a winter solstice birthday.  Not that anyone is asking me, but I confess that this terbutaline pump conveys the dizzying impression of both power and control. All I'd have to do, see, is pop this grommet out of my leg and... well, let's just say I STRONGLY suspect that labor would follow within a day or so. I might be delusional but it is pleasant to think it.

Nope, Nothing Yet

Another appointment, another night in L&D.

2cm, 90% effaced, 13a at a very solid 0 station, contractions 5-8 minutes apart and needed some breathing through... so they sent me up and kept me for observation.

When the on-call OB came to check on me she asked if I was in labor. "Nope," I said. But by that point I had already taken my underwear off and gotten the gown on so I figured I might as well stay.  Which dovetailed nicely with her intention to keep me. Uncomfortable night in the hospital but it just makes being home all that much nicer in comparison. I have gotten wise in the past few weeks, so I now put two books and a toothbrush in my purse before going within 1000 yards of my OB's office. I actually contemplated watching TV last night (I am running out of books and did not want to squander the ones I had) but some previous occupant had walked off with the remote control. Although the nurse graciously offered to come back and change the channels for me I thought that was probably going above and beyond the call of duty. When I suggested that it was probably easy to accidentally knock the remote into your bag as you were packing up to take the baby home she just looked skeptical. She said they lose more remotes than I could possibly imagine and pointed out that someone had also taken the wooden cross from my room as well. Although I am hardly what one would consider a deeply religious person I admit that I was shocked. Who on earth would STEAL A CROSS? I guess it was seen as some sort of hotel room mini shampoo/birth souvenir but ... STEALING A CROSS? That ain't right.

Anyway, home again and five more hours to 35w5d. How do you like them apples? Right this second I feel like I am about to go into active labor (and will be wrapping this up accordingly) but I felt like that for a couple of hours this morning too. So far my awesome powers of mind-body control have continued to prevail and I think 36 weeks (at least) is a reasonable goal. I am kidding, of course. I am just lucky, plain and simple .

The OB mentioned the strong possibility that the membranes may rupture with A's head so low and whatnot. I have started bringing a towel with me when I move from room to room, a la Hitchhiker's Guide. One could say I am prepared for anything.

Oh and I hope those ultrasounds measurements are seriously skewed, because 13a was estimated to be about 4 pounds yesterday. That, my friends, is the size of a rump roast. 13b was about 5 1/2 . Both sound like they need some fattening up. 

More later. I swear it.

Oh! And we won the pool! My mom asked if I was sharing the pot with Patrick - $190 worth. I said no because I would really rather not have him realize the serious discrepancy in compensation between his weekly allowance ($2) and what a person can earn by gambling. He might never pick up a Lego or put his clothes away again. And if you think Patrick is not capable of googling his way into offshore online casinos you're crazy. Fair to keep all the money for myself? No. Good parenting? You betcha.

PS Ooooof. Contractions.

35w2d

You and me both.

I mean, I also keep thinking I must have gone into labor by now. But no.

Which is good, of course. I feel great apart from all the contractions  and I think another few days or a couple of weeks would be terrific. Still, there is a sense that I cannot quite commit to anything because I truly do not know if I am going to have the babies tonight or tomorrow or after Christmas or what.

Patrick made it to the coin show, much to everyone's relief, but is now sick sick sick. I thought maybe he was getting the last burst of that dreadful cold I had but right now he has a fever and a cough and is generally miserable. I just failed my last contraction monitoring session (they are becoming rather silly. I always have more than six contractions in an hour until I get the third terbutaline bolus) so I am waiting to take another dose and then monitor again. I cannot be on the terbutaline pump without being monitored and it seems pointless to stop the drugs now when I am so close to term and they are working, but the hour-long sessions are getting boring.

Appointment tomorrow. I need to figure out what to do with Patrick, as he is clearly not going to school and Steve usually comes with me for the baby checks. Maybe he will feel well enough to at least come in the car and drop me off? It's hard to get a friend to watch your highly contagious child and I do not even want to ask. We'll see.

Right now Patrick and I are tied with someone else for first place in the football pool and if either team wins tonight with less than 46 combined points we win the week's pool. Win win win. Thank you Houston, Jacksonville and DC - I could not have done it without you.

I'll check in after the appointment. There is always a possibility that I will be admitted to the hospital for good one of these days but I do promise I will let you know. Check REDBOOK, too, because I can write a word document and get Steve to send it from the hospital business center more easily than I can get a typepad post up. But either way I promise to tell you.      

Vite

You know, I was fairly certain the baby stakes were going to be swept by the commenter who said, roughly: girlfriend, those babies are coming in the next 72 hours. Details up at REDBOOK. I'll wait. Yes, I know you don't like the ads and it takes a long time to load and the comment function comes and goes at will and there was the whole infertility diaries brouhaha but... well they are very nice to me and I can only type it up once. So I'll wait.

OK? L&D. 1ish-2ish centimeters dilated. Contractions all over the place. Back home on bed rest. Not sure when this is going to happen. New  goal: one more week, which will bring us to 36 weeks and is sort of amazing when you think about it. 

About the Heparin. I know I said it was lots better than the Lovenox and in a sense this is true, as the needles are painless. However, the actual drug stings and the tiny needles allow it to sort of... lump a bit under the skin. I am afraid there might be no really good way to administer blood thinners. Pity. A chewable tablet like the Flintstones vitamins of my childhood would be nice.

I am absolutely exhausted (how do people manage hospital bed rest? I would be tempted to off myself immediately after throttling the person who asks for a breakfast order at 7 am) but I did want to check in quickly and let you know that I am flirting with labor but there have been no concrete proposals made yet.