Dreams…
Since I went to visit the young lady who works for me in the hospital after she had her twins who were 5 weeks earlier than mine (they were so small) I have been having dreams about babies in the NICU.
That was one of the most stressful 2 weeks of my life. I am sure that I will have more situations in my life now that I have children, and I now get to worry about them every minute of my life.
But seeing her two little girls, and how small and helpless they were, and they were on feeding tubes, and oxygen, and all that jazz, and it is so hard to see them and how hard they will fight for their life, and how much you want to just hold them and rock them and tell them it will be ok. But hers were small enough and so early that she could only hold them for an hour a day.
I would have had a terrible time with this. At least I got to hold my girls each time I fed them. Which was every 3 or 4 hours. I wanted to hold them more, but understood that they needed to stay in their little cribs. My heart went out to this young girl who wanted to hold her babies so badly, yet had to go home because she was discharged from the hospital.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
6 months cont...
6 months…I can hardly believe that my girls are halfway to 1 year. It seems like so much has happened in such a short amount of time. Then there are other things that it seemed like it took forever.
One of the twin mommies on my facebook group commented that she had made it breastfeeding twins for 6 months, (Her and I had our twin girls on the same day, almost at the same time…) As I was reading her post (I admit it, I was doing this while I was driving…I was at a red light!) I realized that I had made it breastfeeding twins for 6 months as well. As I realized this, I started to cry. For those of you who personally know me, you know that this is not usual for me. But this journey of breastfeeding preemie twins has been a very long very hard emotional road.
As I am crying trying to drive to work, I realize that I have forgotten a major part of my pumping supplies. I am at this point 5 minutes from work, but I turn around and head home knowing that I will not make it without those items.
I get home get my parts, and head back to work. ( it is a nice 30 minutes from my house to work, and so I waste an hour doing this) All the while, I am still tearing up. I don’t know why I am so emotional about this whole breastfeeding thing, but I am.
It has been very hard for me, and I could have quit so many times and no one would have even said much about it. They would have congratulated me on however long I made it. With twins and working full time.
But I made myself a personal goal to make it 6 months, and I think I was so emotional because I MADE IT!!! Not as long as the books say I should, or the Internet, my family, my friends, but as long as I told myself I needed to make it. And I am still going.
Granted, I have to supplement to keep them from starving and my hard earned freezer stash is almost depleted, but my girls have gotten breast milk from day 1 and it was hard and I freaking did it.
I know that I have put all my trials in another post on my blog, so I will not go into that, but it continues to be hard. I work a lot of hours, and if I were a good quality pumper, I would pump every three hours. That is really not possible on most days at my job. I am lucky to be able to pump every 5 or 6. Hence my depleting stash.
So my Boss asks me today just how much longer I plan to breastfeed.
I was offended (I guess I am a bit sensitive about this...), and I am sure she did not mean it in a bad way.
She is actually a really good boss. But I had to bite my tongue. I told her that I did not really know. That I was going to go as long as I could. I had made it through a holiday season as a manager in a retail store, I think that January and February would be a piece of cake. So I was going to try for at least 9 months, and if I made that I would see about going to a year. I have made my personal goal, so everything after this is kudos to me and my girls.
One of the twin mommies on my facebook group commented that she had made it breastfeeding twins for 6 months, (Her and I had our twin girls on the same day, almost at the same time…) As I was reading her post (I admit it, I was doing this while I was driving…I was at a red light!) I realized that I had made it breastfeeding twins for 6 months as well. As I realized this, I started to cry. For those of you who personally know me, you know that this is not usual for me. But this journey of breastfeeding preemie twins has been a very long very hard emotional road.
As I am crying trying to drive to work, I realize that I have forgotten a major part of my pumping supplies. I am at this point 5 minutes from work, but I turn around and head home knowing that I will not make it without those items.
I get home get my parts, and head back to work. ( it is a nice 30 minutes from my house to work, and so I waste an hour doing this) All the while, I am still tearing up. I don’t know why I am so emotional about this whole breastfeeding thing, but I am.
It has been very hard for me, and I could have quit so many times and no one would have even said much about it. They would have congratulated me on however long I made it. With twins and working full time.
But I made myself a personal goal to make it 6 months, and I think I was so emotional because I MADE IT!!! Not as long as the books say I should, or the Internet, my family, my friends, but as long as I told myself I needed to make it. And I am still going.
Granted, I have to supplement to keep them from starving and my hard earned freezer stash is almost depleted, but my girls have gotten breast milk from day 1 and it was hard and I freaking did it.
I know that I have put all my trials in another post on my blog, so I will not go into that, but it continues to be hard. I work a lot of hours, and if I were a good quality pumper, I would pump every three hours. That is really not possible on most days at my job. I am lucky to be able to pump every 5 or 6. Hence my depleting stash.
So my Boss asks me today just how much longer I plan to breastfeed.
I was offended (I guess I am a bit sensitive about this...), and I am sure she did not mean it in a bad way.
She is actually a really good boss. But I had to bite my tongue. I told her that I did not really know. That I was going to go as long as I could. I had made it through a holiday season as a manager in a retail store, I think that January and February would be a piece of cake. So I was going to try for at least 9 months, and if I made that I would see about going to a year. I have made my personal goal, so everything after this is kudos to me and my girls.
6 Months
One of the ladies who works for me just had her twins. They came 10 weeks early, and so they are probably going to be in the NICU for a while, but I told her that I would bring her some of my preemie clothes for her use. As I was going through the box of clothes I had to marvel that my girls were ever that small.
Here are some comparisons
The onesie on top of Emily is actually one they were wearing when they were over a month old.
In the just clothes comparison, the clothes on bottom are 6 months. The onesie they wear now, and is actually a bit tight on Emily.
Here are some comparisons
The onesie on top of Emily is actually one they were wearing when they were over a month old.
In the just clothes comparison, the clothes on bottom are 6 months. The onesie they wear now, and is actually a bit tight on Emily.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Finally
We finally got our other highchair that we ordered forever ago! So today both girls got to eat dinner at the same time!
On the menu was squash, peas and roastbeef!
On the menu was squash, peas and roastbeef!
Not to be outdone
So Emily decided that it just wasn't ok that her sister could roll over and she could not!
However, she could not be a copy cat so she decided that she was going to roll over from her back to her belly instead of her belly to her back! Congrats Emily!
Then she gets stuck on her belly and after a little while gets pretty cranky! I am pretty sure she will figure out how to get back over pretty soon! My little girls have both hit milestones this week!
However, she could not be a copy cat so she decided that she was going to roll over from her back to her belly instead of her belly to her back! Congrats Emily!
Then she gets stuck on her belly and after a little while gets pretty cranky! I am pretty sure she will figure out how to get back over pretty soon! My little girls have both hit milestones this week!
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Ana's first to hit the first milestone
So our little girl who seems to continually be just a bit behind developmentally to her sister was the first to learn how to roll from her belly to her back. Emily has done it on accident a time or two, but Ana has mastered it. Congratualtions Ana on your first developmental milestone! The video has two grumpy babies so you may want to turn down the volume!
Monday, December 26, 2011
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Christmas Day 2011
So this was a different type Christmas than ever before. One it was on a Sunday. So that was different in its own right, and two, my schedule on my days off is dictated by two little girls...even Christmas!
We wake up about two hours before we need to get to church, feed the girls, and then get ready to go. Ben lets me know that one of the gifts he got for me would go nicely with my Christmas attire, and would I like to open it and wear it to church? I say sure, and I open a beautiful pendant with two rubies in it. (Ruby is the girls birthstone) I put it on and it does indeed look nice with my attire!
We end up being 5 minutes late to church. But we sit in the back so not too many notice!
During church both girls decide that it is nap time, but since we have been trying so hard to sleep train them, they have gotten so they want to lie down to sleep. So Ben puts Ana on his coat on the pew next to him, and I do the same with Emily. Ana drops right off, and Emily decides that she wants to moan and cry and groan to put herself to sleep (she does this often) So I have to pick her up and I was going to take her into the nursery where they have a pack and play that I could have put her down in and she could groan all she wanted to. But since it was Christmas, the nursery was locked up tight. So I had to get her relaxed enough to fall asleep in my arms. It took about 10 minutes, but she finally dozed off. So I go back into the service and she sleeps the rest of the time, as does Ana. Near the end of the service Ana wakes up and is happy and smiley! (I love this after nap time)
So we get home, and need to feed the girls again, eat something ourselves, and put the girls down again for a short nap. So it ends up being after 1pm before we even get time to go and open any gifts!
I tell Ben at this point we better quickly go open a few of our gifts since once the girls get up we probably will not end up with any time.
So he opens up his gift from me, and I open up his gift to me. We both got what we had asked for!
As soon as he started looking at his gift, the girls wake up. We get them up,and start opening their gifts!
Thank you to all who got gifts for them and us.
They did not last very long and they were ready for another nap. So we put them down, and started dinner. We had a nice big ham to cook, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. It was so very good!
Since then we just have been playing with our daughters and enjoying our little family.
We have had a fantastic Christmas.
Here are some pictures from the day.
The girls new stockings from their Godmother Andrea
The girls laying on Grandma Ricks quilts that she made for them, and snuggling with the teddy bears from Great Grandaddy Biggs
Emily with her Teddy
Ana and her Teddy
All the loot
The after loot picture
The girls after church
We wake up about two hours before we need to get to church, feed the girls, and then get ready to go. Ben lets me know that one of the gifts he got for me would go nicely with my Christmas attire, and would I like to open it and wear it to church? I say sure, and I open a beautiful pendant with two rubies in it. (Ruby is the girls birthstone) I put it on and it does indeed look nice with my attire!
We end up being 5 minutes late to church. But we sit in the back so not too many notice!
During church both girls decide that it is nap time, but since we have been trying so hard to sleep train them, they have gotten so they want to lie down to sleep. So Ben puts Ana on his coat on the pew next to him, and I do the same with Emily. Ana drops right off, and Emily decides that she wants to moan and cry and groan to put herself to sleep (she does this often) So I have to pick her up and I was going to take her into the nursery where they have a pack and play that I could have put her down in and she could groan all she wanted to. But since it was Christmas, the nursery was locked up tight. So I had to get her relaxed enough to fall asleep in my arms. It took about 10 minutes, but she finally dozed off. So I go back into the service and she sleeps the rest of the time, as does Ana. Near the end of the service Ana wakes up and is happy and smiley! (I love this after nap time)
So we get home, and need to feed the girls again, eat something ourselves, and put the girls down again for a short nap. So it ends up being after 1pm before we even get time to go and open any gifts!
I tell Ben at this point we better quickly go open a few of our gifts since once the girls get up we probably will not end up with any time.
So he opens up his gift from me, and I open up his gift to me. We both got what we had asked for!
As soon as he started looking at his gift, the girls wake up. We get them up,and start opening their gifts!
Thank you to all who got gifts for them and us.
They did not last very long and they were ready for another nap. So we put them down, and started dinner. We had a nice big ham to cook, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. It was so very good!
Since then we just have been playing with our daughters and enjoying our little family.
We have had a fantastic Christmas.
Here are some pictures from the day.
The girls new stockings from their Godmother Andrea
The girls laying on Grandma Ricks quilts that she made for them, and snuggling with the teddy bears from Great Grandaddy Biggs
Emily with her Teddy
Ana and her Teddy
All the loot
The after loot picture
The girls after church
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Christmas Eve
Girls first Christmas Eve, They are so excited for Santa to come that they hardly would go to sleep...lol.
But they sure were cute in thier new PJ's!
Emily and Ana
Ana
Emily
But they sure were cute in thier new PJ's!
Emily and Ana
Ana
Emily
Friday, December 23, 2011
Some Comic Relief
So while we were having picture day, the girls started looking at each other and I thought it was darling, so I stopped taking pictures and started a video. What happened next was so funny to me. Emily decided to say hello to her sister in one of the only ways she knows how to communicate...screaming. Ana did not appreciate it!
Poor Emily did not understand why her sister got all bent out of shape, she was just playing. Love this.
Poor Emily did not understand why her sister got all bent out of shape, she was just playing. Love this.
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