Harlow

Harlow,
My chunky monkey. You are SO full of personality, I can't stand it. You've been a bit of a drama queen from the moment you were born. When you're upset, you REALLY let everyone know it. And when you're happy you're SO happy.. almost giddy. The expressions you make are pretty awesome. I've tried to capture as many of them on camera as I can because I don't want to forget all the silly faces you make. I think the best is when I pull you from your swing or car seat after a nap & you streeeetch. The most exaggerated stretch I think I've ever seen. You scrunch up your face, twist your head to the side, and your arms go over your head. It's adorable.

You like to cuddle a lot more than your sister does. One of my favorite memories of your life as a newborn will always be those times you'd snuggle right into my chest and doze off. I never would have thought having drool all over me would make me so happy. :)

You're really starting to become a chatter box. I can put you on your play mat and you'll talk and talk to yourself for awhile. Smiling, coo'ing, making silly sounds. And you're a trickster! You have a new game where you'll fuss in your swing or your crib and when I get there you smile huge & get a look on your face that totally says "haha, Mommy.. I tricked you!". Daddy & I already know you're going to be a handful. I think you're going to be the comedian and the goof ball. I can't wait to see if I'm right! Oh, and you love bath time! Both you & your sister love being in the water.. I think you'll be fishies like your Dad.

I'm still trying to decide if you look like me or Daddy. You have less hair than Emma, but it's lighter. Your eyes are still that newborn blue/gray color, so we'll see if you end up with blue eyes like me, or brown like your Dad. Maybe an in between green.. that's my guess! You have chubby cheeks and I think I kiss them about a million times a day. I hope you never get sick of me doing that.. my guess is you will. :) You have an adorable turned up nose, and a big mouth like me.  :) 

I love you so much, Harlow Jane, and can't wait to see you & your personality grow!

love,
Mommy

Emma

Emma,
My little peanut. I feel like your little personality has been forming since we first saw you flip flopping during one of our early ultrasounds. Eventually your little (big) sister took up all the room in my belly, but I knew once you were born you'd go back to being a little wiggle worm. I was right! You're not that into being cuddled, and your favorite spot of the house is the changing table of the pack & play. When I lay you in it you start wiggling around, and I can usually get some coos & smiles from you while I'm changing your diaper. I joke with Daddy that he needs to build a higher barrier around the changing table so I can leave you there!

You've been wide eyed & alert since the day you were born. One of my favorite moments after you & Harlow were born was of someone in the room putting the two of you next to each other and you were looking over at your sister. When I held you for the first time you slept with one eye slightly open, and you've been doing that ever since. You fight sleep a lot.. closing your eyes until they're almost all the way shut and then BAM! you're wide eyed, looking around the room again. I think you just don't want to miss a thing.. maybe you'll be the life of the party some day.

You're making the cutest coos lately. You love looking up and "talking" to the spinning bears above you in your pack & play. Sometimes you'll even start to cry when the bears stop spinning! You & I "talk" a lot.. you coo, I coo or talk back, you smile. One of the highlights to my day.

You have beautiful blue eyes.. and I'm almost certain they'll stay blue. Your hair is darker than your sister's, and you have more of it, but you have the blondest eyebrows. I have a feeling you'll turn into a toe head like your Mommy in a few years. You're just above 9lbs, but you're a good eater and I have a feeling you'll eventually catch up to your sister. You have the cutest chubby cheeks, button nose, and a teeny tiny mouth.

Happy 2 months, Emma Dylan!

love,
Mommy

2 months old!

I'm a day late, but happy 2 months to my sweet baby girls! And WHAT a 2 months it's been. People always say "they grow so fast" and now I know exactly what they mean. In just two months we went from this:

to this:

(Emma on the left in the 1st pic, on the right in the 2nd pic)

Where did my babies go??? Ok, they're still babies but look how different they look already! Nuts. I seriously can't wait to see what they'll look & act like one year from now. I'm sure I'll be looking back at these pics from their first couple months of life, wishing I could turn back the clock.

Emma & Harlow,
You're two months old now, and your little personalities are becoming more distinct every single day. You're both offering up lots of coos & smiles.. and let's not forget the man farts & burps. You give your Daddy a run for his money in those categories!

You both have clearly developed a smell for good food because the instant Daddy & I sit down to eat dinner, at least one of you will pop open your eyes and demand to be fed. I think we have a couple of future foodies on our hands! That's o.k. though.. I would give up every bite of food for you girls. Mommy is getting cheesy now!

At two months old we can get a 6 hour stretch of sleep from you at night. You each have your occasional meltdowns, but overall neither of you are super fussy. Yay for good babies!!

You're starting to get out of the house a lot more, and people loooove to stop and stare at you. Apparently you're pretty fascinating, and cute to boot. So far you've been to the farmers markets, Balboa Park, and multiple restaurants. You've even gone to your first car show!

I can't wait until you guys can interact with each other. Daddy & I like to sit you down next to each other & hold you face to face, but so far you don't acknowledge each other. I don't blame you though.. after being squished so close together in my belly for so long it's no wonder you're sick of each other! That's ok.. in the next few weeks (hopefully!) you'll start enjoying each other's company again. And some day I hope you'll be best friends!

Even though you're twins you each have your own quirks and personalities, so I'll be sure to write a letter to each of you individually. You're twins, but we hope that (if you're reading this!) you'd agree that Daddy & I always worked to allow you to be an individual.

Happy 2 months, sweet girls. Mommy & Daddy love you!

Postpartum Anxiety

Clearly I've been a blog slacker. The girls have definitely kept me busy, but now that Emma is starting to nap better during the day I just might have some time to start blogging again. Yay!

I figure if I'm going in order of events since having the girls on June 9th, the next thing I should blog about is the postpartum anxiety I experienced.

The first couple of weeks after the girls were born, life was ROUGH. I knew it would be hard, taking care of two babies round the clock, getting little to no sleep. Physically I knew it would be hard. But I guess I never realized how hard it would be mentally. I've never had anxiety issues, but I found myself getting extremely anxious every evening. It seemed like right when the sun went down the butterflies in my stomach went crazy, and I wanted Dan nearby 24/7. When I was up in the middle of the night with the girls I felt so alone, like I was the only person in the world who was awake.

I could never really pin point why I was feeling so anxious, but I'm sure it was a mixture of hormones, the fear of being totally responsible for two little lives, and complete exhaustion. I was also really struggling with breastfeeding, but I'll save that for it's own post. The other reason I knew I was struggling was because I'm a scheduler.. I like organization and having some sort of routine in my day to day life. I like making lists & checking things off those lists. Tell your newborn baby you want them on some sort of schedule & they will laugh in your face.. well, if they could laugh.

Thankfully, every day got a little bit easier, as I became more comfortable with the whole Mommy role. I still don't have a routine during the day, but from what I hear that's normal with twins. We started a nighttime routine that's helping me feel like I have some sort of control. Starting at 7:30 we bathe the girls, lotion/pj's, bottle, and in their cribs by 8:30. Just that ONE planned part of my day really helps.

I feel like I need to give a heads up to all soon-to-be Mom's about the anxiety & depression you might experience after having your baby (or babies!). I know there's nothing you can really do to prepare for it, but just know that if it happens to you, it's normal. Obviously if it doesn't get better, you want to talk to your doctor about it. Try to get some sleep when you can, take people up on offers to help out.. don't be a hero! You'll get to the point where you can multi-task.. cleaning, taking care of the baby, blogging!, but don't set high expectations to be super Mom right off the bat.

I promise that no matter how long it took you to get pregnant, and no matter how much you desperately wanted that baby, it doesn't make the newborn phase easier. Don't beat yourself up if things aren't all roses & butterflies in the beginning. I know it sounds cliche, but things WILL get easier. At 2 months in, I'm definitely no expert, but I can say it is getting a bit easier each week that goes by.

And when you start getting smiles like this (Harlow)..

And this (Emma)..

It makes it aaaaaall worth it. :)

They're here!!

Ok, they've actually been here almost a month, but I've had my hands full. :)

After all that hospital stay & bed rest I actually had to be induced, if you can believe it! I was induced at 39 weeks & 1 day pregnant, and the girls were born on June 9th.

Here I am right before we left for the hospital, bright & early on the 9th.

Things moved pretty quickly once we got to the hospital. I was still measuring about 3cm, they broke my water and started the pitocin around 8:30a.m. All the details are a little fuzzy but I received the epidural around 11:00a.m. At that point I wasn't feeling craaazy contractions, but opted to get the epi sooner than later since there were lots of deliveries that day & I would have had to tough it out at least another hour. Awhile later I was still feeling contractions and when they did another internal exam I could feel it just the same as the one from the morning.. at that point I was 5cm.

My doctor was surprised that I could still feel everything so she decided to have the anesthesiologist come back to check things out. It took awhile for him to come back and by that point I was feeling some pretty painful contractions. Once he got there he injected a large amount of the medicine in to me to see what happened.. I got super dizzy, my ears started ringing.. everything they ask if you're experiencing. This was the only moment of the whole day where I started freaking out a bit. They put an oxygen mask on my face, the doctor explained something about missing (or hitting?) a blood vessel, and got to work on re-doing the epidural. Ugh. At that point though I could care less. I was feeling really strong contractions so the 2nd epi was a piece of cake.

Around 1:30 I told my nurse I could definitely still feel contractions, but not as intense. She asked if I could feel them more in my rectum, and when I said yes she looked really surprised. She did another internal exam, looked up at me with huge eyes & said "you're at nine!". At this point I was soooo sleepy, so in between 9 & 10cm I was able to take a nap. :)

I was ready to start pushing around 2:30 and at that point a sea of people entered my room.. It was Dan, my two nurses, my obgyn, and probably 6 or 7 other doctors.. I don't know what each of them was there for, but at that point I could care less! I pushed for an hour and Emma Dylan was born at 3:30p.m, weighed 4lbs 14oz, and was 18 inches long. She cried right away and was whisked away to get cleaned up. I couldn't hold her right away since I needed to start pushing for Harlow, but they kept holding her up so I could catch glimpses of her, and at one point someone brought her over to me to give her a few kisses. :)

I naively assumed that Harlow would be much easier to deliver since you know, everything was already stretched out down there, but I was SO wrong! First off, I was exhausted already. So much that I could have slept in between contractions. Second, Harlow had further to go since she wasn't as far down. And lastly, she was the bigger of the two babies. Apparently she was also starting to flip, so the nurses were pushing down really hard on my stomach, which made me feel sick and definitely made pushing more difficult. My doctor kept telling me if I didn't want to have a c-section I'd have to push harder, and that was definitely motivation! Harlow Jane was born at 4:13p.m., weighed 5lbs 14oz, and was 19 inches long.

I did it! I delivered my baby girls vaginally, and everyone was as healthy as could be! Overall the experience was exactly as I hoped it would be. I got really lucky and had two amazing nurses who made SUCH a difference. One of them in particular kept telling me how great I was doing, and when she hugged me at the end of her shift, she actually had tears in her eyes. They were truly amazing. 

The last month has been sort of a whirl wind. I definitely have more to write about & many pictures to post, but I'll start with this birth story.

Here's a few pics of my beautiful baby girls:

The nurses..

Me & my girls..

Proud Papa..

Emma & Harlow, 1 day old..

Sister love (Emma on the left)..

Home sweet home!

 



38 weeks!

Still pregnant! Unbelievable. I'm 38 weeks as of today, and I'll admit.. I'm so ready for Emma & Harlow to make their entrance. Every day I'm a little bigger than the day before and my skin is sooo itchy and sore from being stretched to the max. I'm happy I've made it this far, but now it's time for them to become outside babies!

I had a doctor's visit yesterday and now I'm 3cm dilated, 100% effaced. Making progress! We have an eviction date set for next Thursday, the 9th (my Mom's Birthday!), but I'm still hoping they'll come on their own before then. We've been going for walks in the evening, hoping to help things move along.

We have a growth ultrasound tomorrow, so we'll find out what their estimated weights are. Eeeeek. I'm a little nervous to find out! At 34 weeks they were estimated 5lbs 1oz and 5lbs 2oz and the paranatologist said if I make it to 38 weeks there's a good chance I'd have 7+lb babies. FABULOUS, but a little nerve wracking since we're still trying for a vaginal delivery. They should be healthy though, which is such a relief.

I'm still working (ugh) from home, but I've decided this Friday will be my last day. If the girls don't come on their own before next Thursday I'll have a few days off to just relax and get myself as mentally prepared as possible. I can't tell you just how happy I am to have a few months off of work to spend with my sweet babies. I know it's going to be HELL dragging myself back to work :(

That's all I've got as far as updates go.. I'll update again on Friday with the growth u/s results. Here's a pic taken this morning. Fingers crossed that this is the last belly pic I take. :)

Full term!!

Wow. 37 weeks. I still can't believe that when I was laying in the hospital I thought we might have March babies. Now, there's a good chance we'll be having June babies. Unreal. I'm officially full term and I'm SO ready now for Emma & Harlow to make their appearance.

My next OB appointment is on Tuesday, so if I don't go into labor on my own by then we'll be scheduling an induction.. most likely for the upcoming weekend (June 4th or 5th). As of this past Monday I'm 2cm dilated, so I'm making some sort of progress. Fingers crossed that means I'll go on my own!

Either way, I'm still not sure it has sunk in that I'll be holding my sweet baby girls within the next week or so. I picture that moment in my mind, and I know it will probably end up being a million times better than whatever I'm imagining. Just the thought of Dan looking in his baby girls' eyes makes my own eyes well up with tears, so I can guarantee you it will be a suuuper emotional day for me. :)

In the meantime I'm trying to enjoy my last days (hours?) being pregnant. There's a very good chance this is the last time I'll be pregnant, so I'm trying to soak it all up while I can. Feeling my little girls kicking and sticking their little bums in the air.. getting that little extra pampering from Dan.. those are definitely the perks. I can write a longer list of things to complain about, but I won't. Because when it comes down to it I wouldn't take back or trade any of this experience. And I'm trying to focus on the positives, people!

I'll leave you with what's hopefully my last belly pic. Please ignore the wet hair, no makeup, pajama look. :) My belly is now measuring 44 weeks. Yowzers.