LR's Adjustment

LR has been amazing with the arrival of his 2 new siblings. I was worried that he'd be aggressive with them and try to poke at their eyes. Instead, he's super gentle. He's more defiant with us now, but he doesn't take any of the frustration of sharing his parents out on them. When they cry he goes over to them and says, "what's wrong, baby?" He tells them "it's okay," and he sings them lullabies. He does snatch their pacifiers from tables and runs around with them in his mouth, but since washing and sterilizing them is easy, I've decided that it's a battle I'm not willing to fight.

His conversation skills have improved and he's sleeping better at night. He's marking his territory a bit with the babies by claiming all the blankets in the house, even those made by Gigi, and Great Aunt BJ for the twins. He's still an amazing social butterfly. He loves gymnastics and our large town play group. He says "hi" to everyone on the street and preys other kids in stores, tracking them as potential playmates.

I promise to get more photos up. We have a ton, I've just been staying busy from feeding to feeding. It's amazing how little I can get done around the house. Laundry, dishes, paying bills, etc. is a challenge. I'm still only getting a broken 5 hours of sleep each night, but N and Grandma Nese are helping out, so sometimes I get a nap in during the day.

More next on our family outings. We finally made it out of the house!

Different From Head to Toe

(The first picture is from the level 2 nursery. Lord B has the oxygen tube in. The second picture is of them on their way home from the hospital. Lady V had already been home, but this was Lord B's first trip.)

Here's a snippet of the conversation both Daddy and I have each had when strangers ask us about Lord B and Lady V.

Stranger: What are they?
Daddy: A boy and a girl.
Stranger: Are they identical?
Daddy: Uh...

We've decided that the best possible response is, "Yes, except for the penis."

Actually, these two are as different as siblings can be despite Daddy's claim that they looked identical when they were on the warming tables. Lady V has a much bigger head than Lord B. Her hair is wavy as if she got a baby perm for her debut. His hair is darker than hers even though they both have brown hair right now. Neither have eyebrows, but she has my shape eyes and he has Daddy's. I know because when Lord B opens his eyes wide, you can see white over the top of the irises and only Daddy has eyes that do that. Right now they give Lord B a "crazy eyes" kind of look.

Lord B has a distinctly long, straight nose while Lady V has the same nose as Hudson. Presumably it's my pre-surgery nose. His lips are slightly more full than hers and he seems to have a tiny dimple in his chin suggesting that he'll have Daddy's small cleft. I also forgot to mention in the post introducing him that he was tongue-tied at birth which means his frenulum, the membrane that attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth, extended too far out and was potentially keeping him from nursing correctly. We had the doctor clip the membrane back to prevent any future problems. Luckily, the procedure is painless and bloodless.

As for the rest of their bodies, he has a divot in his sternum that she doesn't have. They both have round little bellies and sticks for legs and arms. I keep waiting for them to gain that chubby baby weight on their thighs, but I haven't seen it yet.

The C-section

C-sections are weird. It's hard to imagine staying awake during major abdominal surgery, so you just try to focus on the babies and not the cutting. I was a little worked up from the pre-surgery routine when they tried 7 times to get 2 IVs running, one in each hand. I couldn't plump up my crappy veins since I couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight before the surgery, so the veins just kept collapsing. They finally called in the anesthesiologist to get the last one. Actually, the last 4 sticks wouldn't have been necessary had they drawn enough blood from the first IV. *sigh*

After that I walked into the OR and Daddy stayed behind. The anesthesiologist was waiting and quickly administered the spinal. Then in a matter of seconds they had me down on the table being prepped for surgery. First thing they did was to haul my johnny up to my chest and all sense of modesty was gone. I was completely exposed to a room of a dozen people or more. There were 2 teams ready for the delivery, one for Lord B and one for Lady V. Then there were surgical nurses, my OB, a med student, and the anesthesiologist. When Daddy walked in he was surprised to see a dozen people around the room. I saw him come in and was still weepy from the episode with the IV. He sat in a chair strategically placed next to my head and behind the screen.

When they took the kids to the warming tables, Daddy went over to look at them. When he turned back, it was tough to avoid seeing part of the surgery, but it didn't phase him too much. I think his exact words were, "umm... gross." The head pediatrician came over to show me the babies and to tell me that they were doing exceptionally well for preemies. As he was finishing up, I started getting intense pain in my neck. I turned my head from the side to look back up at the ceiling while calling for the anesthesiologist to help me. He said it was reflexive pain from what was going on in the surgery. It was intense pain, but he eased it with some medication via the IV within a minute or two.

When I looked back, the pediatrician was gone. Daddy then left to go to the nursery with the kids while they put me back together. A little while later, I started to get queasy. I told the doctor and she said, "I was just putting your uterus back in place, so that's not a surprise. You don't miss a thing!" Weird. I thought the queasiness would go away, but it got worse, so I asked for a basin and started breathing faster to indicate that it wasn't an idle threat. The anesthesiologist administered another drug and the feeling went away. Later when we talked to Papa about it, he said that that anesthesiology is a "dark art," which seems funny, but definitely rings true.

Then it was off to recovery with my numb legs. The first couple of days recovering were rough, but I had the babies to focus on, so it was manageable. By the end of the first week I wasn't in pain anymore. Vivian and I went home on Monday Jan 21st and Beckett came home on Wednesday Jan 23rd.

Welcome, Lady V!

Lady V entered the world on Jan 17th at 9:39am, 2 minutes after her brother. She was not 10 seconds old when she reached up and grabbed the umbilical clamp being held by the surgical nurse. She wrapped her fingers around so that they were in danger of being clamped and the nurse announced that everyone should stop. My OB immediately stopped and then they pried her fingers off the clamp. Later the OB told me she didn't know how tiny baby fingers would fair if they were clamped. After that she grabbed the nurse's sleeve. The OB said at that point she banished Lady V to the warming table and told the staff to "get this brat out of my sterile field." (In a very sweet way, of course.) At the warming table she first grabbed the blanket and then scored an 8 at the one minute apgar and a 10 at the 5 minute apgar. The pediatrician said they don't usually give newborns 10s and especially not when they're preemies, so he was thrilled with how good they looked. She weighed 5 lbs. 3 oz. and measured 18.25 inches. They showed her to me while I was still on the table and then they took her to the nursery for her bath and evaluation.

She spent one day in an open crib in the level 2 nursery while they evaluated her and checked to make sure she could maintain her body temperature. After that she was moved to the regular nursery. I kept her in my room during the day so that I could nurse her and then they kept her during the night. By the fourth day I was taking her to the level 2 nursery to try tandem feeding with her brother. It worked fairly well and the nurses helped me get them latched on. Around the same time she hit a cold patch and needed a little Kangaroo Care. Then she warmed back up and was ready to go home with me on Monday.

Welcome to the family, Lady V!

Welcome, Lord B!

Lord B entered the world on Jan 17th at 9:37am. He emerged quietly thanks to a mouthful of amniotic fluid. At the warming table he scored an 8 at the one minute apgar and a 9 at the 5 minute apgar. He weighed 4 lbs. 13.4 oz. and measured 18 inches. They showed him to me while I was still on the table and then they took him to the nursery for his bath and evaluation.

Turns out that aspirated amniotic fluid kept him in the level 2 nursery in an incubator for 6 days. He came home on the seventh. The first day he was grunting and laboring to breathe, so they put in an IV for fluids and an oxygen tube to aid his breathing. They monitored his oxygen level with a little sensor taped to his foot. The oxygen tube broke my heart. It pulled at his skin where it was taped to his cheeks and I always thought I was hurting him when I held him. The second day he was still breathing quickly, but he wasn't grunting anymore. We used Kangaroo Care which is skin to skin contact to help him stabilize his body temperature during those first days. He couldn't stay warm outside the incubator.

I was finally able to nurse him on the fourth day when he came off the IV. Around the 5 day mark he was jaundiced, so they adding bili lights to the incubator and covered his eyes with a little mask. Eventually it irritated the bridge of his nose, so they tried variations on the mask to avoid skin breakdown. Then at the end of the 5th day he came off the oxygen and managed to keep his O2 stats at normal levels overnight. That was the end of the oxygen tube! On the 6th day he came out from under the bili lights and the next morning they were able to take him out of the incubator. We gratefully took him home shortly after.

Welcome to the family, Lord B!