Real Life: A MN Mom: February 2013

Please take a moment to vote!!!

Some wonderful ladies entered me into a contest to win an entire stash of cloth diapers! It goes the entire month of February (There's still 6 days left to vote!). You can vote once every day! We're in the lead now but nothing is guaranteed! Its VERY easy to do - click the link, click on our vote button and vote. That's it, no registering or anything!

http://www.diaperparties.com/pay-it-forward-vote/

Wow!

I can't believe how fast time is flying! Tomorrow the boys will be 1 month old already! That's unbelievable. Since its been awhile since I updated, I'll try to cover all the bases, this is bound to get a little long so I'll try to break it up in sections so you can read what your interested in. This took forever to write, in between feedings, diapers and entertaining Evelyn I felt like I was typing forever!

Recovery

Recovery has gone really well. 1 week post c-section I was feeling sore and tired, but overall good. I wore a "Binder" belt the hospital gave me for the first couple weeks and was very surprised at how quickly the belly has gone down! I expected it to look pretty bad for a really long time!

1 week post twin c-section

2 weeks post twin c-section

4 weeks post twin c-section

At my 2 week post partum appointment, they noticed I had a hematoma on my incision. It wasn't bad enough to warrant treatment/drainage but it was there and was causing me to be pretty sore anytime I moved. They said to treat it with heat and it should go away on its own. I have noticed it doesn't hurt as bad now so hopefully its working.

Emotionally, I still haven't come to terms with the c-section we had. I really had high hopes that I would be able to labor and at least try to delivery them naturally. I am greatful that they are here safe and healthy, and given the circumstances it was what had to be done. But in my heart I wanted to labor with them the same way I labored with Evelyn and Gabriel.

The one upside: I now have a full resume! I have delivered one natural full term baby, I have delivered one baby frank breech naturally, and have now added a c-section to the list.

The Boys

At their 2 week check up they had gained well over their birth weights. Logan was up to 5lbs 10oz and Sawyer was 4lbs 13oz. Dr Landers was thrilled to see so much weight gain considering we are still only breastfeeding. They are doing well and I can't wait for their 2 month wellness check to see how much more they've grown! I can feel the weight gaining on them now. We even moved from Preemie clothes to Newborn clothes at 2 1/2 weeks old.

I can't believe they have already reached 4 weeks old this week. Derrick returned to work on Wednesday and my mom and grandma came and spent 2 days with me so I could adjust. Today we are mostly on our own and it seems to be going ok. Nights were rough for awhile. We realized that the boys didn't like the dark, so we spent last weekend rearranging our room so they can sleep next to the closet light that we now leave on. We had 4 really good nights in a row. I felt amazing. Then all the sudden the last few nights have been really hard. I can't get them to eat on the same schedule, they wake up sporatically to eat, constantly want to cluster feed and are all around very noisy. They grunt, groan, whimper and whine all the time. Sometimes they sound like cows, sometimes goats, pigs, guinea pigs, or mice. Its really hard to sleep when we are sitting there laughing and giggling at all their animal sounds!

HOW MANY DIAPERS???

One night....

Between Evelyn and the boys, in one night we went through 12 diapers! This doesn't count the day time hours! It was shocking to see them all lined up and how much trash we created. I am really really pulling to go to cloth soon! It may add to my laundry but we'll save a ton of money and trash that way. As they are getting older our diaper numbers are going down. I think we had 6 or 8 last night. I have some cloth diapers some wonderful friends have sent me, but the boys just don't fit in them yet... Although I did try!

We have introduced a few bottles of pumped milk now. They don't seem to be having any confusion going back to breast afterwards. Derrick really enjoys being able to feed them, but I do think he's a little quick to jump to a bottle for a solution right now, but that'll get fixed with time. I am still trying to keep them close to the same eating schedule so I can keep my sanity. Its hard though, harder than I thought it would be. First of all, its hard to keep a 36 week preemie awake... EVER. All they want to do is sleep. Trying to wake them up in the first place is quite the chore and takes a lot of time. Then, try to convince a baby that isn't hungry, that they in fact are hungry and going to eat - not easy! You really can't force feed a baby that isn't hungry. It seems to be good some nights and other nights they are on complete different schedules!

Sleeping arrangements - Rock N Play

We tried having them sleep in a Pack n Play like we did for Evelyn. Just put in the bassinet part of it and put them in side by side. Sadly that didn't work. The boys hated sleeping flat on their backs - those were some rough nights. I got my hands on a Rock n Play and they slept awesome in it! It was such a relief, but we'd need more than one. My cousin Laurie sent me 2! What a life saver these have been! I can't imagine how tough our rough nights would be without these!

Evelyn

Evelyn has adjusted really well and loves her baby brothers. she always asks to hold them, helps with their baths, wants to help feed and change diapers. We have had very little jealousy issues, makes me thankful I spent so much time preparing her for their arrival. She has made me so proud. I think she may be my saving grace with how much help she trys to give me with these boys!

Going out

During Derricks time off, we felt a little daring. We'd taken quick trips to my brother's ans stuff, but one day we took the kids out to the mall. With flu season we realized this was risky. We mostly just walked around and were careful to sanitize and wash hands frequently. We also kept the babies in their seats covered in a blanket most of the time. We heard lots of comments, some about them being twins and some about bringing them out so small... We just rolled with it. The outting went well so now we have confidence to get out and do things!