2 month check up

2 months went by way to quickly. Especially the last few weeks in dealing with a hospital stay and illness.

Dr Landers was very happy with the boys' recovery. She said the look great and their lungs sound fabulous. Even the cough is more subtle, even though it could hang around for 6 weeks. Logan weighs 10lbs 10oz (13th%) and is 21 1/4 in tall (<1%). Sawyer weighs 8lbs 15oz and is 20 1/2 inches long (the same length Evelyn was at birth and puts him less than 1% also!). Although the boys are very short, even for their adjusted age, overall they are 50% and 60% so they are just fine. Sawyer lost more weight when they were sick so he has some catching up to do, but both boys have doubled their birth weights - on strictly breastmilk!

They both got 3 shots + 1 oral vaccine, it was so sad :( breaks my heart every time. I hate to see them in pain. They weren't doing to well so I did have to give them Tylenol yesterday and overnight, but they seem to be much better today. They pretty much slept for 24 hours straight!

Fluffy Stuff

I'm overwhelmed with gratefulness. I never expected this much fluffy stuff from that contest I won.  The package finally arrived today and it was PLUMP full of awesome supplies that I would never have been able to afford on my own.  I owe a huge thank you to Erin at Diaperpartys.com, as well as huge thank yous to the J12 moms, the Lovebug moms and everyone who continued to put up with my daily Facebook posts and voted everyday for us.  This package was amazing!

Some items donated are brand new first qualities, some items were customer returns 1st quality, and some items are second qualities. All the diapers and supplies are fully functional!

Here's the prize!

The box was packed full!

The stash!



4 Swaddlebees Simplex OS (One size fits all) - side snaps

50 cloth wipes in different brands and kinds

A Happy Heiny Starter kit which included a bag, 3 OS pockets, 6 inserts, cloth wipes and Heiny cleaner (in a different photo)

4 Swaddlebees OS Pockets

7 Rumparoos OS covers

4 NB size Blueberry fitteds for nighttime

6 Newborn Bummis Covers

2 Kissaluvs OS covers

6 blueberry bamboo inserts. 2 snappis, 8 swaddlebees size 1 inserts, 12 Osocozy Stay-dry prefolds, 15 osocozy organics flat diapers, 7 Kissaluvs doublers

4 Blueberrys OS covers

Not only diapers were in the box!

 

Bobawrap, CJs Carcass Wipe Solution, CJs BUTTer, 300 loads of Eco nuts detergent, 2 Blueberry laundry bags, 2 GroVia Wet bags

I can't believe how fortunate we are to have recieved this prize. I was shocked to see the Bobawrap (I know nothing about these, but new I wanted a wrap like this!).  I do believe I have enough supplies to get me through a few days without having to wash.  I also have enough to set up more than one diaper station in my house! I can have my living room one, my bedroom one (while they are still sleeping with us) and the one in their room! How exciting!

 

Thank you all so much! Without your constant votes, this wouldn't have been possible for us!

2 months old! Amazing!

 

We love this pillow.  I found it online called the Twin Z nursing pillow. I couldn't afford the high pricetag so I asked a friend to make me one! She did a fabulous job! 

RSV - over the hump

Back into the clinic we went today to check the boys oxygen levels. I'm so lucky Evelyn is such a good girl for me and behaves beautifully when we have someplace to go.

Last night Sawyer was sleeping and appeared to be breathing completely normal, his ribs weren't retracting at all for a solid 5 minutes. He looked so peaceful. We had a rough night, the boys were coughing and gagging all night long and I was struggling to get them to eat enough. But, this morning during our steam routine, Logan was breathing completely normal, couldn't have been happier. I couldn't get my hopes up though until they were seen at the clinic again.

Going in to have them checked has me wiggins out. I was so nervous their levels didn't go up.

Amber (our nurse) watched their levels for a bit. Both boys are up from 90% to 95% and 97%! Dr Landers watched their breathing and said their breaths are far less labored, she is confident we are over the hump now! We shouldn't need to bring them back unless something changes!

We will be continuing our treatments - both neb and steam - until they are both very obviously better. But at least I can relax a bit now.

After a loss, there is nothing worse than watching your next baby (or in our case babies) struggle to eat and breath. It's the most terrifying thing to know there's not much you can do but watch them struggle and hope and pray for them to get better.

I suppose now, we can stop sleeping on the couch and return to our bed. I bet that'll feel nice.

RSV Check update

Last night went well. I started a routine with them: feed when hungry, neb every 4 hours, then steam in the bathroom till there's no hot water left, suction noses, repeat 4 hours later. The rest of their day is spent around out humidifier. It seems to be helping. They were sounding pretty good all the way till this morning. Even their breathing stabled out a little bit. They woke up a little rough but after doing our routine again they were a little better.

They are eating less, but are eating something. I try to make them eat every 3 hours (4 at night) for a minimum of 5 minutes. Usually they go to their normal 8-10 minutes, but it's not solid eating. They spend a lot of time latching and unlatching and little time actually eating.

Of course the breathing improvement doesn't mean much. Even though they are sounding better, they still aren't having the right amount of oxygen absorption. At their check today, they are still hovering right around 89-91, still borderline. Not better, but not worse either. The doctors say its about 50/50 if someone will respond to nebulizer treatment, it seems our boys are, at least a little bit.

You know it's bad when you go to the clinic and the nurses and staff get anxious over your babies appearance. Each time I get "I don't know how you do it, I'm getting anxiety and I've only been watching them for a few minutes. I would be a wreck. Do you sleep?" This is a loaded question/statement.

Dr Landers is the same way. "You amaze me. So put together with 3 under 3, breastfeeding twins, and just going on like you never knew any different. You were made for this." When I went in yesterday, she sat down, appeared worried. I just looked at her and said "so... Shall we talk about my mental status? (Insert exhausted/nervous chuckle)." She said "we sure can, how are you holding up?" My response: "I'm kidding, I'm ok, the kids are not."

But the reality is:
No. I don't really sleep, I set an alarm for every hour at night so I can check their status, are they breathing ok, do I need to steam them? Suction their nose? I am a wreck, I don't sleep, I'm stressed out. My animals have had almost no attention. I can't tell you the last time I actually showered (besides a quick rinse while I steam them) and I have no idea when my hair was washed. I haven't done laundry since early last week and wore the same pants 4 days in a row. I've completely stopped pumping milk (no time) and I'm lucky I even eat. I haven't put the boys in cloth diapers since Friday because I don't have time for extra diaper changes and Diaper laundry (so depressing!). My housework is at a standstill. I am failing as a friend right now. My relationship is suffering big time. I can barely keep it together. And this, is WITH help each day. But my kids are being taken care of and eating, and Evelyn is still soaring with her potty training. So I'm not failing entirely.

I am glad we are somewhere around day 6 or 7 of this RSV/bronchiolitis, hopefully that means we are right near the end and will be improving soon. I need them to improve soon. I have a lot of catching up to do...

Scary stuff - RSV

All three kids have spent the last 3 weeks coughing and sick. I had them into the doctor twice and had a phone consult once. Despite my best efforts, the boys still ended up hospitalized.

3 weeks ago our household inherited a lovely cold, it started with Miss Evelyn and moved into the boys. First I had Evelyn into the dr, then a week later Logan was in. After 2 weeks everyone started sounding better, a few days later I was calling the clinic again cause it was getting worse. They said to wait it out.

Saturday comes around and the boys are worse. They are struggling to breath and wheezing. Their cough catches their breath. I'm not sure of anything harder than watching your babies struggle to breath.

11:30 Saturday night, I'm convinced Sawyer needs to be seen, he was really bad off and when he cried, it sounded like he lost his voice. My sister comes up to sit at the house so we can head to the children's hospital.

After listening, chest x-rays and being tested for RSV among other things, Sawyer gets a nebulizer of albuterol. It doesn't do much but does give him his cry back. They gave him a neb of epinephrine and it made a world of difference, he was sleeping and breathing soundly. The RSV came back positive and he was diagnosed with Bronchiolitis due to RSV. The doctor decided she wanted to keep him to monitor him.

We then asked them to register and look at Logan because he wasn't much better. She immediately said she would be keeping him to but that we'd go through the same battery of tests first.

They had to fight to get us a shared room, I am still breastfeeding after all, but they did and it was so much easier that way.

I was a wreck. I'm already stressed out enough and now we're adding this too. I lost it, I was crying, emotional and scared.

We got up to the room at 6am. We had three goals to meet for discharge: 1) eating/pooping/peeing enough - this one was never a problem 2) keeping their oxygen levels up - again, they were 100% when we got there and stayed right around that the whole time 3) to sleep without a struggle - this would be our challenge.

We spent the morning suctioning noses, listening to chests etc. they got another neb of epinephrine at 645am. The boys never needed any oxygen and didn't receive any more nebulizers. I was told to help myself to the patient food since I had to eat enough to feed the actual patients.

We waited. I hung out in the room, walked around, and talked to the nurses. It was boring and stressful.

At noon the boys were holding their own, they were still congested and a little wheezy, but had no problem keeping their stats up. The doctor came around and said that if the boys came in the clinic in their current condition, he wouldn't hospitalize them. After all, they weren't doing anything to really help them anyways. He said we were likely to discharge later that day or early Monday.

At 3pm, they still hadn't been doing any sort of treatment on them. They decided we could discharge, especially since they had spent all day teaching me what they were looking for.

We went home. The boys were good all night, but I still stayed up and watched, worried. By morning Logan wasn't sounding the best and Sawyer was getting worse. I called Dr landers to fill her in on everything from the weekend, she wanted to see them.

She was not happy. They were not doing well. Both were struggling to breath, both had lost a few ounces of their precious weight. Both had lower O2 numbers, borderline of needing oxygen therapy. We were at risk of returning to children's hospital. We did a neb of albuterol and surprisingly it made a slight difference. She was comfortable sending us home and gave us a prescription for albuterol/neb.

The boys were sounding pretty good, sleeping and breathing soundly. They started getting worse again so I gave them their next Neb, success for Sawyer, less for Logan but he's definitely sounded worse before.

It's going to be another long sleepless night watching my babies breath.

RSV is scary for infants, especially up to a year. Kids and adults probably get here every winter but it just presents itself as a cold. Babies just can't handle it as well, and it can be fatal. There's no treatment, just run its course and help as needed with oxygen. Even nebulizers have a low success rate against RSV.

The good news: RSV hits its peak between 5 and 7 days. We know we are at least 5 and maybe 6 days in, almost through. I the unfortunate part is that they jumped from one illness to RSV so we can't be 100% when it started, it's just an estimate. Either way, we're almost there. Just trying to avoid going back to children's.

Cloth diapering - newbie reviews

I wonder if I would have chose cloth diapers for Gabriel. Surely the need to cut costs wouldn't have been a factor, but the cuteness definitely would have! I never even considered it for Evelyn because my vision was prefolds with safety pins and rubber pants. Boy have the times changed.

A group of my friends have been sending me their used (and some new) diapers to try. This has saved me a ton. I couldn't afford a trial and had no idea how I'd afford enough diapers even just to start a basic stash. Then what happens if I invested a bunch of money and didn't like those kinds? Luckily they've sent me a variety of styles, brands and sizes to try out.

This is the same group of women who entered me into the Pay-it-forward campaign through diaperparties.com - which I won thanks to everyone's support and votes! I couldn't have done it without you!

Before starting cloth diapering the twins, I had done tons of research and asked a million questions of my cloth diapering friends. After 2 days, these are my thoughts.

My initial assumption was that I would prefer Flips brand covers with prefolds and inserts. This option gives you the opportunity to use the cover for more than one diaper change as long as I didn't get messy. In my mind that meant less washing to do. But I'm not certain the lack of washing and ability to reuse makes up for the ease of a pocket diaper. Although I think they are slightly less bulky than a pocket and I do like that.

There are a bunch of different ways to fold a prefold. I tried only a few, for each one I used a Snappi to hold the diaper together. A far cry from the safety pins used generations before. I tried the newspaper fold (which Logan pooped out of right away - by poop'd out I mean only out of the prefold, the cover still held everything inside). I also tried the jelly roll fold, which successfully kept all the poo off the cover. I tried simply trifolding it and laying it inside the cover similar to a insert, but both the prefold and the insert I used had slid around inside the cover (possibly because the cover was still a hair too big).

I also tried a Thirsties cover. It only lasted one diaper change before Sawyer poo'd and made a mess of it. All the poo stayed inside, but the newspaper fold I attempted did not stop him from making a mess of the cover. The plus side to Thirsties, they have leg gussets to help hold the contents inside the cover.

I also tested Fuzzibunz OS pockets. I like these, it's simple to put on much like a disposable diaper. I like how small they are compared to some other brands. These seem to fit the boys best right now as they are both under 10lbs. I did struggle a little bit with figuring out the snaps at first. I used a regular insert (folded down slightly to size) inside the pocket. It's a bit bulky, but does the job well. They poo'd and I changed it and I worked out fine. I think if I had used a newborn insert it would have been less bulky.

I also tried a few Alvas OS pockets. I also like these for their ease and after checking their pricing, I like the cost too. They also have cute prints that I definitely appreciate. Initially they seemed a bit big, and they are. But they still held everything inside. I simply used a regular insert for these.

For now I am slightly limited on my supplies. I am using a wet bag to store the dirty diapers. I don't rinse the diapers unless its an unusually bad one (the boys are breastfed, so no need) I am washing every night so I have diapers for the next day. I used Bumgenius brand soap the first day and ended up with a lot of bad stains, I also think I didn't use hot enough water. I rinse on cold first, then wash on hot, rinse twice and hang dry. It goes faster than it sounds. I now use Tide powder and all the stains were gone today.

I spend my days mostly downstairs, so I've set up a 3 drawer system to make changes easier for me. The final system and set up will wait till I am more settled in my process.

I am am anxious to see what items come in my prize pack. I know it's big but I have no idea what to expect in it. I have my eyes on a few things I'd like to buy and try, but I don't want to buy anything until I know what I have!

So far this is all I've been able to try. The first diaper took probably 10 solid minutes to put on, but I'm already getting much quicker.

I started the boys in cloth and at the same time I am still working on potty training Ms Evelyn. My mom came to help again today, we are doing a whole new potty system in our house :) and Evelyn is doing good, we just have to break through her stubbornness.

My next endeavor (tomorrow): cloth wipes!

Managing at home.

Many people have asked if I have time to get anything done during the day. The surprising answer is yes, I do.

I have 2 newborns that need to be fed. A toddler who not only needs food and drink, but attention and playtime. And feeding and caring for myself. Time management has become a must, as well as the ability to juggle and multi-task. Its not as intense as it may sound, at least not anymore. I've adjusted to being constantly busy, and I'm ok with it now.

The 2 hours before Derrick goes to work are spent getting the kids fed and dressed for the day, as well as Derrick getting himself ready. This has helped me have an easier time during the day. We are lucky that Derrick doesn't start work till almost 11am, we can still sleep till a normal hour and I have help getting the kids going.

Laundry - one day I put a load in the wash, and dry it. On day 2 I fold it. On day 3 I wash and dry another load. On day 4 I fold it. This process has kept us in clean clothes, but I'm never really "caught up". That's ok with me. The nice thing is that folding laundry becomes quality time spent with Evelyn. She loves to "help" me with laundry, her task is to take all the socks and put them in my sock bag for matching later. If the boys happen to be napping, I try to throw an extra load in the wash or fold tomorrows load. This process may change when we transition to cloth diapers as I will probably find myself doing extra loads of just diaper washes.

Dishes - on day 1 I load the dishes in the dishwasher, day 2 I put more dishes in and run it. Day 3 they all get put away. Then I repeat on day 4. Again, I'm never totally caught up, but I'm staying on top of it. Evelyn likes to help here too, usually she plays on one side of the sink, while I'm using the other side to load the dishes.

These 2 tasks alone take me about an hour total to complete. Of course there are days it takes a little longer if its a folding day with dishes to be done, but it isn't too bad.

I usually try to complete one other task during the day. That could be vacuuming, dusting, cleaning Evelyn's room, or organizing something, whatever needs to be done. If I get one task done besides laundry/dishes I feel like I've accomplished a ton that day.

As for my personal health and hygiene, I just wait for Derrick to get home and then I disappear into the bathroom. I eat in between chores or eat on the run most times.

I never try to do more than one outing in a day. If I have to go to Target, that is the days outing. This will carry into the summer, if we went to the store than that's it. If we went to the park, than that's it. If we are out too long, then that days chores get put off till tomorrow, I play catch up when I have time to do extra (or ask Derrick to do one of my chores).

As I'm wondering room to room during the day, I always make sure to grab an item or 2 (or 6 haha) and take it with me. If I go from living room to kitchen, I may grab Evelyn's snack trash, dishes or anything else that needs to go there. If I'm going upstairs I take an arm load up with me. This has become second nature now, I never travel around the house empty handed. This just keeps things "tidy" but my house is never really clean.

I usually let Evelyn do her thing. Especially since we're cooped up in the house till spring. After an hour or two we play "pick up" for 10 minutes so she can destroy the place again.

I don't know how this is all going to change as the boys get older and demand more of my time, guess I'll tackle that as it happens.

The house is less than organized, it's not really clean, but it is picked up and not trashed. I can say that for one more day my kids are happy healthy and alive, I can't expect much more than that.

6 weeks - my body is healing.

Had my 6 week post pregnancy check up today. I am down to 141lbs, which is only 6lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight. I've lost 35lbs now. I'd like to keep a little seeing as how I'm breast feeding, so hopefully I don't lose anymore.

My hematoma that was on my incision is almost gone. It's much smaller than it was last time I was in a month ago. I had hoped this was the case since it wasn't hurting anymore.

The last week or so I've been struggling with some really bad rib pain. It's been in my left side since shorty after birth but has recently gotten so bad it nearly brings me to tears sometimes. I mentioned it at my appointment and they said to use heat or ice and ibuprofen, give it a month, if it isn't better I need to be seen. I don't know what these boys did to my skeletal system, but wow does this suck. Hopefully it doesn't last a month and the heat/ice helps!

They took my hemoglobin level again. At the hospital I was at 7, after 2 weeks I was at 9. Today I was at 12 which puts me back to normal.

Before we left, I invited the staff to come see the boys. The ultrasound tech, the nurses and our doctors all came in. Everyone was surprised how much the boys look alike. Both doctors said that if they had to guess, based on their physical features, they probably are identical. Only time will tell though, we'll see what they look like if Sawyer ever catches up to Logan's weight and size.

Evelyn was a great helper for mommy and enjoyed showing off her baby brothers. I was impressed at how smoothly this outting alone went.

When we left the nurse and doctor helped me out to the car. Although I could have managed, it was nice not to have to struggle.

Thinking.

The boys will be 6 weeks old this week. It's crazy how quickly they are growing and how quickly time is flying by me.

Up till now, the boys have managed to keep me very busy, I hadn't really had time to process my emotions and how I'm feeling now with the boys here. Last week I finally had a chance. I was watching Evelyn play, sitting snuggling and looking at the boys. I imagined what it would be like with Gabriel here, how old he'd be and what things he's be starting to do to annoy his sister. I thought about the moments we spent with him, and all the moments since. I sat there and thought: "I miss my son... my other son..."

I hope that someday, they will cherish their brother's existence in their life as much as my cousin Dan does. He keeps his older twin brothers' spirit alive even though he never got to meet them. I hope our kids will do the same.

I'm grateful that neither of the boys looks just like Gabriel. I see similarities but I also saw similarities between Evelyn and Gabriel. It seems Potters had really given Gabriel his own look.

I haven't had time to go out to the cemetery since the boys' early and dramatic arrival. I did today. It wasn't easy terrain tracking through 2 feet of hard crunchy snow. His stone was completely buried, the only giveaway to his location was his silver pole sticking out of the snow - now empty. His angel ornament gone. I have more, and I know I'll take a new one out there when I take a shovel and reveal his stone again. I didn't drag the kids out of the van, but I look forward to taking all the kids out for picnic lunches this summer.

The boys are doing great. I had them weighed at an appointment I'd made for Evelyn last week. Sawyer weighed 7lbs 4oz and Logan was 8lbs 6oz. My growing boys are definitely getting enough by breastfeeding alone. They bounce from bottle to breast without much confusion. Logan will even take a paci now and again. I'm grateful we haven't had to use formula yet. Such a blessing. We are slowly transitioning them into 0-3month clothes. The smaller brands are starting to fit - although they are swimming in them. After we are out of NB diapers we'll be moving them into size 1, but hopefully cloth very very soon!! Shouldn't be long now! Our next battle is getting Sawyer to sleep from 4am-6am instead of being up partying!

Evelyn is doing well. She was a bit sick with the sniffles last week but is getting better. She still loves her brothers and likes to help us with them. Last week she finally showed signs of being ready to potty train! yay! So last week we started. she was doing well right from the start. We have an equal number of accidents and successes. So proud of her. She has decided to be a bit jealous that the boys sleep in our room and more often than not, she ends up in our bed at some point throughout the night. Anytime we try to take pictures of the boys she always jumps in them too! I love my kids.

Evelyn was such an easy baby. Content, subtle and easy to please. I really didn't think we'd get so lucky again. But really, these boys are much like her. As individual babies they really are quite easy, as twins though they are HARD! It's a lot of work!

My day goes like this: change a baby, feed a baby. Change the next baby, feed the baby. Change Evelyn, feed Evelyn. Feed myself. Repeat. Of course it's slightly different now with Evelyn potty training, but still similar.

We are blessed. So incredibly blessed.