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He’s Three!

This crazy little monkey turned 3 on May 31, and I seriously think I love him more by the day. And it just kills me that it took me so much of his infancy to really like him. That’s the sleep deprivation for ya…

We had his 3-year well check this week, but they forgot to give me the printout with all his stats on it, so I’ll update this with those as soon as I get them if you want to check back later. But all looked great, and our pediatrician was particularly impressed that he is not only potty trained but doesn’t wear diapers overnight anymore either and that he has no more pacifier. She said it was a dream checkup and wished all her patients were this easy. Go Morrison!

Here are his official 3-year stats:

  • Weight:  36.6 lbs. (89%)
  • Height:  39.75″ (92%)
  • BMI:  16.3 kg/m2 (60%)
  • Blood pressure:  97/61

He still loves all things dinosaurs, Thomas trains, cars, stinky green, Cuphead, and has recently become a huge Star Wars fan. Every time he wakes in the morning or up from a nap, he comes out of his room saying, “Good morning, Mama. Good morning, Mama. Good morning, Mama,” until he finds me. And I can never not bend down and give him the biggest hug ever when I see that sweet little face come out, fresh from sleep and still all warm and snuggly.

His laugh is infectious, and for as maddening as he can be, there is no one else on Earth who can melt my heart with his eyes like he can. His big, bright brown doe eyes are simply endearing.

He’s clever, he’s funny, he’s smart, and he loves drawing just like his sisters. Hearing the 3 of them playing together outside so far this summer makes my heart swell, and I know we’re doing something right by them. He loves running around with all the big kids on the block with the girls, too, and thankfully they all stay together and watch out for each other, even the little ones.

He’s honestly a great help with the babies, and they could not have ordered a better big brother. These 5 are pretty fascinating, and it makes me happy on a daily basis knowing that they’re mine and my main job right now is just to be with them. Then they’ll turn around and do something infuriating, and it makes me want to pull my hair out, ha! Fortunately the goods far outweigh the bads.

Happy 3rd birthday, sweet Morrison John! We love you so, so, so, so much, my little lovebug! I hope you always stay my sweet boy.

 

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Twins 3 month stats

Ok, this one will be short and sweet. The twins are already 4 months old, we had their 4-month well check yesterday, and Morrison turned 3 last week, so there are bunches of other posts I need to do, but I didn’t want a month to slip by with these little guys. There was no 3-month checkup so no stats for this month, so here are pictures instead (for real this time, i’ll save more writing for next month).

Now here’s their monthly comparison:

And here are the 3-month shots for all of them – Della first, then Lana, Morrison, twins:

 

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Twins 2 month stats

Only about 2 weeks late with this one, not too shabby. As with the first month update, there isn’t a whole lot to report. Babies this young are pretty boring. Cute and lovable, but boring. So you’ll get a boatload of pictures again instead of words.

A couple small things of note – I put away their sleeping bassinets in the living room and brought out little baby chairs instead (froggie and a bouncy seat I got); they got their first baths in the baby bathtub instead of sponge baths in the kitchen; they moved up to size 0-3 month clothes then quickly up to 3 months, which are big on them, but way cuter than our 0-3 selection; switched diaper brands and moved out of newborn size; both started smiling and cooing/gurgling “talking”; got their first colds (thanks, big sibs); first trip to the zoo and in the big jogging stroller.

Also, we have started noticing some differences in their personalities and characteristics already. Nat takes a pacifier better, burps better, stays awake just looking around calmly for spells better. Avit takes a bottle faster and can calm better without a pacifier, sometimes just putting himself to sleep during the day after a little fussing. Overall, both are relatively calm little guys, usually able to put themselves to sleep or calm down with a pacifier. They do have a “witching hour” in the late afternoon and evening, but we’ve come to expect it now instead of just saying “what the ever-loving f???” every day when it happens.

One big change did happen, actually. I put them on a feeding schedule, which we’d never done with any of the others when they were babies. It’s taken a couple iterations, but I think I’m getting the right one dialed in – 4 4-oz. bottles during the day (roughly 9:00 a.m., noon, 3:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m.) that are varying mixtures of breast milk and formula; nursing at bedtime, overnight, and first morning feeding (usually somewhere around 7:00 a.m.); then pumping twice a day in the late morning and late afternoon/early evening.

Their bedtime routine has been pretty nonexistent so far, which is driving me nuts. So I’ve begun trying to get them to bed earlier – changing and swaddling them, then giving them a small 2-oz. bottle of all formula maybe an hour/hour and a half after that fourth bottle during their fussy time when we’d normally just try to quiet them to sleep in the living room, then putting them right to bed. Then I give them a dreamfeed when I go to bed, which is just nursing them while they’re asleep. Ideally I’d like to stretch that 6:00 bottle out and give it as late as possible and then put them to bed after that, since I don’t think they really need to eat that extra time at all. We’ll see if I can get that to work, though – almost every day has been different so far.

Their “typical” night then, with a dreamfeed when I go to bed anywhere between 9:00-11:00, is to wake up somewhere around 2:00 a.m. and somewhere around 5:00 a.m., but I really never know what to expect going into each night. Some nights one or the other fusses after one or both or more feedings, sometimes I don’t get any chance to go back to sleep after the 5:00ish feeding before my alarm goes off at 6:00 on school days, sometimes they wake up well before 2:00 and I want to scream, etc., etc. My hope is that using this schedule will just help smooth everything out sooner than later.

Guess I had some words about them this month after all. Now, after all that, here are their official 2 month stats. They did get their first round of vaccinations at this appointment, too, but they handled them like absolute champs. Each one got 3 jabs in the thighs, and each one cried for literally only seconds. The doctor, nurse, and I were all amazed at how quickly they calmed after the shots.

Nat

  • Weight:  10 lbs. 14 oz. (13%)
  • Height:  22.5″ (21%)
  • Head:  38.2 cm (18%)
  • BMI:  15.1 kg/m2 (17%)

Avit

  • Weight:  10 lbs. 2 oz. (5%)
  • Height:  22″ (8%)
  • Head:  38 cm (14%)
  • BMI:  14.7 kg/m2 (10%)

I wonder how long it’ll take to get a monthly picture where both of them are looking at the camera and smiling. I didn’t do this for their 1-month picture, but here’s a look at all 5 of them in a row at 2 months. See any similarities?

And now here’s a month-to-month comparison of just these two:

 

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Overnight giant

My sweet, sweet boy, the first of 3;

Words can scarcely describe what you mean to me.

A big brother now, and so great from the start,

You love those little twin boys with all of your heart.

You help and you hug and you kiss and you smile;

You calm them with pacifiers, even when it takes a while.

I taught you not to get frustrated and scared when their crying won’t cease;

You just walk away then return when they can settle with ease.

Your eyes are so bright, young mirrors of my own;

The resemblance to my dad and grandpa just strengthens the more you have grown.

Your questions seem endless, “Mama this or that…” all day long,

But I always will answer to help build your mind strong.

You love choo-choos and cars, dinos and robots, too;

Cuphead, rag, and Elly are never far from you.

You’ve given up diapers, it’s undies now all day long;

Last night your plug went to the fairy and you’re being so strong.

You said you missed meh-meh (pacifier) when you were sleepy today,

But Daddy and I said how proud we are of you for giving it up and that was totally ok.

You’re such a feeling little boy, with emotions in view;

Don’t ever change that, it’s important for you.

You laugh, you cry, you get mad, and you love;

You snuggle into my neck before your nap and you fit like a glove.

I told you that’s how I know that you’re mine, your head nestled into me;

You’re my sweet little boy, you fit perfectly.

3 books we read before your nap most every day –

Snake, Monsters 1-to-10, and Fruit Loops, and all their words you can almost say.

You play with an ever-rotating set of toys, listen to “Twinkle Twinkle” for your nap, and build with your blocks;

You set up coffee and tea parties then fly around the house, sliding in socks.

“I love you, Mama,” “Good Mama,” “Good name-everyone-in-our-family” are your favorite lines.

“Good Morrison” is my constant reply.

You’d follow your sisters to the end of time,

Running and playing and chasing outside.

You fill my heart, my sweet little boy;

Sure, sometimes I shout, but it’ll never outweigh the joy.

When we got home with the babies I swear you had grown overnight.

You looked like a giant – how could this be right?

You had always been my tiny boy,

Now here you were, dwarfing your little brothers as if they were toys.

But your place is just perfect, number 3 in the line.

Little brother to the girls, big brother to the twins, and you’re doing just fine.

The ties between you 5 have formed an unbreakable bond.

I love you so much, my sweet Morrison John.

 

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Twins 1 month stats

So here we are on the twins’ 2-month birthday, and I am just now getting around to writing their 1-month post. Surprising? No? Of course not. And since we are a full month past their 1-month birthday and I’ll be getting their 2-month stats at their checkup next week already, I’ll just fill this post with pictures instead of words. The first month of life is pretty uneventful anyway – eat, poop, sleep, cry, repeat, 24 hours a day.

I will give you their official 1-month stats first, however:

Nat

  • Weight:  8 lbs. 9 oz. (4%)
  • Height:  20.8″ (5%)
  • Head:  36.5 cm (10%)
  • BMI:  13.9 kg/m2 (10%)

Avit

  • Weight:  8 lbs. 3 oz. (2%)
  • Height:  20.5″ (2%)
  • Head:  36.5 cm (10%)
  • BMI:  13.7 kg/m2 (8%)

 

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They have arrived!

The twins are here! Well, they were here over a month ago now, but you know very well how this blog works. Something happens, I want to write all about it, then I finally get a chance to do so anywhere from 1 to 6+ months later. I hate that it works that way because I remember the days when everything I put on here was much more timely, even daily, but that just isn’t how life works around here anymore. C’est la vie.

But I can’t let another day go by without formally introducing you to our 4th and 5th (and final!!) babies, so here we go…

Since I was pregnant with twins and incredibly old to be having babies (once you hit 35 you’re considered advanced maternal age, and your pregnancy is labeled geriatric. no joke. they really know how to make a girl feel good.), my OB didn’t want me going much past 37 weeks before delivery and definitely not past 38 weeks. So we set an induction date of Wednesday, January 31. This broke the tradition of all of our children being born on Sundays, but the date did end in a 1 like the birth dates of all the others (Della = 1, Lana = 21, Morrison = 31).

It was also a good date because it was a super blue blood moon – a supermoon, a blue moon, and a total lunar eclipse all at the same time. This cool phenomenon hadn’t occurred for over 150 years before then, so I’d say that makes these little guys pretty damn special.

I was scheduled for 8:30 that morning, so my mom came up the day before to get settled in for this, I made sure the girls had rides to and from school for that day and the rest of the week just in case Ryan wasn’t able to do it, and Ryan and I headed to the hospital shortly after 8:00.

We got checked in and settled into our delivery room for the day, and things got started. And then they stopped and we waited. And waited some more. The anesthesiologist who was going to come in to do my epidural was apparently having a busy morning, and I was obviously low on the priority list, thanks a lot. He finally came in and started to set up his little table, but then he got a phone call, said he had to take it, and left the room. Wtf, dude? I looked at the nurse like what the hell is he doing, and she apologized, saying he really is not supposed to do that at all. So she went out to find him, and Ryan and I sat waiting again.

When she came back, she said she had discovered he was dealing with a family emergency that day, so ok fine, we cut him some slack. I finally got the epidural in shortly before 11:00, and thankfully that went smoothly. I never got one with the first 3 kids, because I’d heard horror stories of the needle and it getting messed up in your back. And I really enjoy being able to walk, so I didn’t want anyone screwing around with my spine. But having to deliver 2 babies in a row sounded horrible, so there was no way I was going without one this time around. The giant needle containing the numbing medication hurt like hell, but once that was done he got the catheter in and the real medicine pumping through, and I had none of the immediate side effects he warned might occur, so we were all set.

Ryan and I started watching Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on his computer and just waited for the pitocin to get labor going. I’d had so many Braxton Hicks contractions in the months leading up to then that I assumed I’d be at least 2-3 cm dilated by that morning. However, when they checked me after I’d gotten all hooked up in the bed, they found I was only 1.5 cm dilated and not effaced at all, so we were basically starting from scratch with zero labor signs. Awesome. There went my hopes of getting these little guys out by early afternoon.

Things were going boringly, yet fortunately pain-free thanks to that massive needle that had been shoved in my back hours earlier, when I got uncomfortable and wanted to shift positions. I was afraid of knocking the catheter out of place in my back, so the nurse helped me roll more to my right side and sit up just a little. Then I started to feel kind of funny, then really bad, then things took a turn for the worse. My blood pressure plummeted to 50/29, my heart rate dropped sharply, one of the babies’ heart rates dropped too, and I passed out and started throwing up the juice the nurse had given me at first to try to bring my blood sugar up. Ryan said my eyes rolled back and my legs jerked out straight, so he thought I was having a seizure. It wasn’t, it was the blood pressure drop that was a bad reaction to the epidural, but the nurse hit the OB team button, a bunch of people came rushing in, the new anesthesiologist jammed a needle full of something into my IV bag, and I came right back. As soon as I opened my eyes, I felt a million times better and found out what happened. To me, it just felt like I needed to go to sleep and closed my eyes. I missed all the action.

So I stayed lying down for the rest of the day, and we continued our waiting game and show watching. They broke my water mid-afternoon, let’s say around 2:00, and then I expected things to really pick up as they had with the other 3. Nope. More waiting. I finally started to feel some real discomfort and almost pain a couple hours later, after watching some contractions go off the chart and not feeling a thing. I really didn’t believe the epidural was truly going to work until I realized those mountains on the printout were massive contractions and I had felt nothing the entire time. So anyway, when I told the nurse I was feeling a lot of pressure and kind of some pain, she checked me and it was time for babies! Wahoo, finally! But holy shit did I get scared then.

They had to wheel me into the operating room, and my heart rate was probably through the roof. I was so nervous! Yes, I’d given birth before and all went smoothly, but this was a whole new ballgame. Two at once?? Plus after the bad reaction I’d had earlier in the day I really had no idea what was about to happen. We had to be in the operating room because with twins, the NICU team is automatically in there to immediately take care of the babies when they come out, just in case. Plus there was my OB, the med student (resident? whatever he was called), the anesthesiologist to monitor the epidural and turn it off as soon as I was done, and all the nurses (thank god for those nurses! they are saints). So they covered my hair, made Ryan get in his bunny suit/hair cover/and booties, and we set off down the hallway.

When we got into the OR they made me shift from the bed I’d been in all day to a tiny, hard slab of a bed that I swear was about an inch wide, and I knew that was going to be a bad idea. My hands had gotten so swollen and painful from the carpal tunnel and all the fluid they pumped into me by the end of the day that I was practically in tears by the time of delivery because they hurt so badly. Both Ryan and our main nurse took turns trying to massage them and applying heat packs. So my hands were inflamed and useless, yet they wanted me to push myself up and over onto this other bed. Not a chance. So I had to alternate wriggling my lower half and hauling my upper half with my elbows to move myself, which made my stomach churn into knots. Wonderful. By the time I was fully on the miniature OR table, I was ready to throw up again. And again and again and again. That was miserable. I was afraid I’d be barfing and pushing out a baby at the same time. Disgusting.

Poor Ryan got the glamorous job of holding my puke pan, and his services were needed again when they made me move down to the end of the OR bed. Why didn’t you just make me go there in the first place? But I got that all out of my system before it was time to push, thank heavens. Since I couldn’t feel any of the contractions whatsoever, I told them they were going to have to tell me when to push and get these little ones moving. So they did. And after just a couple rounds, Baby A came screaming into the world. He was Nat Jennings Rau, born at 5:02 pm, weighing 6 lbs. 3.5 oz. and measuring 18″ long.

10 minutes and a few more pushes later, Baby B made his appearance. He was born sunny-side up and, as such, swallowed a bunch of amniotic fluid on his way out, so it took a minute to get him going and crying when he came out. But once they made sure he was ok, we met Avit Jerome Rau, born at 5:12 pm, weighing 6 lbs. 0 oz. and measuring 19″ long.

Perfection.

A very happy, relieved ending to what for me was a long, painful, fear-inducing journey. I was elated to be done being pregnant, since this one caused me the most pain and discomfort by far. The heartburn was more severe, the carpal tunnel pain was excruciating, and the 48-pound weight gain was about a dozen pounds more than I’d gained with any of the other 3. It was the first time I actually could not see parts of my body, putting on and taking off socks was a nightmarish circus act, and every physical act made me feel like I was about 120 years old. Plus the absolute unknown of birthing and raising twins shadowed the entire pregnancy for me, so much more so than any excitement of getting to meet 2 more brand new little people. But once they were in my arms, I was thrilled to welcome them into our family. I still can’t believe we brought 2 babies home this time!

(i cannot get that picture of Ryan rotated correctly to save my life, so sorry)

So there it is. The final birth story for this family. Of 7. What?!?! That still sounds unreal, and I’m sure it will for a long time. Never ever ever did I envision having 5 children, nor did I ever want to have 5 children. But now that we do, it is pretty amazing to say that my body carried and birthed 5 beautiful, healthy babies, all of whom are currently thriving and happy.

The big siblings came to the hospital to meet the babies on Thursday after Della got done with school, and they were all instantly in love. Actually, they were more interested in playing in the big hospital room that I got for my recovery stay and getting food, but you know, they still love the twins.

(can’t get Nigh-Night rotated either, dumb blog)

We went home mid-day on Friday, after both the twins and I cleared all our checks for discharge. My mom stayed with us through that weekend, then Ryan had 2 weeks off work, which was amazing. We all got to take naps every day, and I was able to sleep in until just before the girls got off to school, so that extra sleep that I didn’t have in the early days with the other kids was a lifesaver. Then my mom came back up for a week after Ryan went back to work, yet another lifesaver. Friends and neighbors have also been massive helps, bringing meals and giving the girls rides to and from school. Simply not having to leave the house with all these children has been a tremendous sanity saver for me. The twins still have no morning schedule to speak of and nights continue to be iffy, so if I had to try to get all 6 of us ready to get out the door by 7:45 each school morning, I’d probably be out of my mind by now.

Yes, it’s hard work with the countless diaper changes daily and feeling like I spend fully half my time stuck under a feeding infant or 2, plus taking care of 3 other kids, one of whom is in the thick of potty training right now. And yes, I’m exhausted. But I’m really, truly happy. I thought having twins would be the worst thing to happen to our family, but I could not have been more wrong. These spectacular little faces make it all worth it.

Welcome home, little Nat and Avit! We all love you oh, so much!

 

 

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2018

So here’s 2018 in a nutshell – we’re having twin boys in 3 weeks. !?!?!

That’s also the reason my second half of 2017 posting was even less frequent than normal by my terrible posting standards. I wanted to tell you all about our summer and the trips we took. I wanted to tell you all about our holidays. I wanted to show you pictures of everything. However, growing and trying to get our house and family ready for 2 babies at once has proven more exhausting than I expected, so unfortunately this blog got pushed waaaaaay down on the priority list.

I’m really hoping it won’t get lost all together once the babies are born, but I’m definitely not promising an increase in posts. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some pictures up, though, so you can all see these little guys.

Here are a couple pictures, though. This was our New Year’s Eve family photo, plus a silly one. Will they be our last ones together before we’re a family of 7?? Stay tuned and bear with me…

 

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