11 weeks 1 day

There has been so much going on over the last few weeks that I'm not even sure where to start writing!

We've settled into a routine of sorts with the girls. We've gone to an on-demand feeding pattern so that the girls are actually hungry when they go to eat and will eat more, just less often. They still go 3 hours sometimes, but sometimes the heavens smile upon us and they go 5! When one girl fusses for food, the other has to eat at the same time or else we'd get into a vicious cycle of constant feeding. At night this can be tricky, though. When I'm all alone and one girl gets fussy but the other sleeps, I can feed the hungry girl, put her back to bed and then wake up the other and feed her as well. If I'm not lucky, both girls get fussy at the same time and I have to figure out a way to feed them at the same time. Either way, it can be an hour and a half of feeding before I finish, another 20 minutes if one of the girls doesn't want to fall back asleep, and then we do it all again 3 hours from the time we started. All this means that I get about 1-2 hours of straight sleep at any given time.

Luckily, our incredible niece, Darian, has come over from Sequim to help us throughout the month. She cuddles the girls, takes on the nighttime feedings with me, folds laundry, does dishes, and is just generally a huge help in getting through the day. We bought her a netbook to thank her for giving up her summer, but I think she would have done it for free just because she loves these girls so much. Plus, it gave her a chance to go to Alderwood Mall and the Marysville Outlet Mall to do her school shopping!

Sean took three weeks off vacation when both girls were finally home, but it went WAY too fast - for both of us. It's the most time we've ever been able so spend together and the most time Sean has ever been off work. I missed him so much the day he went back, and not just because I had to take every night feeding on my own.

Around the time he had to go back to work, Charlotte started getting colicky. She would start crying around 9 and nothing would get her to stop. Nothing. Sean started calling her "the velociraptor" because her 8 decibel shrieks sounded like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park in the moment before they attack. And because we'd be in the process of trying to comfort her on our chest, her tiny little lungs with the power of concert speakers would be positioned perfectly next to our eardrums. Sean already had hearing damage from the military but now it's a lost cause entirely. We'll be 80-years old and I'll be practically blind and he'll be stone-deaf and we'll look out for each other. It will be cute as long as one of us doesn't think it's funny to leave the other hanging once in awhile, which is entirely likely. I'll tell our daughters all his secrets and when he asks, I'll say, "Nothing, dear!" He'll make gestures of craziness right in front of me and when I ask he'll say, Nothing, Dear!" with an even bigger smile.

The girls are starting to show their personalities in small ways. Lilah is much more reactive to things and we call her a drama queen. She has discovered her highest octave and squeals at that pitch when she's frustrated. Charlotte is overall more patient and will just watch the world around her when she's awake. Unless she's hungry. Charlotte is always the first to let us know that she's hungry by crying uncontrollably. Lilah would probably sleep for a few more hours if we let her. Charlotte was born with more hair and Lilah still hasn't caught up, so right now that's the easiest way to tell them apart. When they have hats on is when it gets tricky.

Almost two weeks ago they were weighed at the pediatrician's office (we LOVE LOVE LOVE Dr. Dunn at Northshore Group Health) and Lilah was 6 lbs 13 oz, Charlotte was 6 lbs 11 oz. We figure they're now almost 7.5 lbs since they've been putting on an ounce a day for the last two months. They've at last grown out of their preemie outfits and into the newborn clothes!

This brings to mind one important point we've encountered: since these girls are just now getting in to newborn status, the girls are essentially newborn babies for an extra three months, and everything that goes with it. (Several feedings a night, inability to retrieve their own pacifiers, colic, etc.) Surprisingly, they are already meeting milestones expected of two-month olds, though. They clasp their own hands, follow us with their eyes, when placed on their bellies they lift their heads for more than 10 seconds, pushes with legs when on a surface, responds to loud sounds, etc. The only thing they don't do at this point is smile and laugh in response to us and I can't wait for the day they start doing that!

I go back to work the day after Labor Day and it's getting harder to think about being away from the girls for that long each day. We did finally hire a nanny and she is going to be a lifesaver. She currently works for a Learning Academy but wanted to be more one-on-one with kids and form relationships that lasted longer than the year they were in a given class. We were really hoping to find someone who wanted to be part of the family - would go to birthday parties and take joy in their achievements just like we would - and that is exactly what she was looking for as well. Her kids are all but grown, the youngest is 15, and she's eager to have babies in her arms again. I can't say that I blame her. These girls are super cute. I just hope that she doesn't get overwhelmed with the demands of these two all at once!

Ok, those are the thoughts off the top of my head. Hopefully this random series of tidbits will appease those checking the blog every day in the hopes of a new post. I'll try to do better in the future *salute*

From Charlotte and Lilah together

From Charlotte and Lilah together

From Charlotte and Lilah

From Charlotte and Lilah

It's August already?!

Man, the last three weeks have flown by. I've been supremely slacking in my posts, not because I don't have much to say, but because we are so busy that the day goes by before I've realized it even started. Unfortunately, this post is not going to be about the girls, it's going to be about me, so sorry if that is a disappointment. (They're doing great and will be fully blogged later)

**Warning - this entry is graphic and not for the squeamish**

About two weeks after the girls were born, I got mastitis. That's when a milk duct gets blocked and can get infected as a result. The lactation specialist gave me a series of actions I could take to clear it up: massage the blocked duct firmly, hot pack it, take lecithin supplement (it acts as a kind of lubricant for the ducts), use the ultrasonic vibrations from my SoniCare toothbrush, and keep pumping. I did all of these and eventually the big fat rock went away.

Flash forward a few weeks and a different lump showed up. This one wasn't painful, though, so I didn't put as much effort into clearing it up. I did all the recommended actions, but not as vigorously. For about three weeks it wasn't a problem...until it was. Suddenly it got really painful and I had a big red spot on my chest that I initially assumed was from all the extra hot-packing and massaging.

For two days I tried to deal with it on my own, since the last one resolved eventually, but it was getting progressively worse. I woke myself up with a shriek when I rolled over on that side in the night. Even the weight of my T-shirt on the skin gave me a stabbing pain. (Have you ever had a hangnail that gets infected and is tender and sore? Multiply that by, like, 7,000, put it in your breast and then proceed to bump it on nearly every doorway you go through simply because that's the most painful body part to bump at the moment.) I gave in and called the lactation specialist - who wasn't in. I got transferred and left voicemails and spent half a day trying to talk to someone about what I could do when I finally got a call back from the lovely midwife, Diane, who had helped us through the first months of the pregnancy (before we had to go to specialists).

Diane told me to come right in and she'd see me as soon as I arrived, possibly bringing in a doctor to take a look if needed. I so appreciated that she was the person following up! We have our niece, Darian, with us to help with the girls this month, so I left her and Sean and went to Bellevue Medical Center on my own.

By the time I arrived, I had a magenta spot on my chest the size of a lemon, and the rock hard plugged duct had a soft spot in the middle that was raised like a bee sting. She and the doctor took one look at it and said, "That looks REALLY painful." To which I replied, "It IS."

They immediately got me seen next door for an urgent ultrasound which determined that it was so infected that it had turned into an abscess. Yikes. I thought it was painful to have my T-shirt on the skin, but the ultrasound probe pushing on that spot was like a white hot knife. I teared up and braced myself and it was luckily brief. The only way to fix it was to go down to General Surgery and have a surgeon cut open the abscess and drain it.

The doctor (who I shadowed for several days when I was pre-med and who now has intimate knowledge of my breast - awkward!) prepared me with shots of Novocaine into the surrounding tissue. Injections of Novocaine hurt like a ***** on a good day and this wasn't a good day. This was a needle going multiple times into incredibly tender and inflamed tissue and sending unbelievable pain radiating throughout my body. I screamed through clenched teeth and clutched my hands together at my waist so that I wouldn't lash out and hurt him. I sobbed, like the kind of sobs that have you catching your breath several times before you can let loose with the next one. And before even a few seconds had passed, he had already cut into my skin and I could not only feel the slice of the scalpel, I could feel the pus flooding out of the incision and pouring hotly down the side of my chest. It was quite possibly the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. Worse than the contractions of my freshly cut uterus after the c-section. That bad.

I was still sobbing when the doctor told me that Novocaine doesn't usually work well on infected/inflamed tissue. Thank you so much for the warning on that one, buddy. If I'd known what I know now, I would have forgone the anesthesia altogether and just had the incision done without it. The extra pain of the needle going in over and over added nothing but misery. He also said that it was about a shot glass and a half of pus, and I could expect more to drain out over the next several days since the wound would remain open.

The line at the pharmacy was extraordinarily long and I was taking deep breaths to get through the pain until I could get the meds and antibiotics and go home. I was prescribed an antibiotic that I have to take 4 times a day for 10 days - I'm a nursing mother of twins, how the hell am I supposed to remember to take this stuff when I need to? And the pain meds aren't good for nursing, so I'm going without for now. I already can't use the milk from "the bad side" until the infection is totally gone, since now that the abscess is open it could get junk into the milk, so I need all I can get. I have to pump "the bad side" and dump it in the sink, which is ever so wasteful from my perspective.

The good news is that today everything feels SO much better. My clothes don't hurt. I can lay on that side. I can bump all the doorways in the house. Yay! This was definitely an unexpected part of pregnancy that I don't want to recur. Now, no more getting cut open, right? This should be the very last time. *knock on wood* These girls better never have any health problems to make up for all we've been through already!