Twins' 3 Month Pictures and Update

First: thank you all for all the love on my last post.  The internet CAN be a friendly place, and I so appreciate all of your messages, comments, and prayers.  Thank you, thank you, thank you <3

Now, on to some adorable pictures of babies, and some catch up on what the last couple months have held for us :-)

This was our second session with Robert at No. 9 Images Photography, and really solidified with us that as long as he's willing, he's our family photographer :-)  The session was so easy on all four of the humans in our family (Charley wasn't thrilled at being leashed a few yards from the action, haha).  We dressed the kids, and Robert did the rest.  Ethan and I pretty much sat back, held babies as needed, and smiled for a picture here and there. Robert captured the little details - hands, feet, profiles, Abbie's tendency to tuck her knees up under her chin, Sam's tight fists ;-) - that make a momma melt, and caught lots of sweet expressions and moments that will always remind me of that time in our family life.  We did this session as their three month pictures, and they just turned five months a few days ago, so I've been hanging on to these photos for a while ;-)  Good news is, hopefully we'll have some more to share in just about a month! Haha!

At five months, both babies are very interactive, smiling and laughing.  Sam has a very ready smile, and laughs fairly often.  Abbie is a little more serious, and while Momma, Daddy, and Charley get lots of smiles, other people have to work for them :-)

Why, yes, this face DOES get him anything he wants.  How did you know?

On our pediatrician's recommendation, we introduced rice cereal at about four and a half months.  They did fairly well eating it, but some extra fussiness and... interesting... diapers made us decide to back off and try again in a few weeks when their little systems had had a little more time to mature.

Sam rolls from belly to back and back to belly.  He has been sleeping on his belly for a month or so now... we lay him down on his back, and within a few seconds, he's on his belly.  Abbie has successfully rolled from back to belly a couple of times, but never from belly to back.  She HATES tummy time with a passion. We brought down the pack-n-play and put one of our floor mat gym things (what are those really called?) in it for Sam.  He rolls and scoots so effectively, he can be halfway across the room before we know what's happening.

They have been sharing a crib in their nursery since about 13 weeks, and we don't have any immediate plans to separate them.  For now, they seem to soothe each other back to sleep when one wakes up, resulting in 8-12 hour nights, and a much better rested Momma. ;-)  As soon as they do more aggravating than soothing each other, we'll separate them, but for now... sleep is nice!

Momma and Abbie have been having fun on Instagram as brand reps for an etsy shop that sells really cool hair bows and headbands.  So cool that I actually had to get a couple for myself so Abbie and I could match ;-)  Visit Lovelies by Lesa if you'd like to see what I mean.  :-)

We have committed to a church home.  Our movement doesn't have membership rosters, so I can't say we've "joined" or "become members," but we are at home there and intend to worship with that family for a long while.   We've scheduled the twins' baby dedications there for a Sunday in December, and look forward to raising them in the most loving congregation I've seen in my adult life.  :-)

There we go... I think you're all caught up on what the twins are up to these days :-) I think each stage so far has been my favorite... what is the best thing I have to look forward to in the next few months?

Twin Halloween Costumes - Salt and Pepper Shakers

When I was a little kid, my mom made us Halloween costumes every year.  They were always comfortable, always cute, and always different from what all the other kids were wearing :-)

I'm not a seamstress by any means (I can kinda sew a straight line.  Sometimes.)... but it meant a lot to me to be able to finally make Halloween costumes for our long-awaited babies.  

I had two-ish requirements: 

1. They had to either be "twin" costumes, or somehow specific to our kids (like plays off nicknames).  and 
2. Abbie's needed to include a tutu!

I used the tutu tutorial (tututorial?) from The Hairbow Company to start with, then adapted the tututorial a little bit to better suit our purposes.  I made the tulle strips a little bit shorter (18" instead of 22") and only did one layer, since Abbie would be held or in a carseat or bumbo the whole time.  Double-layered tutus will be SO CUTE when she's walking around!  Using the stretchy headband as a waistband was a wonderful shortcut, and made for a comfy-seeming and "finished" looking waist!

Sam's "S" was hand-basted (because my sewing machine needle is bent and I haven't done the research to learn to replace it yet) onto a white onesie that I'll detach the felt letter from and use again and again, and Abbie's "P" was actually on a little belt I rigged out of felt, buttons, and a little bit of elastic.  Totally winged (wung?) it!  But the black onesie that I used for hers had an adorable black cat on it, and she wore it a few times right up until the night of our trunk-or-treat. :-)

So Poppa Bear and I threw on some aprons and tossed some candy in the bowl of my stand mixer, and took the cutest little salt and pepper shakers ever to their (and actually, my) first trunk-or-treat!  They were kind of a hit - but I don't know that that had anything to do with the costumes ;-)

#BlogtemberChallenge: Blog Mood Board

 I think today's #BlogtemberChallenge prompt is so much fun!  

"Create a collage or inspiration/mood board that describes your blog."

 

What's In a (Pair of) Name(s)?

As soon as anyone confirmed that I was, indeed, pregnant and not just massively bloated around the midsection, they asked, "Do you know what you're having?" We were super-excited to say that we were having a girl and a boy!  The follow-up question was - almost without fail - "What are their names?"  

If you followed this pregnancy, you know that we did not announce names prior to delivering the twins.  We had a handful of reasons for this, one of which was that we were being so open about all aspects of our IVF and pregnancy experiences, we wanted to keep a small part of the process between us.  Another reason is that we honestly weren't 100% certain of either name before we met them!  

Naming a person (or two) was one of those things that felt like a huge, huge responsibility to me.  These are their names, not just for their whole life, but forever.  As I was filling in the family tree pages of their baby books, I wrote in the name of my grandfather who died while I was pregnant. It struck me that even though he's gone, the stories we tell about him will always be tied to his name, written on the pages of those baby books.  My mother in law loves exploring her genealogy, and often tells us about her relatives from several generations back... by name.  Long after our babies have lived, their descendents will read these names and connect them to the stories of the people who carried them.  Kinda huge, right?

So we didn't want just any name we pointed to in a baby book.  We wanted them to have meaning, both to us and in the "your name means ___" sense.  We wanted them to be able  to be playful for a child, with an adult option in case they run for office someday.  (I've always kind of wished that Katie was short for something more grown-up.  Not that I'd probably use it, but it would be there if I wanted it.)  We wanted something that wasn't too modern and had stood the test of time.  We wanted combinations of names that had an easy cadence and flow with our last name, and that fit with each other as siblings and twins.  And we wanted something most people could pronounce :-)

Abigail is a name we fell in love with early in our fertility struggle.  It's of Hebrew origin and means "Her Father's Joy" (although we prefer to edit it to "parents' joy," since she makes me pretty happy too).  We know several Abbie/Abbys who we love dearly, and would love if our daughter grew up to be like them.  It's a name we clung to through so many ups and downs that sometimes when I call our daughter by her name, I choke up because Abbie - OUR Abbie - is really here, and it's not just an abstract name for a hypothetical someday child.  Her middle name, Rebecca, means "Captivating" and is in honor of a dear friend of ours... another woman we will hold up as a role model to Abbie, an example of grace, faith, and strength.

Samuel was the son of Hannah, in the Bible.  She was heartbroken in her infertility and is famous for praying so earnestly and silently while praying for a child that she was assumed to be drunk.  The popular verse among those parenting after infertility, "For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition which I asked of Him" (1 Samuel 1:27) is a quote from Hannah.  Samuel means "asked of God" or "God heard," and I cannot think of a more fitting name for the child we cried, begged, and prayed for for five long years.  Ethan means "Strong" and is, of course, after his Daddy.  It's a tradition in my family to give the first son his father's name as a middle name, so this was set in stone in my mind from the beginning.  So we just needed to find a first name that flowed with Ethan as a middle.  It's harder than you'd think! :-)

We're so pleased with the names we chose, and that they allow us to testify to God's love and grace when we share them with people. How did you choose your children's names?  I'd love if you'd share them with us in the comments! 

Twin Birth Story: Abigail and Samuel, Part 2

This is the second part of Abigail's and Sam's birth story.  You can read the first part here.

We left off after 54 hours of labor, with Dr. Abtahi telling me that I'd finally be having babies in about half an hour.

Ethan and I were still trying to wake up fully and process this information as our room was almost immediately swarming with medical staff.  The nurse told us we would not be coming back to that room and to pack all of our things.  As Ethan hurriedly packed everything back into our bags, I was introduced to our anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist (I can't remember)... Rob.  He was super nice and laid back, cracking jokes with us as he started injecting fun stuff into my IV and epidural.  Within just a couple of minutes, I was being whisked down the hall toward an operating room.

When we got to the doors of the OR, a nurse told Ethan to hang back to put a surgery coverall on.  We hugged, squeezed hands, and - of course - selfied, and parted ways.  They pulled my bed right up next to the operating table and asked if I could move my legs to help them get me on the table.  That would be a big, numb, NOPE.  Someone put my right leg on the table, and I got startled when I glanced over and saw it laying there.  Because I couldn't feel it being moved, and had no "connection" to it. SO WEIRD!  Anyway, I'm moved over and prepped for surgery.  When my doctor came in, she saw me almost shivering right off the table, and brought me a warm blanket to lay across my chest.  I asked when Ethan would be able to join me, because it sure seemed like we were close to go time.  The anesthetist told me the rest of the prep steps that needed to happen before he'd come in, and kept up a stream of small talk to calm and distract me.

Finally, Ethan came hustling through the door, sat down at my head, and grabbed my hand under the blankets across my chest. My two doctors (Kovac and Abtahi) and a bunch of nurses and techs were in position around me, so I took a deep breath and asked Dr. Kovac to narrate.  She said, "uh sure.  I'm almost through the skin layer..." Pretty sure I blurted, "What, already!?"  It's still so strange to me that I was being sliced open and had no idea!  Ethan told me later that as he sat down, he saw the silver flash of the scalpel as she made the first cut.  So cool!

I felt a bunch of tugging and my body bouncing as Dr. Kovac told me she was separating the muscle layers.  I said "Ow... wait, no, 'ow' is the wrong word... I'm not in pain... it's just weird."  :-)  Finally, after what felt both like hours and like mere seconds, someone announced that Baby A was almost out.  We were able to watch Dr. Abtahi lift our beautiful Abigail out of me, and we heard the sweetest little cry... almost like a kitten's.  I immediately started bawling :-)  Someone called out her time of birth: 6:09am, 49 minutes after Dr. Abtahi came in to check my cervix.  She was quickly rubbed clean and taken to the side of the room to be briefly checked out, while we waited for the doctors to deliver her brother.  One minute later, "here we go" followed by a loud, indignant wail.  Suddenly, we were parents of two perfect, tiny newborns.  One of the nurses called out Sam's birth weight - 6lb14oz - and brought him over to Ethan.  Soon after, Abbie was carried over, too, and Ethan had his arms full of brand new life.  I was so mesmerized watching them and watching him watch them... when Dr. Kovac continued with her narration, I had no idea what she was saying.  I said, "What?!"  She repeated herself - something about a placenta - and I told her she could stop narrating... "the good part just happened."

My reaction as Abbie cried for the first time...

After I got to nuzzle the twins a tiny bit, nurses led Ethan out to the recovery room with both babies, Dr. Kovac left to get cleaned up, and Dr. Abtahi got busy sewing and gluing me back together.  I thought I'd feel intensely lonely when my belly was empty and my husband and babies were in a different room, but I was just reveling in this eurphoric glow.  I was a mom.  They were here, healthy and safe.  I had worked so hard for nine months for that to be true, and I was basking in a job well done.

When Dr. A had finished reassembling my abdomen, I was "unprepped" - rolled side to side, had tape ripped off my back and some areas wiped clean - and moved to a bed.  Someone wheeled me into recovery, and I could see Ethan and a nurse by a warmer across the room, hovering over our two tiny darlings.  We got to spend two and a half wonderful hours in recovery, bonding with Abbie and Sam, trying to nurse, and soaking in their amazingness.  Their blood sugars were both low, and we tried to raise them with a bottle and nursing.  Finally, it was determined that they would need to go to a transitional care nursery for a few hours to be put on glucose IVs.

Brenda, my nurse from the day before, had come on shift and gotten herself assigned to me.  She made sure to keep me well dosed with pain meds, and I felt pretty great.  So great that I kept forgetting to breathe :-/  I was put on oxygen because my O2 sats kept dropping.  That meant that I had to go to the PICU instead of a regular post-partum room, so I would have to be separated from the babies until we were all stable again.  I told Ethan to stay with the babies so they wouldn't be "alone."

About 6 or so hours later, I heard Ethan's voice from the doorway, announcing that he had a surprise for me... he wheeled Abbie into the room in her bassinet.  A nurse was finishing up Sam's bath, and brought him a few minutes later. They weren't entirely cleared, and had to keep IV cannulas in for a couple more hours, but we were together! 

 

PS: If you followed along with my bumpdates, you'll appreciate this... while I was in PICU, my inlaws brought me this... 

Baby, Baby: Due Date

Wishing a very happy due date to our 10-day-old little peanuts <3

Abigail Rebecca was born on June 3, 2015 at 6:09am, weighing 6lbs, 2oz and measuring 20 inches long.

Her little (/big) brother Samuel Ethan came one minute later, weighing 6lbs, 14oz and measuring 20.25 inches long.  

Momma, Daddy, and big brother Charley are head-over-heels in love!

I'll work on our birth story soon, but for now, enjoy this picture overload of the cutest twins ever!

Abbie on the left, Sam on the right

Abbie on the left, Sam on the right

First family-of-four picture <3

Snuggly in Daddy's hands... Sam's in the hat.

Fairly sure Sam's on the left, Abbie's on the right.

Abigirl

Sam-Man

Our girl <3

Our boy <3