4 months

We've come a long way.  The girls are really porking up.  We had their 4 month appointment this last week and Celia weighed 12.4 lbs (12th percentile) and Alice weighed 13.9 lbs (37 percentile).  When Celia was born she was in the 0.0001 percentile and was in the 1 % at her 2 month appointment.  Alice was in the 1% at birth and in the 8% at 2 months.  So they have grown a ton.  The doctor was very impressed. 

We are surviving quite well.  We moved the girls down to their cribs last week and they are sleeping like champs.  The are consistently sleeping 10-11 hrs at night.  It's a little bittersweet to move them out of our room.  But let's be honest with ourselves.  I'm a crappy sleeper and had to move them clear across the room and blow a white noise maker in my ears, plus wear earplugs, just to get some sleep.  So I am sleeping a lot better without them in our room.  

Alice I would say is the lower maintenance of the two.  She is quick to smile.  When she's mad she likes to blow raspberries with her lips.  She currently sucks three right fingers although I suspect it will go down to two, just like Mark and Clara.  She is almost rolling over but just can't quite get it.  We can almost get her to laugh.  So close. 

Celia is the first to cry, the first to wake up, the first to get tired when she's ready for naps.  She is not as quick to smile as Celia.  She has a cute little grin that my dad calls the Mona Lisa smile.  She loves to stick out her tongue.  It's the longest, pointiest thing and Clara thinks it's so funny.  She also sucks her three right fingers.  She has rolled over once but I think it was an accident and a surprise.  She also likes to laugh when she gets bounced on your knee. 

Where has the time gone

 I can't believe the babies are already 2 months old.  It has been a crazy and tiring two months.  Since I'm finally coming out of the fog, I figured I'd better get some birth pictures uploaded. 

My goodness, that last 2 months of pregnancy was brutal.  I was so ready to be done.  I was having to do non stress tests twice a week and ultrasounds every week.  Every time I went to the hospital for those, I kind of hoped that I could stay.  But I made it to 37 weeks and survived.  They chose to induce me on Wed, June 2oth.  We arrived at the hospital around 8 in the morning.  By 8:30 or so they had started the iv.  The nurse wanted contractions to be a bit strong before they gave me the epidural.  So we waited.  Around 11:00 the doctor came in to give me the epidural and break Baby A's water.  I informed the nurse that once my water breaks, labor progresses very quickly.  Both Clara and Collin were born within 45 minutes of my water breaking.  I don't think the nurse believed me.  She came in an hour later to check on me and to her surprise, I was ready to deliver.  That was fast, she exclaimed.  Told you so.  She didn't even have time to give me the bladder catheter, which you can imagine was not pretty during delivery.  So they wheeled me down to the operating room.  She just had me lay there until the doctor came.  I was that close to delivering.  As soon as the doctor came I began pushing.  I pushed about 4 times and Celia came at 12:32 weighing 4 lbs 6 oz.  The doctor immediately broke Baby B's water and she arrived at 12:36 weighing 6 lbs. 4 oz.  Both babies were head down so I didn't need a C-section.  Thank goodness.  The doctor and nurse both agreed that that was the easiest twin delivery they had ever done.  Within minutes I was back down the hall to my room with two babies.  Completely unprepared for what was to come.  Both babies were healthy even though Celia was so small.  She was only a couple of ounces from having to go to the NICU.  She did have low blood sugar so they had to watch that.  Other than that she was great.  The nurses kept expecting her to fail all the tests and have to go to the NICU but she didn't.  Both babies were able to come home with us after 2 days.  And we hit the ground running.

Just waiting for the doctor.

Celia just minutes old.

Alice minutes old.

Can you see the look of terror behind those smiles?

Clara and Collin came within the hour.  They were so excited to hold their sisters.

Ready to go home.

The first day home, Sammy, a cousin came to visit.  She is 3 months older than the babies. 

This is what the first few days entailed.  Lots of sleeping. 

Super pregnant

 36.5 Weeks pregnant with twins. 

About what I feel like 36.5 weeks pregnant with twins. 

Huck Finn

Clara has been doing a little acting class for the last few months.  It was super informal but she had fun.  Her teacher picked her to play Huck Finn in their abbreviated version of Big River.  She worked really hard on her lines and songs.  She realized how hard it was to memorize so many lines, since she was in every scene.  But she did great.  She was feeding everybody else their lines as well.  Which was funny to watch.  She says she wants to take drama this year in school.  Help. 

Birthdays!

We had a couple of birthdays in March. Collin turned 5 and Mark turned 39!!! We had a simple party for Mark. He's easy to please. The kids bought him Puss in Butts, which I think is kind of a Homer present.


He's not a huge cake eater so I made his favorite Lemon pie. It's what he asks for every year. And we had steak and favorite potatoes for dinner.


Collin was in charge of decorating. I wasn't planning on decorating but he insisted and found the only crepe paper I had. Purple and pink leftover from Clara's birthday. He did such a fine job.


On March 22nd Collin turned 5. I can't believe how big he is getting. He is such a good little boy, and so thoughtful. He's always telling us he loves us. His preschool teachers say he is the best behaved in class. He likes rockets and airplanes still. Along with cars and swords and legos. All boy. Good thing, since he'll be surrounded by girls soon. For his birthday he wanted a Buzz Lightyear rocket party.



We had a cool pinata that Collin filled with candy. It was so heavy that Mark had to reinforce the hanging thing. The original one broke the second we picked it up. There was so much candy.
The kids and their loot.





My parents gave Collin a rocket cake pan for Christmas and that's all he could talk about. As you can see the pan was a little small so I had to make three. Collin picked out the candy and helped me decorate them.

He had to have a candle on every cake. I tried to put them on just one so they were a little more consolidated but he wouldn't have it.

Profile Pics

We had another ultra sound last week and they got some good profile pics. It's somewhat hard because they're so close together. I have to go in for an ultrasound every two weeks for a while to make sure everything is going normally.



Baby A.

Baby B. A little harder to get this picture because she was turned toward Baby A so they had to shoot under the other one. That's why you see so many of Baby A's limbs in the background.

It was a shock

So we went in for our ultrasound today and found out we are having twin (most likely identical) girls!!!!! This picture is the tops of their heads. They couldn't get great pictures because they are squished in their so tight. Collin has been telling us all along that there are two babies. At my last appointment at 16 weeks, I told the midwife to confirm that there were not two. She said that she only heard one heartbeat and that I was measuring for a single baby. Just one, she reassured me. So when the ultrasound tech dropped the bomb that there were two, we were a little shocked. I'm still reeling.