Monster Babies

Gray Lillian

Nora Frances

Gray

Nora

Given the number of months that have passed since my last post it will seem like our daughters are monster babies. They are HUGE! Gray is still in the 90th percentile for height and head circumference and 75th percentile for weight. She has plenty of room in clothes width-wise but is busting the snaps on onesies with her torso being so long. Miss Nora is in the 50th percentile for height and weight and 75th for head circumference. I attribute the head circumference to their giant brains.

They have gained a lot of skills these past months. They are holding their own bottles, picking up small foods, eating solids with vigor, rolling over, and Gray is trying her darndest to crawl. These little girls are adding skills like nobody's business.

I am trying to keep up with these posts but life gets in the way. I am back teaching full time and I am going to graduate school full time as well. Add to that attempting to have some family time and the blog priority goes lower and lower. I do find it helpful in collecting my thoughts about this whole parenthood adventure and will continue to drop in as often as I can.

Sleep?

So, our girls are ten weeks old today. To say that Mac and I are sleep deprived is an understatement. But, last night, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and, this time, I don't think it's a train. The girls have been going about four to five hours between their 7 pm feeding and their next feeding. This has been really good except that after that they have been waking up at two to three hour intervals driving Mac batty as she is the one who handles all feedings after 1 AM. Last night we put them down around 7:30, fed and bathed. We got into bed around 8:45 after eating our own dinner and prepping bottles for the overnight feedings. 9:09: Gray starts crying. I get up. Pick her up and all is well. Put her down. Get back in bed and, blammo, crying again. I get up again and pick her up. She has gas. I give her gas drops and hold her for a few minutes. Put her down. Get back in bed for about 10 minutes. Gray cries again. Mac gets up and tries to calm her. Puts her down and gets back in bed. Gray cries again. I get up. Pick her up. She is rooting. Rooting=hungry baby. It has been about three hours since their last meal at this point and so I tell Mac I want to feed her. Mac says we have to wake Nora up, too. That has been our constant amongst all of the change: FEED BOTH BABIES AT THE SAME TIME. For the most part, it has been our sanity saver as well. I look in the crib at Nora, blissfully sleeping away. Mac and I look at each other and decide to just feed Gray. I attempt giving Gray just 2 oz to try and keep her more in line with Nora, thinking it will be enough to satiate her. It wasn't. Fed her another two oz and she went down hard. It is now 10pm and I am prepared to get up in the next hour with a hungry Nora. I think it will be worth it and I am the before 1 AM feeder so it doesn't affect Mac's sleep. What do you know? Those babies slept until 3 AM! That means Miss Nora Frances went 8 HOURS BETWEEN FEEDINGS! She is a champion baby. And the Gray-bird went five hours after her 10 o'clock meal. So, what have I learned from all of this? Be super flexible, even with your one steadfast rule sometimes. You might be surprised what happens.

Woefully Inadequate

Well, I have definitely been far behind chronicling all the babyness in our lives. Turns out, babies are are a time suck. So, I am redoubling my efforts and committing to making at least one post a week. So, the last post was all about the wonderful birth of our girls. They are now a whopping NINE weeks old! Internet high-five to Mac for us keeping them alive this long. There has been a lot of stress involved in this whole new parent thing. Initially, it was all about what these little people meant with their varying screeches and wails. Mostly it was, "Hey! I'm hungry!," or "Hey! My pants are wet/dirty!" and so we have spent an inordinate amount of time feeding babies and changing diapers. How many diapers? We estimate around 1000 at this point. We went through 700 newborn diapers! Most people go through 80-100, and some never even use them. Our girls are champion eaters, especially Miss Gray. She weighed 10 pounds 5 ounces at their 8 week checkup and Nora weighed 9 pounds 2 ounces. The doctor said their weight difference is perfectly normal and they are both gaining weight at the same pace just on different trajectories. We have gone from feeding them one ounce at a time to more than five at some feedings with an average of 3-4 most times and Mac is nursing them also. Some of the "good" stuff has started. We got our first social smiles out of our little ones last weekend and there is nothing better. You look into their tiny faces with giant cheeks grinning like a wild person and they smile back! It is quite wonderful.

This Little Light of Mine

After a failed attempt at using a touch light over the upstairs changing table, I have found the perfect light for our daughters! The touch light would not stay affixed to its screw in the pitched ceiling and, thus, became a hazard at cracking one of our kids in the head. This became a real issue because the only other light in the upstairs nursery is across the room behind the nursing chair. Sleep deprivation makes the proximity of things very important and so the search began for a replacement light. Most small lights were too bright or if they were billed as "night lights" were too dim. Enter the birdhouse light! While perusing my favorite kid blog, ohdeedoh.com, I was pleased to find this awesome light. It fits perfectly with the bird theme of the nursery and casts light downward and out. The outward light can be controlled by opening or closing the little doors to the birdhouse. Super sweet.

The Birth Story

So, we've been rather busy these last few weeks but now I have a few moments while the babies are sleeping and Mac is napping to tap out their birth story. Since we knew Mac was having a c-section we knew the girls' birth date would be February 1st. We were ready, and so was mother nature. With a blizzard scheduled to start at 6am that day we chose to stay in the swanky guest rooms at the hospital the night before. Well, maybe not swanky, maybe more like a really clean Econolodge that used to be a hospital room. The bonus was that we were already inside the hospital and our car was parked in a parking garage so we wouldn't have to clear it off later.

We hardly slept that night. I don't think it would have mattered if we were at home in our own bed either. We were too excited. I woke up at 4, showered, and attempted to go get breakfast in the cafeteria which did not open until 6am. I managed to fall asleep for another hour while Mac watched some TV.

Next, we start getting ready. Mac took a shower and had to use this unfriendly soap per the doctor. Next we headed over to the larger hospital guest room Mac's parents were in so she could open some presents for the babies from her great grandmother. There were many matching hand-smocked dresses by an 88 year old woman. These dresses are beautiful and filled with love. Soon, it was time to head upstairs for the birth. This is the last morning the girls would be on the inside.

We reported upstairs at 8am sharp. Mac wore her PJs, one more benefit of not having to leave the hospital to go for the surgery. They had Mac change into a hospital gown, oh the fashion. Then it was a lot of waiting, punctuated by some engineers testing the fire alarm for 30 minutes. I distracted Mac with Baby Mama on the tablet and before we knew it all the IVs were hung and preparations were finished. She had to go in by herself to have the spinal block done. I put on my fancy paper scrubs. They wouldn't let me in until the anesthesia had taken effect. I waited in a tiny room with two chairs and a table between the prep/recovery room and the OR for what seemed like forever but was probably less than 10 minutes.

I walked into the room and there was a sea of people. Mac's OB, the amazing Dr. Saunders, the assisting OB, Dr. Morgan, the anesthesiologist, resident anesthesiologist, anesthesiology nurse, two surgical nurses, two neonatal nurses, and the neonatal nurse practitioner. That's TEN people besides Mac and me. They looked ready for anything and I was grateful for that. Mac had a couple of blood pressure drops after they administered the anesthesia, but that is a common side effect and the nurse quickly gave her something to combat the nausea. I sat on a stool next to Mac and the doctors started cutting. Mac was doing great and asked the nurse where the doctors were with the surgery. They were almost to the babies! I was told beforehand that I could not take pictures of any procedures and I waited patiently to photograph my children's first moments of life. Suddenly, the nurse is telling me to get my camera and stand up and take pictures! The surgery went well, the babies came out screaming, and everything was fine

A very proud Mommy

First Family Photo

Gray Lillian

Nora Frances

Nora Frances

The Babies Are Dropping

Check out this photo from 1-8-11...

And then this photo from 1-18-11...

They're getting ready to be born. Too bad they're coming out via c-section. Poor confused babies.

"THE" Study

So there's this study that has been following lesbian families for about 25 years now. It keeps coming out with more and more positive information about lesbian families and I hope all of this exposure will help those who believe we are unfit parents to see the light. Last year they released the finding that there was no abuse in lesbian households in the study! Hooray! Last week we found that it does not affect the children one way or the other if they know or do not know their donor (Findings). Glad to hear it!