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Here are a few photos of the day the twins were born compared to now:

 

 

I have a real love/hate relationship with breastfeeding. More the latter than the former. It just really takes a lot out of me. My immune system cannot handle much while I’m breastfeeding. With Olivia I was coming down with a fever every two weeks. I was really prone to mastitis which I would get just about every month. Since then I’ve learned how to take care of myself better and I’ve figured out tricks to help myself stay healthy but it is still really hard on me.

When the twins were born, they were too premature to suck well so they couldn’t breastfeed. The nurses had me pumping every 3 hours around the clock to make sure my milk came in and was plentiful for when they did start nursing. I literally pumped buckets during those 11 days in the NICU. When they took all my milk out of the NICU fridge/freezer, they actually brought it to us in a bucket there was so much. And they had to make more than one trip. We were sent home with instructions to keep pumping and feeding them bottles for two more weeks then start transitioning them to the breast.

Exclusively pumping and giving the babies bottles is really hard because you never get a chance to sleep. Pumping takes about 40 minutes between setting up, pumping for 20 minutes, then cleaning up. Then you have to feed the babies, burp them, and try to get them back to sleep. In three hours you’d have to start all over. It was so exhausting on top of having two babies to figure out. My point is, I could not wait to stop pumping. So I grabbed a dry erase marker and wrote 1 2 3 4 on my bathroom mirror. It was a countdown to when I would throw my breastpump out of the window.

Then when I started actually nursing the babies I started to have all my regular breastfeeding problems and I wanted so bad to give up. I wanted so bad to just give them formula. Every day I decided to. And of course that would have been fine if that was my decision but I kept reminding myself how expensive that would be, how good it would be for preemies to get the benefits that come with breastmilk. So I kept going. And I added to that countdown on my mirror. I wrote the numbers all the way to 52 that basically framed my mirror. And everytime I wanted to give up, I would just make it my goal to get to Saturday when I could tick off the next number.

This is the picture of the last of the countdown. We made it. I’m still nursing them. We just went to the pediatrician today and he said I could start them on whole milk. Thank the good, sweet Lord.

Our twins just turned one year old. I guess it’s about time that I write down and process their birth and surrounding events. This is the next part in the series. Here is the link if you want to start at Part I.

So Thanksgiving happened. Then my birthday was on Friday so Kraft took me to watch Mockingjay: Part I at Alamo Drafthouse and we enjoyed a nice little afternoon just the two of us. I had been feeling pretty run down and I was definitely huge but I warded off those end-of-pregnancy-misery feelings. I was sure I still had many weeks left so I wasn’t allowing myself to slip into that almost-depression right before babies are born.

We had prepared nothing. Zero. Nada. And while on our lunch/movie date we had come up with a plan for how we were going to tackle the get-baby-stuff-ready tasks. In fact, we were going to start the very next day. Saturday.

“Yeah, sure,” God said.

That night seemed like any other. I got as comfortable as I could in my pillow fort. Then, like clockwork, like every one of my other pregnancy’s, almost to the minute, my water broke at 3am. I immediately shot awake and knew exactly what it was. I shook Kraft awake and then proceeded to remain paralyzed with fear for the next few hours. Kraft jumped up and started packing a bag (no, I didn’t have the hospital bag packed). He called the doctor and handed me the phone to talk to him. He buzzed around doing everything he needed to do. The camera, his laptop, some clothes, some snacks. He kept asking me what I wanted to pack and I’m pretty sure I never answered him. He just did his best. I remember sitting on the edge of our bed saying over and over that it was too early. They were too early. This couldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening.

My parents live about 50 minutes away with no traffic. My dad was at our house in 35 minutes flat. I don’t even want to think about how fast he was driving. My mom followed at a more reasonable speed. It was really surreal going into labor prematurely. I felt like I was floating. I was having some contractions but I honestly couldn’t even feel the pain because I kept trying to remember where the babies were at. “I think weeks ago the doctor said if they were born they would not have to be on ventilators. How big are they going to be? Is everything formed? Will they be missing anything?” It was as if my mind had been filled with cotton. I couldn’t remember what the latest BabyCenter email said. Would they be the size of a cantaloupe or a butternut squash or was it spaghetti squash? I just kept letting people lead me around because I couldn’t quite comprehend what was going on.

On the way to the hospital the contractions started to get a bit stronger. Just enough to snap me into some sense of myself. The pain pulled me out of the surreal. I think the cold helped, too. The walk from the car to the hospital was freezing. As we walked, I remember a man walking in the opposite direction as us wishing us luck and telling us that he had just had a baby. Kraft is a champ and knows that I don’t want to talk to anyone while I’m in labor and he takes over all small talk of well-meaning strangers and nurses.

We went up to L&D and got settled into our room. I was immediately hooked up to the monitors just about an hour before shift change. We really liked the nurse we got. She was so kind and patient and funny and talkative. But she was a wreck and kept making mistakes. (I completely understand how hard her job is and I’m sure it was just a bad day but we all really needed it to be shift change.) It hit 7am and we got a new nurse who was definitely a seasoned L&D nurse. Not so chatty but she knew her stuff and was quick and efficient and confident. I was good with that. And so we sat. And waited.

Part III