Kids Updates

Here are some random updates about the kids:

• Davis is all done with daycare.  His last day, after 3 years, was on Thursday.  Next week he starts pre-school.  He will go three days a week for 2 1/2 hours each day, with the option to stay longer for lunch afterwards.  He is very excited about pre-school and "getting bigger".  
• I took Davis to a playdate at his pre-school where I met some of the other parents and he met a lot of his classmates.  He will have 15 kids in his class.  He had a great time at the playdate and didn't want to leave despite falling and cutting open his lip and scratching his face.
• Evan has been teething a lot recently.  He is always a very drooly kid, but in the last week he has got in about 3 teeth.  He has at least 5 now and has handled it very well.
• Evan is starting to crawl.  He is no where near as mobile as Alex, but he can commando crawl his way forward and gets up on his hands and knees a lot.  He can also sit up by himself which helps him a lot.
• Alex is very mobile and very fast.  He pulls up on everything and often can be seen just leaning against something or holding on by one hand.  He can also cruise along things he has pulled himself up on (train table, couch, etc).  Not bad for an 8 month old.  He will probably be walking before Davis did (10 months).
• Alex and Evan love Davis.  They are totally entertained by him and love to watch him play and/or interact with them.
• Alex's favorite toy is the one Evan has.
• Evan's favorite toy is the one Alex has.
• Alex's second favorite toy is a plastic sippy cup.
• Evan's second favorite toy is also a plastic sippy cup.
• Evan is about 22 or 23 pounds.  He is about 2 to 2 1/2 pounds bigger than Alex, but they are about the same length.
• Evan seems to need slightly more sleep than Alex.
• All three boys completed their latest round of swimming lessons.  This was our first session with Alex and Evan.  The twins had their lessons at 6:00pm and Davis at 6:30.  Davis would (mostly) sit on the side of the pool while we were in the water with Alex and Evan.  Then, I take the babies home and Kristen stays with Davis (often swimming in the lap lane that is open).  Its a pretty chaotic time to dinner, then get everybody to the pool.   We'll be doing it again as it has been really great for Davis.  He is a lot more comfortable in the water and has started putting his head under.  It really shows when we go to the Kirkwood pool how much the lessons have helped.  He has even tried swimming without any floatations a few times.  Alex and Evan are very different kids in the water.  Alex loves loves loves to splash the water while Evan is usually trying to eat it.  Its a cute and fun contrast.
• Alex and Evan both sleep through the night (7:30 pm to 6:00am) very reliably.  It is wonderful.  Usually Lilly wakes me up at least once, and frequently Davis wakes me up at least once as well.
• Davis is potty trained (im sure I mentioned this before).  He has done  great job.  He is rarely having accidents and sleeps without a diaper.  He is going a good job waking up at night and going to the potty, though he does seem to need help.  I'm a light sleeper and he usually yells for help and I sit him down then put him back in bed.  I believe it has been several weeks since he has had an accident at night (I knocked on wood).

Update: I started writing this post at 2:00 pm.  When I was watching the kids in the afternoon (around 3:30), Evan got up on all fours and crawled.  No more commando crawling for that kid.

New Pictures

Here are a few pictures of Alex and Evan from the last couple of week.  They are getting big and beefy: both will be around 11 pounds at their two week appointments (from birth weights of 6.2 and 6.8).

Alex (I think)

Alex (left) and Evan (right)

Alex punching Evan in the head

Alex

Evan

Alex

Alex (left) and Evan (right)

Alex (back) and Evan (front)

Evan

Alex

Alex

Alex Smiling!

Evan

Evan (left) and Alex (right)

Evan (left) and Alex (right)

Evan (left) and Alex (right)

Twins update

The twins status is largely unchanged.  We don't really expect to take either kiddo home with us when Kristen is discharged on the 26th, but we are hoping to be surprised.

Alex


Alex is still receiving air from a CPAP machine (intubation was removed earlier after his CO2 levels continued to be good).  He is about to receive his last does of the standard 48-hour course of anti-biotics.  After this, he will only get more if his cultures, which take 48 hours to grow, come back positive.  He has been taking food (5ml mix of milk and formula) every 3 hours.  Alex has also had the IV removed from his belly button as they will not need to draw blood as frequently, if at all.

Evan


Evan is still getting high flow air, sometime room air, sometimes oxygen enriched.  Like his brother, he is getting his last regular dose of anti-biotics this evening.  Kristen and I both held him for about 30 minutes today, which was stressful at times for him.  The nurse said that holding them during their sleeping times is much harder on them than holding them during their active feeding times, so we are going for our next visit at 8:00 which is the start of their feedings.

Mom and Evan

Evan in Mom's arms

NICU Visit

Kristen and I just got bak from her first visit to the NICU.  We both got to hold Evan and touch and talk to Alex.  Alex has been intubated and while that is in place, we will not be able to hold him.  Evan spent the entire 30 minutes while I held him with his eyes open and had a good bout of the hiccups.  They are both beautiful, soft and amazing little guys.  We are both really looking forward to holding Alex, but it will probably be a little while.  He need to develop his lungs and sustain healthy breathing that maintains his oxygen levels.

We will probably bring Davis, Grandma and Grandpa in for a short visit after lunch.

Twin Pictures

These are from the OR last night.  I haven't taken any pictures in the NICU yet.

Evan

Alex

Evan

Alex

Alex

Evan

Baby Update

The babies both spent last night in the NICU.  It looks as if both boys will be spending at least one day in the NICU with Alex spending probably at least 4 days.  Both boys are not "in trouble" but are being given oxygen and other treatments to keep them out of trouble.  They have wet, young lungs and need some extra care at this point.

Having the boys in there is very different than we were hoping.  We knew that with twins and being born at 36 weeks NICU time was a strong possibility, but I don't think we were really prepared for it.  We haven't held them yet so it is a little bit of a surreal experience.  It seems a little like they belong to the hospital and not us right now.   Hopefully, their lungs will kick into gear and we can bring Evan to the room soon.

They are beautiful little boys with super soft skin and just a little bit of hair.  I can wait to hold these little guys.

36 Weeks

Kristen made it to a big milestone today for the twins.  Today is 36 weeks, which is a big checkpoint/milestone for twin pregnancies.  At this point, the twins will not be growing much more and the benefits of staying in start to outweigh the risks of carrying them longer.  This is particularly true for us where the presenting baby (first one out) is breech.  The chances of having a prolapsed cord are much higher if Kristen were to start active labor.

This morning, we had our 36 week checkup and both kiddos seem healthy and are practicing breathing, so Kristen is no longer taking medications that will prevent contractions.  We are now home from the hospital and I am trying to work.  We think that being off the medications will cause Kristen to have regular contractions which will send us back to the hospital today to have the babies via caesarean.  We'll see and we'll try to keep people updated via the blog or facebook.

28 weeks with twins

About 30 weeks with one

36 weeks with twins

41 weeks with one

Pregnancy Update

It seems that we are nearing the end of the twin's pregnancy.  Kristen is at 35 weeks and 3 days and we have a Cesarean scheduled for December 28th (36 weeks and 5 days).  Alex, the first baby who would be born, is breech which means a vaginal birth is not an option (if the second baby was breech, it could be).   Kristen has been on contraction preventing drugs (ibuprofen and now nifedipine) for a while now, but she has needed higher doses and they have not been working as well as time goes on.   Last night, her contractions were very different and she went to the hospital to be checked out and ended up spending the night.  Everything seems okay, but during the ultrasounds, they measured a very low heartbeat on Alex and wanted to monitor her all night to make sure they babies were not in distress.

We have another scheduled appointment with the doctor this Thursday at which point Kristen will probably stop taking the contraction preventing drugs and we'll "see what happens".

Here are a couple of ultra sound pictures from last week.  We don't really see a lot in these pictures anymore.  Just a lot of baby parts.  The foot has the toes on the right and you are forgiven if you can't make out the ear.  The foot is 8 cm long.

Evan's foot

Alex's ear 

Pregnancy Update

Just a quick update on the pregnancy.  We had a growth ultrasound on Tuesday that showed the boys were growing well.  Alex (twin A, first out) was measured at 4 pounds 12 ounces (52% for a singleton) and Evan (twin B, second out) was measured at 4 pounds 10 ounces (48% for a singleton).  However, Alex is still transverse (lying across, not pointing up or down) and unless he turns, the boys will be delivered by Caesarean-Section (which Kristen points out is redundant phrasing).  Right now, we are scheduled for December 28th which will be about 37 weeks.  We are hoping that Alex does turn, but Kristen might still be delivered on the 28th; the ideal time for twins to be delivered is between 36 and 38 weeks.

Older Ultrasound Pictures

These are from August but did not get scanned.

Alex

Alex

Evan

Evan

Twin Pictures

Last week, we had an ultrasounds where the snapped a few pictures of the boys for us.  I have another roll around here somewhere that I need to scan an post.  With twins, we get ALOT of ultrasounds.

This is at 30.5 weeks.

Alex's Face

Alex's Face Again

Alex's Profile

Alex's Profile Again

Evan's Face

Evan's Face Again

95% chance of not having babies in the next two weeks

Since we have moved to Saint Louis, we have switched from having midwives for Kristen's pregnancy to having a M.D. who specializes in twins and labels himself an interventionist.  The approaches and philosophies are very different, but we have been happy with the changes.  At this point, we need a little more aggressive monitoring and specialization in twins. 


At our last appointment, we he gave us some guidelines for when to come in.  One of these guidelines included having 6 or more 40+ second contractions for two or more hours.  Last night, this threshold was met and Kristen went into the hospital at 10:30 pm to get checked out to see if she was in pre-term labor (this is rightly the doctor's biggest concern).  She wasn't in pre-term labor and one of the tests they did was a test for fetal fibronectin production.  This test came back negative which means that there is a 95% chance we will not be having the babies in the next two weeks.  While the night was a little rough and the contractions were not fun, it was a great relief to know that the babies will make it to at least 33 weeks and we will have grammie or grandma here when they are born.  It also means that Kristen won't need any other interventions like bedrest or heavy meds.  She will just be on a schedule of ibuprofen for the next two weeks to reduce the contractions.

New pictures of the twins

Kristen and I have had a crazy few weeks (more about that later).  Monday we had the 18 week structural ultrasound for the twins.  Here are the pictures we went home with.  Everything went great at the appointment and the boys look great and are growing well.

Twin A

Twin A

Twin B

Twin B

Pictures of the twins

Monday we had our second ultrasound appointment for the twins.  The look great at this point and there is a 97% chance that they are fraternal; they have their own amniotic sacs, placentas and independent cord formations, which statistically has the healthiest outcome for both babies.  They are growing roughly the same (they are within 4 days of each other) and it looks like one is going to be our thumb sucker.  It also looks like we are going to have two more boys bouncing around the house.

Here are three pictures.  The first is of Twin-A who would likely be born first and the second two are of Twin-B.  We'll have to work on the names.

Overwhelmed

The prospect of twins has me quite overwhelmed at this point.  Granted, we've only known for two days, and haven't done a lot of research yet, but I've talked to a few people at work with young twins and the conscience is that it is hard, really hard.  Really really hard.  Everything is just more complicated.

There are a lot of things we have control over, and many we don't.  Beyond diet, we don't have a lot of control over the health of the babies.  We don't have control over when they will be born.  We don't have much control over how the pregnancy will progress, nor do we have total control over how the birth and recover will go.  We don't have control over my cancer coming back.  We don't have control over a lot of the success or failure of Kristen's experimental work.  This is no different than if we were having a single child, but the extra complications introduced by twins makes all these feelings heightened and compounded.

There are things we might have control over:

1. When we move
2. Where we move
3. What kind of cars we buy
4. How we prepare Davis (some control, very tricky)
5. What we do for childcare
6. How we financially prepare

Right now, I'm trying to focus on the things we do have some control over: houses and cars to start.  Suggestions are welcome.

Upcoming additions

Kristen and I are pregnant.  We are 8 weeks along and went for our first doctor's appointment today where we got quite a surprise: we are expecting twins.    The appointment was pretty much like our first with Davis, but the midwife thought that Kristen was a little big for only being 8 weeks along, so after listening to the heartbeat (an awesome experience) she shipped us off to get an ultrasound at Mt. Auburn.  She said it was to "check the dates", but there were hints at what was to come -- either the date was off (we were pretty sure it wasn't), or there was more than one baby in there.

After a short wait at Mt. Auburn, we saw this on the screen:

It took a moment for our brains to interpret and process what we saw and I think there was an oh shit, oh wow moment with tears for both of us.  The ultrasound tech saw heartbeats on both children which is really fantastic news.

We took the rest of the day off and tried to process and understand some of what this means.

1. Instead of a 3 bedroom house with a room that could be used as a bedroom, we probably need a 5 bedroom house.
2. We'll probably have to buy two more cars instead of one.  The CRV, while relatively large, cannot hold 5 car seats (it might be able to do two infant seats + Davis', so we'll hang onto it for a while). 
3. We thought we could just re-use a lot of stuff from Davis.  Now we'll need two of a lot of things.
4. Kristen has to eat about 600 calories extra a day instead of 300.  This explains why she has been so much more hungry this time than last time.
5. Traveling just got a lot more expensive.  Flying on a plane with 2x2 seat configurations will be interesting.
6. We won't have a middle child.  Technically, one will be the middle child, but only by a few minutes.
7. It would be pretty wild if one was born before midnight and the other after.
8. Daycare stops making a lot of sense, we'll probably need a nanny.  If we had all three in daycare in Boston, it would cost us about $4500 a month.
9. Lilly is probably going to pack her bags and move out.  It took her at least 6 weeks to forgive Kristen for bringing Davis home.
10. Twins are generally born much earlier than singles.  If we had a single, our due date would be Jan. 19th or 20th.  With twins, we're much more likely to deliver at 35 or 37 weeks, which means anywhere from December 17th to January first (we'll get more information about this at our next appointment, this is just based on what we've read so far).
11. Twins put the pregnancy in a high risk category.  We don't know how much higher risk, but it might mean some of the things we were hoping for might not be possible.  We had been hoping for a natural delivery in water with midwives.  We'll find out more of what is possible in our later visits.
12. Bedrest is a lot more common with twins, The second bullet point on one site for mothers expecting twins was tips on movies to rent while on bedrest. 
13. Our understanding is that fraternal twins are genetic and identical twins are random.
14. As far as we can remember, the only person in Kristen's family with twins was her great-aunt who had fraternal twins.
15. If they are fraternal twins, we have a 75% chance (statistically) of having at least one girl.
16. We'll go from being on the power play to being down a man.  Its a big momentum swing.

Kristen walked away with the impression that they were fraternal twins, where I walked away with the impression that it was too early to know.  Further research at home later seems to confirm that it could either be fraternal or identical twins at this point.  I'm sure we'll have more stats and information

Overall, Kristen is doing well.  She has had some nausea, which, depending on the day can be bad and has been very tired at times.   She has been a lot more hungry this pregnancy, but is eating a lot more often (small meals every two hours) which helps with the hunger and the nausea.

We told Davis for the first time today and he was excited (probably because we were excited) and pointed at mom's belly and said babies a few times.  We tried to get him to tell grammie on the phone, but he was distracted by having the phone.  We have a long ways to go to get him ready to be a big brother times 2.

We are super excited, and a little scared.

Here are a few more pictures: