Under Pressure

Here is a short list (I hope) of things that are stressing me out about this whole parenthood gig:

1. My posse is leaving this week. The grandparents (aka- Angels From Heaven or Baby Saviors) will be departing to their respective long-distance homes this week. This means that B & I will have to juggle all of the following by ourselves: laundry, dinners, household cleaning, oh yeah- and the feeding, changing, burping of 2 young ones every 3 hours while I try to pump about that often.

Now, if that doesn't scar the bejesus out of you, then continue on a tour of my anxiety-induced ruminations:

2. My babies hate my breasts. It's true. I try to stick them on and they want none of it. Finn often thrashes around like a 90's Headbanger and once I get him on, he pushes me off. It reminds me of the Borderline Personality patients I used to work with- "I hate you! Don't leave me! I need you! Why aren't you FIXING THIS NOW!!!" I hated those patients. Nowadays, if I get a hint of a "personality disordered" aftertaste from somebody I avoid them like the plague...

3. Childcare (or- you want to do unspeakable acts to my wallet). Nuf said

Babies in the Hizouse!

Also titled: "No Sleep! Til Brooklyn!" or "Why is my font so big?"

I have an announcement that y'all have been waiting for-

Les Babies are Home!!!! Weeee!!!!! They have been paroled from the NICU and I can't believe somebody actually thought I am capable enough to have left the hospital with them (I suspect the nurses were taking hits off Cassidy's oxygen tank). That's right- Cassidy's on oxygen (sucks a big one), but they still let her come home. Weeeee!!!

Let me give you a run-down of the past 24 hours:

DISCHARGE:
We had the slowest....talking....nurse...ever....zzzzzzzzzz

B and I are pretty sure it took her about an hour and a half to review 4 topics, none of which involved rocket science. To me, this is an unforgivable offense. My time is precious, people. I sat there alternating between thoughts of,

"Shut up and let me take my babies home!",
"I haven't pumped in 4 hours and my boobs are going to explode!"
"I could really use a sandwich", and
"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oops. I think I just drooled myself."

B said it was pretty evident that my ADHD had kicked in. Oh well...




GETTING HOME:
So since Nurse Slow Talker, had taken so.....long.... to get through our discharge, we had some pump timing and eat-timing issues. (For those of you who know me well, I tend to wind up on the floor if I don't eat regularly). So our homecoming was characterized by me dumping the babies in my parents' arms and running upstairs, banana in hand, for some sweet mammory relief.

Finn started screaming bloody murder about 2 minutes later and Noah the Dog was slobbering all over the babies' heads. I came downstairs to a whole new world- Baby Paraphenalia EVERYWHERE. Where did my house go? Me thinks it went the way of my bar-hopping, sleep-filled life...Ah, sweet chaos....




Speaking of, this brings us to-

THE FIRST NIGHT:
9pm- feeding & putting the babies down- We had 4 grandparents help with feeding, burping, and changing. We settled our precious nuggets of genetic legacy into a co-sleeper and kept visiting them to "ooh" and "aw" over how cute they looked. Confidence in this parenting gig abounded.



12am- B, Grandpa, and I changed the babies. B & Grandpa fed them while I hooked myself up to the milking machine. We put them back into the co-sleeper and climbed into bed. Babies were a little fussy but it seemed manageable.

3am- and 0 hours of slumber later...B & I stumbled downstairs to get bottles. Mr. Finn had been groaning, grunting, and crying for all 3 hours. Repeat 12am tasks but without any finesse. B kept tripping over Cassidy's oxygen tube and cursing. Noah kept trying to slobber over the baby's heads, and I tried (unsuccessfully) to help while attached to my effing machine.

5:30am- and 5 minutes of slumber later...Finn's grunts turned into full-on Upset Baby FEED ME NOW OR I WILL DIE! screaming. I brought him downstairs and tried to console him while heating up a bottle. My confidence- Gone. Somewhere between crying fits (mine and his), I finally got him fed and started to change him downstairs. And "OH MY GOD! I NEED MY DIAPER CHANGED NOW OR I WILL DIE! But wait- there's time to pee on my head while screaming bloody effing murder!" B woke up and I told him, "I think Finn might be an asshole." That's right people- I called my baby an asshole... And then I started to cry inconsolably.

7am- (still no sleep- I had to pump milk after all this drama people). My mother walked into our room and offered to take over- YES PLEASE!!! B and I finally got some sleep and woke up at about 11am when OH MY GOD! MY BOOBS MIGHT EXPLODE!

And I basically felt like death warmed over the rest of the day.... People weren't joking about this whole parenthood business.

Jesus Loves Winners

This week's post is dedicated to the people of Haiti and even moreso, Mr. Pat Robertson, Satan's own notary public.

I spent a few days this week boo hooing into my pillow, cereal, you name it, over my babies. Let me tell you, having babies in the NICU is no picnic. And if it were a picnic, it would be the kind overrun by ants and then rained out while a squirrel pees on your head (BTW, this happened to a friend of mine. Trust). So, when the earthquake hit this week, it really put things into perspective for me.

My babies are growing.

My babies are healthy.

My babies are getting the care they need.

Hello? I have TWO BABIES!!! How fucking lucky could I be???

Time to stash the tissues away and focus on the up and up.

So, while I might miss my babies like CRAZY person and contemplate a Code Pink Maneuver (hospital speak for babynapping), I know I have been ridiculously blessed. And it's not like I even did anything to deserve it. I just got lucky. Plain old lucky. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. And it doesn't make any sense at all.... Me? I think I'm an okay person who has had a mixed bag with a heavy emphasis on the good and great.

And so, on a final note, here is a link to a letter written from "Satan" to Pat Robertson. Enjoy!

Worship at the Boob Altar

My boobs have taken over my life.

If you think that not having babies at home leaves me time to get my nails done and write the great American novel, you are sorely mistaken. Chances are I am attached to my breast pump cheering those mammories on.

M-I-L-K!

Apparently, I'm supposed to massage (read- squeeze the shit out of) my ta-tas until they are dry every 2-3 hours. That looks a little like this:

10:45pm- Commence milkage
11:15pm- Terminate milkage and measure how much was produced. This number dictates my mood for the next hour and a half
11:20pm- Spill milk and commence hormonal break-down in kitchen. "Don't cry over spilled milk" may have initially been intended for a breast-pumping mother of a NICU baby.
1:15am- Wake up and start all over again.

Yes, the 2-3 hours does not dictate the time between feedings but rather the time between starts. This.is.miserable.

On the baby front (yay! I luuuurv babies!)

Finnegan is kicking ass in the temperature department and graduated into a crib today. Yes! Yes! Yes! That leaves one hoop left before he comes home. Ole boy needs to get it together and start feeding like there's no tomorrow. That means no gavage and lots of nipple time (mostly bottle- breastfeeding is a bitch for a preemie). Finn is suuuper laid back and mellow. He sleeps a ton and often has a hard time waking up long enough to feed.

Cassidy is still our little feisty girl. She is much more alert than her brother and the doctors have said she is "advanced." She eats like a champ but is still not nippling all her milk. And because she's the size of a little peanut, she still can't regulate her body temperature enough to move our of her isolette. Le sigh....2 hoops for our little girl before she can come home with us.

Oh yeah, and in a move of parental brilliance or incompetence (you choose), we decided to change the spelling of Finn's name to "Finnegan" over "Finnigan." This has really fucked with the NICU nurses who made him a name sign with "eg" and then changed it to "ig" so it would be correct. I think they might be plotting against me now that we changed it....Oops.

34 Weeks, 1 Day, and 2 Babies Later...

Hi People! I'M BACK!

Sorry to be out of the loop for so stinkin long! Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts and I'm sorry to have made people worry! I'm afraid I couldn't access blogger from the hospital (WTF is up with that?) and B could only be counted upon to update one blog (I have a family-friendly version of this blog where I don't say "fuck" nearly as much). There's a lot to catch up on! Quick run-down of the past month:

12/1/09- Yup...hospitalized bed rest reared its ugly head
12/28/09- Met the 34 Week mark!
12/31/09- My planned discharge date for PTL or the "Go With God" plan
12/29/09- The morning I woke up to a very swollen version of me (Think Blueberry Girl in Willy Wonka and you'll be close to reality). Blood work was drawn which revealed Pre-Eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. Doctors told me everything was "extremely abnormal" and asked how long it would take B to get to the hospital as the babies needed to come out right away.

My birthing story? Pretty much the exact opposite of what I wanted when I first got pregnant. Gone was the granola, family-loving birth I envisioned. Instead, I got LOTS of pokes & prods, an emergency c-section, and I wasn't able to see our precious babies for more than 24 hours after their birth (unless you count the fly-by immediately post-op "Look at your babies! Gotta go! Byee!"). This was due to the degree of drugs I needed after the c-section which meant I wasn't able to get out of my bed for a day. I'm still pretty angry and upset with the universe about how things went down. But I know it was needed for all parties to be healthy.

Our babies weren't named for more than 48 hours since we planned on naming them once we were able to hold them and get acquainted. But...here are our beautiful babes!

Finnigan (Finn) Joseph
4 lbs, 13 oz
Born 12/29/09 1:35pm

Cassidy Mary

3 lbs, 8 oz
Born 12/29/09 at 1:36pm

They're each spending a couple of weeks in the NICU and doing beautifully. Finn was on a respirator for the first day and Cassidy, while smaller, has proven to be feisty. They're both breathing on their own, eating from bottles, and have had their IV's removed. We're working on consistent feeding without having to be gaveged-fed (BTW, a horrible site where they stick a tube down baby's throat), gaining weight, and maintaining body temp.

I was released Saturday, Jan 2, which was great since I HATED the post-natal unit and missed my peri-natal nurses like crazy.

So, that's our status! I've added the updates that y'all missed from the past 4 weeks. Thanks again for thinking about us. I had no idea that I had so many internet friends! Y'all are the cream cheese to my bagel!

33 Weeks!

Four days, two bottles of pee, and a partridge in a pear tree. Still in the hospital, still pregnant and I have holiday spirit oozing out my pours.

THis week was marked by a pre-eclampcia scare and conscious avoidance of all crap christmas movies on TV and there are a lot of them. Due to my level of Pillsbury doughboyness, sudden weight gain and my blood pressure creeping higher, the Docs thought I might have pre-eclampcia. This lead to a sudden interest in my giant ankles and hobbit feet and of course my urine. Let me tell you if you haven't spent 24 hours collecting your urine on ice and putting it on display like a raw bar then you're missing out. Good news is I am pre-eclampcia free and the babies get to bake a little longer.

Here is this weeks update. It is crazy to think there will only be a couple of these entries left! To everyone writing replies on the blog page, I don't have access to the internet in the hospital and Brendan has to post all my entries. I promise I will get back to all of you once I am home.

How far along? 33 Weeks and 3 days.

Total weight gain/loss: Up 51 lbs. I suspect some of this is from the water weight around my ankles, wrist and face. Hell, everywhere!

Maternity clothes? Yes. I might be progressing to a big burlap sack.

Sleep: Thanks to the sweet kiss of Ambien I am lucky to get any sleep at all.

Movement: Yes. Constantly. No wonder my uterus is exhausted.

Food cravings: None.

Gender: A boy and a girl

Labor Signs: When the barametric pressure drops all the women on my unit contract at the same time. It like a chorus line of naughty uts.

What I miss: Since I was hospitalized right after Thanksgiving I missed the whole Christmas season. I'll be glad when tomorrow is over because I won't feel like I am missing out on so much, outside of life of course. :(

Milestones: According to Dr Luke, guru of all things multiples, 33 weeks was a developmental touchdown. I would do a touchdown dance but the babies might fall out. I am hopefully going to be released from the hospital on my own recognizance on New Years Eve. We hope to make it all the way home before I start going into labor.

32 Weeks!

Getting to 32 weeks is a lot like New Years Eve. You look forward to the day, full of promises of bacchanalian exuberance only to find yourself lying in a pool of your own vomit. Getting to 32 weeks had been such a fixation, it felt like by the time Monday came that I half expected to see a team of nurses break out into spontaneous song to commemorate this fertile benchmark. Alas, my cupcakes and streamers were replaced by anti-contraction meds at midnight, 2am, 4am, 6am, so on and so on for the remainder of each day. Good news: babies are still baking; bad news: no musical extravaganza.

How far along? 32 Weeks! Hell yeeeeeahh!

Total weight gain/loss: 52 e-fing lbs! I guess a diet of cheese quesadillas and a workout routine of walking to the bathroom doesn't promote a slender pregnancy.

Maternity clothes? I have graduated to monster sized panties this week!

Sleep: Is great if I can get to sleep by 10pm as the medical crew starts their daily parade at 6am.

Movement: Baby gladiators dukin' it out for space.

Food cravings: Anything not from the hospital

Gender: A boy and a girl

Labor Signs: Tons o' contractions and they seem to escalate in frequency and intensity every 3 days. No standing up pictures because we were on contraction monitor time too often.

What I miss: Doing stuff and when my best friends weren't nurses.

12/7- 31 Weeks!

So I was re-committed to the hospital on Tuesday. My sucktastic cervix was down to 1cm! Yikes! I can't blog from the hospital because their internet hates certain sites, blogger.com included. Up yours hospital internet....

My solution to all this forced Amish-style living? Write down my bloggity thoughts and force my husband to post them for me. So, here are some rambling thoughts I have come up with in the last week (sorry for the crazy long post):

* I've been granted 30 minutes of pool therapy. And let me tell you, the hospital-issued swimsuits are sexy as hell. Swimsuit Illustrated had better watch out because when I squeeze myself into one of those checkered XXL plastic beauties, I don't just look like a table at your local BBQ bistro, I may just make you drool... The best part? When I get out of the pool and the butt of my suit is full of water, just like a giant full diaper, and I have to squeeze it empty, regardless of how many onlookers there are.

* I love most of the nurses with one notable exception. This would be the woman who asked Brendan if we believed in Jesus and then later told me (repeatedly) how swollen my face was, called my legs "sausages," and then said, "I don't know you so maybe you always look like this." Bite me Nurse Ugly. I also don't like the dietician. I have nicknamed her "Captain Obvious" but not to her face. The other nurses who work here? They rule. I've got one who calls me sweetie, honey, and calls the babies "love muffins" and "doll babies." Usually this would make me nuts but she does it in a way that makes her positively huggable. I also have a french nurse whom I love but I haven't seen much of her...sigh...

* I've noticed there's a weird smell whenever I get up from bed. This happens regardless of when my sheets were changed and the smell is always a little like onions. There's not a lot to say about this. It's just weird.

And now for your update! Here's hoping for at least 3 more!

How far along? 31 Weeks! Word

Total weight gain/loss: I haven't weighed myself since last Tuesday morning when I was 40 pounds.

Maternity clothes? Pajama city. But I love my maternity lounge wear (Thanks Mom!)Stretch marks? I am still proud of my shiny stretch mark-free belly

Sleep: Muh. The hospital staff wake me up every 2 hours to take medication. It does not make for restful evenings.

Movement: A ton. The nurses always act surprised at how much the babies move and kick.

Food cravings: Nope. Hospital food kind of sucks. I'd love a home-cooked meal right bout now.

Gender: A boy and a girl

Labor Signs: Contractions. I'm now alternating between 2 different kinds of medications every 2 hours. It definitely helps a lot and I'll go several hours without a contraction (I think). But they tend to pick up in the evening, regardless.

What I miss: Seriously? My husband. I see him for a couple of hours every day but I am most homesick for him.

Milestones: Getting to week 31. Being told I looked thin by a resident (I love a good liar!)

On and I saw a fourth woman on "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" give birth in the toilet. What the hell?