If it's not one thing, it's your mother...: January 2015

Y'all. We are tired around the Baum household. I guess that's a good enough excuse for not keeping up with the blog! Now that the twins are pushing two months old, I'm going to finally write about their birth. Sheesh.

If you spent any time around me from September-December, you know I was extremely uncomfortable. I was large, swollen and cranky. Jarrod was sleeping elsewhere because I was sleeping with no less than seven pillows, and I needed to wake up several times a night to visit the potty. Not to mention my elaborate attempts to roll over (Think: turtle trapped on its back). Life was insane. Pregnancy with the twins was completely different from what I experienced with Collin. Jarrod never had to sleep somewhere else, and I only threw up all of about three times with Collin. With the twins, I was still occasionally getting sick all the way up until the week before they were born, which was Thanksgiving.

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, we found ourselves at a normal doctor's appointment. I was 37 weeks and measuring around 41 weeks with my belly. My doctor was concerned because baby boy's heart rate was slower than it had been before. The doctor was having a hard time getting a good read on both babies, so we found ourselves headed next door to the hospital for observation in Labor and Delivery. They hooked me up to the monitors, and we waited. Little boy's heart rate sounded great after further listening and both babies appeared to be doing just fine, so we got sent home.

Fast forward to Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving. My in-laws were in town, and we were prepping for a day of cooking and eating. Of course, this meant I spent the day pretty much on my feet cleaning and working on food prep. By that night, my feet/legs/back were killing me, and I was exhausted. I started to try to remember when I had last felt the babies move and realized it seemed like it had been a very long time. I tried my usual tricks: Laying on my left side and trying to relax, drinking some ice water, eating chocolate. Finally, I took a bath hoping to make myself really relax and thinking that would lead to me feeling some movement. Nothing seemed to be working and I was just getting more and more amp'd up, especially after the teeny-tiny worry we had experienced at Monday's appointment. Around 8:30 pm I told Jarrod I wanted to go back up to the hospital so they could hook me back up to the monitor. We hopped in the car, thanking God Jarrod's parents were in town and able to help care for Collin. I don't know if he even realized we had left!

At the hospital, they quickly got me hooked up, and we heard both hearts just beating away. It was definitely a comfort to hear the heart beats, but I still was not feeling the babies move so we just hung out for a bit. Finally, they woke up. Literally. They had just been snoozing away. The nurse said after they woke up she could tell a difference in the patterns, and they had definitely been asleep when we first came in. Thanks for giving me a scare, kids!

I had to lay on my back for quite a while as we listened to both babies. Because of how I was positioned, I started having more intense contractions (I had been having Braxton-Hicks for several weeks), and I think both Jarrod and I were hoping for an early arrival of the twins. But no such luck. Two scares in one week and we were sent back home. However, this time we had an end date - December 3! My poor doctor...he knew he had to throw me a bone.

Thanksgiving with Jarrod's parents, and behind the camera, I looked like this:

Monday, December 1, we had my 38 week appointment as well as an ultrasound. Both babies looked good and appeared to weigh 6+ pounds. We saw some hair on little boy's head and that was about as detailed as the scan got because there was so little room neither baby was moving much.

Tuesday, December 2, my parents arrived. I knew it would be my only chance, so I forced everyone to load up and go visit Harding to look at the lights on campus. I was constantly burning up, so the cold air didn't bother me, but I'm told it was FREEZING :)

When we got back, my dad took this picture of us before we put Collin to bed. Our last picture as a family of 3 and with my gigantic belly!

Wednesday, December 3, we arrived at the hospital EARLY. My doctor had another patient's surgery scheduled first thing that morning, and I was "to follow". We were told we would begin around 9:00 am, but I didn't go back to the OR until after 10:15 am. Jarrod and I were both extremely anxious by that point, not to mention our families had just been hanging out in the waiting room. AND oh, by the way, Jarrod had a pharmacy school test at 3:00 pm that afternoon.

My c-section was a lot more complicated than with Collin. It took longer and felt more tense. Turns out I had quite a bit of scarring from when I had Collin. It was difficult for my doctor to get to the babies and meant I got to lay there and listen to him while he worked on me and discussed how best to go about things with whomever was assisting him. Poor Jarrod was just sitting by my head, keeping me calm and probably freaking out a little his self. I got snarky with the CRNA a couple of times and prayed a whole lot.

Finally! At 11:13 am, Atalie Morgan was born. She weighed 6 pounds 1 ounce and was 18 1/2 inches long. In Hebrew, Atalie means God is Great. It was our "girl" name when I was pregnant with Collin. Morgan is Jarrod's grandfather's middle name, and Atalie shares it with several others on that side of the family :)

At 11:14 am Grady Cave followed. I saw them carrying Atalie over to be cleaned up, and she was purple, goopy and screaming. I don't really remember seeing Grady after they pulled him out. Grady weighed 6 pounds 10 ounces and was 18 3/4 inches long. Grady is my grandfather's name, and Cave is a family name on Jarrod's dad's side of the family, as well as the name his dad goes by.

The babies got cleaned up, and Jarrod got to attempt to juggle them both so I could see them before he and they had to head to the nursery. Then it was more fun for me on the operating table as my doctor finished cleaning up scar tissue and closing my incision. It was probably close to noon before I was taken back to my room for recovery. During this time, no one was allowed in my room except the two recovery nurses monitoring and working on me. I puked in the middle of having a perfectly nice conversation with them. Jarrod said he paced outside the door and asked repeatedly if it was time for him to come inside yet. Right about the time that they did let him in, I started shaking uncontrollably. Eventually, Jarrod, the babies and our parents got to come in and see me. I got to officially meet our two little ones and inspect them closer! I was holding one in each arm and shaking ridiculously while struggling to talk because my throat and mouth were so dry. It was all just super glamorous.

Grady's hair (that appeared to be waving in the wind on the ultrasound just a few days prior) was much less impressive in person, but he was far and away beating Atalie in that category. Poor sister has nothing but peach fuzz on her dome.

Around 2:30pm Jarrod left to go take his test at school and our parents had all left to go eat lunch/take a break from the hospital. The babies went to the nursery and I got a few minutes of stillness. Turns out, I don't respond to morphine, so this alone time was good for me to realize that I was still in a lot of pain. My nurses were wonderful and immediately got in touch with my doctor to get me switched over to a different med. My doctor came back a few hours later to check on me and didn't waste any time telling me how awful I looked. "You look really tired..." Thanks, buddy. I'm exhausted.

The rest of our stay was spent with Jarrod leaving intermittently to go take tests. The nurses saw him in sweats and scruffy faced in my room, and he would emerge clean-shaven, in a suit, with his white coat on - a regular Clark Kent. If Clark Kent went to pharmacy school...

We were released from the hospital late Friday night. Both babies had jaundice, and we dealt with this for the first week and a half of their lives. Thankfully, they were not required to be readmitted or to have photo-therapy; they just got their feet and hands pricked a lot :(

My parents were a huge help to us the first week. They helped with Collin, cooked, cleaned and helped with round-the-clock feedings in an attempt to flush the bilirubin from the babies' systems. (When are you guys coming back?!)

When the babies were 9 days old, we had their newborn photo session. Collin got pooped on, the photographer got peed on and we got amazing images like this one:

It's been a busy time for us since the twins were born. We traveled to Texas for Christmas, and everyone survived the car ride there and back. We spent a little time together at home before Jarrod went back to school a couple weeks ago, and I started back to work this week. The twins are seven weeks old (as of yesterday), and we are working to adjust to a new normal at our house. Collin loves his brother and sister, but he gets mad at his mommy and daddy for not being able to play with him or pay undivided amounts of attention to him. I'm sure we'll be dealing with that adjustment for a while. It's tough with twins. It means that both Jarrod and myself have our hands full. If Collin is yelling for help from somewhere in the house, or if a pot is boiling on the stove, or if the dog needs attention - we find ourselves juggling... A BABY. It's the stuff sitcoms are made of :)

If you find yourself thinking of us, pray for rest. We love these kids we've been blessed with, but we're struggling to find rest!

Here are some more pictures from the past several weeks!