We are alive and well!

Hello everyone! Greetings from the land of sleep deprivation and dirty diapers! It is early in the morning, when I feel best, and both babes are asleep. Penny is taking advantage of some extra shut eye, as Taylor gave her quite a run for her money last night! I am taking advantage of the quiet for some blogging and email time. We have been so blessed by the support of our friends. Above are Sarah, Sarah, Sue and Sussi who came over one night for some baby holding and feeding. Thanks guys! You all look like naturals!
Babies are doing well and really enjoy being next to each other. They often snuggle together in the basinett or other places in our house. They like to nuzzle each other and also flail about in an uncontrolled fashion. They are such funny monkeys to watch. They really seem to know each other and to enjoy being close to each other. Truly fascinating to observe!
We are settling into a daily routine of much feeding and changing. They eat about every 2-3 hours and usually give us some good down time of sleeping in their swings or in the basinett in between feedings. As you can imagine, feeding them makes them super happy and changing them makes them super mad. Their little emotions are so all over the place. When it is not super frustrating, it is actually quite comical!
Mama Penny is a natural and the babes love snuggling up to her. In this picture, be sure to observe our monkey boy's back hair. It is a sight to behold, along with the tufts on the backs of his ears. Don't tell anyone, but little Taylor has all the same copious amounts of hair. I think they have both inherited Mama Chris' need to be best friends with a pair of tweezers! LOL!
Overall, we are doing well and we even had our first outing yesterday. Penny put the double stroller together (holy monstrosity, batman!) and we went to Babies R Us. It was a very successful trip, once we figured out how the car seats snapped into the stroller. I'm sure it was a funny site to see us struggling when we first got to the store!

The babies have now graduated from the Kaiser Home Health Program. The nurse came for her 2nd and final visit yesterday. We are proud to announce that both babies are now above their birth weights and weighed in at 5 lbs 13 oz, and 7 lbs, 14 oz. Yay! Our monkeys are growing and thriving and they are getting bigger already! Amazing!

Happy 1-week birthday to our babies!

Hey everyone! Well, we are home and have two lovely little babies! Here is a quick blog update to keep the masses happy with some pics. Time is limited, so I hope you enjoy this quick update and a few pictures! Above is me before the c-section with the belly monitors on. I thought you all would like to see the last belly shot! Holy big belly, batman!
Here is me in recovery with both babies. I have no memory of this pic, so I am sure glad someone snapped it! I was pretty out of it after the section. I vomited in the OR and again in the recovery room. Apparently, someone changed my gown and trusted me enough to hold both babies for a kodak moment! For being so out of it, I look pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Taylor Grace was born on May 10th at 2:34 pm, weighing 5 lbs, 10 ounces. Jordan Amidon was born at 2:35 pm, weighing 7 lbs, 10 ounces. Quite a size difference, especially when you see them next to each other!
This is a pic of both babies in their basinett in the hospital. It was the most amazing thing to see the two of them together. Even when you put them apart, they would skootch their bodies to be closer together. I guess they missed the closeness of the womb. Sometimes they evn made their faces touch one another! So cute!

Here's mama Chris leaving the hospital with both babies on Mother's Day. What an amazing first Mother's Day and what a gift...to be taking home our two bundles of joy. Here is Mama Penny in her sexy scrubs in the operating room right after the kids were born. I am told that while this picture was being snapped, I was throwing up in the background! How lovely! Penny had just showed me the two babies and my response was, "I think I'm gonna throw up!" What a nice story to tell the kids when they are older!

So, hope you have enjoyed the pics. Our first week as moms has been amazing and challenging and scary and exhausting, but we are hanging in there. The nights are tough, but so far we are surviving and each day we are learning more and more tricks to keep the babes happy and full! I am trying to breast feed, but it is tough work! We are also supplementing with formula for now, until we see how much milk I can make. Since I had a breast reduction in 2003, it is a good possibility that I will not make enough milk to meet all the kids' needs. But, whatever I can make, I want them to get, so we are keeping at it.

I will try to update a little more here and there. It is tough to get the time to do it, but we really want everyone to be able to see our little darlings and hear all our news. In closing, I want to say that Penny is a total rock star and I could not do this without her. She has the patience of an ox and is a fantastic caregiver to our kids and to me, as I recover from the c-section. I love you so much honey, and there is no one else with whom I would even consider embarking on this motherhood journey. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything! Jordan and Taylor are so lucky to have you as their mom!

THE BABIES ARE COMING, THE BABIES ARE COMING!

Hello everyone. It's a big day for news here!

Last week I had an amnio to check for lung maturity of the babies. Not sure what they measure, but a level of 55 indicates lung maturity. Our results came back at 54, whch they told us means that our babies' lungs would finish maturing this week. Yay! Both babies were still head down at the amnio.

I saw my OB today. And, after finally being head down for a few weeks, including last thursday when I had the amnio, the babies are breech again! The OB and I were shocked when we saw both heads high up in my abdomen on the ultrasound! Also, my blood pressure was a bit up and I had protein in my urine. (I am not really sure what protein in the urine means, other than that it is not good. But, did they see some pork chops or chicken breasts in my urine, or what??)

Since the babies were measuring 6 and 8 lbs (at the last ultrasound on 4/25), they scheduled me for a C-Section THIS THURSDAY MORNING! We have to call in tomorrow evening to make sure the scheudle has not gotten too crazy. If things are a go, we have to be at the hospital on Thursday morning at 7 am.

Penny and I are scrambling to get the last minute things done. Holy Cow! We are gonna have two babies in less than two days! And we are gonna be moms by mother's day! Unreal! We will post news when we can after that. Watch this space for pictures and news. We will try to post as quickly as we can, but know that with a C-Section, we will be in the hospital for about 3-4 days.