Confession

Before you begin reading this, please know that I am mostly just sorting through some thoughts right now. I'm not asking for advice or asking for help. Thanks! :)

I honestly and truly think I have to have two of the best baby girls in the whole wide world. They are usually pretty quiet. They do like to lie around unswaddled and just talk to whoever will listen, they are pretty good at nursing (I've recently read a few blogs of twin moms who have had a really hard time nursing their babies...mine have always nursed at the same time and done really well.) they like to cuddle, they don't mind being put down and they are currently sleeping from about 11:00 pm to about 4:30 am...except when they don't. 

I get so frustrated on the nights that they don't sleep well. Which is SO unfair of me. It only happens a handful of nights. The majority of the time they sleep through the night. They always have a hard time going back to sleep after they eat at 4:30, but normally to put them down after they eat at 10:30 is not a problem. So why, on the occasional night that they just don't want to sleep, do I let myself get so frustrated with them!?

First of all, they are only 6 weeks old. I should be thanking my lucky stars that they are sleeping so well at all. Secondly, what makes it so different for them to not sleep well during the day vs. not sleeping well at night. Why can I hold them and rock them so patiently during the day, but if they don't sleep at night, I get frustrated!? Plus, how can I get frustrated with a 6 week old baby that my husband and I tried so long and prayed so hard for?

I get so mad at myself when all is said and done. I feel like a terrible mother, and I know I'm not a terrible mother, but I feel like it's so unfair of me to even let myself get even the  slightest bit irritable toward my babies. 

I was reading a blog today, and the author of the blog wrote that it is frustrating to rock your babies and try for hours upon hours to get them to sleep, but once the sun comes up it's a whole different story. It's like there is a switch that flips between day and night and for some reason it's so easy to be ornery at night.
Is it because my body knows I should be sleeping?
Is it because I know my girls are capable of sleeping at night?
Maybe it's because without all the daytime distractions, 5 minutes feels like 15 minutes in the middle of the night...
I have no idea, but I really don't like it.

I feel even worse that sometimes I just have to make Matthew take the girls for a while. He works all day, lately he has been doing all the grocery shopping and running errands, and taking care of dinner, and I make him get up at night to help me with the babies. I feel so bad! I know I can't do it all on my own, but I do feel like I should or could maybe try a little harder sometimes. He does so much for us, the least I could do is let him sleep through the night.

I love my family so much. I am so thankful for my husband and daughters. I really hope to not let my tiredness get the best of me. I just want to do what's rightly them, and I hope I can be more patient, and remember to count my blessings. 

What I really need to do is first of all, like I said, count my blessings. Also, I know I need to cherish the time that I have with my newborn babies because I can see them becoming less and less "newborn" every day. I need to enjoy the time that I get to cuddle with my sweet babies, day or night, because let's face it, I pretty much feel tired day or night anyway! I don't want to, nor do I wish this time would go faster. I do look forward to certain things when the girls are older, but I'm really in no hurry to get to that point. Bottom line is, I just wish I could be more patient. I know that every mom gets frustrated, but there is no need for me to get frustrated at someone...maybe just at the situation. Hopefully I can work on this. I guess I just need to continue to take it one day at a time.

Month 1

I cannot believe that my girls are already a month old!

It has been a really fast month!

They are doing so great. I kind of wish that we had a one month doctor's appointment just so I know for sure how they are growing and what their weights are, etc.

They seem to be doing really well.

Sometimes, when I am feeding them in the middle of the night I really have to pay attention to figure out who is who. They are getting harder to tell apart. Maybe it's a good thing Lyla is smaller than Alya...it helps at night! They are finally starting to get some meat on their bones. Look at their little pudgy legs! (I know they aren't really pudgy, but compared to what they were a month ago, I'd say they are looking rather meaty!)

Mo is so good with them. When we brought them home, and had them laying in their crib - which is at the foot of our bed - he would just up on our bed and look into the crib to check on them. Now, when the babies are laying on my bed napping and I am in the kitchen or some other room, Mo stays really close to the room that the babies are in. He gets really concerned when they start to cry, and always puts his nose on Matthew when they start to cry at night. It's like he really needs us to know that the babies need us.

Lyla is pretty sassy. She is so impatient! She is usually the one to wake up hungry, but if I have to wake her up, it doesn't take her long before she starts yelling at me. She is still my little runt - if she stays smaller than Alya, I don't think she'll have any problem holding her own! She has a tiny birthmark on the small of her back. She does enjoy her bath times, but she hates getting dressed and undressed. At three weeks, she was sleeping for a 4 hour stretch at night, and now at 4 weeks she is sleeping for a 5 hours stretch.  Usually I can put her in her crib still awake, and it's not too hard for her to fall asleep. I think she'd prefer to be laid down already asleep, so we don't always get so lucky. She loves her binky - but it always falls out of her mouth within 10 minutes...and then she gets really mad and impatient. I try really hard not to give one to her at night. I can either hold her when she is fussy at night, or keep giving her binky back to her every time it falls out of her mouth. Either way, I'm up most of the night. (It's a fairly rare occasion that she doesn't sleep that well at night, though - so I guess I can't complain.) Everytime she sneezes, it's at least 3 sneezes. Sometimes or sneezes fake her out and it's the cutest sound I've ever heard. She also likes to talk a lot! She sounds like the little squirrel on "Sword and the Stone" when she's crying because Arther is turned back into a boy. She LOVES to cuddle. I like to unwrap her and lay her on my chest... and I think it's her favorite way to be held, too. She likes to stay curled up...I don't think she likes to stretch out too much. She would prefer to be swaddled. She likes to hold her head up and look around. She doesn't have the best control over her head yet, but she's working on it. She is becoming more and more alert, but I think she gets bored easily. She is focusing on me and Matthew more, and she is starting to notice Mo. I think she will be a pretty responsible little kid. I am so excited to keep watching her and getting to know her. She is amazing!

Alya is pretty easy going. She is starting to get more vocal. If she wakes up hungry, she makes sure I know she's hungry. She's more patient with me, though. She has a small birthmark on her upper lip, and I think it's SO cute! I think that she LOVES her baths. She doesn't mind so much getting dress and undressed...most of the time. I think she prefers to be naked. At 3 weeks she was sleeping for four hours at night...and I think she could have slept longer, but I wouldn't let her. Now at 4 weeks she is sleeping 5 hours at night. 98% of the time, I can lay her in her crib awake and she will put herself to sleep. She is also a binky baby...not as much as Lyla...but she does like her binky. Most of her sneezes are at least two sneezes, too. Alya is really quiet. She is so content all the time. If I put her in her bouncy seat, she is good to just sit and watch whatever I'm doing. It takes her a while to get bored. She has kind of a scratchy little voice, though...much different than Lyla's impatient high pitched scream. She likes to lounge. I frequently unwrap her and find her all stretched out...it looks like she's just chillin'. It's pretty cute. I think she would prefer to be un-swaddled, but she doesn't sleep well unless she is swaddled. She likes to escape out of her little mittens and socks. She would much rather have her hands uncovered...and she has the scratches on her face to prove it. She can also hold her head up enough to look around for a minute, and she is REALLY alert. Like Lyla, she is starting to pay more attention to me and Matthew and Mo. I am also so excited to continue getting to know her and learning her personality. I still can't decide what she will be like. Will she be a trouble maker, responsible but laid back...? I don't know. I have a feeling she's going to give me a run for my money, though!

I love these girls so much! They are just awesome! I cannot imagine my life without them! I am so happy to be a mom, and I hope that I do the best I can for them. They are so easy to love and they deserve the best! I hope that I can be patient in trying times, and that I can be fair always. I hope that they don't ever feel like I am favoring one over the other, and I hope that I can treat them as individuals. I hope they always know how much I love them!



36 Weeks

In my last post, I mentioned that maybe for my 36 week picture, I'd actually have babies...

 

 

 Well, I was right!

 

It was kind of funny, because the night before my water broke, I was wondering what it felt like to have your water break...I got online and read other people's experiences.

 

So on September 16, I woke up at 1:00 for one of my many potty breaks, and my water broke. I woke up Matthew, and told him I thought my water just broke. He laid there for a minute while he was waking up and said, "What do you need me to do?" I asked him to grab me a towel (which are in our bedroom closet) and he got up and went out into the hall, stopped with his hands out to his side, looked around for a second and then realized where he needed to go and what he was doing. He got all of our stuff together, and we went to the hospital here in Sanpete. My doctor decided to have me transferred up to Utah County since I was only 35 weeks pregnant. It was a little too early to deliver them in Sanpete because of the possibility of them needing the NICU.

Before we even left Sanpete, they could feel "Baby A's" head, so it was kind of a big rush to get me up north. I got in the ambulance, and Matthew drove our car up separately, which may have been a good thing because then I was able to focus on whether or not he was going to make it to the hospital before the babies were born, since I had no idea where he was, and he had my cell phone. It could have been bad, because we went through Nephi and Matthew went through Fairview. If the babies decided to come faster than planned, we would have stopped at the Nephi hospital or the Payson hospital. Luckily we made it to Utah County! It was a little stressful, though. While I was in the ambulance, they nurse checked me and said that I was dilated to a 9. The nurses were all putting on their gloves and getting ready to deliver my babies in the ambulance. I got pretty nervous. We got into the hospital around 4:00, I think. The nurses checked me again. Turns out I was only at a 5. At this point, I thought I was going to be able to have the babies without an epidural. And when they told me I was at a 9 in the ambulance, I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. Don't get me wrong, I was in quite a bit of pain, but it wasn't TOO bad. When I found out that I was only at a 5, I definitely wanted the epidural! :) The doctor that was on call that night was really funny. He was taking some of my background information...there is the question about whether I smoke, drink, do drugs, curse. Haha, he was really funny and made it easy for me to like him. I got the epidural, and it was amazing. My contractions never peaked too high, so that is good. But I'm glad that I didn't feel them! Plus the actual giving birth part may not have been too pleasant or as easy as it was. Anyway, the time finally came for Matthew to "gown up," I did 3 practice pushes in my room and they took us into the operating room just in case I was going to need a C-section. Lyla Marie was born at 9:39 and weighed 5 lbs 13 oz and 18 1/2 inches long. Four minutes later, at 9:43 Alya Linda was born weighing in at 6 lbs 3 oz and 19 inches long. It was so amazing! And thanks to my epidural, I was able to feel everything, but nothing hurt. Once Lyla was born, they took her back into another little room next to the operating room to weigh her and make sure she was okay, so I only got to see her for a second before they took her away. Then, the same thing happened with Alya. While the doctor was finishing up with me, Matthew came in holding both of our beautiful baby girls in his arms. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen! They let us take pictures with them and then they took them down to the nursery. I am SO thankful that they didn't have to spend any time in the NICU. My little Lyla was a little beat up. She was obviously in the birth canal for a long time (like I said, they could feel her head before we even left the hospital in Sanpete) so needless to say she was a little squished. One of her ears was embedded in the side of her head, and she had some fluid in her lungs. But they fixed that, and she is as good as new.

 

 

 

I consider Lyla to be my little runt. I know she is the big sister, but we keep calling her the little sister! She is starting to fill out, though. At their two week appointment, Lyla weighed 6.0 and Alya weighed 6.8. Lyla is in the 23% for weight and the 64% for length. Alya is in the 25% for weight and the 64% for length.

They are seriously amazing. I love these two girls SO much! They are seriously life changing. It's amazing how much I love them and worry about them. There are so many things that can go wrong. Are they getting enough to eat, are they eating too much!? Am I giving them tummy aches? Are they warm enough? (They were born without the fat that newborns burn when they get cold so we have to keep them extra bundled). Are they too warm? I don't even know. I feel like a million questions run through my head every day. I spend way too much time on the internet trying to have my questions answered.

 

I took them to have their newborn pictures taken. I'm not going to lie, the photographer was kind of disappointing. She did a great job on the pictures that she got, but we were there for 5 hours and only got 5 pictures. We got to her house and she had a GIANT dog running around. Her GIANT cat was wondering around, her birds were always making noise in the background, and the chickens and ducks in the backyard were a little weird. There was a lot more that I wanted as far as pictures go, but we just didn't get it. I really do appreciate her patience with them. It's really hard to pose two babies who didn't stay asleep the whole time! She waited so patiently for them. I just think she could have utilized help. I was there, my mom was there and she had a daughter helping her. We all could have held a body part and then counted to 3 and everyone let go so she could get a shot. Instead she tried to do it all herself. She didn't have her camera ready a lot of the time, and had to search for it a couple of times, and then she had to re-pose the babies because she wasted so much time finding her camera. I feel like she charged me too much to get 5 pictures. Like I said, I am really happy with the pictures, but I wanted some other stuff. I wanted some individuals of the girls and we didn't get anything like that. She did get their little feet, which I really wanted, but I wanted more details - which babies don't really have to be posed to get a profile picture...I don't know. I wish it had gone differently, but what are ya gonna do!? Now I know for next time.

 

 

I can't believe the girls will be a month old in ONE WEEK! It has gone so fast!

I am so excited to watch them learn and grow, but I am a little sad at the same time. My babies are SO tiny and I kind of want them to stay that way. I'm sad that they have to grow up.

Matthew is so cute with them, too. I love watching him hold them and kiss them. He is so tender with them. He put a funny picture in my head last night...how funny/cute it would be if they could walk right now. These tiny bodies walking around! Haha! He is too funny.

 

I am so thankful for these little girls. I really hope that I can be a great mom for them, and that I can make the best decisions for them. I am so thankful that everything with their delivery went so well, and that they are both so healthy. I am so grateful that they didn't have to spend any time in the NICU and that they got to come home from the hospital with us. I am so grateful that they are healthy and gaining weight and getting bigger...although I do wish they'd stay small a little longer. :) I love them so much and I just want the best for them!