Babies

I am a mom. I have been for 15 years, and yet I feel like it is all new again…in a good way though. I look at my boys and I am in awe at how tiny they are. I watch every move as if I have never witnessed such a thing before. Was I too young to enjoy it before, or did I enjoy it only to have time wash those memories away? This makes me feel sad – as if I have lost part of the girls’ childhood over the years.

I have learned something over the past few weeks: Two babies are difficult to take care of. So far my greatest experience with the difficult part is when they both want something at the same time. Today I was feeding Cole when Roark woke up and wanted attention and food. And, he wanted it RIGHT NOW. What a challenge. I was feeding one in the bouncy chair while burping the other one – laughing at how silly it was the whole time. Today I was not too stressed, just amused for the most part. But – I have a glimpse of the nights to come when my husband goes back to work and I have to play the juggling games. At night. When I am tired. And less amused.

I am lucky to have help with the babies. My mother in law has moved in with us to be the nanny for the first year. She will take care of them during the day while my husband and I are working, which will be fantastic. The problem is that I don’t want to give them up so to speak…I want to do everything by myself and am having a hard time letting go of anything…I don’t want to lose a minute with them because I know how quickly they are growing up. Can you see me at work? I will be calling home 16 times a day, driving everyone nuts! Luckily I have 3 more weeks before I have to go into the office.

There is no place like home

Both of the boys are HOME!

Cole finally joined us Saturday morning at home, and wow – it has been non-stop ever since. We are always feeding, changing, soothing or staring at them. And what is it like to have two babies? Well, Saturday night was pretty difficult because Cole wouldn’t sleep and therefore we couldn’t sleep. Who knew sleep played such an important part in our lives?

Observations about the past weekend with TWO babies:

1. Cole is a very noisy baby – and I mean VERY NOISY. He is constantly grunting and spitting and moving
2. Roark is a very calm baby. He is a quiet sleeper and needs to be woken up to eat – which by the way pisses him off.
3. Cole inhales his bottle, and then promptly spits it back up – sometimes with a little power-puke.
4. Roark savors his food – taking a freaking hour to eat. He must think he is an only child and we have nothing but time to dedicate to him.
5. My husband is the best father I have ever seen.
6. My girls love the babies in their own way – and are a great help.
7. Two babies are more than twice as hard as one baby.
8. Thank GOD we have time off of work to get used to this insane schedule.
9. I suddenly feel as if two hours of uninterrupted sleep is a gift to be cherished.
10. Babies smell really good right after a bath. Most other times they are stinky, but cute.
11. I love this whole baby thing!
    
    

Woof!!!

So Roark came home yesterday – and we are loving every minute of having him here. We are also struggling with one of our dogs because of the new arrival. He is so freaking interested in the baby that we are always battling with him to back the fuck off so we can spare Roark’s head one more lick-fest. Seriously – this dog is obsessed with the baby. We don’t know if Zieggy thinks that Roark is a toy, if he is being protective, or if he thinks he is a bunny and wants to eat him. We are not going to find out either. We keep pushing him away when he tries to lick the baby and tell him NO, but it appears to fall on deaf ears.

Our other dog is fine with everything – curious, but not obsessed. I don’t know why Zieggy is such a nut about it. Do you think the dingo wants to eat my baby?

Home Sweet Home

Roark is home. They released him yesterday and we took him home and didn’t look back. Well – except that we still have a baby there – so I guess we are constantly looking back now that I think about it. That was hard – leaving Cole there. I really wanted them to come home together, but Cole is still having random heart decelerations – so he needs to stay.

Every few minutes either my husband or I look around and proudly announce: “We have a baby – HERE” Funny. I wonder when it will feel less surprising and more real... I wonder when Cole will join us? I do know that I am so happy to have this family and am excited about having us all together!

OUCH

Tuesday night was THE CIRCUMCISION. This was a horrible event for us and didn’t go at all as planned. I had asked for Roark to have anesthesia of some sort during the procedure – I asked the doctor months ago. I asked the nurses caring for him. We even talked about it 45 minutes before my OB/GYN arrived to do the deed. I was ASSURED that anesthesia would be used. Ask me if it was. Go ahead. Ask.

That is right – they did it without using anything to alleviate the pain – the fuckers. Once they finished – as Roark was screaming so loud he could hardly breathe, I asked what type of anesthetic was used. The nurse gave me a blank stare. The doctor didn’t look up. The nurse finally said, very very quietly – “none”. Ummm, what?????? I went off on them all. I was crying. My youngest daughter was crying. My older daughter was just watching in shock. In the end the doctor claimed he called in the order and thought it would be done prior to his arrival. The nurses claimed there was no order. Finger pointing ensued. What a fucking ridiculous mess – one which caused my son to suffer. I am still angry as I write this. And for all of you out there that are about to say that either 1) he won’t remember it or 2) they do that a lot without anesthesia, SHUT UP. I asked for something to be done – it wasn’t – my son suffered. I have filed a formal grievance with the hospital and they have brought in a mediator to find out exactly where this all went wrong…my request.

Meanwhile Cole is still there and has not yet been circumcised. He won’t be either. At least not there. We removed their right to do the circumcision and will instead be contacting a pediatric urologist to do the procedure after he comes home. He will have a block which will block all feeling below his waist. It will go EXACTLY as I expect, or I swear to God and Allah and Satan himself that I will KILL anyone that doesn’t follow my wishes this time around.

42 DAYS

The boys are 6 weeks old today. I cannot believe it has been that long. My husband reminded me that we have spent 42 days at the hospital – and that seems to feel real. I am a bit tired of the trips up there every day…I just want my boys home. I read the journals of all the women having their babies and I am so jealous – they get to take them home. I want them home so bad that my heart aches. Every day that they are in the hospital is one that I miss being with them all day – I don’t have much time before I have to go back to work and I hate the idea of not bonding with them before I am working again – sucks bad.



When my boys come home I will have 2 weeks with them – that is it. My husband’s mom is moving in with us for at least 6 months to help / be the nanny – and they will get closer to her than me. I am torn about this quite a bit. I want her to watch them and think it is great that she will get to know her grand-kids so well…and yet I worry so much that they will prefer her and won’t want to be with me. I hate that feeling but it is nagging at me all the time. Is this a normal feeling about any daycare situation – or am I going nuts? Don’t answer that.

Cole is 4 pounds 15 ½ ounces – just won’t break the 5 pound mark! Roark is 5 pounds 8 ½ ounces. They are still growing and eating ½ of their meals on their own. I wonder how much longer until they are eating all meals through the bottle and can come home.

I was supposed to go up to the hospital at 2am to feed them, but I was soooo tired. I caved and stayed home. Bad me. I felt pretty guilty about it for say…5 minutes and then I fell back to sleep. I will go up tonight though – I really don’t want the nurses holding and feeding them when I can be doing it – I get so little time with them that I can’t believe I let that time slip away.

This is SO NOT FUNNY

I have found myself running out of anything NEW to say here. I go to the hospital, I see babies, sometimes I change and feed them. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Cole is 4 pounds 10 ounces and Roark is 5 pounds 6 ounces. They are growing more slowly now that they are starting to eat some of their meals through the bottle. This takes a lot more energy than the tube feedings. Roark is doing very well and continues to out-do his little brother. We are guessing they will send him home soon, whereas Cole is still having issues breathing while eating and is just more tired and tiny than his big brother. We cannot bring him home until he has 7-10 days with no breathing / heart problems and considering he had several this morning while being fed, it may be a while. Poor Cole. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have to bring one boy home and leave the other there – whatever happened to “no man left behind” ??????

My girls are with us for all of July…which is making seeing the boys as much as I would like difficult. I would like to spend all day up there, however instead I get to take my oldest daughter and her friend to Driver’s Education for two hours everyday. My ex-husband’s wife agreed to take her friend everyday when they signed her up. She did this KNOWING that the girls were with me in July. Driver’s Ed is in July…this of course pisses me off. Like I don’t have enough to do with TWO newborn babies. Idiots.

Well – I decided to stop breastfeeding earlier this week. I just stopped cold turkey and OHMYMOTHERFUCKINGGOD my chest was killing me after 12 hours. I couldn’t function – so I pumped again. And low and behold my milk had doubled what it should be after that time-frame. And – it has been pretty abundant ever since. So – since I am against the cabbage-in-the-shirt thing (skeeves me out) I am still pumping. Go me. Could I be anymore indecisive? No – I could NOT!

Oh – and today is Day 1 of the South Beach Diet for me. I have done this one before and had fantastic results…so good-bye baby weight. I cannot wait to get back into my old clothes…unfortunately I am FAR, FAR away from that happening. I am currently wearing a size 12 jeans. Before I got pregnant last fall I was wearing size 4. I have so far to go. Damn McDonalds. I blame fast food and morning sickness and my thoughts that everything I was eating was going to the babies instead of my ass. I gained at least 35 pounds during the pregnancy and the boys weighed less than 6 pounds total. I – am now not pregnant – just fat.