One Nice Thing About Today

I just ran across this picture of my sister and me during my senior year of high school. (Sorry the quality is kinda poor.) Can you tell which one I am?

I think Zana and Elira really, really look alike, but I just keep wondering if they are identical or not.

I really need to go to bed right now, so let me make this quick. Today we had our first serious meltdown of all three kids. They did really well at church…Zana just had to be taken out of the last few minutes of the third hour.

When we got home, Andrew refused to eat lunch and his nap was too short. The girls also couldn’t seem to get enough sleep and food.

We tried our usual method of keeping things calm on Sunday evenings: a walk to the park next to our house. This involved me carrying a kicking, screaming Andrew, who refused to hold my hand when walking in the street, while Scott tried to deliver cookies to a neighbor who is taking lessons from the missionaries. The park was fun, but the whole trip backfired. When Andrew realized we were on our way home, he began running back to the park and ended up with me carrying a kicking, screaming little guy again.

At home, the girls began crying for food. I tried to feed them. Andrew kept screaming while Scott tried to cut his hair really quickly (which we’d been putting off, because he’s scared of it, but he was already screaming, so we just went for it), give him a quick bath, get him into pajamas, give him his bedtime snack…which is usually followed by teeth brushing, prayer and kisses for the girls. That last part was eliminated, except for bedtime prayer.

Finally, all are in bed! And now I’m off to bed, without any proofreading of this post.

So it’s 4:30pm on Mother’s Day. It’s been a nice day. Right now everyone is asleep except me…Andrew is taking his late, after-church nap, the girls got fed and bathed and put in bed, then Scott fell asleep too. I wasn’t sure what I should do with all this alone time, so I just thought I’d make one comment:

I don’t think Scott realizes that he’s not allowed to take a nap if he’s still planning on doing the cooking tonight and making tacos for us all, and if he’s planning on getting Andrew dinner by 5pm (the little boy gets super cranky in the evening if he hasn’t eaten by then).

I’m just teasing, but should I help him out and get the taco meat out of the freezer, or should I just leave it all up to him? Hehe.

So it took a full year, before Andrew could sleep through the night consistently. Not to mention the torture of bouncing him, rocking him and pushing him in a stroller to get him to fall asleep. And the torture of him crying when we finally got strict about him going to sleep on his own…that was my hardest time as a parent so far.

Zana and Elira on the other hand…started sleeping through the night already (10:00pm to 6:00am). All I have to do is swaddle them and lay them in bed. Sometimes they cry a little and I pick them up, comfort them for a second and lay them back down. They’re like magic or something.

I tend to assume that, despite trying to make Andrew a good sleeper, I must have gotten myself into the trap of bouncing him, etc. At the same time, I just feel really lucky that the girls sleep so well. Life would be so much harder if they didn’t. So should I take the blame for Andrew’s sleeping habits and the credit for the girls’, or do I just assume it was in their personalities and I’m just lucky this time around?

Either way, dealing with twins and a 21-month old is not hard at all as long as you’ve gotten enough sleep!

Meijer brand cereals were on sale for $1.50 per box when I was doing some grocery shopping the other day, so I thought it would be good to try some. Scott and I usually end up liking off brand cereals more than their name brand counterparts.  Marshmallow Matey are my personal favorite, beating Lucky Charms with more frosting coating the non-marshmallow pieces; Scott prefers Cocoa Dino Bites and Fruity Dino Bites.

However, Scott’s review of Blueberry Muffin Squares (which admittedly do not have a name brand counterpart) was: “Dry they taste like blueberry muffins…with milk they taste like milked-down blueberry muffins.”

He didn’t like them. I haven’t tried them with milk, but I got a little scared when I noticed that they are high in iridium and zinc (see photo above). I’m not really sure what iridium would do to you, but it’s likely not good as it’s close to platinum and gold. Sure they really meant iron and zinc, but if you’re going to make your label look like an elemental symbol, you had better use the right one.

Besides, who wouldn’t know that Fe is the elemental symbol of iron? Everyone remembers their high school chemistry right?

Just like my Blue Granny sewing machine, I don’t think her sister, Aunt Silver, will ever die. When I started college, I inherited this mixer from a friend’s mom along with half the kitchen stuff I still use. Aunt Silver weighs a ton, and it’s a little scary that she doesn’t have a three-prong grounding electrical plug, but we expect her to remain with us for another 10 years or so. Who needs a Kitchen Aid? (I probably do, but I never really seen how they are used, so I don’t know what I’m missing.)

After testing my patience and sanity for a full 39 weeks and 6 days, I finally went in to labor and the twins were finally born. I suspected I would go into labor that day, because I suddenly needed to clean everything, go grocery shopping and finish all the projects I have been putting off for weeks. Not letting my doctor induce me at 39 weeks ended up being a really good decision. I learned that, yes, eventually my body would go into labor on its own. If I had been induced, I would have to spend my whole next pregnancy wondering about that again.

I was handling the contractions pretty well I thought. They hurt, but if I relaxed before one started I could deal with it. Whenever I couldn’t relax enough, like while driving and riding in a wheelchair to the labor and delivery floor, the contractions felt 10 times worse.

I just kept lying and relaxing on the bed dealing with contractions. Scott had to talk me through a few of them, but mostly if no one touched me or talked to me, I could relax through them. So it turns out that I was right about contractions with pitocin hurting me a lot more than my body’s own contractions…I’m so glad I wasn’t induced!

I was also much more prepared and knew to just lie there and relax, instead of trying to move around like I did with Andrew. However, I also learned that contractions are not magically painless for me (I’m too much of an optimist, but I really thought it was possible). They hurt a lot and I was glad when my epidural arrived. Getting an epidural made it go from a lot of work to no work at all, it was nice.

Getting moved to an operating room to deliver (standard procedure with twins) was terrible, because my blood pressure dropped and I almost fainted. Pushing was a breeze and Zana came out without any trouble. I got to see her real quick and then they tried turning Elira. It’s sad Elira wouldn’t turn from her breach position, because having a c-section was not much fun and two easy deliveries would have been nicer. Elira sneezed on me when they held her up for me to see.

And that was that. I had two little girlies, and the craziness was just about to get started.

Here’s a brief timeline of how the thing went down for those like me who like numbers:

• 3am Woke up, fairly strong contractions coming every 7-8 minutes.
• 4am Made Scott wake up and get me a banana, continued ordering him around.
• 5:30am Monica arrived to watch Andrew. We’d been planning for a month on having her watch Andrew when I went into labor. That morning she happened to have been on her way to the temple and was worrying that I might go into labor and she wouldn’t be there. I guess we called her right before she headed out the door, so the timing there must have been divinely inspired.
• 6am Arrived at hospital, I was at 6 cm and 100% effaced.
• 8am, Got an epidural, I was at 7 cm, watched Full House and just hung out.
• 10am, I was at 9 cm.
• 11am, I was at 10 cm…yay! Got all set up for possible c-section if second baby wouldn’t turn from being breach.
• 12:10pm All set up, time to start pushing. Pushed a little.
• 12:20pm Zana was born, doctors tried to turn the second baby, but she wouldn’t turn.
• 12:37pm Had a c-section, Elira was born.

The babies are doing really well and are getting bigger. They are 6 lbs and 6 lbs 10 oz. They have plenty of fluid, the placentas are looking great still and everything is still going smoothly.

I am now dilated to 4 cm and 75% effaced, so there’s been a little progress, but not a whole lot. I have another doctor’s appointment on Thursday that will not be quite so long, since I won’t have to do an ultrasound. Then next Monday I’ll have another long doctor’s appointment.

I still haven’t really had much real contracting going on, so I guess that’ll kick in someday. Scott says the likelihood that I would never go into labor is slim to none, so hopefully they’ll come soon.

This morning’s doctor’s appointments took forever! We got there at 7am for an ultrasound, and then waited from 7:30am until 8:15am for the non-stress test (putting the babies on monitors to watch their heart beats). No one was around yet that could approve of how they looked, so I was hooked up for nearly an hour. Then the doctor was late because she was on call in labor and delivery and she finally saw us at 10am. We waited around for them to fix up next week’s appointments and finally got out of there by 10:20am. Sheesh.

So I’m dilated to a 3 and 50% effaced, and they think it’s likely that I’ll go into labor soonish. They are also willing to let me go all the way to 40 weeks, as long as the babies look good still. (Is it worth it to go to another one of these long appointments, just to give myself another week to not be induced? Probably, I guess.) So the hope is that I go into labor as soon as possible, but I still have some time.

The presenting baby is head down, so I can try a vaginal delivery. However, the second baby is breech (has been for a few weeks). This means that once the first is out, they will have to try and turn the second one head down. If they can’t turn her, then they’ll have to do a C-section, since none of the doctors at this hospital are experienced in breech delivery. I’d be willing to try a breech delivery, but I don’t think they really are. That would mean I would be recovering from a vaginal delivery AND a C-section…not fun! But I figure it’s a better option than just scheduling a C-section. So the other hope is that the second one will turn easily when the time comes.

Our internet and phone were broken all morning, which was a pain. Scott had to drive over to the cable company twice and then borrow our neighbors phone to make them fix it.

Anyway, On Tuesday the babies were doing something weird to my hips and I couldn’t walk. I had no pain while I was just sitting or laying, but I could not move my legs to walk without a lot of pain. I actually had to crawl around the apartment. Scott came home, and I got some crutches from a member of our ward, but I haven’t had any problems since.

Yesterday, we had to clean out our cupboards and pantry for a mandatory bug spray of the entire apartment building. So we had to be out of the apartment for a few hours. Luckily a friend had us over for lunch and we hung out at her house. It totally messed up Andrew’s nap schedule though, and I felt exhausted by the end of the day.

That’s all that’s new. We haven’t decided on names, but we’ve narrowed our list considerably. We still have to make sure no surprise boys pop out.