Connor's new favorite

The Bouncer!

He likes the vibration and he LOVES the music. He gets a funny relaxed look on his face and eventually falls asleep.We only have one of these but if it's a hit with Chloe too, we'll just have to get another one!

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What's Chloe been up to?

Well, she's still hanging out in her little condo (the incubator thing) in the Special Care Nursery.

She needs to be able to complete her full bottles and she needs to gain weight.We have good and bad feedings and I start to get my hopes up and then my heart aches with every bad feeding. I just want her to be able to tolerate the food and digest it properly so he can get bigger and healthier so she can come home.

She has started throwing up after feedings the last 2 days so last night they ordered an X-ray of her abdomen and it came back fine, but they stopped all of her feedings for the night and cleaned out her belly to try to start fresh and we're hoping there's no more bile in her tummy this morning. But no feedings means they had to put an IV in her head. I had to leave before I saw them do that...I'm too emotional to watch all of the things she has to go through. It's extremely hard to watch my baby go through all of this.

It's also difficult and stressful to try to figure out how to be a new mommy to a baby at home and also make frequent trips daily to see your other baby in the hospital. What makes it even harder is that Connor isn't allowed back in the nursery so we have to find someone to watch him everyday because I haven't been allowed to drive after my c-section (until tomorrow!).It's hard to leave either one of them and also feel like I'm being a good mommy and giving them each the attention that they need.

Update: The IV is in her foot, not her head. Thank goodness!

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Birth Story

I'm not sure if you want all of the details of the c-section, but basically it was scheduled for 9:00 am on Thursday, January 19th and the morning was pretty hectic. Nurses and doctors coming into get me all ready. And my parents and grandparents showed up right in time because the doctor was ready to get the show on the road and I was taken back to the operating room around 8:30.

It's so hard to even imagine I had that big belly now! It's so crazy how much your body changes in the days after delivery!

Daddy getting ready.

It was a little scary after that. I was nervous about the procedure and what all I would actually feel and the pain I would be in afterwards. But David tried to keep m calm and I could tell how excited he was to finally see our babies.

Then it started happening pretty fast. I had a lot of fluid and I guess Connor was in a weird spot or something because it took a little time to get him out and it felt like they even had to push Chloe a little farther up to get him out and that was a little uncomfortable. I couldn't breathe and felt a lot of pressure.

But then came the babies!

Connor

Chloe

I think this was Connor. It's pretty much all I got to see of the babies for 12 hours! Because they were immediately taken to the Special Care Nursery, they weren't allowed to come to my too and because of my c-section, I wasn't allowed to get out of bed for 12 hours.

So David ran around, greeting family and spreading the news and taking visitors back to see them.

This is a picture of both of them straight out of the operating room on the way to the nursery.

Connor

Chloe

Chloe and Connor's great-grandparents, my Mamaw and Papaw drove all the way from Alabama to be here for the birth. This is them with Chloe.

Proud Daddy getting to feed them...while I was stuck in bed! I'm so sad I missed all of these moments but David did such a good job about keeping me updated and by taking so many pictures and bringing them back to show me.

I finally got to get out of bed around 9:30 that night and I got wheeled down to the nursery.

Then, the next few days were filled with visitors. We tried to get pictures of everyone that came to visit, but I know we missed a few in there. If your reading this, we're so sorry and we really do appreciate you!

And when we didn't have visitors, we were busy spending time with them in the nursery, changing diapers and giving feedings, and getting weighed, and having our first baths.

Chloe

Chloe

Connor

Chloe

This was the door to my room.

What an amazing day! Our lives will never be the same!

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Update on babies

I want to update everyone on where the babies are now, and then I'll do a post about delivery day later.

Connor got to come home with us on the same day I was released, this past Monday.

But Chloe had to stay in the Special Care Nursery. She is still so small and she isn't digesting her food well so that's making it hard for her to gain weight. She was also having trouble maintaining her temperature and they think that she's burning so man calories trying to stay warm that it's preventing her from gaining weight.

So before we left , she was put on a feeding tube to help supplement the food she wasn't taking from the bottle. So we feed her from the bottle as much as she will eat within a certain amount of time so she doesn't wear herself out and then she takes the rest of the bottle through the tube.

Yesterday, she was out into an isolate, or what some people call an incubator, to try to help her maintain her temperature without her having to do some much of the work herself.

I know this looks a little sad, but it's actually really good for her and it's really helping her improve. We're able to take her out when we need to and to feed her.

And when we were up there last night, I was trying to do a little bit of skin time with her since I'm not able to be with her all the time and we're not able to breast feed her because she will use up too much energy (skin time is where we take her clothes off and she lays on my skin on my chest) and she starting moving her head all around with her mouth open like she was ready to eat. And I told David that I think she's wanting to breast feed! And we had not even attempted this yet because we didn't want to wear her out before her real feeding since my milk had not fully come in yet. So I just let her go for it and it was working! She was getting milk and she wasn't letting go! So the nurses ran and wanted to weigh her really fast to judge how much milk she was actually getting and she had gained 9 grams! That was such an improvement from what we had seen in the last couple of days.

So I'm sending all of my breast milk to the hospital for her because she's been able to digest it so much better and the report from the nurse this morning was that she even finished an entire bottle without the need for the tube! And her temperature is getting better so she might be out of the isolate soon.

We're not sure how close she is to coming home and we can only take it day by day. But we are keeping our fingers crossed that she gets better, gains a ton if weight, and can maybe come home by this weekend.

And as upset as I get every time we have to leave her, I think this might be a way we can get things figured out with Connor at home and then we will know what we're doing when she gets home!

We've had 2 sleepless nights so far, but I'm not complaining! The only thing I hate is that I can't be with Chloe. Connor isn't allowed back up to the nursery, and I'm not allowed to drive yet, so we're having to come up with a plan everyday on how we're going to manage being with Chloe and keeping Connor at home. I hate leaving either one of them so I'm hoping this is almost over.

Here are a few pictures of the together before we left the hospital Monday night. They had only seen each other once before because they were hooked up to monitors.

Every once in a while Connor would open his eyes and just stare at his sister. It was very sweet.

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Daddy

David is such an amazing daddy already and it warms my heart to watch him with the babies.

Daddy and Chloe

The day the babies were born, David was in charge of everything. I wasn't able to see the babies for the first 12 hours of their lives because I had a c-section and I was on bed rest recovering and the babies were in the Special Care nursery hooked up to monitors so they weren't allowed to come into my room.

So during that whole 12 hours, David went to all of the feedings and got to show the babies off to visitors and had lessons from all of the nurses on how to do everything.When I finally got to go see the babies at 9:30 that night, I was amazed at what a pro he was at everything. I was jealous that he had gotten to bond with them already and that they didn't know who I was. But I got my chance the next day and now David and I get to take care of them together.

Daddy and Connor

Seeing him with our babies makes me love him more than ever and I realize how lucky I am to have him.

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First family picture

And first picture together:

Connor (left) and Chloe (right)

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Introducing...

Connor Brooks Dunaway

Born on January 19th, 2012

8:50 am

6 lbs 12 oz

Chloe Brynn Dunaway

Born on January 19th, 2012

8:52 am

4 lbs 15 oz

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12 hours left

12 hours left until I'm a momma!

It still doesn't feel like this is even really happening. I'm anxious and nervous about the c-section part but extremely excited to finally meet these babies that are going to make us a family.

But I'm still worried about how things are going to go. I knew I would never be able to relax until I have these babies in my arms and they are healthy. I think that has to do with the whole infertility and miscarriage. Normally, people decide to get pregnant and they do the normal thing and have no problems and just get pregnant when they are ready or when they decide the perfect birthday is. And then they go through a normal pregnancy for 40 weeks, their water breaks or they are induced and just like that, they have their baby.

But our situation was nothing like that at all. We had to try for 3 1/2 years, experiment with different treatments until something finally worked and then had to go through a miscarriage, which is completely normal for a lot of people, but when you are dealing with infertility and you get pregnant, you feel like all of your problems are over and when a miscarriage happens, you feel like its never going to happen and the feeling of having to start all over again is devastating. And then after the miscarriage we had more problems getting pregnant and then FINALLY, IVF worked and we were so excited. But we went through the first 12 weeks with so much fear that these babies would be taken away from us too.
But each week became more exciting and we started to think that this might actually work for us this time. I was still nervous to start the nursery and buy cribs and actually throw the boxes away because how would we return them if we lost the babies? And even having a shower was nerve racking because I just kept imagining how embarrassing it would be to return all of those gifts if we lost the babies.

Then I was diagnosed with ICP and there was a constant worry that the babies wouldn't make it and I would hold my breath with each ultrasound until I saw heartbeats.
And the of course it had to keep getting worse, right? Preeclampsia which resulted in this hospital stay. But the hospital stay really was for the best and I get to hear the babies' heartbeats 3 times a day so I know they are ok.

So we've made it this far and through all of that, here I sit, 12 hours away from meeting my babies, and I'm still not convinced everything is going to turn out ok. But it's out of my hands and it's almost all over. I'm so excited to be able to see these miracle babies that we've been waiting so long for.

Also, I want to mention something else, for everyone that has come to my blog because of their own infertility struggles and they found me and it made them feel not so alone. I used to do the same thing, so I realize how comforting it is to know someone else has been through the same thing.
I always told David that if I ever got pregnant I would NOT complain on second about my pregnancy. But what have I done? I've complained and I've cried because of the pain. I had no idea how hard it would be to carry 2 babies and the other health problems along the way didn't help either. I swelled up so bad that it's been painful to even get out of bed each night to use the restroom. I've had one baby's head in my cervix for the past month that feels like he's trying to claw his way out every time he moves and I've had another baby dig herself into my ribs making it hard to even sit down. It's hard to not complain about the discomfort. But I can't stand it when I hear someone say "pregnancy sucks!" All of this has just made me realize even more how much of a miracle having a baby really is. And it doesn't suck.
I just keep telling myself that it's not the just the pregnancy we worked so hard for, it's these babies and our family. I probably won't even remember one bit of the pain and discomfort once these babies are here.
So I hope I didn't disappoint anyone or upset anyone with my complaints on this blog, because I truly am the most excited and happy I've ever been in my life. I've looked forward to being a mom for so long and I will never take it for granted.

I will try to update as soon as I can about the babies tomorrow. I have a feeling it's going to be a very long and busy day!

Goodnight!


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I'm back...

In the hospital, that is.

We went in to what would have been our last appointment with the doctor before the c-section and I ended up getting admitted to the hospital again for high blood pressure. And my labs came back with high protein levels which means I have preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is pretty common with twins and with the ICP liver thing I have going on.

So since we're so close to the c-section date and the babies are looking really good (I'll post new ultrasound pictures tomorrow when I have a little more energy and tons of time to kill), the doctor wants me to stay in the hospital to monitor my blood pressure and the babies up until delivery and he wants me on 100% bed rest to try to bring my blood pressure down. He is also trying to move my c-section up to Thursday instead of Friday. So I only have one more boring day in here before the babies are born.

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35 Weeks!

Pregnancy Highlights:
How Far Along: 35 Weeks

Size of babies: 18.2 inches long

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Gained 59.6 lbs

Maternity Clothes: Full time sweatpants and pjs now since I'm not working.

Gender: A boy and a girl :)

Movement: Yes, a lot lately. And Baby Boy is head down, like he has been the whole time, and his head is inching more and more into my cervix and it's pretty painful when he feels like he need to readjust his head placement. It feels like fingernails trying to scrape his way out.

Sleep: Sleeping a little bit better. I finally figured out how to get comfortable but I usually only sleep about 2 hours at a time and then I have to get up to pee and I can't get back to sleep. But I nap pretty good.

What I miss: Just simple everyday things like putting my socks on. I can't really reach my feet anymore and everything takes so long to do.

Cravings: Nothing specific, but my hunger is picking up and I feel like I'm starving all the time.

Symptoms: Swelling, heartburn, swelling, hunger, and more swelling

Best Moment this week: Getting to see how big the babies are and finally getting her to look at us while we had an ultrasound for the first time since the first measurement.

Only one week left people!!!