Farewell to the gummy smiles

Evelyn and Clara both cut their first teeth today! Clara's is bottom left, Evelyn's is bottom right. How cute is that?? And it explains the less than spectacular moods they've been demonstrating.

Moving on. I subscribe to a Twin magazine that is mostly not worth the money. It tends to describe the obvious or is meant for new parents. For example, is it really "twin" related that I need to put sunscreen on my kids? As much as it's not very informative, it does provide at least one or two nuggets each issue that will keep me subscribing. Last month I found out that on birthdays there needs to be two cakes and two rounds of "Happy Birthday." Seems obvious now, but I never thought about it. This month I learned that some states are trying to pass laws that force twins to be separated in schools. I have mixed feeling about this - it's easy for me to say right now that I want them to be separated, but I can see how, in a few years, it'll be evident how detrimental separating them may be. So stay tuned to your local laws. This month's issues also listed "You know you have multiples if..." A sampling (with my chattering comments, free of charge in red):

• In the case of an unfortunate collision involving your stroller and a passing Hummer, the stroller takes the win. Seriously, the twin stroller is a pain in the ass. I will say, however, that people have been incredibly kind. I have not opened a door for myself in months. Even a 10 or 11 year old girl once held a door open for me.
• "You've got your hands full." Those are the five words most commonly uttered to you by the general public. The other comment I hear all the time is, "Are they twins?" No, they are triplets, have you seen the other one?/No, I just had them really close together. Either of these in-my-head retorts are followed by "...you idiot." Or my personal favorite is when people just exclaim, "Twins!" Yes, I am aware I have twins. But actually these comments don't bother me because they are at least addressed to me. What bothers me is when people comment on my twins (Oh, she has two babies/She has her hands full/Look, she has twins) as though I can't hear. I don't like feeling like a freak show. At least have the decency to not talk about me right in front of me.
• Your version of the ultra-luxurious "me time" involves a toothbrush, toothpaste, and two minutes by a sink. I actually have to share these two minutes with Alex so, technically, I can't even relate to this one.
• The gallery of people who see it fit to inform you that your twins are twice the work, twice the headache, and twice the expense will never understand the truth: your twins are twice the joy, twice the laughter, and exponentially priceless. On that note...

Take care,

Kris

6 month well baby

A couple congratulations are in order - First, to Mama Wannabe on the heartbeat of little peanut!!! Second, to the new arrival of Kellen and Taylor!

Evelyn and Clara had their 6 month visit today with Dr. Bud. Everything looks good. Evelyn's head is still gigantic, but he said it looks more proportionate to the rest of her body. For now, we'll still just watch without any planned follow-up. He also said we can branch out beyond rice cereal, let them sleep all 11 hrs at night without eating if they're up for it, and take Evelyn off Prevacid (Clara is stuck on it until she's at least 1, per her pulmonologist). Waaaay better than the last visit. Here are the stats (all percentiles are chronological meaning that we're no longer age-adjusting for the prematurity):

Evelyn

Weight - 15 lbs 12 oz (45%)
Height - 25 3/4 in (45%)
Head - 44.7 cm (96%)....aka huge


Clara (now, percentile-wise, bigger than Alex was at 6 months)
Weight - 13 lbs 2 oz (9%)
Height - 24 1/2 in (10%)
Head - 43 cm (60%)

As I was making the next appointment I spoke with the lady who does the referrals. She just wanted to check in with the girls and ooh and ahh about how big they are, etc. The scheduler also said something like, "Wow! I can't believe they are already 6 months old!" It made me very aware that these little girls are not even a little bit anonymous in that office. I used to take Alex in and never get a glimmer of recognition from anyone. Now, with the girls, it's like walking into a bar and everyone shouts "Norm!" It's a little weird, but really nice to feel like the girls have a cheering section.

We're doing a pulse ox test this week to see if Clara can come completely off the oxygen. I'm fairly confident, but not nearly as much as the last couple tests we've had with her. I'm trying to prepare myself for the doctor saying that she needs to stay on for another month. Cross your fingers though!

And, finally, a Ripley update (in case you care). She's getting better. Her eye is definitely healing as evidenced by the fact that I can look at her without shuddering.

Take care,
Kris

Father's Day

I love my dad. He's been an incredible source of strength throughout my whole life and especially in the last year. Since last August, he's listened, asked questions, supported us when we've needed support, and loved us when we've needed love. It's hard for me to imagine someone being as good a dad as my dad, but I think Greg is ranking pretty high on the Dad List. This guy has been amazing. Imagine the stress he's been under this year...now imagine it while being married to me. Doesn't sound so easy, eh? I have to say that he's managed it incredibly and he's been such a good husband and such a great dad to Alex, Evelyn, and Clara (and Ripley - more on that later). He single parented while I was in the hospital. He's done way more than his share of taking care of the babies since their return. And he's done everything with an ease that shocks me. So to my dad, to Greg, and to all other dads - Happy Father's Day!

In other news - Ripley's little eye got really bad last night and started to bleed. I took her to the ER where the vet had, "never seen anything like it." She was concerned about the eyeball getting pushed too much and is worried about long term damage (i.e. blindness) because of the pressure and the dryness from not being able to close her eyelids. Greg took her to a veterinary ophthalmologist this morning who suggested continuing the massive amounts of antibiotics and waiting on the MRI to try to save some cost. He doesn't think it's cancer - the onset is a little too sudden. The question remains as to whether or not there is debris stuck in there somewhere. If there is, the antibiotics won't do much and we'll have to prepare (in the vet's words "emotionally" and "financially") for risky, specialized surgery to remove debris. Fun for us. We also found out that Ripley has minor cataracts in both eyes and a detached retina in her left eye causing a blind spot. He doesn't think any of this is related to the recent eyeball gooiness. I changed my mind about posting photos of the nastiness....they're all the way at the bottom, so don't scroll all the way down if you don't want to see it :)

Okay, a few more photos of the past week. Enjoy! Well, you probably won't enjoy the photos of Ripley. Sorry.

Father's Day trip to the zoo

Alex is now into flossing his teeth.

The girls going on a walk with me (Evelyn left, Clara right)

Alex, babies, and I had a picnic lunch. He looks like he's on vacation in the Bahamas.

***************Ripley photos*****************

Poor little Ripley

News about our other baby, sweet little Beagle Ripley... She has got the most disgusting thing happening to her eye right now (I've decided against posting a photo of it because it has gotten so nasty looking). The vets are a little unclear about what is happening. A few thoughts...all are related to recent tooth extractions because of abscessed teeth. 1) The infection moved up to her eye, 2) the removal caused a hemorrhage behind her eye, 3) there is a bit of tooth or other debris stuck somewhere causing the bulging, or 4) something happened during the extraction to make a preexisting tumor evident. We're clearly hoping it's not Door #4. We'll continue with week 3 of antibiotics and pain meds to see if is subsides. Seriously, folks, I have soooo much appreciation for Greg on this one - I can barely look at Ripley (apparently, my love for her is conditional) there is no way I could rub the ointment on what, at this point, doesn't even resemble an eye. If it's still a big eyeball of nastiness after this week, Dr. Vet will put her back under to poke around, x-ray, etc to see what is going on in there.

Okay, so once there was an episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets a spring stuck in his eye. I had a near panic attack about it....and it was a cartoon. Can you imagine what actual eyeball problems are doing to me? She can only close her eye partway because it's so swollen. And there is some kind of chunky thing in it......

Therapy photos and video

Here are some photos mostly of therapy type stuff, in case you were curious.

Happy girls! You can really see the 3 lb difference in this one. (Clara left, Evelyn right)

My favorite picture I've taken of them. Clara is being Clara, thinking that whatever noise I'm making is the funniest thing ever. Evelyn is completely unimpressed. You can practically hear her thinking about how unimpressed she is...I imagine this in a French accent for some reason.

Alex helping with tummy time. Clara had just rolled over.

Evelyn trying to go from back to front.

Evelyn hating the force to the right.

Clara holding rings

Evelyn holding rings

Clara on a bolster finding her hand.

Tracking a toy

Clara trying to roll from back to front.

Evelyn struggling to look to the right.

Evelyn grabbing a toy

Video of Evelyn getting forced rolling. Please excuse my Rolly Polly song. I talk and sing to myself all day long.

Video of tracking while on tummy

Spying on you

Greg set up the analytics feature on the blog so I can spy on all of you (Ha ha! Take that, voyeurs). I wish we had set it up from the beginning because I'm obsessed with seeing what search terms people use to get to my blog. A couple things strike me though. First of all, the posts of mine that show up the most are the ones where I'm being especially crabby. I know I tend to be a little crabby, but it makes me sad that people aren't being routed to my more hopeful or cheerful posts. One post, in particular, was getting viewed enough that I felt the need to add a little note at the bottom recanting a little. I had some, shall we say, bad days in the hospital. I was grateful to be there, grateful for the wonderful care, grateful to have an excuse to not be jeopardizing my pregnancy by running around after a 2 1/2 year old or feeling obligated to vacuum, and grateful to put my job aside and rest and take care of my body. That being said, I was super grouchy, tended toward a lot of crying, and was a general mess. One night I yelled (I mean yelled) at the lady on the phone at the food delivery place because they forgot my order and I was stuck with late-night hospital food....aka PB&J at 11:30 PM. Okay - so one day, my absolutely fantastic nurse practitioner caught me on a particularly grouchy day and I took it out on her on my blog. Not particularly mature, but I was in a slightly dark place. I felt terrible about it almost immediately. It wasn't her fault that I had babies inside me trying to kill each other. So now I feel sick that when people search "momo twins" they get that nasty little post. My apologies to my lovely NP.

The second thing about the search terms people use that struck me was how sad they are. They are things like:

• Momo twins dying
• Momo twin mortality
• Momo twin survival rate (catching a theme here?)
• Grade 1 hemorrhage
• How to deal with decels
• ...and so on.

They are sad because I remember those dark nights...2:00 in the morning with me at the computer typing in all of these horrible things to find any information I could about momo twins, tears streaming down my face, and praying that I wouldn't have to give birth to "angel babies" or babies with severe special needs. It was incredibly frustrating to have a medical condition so rare with so little available information. Last night at Sunday Night Dinner, Lexie was telling me about these momo twin onesies that I remembered seeing on one of those dark nights. They said "We defied the odds." Can you imagine? I remember just bursting into tears when I saw them. Now, months later, the part that bothers me about these onesies is how unfair they are to everyone with babies who didn't defy the odds. I get really upset when people say they just "knew" or had "a gut feeling" that everything would be okay - it really negates our struggle, but more importantly, it's really unfair to the families who prayed just as hard, hoped just as much, and still had babies who died.

Sorry, I'm feeling a little reflective today. I'm also much more ready to be honest about how tough the last year has been. I edited out a lot of my emotional state at the time because I didn't want people treating me like I was fragile. Now I can look back and more easily laugh about the absurd parts and cry about the sad parts. I'm not a different person than I was before, but I have developed a greater sensitivity to the struggles of others.

Take care,
Kris

Catching up

The girls had an excellent therapy appointment today. The therapist said again that we are clearly doing a lot of work because the girls are leaps and bounds ahead of where they were 3 weeks ago. This is really important to me for two reasons - 1) it means the girls are catching up and 2) it means that the decision to quit my job and be home with the girls was the right one. I've joked about the therapy being a part-time job, but it isn't a joke. I spend hours everyday working with them. Our assignment for next week for each girl is 2-3 hours/day of tummy time, 20 sit-ups/day, forced rolling 2-3 times/day, and baby massage. This is all in addition to neck stretches, visual tracking, and hand grasping exercises that we are also working on. I'm not kidding - it's a ton of work. And we're working on eventually getting tummy time up to 4-6 hours a day (or approximately half their waking hours). It's exhausting! My back hurts from being on the floor all day long :)

It was good to get the positive feedback. I think I really needed it to make myself feel better. If they weren't making such nice progress it would be improbable that I would keep up the pace. So, basically, here's where they're at - both of their head lags (that head hanging back thing that happens when you try to lift them) have improved to about 90% of where they should be chronologically. Evelyn, whose side preference to the left has been pretty severe, now has a nearly full range of motion in an upright and tummy positions. She still struggles when she's flat on her back to look to the right.

The therapist said to reasonably expect them to be strong crawlers by 12 months and caught up completely by 18 months. That is huge! Usually you hope for a complete catch up between 2-3 years. I mean 3 weeks ago they were tolerating ten 2-3 minute sessions on their tummy a day and now Evelyn can do 30 minutes at a time (Clara more like 15-20) without even fussing. It's fantastic. She also said that it's important for the motor stuff to hurry along to make way for some of the other important developmental milestones. So, the sooner the better.

One last thing about therapy - she said that with each visit she's looking for indications of neurological problems and so far hasn't seen anything at all. She said they are really just "catching up." It actually brings me to tears (of joy) to think of this. The past year has had some really deep lows and to see a light at the end of this craptastic momo twin tunnel is astonishingly exciting.

Oh, I also keep meaning to mention that Greg's Co-momo-tion blog has officially ended and made way for That Tree is Far Away (see link to the left). I understand it will be a place for him to try to be funny or to reveal to his reading public how much of a curmudgeon he is becoming :) Anyway, check it out. His most recent post is interesting (to me, anyway) because it adds up all our medical bills to the cool sum of nearly one meelion dollars. Thank God for insurance!

Take care,
Kris