Pictures of our girls

Yes we had the babies!

As you might have guessed, we did have our twin girls. We all just arrived home from the hospital on Monday the 21st and I haven't had a chance to update this until now (as you might imagine I'm busy). The girls were born on Monday, July 14th both at 5:53pm. No one gets the claim to fame for being a minute older. Leila is technically the big sister, however. I was admitted to the hospital on Friday the 11th because my blood pressue was high. My doctor was out of town, but wanted me to come in to check my bp since he's been worried about preeclampsia. Since it was still high at the hopsital I got admitted and stayed there throughout the weekend until the induction started at 11pm on Sunday night. The stay was ok, it turns out I did develp preeclampsia. All the nurses kept saying, why are you still pregnant? I guess my doctor wanted me to hold out until he got back into town on Monday. Anyhow, we started the induction on Sunday night late and kept the process going on into Monday. At about 9:00am the doctor broke my water to put an internal lead on Leila's head to better monitor her heart rate and they monitored Alice's with the external dopplar. I got my epidural at about 10:30am and man does pitocin make contractions miserable. The epidural was a good thing. By 4:30 when my doctor checked me after his office hours, I had not progressed much at all and the talk of a c-section started up. I was all for it and ready to just have my babies. We decided that was the way to go. So off to the operating room and out came the babies. Leila was born first and was screaming and perfect. Alice came out a fast second, but had some troubles. Leila weight 5lbs 14oz and Alice weight 6lbs 2.5 oz. They were both born via c-section at 5:53pm. Alice's first breath was full of amniotic fluid and mucous. She was crying, but only scored a 3 on her apgar (not good at all). By the time she was in the nursery she was turning blue and needing some help. Thomas said they quickly got her under an oxygen hood, hooked up an oxygen saturation monitor, and started an IV. They also did a chest x-ray and realized that her right lung was pretty full of fluid. She was in the incubator with oxygen and IV until Saturday the 19th. She didn't get to eat anything until the 19th as well because she was breathing so hard and fast that she'd choke on more fluid. She pulled through and is doing great now. I'm feeding her and I think she's the better eater of the two. Leila is doing great as well. She's very loving and looks into my eyes the whole time she eats (unless she's too sleepy). Here are just a few of the pictures...I'll add more later.

Thomas and Leila
Leila (left) and Alice
Alice (left) and Leila
Alice (left) and Leila
Alice (left) and Leila
Leila

Alice in her incubator
Leila and Alice together in the nursery
Leila in deep thought
Mom and Leila

The baby quilts

As many of you know, my mother is an award winning quilter and has her own company quilting for the public (although she is on hiatus now that the babies are near). Here are some pictures of the quilts she made for Leila and Alice. I picked the pattern and we picked out the fabrics together.

Here is Leila's quilt top:


And her quilt back:


And her quilt label:


Here's Alice's quilt top:


Here's Alice's quilt back:


And Alice's quilt label:


Here's the strawberry pattern my mom quilted on both quilts:


A teacher that Thomas worked with at Midland High, Karen Dirks, suprised us with a package in the mail that contained two baby quilts! They are slightly different from each other.

We have a date!!!!!!!!!

It's true! We have a date for induction. How exciting! I had my 36 week 1 day appointment today. I gained 5 pounds from last week (wow, some of it is swelling though). I am now officially up to 45 pounds. My knees feel it! My blood pressure was ok today, but a little higher than it's been the past few weeks. Still no other signs of preeclampsia, but my OB is worried that it will turn into that quickly. He's gonna start checking me more often for blood pressure just to keep on the up and up with it. I'm still on bed rest until delivery so no shopping at the mall (I'm so disappointed....not). Well, on to the big day....we'll let you all know when it happens, but I'm not going to make it public in order to limit hospital visits. I think we'll have our hands full just trying to figure out what you do with babies and might want all the rest we can get. I'll say it's not soon enough, but at least it's a date that I can look forward to. We go back to see our OB on Monday and hopefully all will still be on track at that time. He can't change his mind at this point can he? I was prepared to beg or bribe him today if he didn't give me a date.... so I got to keep my dignity.

On to the babies, their heartbeats sounded good, we did a quick sonogram and they are both still head down. Their heads are at the same level in my hips which explains why my pelvis feels like it is going to split in half (two heads down there!!! ahhhh). He did another internal exam and I'm still just 1 cm dilated, but the heads had dropped a bit.

I've been feeling ok, since Friday, the 4th I have felt a little off. I just cannot get comfortable no matter what. I can hardly make it through a shower at this point b/c I can't stand for any longer than 5 minutes without excruciating back pain. I can't do baths b/c I can't get in and out of the bath..... Big bellies make life interesting. My mom came over today and put some shelf paper on some of the kitchen cabinets so we can have a place to keep bottles and baby accouterments.

I go in Friday to get my blood pressure checked and then again on Monday. Keep you all updated!!!! Thanks for reading.

Out of the woods for high blood pressure

For now at least. My blood pressure has been great lately. Probably due to the strict bedrest that I stick pretty closely to. I went in to my OB yesterday and the babies heart beats sound good, my weight is good (40lb gain so far), blood pressue great, babies moving great, urine great, and the repeat of the 24 hour urine collection and blood work came back perfectly normal. My doctor just wants to see me once a week for now. We'll do another quick sonogram next week to make sure they are still both head down. I had the Group B strep culture taken and an internal exam. I'm 1cm dilated. Doctor says everything is perfectly normal. My belly is measuring 41 weeks (I was 35 weeks 1 day yesterday at the appt.). Doctor says it could be any day now. I'm betting I'll hold on a while more though.

My belly has been dancing with all the feet, hands, elbows, knees, butts, backs, etc. I love it and I know I'll be missing it soon.