Exhaustion

I now have so much respect for all mommies and must say that I now truly know the meaning of the word "exhaustion". I thought I knew before. I thought staying up until 3am in college and then rolling out of bed for an 8am class was exhaustion. I thought getting up at 4am to study in grad school was exhaustion. I thought if I didn't find my bed after a night of less than 5 hours of sleep I was exhausted. Nope. I think I now really know what it means to be so so so tired. Our girls are precious. I mean, they are perfection in my book!! But they are going on 11 weeks and until last night I hadn't gotten more than 4 hours in a row of sleep since they have been born. Most nights would consist of us desperately trying to get Zoe to go down (Nora goes right to sleep) and then around 12-1 once Zoe was out Nora would wake up and scream (not wanting to eat I will add) until about 3am when then Zoe would promptly wake up to eat. So we feed both girls, change them, put them back in their swaddles, and spend until around 4am getting everyone back astleep. Sometimes 4:30. Then we go back to bed, fall astleep and would wait for the 6am starvation cries and I would get back up and do that one myself because Lance leaves at 6:30 and so begins our day! So if you are doing the math that is about 2.5 TOTAL hours of sleep a night. To say I was beginning to lose it is an understatement! We feed the girls at the EXACT same time all day long so we really don't know why the have fallen into such opposite sleeping patterns. However, the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to shine a teensy bit because last night Zoe did her typical stay up until 11:30ish however she then slept until almost 7am!!! And Nora did her typical wake up but not until 3am!! So we slept from about 11:45-3:00 then from about 4-6!! It was heavenly and I have been so happy and hopeful all day!! I just know they are on the cusp on real sleep!! Well they sleep ok now, but I think we may finally be about to see some synchronized sleep!! Here's hoping right!! :)

2 months!

Well another month down with these two little precious angels and I am happy to report we are all still alive! It has been the hardest, most exciting, exhausting, fun month we've ever had. People have been asking me how I have been doing and the answer to that is I'm doing great until I'm not. These angels of ours have been the greatest gift imaginable and they are easy babies for the most part, but OH MY GOODNESS...caring for twin infants 24/7 is hard work people!

Zoe and Nora are such sweet little girls and are starting to smile a lot and really interact with us. When a particularly good mood strikes both girls at the same time we get to enjoy tummy time and they love to lay on their play mat and look at books and toys. They have become much more alert and will follow you all around the room with their little eyes smiling at you. It makes even the hardest days worth it. They are great little eaters and sleepers and I would say we have gotten lucky with that considering we have two. They still love to be outside and even the worst of meltdowns can usually be quickly remedied by a session of singing on the porch swing. They both love to be cuddled and would spend the entire day in my arms or in the sling if they could. Zoe continues to be our more outgoing, alert one and typically stays awake longer stretches during the day, sleeps longer at night, and usually eats a little more as well. Although she started out exhausting us with her screaming, she has transformed into a very predictable, very very easy baby. She will sleep 6-7 hour stretches at night (maybe longer...not sure bc she eats when Nora eats) and just eats, sleeps, and plays all day with very little problem. However, when Zoe does have a problem the neighbors can probably hear her shrill scream. That is until she goes hoarse from screaming so loud! :) Nora continues to be our calm little baby and only gets super worked up when she is really hungry and every evening from about 6-9 (more on that later). She loves to be held and although she is quiet in volume compared to her sister she never stops squeaking or grunting around. She has reflux and we are working hard to get her feeling good! But she has the biggest smile and will look up at me often with her huge blue eyes while nursing or taking a bottle and give me the biggest smile! Its precious! Both girls have come to love the car, bathtub, and laying in their vibrating chairs. We also just introduced the swing and they seem to like that too. Pretty much they are just awesome and we love them so much!

As wonderful as they are I will have to admit that some things have just been downright hard. Here are a few things that often make my days really exhausting.

-The girls are quite different and have different needs. Keeping twins on the "same schedule" sounds great in theory but when they go through growth spurts at different times, and are sleepy and hungry at different times as a result it can be hard. Trying to decide to "wake or not to wake" a sleeping baby just because sister is hungry can be a hard decision. However, when I have decided to let each baby dictate their own day I have found myself feeding a baby every hour or so and that's no fun for anyone. My personality is not one to make a baby eat on a schedule, however I have had to just accept the fact that I can't be the kind of mom who just nurses on demand when a baby wants to eat. Its been a hard reality/adjustment for me.

-Nursing is hard! The actual nursing part has been pretty easy, they eat very well and are growing great. However, nursing both at the same time and then trying to burp one baby while the other is still trying to eat isn't easy. However, if I unlatch a baby because sister is burping she screams. But I get it! Who wants to be forced to quit eating just because their sister is! We also hit a patch where Nora wanted to wake up at 4am and eat and then again at 7am when Zoe woke up for the day. Its hard to decide to nurse or give a bottle and if I nurse one baby at 5am I have to pump what the other baby didn't eat, however I then run the risk of that baby waking up minutes later. So I give the pumped bottle...but still, it's a lot to consider at 5am and I may or may not have given the pumped bottle to the baby who just ate and then spend the next hour trying to figure out why one threw up and one was still screaming. I mean maybe. ;) My goal was six weeks for nursing and we made it so my next goal is 3 months. We think Nora may have some milk allergies so I have cut all dairy from my diet. We will see if this helps some of her tummy trouble. But yes, as of now we are nursing or doing a pumped bottle 100% of the time.

-Colic sucks. Nora has what we can only assume is Colic. She screams her cute little head off every evening from about 6-9. It is really sad to watch and sad for Lance because he literally walks in the door...I hand him a baby and we usually don't experience much silence until they go to sleep anywhere from 8:30-11:00. We both have baby K'tan slings now and usually eat dinner and do all our evening stuff with babies on us. Its pretty cute I must say!!

-Pooping. Our girls are have a hard time pooping. We will experience 3 blissful days of happy babies and then on "poop day" things tend to fall apart. They just don't seem to have mastered the art of pooping easily and are in lots of pain until it passes. My doctor assured me this will soon pass. Thank goodness!

-Sleep. The girls are good sleepers. They really are. However, as with everything the fact that there are two of them adds some difficulty. They are typically eating around 8:30 and will fall asleep around 10:30pm. They then get back up around 3am to eat and then again around 6:30 for the day. Our goal at each middle of the night feeding it to be back in bed within the hour. Its a contest we play with ourselves each night...sometimes we win and sometimes we lose! I go back and forth about feeding them one more time at 10:30 but it is usually when they have just hit that deep sleep and it doesn't seem to affect things. They usually get up at 3:30 regardless. We are usually in bed around 11pm and then back up at 3 and then back in bed around 4. However, Nora is up a LOT in the night crying in pain and I cannot bare leaving her alone so most mornings Nora joins the party around 4am and I am usually up so I am very tired most all the time. Zoe doesn't like to be left alone either and will often cry out until I pick her up. I would like to start to let her just work that out on her own a bit but once Nora is up she is UP so I usually rush to quiet Zoe in the night, likely just continuing to teach her that if she screams I will come rushing and get her out of bed! But I am just waiting for that glorious day when I wake up at 6am and no one woke up in the night! I pray for this daily so I know it is coming soon!

- Me. I have been one of the hardest parts of all this! It sounds odd I know, but I have had a really hard time adjusting to some things and having to alter my expectation of motherhood/my personality. I waited so long for these babies and in my mind I was going to spend my days loving and cuddling the girls, holding them all the time, and just pretty much just hanging out with them. I have had so many friends with one baby and they would describe the blissful days they spend with their babies in the first few months. I imagined very little crying because I would attend to their ever need quickly. Being a mom who is adopting as well I have done my fair share (ok...way more than that) of reading on attachment parenting and I just assumed I would follow that method with the girls. I would do my best to feed them before they were hungry, let them sleep with us if they cried, and pretty much just attend to their every need ASAP. HA!!! That's all I can say about this!! Let me tell you, I was in for a rude awakening. With twins someone is ALWAYS crying, someone is usually hungry, usually wet or dirty, usually needing to be held and they just have to wait. The only way I can describe our days is that it is just maintenance. Pretty much just trying to keep them alive! :) We get up, change diapers, move on to the huge nursing pillow and nurse both girls for about an hour start to finish, change more diapers, burp again because Nora has to burp a lot with her reflux, then try to settle both babies on my lap, sometimes try to manage to get both happy in my arms so we can rock, play a little if they are in the mood, then try to settle them both to sleep when they get fussy and if I get lucky squeeze in a pumping session to try and keep up the ever growing needs of these girlies. Then...well, it's time to start over because they eat every 2.5-3 hours. So it has definitely not been the blissful picture I imagined. It has been wonderful and I love every second, but I have had to accept the reality that no one baby can have all my attention and this has caused lots and lots and lots of tears from this mamma. But it's getting better!

Here are the things that have made ever second of the extreme sleep deprivation and stress worth it!

-Smiles. They both have the cutest, biggest smiles and I get flashes of big gummy grins all day!

-Baby sounds. They have both started cooing and babbling a bit and the sound of their little voices melts my heart. I can't even describe how sweet it is!

-Learning their personalities. I have loved seeing the differences in my girls and learning all about them. I love that Nora likes me be rocked really fast in the rocker at night and likes for me so say "shhhhh" in her ear until she falls astleep. I love that she likes to lay on my chest in the night when her reflux starts bothering her. I love that she will look up at me and smile when I am feeding or changing her and I love that she likes to snuggle close to me in the sling. I love her little baby sounds and her sweet nature. I love that she is sweet and patient and seems to be just the perfect little personality to have a life where she has to share her mommy. I love that even though she is often very uncomfortable with her tummy issues and reflux, that she is a happy child. I can tell she has been given the gift of patience and calmness. She is going to be one awesome little girl!
I love that Zoe loves to be sung to. I love her super outgoing nature and need for lots of human interaction. I love that she prefers to be sung to and have her little head stroked when I rock her. I love that she cries out and is just telling us she wants us near and wants to be stroked or held. I love that her favorite thing is looking straight at you and smiling. She is one social girl! I love her sounds, she talks a lot and loves to be talked back to. I love her wild nature, and the way she eats like she is starving every time and screams like you have never heard the second something rocks her world. She gets over her fits within seconds so its more comical than stressful. I love that they are both so sweet and I can't wait until they start to notice each other. That will be too cute for words I think!

-Dressing them. I know this sounds crazy, but have I mentioned my dream in life was to have twin girls!? Getting them all cute in their matching clothes is too much fun!! They look pretty dang cute every day....however they spend most days in their matching jammies and I will realize that they have been in the same thing for days if we didn't go anywhere that they needed actual clothes! :)

So that's pretty much where we stand right now. We are doing great but are extremely exhausted and SO ready for these girls to take up the art of sleeping through the night. But we continue to thank God for the gift of them! Its a gift we didn't deserve and it gets more and more precious and wonderful everyday!! 

Enjoy a few pics of our sweeties!! They're pretty cute huh!? ;)

We're 1 month old!

Can you believe it!? Zoe & Nora are one month old! Like most Mom who blog about their little ones...the majority of this is for me. I want to look back and remember it all and judging from the level of exhaustion I am operating on at most times, I think I will  need things in writing to remember them in the later months and years. :)

Oh, and before I forget I know I never posted their birth story. That will come one day too. However, there is not much to tell. We had a scheduled C-section, it went perfectly, the girls did wonderfully and we all went home happy and healthy with the exception of the girls losing a tad too much weight from having a hard time nursing off the bat. But that was resolved quickly too.

Ok back to the one month post!

Let's start with Zoe Rose:

Zoe you are such a spirited little girl. Every person we meet laughs about your wild personality. You go from zero to seventy in no time and its really hard to catch you before you lose is about being hungry or having a wet diaper or even having the sun in your eyes. You like us to wrap you up like E.T when we rock you and you love love love being held and sung too. You love the outdoors and will spend entire walks with the cutest sleepy smile on your face while the wind hits you. You love the car too but hate getting in your car seat. Really, you seem to hate most things that take you from the comfort of someone holding you, but you adjust quickly. We have learned that your loud screeching cry is just the way you are. It comes quickly and is resolved just as fast. You are just one loud little girl and we wouldn't have it any other way! You love eating and we call you barracuda baby because you suck SO hard and eat so fast. You have the strongest little head and use that strength to force your head in the opposite direction it should go when you are nursing. Sometimes it takes an army to get you latched on and eating. You refuse to eat until you have passed all the gas out of your system and its like to Zoe toot show everytime you eat. Its cute and funny all day and not so amusing at 3am! You sleep really hard too and have the absolute cutest look on your face when you sleep. We love to watch you sleep and it makes us smile to see that little nose of yours poking out of the bed!  Speaking of sleep, you would sleep through the night if we would let you. You can easily make it 5 hours and probably more, but your teeny tiny sister still needs to eat more often and such is life with a twin. We have to wake you up a lot. It makes mommy sad to do, but she is also not interested in feeding babies every waking hour of the day so we all eat at the same time! :) But if you were an only child we would be getting much more sleep. You have what looks to be strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes and you have really fair skin like mommy. However, you seem to have your daddy's face. We have yet to have a visitor who hasn't instantly commented about how much you look like your daddy! I know it makes him happy too. You love napping on your tummy with your sister and you love your sister too. You almost always reach out for her hand when you are nursing. You have started to give us the tiniest of smiles when we sing to you and it melts my heart. I can't wait to see what your big girl smile looks like! You are just too cute little Zoe girl! We love you so much, you are perfect and an answer to prayers. There couldn't be a more perfect addition to our family.

Onto our precious little Nora Beth:

Nora girl you are such a sweet little thing! From day one you have has the most calm, content way about you. You hardly ever cry and when you do its more of a little whimper. Unlike your sister, it takes you a lot of time to muster up a real, mad cry and it's usually a result of your mommy not getting to you fast enough! You have the sweetest little tan face, dark hair, big blue eyes and big smile! You are a beautiful girl. You don't weigh much less than your sister but seem so much smaller. You are just a dainty little thing with such a soft nature about you. You love to cuddle up in a ball when we hold you and like to be carried around in the sling. You started out as the much "easier" baby and your mommy felt like she wasn't giving you your fair share of time. Now you seem to have a little reflux and have a really hard time getting to sleep at night and we have now all logged lots and lots of Nora time on the couch with you. You sleep best when strapped onto your daddy on the couch. It makes for lots of sleepless nights and we are all ready for you to sleep more, but we wouldn't trade our cuddle time with you for anything! You are only going to be your tiny little 7 pound self once and we want to soak you up! You love walks and enjoy car rides. You don't mind getting your diaper changed or getting in and out of your car seat. You spend most days with a peaceful little look on your little face unless you can't burp (which is your biggest tummy issue) and when that happens you stick out your little bottom lip and it's heartbreaking. You are the best eater and nurse so well. Your sister hasn't mastered the nursing game quite like you and you make feeding two babies at once a bit easier. You love to nap on your tummy. All fussiness seems to instantly stop the second we flip you to your tummy. You have given us one smile in response to mommy singing too and it was pure heaven. I can't wait to see more real smiles from you too. You seemed to be developing about a week behind you sister, however are now doing just about everything she does including holding up your little head and tracking us with your eyes. I actually even noticed you speaking up a little louder this morning when you were telling me it was time to eat! You are perfection little Nora and we love you more than you will ever know.

Happy 1 Month to my precious angels! Can't wait to see what next month holds. Hopefully lots and lots of smiles and some sleep for mommy & daddy! :)

Zoe and Nora are here!!

I will post a real post soon.....but we are still here, doing great!! Our girls were born Monday April, 22nd and are perfection. Zoe was 7.2 and Nora was 6.8. It has been the best week of our lives. It's very surreal and we are so thankful for them. We are also a tad tired and working on getting this nursing two babies every couple hour thing down. But I will post tons of pics of our little munchkins soon! Life is good!!!

So cute!!

I saw this on a site today and thought it was so cute! Sometimes I wonder if we should "set her apart" with things like this. But honestly, this is just too cute and sweet to pass up. Plus, she was/will be born in Africa so why not acknowledge it right? Anyway. I am thinking this design in pink and gray. And of course arrows from Ethiopia to Houston. Crazy that we will be doing another little girl nursery soon. Like, truly crazy in my opinion. I'm sitting here while my two "belly babies" seem to be trying to jump out of my body and do a little dance, and dreaming about my little Jane Jordan and her sweet self curled up in her bed. It's very surreal. Yet, also all starting to seem very real in a wonderful, terrifying, exciting, blessed way!

34 weeks pregnant and officially lopsided! :)

I saw this on a friends blog and though...why not? So here are some preggo updates on little Zoe & Nora

How far along? 34 weeks 3 days

Total weight gain: not sure.....I don't look! But I think almost 50 pounds...wow!

Maternity clothes: I love my maternity clothes. I actually went and got some really cute spring maternity clothes and then got put on bed rest and don't get to wear them. It actually makes me really sad....sporting the big preggo belly was so fun and it got cut a month short!

Stretch marks: I have a few, not too bad at all. We still have some time left though so I'm cautiously optimistic!

Sleep: Oh my. Sleep is not great. I can't really lay flat anymore unless I haven't eaten in at least 5-6 hours because of heartburn. Turning is really very difficult too! However, I have developed a new "sliding" method for turning over at night which consists of a lot less drama! But generally I wake up about every hour with heartburn, drink some milk, take some TUMS and then can go back to sleep until the next hour when it starts over again. Fun fun! But since I'm on bed rest it doesn't matter too much since I can sleep during the day. But I am SO excited about being able to sleep "un"pregnant soon!!

Best moment this week: Wednesday doctors appointment when we got to see our little girls! They looked perfect and it made me very happy! Plus, the doctor is my only outing each week so I really look forward to being able to walk around and get out of the house for a few hours!

Miss Anything: Sleeping, eating, exercising, and just being able to move around with ease. Worth every second no doubt....but it's gotten a little bit hard. Probably made a bit worse by being forced to sit all day. But this to shall pass and we will have TWO baby girls!!

Movement: Yes....these two love to squirm around. Nora's little head is literally up in my right rib cage and it wiggles around all day!

Food cravings: I've been craving sweets lately, but food has unfortunately lost it's appeal all together. Its really hard for me to keep anything down and the heartburn following meals is just too bad.

Symptoms: Each month has brought it own little challenge but aside from the heartburn thing....it's be wonderful!!!

Happy or moody most of the time: Happy I would say. I feel like a broken record....but aside from all the throwing up that comes from eating now....I'm just so happy and excited!!

Have you started to show yet: haha....I'd say so!

Looking forward to: seeing the girls faces!!! I really CANNOT wait!!!

In other general preggo updates, the girls are looking great! Since I am being monitored for preeclampsia we go in every week for non stress tests and ultrasounds to make sure the girls are doing ok and to make sure my blood pressure is still ok. So far so good. However, 37 weeks is the absolute longest we will be. So we won't be pregnant for any longer than about 2 weeks from now. But hopefully we make it to 37! At exactly 34 weeks we got to see them both breathing and everything looked great. They estimated them to weight 5lb10oz and 6lb2oz which seemed huge to me for 34 weeks. Especially since hypertension in pregnancy often results in low birth weight (so they told me). But I guess that's good because if we make it to 37 weeks they should be a good size!!

Anyway. Looking so forward to saying goodbye to pregnancy and hello to our little munchkins!! It still feels SO far away!! I know two weeks isn't far...but it seems like I couldn't stretch another ounce. But I'm sure I can!

For those of you who think I look "small" it's because you have only seen pics from the side. But it's actually huge when you look straight on! Both girls are transverse meaning both heads are over by my right rib cage and stretch across my body and I am TOTALLY lopsided! It's really funny/extremely uncomfortable! :)

These pics represent my days right now. You will find me sitting on the couch. Chilling. Counting down the days! And please take not of the lopsided belly!

Cloth diapers

Bed rest has given me some time to readdress our decision to do cloth diapers with the girls. We decided a while back we were going to do it and then I kind of stopped thinking about it with all we have had going on the last several months. But now I have nothing going on and figured I would be a little more productive while on bedrest and give The Office re-runs a rest for a while! :)

So not that anyone probably cares too much...but hey, why not blog about it right?

I have been crunching numbers and doing budgets for months now looking to see where we can cut costs. I hope to only work 2 days a week and am motivated to really do my best to make our money stretch as far as possible. From a financial standpoint I found that most people spend about $800 on diapers in the first year of their child's life, which would equal $1600 for us....woah! Add in our little Jane in the next few months and well you can do the math, lots of money of little booties! :)

After reading about lots of different diapers it looks like the only thing that would really be a change for us is that some parts of the diapers need to be hung to dry. I am not a hang dry kind of person. It all just goes in at once. However, luckily I married a man that seems to have an odd love for laundry so I think figuring out the whole line drying thing will be a perfect job for him.

Anyway, from what I can tell there are newborn cloth diapers and then one size adjustable cloth diapers that will last your child throughout the entire time they are in diapers. We have decided to skip the newborn cloth diapers and do disposable. It's looking like our girls are going to be preemie anyway and I didn't want the added expense of getting tiny diapers that would hardly be used and I didn't want them in cloth diapers in that super newborn phase when they poop a million time a day. So our plan is to implement the cloth diapers around 3 months or so. I'm also planning to mainly use cloth when we are at home. I don't think I am going to take wet bags on play dates or road trips and stuff. I think I will also use normal wipes. So I guess we will be a hybrid cloth diaper family. :) However, my plan is to use them at all times if we are at home or just on short errands. The more I read the easier it looks. You just stick in the insert, dump out the poop and wash. There is special detergent and I figure we would just do a few extra loads of laundry a week for diapers. To me a few extra loads is worth it if it gets me more hours at home with the girls! Over $6000 saved on diapers over the course of having 3 in diapers for 2-3 years is motivation enough for me!

Ill post again once we get going on this and let you know how we are doing. However, I think it will be ok! Oh, and the ones I am getting are called Bum Genius. I have heard great things! If you are reading this and do cloth diapers please feel free to comment! I would love any advice! :)