Some rambling and then a whole lot of cuteness!

(I started this post yesterday afternoon, so when I say "today", I am referring to Saturday =) )

Wow.

We are home and settling in, and totally overwhelmed! Having 2 newborns is demanding for sure.
We sure do love them though =).

Today has been a better day. It is so nice to have David home all day and not have to go anywhere.
We got home from the hospital Wednesday afternoon, and turned right around Thursday morning we had to be at the pediatrician at 8:30am, and that was a long visit. Then Friday my mother in law and I went to the lactation consultant for 3 hours. But that was TOTALLY worth it!! She was so so so helpful.

Nursing has been going ok, but it is not going as well as I had hoped or naively assumed. Lucas was having such a hard time latching. He would cry and fight me every time. But since the visit yesterday, he has done great! Praying he keeps it up. I have been feeling a ton of discouragement in this area. I SO want to nurse these babies, and it has been defeating that we have had to supplement them with formula right away. We had to start supplementing with Abbey pretty much right after she was born due to her low blood sugar from the stress of her birth. Then Luke lost 10% of his birth weight pretty quickly, so we had to start him too. That immediately made me concerned about being able to produce enough to EVER meet their needs. I still am nervous about this, but was greatly encouraged by my time with the lactation consultant yesterday. She wants us to wake and feed them every 2 1/2 hours, with one 5 hour break allowed a day. We can't allow them to just let us know when they are hungry since Abbey is still under 6 pounds. She is such a tiny little peanut!!! It is SO time consuming to wake, change, then nurse each baby for about 20mins, then feed each baby formula for about 10-15, then burp and put each baby back down. It can take over an hour...only to start again 1 1/2 hours later!!! We tried this last night and Abbey just isn't awake enough to eat every 2 1/2 hours ( we had been doing 3 on the recommendation of the hospital pediatrician). She wouldn't latch and just slept so soundly. So, we made a judgement call and went back to 3 hours. I see the LC again on Tuesday, so we can go over that then. We tried to make the 5 hour stretch from 12:45am-5:45am, but Abbey started fussing around 4:40am. Still that's 4 hours!!! It felt SO good to get that much consecutive rest. And I can't tell you how great it feels to just be HOME today.

My incision is healing pretty well. It was doing some funny things yesterday, but luckily my mother in law is a nurse and she was able to check it for me. We paged the on call doc last night because it was just a little funny looking, but he said it all sounded fine. It is becoming less and less painful every day too...thank you so much for your prayers. I was in SO MUCH pain those first few days, I just couldn't see it ever getting better.

We are sure loving being home as a family. I can not believe what a natural daddy David is. He just has such a grace about fatherhood, it's stunning. His instincts have been dead on with them, and I am so glad to have him as a partner in this. Plus, I just fall in love with him all over again when I watch the babies just melt him. =) He has been so supportive of me also, as I have been a weepy mess the last 5 days! He has been so patient and encouraging of me. I am grateful God gave me such an amazing husband.

Motherhood is wonderful. I really do love it. It's just been surprising to me how little time I had before today to just enjoy it. There has always been something to do every second of the day and I often can't tell which way is up. So much conflicting advice out there..."sleep when the baby sleeps" hard to do when you have so many places to be!! "Just hunker down at home and take your time to settle in"...again, we have had places to be, "try and do something for yourself everyday"...with what time? It seems like every break between feedings I have to evaluate what to do with the limited time...shower? Nap? Pump to build my supply? Eat? Get a few things done like laundry or blog? It's a constant process of deciding what will make me feel best. I feel like I have just been maintaining (barely) and not relaxing and enjoying them. Again, today has been so much better.

I also don't think I have fully processed all that happened at the hospital. I think I need to grieve missing Abbey's delivery. After I pushed Luke out, they showed him to me briefly and then rushed him over to a warmer to focus on getting Abbey out since she was in distress. And then she couldn't be turned and her heart rate dropped severely and the last thing I remember is begging God out loud to please save my baby girl as the doctor said "she's gotta go under"...I just never in a million years imagined that the first time I would see my babies would be hours after they were born, in the OR recovery room, with warm blankets all around myself due to the horrible shaking from the anesthesia. It was a strange way to begin all this, and I don't think I have fully recovered from the "shell shock" of it all.


Thank you so much for all your prayers for us, please keep praying for us as we settle in to being a family of four.

Please pray that nursing gets easier. I know everybody has different things that work for them, and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for the babies if I quit...but I don't want to. I REALLY want to do this. I am so hopeful for the day when I can meet their needs with breast feeding alone, and when we can just feed them when they wake, NOT having to wake them to feed.

Now, enough of me rambling...here is what you REALLY came for...

Abbey coming home...isn't she tiny!?

Little Luke all ready to go!!


They LOVE being snuggled together!

Back to my babies now!

Happy Easter- He is Risen!!!