The Hospital Stay

After the twins were born Mark and I got our own little room. The twins joined us and hung out in lucite bassinets while nurses tended to them for the first hour. James only got to stay for a very short time before being sent to the NICU for his grunting problem. Julia stayed with us and we learned to feed her 1 cc of formula at a time by syringe (in increments of 0.1 cc). She was very tiny!


Feeding tiny Julia by syringe

I called my parents ("Hi, Grandma!") and Mark called his to let them know the good news. My parents had hoped to arrive that night but they were driving from San Diego through the worst storm of the year so they didn't get there until the next day, and then I had to shoo them out when they arrived because I was working with a lactation consultant. Their faces lit up when they saw and held Julia. Then we went on a field trip to the NICU to see James. Because I couldn't move for 24 hours after the C-section I had only just seen James that morning for the first time since giving birth. (Mark had been able to visit earlier.) It had been my first time seeing James without his little white knit cap and I was struck by how blond his hair was! What a cutie!


Heartbreaker James in the NICU

When we announced the births the first day, I explicitly did not tell my parents the babies' names because I am a mean, mean daughter. After my parents arrived and they met each baby I introduced them. "Meet Julia." "Meet James." The NICU only allows two guests inside at a time per baby so James met his grandma and grandpa one at a time.


Grandma meets Julia


Grandpa meets Julia


Grandpa meets James in the NICU

The night the twins were born the hospital sent over a congratulatory bottle of sparkling apple juice with two plastic flutes. Unfortunately, I was suffering from bad nausea from the anesthesia so we couldn't have that until later (for the twins' one month birthday it turns out). Because I'd had gestational diabetes (which usually ends as soon as the placenta is removed) I had been looking forward to eating chocolate cake for months and hoped to that night. Instead I had a not very filling IV.


Mark and his little girl


Me and my little girl

The hospital stay was kind of a blur since I was really drowsy the whole stay from a combination of C-section meds, constantly being woken up to take drugs, and forcing myself to pump every 3 hours - even in the middle of the night. I didn't even have time to go online for over a week! I still have 464 unread e-mail messages from that week. (I also didn't have time to shower until my last day there, four days later.) Mark slept in the fold-out bed/chair in my room the first two nights. My parents visited each day, and my mom and Mark made our apartment into a nursery since I had been unable to having been on bed rest. And most importantly Mark and I learned how to care for tiny babies. Neither of us had really spent any time around babies before so there was a lot to learn - diapering, swaddling, and burping. We didn't even know to keep burping until there was a burp so a few times one of the babies would spit up and start coughing, and we'd be worried they were choking. They seemed so fragile and we were so inexperienced.


Me and my 4 pound, 9 ouncer, Julia


Mark feeds our amazing glow-in-the-dark baby. (James required a biliblanket one day to treat his jaundice.)


How is it we look both tall and short in the same photo?

The twins' birthdate was a Monday and I checked out on Friday night. We got to try out the new car seats on the ride home. They looked like their heads were way too tiny for the head support. (Note: this is no longer a problem with James' giganto cranium but more on that in another post.)


Julia, dressed for her trip home, in her wizard robe.


Checking out of the hospital. (Would you believe Mark forgot to bring me a change of clothing so I left in the same exact outfit I was wearing when my water broke?)


Julia in her car seat for the ride home


James (on the left) and his giant head and multiple chins no longer have problems filling the headrest of his car seat.

A Day That Will Live in Twinfamy!

I've been away for awhile, but with good reason - the twins are here! Over two months ago they were born healthy at 35 weeks and 5 days. Here's the birth story:

But first...

I know everyone wants to know how big I was in the end. The answer? Huge. This was taken two days before the births.

Less than 12 hours before my water broke I enjoyed my gut shelf for the last time.

At 1:30 a.m. on December 7th (Pearl Harbor Day), I posted as my Facebook status message: "If the twins are born today it will be a day that will live in TWINFAMY!" Little did I know my water would break six hours later... (On one hand I would have liked for them to cook a little longer even though nearly 36 weeks for twins is pretty good; on the other hand I get to use "Day that will live in twinfamy" for the rest of their lives...)

I woke up at 7:45 a.m. feeling water gushing out of me.
"Mark, I think my water broke."
"Are you sure?"
[I sit up and water REALLY gushes out.]
"Yes."

Run! It's an amniotic fluid-nami!

I called the hospital and they said to come in within two hours and confirmed that I would be imminently giving birth.
"Mark, it looks like we're having some babies today."

Despite what you may think from watching TV, only 1/5 of births involve water breaking. Incidentally there were a lot of births that day at the hospital and a nurse said there are theories that it often happens on cold rainy days - like this one - because of the change in barometric pressure. Between the cold weather and the twins' most active kicking session ever the night before, it's no surprise my water broke.

After calling the hospital, I called my parents so they could start driving up from San Diego. By the way, when you call your parents at 8 a.m. when you're as pregnant as I was, they have a pretty good guess why you're calling. I then took a shower (while shaking from a combination of happy excitement and fear) and put on make-up. Some people find it weird that I put on make-up but I did have two hours to get to the hospital. All the while I was afraid I was leaving a trail of water breakage throughout the apartment, reminiscent of the dotted line in Family Circus.

Replace Kittycat with Kathy and her leaking bag of waters.

I already knew I'd be having a C-section since Twin A (the boy) flipped to the breach position a few weeks earlier. When we arrived at the hospital we were told a set of triplets was going to be delivered before our twins, but then our doctor came in a few minutes later and told us she had changed her mind. We were next! Suck it, triplets!

An hour and a half later I was wheeled into the operating room and given a spinal block. A curtain was stretched across my lower half and Mark sat next to my head. I could feel some pressure as the doctors cut me open, but no pain. Twin A (the boy) was taken out and a minute later Twin B (the girl) joined him. The doctors held each one up for us to see for an instant before weighing them and getting them ready (a.k.a. wiping off the placenta goo). Twin B was laid across my chest and that's when we met our baby girl. She was tiny and red and already in a little white cap and it was hard to believe I was finally meeting her.

James (I think) is born!

Here I am holding Julia moments after birth.

I was surprised we met the second-to-arrive twin first, but Twin A was grunting (a respiratory issue) so he joined us about 15 minutes later. (I later found out their Apgar scores for the first minute were a 4 for Twin A and a 9 for Twin B; both scored a 9 after five minutes.) Twin A stayed in the NICU the first two days until he stopped grunting, but I was generally very fortunate that neither baby was in the NICU longer, especially Twin B who was born so little and managed to escape the NICU altogether.


Mark with Julia and James just outside the delivery room.


I'm holding the twins with what appears to be a ridiculously oversized left hand.

Without further ado, meet...

James Benjamin Pilloff
5 lbs., 9 oz.
17.8 in. (45.1 cm)


James!

Julia Elizabeth Pilloff
4 lbs., 9 oz.
18.1 in. (46 cm)

(She's a pound lighter but a centimeter longer!)

Julia!

I think the previous picture of Julia resembles the Mother Teresa "Nun Bun."

My precious Julia and James and their giant diapers.