One month down, a gazillion more to go...

Yesterday, we celebrated the babies' first month with a big bash. It was slightly reminiscent of us getting married, seeing that it was held at the same venue. We felt it strange that we were extremely stressed by being there, waiting for guests and worrying about the twins. But the twins made it much easier by being asleep.

The party was as much a celebration of their turning one month but also, us surviving the one month. It's been harrowing to say the least but I think we weathered it okay, not great seeing as I still have little ability to get the babies to sleep. This is unless I whip out my secret weapon- the breast, but I don't really want to do that all the time otherwise I'll never be able to go out or rather, anyone who has breasts that don't work won't be able to put them to bed.

Truthfully, it has been a month of humbling lessons. Adults thwarted expertly by newborns tend to breed humility in one. Afterall, logic gets thrown out the window and there's really no rationalising with these unreasonable but lovable munchkins.

So, lessons learnt-
1. Anyone who tells you that you will automatically bond with your child and fall in love with your child is a liar. The baby is a stranger, albeit a stranger that has been gestating in you for 10 months, but a stranger nonetheless. I spent my first days home not really wanting to interact very much with the twins. I would feed them and then hope they fall asleep after that because I had no idea what to do with the flailing mass of limbs in my arms. And even though I'd read Naomi Wolf's Misconceptions and knew to expect that I wouldn't immediately bond with my children, I still felt guilty when all I wanted to do was to hide in my room and pretend that my life had not changed irrevocably.

2. The midwives all lied when they said that breastfeeding doesn't hurt if you're doing it correctly. No doubt, it hurts a whole lot more when they don't do it correctly, the nipples do get sore and they get very very sore. By the end of the day, I would be cringing when my barracudas mistook my nipples as their chew toys that also conveniently released sustanence.

3. There is never a good time to change the diaper. No matter when it is done, Murphy's Law kicks in and the newly changed baby will deem it the best time to poo, once again, despite Mommy moaning about the fact that a diaper costs about $0.30 each.

4. Twins do not do everything at the same time. They have different internal clocks and they usually spend that time at night in the same cot discussing how best to have totally different schedules that totally screw around with our sanity.

5. It is possible to tandem feed, as in feed both at the same time, but my younger son tends to lose out because he's a distracted feeder and I am no octopus with hands to hold them as well as relatch them etc.

6. There will always be people willing to help and the dumbest thing a new mom can do is to reject the help and insist on doing it on her own. Even if the help comes with strings attached, like a whole host of inappropriate questions and backseat driving, just having someone to take the baby/babies off your hands so that you can rest, sleep, eat, bathe, blog, is pretty crucial.

7. Papaya and fish soup tastes foul, chicken essence made with DOM and Martell tastes foul but I discovered an ability to grit my teeth and eat the most foul stuff in the name of producing more milk. Having said that, I loathe being called a "milk factory" or any other references to the cow and its udderly functions.

8. The feelings that one develops for the baby/babies do eventually surface and you end up spending a lot of time marvelling at how the first photograph you had of the bub in question was one of it being an 8-celled organism. Those feelings however fluctuate, as do all feelings for anyone, depending on how well behaved they are that day. Similarly, there are days when there are friends I'm not all that fond of and other days where I'd go to the end of the world for the same friend. And when the baby doesn't stop crying regardless of what we do, walking, bouncing, singing, swaying, jigging, doing all at the same time, you're likely to not feel all that fond of the bub at that point.

9. Cabin fever doesn't end when confinement ends. I don't think I've totally wrapped my head around how much my life has really altered although I am getting a clearer and clearer picture of how encumbered I now am. Going out now takes careful planning what with babysitting and feeding arrangements to take into consideration. I gasped when I realised that we wouldn't be able to nip across the road for ice cream anymore.

10. The worrying that occurred during pregnancy, about losing the baby, whether the baby would turn out fine etc doesn't stop at pregnancy. It extends into the horizon when the babies make their appearance into the world. You worry if they're too cold, whether they're feeding enough, whether they're ill when they feel warm to the touch, everything. You end up being the world's greatest worrywart.

So, ten lessons learnt in the first month and I'm sure a gazillion more to come.

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Milk Run, Sniffer dogs

I've been up since 5 and this isn't an aberration of sorts. I have a new found internal alarm clock that sends me out of bed, wide-eyed and ready to roll. That's when the boobs are full and need some instant relief. This morning was no different, although I was trying to ignore it and push it till 6 am so that I could get a little bit more time in bed before the household cacophany began- that's usually about 6. Unfortunately, Evan was grunting and trying to get himself burped outside and that, I guess, is a sound a mother cannot ignore- her child in pseudo difficulty and protesting, even though it's just how he is.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I'm up. And the expressing's done but I'm too wide awake to go back to bed. The inate competitiveness in me is annoyed by the fact that the volume of breast milk isn't a record breaking high. I think I expect everyday to yield even more milk than the day before. And when it doesn't, I have varying degrees of annoyance. Some days I'm just like "ok, I'm tired, screw it, if there isn't enough, there's always formula", other days I'm like "oh crap! Why isn't there more milk??" and other days it's like the end of the world as I know it. The levels of neurosis I guess depends on how generally angsty I am that day or that night.

It's an upward battle though, trying to keep to growing younglings satiated as well as express enough so that my nipples can have a 4-5 hour breather away from the barracuda-ness. I have been consoled with the fact that even with twins, I have enough to put away in the freezer that I need to find a new home for 2 tubs of Ben and Jerry's. But like I say, that competitive streak in me, having no one to compete with is in competition with me of night's past.

To make matters worse, the barracudas demand more everyday. Jordan can feed for an hour and often needs the second breast, otherwise she screams bloody murder till her tummy is round and full to the point of overflowing and sometimes, it does overflow, onto mummy's top, her own clothes, the couch, her bed etc. And even then, she's constantly rooting for more. To the point that I, her own mother, have difficulty carrying her. She sniffs me out. She knows that I am her fountain of sustenance and will protest if she were in the vicinity of it and not be granted access to it.

Meanwhile, Evan, while not being as aggressive, has learnt to throw hissy fits that would make his big sister proud. He's developed the Food. Now. NOW. NOW NOW NOW cry. He too, is my little Snoopy dog, like at Melbourne airport where they sniff out food that's hidden in bags. These two little sniffer dogs can pick up the scent even through a bra, a t-shirt and even a sarong sling. There's no tricking them. And all this, usually after they've been properly fed and burped.

So, I'm constantly trying to keep up. Keeping up with one is not a problem. The combined effort of trying to keep up with two somewhat schizophrenic feeding schedules and expressing is enough to drive any new mom round the bend. Thankfully, I have enough help to stave off that headlong plummet into hormonally induced semi-psychosis, Brooke Shields style. Now, when the help leaves, that will be the real test. My current fantasy is to be able to keep her on full time payroll. Unfortunately, I don't have an apartment that could go en-bloc for a disgustingly obscene amount of money so it's going to stay a fantasy even though at this point, I'd be willing to give an arm and a leg to keep her on as my children's nanny.

Technorati Tags: babies, breastfeeding

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Pimp my ride

In lieu of a real post, some photos of the babies at 21 days old. Goodness, today was their real due date! I'd have been huge if I'd lasted till now.

Anyway, here they are, ready to roll!



Jordan's on the left, ready to fall asleep. Evan, on the other hand, had no issues passing out in the pram. I think my son really takes after his mother who passes out in the car all the time. :)

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Inappropriate much

When I was pregnant, I had great issues with people treating my belly as public property and other inappropriate behaviour. Unfortunately, the inappropriate behaviour and touching hasn't stopped. Now, when we take the babies on their morning walk, people, fascinated that we have twins will come up and coo and inadvertently reach out and touch their heads with their grubby hands. I was told that my response should be me, slapping their wrists or manoeuvring the baby out of reach of grubby hands.

Also, the inappropriate questions and suggestions have not stopped. I find myself having to answer questions like
1. How many times have the babies pooed today? (And this was not asked by any medical personnel)
2. What colour is the babies' poo?
3. What colour is the babies' pee?
4. How is your bleeding?
5. How much milk have you expressed today?
6. How are your nipples looking today?

Although I've had to be polite when answering the questions, I fantasise about answering the questions in the following manner.

1, 2 & 3. I'll strip one of the babies and you can carry him/her. Then you'll know first hand how many times, and the colour of said pee and poo.
4. Want to see?
5. I am not just a milk producing machine.
6. Are you trying to come on to my nipples? Cos they're not interested.

Now the trick is to take the snark out of my brain and into my mouth. Thing is having been brought up Confucian style, it's very hard for me to be rude to those older than I am.

Technorati Tags: babies, post partum

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First Date

I'm technically supposed to be grounded. Unfortunately, I've never been good at staying home. Thankfully I was never grounded when I was a teenager because I really would be one of those kids that would shimmy down the drainpipe or tie bedsheets together and repel down the sidewall even though I don't really know how to and might have fallen and broken my back. I did on occasion climb out my window in the middle of the night but that's a whole different story. Anyway, my point is confinement is not a strong point of mine. So every evening, we find excuses to go out. And we even managed our first date post babies.

We had tickets to Harry Potter thanks to Packrat's brother- we're eternally grateful! And there was no way we were going to let the opportunity pass us just because of that little thing called confinement. Both of us spent the whole day looking forward to it, I thought about what I was going to wear, Packrat thought about where we were going to eat and for the first time in months, I put on make up! It was all very exciting for someone who's lived in t-shirts, shorts and flip flops for the last couple of weeks.

My sister-in-law did tell me that the first date post babies would be reinvigorating and she was right. It was wonderful to be out, just the two of us, eating popcorn and cuddling up in the cinema and talking at length about the film over a burger after that. For those few hours, it was just the two of us- Packrat and Ondine. We weren't Jordan and Evan's parents and we knew they were in safe hands.

By the time we got home, I was ready to face the demands of nursing and crying again and it didn't feel as depressing to know that the next day would be a rinse and repeat performance of everything done that day which went along the lines of feeding, carrying, putting babies down to sleep, praying they don't wake up for a while, feeding again and again till you're not quite sure which baby has been fed and for how long (even though I keep a log), expressing etc.

I think I need more of this. I need little projects that I can do as well so that my life doesn't just consist of my children and their needs. It helps me keep sane and I'm sure my children will benefit from a sane mommy rather than a neurotic basketcase one.

The only bummer about having gone out was thinly veiled insinuations that I was a bad mommy because someone expressed a great amount of surprise when I said I didn't miss the babies while I was at the movies. But I quickly dismissed it because she's the same person that wants to have me crucified because she thinks I've committed the most deadly of sins by offering my babies one feed of formula a day so that my nipples get a break from the constant chomping. We've nicknamed her the BFNZ- Breastfeeding Nazi and have decided to ignore her comments about babyrearing.

Technorati Tags: babies, Harry Potter and the Order for the Phoenix

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Crying over spilt milk

The routine now is every morning, I get up to express milk for the following night. This ensures that my boobs don't hurt so much that I can't sleep and it also ensures that the bubs get fed through the night without my needing to subject my poor nipples to their barracuda chomping through the night. In order to keep the nipples up and running the next day, the nights are a necessary time for them to rest.

I've been told that I should exclusively latch the babies on but then again, the people that tell me this have had single babies and haven't had the wonderful experience of being chomped on about 16-20 times a day for varying durations.

Anyway, the long and short of it is I express, often half asleep. 2 mornings ago, while trying to balance the breast pump on the desk, it accidentally toppled over and some milk spilt out. I don't think it was much in the large scheme of things, probably 5 ml or something. But just spilling that, after struggling to get as much as possible into the bottle for the twins just got to me and I just sat there and cried.

Till that point, I didn't understand the old cliche "don't cry over spilt milk". Well, I've understood it at a metaphorical and analogical level but never till then, had I really cried over spilt milk. And I must say, it was indeed a very heart pain experience.

Now, I'm extra careful when I balance the pump or anything that contains the oh so precious breast milk in it. I wish the day would come where the milk would flow in abundance and I wouldn't bat an eyelid at losing 5 ml. But till then, every drop counts.

Technorati Tags: babies, breastfeeding

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My house, the petting zoo.

Someone needs to explain to me how it is that babies can be likened to animals in a petting zoo and be passed round like a parcel to all and sundry. Surely there has to exist some element of sense that whispers into the ears of these people that babies need quiet, they need sleep and they need peace to grow. How is interrupting their sleep patterns, feeding patterns and their mother's sanity healthy?

And the problem is further exacerbated when the mother feels helpless and is unable to protect her own offspring against such people.

The good thing is it's awakening in the mother that maternal protectiveness that she wasn't sure was there when the babies were first born.

But in this case, the bad outweighs the good by a fair amount.

Growl.

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Bright eyed bushy tailed

Here's Evan, bright eyed this morning.



And Jordan, looking incredibly cheeky with the "I know something that you don't" look.



Ladies and gentlemen, our offspring. :)

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And out they came

This post is about 8 days overdue but well, who can blame me, I've pretty much had my hands full.
Anyway, the news is not that babies are here. I've been asked by numerous people to blog about what it was like to deliver the two babies. So here goes, for as long as they stay asleep that is.

Last Monday was my birthday. I'd prayed very hard that the babies would not make an appearance on my birthday because that would mean, for the rest of my life, I'd have to share my birthday with them and I'll never be able to go away for my birthday again. Yes, selfish, but I'm a person first, a mommy second. :)

Anyway, in the evening, we saw the Ob-gyn for the last time and he had scheduled the bubs to be taken out on Friday the 29th. He also said that I could finally stop taking my anti-contraction medication. So, I happily skipped the next dose and went on my way. I was a little bit angsty though because I knew that if the babies were born on Friday, I'd end up getting slapped with the 7% GST and I was pissed off enough with the hike as is. But at the same time, I knew that if it was really going to just happen on Friday, then there was a reason for that and resigned myself to it.

Tuesday, the 26th, at 4 in the morning, I woke up because my belly felt like it had seized up like a rock. It wasn't exactly painful but it woke me up. On and off, from that point on, it would harden like a rock. I thought, not a problem, Braxton Hicks and since I was off the meds, it was going to be more frequent anyway. When I finally got out of bed, I figured, I'd let the Ob-gyn know that the BH contractions were being rather pesky. I also knew he was going to be in surgery so I pottered around the house while waiting for him to get back to me.

At that point, I knew something wasn't quite right. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was pretty much in a daze. Not quite all there. I'd stare blankly at the computer screen, talk in a flat monotone to my mother who rang and just take very long to compute things. When the nurse finally got back to me, she told me to head in to get a contraction reading taken. Taking no chances. Even then, the constant contractions were annoying the heck out of me. They still didn't hurt, but it made me walk or stand or sit funny.

Packrat joked on the way to the hospital that maybe today (meaning Tuesday) was the day. I was uncomfortable enough not to care and wondered what I could have for lunch. When I got to the labour ward and they strapped me up, I realised that the discomfort was pretty frequent now and with the chart, we saw that they were indeed hefty contractions that sent the squiggly line spiking Everest-Patagonia heights. Packrat also realised that he could foretell the contractions and pissed me off by setting his mobile to a countdown timer and counting down to me and grinning like a loon when he got it right. That's why men don't do the baby thing, they'll be pretty much focusing on the wrong thing. Well, one thing he did prove was that these spikes aka contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart. Still at this point, no pain, just discomfort.

By the time my Ob-gyn came round, I was fidgeting a whole lot because by the time I got over the discomfort of one, another one was round the corner. My Ob-gyn's eyes bugged when he looked at the monitor and announced that the contractions were a minute a part. In my mind, I was like, "er yah, tell me something I don't know." Anyhow, he looked at the clock and said that the babies were telling us they were ready to see the world and it was not much point waiting till Friday. He didn't think they were going to allow us to wait anyway. And he drained the blood from Packrat's face by telling him that he'd be a father in under an hour's time.

Me? I was zen. I was like ok, whatever. Let's just get it over with.

Everything happened very quickly and Packrat got dragged off to get gowned. I felt extremely disconnected from everyone clucking around me. I think it was the first time I saw my Ob-gyn look anxious. Pre-op prep happened very quickly and apparently, I went past go, collected $200 and was in the OT all in one breath. Even though I wasn't sedated yet, it really felt all surreal, with all these men in green fussing all over me.

I met the anaesthetist first because the man had to make sure I couldn't feel anything from chest down. Well, I didn't want to feel anything chest down, anyway so that was just as well. The most inappropriate thought I had at that point was "hmmm, I think the guy's gay. Wait till Packrat comes in and I'll ask him!" Yes, I was supposed to be worrying about my babies and should have been savouring my last moments of freedom but I was wondering about the sexual orientation of my anaesthetist.

I think without a doubt, the epidural was the most frightening part of the surgery. Trying to curl into a foetal position is incredibly difficult when there are two full term foetuses in the way. And when they tell you not to move? Seriously, haven't they not learnt anything after the gazillion years in med school? When you tell a person not to move or not to blink, you're just asking for them to move or blink. I knew the epidural kicked in when my leg started to feel like a ten ton weight and invaded with an army of black ants making its way down to my toes. Before they put up the curtain, I could still see my toes but when I told them to move, for the first time in my life, they disobeyed me and stayed limp. I was left marvelling at how horrid my toe nails looked with the nail colour of each of my big toe stripped off and the other four toes still bright purple. Then the curtain came down. Literally.

I started trembling at that point and they thought it was because I was cold but I didn't think so. On hindsight, I think it was the epidural. And when Packrat came in, looking all surgeon like, he mistook it for me being petrified. I don't think I really was but I couldn't say anything because I was trying very hard to not break my teeth with the chattering.

In the middle of all that, my Ob-gyn who had been waiting in the wings and looking all imperious suddenly announced that they were already mid way into the surgery. I was like, "hello, a little warning would have been good." Well, that was what I wanted to say. What I actually said was " uh....*chatter chatter chatter*..huh...."

The most disconcerting thing about having a c-section is when you're actually told that someone is going to shove your belly downwards so that your baby can be birthed and you can actually feel the sensation of someone bearing down on your belly. Gross. But that moment was replaced very quickly by an even more gross moment when over the curtain popped an extremely grey, gooey looking alien like being with blood and goo dripping everywhere. Ladies and gentleman, that was my daughter, Jordan. A split second later, she screamed bloody blue murder so I knew that she was ok. This was repeated two minutes later and in the same unceremonious manner, my son, Evan was presented to me. Goo. Blood. Grey. Alien. Gunk. Yuck. Right. I think that was what was going through my head.

The surgeons in the room constantly asked Packrat to participate, to look up when the babies were being yanked out of my belly, to cut the cord, to see them get cleaned, all of which, he staunchly refused fearing that he might pass out and be left in a puddle on the floor while everyone was busy tending to mother and children. I would have thought it funny but I found it extremely comforting to have him so close to me and didn't want him to move anywhere that was 30 cm from my face. When the babies were presented to us, I held one in one arm and looked at them and thought of all those tv moments where everyone is teary and touched by the life in their arms and all that jazz and realised I was like "these are my children? Ok. At least they're not gooey anymore."

We had a paediatrician come in to check on them and when he announced that they wouldn't need special care, I uttered a prayer of thanks. It was one of the things we had been earnestly praying for, that they wouldn't need special care. Then, Packrat was ushered out with the babies so that the surgeons could stitch me up. It took quite a while for that to happen. On hindsight, of course it was going to take a while. First, they had to stitch up my uterus. Then they had to stitch up my belly. I hoped at that point that my Ob-gyn's needlework was up to standard because I didn't want to look like a piece of botched up cross stitch.

So, basically, that was my adventure with child birth. By the time they wheeled me into my room, I was exhausted and didn't want to see anyone except Packrat. And for no reason, I just cried. I'm guessing much of it was the ebbing of the adrenaline and the shock my system had received but generally, that was the end of the birth experience and the beginning of the parenthood nightmare. :)

Now that I've had a week or so to think about things and look back, I'm thankful for so many things and it really was a delivery that was watched over by angels with all our prayers answered. We had prayed that my children and I wouldn't share a birthday and we don't. We're a day apart and that's kinda cool. We had prayed that the surgery and post op would be uneventful and it was. I was out of hospital 3 days later. I had been antsy that we might not have been able to beat the GST thingy and mercifully, we did. Otherwise, our hefty hospital bill would have been even heftier. Most importantly, we had prayed for a hand of protection on the babies and mercifully, that prayer was the one that was answered in the most obvious of ways. They did not need special care, they weren't born tiny, they didn't have to stay in hospital longer than I would have to and they fed right from the beginning (Evan gave us a few scares but generally, all was good), they had jaundice but a night of photo-therapy got that under control so all in, they really did have angels surrounding them and for all that, I cannot stop being thankful.

Now, they're home and it's a different story for a different blog post. That'll come next. Now, I shall sit back and marvel that I actually managed to finish this post in a day, in between feeding, expressing, eating, feeding, expressing .... you get my gist...

Later now.

Technorati Tags: babies, birth, C-sections

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