I was thinking today about some of the cute things that the twins say. They have come so far with their language in the last few months. The speech therapy has helped them so much. One thing that Jared says that is so cute is “Oh! Thanks!”. He says this whenever you give something to him, his milk, food, his toys, blanket, anything. It is so adorable!
Another cute thing that both Jared and Riley say is “Owie, that hurt!” whenever they get a boo-boo. It’s never just Owie! But always “Owie, that hurt!” I don’t have any idea where they picked that up. It is so funny!
They both call their blankets “bank” and blues clues is “boo”. Riley says “popy” for open. It took me a while to figure out that was what he was saying.
Jared and Riley have managed to get into a lot of trouble in their short life. They have dumped a full can of comet all over the floor, they have poured syrup all over the stairs and all over the living room table, carpet and entry-way floor, they have dumped hundreds of my CD’s on the floor and mixed up all the discs and holders, they have climbed up the outside of the stair railing to stand on the entry-way table, they have climbed up on the dinning room table and grabbed onto the chandelier. If I take my eyes off of them for more than 2 minutes, they find something to get into! I can’t even go to the bathroom without them getting into trouble! Today they managed to get the fire extinguisher out of the supposedly locked cabinet (locked with “child proof locks” ), somehow got the safety ring off of it and sprayed it all over the den. All of this happened while I was out of the room for less than 2 minutes.
Of course, while I was cleaning up that mess, they managed to get into the pantry, open a box of pop-tarts, rip open a package and grind pop-tart pieces into the floor in the kitchen. While I’m cleaning that up, they are ripping to pieces magazines in the den.
This was all before 10 am this morning. Thank goodness there was a twins club playday at a park I could go to at 10:30! I think getting us all out of the house may just have saved my sanity.
I had the IFSP meeting today with our service coordinator for Jared and Riley’s speech. (IFSP = Individualized Family Service Plan) She is recommending 1 hour of in home speech theraphy per child per week. Most likely this will translate to 30 minutes per child twice a week. She is working to get this all set up next week. Hopefully, we will hear back by Wed. and can get the theraphy going by the end of the week. They have been learning more words lately, but are still way behind where they should be. The main problem seems to be that they copy each others speech and have their own words for things. Getting individual theraphy should help with this. They will have another ISP meeting in 6 months to re-evaluate where they are and decide how to proceed.
For the past two weeks, I have been watching my neighbor’s 18 month old while she takes my older three children to swim class. Three toddlers are much harder to keep up with than two. One starts pulling CD’s off the CD rack, you go to pick those up, while another one gets into drawers in the kitchen and starts dumping stuff on the floor there, before you can get the CD’s put back and get to the kitchen to get that one out of the drawer, the thrid has gotten into the bathroom and is running off with the girl’s toothbrushes. It is exhausting! Having the play in the backyard seems to work out best. They are contained and there isn’t much trouble they can get into back there. It is fun to watch how J&R interact with JP. J&R are so much alike and they expect JP to respond in the same manner that their twin would. The other day JP had two kid k’nex sticks. Jared wanted one and could not understand why JP was not giving it to him. Whenever J or R has two of something and the other one comes up to him, they will always give one of the objects to their twin. For the most part, J&R are usually playing to together and JP is off doing his own thing. J&R also communicate a lot in their own “twins speak” type language. JP has been picking up their “language”. The speech therapist that came out to evaluate J&R recently said that they need to be around other kids their age that communicate better than them so they will start to mimic the better speech. Looks like just the opposite happened with JP!
It is hard to believe that Jared and Riley are now 2! The past two years have passed by at a furious rate. The majority of their first year is one big blur. The second year hasn’t been nearly as exhausting as the first, but has still come with many challenges. I am no longer suffering from sleep deprivation, but I do spend most of my day chasing after two very rambunctious toddlers.
The dynamics between Jared and Riley are fascinating to watch. The other day Riley pushed Jared down and got put in time-out. He started crying and Jared when and got Riley’s blanket and brought it over to comfort him. They are always doing that sort of thing, trying to make the other one feel better when he is upset. They do fight, usually over who gets some toy or other. It usually doesn’t last too long with one of them giving in and letting the other have the object. It is interested how they will actually play together at this age. Other toddlers that come over usually end up playing by themselves while Jared and Riley are usually playing together. It will be interesting to watch this dynamic as they get older.
As I was holding both Jared and RIley this morning, I was thinking about how lucky I was to have them and how much joy they bring into my life. Not a day goes by that I do not thank God for giving us these babies. Aidan asked me this morning were the twins came from. I told him “They were a gift from God.” I also told him that he was gift from God and so where Talia and Kayli and that that was why all you are so very special.
Anyway, back to today’s topic! As I was holding J&R they were looking at each other and just laughing. They were both so happy! It gave me such joy to just sit there and hold them and watch them giggling together. Ya, they are a lot of work, but they are so much fun to watch too. Some of the things they come up with are so funny!
The other day when we were eating lunch, they decided that stuffing raisins in their ears would be a fun thing to do. I’m not sure who came up with idea first, but when I walked into the kitchen they both had raisins all in their ears. They seemed to think it was just a riot too! They are always getting ideas from each other like that.
Yesterday after I changed their diapers, Jared decided that the wipe box made a great step. He kept stepping up on it, then down, then up again. Riley saw him doing it and wanted to step on it too. They ended up fighting over who would get to stand on it. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there watching it all wondering why I bother to buy them toys.
Another thing they like to do that they picked up from the older kids is to come up to you and say “boo!” then run away. It is so cute! They will take turns running up, looking you in the face and then go “boo!”. The standard response is “Oh! You scared me!” They then laugh and run away and the other one comes up and does it.
Although they do fight, they are often so sweet to each other. One or the other of them will often pick up both of their blankets and take their brother his. They do the same thing with their teddy bears, balls and other toys. I’ve also seen them come up and try to comfort their twin when he is crying. It is just so adorable to watch them interact like that.
Aidan has been running a fever the last few days. The twins have also had one, but theirs has not been as high as his. Hopefully they will all be feeling better tomorrow. Having to deal with a bunch of sick kids is not fun at all!
Kayli definitely has 5th disease. She broke out in the rash over the weekend. It looks just like all the pictures of the 5th disease rash I was able to find on the internet. This pretty much confirms in my mind that I had 5th disease when I was sick last month.
I was on the computer when I smelled comet. I thought that was weird and went to investigate. These pictures show what I found. They had spilled a nearly full container of comet all over the floor! Aidan had undone the locks on the cabinet and I’m sure he was the instigator of this mess. He thought it was quite fun to slide around the kitchen on the stuff. I grab the camera and took a few pictures before thinking that the comet could be poisonous and I better call poison control. I strip the twins and strap them into their highchairs. Clean them off to prevent them getting any more of it in their mouth and of course I then couldn’t find the number for poison control. So, I called my neighbor who gave me the number. I called them and they said that since they likely only ingested a little bit it likely would have no effect. But that they might vomit in the next hour or so. Then I start the huge job of cleaning up the mess. Of course this all happened right before lunch, so the kids were all hungry. I had to get them lunch and try to get the kitchen cleaned all at the same time. We had to mop the floor about five times to get all the comet residue off of it. At least none of them got sick!
It all started about a year ago when I quit unexpectedly found myself pregnant. We already had three children and hadn’t yet decided whether or not we wanted any more. Well, God had decided for us and the answer was that we wanted two more!
I didn’t discover that we were having twins until an ultrasound at 12 weeks. I remember watching the screen and think it odd that the baby kept flipping back and forth every time she moved the ultrasound wand. About then the ultrasound tech said, “Brace yourself, there’s two babies!” My first thought was “But I already have three children!” The initial shock quickly turned into excitement. I was filled with question for the tech. “Can you tell if they are identical or fraternal?” She explained that it appeared that they were identical since they were in the same sac. But that being in the same sac was not a good thing. She spent a very long time looking for a membrane between the two babies, but never found one. That was the first time I had heard about monoamniotic twins. She said it was very rare, so my twins most likely were not monoamniotic and that my doctor would refer me to a high risk OB to check more into this. I had no idea what it would mean to to be pregnant with that type of twins, so I wasn’t terrified, yet.
About a week later, my OB called me. She said she had just gotten my ultrasound results and wanted me to see a high risk OB right away. I got an appointment for the next week. By this time, I was 14 weeks along, the doctor at that appointment looked for a very long time for a membrane. She kept thinking she might have seen one, but wasn’t positive. She was able to determine that the babies looked very healthy and that she was pretty sure they were both boys! We were excited about that since our two oldest were girls and our youngest was a boy. We thought it would be great for Aidan to have younger siblings that were also boys.
At this point I started getting a bit more concerned about the whole monoamniotic thing. I started searching the web for information on this type of twins pregnancies. What I found was not encouraging. Some studies show that up to 50% or more of these pregnancies end up with the loss of one or both babies. With monoamniotic twins, both babies are in the same amniotic sac. The problem with this is the cord become entangled. Having entangled cords into an automatic death sentence for the babies. It is unavoidable with monoamniotic twins. But, having entangled cords that results in the cord becoming compressed dues cause the baby to die. And, if one baby dies, the other normally will die soon after as well. After learning all of this, I start getting more and more worried. However, I was still holding on to the hope that my babies were not actually monoamniotic. After all, one site said that as many as 40% of the women diagnosed with monoamniotic twins have twins that are not actually monoamniotic.
At my next visit I have a different doctor, one I soon came to dislike. He also could not find a membrane and started quoting the dire statistics to me. We see a loss of about 50% of these types of twins. If you make it to 26 weeks, we will want to put you in the hospital for continuous monitoring. We like to deliver these type of twins by 32 weeks. He acted like my babies were doomed! Needless to say, that was a very depressing visit. At least we did see that the babies were still doing well and growing great. And, I still had a small bit of hope that they were not monoamniotic after all.
Any hope I had of them not being monoamniotic evaporated at the next appointment when I saw for myself that the cords were all tangled up at the next ultrasound visit. It literally looked like a bunch of spaghetti between my two precious babies. This is probably when I started to become terrified of loosing my babies. It was such an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness to know that my babies were in danger and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. The only think I could do was pray. And I prayed a lot that my babies would be okay.
At the next appointment I met for the first time the doctor that would eventually deliver my babies. He has over twenty years of experience with high risk pregnancies and I would later found out, is one of the top OB is in the country. He laid out a plan of going into the hospital for constant monitoring at 28 weeks and then delivering the babies at 34 weeks. He did emphasis that most monoamniotic pregnancies never make it to the planned deliver date. Almost all of them have to have an emergency c-section to delivery the babies when problems are detected from the continuous monitoring.
I had been reading on one site that daily NST was one recommended method of managing monoamniotic pregnancies. This doctor was against that saying that something could happen five minutes after the NST and you wouldn’t know it till you came back the next day and found out the babies had died. It was a very hard decision to make. I did not want to spending weeks away from my other kids. My youngest was not even two yet and I had never left him for more than a few hours before. However, I knew that I would not be able to live with myself if I went with daily NST and then something happened to the babies. So, we decided to go with the continuous monitoring starting at 28 weeks.
Getting to the 28 week point seemed to take forever. Every minute of the day I was constantly trying to feel the babies moving. As long as they kept moving I knew they were still okay. At this point I was going to one doctor or the other every week. Being able to see and hear the heartbeats of the babies every week at those appointments was very reassuring.
I ended up going into the hospital on July 5. Watching fireworks with my family the night before had been very bittersweet. I hate so much having to leave my kids, but I knew it was something I had to do. I got checked into the hospital, they hooked me up to the monitors and put in an IV hep lock. That first night in the hospital was one of the longest in my life. Between the bed being uncomfortable and the babies nursing continually coming in to check vital signs or get the babies back on the monitors, I got very little sleep. The next day I was moved to a better room with a window and a regular hospital bed.
After four days, they took out the IV hep lock and wanted to move it to another location. I decided that I just could not have that in for weeks and weeks and refused to let them do another one. My doctor eventually agreed to let me go without. Some of the nurses agreed that I didn’t need it, but several were pretty nervous about me not having it. They ended up leaving all the stuff needed for an IV in the room so they would have it near by in an emergency.
After that I settled into a routine of tv watching and computer surfing that pretty much filled up my day. Having a regular routine helped a lot. Finding out I could order off the menu and get other food that I actually liked, helped a bunch too. I also become obsessed with watching the babies heart rates on the monitor. I was constantly checking the monitor to make sure they were still okay. When they moved off the monitor, I usually could get them back myself.
I had lots of visitors while I was there, which were very welcomed. One of my friends was very good about bringing me meals from the outside about once a week. My husband’s aunt also came to visit very frequently and also brought me several meals. My husband brought the kids to visit everyday, which helped a lot. But it still was very hard sitting in that hospital room day after day.
After being there about three weeks I was going very stir crazy. After talking with the doctor, they agreed that I could go for a walk and be off the monitors once a day for about a half hour. That day when my family came, I was able to go for a walk outside with them. It felt so good to be able to walk around outside for a while. After that, we regularly went for walks. Most of the time we stopped by the newborn nursery so the kids could see the babies.
After I had been in the hospital about a month, my parents came to visit from El Paso. They hoped to be there when the babies were born. At this point I was 32 weeks and we were all thrilled to have made it this far. All the nurses commented how healthy the babies looked. My doctor decided that he would deliver the babies on Aug. 14, which would be the 34 week point. But first he wanted to do an amnio to check the babies lungs.
They did the amnio the morning of Aug. 14. That was probably one of the most painful experiences of my life! The spot where they needle went in hurt for several days. The amnio indicated that the babies lungs were not developed, so my doctor decided to wait till the next week to deliver them. Unfortunately for my parents, that meant they wouldn’t be able to be here for the delivery. I was very upset that I had to wait another week. I was so sick of being in the hospital and I just wanted this whole ordeal to be over.
Two days before the babies were scheduled to be born, I got a visit from the PR director at the hospital. He asked me if we wanted to have the babies birth being on a show called Life Moments. I talked it over with my husband and we agreed. The producer of the show came to the hospital the next day and did interviews with me and my husband. They also video taped a visit with the kids and my husband with the kids at home.
I could barely sleep the night before the delivery. I was so excited to finally see my babies. All monoamniotic babies have to be delivered by c-section. It is just to dangerous for the babies otherwise. The delivery room was quit crowded! Between all the doctors, nurses and the video crew, there was not much room left in the room. (You can see pictures in this post: http://cindy.minear.name/?p=881 Everything went well and my babies were born at 6:51 am and 6:52 am. They both came out screaming! After they were born, my doctor lowered the drape and let me see the cords. I could not believe how much they were tangled up. There was a knot at the bottom and they were wrapped all around each other all the way up to the top. It is truly a miracle that they made it to 35 weeks without having any problems.
We named our babies Jared Michael and Riley Gabriel. Their middle names are after the archangels in honor of the guardian angles that worked so hard to keep them safe before they were born. Jared weighed 5 lbs 12 oz and was 19 inches long. Riley weighed 6 lbs 8 oz and was 20 inches long. They were huge for 35 weekers! Both ended up needing some oxygen and were moved to NICU.
After I got out of recovery and moved to my room, the first thing I wanted to do was go and see my babies. So, six hours after surgery I was wheeled over to NICU. I had to stand for 3 minutes to scrub. That was probably the longest 3 minutes of my life! After scrubbing and scrubbing for what seemed like hours, the light finally went off indicating the 3 minutes was up and I was able to go see my babies. They both looked so tiny in the incubators. They had wires hooked up all over, but they were healthy and were going to be just fine.
Jared only need the oxygen for 24 hours. Riley went off it then also, but had to then go back on it for three more days. They both developed a bad case of jaundice and had to be on the lights. When they were four days old, I had to leave the hospital without them. It was so hard to walk out of the hospital with my babies still there. By this point, I had been there for 7 1/2 weeks and very much wanted to go home. At the same time, I hated not being with my babies.
It was so nice to be back home and be able to move around and go where ever I wanted! I was so used to being hooked up to monitors all the time that the first few days home, I would look for the wires whenever I got up to go to the bathroom at night. We went up to the hospital every afternoon to be with the twins until both babies were home.
Jared was in NICU for 9 days and came home on my younger daughters birthday. Riley stayed there for two weeks. He had some breathing issues and was put on some medication and came home with a monitor. He is still on the monitor, but should go off it next month. Given everything that could have gone wrong,
For the past two weeks, I have been watching my neighbor’s 18 month old while she takes my older three children to swim class. Three toddlers are much harder to keep up with than two. One starts pulling CD’s off the CD rack, you go to pick those up, while another one gets into drawers in the kitchen and starts dumping stuff on the floor there, before you can get the CD’s put back and get to the kitchen to get that one out of the drawer, the thrid has gotten into the bathroom and is running off with the girl’s toothbrushes. It is exhausting! Having the play in the backyard seems to work out best. They are contained and there isn’t much trouble they can get into back there. It is fun to watch how J&R interact with JP. J&R are so much alike and they expect JP to respond in the same manner that their twin would. The other day JP had two kid k’nex sticks. Jared wanted one and could not understand why JP was not giving it to him. Whenever J or R has two of something and the other one comes up to him, they will always give one of the objects to their twin. For the most part, J&R are usually playing to together and JP is off doing his own thing. J&R also communicate a lot in their own “twins speak” type language. JP has been picking up their “language”. The speech therapist that came out to evaluate J&R recently said that they need to be around other kids their age that communicate better than them so they will start to mimic the better speech. Looks like just the opposite happened with JP!
