Big Sister

As to be expected, Sadie has been acting out a little.  She actually started this before the twins got here and I was on bed rest.  It's to be expected really.  She is a very energetic kid and loves no DEMANDS attention.

For the most part she has done really well and she loves her babies!  But we noticed that the attention seeking child was acting out and trying to tell us not so subtly that she wanted to be involved with the babies more. 

I love Miss Sadie with all my heart but a small part of me...must be that new mom part...was a little nervous. 

But Miss Sadie exceeding all expectations.  She really just wanted to feel like she was a part of all this new stuff.

I just love this picture.  It captures Sadie to a T and even got Mr. Auggie looking at the camera.

Our Babies!

This was the first sibling photo.  She was SO happy she got to hold both at the same time.  All she kept saying was "I'm a big helper huh Momma?"

My girls!

She even got to help feed Henrietta. 

She was very serious for all of five minutes and then she was done helping.  HA!

I love my children and I am so very thankful that Heavenly Father saw fit to bless us with these miracles.

Announcement Photo Shoot:Take One

I wanted to get some early photos done for the twins' birth announcement.  Now I am not an expert on infant photos as I do most of my photo sessions outdoors with natural light, but I thought I'd give it a shot.  Not my best work but not my worst either.

Here is Henrietta in a little hat and bloomers (you can't see) that I made. 

I love the hat but you can't see all her glorious hair.  So I thought I'd change it up a bit and decked her out in a pink boa.  See the leg sticking straight out?! She wasn't a big fan.  Note to self for future photo shoots...no boas.

Little man. 

He has his hands like this all the time.  We think he may be a boxer in his future. 

I at least got one arm to move for this one...

They were pretty tuckered out but I needed a couple with both of them together.

POW right in the kisser!

Someone else wanted to get some attention too!

So I let her climb up on the table and lay like the twins were laying.  I just love her eyes!!

It was still hard to move around and I was just learning...so needless to say I didn't use these for their announcements. But it was fun to experiment.

Doctor Check Up

Things are progressing much better. 

Both the twins have stopped losing and even put on a little weight. 

Auggie's jaundice is better but he is still a bit yellow. But we won't have to do the lights.

Next thing on the list is Mr. Auggie's circumcision. Which will be in another week or so.  They want him to put on a bit more weight before we do the procedure.

First Bath

This is the face of an unsuspecting baby.  He just got finished eating and now it's time for a bath...

Yep he isn't very happy...and he let us know it.  But it's got to get done son!

Our sleeping child.  Yes she always is asleep.  She just too got fed and now it's time for her bath...

She actually enjoyed the bath.  We are still not able to fully submerge yet but she enjoyed it nonetheless.

Settling In...

One of the conditions of letting us go home on the 25th was that we had to get right into the doctor for Auggie.  He was extremely jaundice.  He only passed in one ear for the hearing test.  So we will have to go back into the hospital to have him retested.

Here is Auggie at the Doctor.

He is losing more weight than they would like.  So we are on a every 2-3 hour feeding schedule to try and beef him up some.

We also found out that Auggie has A+ blood type.  I have O- blood type so this is also something they are going to watch.  Something to do with rejection.  I'm not exactly sure what that is about but it might explain why he is so much smaller than Hettie because he was not compatible with me.  Awww...not compatible with me?  Say it ain't so!

We also have to do several blood draws for jaundice.  And if he doesn't stabilize then we will have to do a light at home.  His skull shape is also something they are going to monitor.  It appears there may have been some damage from him being breech.

We are also going to do a kidney ultrasound in the next month or so to verify there was no damage to the kidneys since he only had a two vessel cord.  Now normally babies have a three vessel ambilical cord.  Two vessels bring in nutrients and blood and one vessel for removal.  So Mr. Auggie only had one vessel for nutrients and blood.  Another reason he is smaller.  But this can sometime affect the babies kidneys.

Oh our poor boy.  You have struggled since conception.  But you are a fighter and I have faith you will be fine.

Here is Henrietta at the Doctor.

She also lost some weight but within normal limits.  They are still going to keep an eye on her.

This is what we call "Milk Coma"  And to be honest in this picture he reminds us all of my Grandpa Lindsey.  hehe.  Grandpa would sometimes fall asleep just like this.

Hettie in her "Milk Coma"

I don't remember what normal sleep is like anymore but thank Heaven for small mercies...Grandpa and Grandma arrived and they will be here with us for a week.  I'm truly blessed that they were able to come down and help.

Steve has the rest of this week off but will have to return for the 1st of the month mandatory work. But then he will take the week off after my parents leave.  So I will have help for three whole weeks.  YAY!  Hopefully by then I will be able to walk a little better and sit a little better and sleep a little better.  I tapped my dear friend Dawni's brain in preparation for a c-section but it still is a bit more difficult than I thought it would be.  Although I have been told I am trying to hard but that's just who I am.  Hopefully though I will be at least 50% better by the time I am on my own.  Yikes...I really don't want to think about that at the moment. 

Here is Grandpa Kenny, Miss Sadie and Mr. Auggie.

(don't you love the clone wars tent in the background? Yep my inner geek spills out every now and then.)

At the Hospital

After a long and very emotionally and physically exhausting day we made it to post-pardum room.  I was happy to be out of the OR recovery finally and to have some piece and quiet. Now the shift change had just happened at 7-8pm. So I told Steve to go ahead and go home and get some rest.  Well the night nurse came in and told me that I had to have someone in the room with me since I couldn't move due to the catheter. So I had to call Steve and have him make arrangements for Sadie and come back.  Poor guy was exhausted.

I asked the nurse when I could actually eat something other than soup and found out that the day nurse was supposed to remove that catheter and start giving me solid foods.  Keep in mind it's after 8pm and all I had that day was broth and water.  I was starving.  So I told Steve to stop and grab me some taco bell and bring me DIET COKE!  haha.

I eventually got sorted out and the next couple of days I just tried to regain my strength and work on moving with the incision.

Here is Henrietta

Mr. Auggie

Baby Girl Eastlick

Baby Boy Eastlick

Daddy and his baby girl

My girls!

I just love this picture of Hettie with her squishy face.

This is where Steve slept for two very uncomfortable nights.

Wednesday came and we were all chomping at the bit to get out of the hospital.  We waited all morning and finally in the afternoon we were released.  Here is our going home photo.

Our First Night Home as a Family

Let me first say that I don't think anyone was more happy that we were all home than our dogs.  Yep more happy than Steve who hadn't really had a good nice rest in three days or me happy to be in my own home with my family. Our dogs just love the babies and have been quite gentle thus far. 

Since I am still very limited on mobility we set up our camp in the living room.  Who needs a three bedroom house if you have a large great room and comfy recliners right?!

Here is Henrietta in her sleeper.

Here is Auggie in his sleeper. 

We opted to go this route instead of keeping them together only because we don't have a lot of space in our bedroom so this was more functional.  They work pretty darn good too.

We opted to go this route instead of keeping them together only because we don't have a lot of space in our bedroom so this was more functional. They work pretty darn good too.

Here they are all hunkered down for the night in front of our recliners.

My precious miracle

And our other precious miracle.

Thought I'd throw this one in there to prove I am still here.  haha.  It's not all about the babies afterall. HA!

And it wouldn't be a camp unless someone was sleeping on the ground right?! 

Miss Sadie desperately wanted to sleep with her brother and sister.  She also missed Mommy and Daddy quite a bit too.  She has had a lot of changes in the past couple of months and there are more changes in the future as well.  But for tonight we are all camping out in the living room watching Big Bang Theory and trying to catch our breath and relax.

THEY ARE HERE!!!!

Let me first start off by saying a few of these pictures are right after they were born so if you don't want to see a little blood just read my story.  haha.

Sunday morning Steve couldn't sleep.  He woke up at 3am.  I felt exhaust and just didn't feel good all day.  So at 10pm when we both went to bed we crashed.  Well at midnight I woke up to very sharp pains.  Now let me clarify something.  These pains weren't normal contractions.  And they were only on my left side.  I got up and went to the rest room thinking maybe the twins had just adjusted weird and it would go away.  Well I went back and sat on the edge of the bed breathing through the pain for about 20 mins before I woke Steve up and told him something was wrong.  Something was indeed wrong.  Thank goodness for my best friend whom I woke up and arranged to drop off Sadie.  And thank goodness I had enough forsight to finish packing my hospital bag the day before.  See I must have known.  haha.

We loaded everyone up and dropped Sadie off.  By this time I knew I was in labor.  The pain that originally started was now full blown contractions.  Steve high tailed it to the hospital possibly blowing through one of two red lights.  I mean really it's 12:30 in the morning on a monday...anyway I digress.  I was attempting to help drive from my side of the car. Foot planted on the floor and my body just hovering above the seat while holding on to the door handle.  I was breathing through the contractions by this point but told Steve in a night so nice way to hurry up.  haha.  We pulled up to the emergency room and Steve got an nurse and a wheelchair.  Apparently I looked lovely by all the sympathetic faces I was getting while wheeling through the ER.

We made it to Labor and delivery at 1:15am and was immediately examined.  Well I was almost to a 7 now.  Side note: I had been dialated to a 3 for about a month. Yep went from a 3 to a 7 in an hour. This is why my nurses told me to get straight to the hospital next time I had a child after Sadie.  They gave me something I'm not even sure what it was but the contractions slowed down.  They had to prep the OR for the c-section, get the doctors here and get my numbing medicine.  So I needed to slow down a bit.

They wheeled me into the OR and I was given my medicine.  Now I was VERY nervous about this because I had such a bad epidural with Sadie I had decided I wasn't going to have one this time.  Low and behold though a c-section requires that.  UGH!  That's ok because Ky my anethesiaologist was amazing and I barely felted it.  Thank goodness for small mercies!!!

Now one of the reasons I didn't want an epidural was the way that I felt when I couldn't move.  It freaks me out.  So I attempted to breathe through everything.  At this point I was still by myself.  They had to get Steve ready for the OR too.  Now thank goodness for Steve and his humor to try and distract me from what was going on.  They apparently only have one size fits all in the way of gowns for OR.  And most of you know Steve doesn't fit into that category.  So he walks in and leans over and says "Fat guy in a little coat" from a Chris Farley movie.  haha.  That's my hubby.  All I cared about at this point was that he was there.  I was attempting to surpress my fear and anxiety of the medicine and his presence really calmed me down. 

Here is a self portrait he took after putting on his wet suit...um I mean his gown.

They had a curtain up so I didn't see what happened.  To be honest I was quite curious.  Blood never made me sick or queasy but it was a no go.  All I felt was pressure and more pressure.  Eventually though there was such a release of pressure that I actually exhaled and sighed.  And then Hettie started crying.  I was so relived from the pressure being gone I thought to myself Auggie could cook a little longer if he had too.  But nope a minute later he was out.  Steve mumbled something about him holding on to something but I was numb and just trying to breathe. 

While the doctors worked on me they had two teams of nurses in the OR ready and working on the twins.  (it was quite crowded in the OR)  Steve went with the babies and grabbed these shots.

This is Augustus (Auggie) Emmitt Eastlick.

Born at 2:33am on April 23, 2012

He weighed 6 pounds 1 ounce and was 19 inches long.

This is Henrietta Marie Eastlick

Born at 2:32 am on April 23, 2012

She weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long

After they did all the vitals and wrapped the babies up the nurses brought them over to me.  They were still trying to close me back up.  I kissed each of them and the nurses took them and Steve out to post op to wait for me.

The next few hours seemed to fly by.  Both Steve and I were exhausted and there was no sign of sleep in the near future.  The medicine gave me the shakes so bad I couldn't hold the babies for a while after they brought me into post op.

Auggie was basically in the pike position the entire pregnancy and this is good picture of what he would have looked like in the womb.  He was having a bit of trouble keeping warm so they put a heart on his tummy which had a thermameter in it so they could adjust the bed to keep them warm.

They also had to keep track of Auggie's blood sugar.  It was a little borderline but after a bottle he was fine and kept the levels where they needed to be.

It was hard work being born.  After all the poking and prodding they crashed.

We did find out that Auggie was wrapped in amniotic bands.  He has scars on his arms and legs.  He is very fortunate to be have all his extremities. For more information on ABS please visit the link above.  Auggie has been fighting from day one and we are so lucky to have him!!

Their first bath

 I finally stopped shaking so I could hold my babies.

Then we had one of the nurses take a family photo...minus Sadie of course.

Daddy and his boy. 

Poor Steve is was exhausted. 

They shared a bed most of the time while we were in the hospital.  It calmed them down and they did much better.

Sadie meeting Auggie for the first time.

Sadie was very happy her babies had finally made it.