Now announcing....

Both born 10/28 at 8:35am, little Samuel (2Ibs 13oz) and Jacob (4Ibs 1 oz)!!!

Here's the short story, since I'm still in the hospital recovering from my C-section and I'm pretty pooped:

Tuesday, a week and a half ago, my obgyn found out that I was 2cm dilated and was worried about preterm labor, of course. She set me up to have another NST and doctor check-up 2 days later (Thursday) where I was still the same but the NST showed signs of contractions every 8 minutes. At that point, I was admitted into the Labor Center to stop the contractions, and I spent the day getting shots and steroids to help the boy's lungs to develop faster just in case I was to deliver anyways. I was sent home that night instead of spending the 24 hours and was scheduled for a Monday checkup and NST, which was fine. However, they also scheduled me for another Level II ultrasound because the Tuesday ultrasound showed a weight discordance between the boys of a pound. (Really, this IS the SHORT story.) At the level II, the doctors found that Sam was 2 pounds and 11 oz and Jake was 3 pounds 15 oz and that Sam's placenta was starting to actually revert in blood-supplying performance. The doctor says that because be didn't gain really anything all week and the Doppler showed a weaker supply than his brother...it was possible that keeping him in there longer just more maturation could actually cause more problems and possibly death if long enough. He recommended a C-section THAT NIGHT or the next day or so.
Still in shock, we waited for my regular obgyn to give me a call and give her opinion, which was the same. Freaking out, that evening we got our affairs in order and Thursday 10/28, I was C-sectioned at 8am. (Scariest event of my life, and if you guys want that story and what it's like, maybe I'll tell the tale later.)

The boys are doing well. Baby Sam, even though a pound smaller, is breathing well and is in an incubator, while his brother Jake was on a breathing machine and has done a lot better to the point where he is aided with oxygen with just one of those breathing tubes instead of a mask. They both now have wires hooked up all over them and one running through their mouth, but they both seem to be doing better and better with each visit and not only little sam sucks on his pacifier...we found out last hour that Jake can do the same, if motivated. We left them both happily sucking on their purple hospital pacies. (Little sam will actually hold the pacifier with his little hand too.)

As for me, the "day after" isn't fun at all. The morphine that lasts for 24hours really shows how important the medicine was...and the nurses kept telling me to stay on top of the pain because it's hard to control it once you get beyond 3 or 4 out of 10. Well, I was doing fine until the afternoon today where I really started feeling the incision, as well as backpain. I've been popping pills like a madwomen to get it controlled again and I'm looking forward to finally getting past the little "pain hump" of a couple of days (or so they say). I will be released Sunday, and have not held my babies yet...do not know when they will come home (Sam might come home sooner than his brother if he keeps it up, as well as his weight). I ache that my babies will stay in the hospital for maybe a couple of weeks or longer.........(their due date was 12/11/10)

I still can't believe I'm a mommy and I still look at their itty bitty, fragile bodies in amazement and awe.

Baby pride & Fall 2010

Well, I know I said in the last post that I wouldn't blog about the hat until the second one is done, but I guess I lied and you're going to see it since I'm about 3 inches away from being done with the second. I'll post again about the two hats, and little matching mittens in the next post. But anyways, here is the first baby Bears earflap cap for Jake/Sam. I have no idea what month this cap corresponds to, but it might be 0-6 or just 3-6 depending on the size of their heads. The cap is pretty stretchy though.

I was looking through Ravelry to find inspiration on Bears hats, and didn't find any...so I had to go google some images on how to better place the colors. It seemed that orange looked good at the base, and then to stripe the white and blue and of course finish off with blue. I added the pom-pom and braided cord for more visual interest, and the hat would not be complete without that blue crochet edging. I'm sure the hat will look better on a human than a lumpy monkey's head, but we'll have to wait for some more pics after they are born.

I hope you like photos, because this post is jam-packed with them because we are very much ripe into Fall and it just seems fitting to place them all in this post.

Here is the finished babies' room. There is nothing left to do but hang up two animal wall peices. Even their sheets and onesies are washed with baby detergent. We were very fortunate to have the grandparents purchase the major furniture for the little babes. The bedding is from their "great grandpa" and the mobiles are from others at my baby shower on Sunday.

Almost every person at my two showers (work & family) gave the babies clothing. I have almost two of everything because when you hear twins people people think more "identical" then "fraternal"...so I was really grateful to come across the gifts with similar, but different looking pjs or onesies. I have them organized from newborn to 24 months, and although it looks like they possibly can't go through all of their clothing from the look of their closet, I heard a rumor that babies go through clothing like water throughout the day. And don't worry...we also received lots and lots of diapers. My mom organized a "raffle" for diapers, telling all of the guests that for every 10 diapers they bring to the shower they get their name in the bowl for a prize. We ended up getting dozens of boxes that for twins should last, oh, a few months! Usually you don't think of diapers as an exciting gift at a shower for singletons, but for us...every time we opened up a box, a little more weight fell off my shoulders.

Here is our house in the fall. It looked so pretty when the leaves fell fresh from the tree last week. The colors aren't so vibrant now that they have dried up, so I'm glad we got some shots while they were so orange and yellow.

A shot of the neighborhood too.

Baby Gift

Hey guys,
Now that we are slowly unpacking and uncovering more things, I finally came across the baby gift I received right before I moved that my blogfriend Bobbi graciously knit up for my little boys.

What a sweetie! Thanks again Bobbi...you're awesome!

As for my own knits, I've got a baby "Bears Fan" earflap hat on the needles right now and it's 50% done. You'll get to see the picture when both are done. No posting until the fat lady sings...otherwise, it will be like second sock syndrome, but for hats.

The little babes are now about 3 pounds each and are moving around in me like little aliens. You can really see and feel the little limbs popping out of the tummy, and they are particularily fond of my bellybutton, which feels very strange.

FO: Little Ribbed Baby Jacket

Well, the little ribbed jacket is finished. Like always, I was waiting on having to buy matching buttons. I have a little box filled with buttons of all sorts, but I always somehow manage to make projects that don't exactly match them.

I think the boys will look dashing in this. I used one of their PJ's as a template for size. This model will fit 0-3 months.

The collar turned out OK, but I'm not too thrilled with it. I think it will look better if the top-most button weren't buttoned.

If you notice, the sleeves rib pattern has been changed up from the body of the sweater for some visual appeal. I didn't want the whole sweater to simply just have predictable ridges.

I love the look of seed-stitch, but by this point...it's driving me batty having to go back and forth like that (for some reason it creates tension instead of relaxing me) and the next sweater will have garter stitch as a border, and I'm contemplating making a different sweater altogether for the second boy. (They are going to share these sweaters. I'm not making one specifically for one kid.) I'm thinking something more under the lines of the triangle pattern that I used for "Joe's Office Socks."

Pattern: "Little Ribbed Baby Jacket" by KUAS
Yarn: 1.3 skeins of Plymouth Yarn Galway Highland Heather in teal. Worsted weight wool.
Needles: size US9
Construction: mostly sideways
Start and completed: September 27th-29th, 2010
Made for: Jake & Sam (my expected baby boys)

Getting a good dose of Fall? I've been making pumpkin pie, I went apple picking a couple of weeks ago with my mom and grandpa, picked out pumpkins for the front of our house, I've been making apple cider and have sugar cookie dough ready to be rolled out and cut into little leaf and acorn shapes. Leaves are falling all over our yard, it's colder....I'm in heaven. Mother Nature, can you please let this last all October long??