The Craun-icles of Brian and Nicole: Buy One, Get One Free

...if only that were true! At least it's money well spent!

Dom's art work

Today marks one week of Brian and me as parents of multiples, and it truly hasn't been as bad as we thought. We keep thinking the other shoe is going to drop, but maybe it won't.

There's so much to tell, so first I'll start with Chloe and William's birth. As I predicted, I had a few freak-out episodes prior to the c-section. There's a lot of time to think while they load you up with fluids! I held it together pretty well until they had me walk into the operating room. I was so scared about everything, and it was totally surreal just walking on into a place that I was wheeled into last time with a bajillion people there to watch, learn, and support our family. Seriously, twins calls for a crap ton of people - NICU staff, regular baby nurses (one for each), my doc, her assistant, a female med student, a midwife (WTF?), a few extra delivery nurses, the anesthesiologist and his male med student, and my nurse and her assistant.

Once settled on the OR table, I got my spinal tap and the crew worked their magic. I couldn't even tell that it was almost time for Chloe to make her debut until the male med student said something, even though I was completely alert through the whole surgery. Brian was brought in right after this, and could have totally seen everything if he wanted to; there was only one tiny curtain in front of my chest. Chloe arrived at 9:50, weighing 6 lbs 15 oz and 19 3/4 inches in length. One minute later William arrived, weighing 5 lbs 5 oz and 19 inches in length. That one minute in between seemed like an eternity. During that time they quickly cleaned Chloe and showed her to us, and then I saw a reflected blur (in the light above me) of William arriving. When they showed him to us all I could think about was how tiny he was/is.

I was so delusional here that I couldn't tell if I was smiling so I had to ask the nurse taking the photo. And I like the look of terror in my eyes. At least my eyebrows look good.

Then Brian got to leave the room with Chloe and William to do testing and get them cleaned up while they put me back together. At some point my blood pressure dropped enough to require me to get some giant shot in my leg and I remember feeling sick and drowsy until Brian and the babies came back in, as the anesthesiologist and his student talked in teacher/student talk about my blood pressure, the little-too-much amount of blood I lost, and the State of the Union address. Next thing I knew we were back in my pre-op room for the two hour recovery.

Chloe and William both had excellent Apgar scores. Her's were 9s at 1 minute and 5 minutes - healthy is typically 7 to 10. William's were 8 at 1 minute and 9 at 5 minutes. William did need a little oxygen at first but was fine after that. Both of them were rockstars at nursing. We were able to spend that whole first day with them, aside from testing and room transfers. Our first visitors were my mom and Dominic. He was such a proud big brother! He wanted to hold them right away. He held William first, then Chloe, and then declared William his favorite because Chloe was too heavy. Bess, JD, and my dad also visited. Brian's parents, Megan, and Lauren also visited us while we were there.

I love how proud he looks in this picture! And don't mind the chocolate on his teeth. He picked out that teddy on me and a heart box of chocolate to give me, but ate almost all of the chocolate himself.

Pretending to sleep like Will

Checking out Chloe in the hat he picked out for her. Will has the boy version of it.

Peek-a-boo!

Super late that evening, our nurse shared that William had a low body temperature and a low blood sugar level. After another feeding, the decision was made to transfer William up to NICU so that he could sleep in a warmer and get an IV filled with sugar water. I cried because I was so worried about William and felt like I didn't do everything I could have to make him strong and healthy, and also partially because I wouldn't be able to tell off those snotty early childhood social workers who said "See you in NICU" when they found out I was having twins. (For the record, we never saw them. Instead we got some lady who was more concerned about telling us about the baby in the room next to William's who most likely wasn't going to make it. Thanks for making us feel comforted about William being up there.)

William spent the rest of our stay in NICU, slowly weaning off his supports. At first they thought he wouldn't be discharged until Sunday afternoon at the earliest, but he's a fighter and he got to come home with us on Saturday afternoon. He looks and acts so much like Dominic did as a newborn. I felt awful not being with him every second. Those emotions were difficult to deal with. However, the good thing about William having to be upstairs in NICU is that I forced myself to get out of bed and move around sooner. This recovery has been 1000 times better than my recovery after having Dom since I didn't have to labor and I moved around more.

His cute little feet

His going home outfit

Chloe looks like me, which I would never have said that had my mom not said it and the pictures in my baby book confirmed it. She is super sassy, doesn't really like having a wet or dirty diaper, and when she's hungry you better feed her RIGHT NOW. Between needing to measure William's intake and Chloe's impatience with nursing, I decided to pump with supplementing as needed. This time things are going way better with the whole feeding process - I'm less stressed and I'm not the only one who can feed!

Things at home have been pretty awesome (I hope I didn't just jinx us!). They are on the same schedule, and typically I pump while Brian changes them and feeds one or both of them, depending on where I am with things. Then they both go back to sleep. We started out waking Will every 2 1/2 hours or so, with Chloe every 3, but now we wake them approximately every 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Both of them were back within an ounce of their birth weights as of their Monday morning check-in with their pediatrician. Brian and I are exhausted, but at least we aren't stressed and at each others' throats like with Dom. Having Dom prior to them has made this whole thing easier because we're more confident and patient with each other.

Using his camera from his Big Brother gift (which included candy, markers, and a book on being a big brother)

Helping with a 2:30 AM feeding...Dom's jealous that the babies get to be in our room

Our first outing to the pediatrician

I have to brag: We're rocking this so far! The only struggle has been a few jealous tantrums by Dom, but we just keep telling him we love him and we know it sucks. I feel so guilty! The other night we resolved a tantrum, did Dom's bedtime routine, and changed, fed, and put down Chloe and William all within an hour. Boom. Brian's the best, and I couldn't imagine doing this without him or with someone else. My mom's been awesome too - she's already made two Target runs for us! And we have plenty of friends ready to help, and in a few weeks we'll have Brian's parents here in the metro too.

To help us survive, we have two rules we're living by:
1) Always take care of our personal basic needs first. Brian and I are awful hungry people; he stops functioning and I'm a bitch so we just need to avoid those situations.
2) Always write down every feeding and changing. This was super helpful at keeping us on track with feeding but also in communicating with their pediatrician on Monday.

And well, two more unspoken ones, I guess:
- Never let Chloe get too ~~hangry~~ hungry.
- Laugh a lot.

With that, I'll end on a funny story. Yesterday as we took a few pics in preparation of Bess' photo shoot this weekend, Chloe ripped a greasy (as Dom and Brian call it) fart. When Brian changed her, he forgot to put a new diaper down right away and there was a poop-splosion that narrowly missed the wicker basket on the dresser. Then she continued to poop all over the waterproof pad, and then Brian kept picking her up with her butt unprotected. At one point it was even aimed at Brian's face. How we didn't end up with poo all over the place is beyond me! I was laughing so hard that I was crying, and every time I think about it I laugh some more.

Thank you for all your facebook messages, calls, and texts!