A Slew of Updates

Sorry for the lack of posts lately – as you can imagine, we’ve been busy!

Since our last post, things have gone really quite well.  We’ve discovered that the twins seem to be transitioning away from their preemie selves into newborns.  We can tell this because they have fallen out of the habit of sleeping 24-7 and have started to fuss a bit more and tend to be awake at night instead of during the day.  Luke tends to fuss in short bursts all throughout the day, while Lauren is perfectly quiet, then will have one loud, long outburst to compensate.

We have had two pediatric appointments within the last few weeks, and the babies are progressing nicely.  They’ve each gained a pound between the two visits: Lauren currently weighs 6lbs., 12oz., and Luke is hitting 6lbs., 10oz.  Their color has become much better, and the slight jaundice they had initially has all but disappeared, thanks to some sun exposure and vitamin D.  Lauren has taken to feedings extremely well, and while Luke hasn’t had any trouble eating, he definitely is showing signs of indigestion/reflux.  We’re keeping tabs on him and making some slight changes to see how he reacts – we don’t want another case of severe reflux like JJ had at that age.

The nurse practitioner that we’ve been seeing up to this point has recommended that we can now break our feeding schedule of every three hours in favor of simply letting the twins wake us up at night.  This can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it.  If the babies are satisfied, then they’ll sleep longer, and we’ll get up less – but if they’re hungry, as they were last night, then they will wake up frequently for a period before ‘corking off.’  We’ll see how this progresses – hopefully we can get the babies to last a bit longer instead of having frequent cluster feedings.

Thus far, Missy has calculated that we are going through 112 bottles, 140 diapers, 200 wipes, and 3 cans of formula every week.  Thank God for Costco.  Barney quipped that he would “sure hate to be our trash man.”

We’ve found a great product that we’ve fallen in love with.  It’s the Fisher-Price Newborn Rock & Play Sleeper.  We picked up two of these, and they’re fantastic.  They’re lightweight and easy to carry around and position in different rooms of the house, and they recline the baby at the perfect angle to help them stay upright after a feeding.  The twins seem to be much more comfortable in these bassinets than they do in their cribs for the time being, so we’ve taken to using them quite a bit, and they’ve been sleeping in these at night.

Missy is doing fairly well health-wise.  She has been healing quickly, and had her post surgery follow-up yesterday with the OB.  She is now allowed to drive on her own (after 6 weeks of not being allowed), go up and down the stairs as she pleases, and can take some short walks (which we’ve already done now that the weather is so nice).  The doctor commented that it was really nice to be able to care for Missy for the complete duration of pregnancy, from the first surprise of finding out we were having twins, all the way to bringing them in for a visit.

Today is Missy’s follow-up Hematology appointment with a new doctor.  Her last Hematologist left a little to be desired, but we’re already encouraged by the positive response we’ve received from the new doctor’s staff and their willingness to answer our questions.  We’re really hoping that things turn out well on this front.

Thank you so much to all of our family and friends for the love and support you’ve shown and continue to show us.  Things have certainly been challenging, as we’ve expected, but the meals, words of encouragement, and offers for help have really strengthened us and allowed us to keep forging ahead.