3 Week Birthdays

Hooray, the babies are 3 weeks old today!  Here is what you should know about our lives right now:

• They babies were doing awesome on their breathing... until I went home for 24 hours.  Apparently my absence traumatized them and they have decided to have apneas and bradycardias again... Grrr.  Ok, I know it wasn't really my fault but the timing sure makes it feel that way.  They just upped their caffeine dose so hopefully we will see improvement in the next few days.  I am also doing my part by drinking Diet Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper diligently.  Between my constant thirst, inability to stay awake and eating out all of the time, I figure I can also do my part to help their breathing by providing extra caffeine via breast milk :)
• They are finally figuring out how to keep their body temperature which is check mark one out of three on the big list of things they have to accomplish in order to go home.  The other two are eating on their own and figuring out how to breath...  Anyway, so Wyatt was moved out of an isollette today and into an open crib.  They will likely move Lily over after bath time tonight.
• This morning I got to nurse both babies at the same time.  It was awesome especially since Lily's little "suck-swallow-breath" switch finally went off and they were both able to get half of their feeding by nursing!  It was also the first time I was able to hold them both at the same time and I just couldn't stop thinking how amazing it is that I have these two little babies.  Could I be more blessed?  It almost made me want to have more kids... almost. Except the fact that I am forbidden from getting pregnant again.  Apparently, I am not very good at it.   I double nursed them again tonight and it went great until Wyatt spit up towards the end.  I think he would have had an entire feeding until his incident but oh well.  At least he is figuring it all out.
• My mom is now in town and taking care of Macy and Kylie while Justin goes to work.  Justin's mom left last week and we are so blessed to have so much help!
• I survived working on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and I am so glad that I have an entire year before I have to do that again...
• My life is really glamourous as I live in a hotel, have personal housekeepers, a chauffeur who drives me everywhere I need to go and I have people to make me all of my food.  Aren't you jealous? 
• The babies are now 33.5 weeks so hopefully we will be out of here in another three weeks... a girl can hope, right?
• The worst part about pumping is having to wait up to pump that final time before bed so I only have to get up once at night to pump again.  This results in me not going to bed until 11:30 or later every night and waking up by 7 every morning.  Hence the exhaustion and diet coke dependence...

The "30 Week Post"

I had been meaning to post for weeks and finally decided to hold off and just do a 30 week post and do a big pregnancy update, so here it is although it will be a much different post than I had been planning on writing.  I had planned to show you a picture of me at 30 weeks, talk about how I had grown out of most of my clothes, talk about how I got put on bed rest at 28 weeks because I had dilated to a one and all that good stuff.  Instead, this post is going to be about....

These two little cuties.  Meet Wyatt Justin and Lily Nichole.  Born 9/8/11 at 11:13 and 11:14 pm.  Wyatt was 3 lbs 7 oz. and Lily was 3 lbs 4 oz.

I have been trying to write this post for several days but once the harsher pain meds wore off and I could think straight, I was still too tired to write or focus.  I am still too tired now, but I will do my best so pardon any incoherent rambling.

I went in to my doctor's appointment Tuesday morning to see how everything was going and I had dilated to a three, which was not good news.  The doctor sent me over to the hospital for a non stress test  and told me that he wanted me to move up to San Antonio in case I went into labor.  While at the hospital Justin and I spent the afternoon with him running around and me on the phone trying to figure out how to get me transferred to San Antonio ASAP.  We had planned on Justin driving me up on Wednesday because we didn't have a huge sense of urgency.  However, one of the ladies who works at the clinic on base pitched a fit when she realized that my doctor and the hospital hadn't immediately med evaced me up so they decided to get a helicopter sent down to pick me up.  I felt a little bad because I knew they were expensive and I didn't really think I was going into labor right away.  After hours at the hospital, my contractions were all over the place and I wasn't really effaced.
Justin brought the girls by to tell me good bye and I was more sad to leave them behind than worried about the babies coming until the flight nurse checked me and I had dilated to a 5.  I was shocked again and thought that meant I might have the babies the next day.
Turns out I was wrong and we should have had Justin leave for San Antonio when I did because after an hour long helicopter ride with some fairly painful contractions I landed and had dilated to a 7.  I called Justin and told him to come up ASAP but knew he wouldn't make it in time because the babies were breach so the doctors wanted to do a C section right away.  40 minutes later I was getting an epidural and they took out the little ones.
As they wheeled me in several nurses commented on how calm I was.  I wish they hadn't said that because as soon as that blue sheet went up in front of my face I started to feel more alone and nervous than I ever had, even with 15 people in the room.  I couldn't see anything and was completely alone, except for the poor anesthesiologist who must be used to dealing with emotional women by now. As soon as I started crying, he gave me some fentynal (sp?) which not only got rid of the tiny bit of pain I could still feel but also helped me to relax. A nurse who had just gotten off her shift offered to take pictures of the babies with my phone since Justin wasn't there and I will be forever grateful to her.
The babies were taken off to the NICU shortly after and Justin showed up about an hour later.  I had never had a C section before and was liking it until the epidural started waring off and I realized that Demoral did nothing for my pain.  Long story short, it was a very long and painful night.

The other big bummer is that I had woken up Tuesday morning with pink eye so I wasn't allowed to go into the NICU to see the babies until I had been on drops for 48 hours which meant 1:00 a.m. Thursday morning.

I will update more on the babies later but I wanted to at least announce that they were here and both doing well so far!