24 weeks later: a father's recollection of our first months with twins (part three)

Denouement

In a few days, our babies will be six months old. This week, they learned how to roll over from all angles and body positions. The supplemental bottles we started off with have been replaced with oatmeal cereal, and we’ll soon introduce vegetables and fruit to their menu. The Crying-to-Laughing ratio has swung decidedly in favor of laughter for both of them (most of the time), and the differences in their personalities have become evident and delightful. Sometimes I look at this progression and it’s hard to believe. Thinking back to how agonizingly slow those first weeks seemed--when I’d lie in bed in between feedings, awake in spite of the 96 minutes of sleep I’d gotten over the course of the day and thinking of ways I could take it all back and get a do-over—I’m amazed at how time can pass so quickly. I suspect this won’t be the last time this happens.

Recently, a friend of mine—whose wife is pregnant with their first child, and who I hadn’t seen in a few months—stopped by our place to visit and have a drink. After checking to see if my wife was in earshot he looked at me, eyes wide, and said “Be honest, man--what am I in for?”

For a second, I almost was. I was tempted to tell our story, to try explaining The Feeding Schedule and describe how during those first weeks, the differences between night and day, weekend and weekday, are largely semantic and wholly irrelevant. I almost broke out the Charlie Brown Football Analogy to illustrate how in the beginning, every "good" day makes it seem like you're tantalizingly close to a breakthrough, and in spite of all your better judgment you allow yourself to think, "man, today's the day I finally kick that damn ball!" but in the end you wind up on your back anyway, staring up at the ceiling, bewildered, wondering how it all went so wrong, so quickly. 

Instead, I handed him a beer and said “Well buddy, all I can say is your life is going to change, that’s for sure.” Let him find out for himself. Besides, they’re only having one baby anyway. How hard can it be?

24 weeks later: a father's recollection of our first months with twins (part two)

Part II   

One of the most common (and least helpful) things expectant parents hear is, “Boy, your life is really going to change!” As parents of twins, this became a daily occurrence. Family members, friends, and strangers at the store all seemed linked by a common need to let us know that when our babies arrived, “things are sure going to be different!” 

Thankfully, we were already on top of it and had vowed we’d be ready for this new and different lifestyle. My wife had scoured the library and local bookstores for materials on parenthood. We interviewed friends who already had children for hints, tips, and lessons learned from their experiences. We enrolled in hours of classes to help us prepare for the twins. We spent a weekend with a group of expectant parents studying Childbirth Education, took eight hours of night classes on nursing, and finished off the trifecta with a two-hour course titled “Mommy and Me,” a riveting yet touching experience where I learned the practical application of rectal thermometry.

Well-studied on parenting stories and with these classes under our belts, I felt we had a handle on how much change we were in for, thought we’d settle in fairly quickly once we got past the Great Unknown of the actual delivery. As an example, here’s a conversation between my wife and I during our first day in the hospital:

Me: “The nurses are going to ask whether we want the babies to sleep in the nursery tonight. I think we should say no—I mean, we’re going to be going home in the next few days and we won’t be able to pass them off to a nurse or a nursery then, so we might as well get started having them around tonight, right?”

Kate: “Makes sense, OK, let’s do it.”

This noble plan lasted until 9:00 p.m. By 9:30, after a frantic call to our nurse, the babies were resting peacefully (presumably) in the nursery. Kate and I were fast asleep (definitively) in our room…until midnight, that is, when the nurses brought Nolan and Nora in for their 12:00 feeding. And thus, we were introduced to The Feeding Schedule.

Ah, The Feeding Schedule: the one common thread initiating all new mothers and fathers into the collective kick-in-the-groin that is new parenthood. Mention The Feeding Schedule to any new parent you meet and I promise you that eight in ten will either cross themselves, shuddering, or break into tears. I firmly believe that whatever diabolical super genius devised The Feeding Schedule is also responsible for constructing Dick Cheney and unleashing Him upon this unsuspecting world.

Anyway...The Feeding Schedule. We were instructed to feed our newborns every three hours. Because of their low birth weights (5 lbs., 4 oz. for Nolan; 6 lbs. for Nora), we also had to supplement these feedings with small bottles. Our schedule consisted of round-the-clock feedings beginning at 12:00 a.m. and continuing through to midnight, when the schedule would begin again. In the early days, a typical feeding session went something like this: wake up 10 minutes prior to feeding time to get things prepared; wake up the babies with a diaper change; settle on the couch for feeding; wake up babies again (in those days, we actually worked to keep them awake--hilarious, I know); 20-30 minutes of intermittent nursing, followed by another 20-30 minutes of bottles; put twins back in the crib; clean up; back to sleep. A typical feeding session lasted anywhere from 60-90 minutes, which put us back in bed about an hour and a half before we had to get up for the next round. Rinse. Repeat. For 10 weeks.

That’s right—10 weeks. As we got into these routines and the babies got a little older, things became slightly more efficient--like a NASCAR pit crew we were frantically exploring ways to shave off precious minutes here and eliminate wasted seconds there, all in the quest for two full, unbroken hours of sleep between feedings. The first time we pulled it off in under 50 minutes we celebrated with a euphoria that bordered on the hysteric, and I place it fondly among our first parenting “success” stories. But even achieving these efficiencies, those first three months were brutal. I can count on one hand the number of nights where we had more than 4 hours of unbroken sleep, and those first weeks passed in a blur of coffee refills, missed meals, bad movies on FX, and marathons of Teen Mom and Jersey Shore. Thanks to 24-hour play loops, night and day held no real significance; I remember sitting on my couch one night watching Armageddon, holding babies in each arm, only to find myself in the same position the next day watching the exact same scene. Like that Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day, only no one was laughing.

And so it went, all through January and into February. Finally Nora cracked the 10-pound barrier, and almost immediately she began sleeping through the night. Nolan soon followed. The shift was so abrupt and unexpected I didn’t believe it at first, sure it was some kind of trap. The first night I woke nearly every hour to check the monitor, certain something was wrong. The second night was every other hour; by the third night, I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, we’d reached that mythical Promised Land at which our parents and friends had hinted, that time when “it gets better.” I woke on the morning of the fourth day, seven (nearly) uninterrupted hours of sleep later, surprised to see the calendar read March.

24 weeks later: a father's recollection of our first months with twins

A caveat: for my first post on this blog, I decided to write my version of our delivery story, including my (admittedly hazy) memories of the first few months of parenthood. It captures essentially the first 3 months of our experience with Nora and Nolan, so it's a little long (for which I apologize). I've broken it into 3 parts, which I hope you'll enjoy and which--if nothing else--I hope will serve as a reminder to Kate and I if--somewhere down the line--we forget what the concept of "having a baby" really entails. Here's to us never forgetting.

***

Part I

7:45 a.m. on Monday, January 9. My wife—36 weeks and 3 days pregnant with twins—sat beside me in her doctor’s office when he popped his head in, looked at us, and asked, “So you guys want to have some babies today?”

To be fair, we weren’t completely shocked by this question. Because we were having twins our pregnancy was considered ‘high risk,’ and we had been warned from the beginning to expect an earlier delivery than a traditional single-baby birth. Her doctors had suggested we prepare for bed-rest by Thanksgiving, at the latest; my wife, being the determined (stubborn?) woman she is, promised she would make it through Christmas. Now, despite two brief hospitalizations for pre-term labor scares and weeks of increasingly-frequent contractions, she had carried them into 2012, and we were essentially “playing out the string” until her due-date arrived or the babies forced the issue (whichever came first). The previous night, after experiencing an alarming number of contractions and an assortment of other pregnancy-induced discomforts, her doctor suggested we come in for a check-up early the next morning.

My wife and I stared at him. Though not wholly surprised by his question, “Not Shocked” and “Completely Prepared” are totally different concepts. “Yes?” she said, and I half-nodded, half-shrugged in agreement. Her doctor picked up the phone and dialed the Mother/Baby ward at the hospital to confirm scheduling. Holding his hand over the mouthpiece, he asked “How does 9:30 work for you guys?” 

Within the hour we were checked into a hospital room, frantically texting/calling family and friends. Several nurses stopped in to perform pre-surgery prep work on my wife (and to drop off the stylish hospital scrubs I’d be sporting during the process). At 9:30, we walked in to an operating room made chaotic and terrifying by a whirlwind of medical professionals (twin births require double the number of attendants). By 9:50 all the prep work had been completed. “OK,” the doctor said, “let’s deliver some babies!”

At 10:01 my daughter Nora was born, and my son Nolan followed her into the world at 10:03. At 10:10, I woke to find myself on the floor of the operating room after passing out from the realization that I now had two newborn babies to care for. Ok, the last thing didn’t really happen, but the “overwhelmingess” was definite; I had doctors sounding very doctor-y as they explained baby-minutia in one ear, nurses rapidly firing off to-do lists, all amidst the backdrop of two crying newborns who were suddenly and irrevocably mine. The hours following the delivery room were a blur spent in a constant shuffle between the nursery (to spend time with our new babies), the recovery room (to check on my wife), and on the phone with my travel agent desperately looking for the first flight SOMEWHERE ELSE (kidding—sort of). At some point my kids received their first shots; at another, they must have had their footprints taken for our baby books, because those prints exist and I have no recollection of it occurring; later, someone must have given me their unofficial birth certificates and DNA samples because I found them scattered on the floor with my hospital scrubs the next morning. Parents and in-laws came to visit, left, and came by again. Finally, around 3:30 p.m., we settled into our room, each of us holding a sleeping, peaceful baby—a new mother and father confident and ready to face the challenges and responsibilities of mothering and fathering.

Yeah right.

Smoke Signals

It's a lovely Friday morning, already 90 and humid at 7am and I wake up with a low-grade fever. No big deal, just slightly annoying. I'm trying to pull it together for the babies, but they're having none of it. Instead they're focusing all of their little baby energy on being cute then irritating in turn. On the play mat in the nursery they maniacally shift from whimsically amused at the colorful toys I offer to royally pissed at the exact same toys mere seconds later.

Going back to bed is my heart's deepest desire at the moment, but in my slightly feverish state all I can do is look at the clock and hope. It will be here soon, oh so soon. I can almost taste those two magic words on my tongue, tantalizing, like a cold Mike's Hard Mango Punch..."nap time." Right on time I see the cues; eye rubbing, yawning, losing interest in playing. We are ready to rock. Nolan easily goes to sleep but Nora needs a little convincing, so I rock her for a while.

Finally...blissful nap time. They should be good for about an hour and a half. I decide that I'm going to try to get a little rest, too, and maybe sleep off this fever. I lay my head down on the pillow, close my eyes and

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The earsplitting sound from the hallway echoed and bounced off of the wood floors. With a racing heart, my first thought is not "Fire!" Rather it's "Oh my God, did it wake the babies up?!" I check the monitor. Miraculously they're still asleep!

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

There is clearly no smoke in the house, so it must the the battery. I yank the step stool out of the hall closet as quietly as possible, hop on, and open up the casing to check the battery type.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Like a cat, I jump off the stool and land silently on my feet, setting off at a sprint for the kitchen. "Dear Jesus, please let us have a 9 volt battery!" I whisper to myself.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Rummaging through the drawer, I find one. Triumph! I race back to the hallway and try to put the new battery in, BUT IT WON'T ATTACH TO THE CONNECTORS!!!

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I frantically try to jam the damn thing in, growing more desperate by the second. Finally, it clicks into place. No more beeps; the smoke detector once again hangs above our heads, a silent guardian. Check the monitor again; amazing. They're still asleep! I slog back to the bedroom and flop down on the bed, so grateful that the ordeal is over. I lie down for my well-deserved nap and

Nolan wakes up. Awesome.

Happy Friday!

Hello Complete Stranger...

...Would you mind taking a photo of the spectacle that is Me Taking My Twins Grocery Shopping?

Yeah, that is probably not going to happen, which is why I have included an illustration courtesy of MS Paint (the idea to do this was inspired by my good friend Julia).

Left arm (or anything else for that matter) not drawn to scale.

Yes, that is an artist's (me) rendition of a mother (also me) pushing a double Snap 'n Go stroller full o' babies whilst dragging behind her (still me) a cart of groceries. Today we had reached the absolute limit of how-long-can-we-put-off-going-to-the-store and I was forced to take the babies to get groceries ALONE!

It went better than I expected, but took twice as long. This in part was due to the whole pushing-while-pulling maneuvering I was doing throughout the store. It was also partially due to the fact that we had to take about a 15 minute time out from shopping to go all the way back across the store because BOTH Nora and Nolan pooped and had to be changed! Aggh!

The third thing that kept me from my normal speedy and efficient trip through the aisles of Meijer was the curiosity, amusement, and horror expressed by the other customers. People kept stopping me to ask questions, offer help, and make comments. Reactions ranged from the most common "You've really got your hands full!", to "Wow!", "Do you need a hand?", one wide-eyed "Dear God!", and sometimes just laughter accompanied by a shaking head. I just smile, keep pushing/pulling/walking and try to avoid the people who try to stop me and tell me about their sister or niece or neighbor who has twins.

Overall, it was a successful trip and the people are Meijer are amazingly helpful. They even called a guy to help me load the groceries into my car! Now I know that I can handle the Grocery Trip with Twins and perhaps next time I will get up the nerve to ask a stranger to take a picture!

A Mother's Haiku

I'm suffocating

In baby farts while nursing.

Dear God, help me now.

Adventures in Babysitting

Attempting to find someone to care for your babies when you return to work is a daunting task...in fact, it's a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. 

First, you have to get a name. This can be a surprising pain in the ass. Considering child care is a business you would think that these women would want to be found, but apparently that's not the case. Recommendations from friends, neighbors of family members, and word of mouth is usually how you find these people, and if not then you go to a website like care.com (this is where we're at now. Ugh.). 

Next, you call each person and get the basic information; hours, fees, do they have room for infant twins, is the location convenient, etc. If all those things work out, and the person doesn't accidentally let slip that she wears a coat made of human skin, the next logical thing to do is meet the person and see her home. Theoretically from talking to her twice and seeing her house (after she cleaned it all up because she knew you were coming, of course) you should be able to trust this stranger with your precious babies. Done and done,

Except there is a part of the process that you didn't really think about when you first started. One that personal/professional recommendations, the promises from accredited websites, and all the well-worded caregiver profiles in the world can't erase.

That part is called "Wading Through the Crazy," and it is bizarre and terrifying.

One woman we met was 50+ years old, with waist-length platinum blond hair, and answered her door wearing a low-cut tank top and jean shorts that showed her butt cheeks. (This is the woman who, after talking to her on the phone for about 4 minutes to set up the meeting I perpetually referred to as the "Possible Smoker." I was right) When we came into her living room, not only did she not turn the blaring television off (or even lower the volume) but she actually laid down on her couch while we were interviewing her. Very professional.

One thing that has really helped in the Crazy Wade is Facebook. Do you know how many people don't have their profiles set to private? Thank god, or else I would have ended up meeting a 300lb teddy bear collector named Betty who has Facebook photo albums entitled "Baby Angels" (contains 14 pictures of, yes, baby angels), "Winnie the Pooh, Betty Boop, and Tinker Bell, too!" (14 pictures), and "JESUS" (39 artist renderings of Jesus in everyday situations, guiding the faithful). I am not making this up.

I truly hope that we find someone not crazy who can take care of the babies, and I hope it happens soon. I don't know how many more weird Betty-like surprises I can take in this search, and unfortunately in that "JESUS" album there was no picture of a lost mother-of-twins being guided toward finding the perfect caregiver.

 This was taken from Betty's JESUS album

Why We Don't Have Nice Things...(and neither should our friends)

Does Hallmark make a card that says 'I'm sorry my baby pooped all over the wall and carpet in your guest room, but we really had a lovely time and would like to visit again'?

Well, they should.

This weekend we were visiting our awesome friends B & K whose son is only 5 days younger than the twins. This was our first non-family overnight with the babies, and the first non-family-with-two-4-month-olds overnight hosting situation for our friends. No one quite knew what to expect.

Nolan and Nora were a bit cranky, but we were still able to get them and baby J put down for bed relatively easily. The adults were then able to relax a bit, have a drink or two, laugh, and try to remember what life was like before babies. It was a lot of fun even though, compared to a year ago, there were fewer drinks consumed and a much earlier bedtime for us all!

We all headed to bed: Corey and  I in one bedroom with the baby monitor, and the babies in their Pack n Plays in another. Around 4am we heard Nora start to fuss so Corey went to check it out. I remained in bed half-asleep, half-listening to what was going on in the other room. I heard the rustlings of a diaper being changed, nothing big. Suddenly out of the relative silence through the monitor I hear the unmistakable squishy-splat sound of a large, forceful and all-together unexpected bowel movement.

"Oh God!" came the desperate whisper of my husband through the monitor speaker. 

I jumped out of bed to come to my partner's aid. Rushing into the room I can see the horror of what happened reflected in Corey's eyes. Nora apparently exploded. Everywhere. Poo. Everywhere. It was all over her sleeper, blanket, and body. It was covering the dresser on which we had set up a changing station. There was poo on the wall and on the Pack n Play. It was all over the white carpet of the bedroom. Let me take a moment to remind you that we were guests here...these were not our things covered in feces, rather our friends'. Dear God.

So, at 4am, exhausted and slightly hungover (from the whole 2.5 drinks I consumed) I run downstairs and start going through our friends' cabinets looking for old towels, carpet cleaner, disinfectant, a bucket. Anything. We frantically cleaned up our daughter and as much of the poo as we could in the dark. Oh, did I mention we did this silently in the dark so we wouldn't wake up Nolan? Yeah.

We ended up getting everything cleaned up eventually and we got Nora back to sleep. There was kind of an awkward moment at breakfast when we had to explain to B & K what had happened, but of course they were great about it. Overall, I'd say it was a good visit.