9 weeks old and loving it!

The babies have been home for 3 1/2 weeks now and are 9 weeks old today. They say that twins are delayed 2 weeks so on Thursday they will gestationally be 42 weeks meaning that on Thursday they will finally be at the stage of a normal newborn born at 40 weeks. I haven't had a doctor appointment for a few weeks, so I'm not sure how much they weigh. My guess is that Jane weighs about as much as Libby when she was born which is 7 lbs. 13 oz. and Kate is a little smaller than that, maybe 7 lbs. 3 oz. That's just my guess. We have an appointment next week. Kate is still on oxygen and we aren't enjoying that much. She gets frustrated with it and tries to pull it off all of the time. Hopefully by the end of this week she will be ready to get rid of it. We will do another trial run sometime this week to see how she is doing.


They are still wearing newborn clothes but have surpassed the preemie outfits which is nice. These outfits that my old mission companion gave me are so cute. I love the whole animal print theme going on in their bed. This was towards the end of our time at the hospital. I just wanted to remember how it all was with them in the hospital, so bare with me.

They had to do a test with them in the car seats for 90 minutes to make sure their breathing stayed steady while in the car. They passed.

This was taken after feeding them one day in the hospital. When I nurse them I do it tandem football style so I'm not feeding babies all day long. I always feed them at the same time to keep them on the same feeding schedule so I can get some sleep at night. This was after a feeding while I was trying to burp them. It's hard work I tell you. I got exhausted and just let them fall into each other.

Another shot of what we saw in the hospital. This was their bed, it kind of looks like a mini prison cell or something. They would cover the top up to block out the light and let them sleep as much as possible.

I had some of the best nurses. This is Lisa, she was one of my primary nurses that stuck with me through the good and bad days. She took great care of us. She was so amazing that her mom even made us blessing dresses. We had a cousin make some and she was there when I got them and they were really short. So just had the cousin make them a bit longer and it wasn't a big deal. She didn't know that and felt really bad for us and was telling her mom and her mom felt super bad and made us some gorgeous blessing dresses. They are super cute and long and beautiful but when I put them on the babies they were too big. I would have used them anyway but they were falling off their shoulders big. We went with the ones that Brett's cousin made and they were perfect. I feel really bad but that's the kind of awesome nurses we had at the hospital.

This is Jennifer (Jen) another favorite nurse of ours. This was departure day so she came down to the van with us so we could bring the babies home.

Lisa and Jen are actually really good friends and they ended up both working on the day we left and helped us get them ready to come home. They finally came home on Friday, September 30th.

These are the bands that I had to wear for the 5 1/2 weeks. They were my entrance into the hospital and my way of getting them out of the hospital. The blue one changed every day.

This was the plan for the week to get them home. They had to pass all of these feeding tests before they would let them come home.

6 week pictures weren't the easiest to take...

Jules and Libby have adjusted super well to the babies. They love holding them, but we don't get super happy with them when they try to do it when we aren't there to help them. Luckily it doesn't happen too often.....but it does happen.

Blessing day

Grandpa Wilson holding Jane

Adoree holding Jane

You can sort of get a glimpse of our house from this picture. We had a great turn out with most of our family. My nephew actually got baptized earlier that day so we did it on the same day while all the family was together. My sister also came into town for the festivities and sent her family back home and stayed for a week to help me out.

Family picture time.

Kellie with Jane...Jane is the easier one to pass around because Kate has the oxygen tubes and monitor.

Such a proud mom...

and dad.

Sydney holding Kate. Most of the time the kids wanted to hold Jane because they were scared of the cords.

At first Tyler said he didn't want to hold the babies at all. That changed within seconds and he loved holding the babies and tried to give each baby equal time.

I've been addicted to pinterest lately and have found so many fun activities for the kids using normal household items. I made this finger paint last week for FHE and the girls had fun painting. I wasn't a huge fan of the recipe, it was easy but the consistency isn't great. The girls had fun though.

another shot of our house, the kitchen was a bit messy though, sorry. One of these days I will get some good clean pictures of the house...one of these days.

Kate and Jane in Grandma Wilson's bouncy seat. This is made for one baby by the way.

On Sunday they turned 2 months old.

Since we can't exactly take a picture of me feeding both of the babies at the same time we thought we would at least get Brett doing the job. (nice MC Hammer pants huh, haha. It's the weird angle I promise)

It's hard to see how small they are so I put my hand to compare her with. They are getting bigger but are still tiny.

...and I love it. Especially since I didn't get to enjoy them so much for the first 5 1/2 weeks.

Jane at 2 months old.

9 week pictures taken today. This was the first time I have let the girls hold both babies at the same time. Can you tell how happy and excited they were about it?

Jane with her "half smile"

They still sleep in the same bed but I have seperated them a bit in there so this was the first time in a few days that they have laid close to each other other than feeding times. They loved being back together and were flayling their arms a bit. Here they actually got them interlocked.

I am doing surprisingly well. I have discovered that giving them bottles during the night equals more sleep for me. If I nurse them it takes about an hour, maybe a little less. If I give them bottles with my milk then it only takes about 25 minutes. We just stay up late and feed them around midnight then I get up around 3 or 4. Then they wake up around 6:30-8am. Depending on what time they wake up, I either just stay up or go back to bed. Lately I've been going back to bed for a bit. I don't usually need a nap during the day but can if I need to. They are really good babies and don't cry too much.

They still sleep most of the day so I can still get things done. We just don't leave the house much becuase it's a pain and we don't want them getting sick. Life is pretty good though, we can't complain about anything.

The first week the babies were home our washer broke. Not great timing with all of the laundry twins add to the house. We took a few days and Brett did some heavy research, including asking facebook friends for advice, and we got a huge washer and dryer later that week. It has been super helpful having such a big set and we love them. I can't believe how much more laundry 2 tiny babies add.

Like I said earlier, my sister came and stayed with me for a week and that was super nice. I was a bit nervous to have her leave but we've been doing pretty well. When she was here, we made some freezer meals so I have some easy-to-make dinners ready to go, which has helped a lot. We have a lot of support from family and the prayers have been felt greatly, especially while they were still in the hospital. I'm not sure how I would have handled everything without your prayers. We have been super blessed. Thanks to all.

Update on the twins....and other stuff.

Wow, has it been a month already? It seems like a lifetime yet like no time has passed at all since I've had these two little babies. So much has happened, yet they are still in the hospital so it seems like we've been stuck at the same stage forever. Jane and Kate are both healthy and gaining weight like crazy. Jane weighs 6lbs. 13 oz. and Kate weighs 6lbs. 11 oz. That's 2 lbs these guys have gained. You would think that with that awesome weight gain they could come home. Well, the hold up is their eating. Since they were premature, they hadn't developed the skill of sucking, swallowing, and breathing at the same time. It is also very exhausting for them to eat, so they fall asleep easily and sleep for hours after each feeding. So I had to start feeding them twice a day is all. I would drive down to Provo twice a day and feed them. We weighed them before and after each feeding so we would know how much they had eaten. With a bottle it's easy to see how much they eat but not with nursing. So that's how they do it. The first time I nursed them, the scale said they burned more calories than they ate. It was pretty depressing but only left room for improvement.

It's been a long process. We did 2 feedings a day for about 1 1/2 weeks. We moved on to 3 feedings and stayed there for about 2 weeks. Thursday we started adding a 4th feeding. They did pretty well but got really exhausted, so we were figuring we would be there a while too. Today they are doing 4 feedings and have two times where I nurse them back to back. Usually we would do a feeding in between where they are fed through a tube in their nose to get a break. Now we are seeing if they have enough stamina to get 2 feedings from me in a row.
Anyway, it has been a very long and exhausting process for all of us. I get up to pump every 3 hours...or so I'm supposed to. I'm at the hospital early in the morning and late at night and try to be there for Jules and Libby at home during the day. It's been a busy month but hopefully this will all end soon and we can enjoy them more at home. It was a little nice at first, to recover from a c-section and all, but I am more than ready to bring them home. Now for a bunch of pictures.

This is Brett holding the babies for the first time. He thought he didn't really "need" to hold them like I needed to but once he held them, he was hooked.

Aren't they so cute? Not sure now which baby is which but I think Kate is on the left and Jane is on the right.

Brett holding both of the babies. Kate on the left and Jane on the right.

This was the day the babies got put together in the same bed. Since they were so used to being close together in the womb, they tend to do better when they are together in the bed also. They had to be in separate beds for a week because of tubing and cords they had in them. If those cords came out then it would have been bad, so they were separated. We had our moms come to watch the joining and they got to hold the babies. It was nice having 2 babies, one for each grandma to hold. My mom has Kate and Tammy had Jane.

Jane

My dad holding the babies for the first time. She was kind enough to wake up for him. They are usually awake when I go see them, since they have to eat. I get to see their eyes and their smiles. I have never seen such small babies smile as much as these girls do. It's so sweet.

When we first put them together. They leaned in to each other and it was so cute. They are almost holding hands.


Again, blogger uploaded pictures all messed up. This was the first time I held both of them at once...well, except for the 7 1/2 months they were in my belly.

Jules holding Jane. The girls can see the babies on weekends so we have taken advantage of that. They love going in to see them and love holding them.

Our first family picture. I love it. Libby's hair could use some help but it is what it is.

Even Libby gets to hold them. Here she is holding Kate.

Kate on left, Jane on right.


We all needed a good trim to our hair; especially Libby. She has a really cute curl in her hair but it's also messy and hair is always in her face. The way her hair grows, it just grows in her face. Here is the before shot.

During the hair cut

After. It's a really cute bob with some shorter bangs but they can also go to the side. It's cute when it's done, she looks so grown up.

Jane went on oxygen for little bit. She still needs a little help while she eats. Kate went off it all together for a bit but is back on it. She will most likely come home with it for a while.

Daddy, Jane, and Libby

Not the best angle on Jane but if you notice, she doesn't have any tubing on her face for the first time since she was born. It was only because I accidentally stepped on her feeding tube and it came out. They put another one in right away but for a brief moment she didn't have anything on her face. I long for that day. I'm so tired of all of these wires connected to them.

The cutest outfits. I was waiting to bring them home in these outfits but they were gaining weight so quickly that we put them on them in the hospital. Thanks Keri!

Identical? Nope, they look a little bit alike. I think they will look more alike as they get older. We can tell them apart because Jane is bigger. They actually have different blood types too, so they are not identical. Jane on the left and Kate on the right.

Their heads are so soft that the nurses have to rotate them throughout the day to keep them nice and round. They love being on their sides so the back of their head is very round. This is how we keep them on the back of their heads to make it a little more flat.

Just a sweet picture of Jane.


The babies bedroom. I made all of the bedding the curtains, and the flag banner. I can't wait to bring them home.

Jules and Libby holding the babies again. Libby has Kate and Jules has Jane.

Kate on left and Jane on the right. This was taken last night. Again, Libby has Kate and Jules has Jane. It's really funny to watch Jules and Libby. Libby especially knows which baby is which and she doesn't get to see them very much at all. They are super excited to bring the babies home. I think they will be shocked and probably want to send them back once they come home.

Our first family picture

There you have it. We were able to bring the girls in to the hospital tonight and snap a picture with everyone.....all 6 of us. Whoa, are there really 6 of us? The twins are progressing nicely. Each feeding, they figure things out a little quicker than the one before. Tonight, they took a huge jump in how much they ate, er drank. Life is good.