Our Family of Six...

Uncle John and Ty Ty... Lily and her James...

Lily kissing her James...
Lily adoring her James...
Lily and Ty playing play-doh after mommy and the twins returned home... tired mommy and her twinkles...

Poppy and Isabella...

Isabella nursing mommy's lip...
the twinfants snoozing...
Mommy and Daddy with the twins getting ready to leave the hospital...
Lily and James arriving at home...
Mommy and Daddy and the twins in the car ready to go home...

the twins in their carseats for the first time...
Daddy and his boys... Ty Ty and baby Bella...

Nanny holding James...

I had intended to post right after I got home from the hospital, but that was a bit ambitious. So, only a few days later, I am going to update you all on my new expanded family. First, let me say that my beautiful twins are an absolute miracle. They were both born on Monday, March 10th--Isabella Spence at 8:41 a.m. and James McCabe at 8:43 a.m. Bella weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces (our heaviest baby ever) and was 19 1/4 inches long, and James weighed 5 pounds, 15 ounces (our smallest baby ever) and was 19 inches long. When they were trying to pull Isabella out, she poked out her elbow and they nicked her with the scalpel...she promptly came out crying and didn't stop for quite a while! She was fine, but I'm sure that was a rude awakening after 9 months in squishy warm darkness. James had the cord around his neck twice and came out a bit blue, but he pinked up right away and they allowed me to hold both babies in the operating room, which was really special. After I recovered, I was able to nurse both of them and I am proud to report that I can nurse them both at the same time--I need Todd around to help, but I have tandem nursed almost every time since we've been home. Our first night was a bit rough--both of them found their lungs and cried A LOT. I also had a nasty reaction to Tylenol 3 and ended up taking a lot of benadryl, so I was practically seeing double from being so tired. But, we survived and our second night was MUCH better. James has all this dark hair and he is starting to fill out a little bit. Isabella looks so much like Lily when she was born that it takes me back each time I look at her. They are eating about every 3 hours and sleep most of the time when they're not eating. We are so incredibly blessed to have family here to share this time with us and help us. They have been a constant source of strength and happiness for me these last 37 weeks and I think we are all reveling in the joy of this mission coming to fruition. Here are some pictures from our time at home. Enjoy and cheers!

big...

so i thought i would blog a bit more tonight...passes the time and some of you nutty people out there are actually asking to see my belly now...i feel like a sideshow act! but that's okay because i look convincingly like a sideshow act. my doc is no longer measuring my belly because it's so huge that she needs to string two tapes together--just kidding, but i've asked her not to even measure. anyway, our weather was so awful today--tornadoes, lightning, thunder, wind, and a whole lot of rain. lily and ty spent a lot of their morning at school in the hallway due to the tornadoes, which left quite an impression on lily. thankfully, everyone made it home safe and sound. todd was home with me this afternoon and tonight, which was such a blessing because by the end of the day, i genuinely cannot walk without help. the pain in my lower back, tailbone, and entire pelvis is excruciating when i walk. ahhhh, the magic glow of pregancy... i figured i would catch up the blog with some of the latest pix. cheers and i will update again when the twinkles are here!!!!

Waiting...

Just a quick post today to update everyone on my progress... I am 5 days out from my c-section and I have never been more ready to deliver! I visited my OB yesterday after feeling like my tailbone is broken and barely being able to walk. I've also been having contractions all day every day. My OB's evaluation was that I was just TOBP--tired of being pregnant...I was not amused. She said that all the women she saw yesterday were suffering along with me with TOBP, including another twin mommy who is exactly as far along as I am. I mean yes, I am tired of being pregnant, but I am a little more than miffed about not being able to get around without help. Also, there's NOTHING going on in the labor department for me--no dilating, no bleeding, nothing... thankfully, Todd has been my knight in shining armor this week, picking up the slack and helping me with everything. I also called my mom yesterday with a healthy dose of tears and she and my dad are coming tomorrow. Those of you who know me well know that I usually find a way to joke about whatever is going on in my life, but I confess that I have not been laughing this past week. I have been grasping for any shred or scrap of hope and happiness. I CANNOT wait to meet my babies and not be shuffling around the house in pain anymore. PLUS, the constant itching should start to dissipate as soon as I deliver. I don't want to complain anymore so I will sign off. I will try to post one more picture of my belly before Wednesday--it is quite large! Anyway, that's all for now...cheers

Good News...no, GREAT NEWS!!!

My sweet baby James...
Another shot of little squishy face James!

Isabella's sweet chunky little face!

Here she is with her hand by her face...
Here's her little hand close up to her face...

Althought this was a marathon morning at the hospital, the fruits of my er, labor, were great. No, the babies didn't arrive this morning...but, we got to see them on the 3D/4D ultrasound and this was the first time we have seen their little faces. Talk about a miracle! And our tech today, Amy, is always the one to give us big news (Ty's hand, twins, etc.) so I was quite pleased when she suggested the 3D/4D, since we didn't think we'd be able to do it this time. Also, after measuring each baby, she concluded that Isabella weighs 6 pounds, 8 ounces, and James weighs 5 pounds, 13 ounces! They are HUGE!! I'm only 35 weeks and they are the size of full term babies already! I was over the moon at their sizes--this gives us a VERY good chance of avoiding the NICU. After my ultrasound we went to labor and delivery for my non-stress test. After an hour of several nurses attempting, they never could get both babies on the monitor at the same time. They gave up and sent me up to my OB, who was not worried about it. She then said that although she had scheduled me to deliver at 38 weeks, because of my cholestasis she would now deliver me at 37 weeks!!! SOOOOO, my new c-section date is Wednesday, March 12th and noon! I told her I might do a cartwheel in the hallway! She also told me that we really don't want my water to break now because both babies are breech and my water breaking could cause the umbilical cord to slip out, causing a very dangerous situation. God knows all, doesn't he? Here I've been praying for my water to break--thank goodness I didn't get my way! Anyway, here are pix of the babies. We got more of Isabella because of her position, but we atleast got a couple of James. Cheers!

In the meantime...

I am in the process of passwording the blog so if you requested permission, I'll send you an e-mail with instructions in the next few days. In the meantime, here's a little video clip from Scrubs which sums up how I feel... you might need to click the play button twice.

A quick update

I am password protecting the blog so if you would like to continue reading it, send me an e-mail before Friday, February 22 letting me know you'd like to be included. If you don't know my e-mail, you can call me.

If A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings in Gainesville...

Today we went to the Butterfly Rainforest and had a wonderful time! The weather was perfect (I will never go there again in August!!) and both kids seemed to really get a lot out of it. They both were sick at the end of last week with croup, so today was a nice fresh-air outing. Hope you enjoy our documentation of the day... First things first, here I am VERY pregnant at 34 weeks...when are those babies going to come??

Lily and Ty taking a rest...
If I didn't have two kids with me and two on-board, I could tell you the species of this one...
A quick break with Daddy...
The Atlas Moth, which was as large as Todd's hand...
Hello Franklin...

Lily and a mammoth--they are HUGE!!!
The little gang...
I am pretty sure this is a Monarch, but you can correct me if I am in error...
Ty Ty checking things out...

This was the first butterfly of the day...
Mother Duck and her babes...

We were discussing what happened in the next picture...
That's a butterfly landing on Lily's hand--she was startled but thought it was neat...