NICU Babies

Scarlett and Shayla were born at 36 weeks and 1 day. I have to admit, they were much smaller than I was anticipating. They were measured at 34 weeks and Scarlett was supposedly around 4 lb 6 oz and Shayla was around 4 lb 14 oz. So either the 10% error rate on those measurements is wrong, or they just did not gain any weight over the next two weeks. Either way, they are small but fierce. The girls don't have any major problems and have been breathing on their own from the get-go. 

I'm actually really glad they were placed in the NICU. It has been a great transition into parenting newborns. Eric and I have so much help from nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors, and lactation consultants. Sometimes we receive a little too many opinions, but it will make the transition at home much easier nonetheless. More importantly, Kinsey had a cold for the first week of Scarlett and Shayla's life so I'm happy they weren't sent home to that. 

So why are they in the NICU? For starters, they originally had trouble regulating their temperatures. This is a pretty common problem, especially for preemies. They were originally placed under heating lamps and then graduated to Isolettes a couple days later where the temperature is regulated in an enclosed setting.

Scarlett in her Isolette. She loves sleeping with her arms up. 

 Secondly, because they are so tiny we want to make sure they put on weight and continue to do so. This requires them gaining weight and eating all their food without a feeding tube for 3 days straight. The 3 days straight is the tricky part. Preemies tend to fall asleep during feedings, and nursing definitely wears them out because they have to work so hard. And sometimes they are just so tired and don't want to wake up from their naps to eat. This means on occasion they sleep right through their meal and have to eat through the tube. 

Daddy and Shayla

Mommy and Scarlett. Look how tiny she is!

Their food requirements have increased almost daily. Currently Shayla must eat 42 mL and Scarlett needs 38 mL of formula or breast milk each feeding. They eat 8 times a day. When I come to visit they nurse, then bottle feed, and then get any remaining food through the tube. It's an exhausting process for such little babies but they are eating more and more every day. 

Scarlett

Shayla

 Friday was a big day for the girls. Besides turning a week old, both girls were moved into an open crib. This means they are able to regulate their temperatures all on their own! That issue is now solved so we only need to worry about the feedings. They have both reached their birth weights, so they are moving in the right direction. Scarlett hit a low of 3 1/2 pounds before gaining weight! She's my little peanut. 

Happy Scarlett

Sleepy Shayla

 We've had a few feeding setbacks. Shayla used to be the strong eater and then suddenly she was barely eating anything out of her bottle. A nurse realized she flattened the nipples on the hospital bottles so I brought in one of my own and she has been eating much better. 

Scarlett has been awesome at the bottle but not so great at nursing. After seeing the lactation team countless times, the issue was actually solved by one of the nurses. She suggested a nipple shield which basically makes my nipple thinner so Scarlett can latch on. Apparently she has a tiny little mouth and it was too hard to latch on her own. She's been doing so much better nursing since we starting using the shield!

 We are so proud of our little girls! They are improving each day and we're grateful they can do so in the NICU. As long as they keep doing well we should be able to take them home soon. But if they have a setback then the three day count will start all over again. 

 As for the Kinsey monster, her schedule is pretty much the same but she has a different caretaker. I don't think she understands we have two more babies. I would not be able to commute to the hospital without Eric's mom. She has been amazing doing EVERYTHING around the house, cooking meals, taking care of Kinsey, grocery shopping, and driving me back and forth to the hospital (since I can't drive for two weeks). Oh, and Kinsey finally beat her cold so we're ready for the babies to come home now...after I wash some of their stuff first!

Kinsey making Valentine hearts. 

If you're curious about how I'm doing, the first few days I was really stiff and walked like an old lady. I feel better and better each day and haven't taken any pain meds since Friday. I pump every three hours which is pretty exhausting. I originally tried to go to four feedings for the girls but realized I was either away from Kinsey all day or up too late at night that I was useless the next day and still didn't see Kinsey much. So I now go to three feedings a day. Ideally each baby takes a half hour to feed and then I pump for a half hour right after, but after all is said and done I normally have an hour until the next feeding. If I tried to stop by home between feedings I would only be able to stay for a half hour, hence only being able to go to three feedings a day. I'm looking forward to my girls being in the same house so I can see all three of them all day long!

Twin Birth Story

Well it's been a crazy couple of days. I'm writing this almost 48 hours after my first birth experience (second if you include myself being born) in hopes everything is still fresh, but I have already found some memories escape me. Some are humorous, some are blurry, and some are just painful. 

Eric will also be commenting about the story, and his words will be in bracket. [Hi! It’s me, Eric.]

To preface, I had third trimester cramping for the first time all Tuesday evening. Tuesday night I was having pretty consistent contractions (4-5 minutes apart for awhile) but back pain did not accompany the contractions and they weren't getting worse so in the end I decided they were Braxton Hicks and not actual labor contractions. I felt pretty confident. I wasn't cramping the next day so I didn't call my doctor like I had planned. I was at the end stages of a cold and Kinsey was in the worst of hers so I held her A LOT from Tuesday to Thursday. I was also uncomfortable sitting, lying down, you name it. I didn't want to go to 38 weeks after this past week but I knew I needed to stick it out for the girls.

I felt a few more Braxton Hicks Wednesday and Thursday night but I had to focus or be doing nothing else to realize I was contracting. Eric and I had quite the party Thursday night/Friday morning with both of us waking up around 3 am and not being able to go back to sleep. This was normal for me but not him. He went back to sleep at 5:30 am and I was still awake. At 6 am I still hadn't slept but was lying in bed. I felt myself start to leak fluid so I immediately stood up next to the bed in hopes of not leaking out of my underwear. That's when I felt liquid trickling down my leg. I had a pretty good grasp on my bladder and knew this wasn't pee, so I woke Eric up by telling him my water just broke. I was 36 weeks and 1 day pregnant. 

[I was half asleep, so I didn’t realize what was actually happening until I saw quite a bit of water on the carpet. I then thought: holy crap!]

Since it wasn't a huge gush of fluid I knew it would be leaking for awhile so I went to sit on the toilet and wait it out. Then I turned to Eric and said, "So what do we do now?" He got my phone for me to  research "what to do when your water breaks." This wasn't a scenario we discussed with my doctor. A lot of people these days don't have their water break before the hospital and at least not before contractions. I wasn't contracting so I didn't feel much time pressure during my research. [I, Eric, was not a fan of the idea of “researching” online, I wanted to call our OB right away.] In the end we decided to call the after-hours number for my OB. A different doctor was on-call and supposed to call me back. I looked at my phone a couple minutes later and had a message--it didn't ring or buzz or anything. The message was from Dr. Cooper telling me to head to the hospital. 

Within a few minutes of that message I had my first labor contraction. I hunched over from the pain which was mainly in my low back so I knew it was a real contraction. But it was also my first contraction so I thought we had time. I went leisurely about packing my hospital bag while Eric was gathering items a little more frantically. [I was freaking out.] Then we realized, "we should probably call someone to watch Kinsey" so we called our friend, Billie, who we had discussed using if Eric's mom wasn't in town yet.  

I went maybe 3 or 4 contractions around 7 minutes apart. All of them sucked and made me want to kill myself a little. Then they jumped to 3 minutes apart without warning. [I was running around like a crazy person and trying to time these contractions all at the same time while my wife was bent over in pain. Oh yeah, I was also carrying Kinsey.] We were still waiting for Billie to arrive but I was starting to freak out that the contractions were suddenly so close. I wasn't getting much "contraction-free" time so I was also in a lot of pain and needed to get to the hospital THAT MINUTE. Eric called Billie again and she was right down the street so I kissed Kinsey, he put me in the car, and I waited there. I had another contraction or two during that time. They were really close together and I was freaking out. Billie parked the car and Eric walked her in the house to Kinsey (who was trying to eat breakfast). Eric started speeding to the hospital (careful of the icy roads) with me leaning to the left over the console without my seatbelt on. For some reason I decided leaning this direction was my comfort position even though it didn't make the pain more bearable. 

It takes about 10 minutes to get to the hospital--probably sooner because we were hitting all the lights. I was having more contractions and I think they were closer to 2 minutes apart by the time we arrived. Eric rushed me to labor and delivery in a wheelchair and they took me to a triage room. Eric told them Dr. Cooper should have called and said we were coming but they didn't have record of it. It was then I realized our OB office normally delivers at a different hospital. There were no doctors to deliver me at the hospital so we needed to wait for someone. Waiting was the last thing I wanted to do with my contractions so close together. A nurse must have gotten a hold of Dr. Cooper because she was shortly “on her way.” Then I heard the nurses trying to pull up my record and one of them said, "How can she not be in here? She stayed here for weeks." I'm not sure what happened there, but seriously?! I can hear you and don't need to think the process is being slowed down. [The nurse that was looking up Cindy in the computer was one of the nurses who we were familiar with from our previous hospital stay over Thanksgiving. It was extremely frustrating to watch her struggle with the computer. I was also getting pretty angry because no doctors were anywhere to be found and Cindy’s contractions were really close together.]

I asked for them to take the babies out. I asked for pain meds. I asked to be put asleep. All of these options got rejected. They said we needed a doctor to deliver the babies and needed to get checked in before I could get pain meds. I was in so much pain with only a minute relief between contractions. I was leaned over the side of the bed in my "comfort" position. Everyone (Eric included) thought I was going to jump off the bed but I was just trying to control SOMETHING. ANYTHING. It wasn't just the pain. I was scared witless that my body would tell me to push, but I couldn't do that. Scarlett was breached. Didn't they realize this?! The babies needed to be out that SECOND. I kept telling them they needed to come out because Baby A was breached. I know they couldn't do anything about it, but they were not moving as fast as I needed them to. When I felt that urge to push in my pelvis I thought I was screwed. I told them they had to put me to sleep. I kept repeating myself over and over again. At least if I was asleep I wouldn't try to push the babies out. That was all I was worried about. And not feeling the pain as well. Once Eric told them I took Lovenox the night before (a blood thinner) I was told I'd probably have to be put to sleep. This was the one ray of sunshine I held on to. The only problem was I didn't want to wait. [Although the nurses were doing everything they could, it felt like they were moving in slow motion. It was very hard to watch my wife in so much pain and not be able to do anything about it. I told her to breath; I was useless.]

After what felt like forever, I was pushed to the operating room and told Eric that I loved him. He had to wait outside since I was going under general anesthesia. Once I was in the room I continued my rant every time I had a contraction and wanted to push, "Put me under now. Put me to sleep. I need to be asleep." (Yeah, I was acting like a crazy person, but at least I was aware that I was being crazy.) They had to prep my tummy first and blah blah blah. The first time I was handed an oxygen mask it was to stabilize my breathing since I was in a serious panic. The second time was the last thing I remember because I was finally asleep. HALLELUJAH!!!

[Sadly, because Cindy was going under general anesthesia rather than an epidural, I had to wait in a small room all by myself until somebody came to get me. I used the time to call our babysitter to check on Kinsey and to call my mom to see if she could change her flight to today. I was putting on my gown, hairnet, and face mask when all of a sudden a nurse came in to tell me I could go see the babies. WHAT!? Cindy was wheeled in to the OR around 7:30 and Scarlett came at 7:38. Crazy. Anyway, I walked through the doors of the OR to see my sleeping wife on the operating table. The doctors were sewing up her uterus and told me everything went wonderfully with minimal blood loss. I couldn’t pass up a chance to look at Cindy’s guts, but sadly I didn’t think to take a picture. I walked passed Cindy to meet Baby A, I called her Scarlett and began to get teary-eyed. She was so small and beautiful. I next met Baby B, who I called Shayla. She looked so cozy snuggled up in her blanket and hat. I followed the nurses and my new daughters to their NICU rooms, taking a few pictures and videos along the way. I watched as the nurses measured the twins’ official birth weight and length before I was escorted to Cindy’s recovery room, where I waited about 20 minutes for a sleeping Cindy to arrive.]

The next thing I remember is waking up to Eric next to me. I was pretty confused about where I was and then he mentioned the babies. "Are the babies out?!" He told me all about their stats and how good they were doing. He had pictures and video from when he went up to see them in the NICU. I kept browsing through the pictures over and over again but my eyes were so blurry. I couldn't see them clearly and was hoping with every new swipe I would see what they looked like and not their blurry faces. I eventually gave up on seeing a clear picture. I was exhausted and told Eric I needed to take a nap. 

Scarlett Rosalie Walker

4 lbs, 1 oz,  17.5 in.

February 7, 2014 at 7:38 am

Very first picture. 11 minutes old. 

First weigh-in

Scarlett - Day 1

Scarlett - Day 2

Day 3 in Isolette

Day 3

Shayla Hazel Walker

4 lbs, 9 oz,  18 in.

February 7, 2014 at 7:39 am

Very first picture. 10 minutes old. 

First weigh-in

Shayla - Day 1

Daddy, Mommy, and Shayla - Day 2

Day 2

Day 3

 **As you can see, there was about an hour and a half time period that this all happened. I'm still amazed at how quickly labor progressed. We’re so grateful the girls came to this world with no major problems. A follow-up on our health will be posted in the next couple days.**

Kinsey at 17 Months

This has been an interesting month for Kinsey. It's been the hardest month for me in the sense that she is becoming more and more unpredictable. The month started off moody, then she turned into my little angel again, and then she gave more tantrums (but I think the second round of moodiness was caused by teething). All in all, she's still my little cuddle bug and just wants lots of attention.

Kinsey makes the funniest faces. We can't always catch them on camera because she stops performing once we try, but occasionally we hit the jackpot. 

 She's been going to friends' houses every week during my doctor appointments. I think it has helped her learn to share a little, but she still has a long way to go. Because let's be honest, everything in the house belongs to Kinsey, right?

 Kinsey still gets a kick out of playing with boxes. I enjoy cheap entertainment!

 This girl loves her milk but has been quite picky with her food. Things she liked a day or a week ago might not fit her mood suddenly. It's a big pain, but I'm confident she'll eat enough to not starve. I think. 

 We've been talking a lot about baby sisters and started playing a game called "Big Baby" where we wrap Kinsey in a blanket like an infant, walk around, and sing to her. I'm hoping it will help her so she doesn't feel left out once the babies come, and she absolutely loves it for some reason. 

 Kinsey Kins seems to really like the snow, but it's been way too cold to go and play in it. She's still adorable just walking around in her snow gear.

 Did I mention everything in the house belongs to her? Here she is reading in her chair (aka baby bathtub). And speaking of reading...ever since I can remember, Kinsey has ALWAYS held her books upside down when she's reading by herself. 

 Woo hoo! Her hair is long enough for a complete ponytail!! How adorable is that?

 Kinsey is still a good mama taking care of her baby. I'm excited to see what she does with the real thing!

 Monkey Face is Kinsey's absolute best friend. Because of him, she loves all monkeys and feels entitled to them whether they are on TV, at a friend's house, or in a store. She started having to have stuffed animals with her every time she sleeps. The most I let her have is 2, but she's been known to grab 4 animals for nap time. 

 Kinsey is saying A LOT of words. Whether you know what she is saying is up to you, but she doesn't stop trying. She's a pro at "uh oh," "oh," "up," and "grandpa" (papa). We're working on her saying Scarlett, Shayla, and Kinsey. It's pretty darn cute when she tries. Whenever she wants something the default word is "mama." Imagine hearing your name being called for 10 minutes straight because she wants some unknown object. Yes, I've wanted to pull out my hair a few times. 

 I think the most entertaining update this month has been Kinsey trying to put on clothes and shoes. It's mostly Eric's clothes and shoes, probably because she finds those lying around the most haha. 

For Kinsey videos this month, check out this link!

KC Aquarium

We've been pretty lame this winter and haven't taken Kinsey out of the house much. Last Monday Eric had the day off of school so we decided to have a Kinsey day. We took her to the aquarium because she loves animals so much. 

She touched her first starfish. Well, at first she kind of flung the starfish...haha. 

 And she was intrigued by all the fish. I'm telling you, her expression rarely changed from this face:

 

 Kinsey was afraid to go through the tunnels and needed a little push. But once she got going she loved it!

 Even the decor was pretty awesome in her book. 

 From an adult perspective I thought the Kansas City Aquarium kind of sucked. It seemed tiny and there was just fish, fish, and more fish (with a couple sharks). We paid $20 per adult which I think is way overpriced for the size, but I just have to remind myself that it was for Kinsey and she had fun. 

Next we went to Fritz's. It's a restaurant that has train tracks along the walls and the trains deliver your food. It was pretty cute and Kinsey got a kick out of spotting the trains when they would come. 

 Can you spy Kinsey?!

 All bundled up in daddy's coat!! We love this girl sooooo much and are glad we spent a day out with her. 

Maternity Pics

I wanted to document this pregnancy with some actual decent looking photos (besides my weekly ones) but didn't want to look for or pay a photographer. Eric and I, being the awesome team we are, ventured out to our go-to picture spot. The high yesterday was 59 degrees so we couldn't pass up the opportunity! I even tried to put my ring on for the occasion, but NOPE, that wasn't happening. Even though I'm ginormous and should have probably taken these a month ago, I think they turned out pretty well (considering we are not professional photographers or editors)!! Here I am, 33 weeks and 3 days pregnant! Enjoy :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two babies!

 

 

 

I'm hoping to get a few pics with Kinsey and Eric as well, but they were not dressed to impress yesterday. Maybe some indoor shots in the near future!