End of Another Year

Wow. I can't believe 2009 is coming to a close. At the beginning of the year I did a recap of 2008, but this year I'm going to do something a bit different. I saw this on my friend Jen's blog, and it looks like fun so here goes!

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
I had surgery and general anesthesia. Not something I was hoping to have done, but I had it done nonetheless.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't think I made a new year's resolution...unless it was to keep the twins inside until March, which I did successfully. :-)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Umm yeah. Me! Duh. And of course a ton of my bloggy friends (in alphabetical order by blog title): Lisa, babysmiling, Peeveme, Chicklet, FET Accompli (through a surrogate), Bean, A, Sushilover, fuentes, Sara, Teresa, Melanie (adopted), Katie, Mermaid, Sharon (adopted), Christina, The Dorns, Annie, G, Chelle, Shauna, Sherry, The Captain's Wife, Rebecca, Molly, Jenn, Jamie, Nancy, Jenni, Carrie, and Marie.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thank G-d.

5. What countries did you visit?
None... :-)

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
More sanity and more time.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
March 18, 2009...the day the twins were born!!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Delivering the twins and living to tell about it.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not spending enough time caring for and playing with the twins. There's just so much to do!!!

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Does nearly bleeding to death during surgery count??

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Our minivan. Best.Car.Ever. (Excluding the tires...I had to put snow tires on today.)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My hubby's, for being the best dad ever.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Jon from Jon & Kate + 8 and Tiger Woods, of course.

14. Where did most of your money go?
To Babies R Us and Amazon.com

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Having the twins!!! (Do you guys notice a theme??)

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
"Summer Nights" by Rascal Flatts

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer?
a) happier
b) thinner, much thinner
c) poorer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Sleep

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Being lazy

20. How did you spend Christmas?
I don't celebrate Christmas. I spent Chanukkah at home with my family, and my mom came to visit. The next week my mother-in-law and brother-in-law came to visit.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?
I was already in love with my hubby, but I fell in love with the twins.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
The Biggest Loser and Days of our Lives (and, of course M*A*S*H!!!)

23. Do you hate anyone now that you did not hate this time last year?
Yes

24. What was the best book you read?
All of the Harry Potter books.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The twins' Learn & Groove Musical Table (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10!!! Yellow...triangle)

26. What did you want and get?
I wanted a baby...I got two babies.

27. What did you want and not get?
Natural childbirth

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It actually was terrible, but it's the only film I saw that came out this year.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I don't even remember what I did, but I turned 26.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Less stress

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Loose and comfy

32. What kept you sane?
My hubby, my family (mom, mom-in-law, Auntie Beh!), and my friends (Melanie, David, Devorah Baila & Yehudis)

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Good question. I dunno, Elijah Wood is pretty cute.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Anything having to do with infertility health insurance coverage.

35. Who did you miss?
My dad

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Kevin M. Awesome photographer, super cool person.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
Cherish every second you have on this earth, because you never know when something might go horribly wrong that you weren't expecting.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are." It's either that or the ABC's...

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!! I hope that all of my friends out there who haven't gotten pregnant yet do that this year. And I hope that all of my friends who are finally pregnant now have healthy full-term babies next year.

MRI Results

So, my OB/Gyn called me today to give me the results from yesterday's MRI. First, I need to explain something. She is referring me to an oncologist because he deals with fistulas a lot more than she does and NOT because there's anything cancerous going on. If you look up cervical fistula, it can be caused by radiation therapy, certain cancers, PELVIC SURGERY and traumatic vaginal births. So the OB is NOT WORRIED about cancer, but she wants me to be seen by the best, and that's the Gyn Oncologist. Anyhoo, the OB/Gyn said that she and the oncologist looked over the MRI together and saw that the fistula only goes from my cervix to the vagina, similar to my regular cervical opening. Since it doesn't affect my bladder (or any of its requisite parts) or my colon, they decided not to even touch it. Doing surgery to "fix" the tunnel would probably do more harm than good in my case. The oncologist even said EXACTLY what I said to the OB--that it should make getting pregnant easier now that I have TWO ways to get to the uterus! Heh I'm awesome and holey. :-) Get it...holey? Anyone who knows what book that comes from gets a bonus point. Now we'll see if this theory holds true... Two holes are better than one, right?

G-d is Good

Yep. He really is. A few days ago I signed up for a website that has postings from potential au pairs and nannies. Some of the people on the website live in the US, some out of the US, some who want to live in your house, some who want to live out, etc. I posted our family's profile and went searching for Jewish au pairs...I didn't find anyone that really stood out. Then yesterday someone "hot listed" my family (meaning they saw our profile and thought we'd be a good fit for her). An Israeli girl ALREADY LIVING IN BOSTON!!! No specific child care experience, but she has nursing experience (which includes bathing and full care of all ages--babies to adults) and she also worked on a maternity ward (my dream job!) She came to our home for an interview today and got to meet the twins briefly. We went over the "job description" and all of that fun stuff. I just felt so comfortable talking to her, and I could tell she was comfortable with us. Shmuel and his mother also liked her, so once we have a chat with her references, I believe she's going to move in...like before Shabbos!!! How awesome is that???

In other news, I had my MRI today. It really wasn't *so* bad, because they put me in feet first. My head was just at the very edge of the machine, and I even got to listen to my favorite radio station (sort of) through a pair of headphones. The buzzing and banging was very interesting. Whenever they would change the setting on the machine it would make a new noise. It was loud, but the headphones made it softer, and I could still hear the music even if it was a bit fuzzy and muffled. The whole test took about an hour, but I got a short break part way through. Basically, they did the whole test (about 40 mins?) and then took me out of the machine. They said that they wanted to put ultrasound gel "down there" to try to get a better picture of the fistula, since ultrasound gel shows up very well on MRIs. I asked if I could go to the bathroom first, and then they put me back into the machine (now with ultrasound gel oozing everywhere...gross). They took more pictures for about 10 or 15 mins, and then I was done. YAY! During the test I was fine while the banging was going on...I just breathed slowly and closed my eyes. I could open my eyes and look up and behind me and see outside the machine a bit, so that helped my nerves. But almost every time they changed the settings on the machine they would inch me into the machine a weensy bit...like probably a 1/2 inch, but to me felt like a ton. So I would have this panic that they were going to stick my head the whole way in, but once the noise got going I calmed down since I knew they wouldn't move me even a centimeter while it was taking pictures. The nurses and the doctor were so nice, so I felt in good hands. I have no idea what the results are yet, but I will let you know when I know!

Twin Stats

Ok, I have a few minutes to myself so I'm going to post the twins updated weights and lengths and percentiles!

Chana

weight: 19lbs 3oz (2 months ago 17lbs 14oz...a gain of 1lb 5oz)
height: 28 in (2 months ago 27 in...a gain of 1 in)

In percentiles for her age, this means...

weight: 60%ile (2 months ago 68%ile)
height: 68%ile (2 months ago 71%ile)

Dovid

weight: 17lbs 5oz (2 months ago 16lbs 5oz...a gain of 1lb)
height: 27 in (2 months ago 26.5 in...a gain of .5 in)

In percentiles for his age, this means...

weight: 8%ile (2 months ago 13%ile)
height: 11%ile (2 months ago 29%ile)

So we see that both kiddos dropped in their percentiles a bit, but it's still ok. They're growing and that's what matters. Dovid is still my little man, emphasis on the little. :-) The doctor's not worried about his growth, so I'm not. Now if only I could get them to swallow the food they put in their mouth and chew, I'd be all set!

She's Gone...

Shifra left early this afternoon. And I wanted to respond to something that was left in my comments. I did love having Shifra with our family, and I was very hurt when she decided to leave. Sure, she got on my nerves, but so would anyone living in the same house together. My hubby gets on my nerves and I get on his...when I was living with my best friend we definitely got on each other's nerves, so getting on someone's nerves really doesn't mean much. I tried to welcome her into my home in the best way I knew how. I gave her gifts on Chanukkah (and I didn't even get Shmuel anything...) I tried to cheer her up when I knew she was down, I got her foods she wanted to eat, I did anything she asked of me. And I really thought we had a connection, but when she told our childcare coordinator (in front of me) that she felt no connection to my family and wanted to leave as soon as possible, I was devastated. I couldn't imagine what I had done to deserve that. I had no idea what else I could have done to make her feel at home. And here she was practically running out of my house as if I had the plague. She didn't even bother to say goodbye to the twins...and she might not have said goodbye to me if she hadn't needed to give me a note and the cell phone she borrowed from us. I'm still shocked, and it may take me some time to get over that hurt.

In other news, Chana pulled herself up to a stand by herself for the first time yesterday! Yaaaaay! And I'm going to have my MRI on Sunday...whoop de do. :-P I asked the office if they'd be able to do my surgery before Jan 1st, but they said that would be impossible. Greeeeeat, now I'm going to need to pay for part of the surgery (that would've been covered in full had it been done in 2009). Although the nurse in the office said they might not have to do surgery, I'm not particularly hopeful for that outcome. That would just make things too easy, and almost nothing is ever easy for me. :-)

What Next?

I'm not even going to mention what went down this morning...let's just say it was more of the same. Shifra is leaving tomorrow evening.

As for me, my OB/Gyn called yesterday to tell me that my test results were normal, but she wanted to see me today in her office. Why on earth would she want to see me if my tests were normal? Well, I'll tell you. The tissue they found wasn't cancer, thank G-d, but it was endocervical tissue. That means tissue that is found on the INSIDE of the cervix...and this stuff was found on my vagina. Her theory was that there's a fistula (meaning a tunnel) going from my vagina to my cervix (and who knows where else), and she needed to test that theory AND send me for an MRI. Greeeeeat. How was she going to test this? With infant formula... Yes, she squirted formula into my you know wheres to see if there's a tunnel. If there was a tunnel, it would go in the hole and out my cervix (and vice versa). And what do you know, she was right. Whoooops. She thinks that this was a result of my horrific C-Section, and she needs me to have the MRI to see where this fistula is going and how bad it is. Then she needs to have it fixed...that means surgery. ICKAROONIES!!! I was like "can I do it with a spinal, I'd rather not have general again." Hey, if it's going to suck I'd rather have it suck for a 1/2 hour than for several days, you know? So that's what it is...and now I need to find child care BADLY because I obviously won't be able to take care of them when I have surgery. Geez, why does everything bad have to happen at once? But you know, I would take this a hundred times over what she could have said (you know, the "c" word...) So seriously, I am grateful as all hell that this is all it is.

Toilet Update

According to Shifra, the toilet was overflowing while she was in the other room, and the Pampers thing she was trying to use to unclog the toilet after it was already overflowing. She claims it was an accident and that it was acting of its own accord, so now I can't ask her for the money...greeeeat, now I'm out $175! And she's actually nervous it might happen again because she wasn't here to tell the plumber where the water was coming from. I may call him tomorrow and ask if he'll come back to check while she's here...and BEG that he doesn't charge me again.

In other news, I forgot to tell you that we went to the pediatrician today. The twins got clean bills of health and were weighed and measured, of course. I'll do a detailed post on that later when I'm not so upset.

Worst.Day.Ever.

First, our au pair decided yesterday that she wanted to leave...as soon as humanly possible. Now I knew she was unhappy and bored to tears, because taking care of infants for 8 hours a day is not all fun and games. It takes a really special person to enjoy doing that...I sure as heck don't! I'd freak out if I had to do what she does every day, but that's beside the point. She's leaving me at the worst possible time! I'm supposed to be starting school in a month AND we had a trip to Baltimore planned in January. I bought her a flipping plane ticket to come with us!! If I don't have a third person to come, there's no way Shmuel and I will be able to take the twins and all their stuff by ourselves. So that's $200 down the drain for those tickets... To top it all off, she clogged the toilet upstairs and then called us to say that a pipe had burst. There is water EVERYWHERE!! In her bathroom, but even worse...it's dripping from the ceiling into OUR bathroom. It smells like feces... It is so horribly gross, you can't even imagine. And I just had to pay $175 to a plumber to unclog her toilet...which was clogged with the wrapper to some Pampers wipes. Who on earth puts a plastic wrapper like that in the toilet?!?!? It's like she wants to leave so badly she's trying to get kicked out of the house. Well that's lovely, but first you have to pay me the $375 on top of what you already owe me... Geez.

Right O!

Ok, so I have readership!! LOL It's just that most of you are about as bad at commenting as I am. hehe Not a problem, as long as I'm being read that's cool with me.

My mother-in-law is coming to visit in a few days and my house is a pig sty. OMG!! Yiiiiiikes! GAAAAHHH!!! And I have no time at all tomorrow to do anything, so I'm pretty much screwed. *sigh* Can I blame it on the twins? Please?? :-)

Speaking of the twins, Chana is starting to think about wanting to get onto her feet the way Dovid does. It is very cute, but she hasn't quite figured it out yet. She can get onto her knees, but from there she's puzzled. I think she'll get there soon! Another reason I need to clean up the place is so I can properly babyproof. That way I can put Dovid on the floor to explore and not need to redirect his attention every two seconds. He's just so curious about everything (like his sister), so I need to get everything off of the floor that I don't want going into his mouth. This means basically everything. Plus, I have to figure out how to attach things to the wall so they don't fall over on top of him if when he tries to pull shelves down. When on earth am I going to have time to do this??? Beeeeh!!! I need you to come and help meeeee!!!!

Where is Everyone?

I feel like I've lost my readership... I'm barely getting comments anymore, so I don't even know if anyone's reading! I have this huge rough week last week, and I get one comment... I understand if people stopped reading because I had the twins and you're still waiting for your own miracle, but I thought most of my readers already had children (with a few exceptions that I know of) that wouldn't be depressed by reading about kids. Was it something I said??

What a Week!

This week was the most obnoxious week on record. I started the week with an inkling that I might have gotten pregnant (let me tell you now, I'm not, so don't get your hopes up). I had all sorts of symptoms...metallic taste in my mouth, nausea, exhaustion, clumsiness, the works. I started using OPKs because I like them better than HPTs. I only had two left of my ancient internet cheapies, so I used those up. Each one looked darker than I would expect for my luteal phase, so I bought some at CVS to keep testing. The CVS brand turned positive. WHAT?? I would've sworn in a court of law that I had ovulated over a week prior, so they had to mean pregnant, right? Wrong. I had no signs of pending ovulation at this point, and all of my HPTs were clearly negative. So I checked my cervix. I know that it's usually high when I'm pregnant, and I also wanted to see if I had any fertile mucous. Instead what I found was a polyp. There was something there that I had never felt before, and I was terrified. So I called the OB/Gyn in the morning (this was yesterday), and she saw me only a few hours later. I know the nurse, who I had spoken with on the phone, thought I was just being a hypochondriac, but I knew what I had felt. And I was right...there was a polyp. The OB asked me if I wanted it removed, and I was like "umm of course..." And now they have to test it to make sure it's nothing weird and "just a polyp". The strange thing is that she found it in a bizarre place. Most polyps originate from the cervical opening, mine was nowhere near the opening... Anyhoo, she also took the full panel of blood tests to help me figure out what on earth was going wrong with my cycle. Here's what they found:

TSH: 1.54 uIU/ml
FSH: 2.5 mIU/ml
LH: 3.3 mIU/ml
Prolactin: 12.2 ng/ml
Progesterone: 12.14 ng/ml
Hemoglobin: 13.2 gm/dl
Hematocrit: 38.8%
hCG: 1.1 mIU/ml

This means, TSH is normal, FSH is normal, LH means I SHOULD NOT HAVE GOTTEN A + ON MY STUPID OPKS!!! Prolactin is normal (yay), progesterone means I ovulated most likely when I thought I did (ahhh so I was right!), hemoglobin & hematocrit are normal, although the hematocrit is juuuust barely on the lower side of normal (which means I'm still not anemic). hCG confirms that I am not pregnant at all...so my OPK REALLY SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSITIVE. I am really furious at CVS at getting my hopes up for no reason and you can be sure I'm sticking to internet cheapies from here on out. I called CVS and they want me to send them the rest of the OPKs for testing, and of course they're going to reimburse me for the purchase. Now everyone just needs to pray that they don't find anything weird from the polyp they removed...

Visitors

My mom and Ron are coming to visit today! They'll be here for a few days to celebrate Chanukkah. And then next week my mother-in-law is coming as well as (hopefully) my sister-in-law. Then over that weekend my brother-in-law will probably visit too. What a full house!! It's going to be a ton of fun, though. I will try to take some pictures, of course.

Dovid is now a professional at standing up while holding onto something, and I even saw him "cruising" around the crib. Not a lot, but he was just scootching towards the corner from the center of the crib. Very cute. :-)

They're both sitting on their own very well. Chana will just sit until she gets bored and wants to move around to a different toy. Dovid will do the same, but he gets bored a lot quicker. (Like after 30 seconds)

In other news, our awesome bloggy friend Shaz is awaiting the birth of her (almost) adopted baby!!! We're so excited for her!!!!!! If you don't know the story, go to her blog and read the last 10 posts or so to catch up. It's really an incredible miracle.

Wordless Wednesday

Scary

Law & Order: SVU tonight was about vaccinating against the measles. It was just so terrifying, because the twins aren't vaccinated yet. The vaccination isn't given until a child is 1 year old, and it's just so scary to think about them getting the disease if other kids are carrying it. Yes, I know it's not exactly going around the schools like swine flu, and I haven't heard of any cases in my community, but this episode just made me cry. *shiver* Wow... If I had been on the fence regarding immunizations, this episode would've decided it for me. Much safer to vaccinate so your kids don't get sick and so they don't get other kids sick. As one of the characters put it on the show, "It's more dangerous to drive a car than to be vaccinated against the measles." I would have to agree.

In other news, I saw Dovid pull himself up to standing a few times today, but he always went back down to kneeling before I could get the camera or camcorder. Very, very cute.

We Got It!

Thanks to Children's Hospital of Boston, Chana, Dovid & I all got our H1N1 flu vaccines today!!!! Let me tell you...CHoB is amazing. They called my phone around 2pm with an automated message saying that there is a clinic going on RIGHT NOW that will end at 4pm. Well, you have never seen a woman move so fast. The twins were playing on the floor, and I scooped them up, put them into snow suits, grabbed the diaper bag, made sure it had everything we might need, grabbed my purse and ran out the door. We got there at precisely 2:35pm. Not bad, eh? We walked in the door and there was a short line. We waited approx 5 minutes before they registered us. Immediately thereafter they took us straight into a room and got us started. I asked if I might also get a vaccine and the lady (who already knew the twins were 8 1/2 months) said "You just tell me they're under 6 months and it's no problem *wink*". Very cool. The twins were SOOOO good. Dovid flinched and made a sad face, but didn't even cry. Chana cried, of course. But got over it way faster than any of her other routine vaccinations. I didn't flinch at all. :-) We were in and out in less than an hour...and that included time parking (which takes like 5 mins at least to find a spot, then another 5 to get them out of the car and then another 3 to walk to the clinic), waiting and getting the shots, waiting after the shots to make sure no one was allergic, then paying for parking. I give CHoB an A+ on just being super.

Now, without further ado, what you've all been waiting for....another video! Well, I have two videos. The first is one of Chana crawling (sort of) and the other is Dovid crawling. These were both taken earlier today before we got the call about the H1N1 clinic. Enjoy!!

More Milestones!

Dovid can crawl!!! He was crawling all over the floor today (on a rug I bought). He saw a toy that he wanted and crawled right over to it. Then I called Shmuel in so he could watch. I took the toy and placed it farther away from him, and again he crawled to it! Very exciting!! :-) He also pulled himself up into a standing position (with knees bent) for about 3 seconds. We have a folding chair in the living room, and I saw him trying to pull up on it so I went over and sat there so the chair wouldn't move away from him. He had easily gotten to his knees (something he's been perfecting for several days now) and was working on getting to his feet. He only got all the way onto his feet once, but I'm sure he'll get better at that soon. Yikes! He's mobile!

Chana did a wonderful job sitting today. I had sat her down on the rug so I could do a bit of cleaning up after Shabbos, and she just sat there (without falling over) for several minutes. (She actually didn't fall over at all...I had to pick her up to put her somewhere else, which is how her "sitting practice" ended.) Yay twinners!!

Eating & Swallowing

We have verification by two separate sources (Shmuel & Shifra) that the twins are actually swallowing food. How do you suppose this is verified? By seeing "things" in their poo, of course! :-) And according to Shifra, Dovid is not vomiting nearly as much as he was. We're also trying new and different things, such as asparagus and honey dew. (We haven't tried the honey dew yet...it's next on the list.) They've also had carrots, green beans, cucumber and lots of other stuff too. Yay!! I don't think they've cut down on their milk feeds at all, so I don't think they're actually swallowing much, but anything swallowed and digested (even partially) is a victory in my book. :-)

New Tricks

The babies do a few new tricks!

1. According to Shifra (our au pair), Dovid is doing better with the whole food thing...but I'll believe it when I see it. Chana is still pretty disinterested in eating but loves throwing food on the floor. (I mean, who doesn't?)


2. Chana actually pulled herself up into a sitting position yesterday! Shifra had laid her down in her crib and when we walked in a few minutes later, there she was sitting with her hands on the bars of the crib. Of course she used the bars to her advantage in helping her to sit up, but still...she did it under her own power. This then prompted me to immediately lower the mattresses in both cribs.


3. Dovid can pull himself into a kneeling position using the bars on his crib. Another reason why lowering the mattresses was such an emergency...


4. The twins are also getting much better at sitting up, but especially Chana. Dovid much prefers "standing" to sitting (even though he can't stand on his own).

I actually have two pictures from when Dovid pulled himself into the kneeling position for the first time:



And here are a few pictures of Chana sitting in her crib holding onto the rails. (This is not from when she pulled herself up.) This first one is my favorite!!!