New Big

My three oldest kids have all had either a Big Brother or Big Sister from Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters at some point over the last few years. Unfortunately due to circumstances Dovid has not had a Big Brother since he was diagnosed with diabetes. Chana has had two Big Sisters, but each of them had to leave the program for personal reasons. Tzipora has also had two Big Sisters, and is currently still with that second one. I got a call the other day that a third Big Sister had been found for Chana and asked if we wanted to meet her. Of course I said yes! So tonight we went to meet Chana's new Big Sister, and she seems so sweet. I'm very excited for them to be able to start going out with one another. I think their first outing is going to be doing some kind of art project and ice cream. Sounds like they'll have a lot of fun!

You Miss Me?

How surprised was I today to see that someone was looking for an update and that I hadn't posted anything since last August when I became a CNM. I'm not really sure why I don't update more. I am busy - doing my DNP, working, kids - but not so busy that I can't take a few minutes to say hello to anyone who is still reading. *waves to all of my "fans"*

The nine months have not been particularly eventful. The twins are in 2nd grade and doing fairly well. Dovid is on a medication that has made him much easier to handle at school, though he still struggles with anything related to social interaction. Chana is progressing steadily and hopefully will be able to continue on to 3rd grade with Dovid next year. Tzipora has whizzed her way through kindergarten and can read! She's got a lot of sight words down, and we are all super proud of her. She also is friends with basically her entire class. Gavriella is also having fun in her first year at "school" in the 3-year-old class. She's an adorable gem, and I love it when her teachers send me photos of all of the fun things she is doing in class.

As for me, I /finally/ got a job, but not as a midwife. I was hired to work as a labor and delivery nurse (part-time nights). This is not ideal, but it is work. Meanwhile, I am plugging along with my doctoral studies and will hopefully finish in September. At that point you can all call me doc. :D

In about a week, we're going to be attending a family reunion with my grandfather and people from that side of the family that none of us have met. My mom, Uncle Ron, my sister and brother-in-law will also be there. It's going to be very exciting, and I promise to take lots of pictures and actually post about it. Maybe I'll get back into a groove or something... Feel free to leave a comment if you want me to post about something in particular. I feel as though I don't know what to talk about. I've made some pretty interesting genealogical discoveries over the past few months, but I doubt they would be interesting to anyone outside of my family.

Updates

Can you believe that my little baby is already a week old? It's incredible how time flies...

My day in the hospital with her was pretty uneventful. She spent most of the time in my room with a few short stays in the nursery for checkups and so I could get a few hours of sleep. We were discharged on Friday afternoon so we could get home in time for Shabbos...which we did by the skin of our teeth! Our amazing friends have been bringing over meals since then, so I haven't had to cook at all. The most I've done in the kitchen in the last week is cutting up a cantaloupe for the twins and pouring myself a bowl of cereal. lol

The first few days at home were tough since my milk didn't come in until Sunday and she was feeding constantly. Her sleep clock was also completely off, so she was having cluster feeds at night for 4-5 hours straight (like 10am to 3am). At that point I would call in Shmuel to hold her for a little while and try to get her to sleep so I could rest a bit. After two nights of that I decided I needed to do something to regulate her sleep clock. So, I stopped swaddling her during the day and made sure she was feeding every 1-2 hours. That way she would be sleepy and not particularly hungry overnight. Well, it worked! The past two nights she's actually had 5 hour stretches of sleep and she goes back to sleep pretty easily (something she was not doing at all).

During the day I'm trying to wear her in my Moby wrap so she's up a bit and not lonely, since she would cry and I wasn't sure if she was hungry or lonely and I would just feed her. But doing that wasn't practical cuz she would suck for like 5 mins or less and then fall back to sleep... So now we have a system!

As for me, my recovery has gone pretty well. I'm still really sore, so it's hard for me to sit at times, but it's better than it was. I'm just taking it one day at a time and little by little it's healing. I'm feeling great, though, just a bit tired. Thank goodness my mom is here to help out - she can help me with the baby during the day and then help Shmuel with the twins after day care. There's just so much to do with three little ones, and even three adults at times doesn't seem to be enough! lol

I hope everyone had a happy new year!!

Funny Babies...or Funny Mommy?

My son laughed during "book time" tonight. By laughed, I mean he laughed after EVERY WORD. And this was a book entitled Big Bird's First Book of Letters, so each letter had a few words to go along with it. No plot, just words. By the letter C, he was laughing after every single word. I was like, "Am I reading this funny?" I dunno...maybe he was just in a silly mood.

Then, my hubby gets home and it's time for him to say the Shema and V'Ahavta with the twins before they go to sleep. Dovid kept eye contact with Shmuel during the whole thing and didn't make one peep. It's as if he knew how important it is to say the Shema before bed, and he wanted to make sure he did it right. SO cute!

I got my Belly Bandit in the mail today, and I'm wearing it now. Hopefully this will help my stomach to regain a nicer shape...seeing as right now it flops all over the place. *sigh*

My au pair, Shifra, is coming in less than 18 hours. OMG!!!!!!!!!!

Click HERE for more Hebrew & Yiddish word definitions

Ultrasound

Ok, I know this is the post everyone's been waiting for! We have two beautiful, perfect little heartbeats!! Baby A measured .95cm CRL (which is exactly 7w 0d) with a heartbeat of 137.7bpm and baby B measured .86cm CRL (which is 6w 6d) with a heartbeat of 146.8bpm.

Here are the photos!!

First is a picture of both beans at the same time...


Next is a picture of Baby A by his/herself


This is a picture of Baby A's measurement (you can see the yolk sac next to him/her...it's round)


This picture shows Baby A's heartbeat


This is a picture of Baby B's measurement


And, finally, this is Baby B's heartbeat

Sunday's Fun Day Charlie Brown...

So I spent this morning in the ER--not to worry, everything's ok. I had a headache yesterday that was different than my usual headaches, so I wanted to get it checked out. The dr in the ER wasn't at all worried about my head and wanted to check in on the little bean, so took my blood and left. A while later a different doctor comes in with an ultrasound machine and informs me that we're going to take a peek inside. Who am I to argue? I was actually quite excited. While he's figuring out the ultrasound machine, my other dr comes in and informs me that my hCG level was up to 46,000...yep, that's right 46,000. Which is MUCH higher than I was expecting (I thought maybe 25,000 or something). But no, my hCG is overachieving this time. On the plus side, I have a nice, high hCG and barely any symptoms, so I hope it stays that way. :-) Anyhoo, they stick the probe thing where it's supposed to go and take a look. One doctor looks at me and says "well, you are pregnant". I was like, "Umm I coulda told you THAT!" lol Anyhoo, we're taking a look around in there and I could definitely see two different sacs, but waited for the doc to tell me what he was actually looking at. So he points to one of them and says "This is a yolk sac and looks great for where you are. We can't see a fetus yet, but that's totally normal for where you are. And this over here looks like it could be another one...it's pretty close, but it does look like a second one." And on the discharge papers it actually says they found twins via ultrasound. So, there you have it. Two yolk sacs, two babies. We'll find out more at my 7 week ultrasound at my RE's office where we'll look for heartbeats, but for now we are looking at 2!! And of course, check out my crazy high hCG levels on the chart below...

Movers

My wonderful mother sent us a HUGE truckload of furniture today. The movers were fast, efficient and very friendly. Now, what does this have to do with infertility/babies? I'm glad you asked...

As they were leaving, one of the movers turns to me and says, "You are going to be parents soon, right?" And I'm like, "eventually..." And the guy looks at me and says, "Twins?" And I just about nearly passed out and fell down the stairs at that one. But instead I responded, "Who knows?" Now, does he know something that I don't? I mean, yeah, I did transfer two embryos on Friday, but how would he know that? The picture of my embryos was turned face down, so I know he didn't see it and I know my mother would never say anything to them. So where in the he** did he get the idea #1 that I was pregnant and #2 that I was pregnant with twins? If I am, this guy might just be psychic.