My New Favorite Thing

Here lately Beckham has been getting fussy about 3:30am. We feed them at 5:00am so I do not want to give him a bottle because he will be completely off for the day. (yes I'm that mean). I have discovered that if I lay him in bed with me he falls right back to sleep. I ABSOLUTELY love this!! He will snuggle his little head right in to mine. He needs me :) I realize a million people say this is a bad habit to get in to, but I don't care. My babies will only want to love on their momma for so long and I'm going to take FULL advantage of it. I love those boys so much.

Back to Work

This was probably one of the hardest weeks of my life. I had to leave my baby boys for the first time to go back to work last Monday. My mom took off for the week to keep them, so it made my transition a little easier. I started crying the Friday before and pretty much didn't stop until Monday. Monday morning was so hard to leave them. I knew that I would not be seeing those smiley little faces for 11 1/2 more hours. This Tuesday will be their first day of daycare. I think this might be even harder. I have to leave them with complete strangers. What if they don't love them enough? What if they just let them lay their all day? What if they don't feed them on schedule? We are putting our world in the care of someone else. I've had such a hard time with the idea of working and not staying home with them. I feel like someone else gets to raise them. Someone else gets to see their firsts. Someone else gets to see those precious little smiles all day long while I'm sitting at a desk. It absolutely breaks my heart! We tried for so long for these little miracles and now someone else gets to spend more time in a day than we do with them. I've looked at numbers over and over again and it's just not possible for me to stay home right now. I always worry too if I don't work will we be able to provide all the things we want for them? Everyone tells me it will get easier, but i don't think it ever will. These early years are years you can never get back and I just feel like I'm going to miss it all. I have had several people say, you will want that adult time away from them. I have to honestly say I am not one of those people. I could spend every minute of every day with those little amazing gifts from God. Some times in life we have to do things we don't want to do though and I know for them at this age it's a lot harder on momma than it is on them.

Blessed

As I lay here staring at my two miracle babies I cannot help but know how incredibly blessed I have been with them. I had a twin pregnancy. Things could have turned at any time. I could have had them extremely early and not been able to bring them home. They were born at 37 weeks. They could have had so many complications. I've had one miscarriage. It could have happened again. But it didn't. They are perfectly healthy and they came out that way. I'm lucky, fortunate and INCREDIBLY blessed! It turns out the other way for so many people. My boys are THE best babies too. They only cry if they are hungry. They will lay and play by themselves for hours. They take two hour naps every afternoon. (So does momma.) They have always slept at least 3-4 hrs at a time and as of 8 wks they sleep through the night. I marvel at God's work. I would go through the pain of Infertility a million times over if this is my outcome!

The first time I laid my eyes of Beckham


The first time I laid my eyes on Brody


And the first time my heart and life was truly full



The moment you first hold your children is one you will never forget!

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Psalm 127:3

Cycle Day 5

Why am I counting cycle days again? Oh I don't know probaby because it's all I know. I feel like I should have already been violated once at the Dr and starting today I should be taking my pills in the hopes to become dissapointed pregnant . I should be starting ovulation tests in 5 days. I should be seeing my thermometer lying next to my bed. This month marks one year since we last tried to get pregnant in a somewhat normal way. We started our IVF process in September. Amazing how a year later everything can still feel the same. I no longer know how to have a normal cycle. I don't even know how it's going to feel to start my period at the end of this cycle and not bawl. Not be overcome with anger, hurt and failure. I will always be an Infertile. Those feelings will never go away. I will never be able to forget what I went through to get these amazing boys. And I am thankful for that. While others may cringe at their baby screaming their head off in the backseat, I smile. I tear up and praise God that I get to hear that amazing sound. I will never once be upset at what I have asked God for so many nights. That screaming is a reminder to me that God is good. I have posted this poem two times already on my blog. It hit home before and it was something I longed to feel, but now I can truly understand the power of it. For those of you who didn't have to struggle, as you're reading this poem and you're losing your patience with your child, just remember there are still a million girls out there that would give ANYTHING to be in your shoes.

I Will be a Mother Someday

There are women that become mothers without effort, without thought, without patience or loss and though they are good mothers and love their children, I know that I will be better. I will be better not because of genetics, or money or that I have read more books but because I have struggled and toiled for this child. I have longed and waited. I have cried and prayed. I have endured and planned over and over again. Like most things in life, the people who truly have appreciation are those who have struggled to attain their dreams. I will notice everything about my child. I will take time to watch my child sleep, explore and discover. I will marvel at this miracle every day for the rest of my life. I will be happy when I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of my child, knowing that I can comfort, hold and feed him and that I am not waking to take another temperature, pop another pill, take another shot or cry tears of a broken dream. My dream will be crying for me. I count myself lucky in this sense; that God has given me this insight, this special vision with which I will look upon my child that my friends will not see. Whether I parent a child I actually give birth to or a child that God leads me to, I will not be careless with my love. I will be a better mother for all that I have endured. I am a better wife, a better aunt, a better daughter, neighbor, friend and sister because I have known pain. I know disillusionment as I have been betrayed by my own body. I have been tried by fire and hell many never face, yet given time, I stood tall. I have prevailed. I have succeeded. I have won. So now, when others hurt around me, I do not run from their pain in order to save myself discomfort. I see it, mourn it, and join them in theirs. I listen. And even though I cannot make it better, I can make it less lonely. I have learned the immense power of another hand holding tight to mine, of other eyes that moisten as they learn to accept the harsh truth and when life is beyond hard. I have learned a compassion that only comes with walking in those shoes. I have learned to appreciate life. Yes I will be a wonderful mother.

These are my miracles and I will NEVER take them for granted

Picture Overload

I just wanted to say welcome to my new followers. I have deleted my facebook account so I promise to keep up with this more. Here are some of the professional maternity and newborn pics we had taken. LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM!

6 Weeks and Other Randoms

warning...this may be a long blog

Where has 6 weeks gone. I cannot believe my babies are this old already. It honestly breaks my heart to think about. If this amount of time has flown by already I just know the rest will be flying by too and I'm not ready for my boys to not want their momma. (yes I realize this is like 10 yrs away.) They are both growing so much and developing their own personalities.




Brody- Weighs approximately 8.2 lbs. He is our little chunk and I love it. He started cooing yesterday and this morning he smiled at me for the first time while talking to him. He is our grunter. Sometimes it's just because he's bored and others because he has tummy problems. Either way he would rather grunt than cry. He's actually doing it as I type. lol. When he wants your attention he will squeal. It's so cute! He's eating 3.5 oz every 3 hours and sleeping about 4-4.5 hours at night. I think he is going to be my busy body who can't sit still. Within the past week he has really started to focus on things like lights, tv, and most importantly me :)He loves to pucker up his lips to give mommy kisses. He has outgrown all his newborn clothes and is in 0-3. This really makes me sad. He is getting so big already and losing that newborn look.



Beckham- Weighs approximately 7.2 lbs. He is the little guy. It's amazing the size difference between him and Brody. I wonder all the time if he will ever catch up. He is the relaxed one. He can just lay by himself and stare away at anything. He has been able to focus on things for a while now. He smiled at me for the first time about 2 weeks ago. He might be a fit thrower though because he already has the arching his back thing down. There are something about his eyes that draw you in. I've felt this since day one with him. He is eating 3 oz every 3 hours and sleeps 4-4.5 hours a night. He is still in his newborn clothes and probably will be for another month.

Both of my boys are growing so fast. They really are good babies and I feel very lucky. They have made it very easy. I honestly think one child would be a piece of cake. Robert went back to work this week. Since he went back we have really established a routine and it's wonderful. The best part of our day is the 2 hour nap in the afternoon for all of us. Oh how I'm going to miss that when I go back to work. I start back 4 weeks from Monday. I honestly don't know how I'm going to do ti. The thought of someone else being with my children more than me and someone else getting to see all their milestones BREAKS MY HEART! I hate that everything is so expensive these days where it's almost impossible to just have one income. I would love to be able to find something part time that pays well, but I'm not sure if that exists. People say it gets easier, but I'm just not sure that I'll ever be ok with it. :(

I've started having body issues in the past week. I was losing weight like crazy and then all the sudden it just stopped. I have 20 more lbs to go to pre pregnancy weight,plus I'd like to lose another 15. I know it's going to take time because I gained quite a bit more than a normal pregnancy, but I'm ready for my old body. I also have discovered stretch marks. I did not see these during my pregnancy, but they are apparent now. I'm hoping with a little tanning they wont be that noticable. I started working out again and eating better so hopefully I'll see some results. And yes I would do it all over again knowing that I'd have this body after.

There is so much more that I think of blogging about, but I have to go change some diapers, so I will try to write more in the next few days. I'll leave you with some pictures for now.

Breastfeeding...Well Sorta

Breastfeeding is something I have known I wanted to do since I thought about having children. It's important to me. When I found out I was having twins I had to face the reality that it may not be a possibility. I've tried to prepare myself over the last nine months to not lose it if I could't. (Yeah right)

So here is how it has gone. I told all my family and friends that right after the boys birth I wanted it to be me and Robert in the room for about the first hour so we could bond and so that I could try to breastfeed. Brody came out ready to eat. Literally! He was already looking for the boob. Beckham not so much. Much to my surprise Brody latched on right away. YAY. Beckham eventually did witht he help of the nurse. Here I was 30 min after bringing them in to this world providing them with what they need to survive. Something only I can give them. It was the most amazing rewarding experience. (I'm sure the drugs helped too ;) I continued to feed them while we were in the hospital. Brody would always latch on right away, but we had to trick Beckham with some formula from a syringe to get him to latch on. Feeding at home continured to go good. We had to bring them back in for weight checks 2 days after we left. The boys were both still losing weight and with them being so small in the first place the nurses were worried. I told them about the struggle with Beckham and that's when we were told to try pumping from the side that Brody was not on and bottle feeding Beckham. I was ok with this because I at least had one baby that still latched on. We were told to come back the next day for another weight check after changing things up. They finally had gained weigth. This made me one proud momma. A couple of days had gone by and I started to notice Brody was getting hungry about 15 min after he ate. It never occured to me until that moment that he wasn't getting enough milk from me. I was only pumping 1 oz from the breast that Beckham was getting and we were supplementing him to have 2 oz. I was starving my poor baby. Robert suggested that we do the same with Brody as we were doing with Beckham. I lost it! I knew it was the right thing to do so he would not starve, but it hurt. This is something I have longed to be able to do with my babies for so long and it turns out I can't. I had my little cry and soon got over it. I know pump for both boys and am getting about 2 oz from each side. Beckham is eating 3 oz and Brody is eating 3 1/2 oz. Which means I'm still having to supplement. I have to remember that if I only had one child I would have plenty. I have two, but that doesn't make this any easier.

p.s when Brody gets hungry in between meals I let him have the boob ;) it comforts him and momma!

Breastfeeding takes a lot of commitment. Our schedule revolves around their feeding times, so we really don't get out much. I've thought about switching to straight formula already because I often wonder if giving them just 2 oz of my milk is really worth it? The middle of the night is the hardest part when I wake up to pump and everyone else is sound asleep. BUT, there is just something so special and rewarding knowing that you are giving them something NO ONE else can! I LOVE BEING A MOMMY