Hooray for Jake

I knew that Mastitis was an infection, but I didn't realize it'd make you feel like you wanted to die. I've been so sick today, it's ridiculous. When you have two babies you don't get any time off, and how do you take care of two busy little ones when you can barely sit up? That's where I'm super lucky. Jake took care of them all day today, letting me sleep most of the day and only getting up for feedings. I don't know how single parents do it, I'm definitely lucky to have Jake.

One Year Ago Today

April 10 was the day of retrieval and fertilization -- Nora and Milo came into existence one year ago today, or more accurately a year ago tonight.

My life seems split in half now. There is the "before babies" half, or the bb half, and the "after babies" half, the ab half. Everything about bb life seemed to disappear once the babies arrived. Now I'm getting some of those things back, like walking to work or meeting somebody for coffee, so I guess over time the bb/ab split will seem less dramatic. Or maybe it won't, because the biggest difference is that Milo and Nora are here now, and we are a family of four now, and things will never be the same.

The bb/ab split was so earth shattering that it has almost caused me to forget the earlier split: life before infertility, and life after infertility. Before infertility I went from day to day, mostly living in the present, sometimes dreaming about the future, working towards my goals, having fun in my time off, just existing. After infertility, the rhythm of my life was chopped into 28-day cycles. I was either anxious about timing everything correctly, hopeful that it had worked, despairing that it hadn't worked, or recovering from the disappointment and grief of yet another failed cycle. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Over and over and over again.

Infertility causes stress levels in patients that are similar to those who face a fatal illness or a death of a family member. At first glance this might not seem to make any sense, because infertility is so much better to deal with than, say, cancer. It is, of course, but the cyclical nature of infertility is what makes it particularly hard to negotiate. There is no one primary painful moment that a person faces, deals with, grieves over, and then moves on from. Instead the grief keeps happening every month. Each cycle that fails brings a fresh wave of grief that has to be dealt with all over again, and it gets harder with every passing month rather than easier. I used to feel like I could never escape from infertility, not even for a little while, not even when I wanted to, because I couldn't get out of my own body. Even if the cause of infertility is a male factor, it is the woman who experiences the expectations, hopes, and failures of each cycle in the symptoms (or lack thereof) she experiences.

If any of you have friends or family members who struggle with infertility, here are a few helpful tips about what to say and what not to say:

Don't Say: Just relax!
I often felt that if I had to hear one more person to tell me to relax, I was going to smack them upside the head. Infertility is a medical problem, not a personality disorder. If you found out that I had hepatitis or a broken leg, would you tell me to fix it by just relaxing? Also, to everybody who ever told me to relax, I wanted to say "have you met me?" I don't "relax". Feeling like I had to relax just added an extra layer of stress onto an already difficult situation. Not only was I failing at the most fundamental aspect of womanhood (or so I felt), but I was making it worse by being all stressed out about it (or so it seemed).

Don't Say: I had a friend/cousin/aunt/colleague who couldn't get pregnant, but then she took a cruise / went on vacation / traveled to Hawaii, and blammo! Pregnant.
Goody for them. Those people were not infertile. Those little tricks work for normal people, not for infertile couples. Why not tell me to revert back to age 17, drink a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and hop into the back seat of a Chevy? That worked for a lot of people I know.

Don't Say: You can have mine!
That's just tacky.

Don't Say (when I'm not drinking in order to improve our chances): Oh, well I was drunk when I conceived little Johnny.
Bite me.

Don't Say: It was meant to be (or some other version of "maybe God didn't want you to be parents").
Are you kidding me? I'm not meant to be a parent and the couple in the news who had crack-addicted babies and then neglected them and let them wander out into the -5 degree weather by themselves without any shoes on were supposed to be parents? What kind of crazy reasoning is that? What about all of the people out there who become pregnant unintentionally and cannot, for whatever reason, have a baby at that point in their lives? They were supposed to get pregnant and I wasn't? And by the way, are you seriously suggesting that there's something about me or my personality that means I shouldn't be a parent?

Don't Say: I knew this one couple who couldn't have children, so they adopted and then, surprise, she got pregnant!
Infertile couples who adopt experience spontaneous pregnancies at the same rate as the rest of the infertile population: it happens about 5% of the time. There is nothing about adoption that causes it to happen, or we would see it occur in higher rates with adopting couples. Not to mention, isn't that remark kind of insulting to adoptive families? It suggests that adoption is a second-best choice and conceiving is the brass ring of family building.

I received all of those comments, and more. I heard them all many times. Fortunately, I also had a lot of wonderful, supportive, understanding friends and family members who said all of the right things, all the time. They listened to me complain and cry for what now seems like an eternity, but actually was only a couple of years. The support I received helped me enormously, and here are some of the things they said:

• I'm here if you want to talk.
• I'm sorry this is happening to you.
• Let me know if you want to vent about it, I'm here for you.
• Let's go get a drink and let off some steam.
• Even though I don't know the route you'll take, I know you will be a parent.
• I'm thinking of you/pulling for you/crossing my fingers.
  

A year ago today everything changed. Nora and Milo came to be, and a couple of weeks later we discovered that they had actually survived and seemed to be digging in for a long ride. The cyclical nature of my life was about to end. Everything changed forever. I'm glad it's now and not then, because as wonderful as it was to find out that we had a real chance at having a baby, it was nothing compared to living with them every day, knowing them, loving them.

Action Shots

Nora's nursing strike is getting worse instead of better, and I'm trying everything. Now Milo seems to be joining her. I'm worried about Nora's eating in general. She just doesn't seem to want to eat, even from a bottle. Could it be reflux that we haven't fixed with the medicine? A milk allergy? Something else? We've consulted with the lactation specialist and she's stumped, and now we're consulting with the doctor. It seems like it's always something. If she actually weans, which would be really weird at 4 months, should I just nurse Milo? That means I'd be the one feeding him all the time, and Jake would be the one feeding her all the time. The asymmetry of that bothers me. Feeding is such a bonding experience that I hate the thought that each of us is only bonding in that way with one baby. Should I just give up all of this nursing/pumping nightmare all together?

When I think of all the hours I've spent pumping, struggling to nurse with a baby who is protesting, and worrying about milk supply instead of just holding and enjoying our babies, I think that it's not worth the emotional and bonding cost, and I should just give it up. But then when I think about all of the health risks they incur from not getting breastmilk, it breaks my heart to think about giving it up. So, I don't know what we'll do.

In the meantime, here are some action shots. I think that on this day, Nora rolled from her back to her side, and Jake then helped her onto her stomach.

A Conversation With Nora

Nora: Blech! Get that thing out of my mouth! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa!

Me: Dude, you have to nurse. It's time to eat now, so please nurse.

Nora: What, do you take me for a chump? I'm not going anywhere near that thing! Aaaaa, stop trying to make me, or I'll just scream!

Me: Look, I know you're hungry. I can tell by the way you're acting. Let's just be logical about this. If you nurse, then you'll stop being hungry. You'll feel a lot better, I promise.

Nora: Forget it! Where's that bottle?

Me: Uh...hey look! Nice pretty boob! Don't you want to nurse?

Nora: You think you can distract me away from the fact that I want a bottle, not you? Who do you think you're dealing with here?

Me: But you have to nurse. You need milk, not powdered evil. Don't you know that if I give you formula, that's akin to riding a mechanical bull while pregnant? Haven't you seen those public service announcements?

Nora: You don't let me watch tv, remember? Anyway, I'm only a baby and even I know how dumb that is.

Me: Well anyway, trust me when I tell you that it's important for your health that you nurse. Preferably sooner rather than later. Let's try again.

Nora: Forget it! Aaaaa! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa!

Me: Oh my God Nora, please just nurse. I'm not going to give you a bottle. Don't you realize that if you stop nursing, you'll never get fed by mama? Do you really want daddy to feed you every single time? I mean, just between us, we know who you love best. Right?

Nora: ...

Me: Right?

Nora: I'm hungry! Where's that bottle? Stop trying to shove that thing in my mouth! No, don't even put it anywhere near my face, don't even make me look at it! Aaaaaa!

Me: Look. I'm the parent, and you're the child. So what I say, goes. And I say you must nurse, so you had better comply.

Nora: HAH HA HA HA HA HA.

Me: Let's just try one more time...

Nora: Aaaaaa! Stop it! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaaa!

Me: I can't make you do this, can I. Or anything, actually. Oh crap, I'm so screwed...

Nora: Welcome to parenthood, sucker.

And then they'll end up at Middle Kentucky Tech

An important benefit of having twins in the expanded opportunity for a father to be involved with his children when they're babies. A father's participation in early child care always enriches a child's life, but with twins it's a necessity...Nevertheless, there are issues that crop up between fathers and mothers of twins in the babyhood years...
(J.A. Friedman, from Emotionally Healthy Twins)

I should say right off the bat that Jake is a great father. He has a load of patience. He approaches most things with a sense of humor, including the babies' more frustrating behaviors. He is gentle. He hauls himself out of bed in the middle of the night every night to feed the babies. He does things that most fathers of infants don't ever have to do, or don't do on a daily basis.

But. But, he's not me. He's not the mom. And sometimes it seems like Nora and Milo need me, not him. They need to be soothed the way I soothe them, and only I will do. This is the hard part.

Imagine you have a baby and your husband is trying to get her to stop crying. She won't stop, and you sit there and watch him try and try and try, and nothing is working, and you know without a doubt that if you just took that baby and held her for about 10 seconds, she would stop crying. You know it. So what do you do? How long do you let your husband continue to try to get her to stop crying, how long do you listen to her scream? Do you listen to her scream for 5 minutes? For 10 minutes? For 15 minutes? Do you watch your husband suffer and listen to your baby scream and scream and do nothing to fix it? Do you wait until she gets to the stage where she's hiccuping and her face is all red and blotchy, and the screams continue with heartbreaking intensity? Do you just sit there and let all of that happen right in front of you, without doing anything about it?

It sounds insane to do that. But that's what I had to do last night, because the OTHER baby was nursing at the time. I cannot pick up and soothe Nora when Milo is attached at the breast. There is only one of me, but there are two of them, and sometimes they both need me at the same time, and it drives me crazy to not be able to take care of them when they need it. Ultimately it got to the point where I cut Milo off once he was mostly done so that I could attend to Nora. And then, of course, Milo started crying.

I know that these babies cry more than they would if they had been born one at a time. A lot more. Fewer of their needs get met because I am usually busy with one baby when the other one needs something. They get to have a very close relationship with their father, and I wouldn't trade that for anything, but sometimes only I will do, and I cannot be there for them. I hope we aren't damaging them for life because of this. If we have to damage them for life, and I'm sure we will, as that's our job as parents, I'd rather it be for a better reason. Something like, "oh, sorry we spent all of your tuition money on our new boat", not "sorry for that whole 'not picking you up enough' thing when you were babies."

Today I was holding Nora on the couch downstairs and I could hear Jake upstairs with Milo. He was awake and making noises, not quite fussing yet, but starting to get a little agitated. I knew he needed interaction. I could hear Jake in there, sitting near him but not talking to him, not playing with him. Jake is a quiet person who tends not to talk just for the sake of talking. I think he finds it hard to talk to the babies, and who can blame him, I find it weird and awkward myself sometimes. I have to force myself to talk to them, and I say inane things like "And now we're going to put your diaper in your wrap. Here we go, folding it into thirds! And now it goes into the wrap, and let's put it on, okay, here's one velcro tabby, and there's the other tabby! All done!" On and on and on, endless inanity. But I do it, because I know they need to be talked to, and they love it. They smile and wiggle and kick their legs. And I have to say that Jake talks to them more and more every day, and he's great at playing with them, so this was just one weird day.

But I knew Milo needed to be talked to, played with, and I couldn't do it because there I was, holding a sleeping Nora , who I didn't want to disturb. So I have to sit there with the knowledge that my baby isn't getting what he needs, and half the time that's just the way it is. They're not going to get talked to as much as they should. And again, this drives me crazy. I find it really hard to truly enjoy and be present with whichever baby I have when I am worrying about what the other baby isn't getting.

All of this makes me irrationally angry. Maybe it's just being overwhelmed by having twins in general, but whatever it is, I get a lot more angry than is called for. I find myself doing things like yelling at poor Jake, or yelling when I drop things, or trying to control the urge to just kick something across the room like a child because I'm so mad. Just typing that makes me realize that a major attitude adjustment is necessary on my part. I know the logical thing to do is just lighten the hell up about it all. It's not going to be the end of the world if the babies aren't talked to 24 hours a day. It's not like they're going to then have delayed language development, and therefore experience cognitive deficits that affect how they do in school, which will ultimately affect their attitude towards learning in general, which will prevent them from realizing their true potential and gaining complete happiness as they stagnate at some regional state college instead of going to Harvard on a full scholarship which they would have done if only we'd talked to them more as infants.

Yeah. Okay. So maybe I need to lighten up.

A Different First

Today was my first full day back at work! A full 8 hours scheduled to be out of the house entirely! Yes, it is now April, and we now have partial child care in place, and I can theoretically work 8 hours out of the house twice a week. Up until now I've been grabbing minutes here and there, sneaking away for meetings, working at odd times while I pump or after the babies are asleep, but never in truly long chunks.

What a day. 3 a.m., up for a feeding. It was going to be Jake's solo feeding but Nora was hungry at the same time that Milo was hungry, and rather than making her wait I got up and nursed her. Then she spit up a few times, and had an outfit change, and a diaper change, and finally they both went back to sleep. Then they slept all the way until 7 a.m.! Hooray! I got up, nursed Milo while Nora played in the crib, and was about to start nursing Nora when Milo had a huge, giant blowout. Okay, so Milo had to have a bath. Nora patiently waited while I brought Milo into the bathroom. I set him (without a diaper) onto the bouncy seat while I ran the bath. Once the bathtub was full I turned back and thought, hmm, why is Milo's leg wet? Did I dribble water on him? Wait, why is the cloth he's sitting on wet...why is the floor wet? Ooooohhhh. Cue me cleaning urine off the floor, discarding the cloth, and then bathing Milo.

Back to the nursery. Milo is happy, now feed Nora. Both are fed and changed, time to pump. I eat a bowl of cereal while pumping, killing two birds with one stone. It's now 8:15, so I'm behind schedule. Wash the bottles. At 8:30 our nanny arrives, aka the Twin Whisperer. I update her on all things baby, and then at 9 hop in the shower to get ready to go. I'm finally out and ready to leave at 9:30, just an hour later than I'd originally planned.

I walk to work. It's only a mile and a half. But I didn't think about what it would take to walk to work with my backpack, my computer, and my breastpump which comes complete with its own bag, parts, and bottles. Turns out that a half-hour walk carrying all of that is way too long. I don't want to give up walking, though, and yet I need to carry all of that stuff. So I'm still trying to figure out a solution for that.

Get to work a little after 10. Pump immediately. Answer emails while pumping. Disconnect the pump and then lean over while the pump parts are still attached to me, thereby spilling a bunch of milk all over my pants. Oh well. I have actually cried over spilled milk in the past, but not today. Time to move on. Store the milk, clean up my office, and proceed to the major non-administrative task at hand, which is crafting my research narrative for my annual review, which is due in a week or so. Work on that for an hour, then get a phone call from my former student. He needs help with his teaching, and he wants to collaborate on a grant, and he wants to talk about the recent report put out by the math advisory panel. Hang up with him, and it's time for lunch. Wolf down lunch, and then meet with a person I'm interviewing for a transcribing job. I need him to transcribe about 42 hours of video data, and the interview is promising. It looks like he'll be competent and able to do the job.

Pump again. It goes a little better this time, no spilling. Worry over the lousy amount that I'm pumping and wonder if this means that the babies aren't getting enough to eat when they nurse. Make a conscious decision to not worry about that for the next two weeks, at which point they'll visit the doctor and get weighed again anyway. Now I have two full hours to work on my narrative. Two hours! Of uninterrupted time in a row! What a luxury. Get working on my narrative. Get interrupted by another professor wanting to discuss an upcoming agenda item for a meeting I have to attend. Back to the narrative. Get interrupted again by a student who is having trouble with his field placement.

Okay. There's still time. Continue working on my narrative, when, whoops, it's time for my next appointment. I meet with one of my graduate students about her thesis. I cut her off after an hour. Pump again. I've been sore and semi-engorged all day, and I realize that the pump just can't compare to a baby. Tell myself, for the thousandth time in a row, that I only have 8.5 months left of breastfeeding. Then I can stop without feeling too guilty. Back to the narrative -- oh no! It's 4:55 p.m. and I have to leave in 5 minutes! Pack everything up, haul all of my gear onto my back, and make the 30-minute trek home.

Come home to find out that Nora had basically refused to eat for the last two feedings. She's been a little off lately. Otherwise, however, marvel at all of the wonderful things our Twin Whisperer did, including playing with the babies, giving them tummy time, feeding them, bathing Nora, and somehow also getting a load of laundry washed and dried and folded, and sweeping the floors. Hooray for the Twin Whisperer. I feed Nora immediately, and fortunately she does nurse. Put Nora to bed. Make dinner hurriedly while Jake walks around with an awake Milo in the sling. Milo is supposed to be sleeping, but he's not. Eat half of my dinner when Nora wakes up screaming. Soothe Nora back to sleep. Eat the rest of my (cold) dinner. Wash the dishes. Jake is still dealing with an awake and now fussy Milo. Wash all of the bottles and pump parts. Get the mail. Milo is still awake, and whoops, it's time to feed the babies again.

Feed the babies. Soothe them to sleep. Pump. Answer emails from prospective students while pumping. Finish pumping. Wash bottles and pump parts. Do some more work, finally finishing a draft of the narrative. Change into pajamas, get ready for bed. Write this post. The end.

All in all, I'd say my first day back was more or less a success.

Not Exactly the Algonquin Round Table

Today was my first full day alone with the babies. I've had them for short periods on my own before, but never for a full day. It was fine! There was no crying at all, and just a bit of fussing, mostly from Nora during Milo's bath time as I basically had to leave her in the Nursery O' Stink for a few minutes. They took a decent hour-long nap in the morning, which actually gave me some time to get things done. Their afternoon nap was terrible, only 25 minutes, so we still have to work on napping skills.

I now understand why parents get so excited about the little skills babies develop. You hear that a baby can put something in her mouth and you think "big deal, I do that all the time." But it's exciting when you start to see your kids finally doing something after weeks of just basically lying there. When they were first born they were pretty much cranky lumps. Now they're no longer lumps; they can do all sorts of things, which has me excited to see what new things they will develop. So far:

• Milo can roll from front to back.
• Nora has rolled once from back to side.
• Both can hold their heads up pretty well when sitting supported.
• Nora sits very well in the bumbo seat; Milo lists to one side a bit.
• Both babies can grab things and hold small things in their hands.
• Yesterday Milo pulled a ring on one of his toys and made it play a song. He then proceeded to do that about 18 more times.
• Both babies can see across the room and will smile at you from that distance, or respond to a smile.
• Milo is just now starting to get the hang of using iambic pentameter; Nora is pretty good at integration, but still sometimes forgets to add the +C.

Here's another video I took today. It's basically just Nora and Milo being cute.

Body, Hunger, Chocolate

When I was seventeen I'd look around at older women, mothers, matronly types with polyester pants stretched tight over their hips, the zipper on the fly exposed because they had tried to stuff themselves into a size too small. In my infinite 17-year old arrogance, I would tell myself "that will never be me." I would never be that...gross. It's all a matter of self control, I'd smugly think, carelessly enjoying the thin body that my genetics gave me. It certainly didn't have anything to do with exercise, or healthy eating, or self control. Not at seventeen.

Cut to today. Grandmom gave Nora and Milo huge beautiful chocolate and peanut butter eggs for easter. One read "Milo" and one read "Nora". Because they're still a little too young for chocolate, I had to make the sacrifice and help them eat the eggs. I had a sleeping Milo in the sling, and I was sitting at the computer responding to emails and eating a giant piece of that giant chocolate egg. I then looked down to see crumbles of chocolate that had melted all over the inside of the sling, Milo's shirt, and Milo's head. I actually woke up my sleeping baby because I was cleaning chocolate patches off of him. This is how low I have sunken.

How did I get from there to here? If I ran into my 17-year old self now, I'd disgust her. The pants are too tight. The shirts are too tight. I have entire sections of my wardrobe that I should just throw out now, because there's no way I'm ever wearing that skin-tight halter top or that bikini ever again.

Oh yeah, I know how I got from there to here. First I got old. Then I got pregnant with twins, and gained 40 pounds. I did that cheerfully, and every pound gained was a pound deliberately gained, as I tried to put on as much weight as I could. This took work because I wasn't hungry during my pregnancy. I was either sick or on a crummy diabetes diet which involved way too many servings of beef jerky and far too few servings of ice cream. Then I delivered the twins and finally learned what nursing hunger is all about. I am hungry and thirsty all the time, all day long and all night long. The next thing I know, it seems like a good idea to inhale a giant chocolate and peanut butter egg after having already eaten a complete lunch. A lunch that involved sour cream.

The babies are 3.5 months old by now, and yet my body is nowhere near back to where it used to be. When I was pregnant I went to a conference in Providence. The conference organizer was both beautiful and exceptionally thin, and I was surprised to learn that she had a 3-month old baby. She told me that my body would return to its normal state, or more realistically, "within epsilon of normal." Curses, I believed her. It worked for her, why not for me?

I know it's time to stop inhaling chocolate eggs and time to start breaking out the jogging stroller. I also know, or suspect anyway, that my body will never look the way it used to look. There's just too much...stuff around my middle. Is it skin, is it fat? What makes up this strange shelf that hangs over my giant scar? I don't know, but I doubt it's going to disappear for good. Even if it does, the stretch marks don't look like they're going anywhere. So I have to calibrate to a new normal.

And you know what, that's okay. The shelf is creepy, but I find that I look at the shelf, and then I look at Milo. I look at Milo's wrinkled forehead and his giant eyes. I look at the stretch marks, and then I look at Nora's upturned nose, and her tiny perfect mouth. So this imperfect lumpy body made these two perfect little people. The tradeoff is worth it. It's a trade I was begging to make for years. So it's okay.

I think.

(Above -- a picture of me at age 31, pre babies, and a picture of me the day after the babies were born).

Grandpop the Photographer

I guess I was Wrong

A few months ago, Jake and I had this conversation:

A: T's [photography] work is so different from, say, the piece we have downstairs in the living room.

J: What piece?

A: The one hanging opposite the sofa.

J: Uh...what does it look like?

A: You know, the one of the shoes and the dress.

J: What? What are you talking about? What does it look like?

A: You know, that photograph that's been hanging on the wall for, like, the last 3 years? The one that you've been looking at every time we sit on the sofa? The one you see every single day when you walk through the living room?

J: Huh? Is it black and white? Is it in color?

A (head about to explode): How can you not know what I'm talking about? Every night you sit on the couch and look right at it! It's a HUGE framed photograph! It's the only thing hanging on that wall! You know, the one with the shoes and the dress?

J: I have no idea what you're talking about.

A: Aaaaaaaaa!

I concluded that Jake was just remarkably, disturbingly unobservant. But apparently I was wrong, as evidenced by today's conversation:

J (as we're walking on the sidewalk in front of somebody's driveway): That car belongs in this driveway.

A: What?

J: That car. It's going to turn into this driveway.

A: What car?

J: That black Audi.

A:Where?

J: There, down the block, driving this way.

(The car does indeed turn into the driveway.)

A: How did you know that? We're not even anywhere close to home.

J: I notice things.

No Mother of the Year Awards Here

.
This morning I was pulling Nora's onesie over her head and one of the snaps on the bottom got folded under so that it scraped along the top of her head. The onesie was already a little tight so it was a hard scrape. She started screaming immediately, of course. She was easy to calm down but now she has an angry red mark along the top of her head, and I feel like a class-A jerk.

The whole week has been like that. I stand up and knock over my water cup, spilling water everywhere. I twist the ice-cube tray and ice cubes pop out and spill all over the kitchen floor. I trip several times a day for no good reason. I bang the car seat against the inside of the car door, leaving a mark. I just can't seem to get anything right, to get it together. Geez.

How long can I blame stuff on sleep deprivation? I've been sleep deprived for 3 months now and at some point I imagine the sleep-deprivation excuse for being a dumbass is going to wear thin. Or already has.

The worst part is that I can't afford to make mistakes when taking care of babies. What if the next mistake I make results in a dropped baby? I don't want to drop a baby on his or her head and then end up with a kid who leans to the left all the time or something.

I won a national award last week and this news has just been posted to our national organization's web site, so now I'm getting all kinds of congratulatory messages from people. It's so odd to receive these career accolades while screwing up again and again both at home and at work. Some day people are going to figure out what a giant impostor I am. I just hope I can keep fooling everybody until after tenure!

It's a strange feeling to simultaneously exist as this career person who is supposed to have her shit together, and as this new mother who keeps making rookie mistakes.

Up above, Milo's cute shoes and Nora trying to sit in the bumbo seat. They are both great at holding their heads up when they're on our lap, but when they sit in the bumbo seats, they still let their heads loll back.

Numbers

Today the babies are 3 months old, and 13 weeks old. I estimate that I have spent over 11,000 minutes pumping since they were born. That's over an entire week just pumping. That doesn't count actually nursing the babies.

Pumping is such a pain, but on the other hand, it gives me time to write blog posts.

We have changed almost 1,500 diapers since the babies were born.

Last week Nora was over 9 pounds and Milo was over 10 pounds. Nora has doubled her weight since she was born. Milo has probably done the same by this week. Way to go, babies!

I thought maybe I would have to pay for taking this picture, but the flash didn't wake them up after all. This is how Nora and Milo sleep. You can see Milo's flattened head in this picture, and how we encourage him to sleep facing his left by putting Nora on his left side.

This week my mother in law left unexpectedly, three weeks earlier than planned. So now it's just us. It's kind of scary, and kind of nice. On Monday I had meetings that I couldn't miss, so Jake stayed home by himself with the babies for a few hours. When I returned home they were all still alive, so things must have been okay.

One way we need to deal with things like errands and meetings is to just split up the babies. It turns out that I can handle going to the grocery store with one baby, but the thought of going by myself with both babies seems overwhelming. However, Jake can take care of one easily enough if I take one with me. Same with work. I can take a baby to work if necessary, leaving the other one home with Jake. Today I took Nora to a faculty meeting and she slept through most of it, but woke up at one point to raise her arm, as if she were in school and had a question. The chair said "you don't get a vote, Nora."

I have a feeling that maybe things will get easier as the babies get a little older and a little bigger. Right now they can play in their crib with toys and the mobile, or they can play under the activity gym downstairs, but basically their playing consists of lying on their backs batting at toys above them. Or lying on their bellies either trying to roll over, or doing face plants and crying hysterically until the 5 minutes of tummy time is up. So the play isn't all that exciting, and it can't last that long. So what do I do to entertain the babies? I can either have them playing in those ways, or I can carry one around in the sling, but then what do I do with the other one if they're both awake? I can put them in bouncy chairs or in the swing, but then I kind of feel like I'm neglecting them by doing that, even though I'm in the same room and they're watching me. I keep worrying that they're thinking "Pick me up, mommy! Don't leave me in this chair!" Which is silly because when I do put them in a bouncy chair in order to take a shower or something, they seem perfectly happy.

In the morning, after I feed the babies, they are usually awake and happy but I have to pump after the feeding. So I'll turn on the mobile and they'll coo at it and play with their crib toys while I pump. But again I worry that I am neglecting them by just leaving them in the crib like that while I'm pumping. Stuff like that makes me want to give up pumping, but then I know that means less breastmilk and more formula. I've decided to keep pumping until they are 6 months old, and then give myself permission to stop.

I know the thing is that I have to find ways to go about the day and get things done with the babies, and because they don't sleep all the time anymore, I need to be okay with doing something like putting them in bouncy chairs while I cook dinner or do the dishes. I hope that's okay. I have this feeling that it'll get easier as they get bigger because then they'll be big enough to play in the exersaucer, or jump in the Johnny jump up. So there will be more play options and I can rotate them between different fun stations, so to speak.

Right now I'm typing with Milo in the sling, and Jake is on his computer with Nora in the sling. When both of us are here it's okay, because there are two adults to hold two babies. It's those times when I'm on my own (or when Jake is on his own) that I fear. But the only way to get more comfortable with it is just to do it.

I worry that twins, by nature, just have to live with less parental attention than they deserve. It's too bad. On the up side, they will, I hope, always have each other.

Life with Milo

Jake just said, "dude, you can't afford to poop. Your ass is on fire." That's not exactly about Milo, though. That's more about Jake and Milo. Today Milo pooped the poop of death, or rather, the poop of acidic fiery molten lava, the kind that burns away at the skin. Literally. We changed his diaper and he must have pooped an hour before that or so, and that hour left a burn all over his bottom and his legs. A weepy, red, angry burn. I can't imagine how much it must hurt. It must hurt to have his bottom wiped and it must hurt to have his diaper changed, and I can't blame him for screaming as loudly as he did.

Milo is amazingly good at calming himself even under the most stressful circumstances. Heck, I'd be crying too if I had a nasty, weeping burn and somebody started rubbing it. Milo brings his hands together in front of his chest and holds them close to each other, grasping at himself as he calms down. It looks like a deliberate calming mechanism. Milo purses his lips in a look of sad concentration, clasps his hands, and stares right into my eyes as his cries fade into wimpers, and then into silence. Sometimes he'll then start smiling even as his eyes are still red.


Milo's got some mad skills. He can roll from his belly to his back, and he can reach out and bat at a toy with pretty good accuracy. He tries and tries and tries and tries to grab those toys, and sometimes he succeeds. The best skill of all is one that Milo possesses; he can put himself to sleep. We can put him in the crib drowsy but awake, and he'll go to sleep. That is the gold star of baby skills right there.

Nora likes the mobile and the mirror; Milo likes the soft ball and the soft cube. He can't get enough of touching those toys. Milo also loves his little blue bear that hangs upside down. He'll hold entire conversations with the bear, sharing his little baby secrets in his deep, husky little baby voice.


Milo is a serious baby. He always looks like he's thinking about something deep, and sometimes I swear he's holding his head up with his eyebrows. His whole forehead wrinkles up in concentrated worry. Then, I pick him up, or I sing "Morning Milotown", or I say "Hi Milo man, hey there Milo", and he grins the biggest grin, changing his face entirely. He looks like a different baby smiling that wide, sweet smile. I don't know if I love him more when he looks worried, or when he lights up. Each time I decide I love him more when he's doing whatever he happens to be doing at the moment.

Milo's head is a little flattened on one side and, being the paranoid first-time parents that we are, we took him to the doctor to have her take a look at it. She wasn't worried about it but suggested that we do things to encourage him to rest his head on the other side -- the round side -- and otherwise stop worrying about it. So we've switched the changing table to the other direction, and I try to remember to hold him in my right arm instead of my left, and most successfully we put him to sleep with Nora on his left side. Inevitably Milo will turn his head and sleep facing her, every time. He looks like he's watching over her. I can almost see the child he will become, the man he will become.

Life with Nora

Nora loves to raise her arms and stretch them whenever she's not confined in the straightjacket swaddle we wrap her in to sleep. As soon as the velcro comes off, her arms shoot out above her head like some sort of victory gesture. Sometimes Nora will even eat like that. She'll spread her arms out and guzzle her milk as she grunts with satisfaction.

Nora grunts a lot. She grunts when she drinks, grunts when she sleeps, grunts when she farts, and the funniest of all, grunts right after she farts in some twisted baby expression of extreme satisfaction. We get a huge kick out of that.

Nora was the smaller twin, born at only 4 lbs and 9 ounces, so in the very beginning I was inclined to worry about her. But that disappeared pretty quickly because something about her just seems...tough. She seems resilient. Nora knows what she wants and does what it takes to get it. If she wants to eat, she yells, and she gets it right away. If she wants to be held instead of put in the crib, lo and behold I'll get to the end of the day and realize that somebody's been holding her almost constantly. When Nora gets mad, she cries like she's mad, not like she's distressed. She just sounds pissed.

Actually, she sounds exactly like Cartman from South Park. Any of you who have seen that cartoon might remember the way he whines to his mom when he wants something: "But mommmmm...." That's what Nora sounds like. I expect that she'll soon start telling Milo "Respect Mah Authoriteh!"

When Nora gets excited, which happens most often while she's looking at her mobile, she starts huffing in these high-pitched excited sounds. "Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!" This baby girl is so verbal that I have a feeling we're going to have a real talker on our hands when she gets older. She's either cooing, grunting, or huffing in excitement.

Nora has discovered her fist, and is now able to get it to her mouth with fairly reasonable accuracy. For some reason Jake and I both just love this. She is so cute, sitting there sucking away on her fist. The other day Jake was holding her and she started sucking on her fist, and we both said "awwww...how cute." Jake remarked "This makes it all worth it." That's such a lame parent cliche, but I knew

exactly what he meant. Somehow watching our little girl suck on her fist like that, watching her accomplish that major baby feat, it made everything seem worth it. All of the broken nights and all of the tears, all of the frustrating days seemed to melt away as we sat there, transfixed, grinning like a couple of idiots as we proudly watched her shove that fat little fist all the way into her mouth and start sucking.

Mama and Daddy love you, you little grunting fist-sucker, you.

My Guys

I've Got a Fever, and the Only Prescription is More Cowbell

Here are things about life with Jake:

When Jake moved in to this house, we completed the job in a day with the help of his friends, his parents, and their minivan. Later we started unpacking boxes to sort things out in the basement room, and I pulled out a framed picture of...Christopher Walken. The guy owns a photo of Christopher Walken. I don't know what that means.

Jake spends the day at home taking care of Nora and Milo with his mom while I go to work. Thursday I had to attend an 8:30 meeting, a noon job talk, a 1 p.m. lunch, a 4 p.m. meeting, and a 6:30 dinner.  It would have been impossible for me to have done all that without Jake caring for the babies at home.  

When the toilet runs, Jake fixes it. I don't know how to do that. I've never bothered to learn.

Sometimes I attempt to tandem nurse the babies, and it sort of works. But the only way it works is when Jake is right there to place them, and to pick one up and burp him or her when necessary. When I don't try the tandem thing, I nurse one while Jake feeds the other. Those babies are getting fed by Jake almost as much as by me. They're spending just as many hours in their father's arms as in my arms. 

On the one hand, I think this is wonderful and it's exactly how I want it. We are deliberately working on having a peer marriage. On the other hand, the LLL book on raising multiples tells me that it is critically important for the babies' abilities to attach that they get fed by one person only, and that person must be their mother. So then I feel guilty for breaking that rule. (The book is called "Mothering Multiples", but I think they missed part of the title as it should really be called "Stay-At-Home Mothering Multiples"). 

 

Jake can't really feed a baby without simultaneously singing a song. He doesn't sing songs designed for babies. So I get to listen to him sing "Mysterious Ways" or "Sweet Caroline" when nursing. 

 

Jake does the taxes, and thank goodness for that. Our tax situation is ridiculously complicated.

When I was first married to Jake, I worried that he would get some fatal disease and die. The whole thing just seemed too good to be true -- he seemed too good to be true -- and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. I still get unreasonably worried whenever he gets sick. 

Jake isn't perfect, of course. He leaves the faucet handle wet after brushing his teeth, and he's not very good at being quiet when I'm trying to sleep, and he sings way too many bad 80s songs. But the ways in which he isn't perfect are so minor when you compare it to what an asshole I'm capable of being. There's no way I could raise Milo and Nora without Jake doing everything that he is doing. I just couldn't do it. Having two babies is hard on a marriage. We're together all the time and yet we have no time together. I can see how that would drive people apart. I don't think that will happen to us; I hope it won't. Instead, we're dealing with this sort of like it's boot camp. Once you survive boot camp together, you're more bonded than ever before. 

Now if only I can get him to get rid of that creepy Christopher Walken photo.

Immaturity

I've never been great with authority. When somebody tells me to do something for a reason that makes sense to me, I'm great at doing it. So when I got a gestational diabetes diagnosis, even though the diagnosis was a little iffy I followed through to the letter. I avoided sugar completely and balanced my carbs with proteins and fats and kept my blood sugar under control.

When the lactation nurse suggested that I find ways to increase the amount of fat and dairy in my diet, I followed her advice. It doesn't hurt that it's fun to drink milkshakes.

In contrast, when the dietician suggested that I avoid all fish and all sushi while pregnant, I ignored her because it was clear that I'd read a lot more on the subject than she had. 

And today, when my mother-in-law told me that I should not drink milkshakes because they're too fatty, I promptly went out to the cafe on my way to work and ordered a chocolate milkshake. I'm contrary that way.  

More Superstitious Thinking

Maybe if I don't look when Jake tries to feed Milo this time, maybe if I resist the temptation to look and see what's happening, maybe this time Milo will eat instead of screaming.

Maybe.

Happy Birthday to Grandmom

More videos. In the first one Milo is "rolling" although really flopping over, but other times he does do a true roll from belly to back. In the second one Nora and Milo are being their usual happy selves.

I think that Milo and Nora are both eating somewhat better now. Nora seems to have improved and Milo also seems to be getting better, although he still has trouble. We elevated the head of their crib, and we keep them upright after feeding them, and we've switched to different bottles, and I keep them on an angle with their heads up when nursing, and those things seem to have helped. Milo is also taking medicine for reflux, so maybe that's the real thing that is helping. It makes his pee stink so that I constantly think he's crapped his pants only to find out that he hasn't. Seems like that's a really annoying side effect of this medicine, which is basically Zantac, and I briefly wondered why adults would put up with that. Then I realized that adults taking Zantac generally don't pee their pants 10 times a day, so it's not an issue.

I hope they're eating enough and gaining enough. I wish we had a tiny baby scale so that we could know that they are gaining well. I wish that I were able to produce 100% of their food without having to rely on formula to supplement the rest, but that issue and the way LLL lied to me is a subject for a whole other post. Suffice it to say that now I feel a little less panicked because they don't seem to be going on hunger strikes as often anymore. Hopefully they'll continue to grow nice and chubby.

Bigger Than Your Average Pacifier

Nora and Milo haven't really started to notice each other much yet, although they do seem to sleep better right next to each other. Yesterday they were playing together in the crib (and by together I mean something more like "near each other"), and Nora decided that Milo's head looked like something good to suck on. Here she is contemplating it:

And then she just goes for it:

Isn't that funny:


This last one I just like for how wild and crazy Milo looks:


I must be getting attached to these kids or something, because I think they're pretty cute now.