Last week we welcomed our two newest, beautiful blessings into the world.

We proudly introduce:

Luke Henry    6 lbs 6 ounces, 19.3 inches long

and

Reid Joshua    6 lbs 13 ounces, 20 inches long

Yep. That’s right. I am now the proud momma of FOUR beautiful boys. How wonderfully God has blessed us.

The boys were born at 35w5d when I went into labor and even though they were really good sized babies, they have had some complications typical of twins born prematurely.

Luke had to stay in the NICU for one additional night after I was released because he was struggling to maintain his temperature. Now he is home with us but he is having problems gaining weight which can be serious in premature babies. He is under the care of an amazing pediatrician and we are doing everything we can to keep him from being admitted back to the hospital.

Our sweet Reid is still in the NICU and having more complications than his brother. When they were born, he had trouble breathing and was immediately taken to the NICU. Thankfully, he has steadily improved and was taken off the ventilator the day after they were born. He is now working on weaning off all oxygen and learning to eat/breathe at the same time. We don’t know when he will be able to come home but we pray it is soon.

We would appreciate your prayers during this difficult time for our family. We are struggling to try to navigate this new path no one could really be prepared for! I am having a difficult recovery from an unplanned c-section while trying to balance being home with my two older boys who are searching for normalcy, one newborn at home and trying to be at the NICU as often as we possibly can with our other newborn.

We hope to all be at home together very soon and are overall so thankful for our new family of 6.

Thirty. Five. Weeks. I can’t even believe it. During one of my 8 trips to the bathroom last night (yes 8 is the real number- that is no exaggeration) I looked at the clock and saw it was just after midnight which officially meant we had made it to 35 weeks. It seems surreal. 

So… remember how I was feeling pretty happy that both babies were in a good position for birth and also feeling pretty happy about the fact that we were so far along that that fact was unlikely to change.  Guess what?  At our ultrasound appointment this week, we found out that not one, but BOTH of our babies had flipped positions. Baby B (our presenting twin) is now breech and Baby A is head down.  Which would be great if Baby A were first but as of now that is not the case.  Can you even believe it?

We’re very blessed in that we found a wonderful doctor who is very against c-sections if there is any way to avoid it.  Even she has said that if both babies stay where they currently are, she would advise delivering them by c-section.  The chance of neurological damage by delivering the first twin breech is too high for her to be able to recommend that. Especially in our situation because according to ultrasound, Baby B is larger than Baby A. She even went as far to say as there is no doctor in our hospital that would consider attempting a natural delivery given these conditions either.  It’s not like I disagree with her. Neurological damage is not something that I would mess around with given the choice either.

Sigh. I can’t even believe it.  Unfortunately with twins, we can’t attempt to manually turn the babies (ECV) because it’s too dangerous. You better believe that I have attempted and will continue to attempt all natural methods of turning babies that she recommended to me including twisting my body into strange positions!  You never know, right?  If they managed to turn themselves at this late date, they could turn themselves back?

So while I work on that…. I’m also soaking up all the time I can with these crazies!

We’re trying to prepare them for life with two newborns but truthfully we probably aren’t prepared ourselves either! Savoring these last weeks as a family of 4. Their extreme and utter excitement at the prospect of these two monkeys joining our family is so sweet and makes me excited too! I’m glad that they are such good friends and love to play together. They will have each other when things are crazy those first few weeks!

For now though, we play and laugh and use my giant twin belly for it’s true purpose. A car garage of course.

When I was pregnant with both of my boys, I had an incredibly vivid dream that I had given birth and was holding my brand new baby. In my dream, Caleb was a fair skinned blond haired baby. Which he turned out to be. In my dream of Eli, he was a dark haired, darker skinned baby. Which he was. This week I had another incredibly vivid dream that I was holding our first twin who had the sweetest, fair skin. In my dream my doctor handed the baby to me and said “we didn’t expect this, but the first twin weighs 8 pounds 8 ounces” (!!!). I woke up before giving birth to our second baby and the first thing I thought was that I never asked if the baby was a boy or a girl!  Pregnancy dreams are so crazy. I wonder if this one will prove partially true?  I also continue to dream that we have boy/girl twins and name them Jack and Lily. (Neither name is on our list.)

We also had another ultrasound at our appointment this week to check on the monkeys. After being close in weight this whole time, they have started to get further apart. Twin B who is now presenting is around 5 1/2 pounds and Twin A is around 5. Our OB has now changed her guess and thinks we have one of each but I’m not so sure.  The ultrasound went great otherwise.  Everybody is happy and healthy in there! Seeing them move on the monitor is still amazing and I can’t believe they still think they have so much room to do that…