**There will be a post about Matthew and Kayla's birth below**
We were discharged from the hospital at 10:30am on Sunday. We were so anxious to leave that we delayed their feeding times and skipped our morning showers. I teased Jon on the drive home because I don't think I've ever seen him be such a law-abiding driver on the road.
After church was over, Jon's parents and my family came over for cake and coffee...and the visits kept coming after that. We've tried to limit the visits to only two a day, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, so that neither the babies or ourselves get burned out.
The first couple days at home became a breast-feeding nightmare. Both babies were fighting me when it came to staying latched on: they would latch on, suck for a bit, and then de-latch themselves. When they realized that they were de-latched, they would start to freak out and become quite frantic trying to find me. Repeat. It took about 45 minutes to feed each baby each time, and so that was all I was doing.
On Tuesday we had our first outing as a family of four: to Dr. Shah's office. The babies were weighed (Matthew weighed in at 5lb 12 oz and Kayla weighed in at 5lb 14 oz) and had a general look-over. Dr. Shah said they needed to eat more, and so we had to see him again on Thursday for another weigh-in, and he wanted to see that their jaundice had cleared up. I was really at a loss for how I was going to manage to feed them more, and so Jon and I decided that we were going to switch over to pumping and bottle feeding to see how that went. For the rest of the day, the babies were fed formula so that I could pump to 'get ahead' of them. You should have seen them drink that first bottle of formula...they chugged it! We figured that the babies were struggling so much with the breast feeding and being so frantic because they were hungry! Since Tuesday, I've been pumping and bottle feeding and it's going great! Both babies are super-content most of the time, and the time it takes to feed them has not only been cut down drastically, but the pressure for me to do it all is now gone.
We saw Dr. Shah again on Thursday for a follow-up, and he was more than impressed with them. Both Matthew and Kayla weighed in at 6lb 4oz (back up to their birth weights!) and their jaundice was pretty much all cleared up. Yay! Our next appointment will be for their 8 week immunizations.
On Saturday, both Matthew and Kayla's umbilical cords fell off...which was noticed during the same diaper change! At least they don't take after me...mine took 4 months to fall off.
The timing of their births could not have been more perfect for Jon and I. I don't know how I would be surviving if it weren't for Jon being on Spring Break and therefore being able to do 50% of the baby-work. Tending to their needs during the day isn't so bad, it's the middle of the night stuff that gets annoying. It will definitely be an adjustment for me when Jon has to go back to school next week and therefore won't be able to help near as much as he does now.
Weight Loss:
As of the first day we were home, I had lost only 18 lbs. As of this morning, I'm down 33.5 lbs already! 16.5 lbs to go! The lbs are coming off slower now, so I'm sure it will take a little while still. I tried on my pre-pregnancy jeans and dress pants on Saturday in hopes of being able to squeeze into one of them for church on Sunday, but I still have a couple inches to lose on my waist. Not that I was honestly expecting them to fit.
Another Side Effect:
I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand still, as a result of the weight gain and swelling from pregnancy/labour. My index and middle fingers are tingly 24-7, and I can barely feel when I am touching something. It makes typing a little difficult :) I'm hoping it goes away soon because it can get annoying.
I think that's all I have to post about. I'm trying to record as much as I can so that I don't forget anything!
Where are the pictures????? :)
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