THING 1 and THING 2

I just love these pictures of the boys in their THING 1 and THING 2 outfits. I know I am biased but I think they are the cutest pair I have ever seen! hee hee.

Twins Update

Well, the boys had their 4 month vaccinations today and we weighted them while we were at the health unit too. Ryder is the chunky monkey at 13 lbs and Cruz is a whole pound less (12 lbs). Ryder eats more so he has taken a lead in weight gain. They were the same length just two weeks ago despite their weight difference but today Ryder measured 1/2" longer than Cruz. Im sure Cruz will catch up eventually. They are in the 95% isle for height and 75% isle for weight right now for their "corrected age". No surprise there! ha ha.

They also FINALLY slept through the night! Two days in a row they have slept 8-9 hours consecutively. They are no longer sleeping in the same crib because they were getting too heavy for the play pen downstairs but now that they are sleeping through the night, we may move them upstairs at night to their "real" cribs and I may put the playpens away. I was thinking of putting our beer fridge in their nursery as well for their middle of the night feed (they sleep 8pm-4am or 9pm-5am right now) BUT I dont want to count my chickens before they hatch because as soon as I think we have a "routine", the baby's change it! That's the way it goes!

Its been so great having my Mom here 3 days a week. She has been so helpful and is also my sanity at times! Brooklyn has started asking for "Oma" almost every morning after she wakes up and some days I have to tell her Oma's not here but I love it when I get to tell her Oma is downstairs. She recently started saying, "My Oma" and "My Baby's" in reference to her brother's, which is so adorable. That kid get's cuter by the day! She's talking more and more all the time now!

Ryder has been on his new medication for 2 weeks now and his birth mark has decreased by about 50%! It's amazing to me that he has had such great results with it in such a short period of time. I am very pleased and am grateful he hasn't had any side effects thus far.

I'm getting very excited for Christmas this year and am trying to convince my husband to put up the Christmas tree but he's on the "December 1st" train, ha ha. We may have it up before then and I will certainly post pics of the beautiful 9 foot tree that my Mom bought for my Christmas present last year (I LOVE THAT TREE!). Hopefully Brooklyn wont wreck the ornaments this year! ha ha. Next year I will have two little monkey's yanking ornaments off the tree. They will be a handful for sure once they are walking! I cant wait to have the kids picture taken with Santa this year, although I think we will overwhelm Santa with two little babes and a roudy 28 month old! Santa's arms and lap will be full and one of the twins is bound to cry, if not both of them! ha ha.

As for the day-to-day stuff......our house hold is crazy busy as you could imagine. It always blows me away how messy my kitchen and living room get on an hourly basis. The laundry and dishes (tons of bottles etc) is ridiculous around here! Its impossible to keep up. I may get our clothes washed and dried but folded and put away is a totally different story. I find myself picking out things I need out of a messy pile of clothes dumped on TOP of the dryer because I don't have time to fold laundry and put things away. Anything on TOP of the washer and dryer is clean and anything on the floor is dirty! Makes sense to me.....I just wish I had more hands and more time because I hate picking things out of a disorganized pile but that's the way it's got to be for a while. A bigger house would help solve some of our problems......suddenly this house and it's layout seems too small for my rapidly growing family but moving is not an option right now and we do really enjoy this house....its just that the walls seem to be closing in a little faster than we expected so-to-speak.

Halloween & the Nursery

Long time no blog again......

Sorry for my lack of updates....its busy to say the least here. The boys are doing so well and I fall deeper and deeper in love with them everyday. Brooklyn has adjusted so well and really only had a few weeks of bad behavior over a month ago but she's back to her sweet self and seems to really enjoys her baby brother's. Sometimes I still cant believe I had 3 kids in just under 2 years but I feel very lucky and I am grateful for these 3 little blessings!

So Halloween has come and gone and it was a hoot! Brooklyn was the cutest fairy I have ever laid eyes on and she enjoyed her fairy wings and the candy most. We practiced "trick or treat" for a few weeks before hand and then I got her a plastic pumpkin to put all her candy in. She would practice trick or treating at home every day and I would put snacks in it for her...so it's no surprise that she still says "trick or treat" in hopes of getting some goody's 3 weeks later! ha ha.

We experienced for the very first time that "sugar high" that parents always refer to and it was NOT pretty! She was literally bouncing up and down on the couch (she never does that) and running laps around the island 10x faster than her normal speed, she was yelling, shrieking and it took her about 2-3 days to recover from all the candy. Thank goodness Halloween is only once a year because it was a rough couple of days post-candy. I dressed the twins up as Superman which I thought was more than appropriate seeing as how they have proven to possess amazing strength since they were born so pre-mature! I thought they looked so sweet in the their Superman costume's and I even got a grin out of Ryder for a photo.

Ryder has a vascular birth mark (also called a "strawberry" or a hemangioma) on his right eye lid that appeared about a month after he came home. It surfaced around the time of their "due date" and has grown quite rapidly since. I took him to our family doctor who knew nothing about them and so I just kept watching it but could see it was continuing to grow, had increased in volume and redness and was starting to make his eye lid sag. I was concerned it may cause damage on the inside of his eye and after researching hemangioma's quite extensively, I opted to take him to the ER to fast track a referral to a specialist at Children's hospital that came highly recommended from another twin's Mom I know, who's son also had a hemangioma. Hemangioma's are quite common in premature baby's. Ryder has 8 of them and Cruz only has one but the only one that concerns me is the one on Ryder's eye of course.

I took Ryder to the ER on Friday and got an appt. with the specialist at Children's on Monday! That was f-a-s-t but I was glad because going back to my GP to get the referral could have added another month or two after all was said and done and by then the hemangioma could have been huge! My sister-in-law and I drove Ryder to Children's where the specialist looked at all his hemangioma's, measured them and documented all their locations. She then sent us directly over to the opthamologist for his opinion as she too was concerned at the size of the birth mark and location. The opthamologist said Ryder had a mild stigmatism on that eye and felt we should treat the hemangioma with medication right away.....so we went back to the dermatologist to get a prescription for propranolol which is a medication more commonly used for high blood pressure but is a relatively new medication for treatment of vascular birth marks. We were at Children's hospital for 3 1/2 hours but I was glad they squeezed us in to the see the opthalmologist so we didn't have to come back another day.

Im happy to report that after just 3-4 doses of the medication, Ryder's birth mark has improved and every day it seems to look better and better! I am very happy with his progress and grateful for this new treatment. Im hoping it's goes away completely in another month but time will tell.

I find it pretty easy to tell the twins apart but of course Ryder's birth mark is a dead giveaway...not only that but Ryder eats way more than Cruz does so he is bigger at the moment. I would guess between .5 and 1 lb bigger but I will find out tomorrow when I take them to be weighed and measured. That being said, if the boys are dressed the same (which they rarely are), I tend to mix them up all the time! I have to pay closer attention to size, hair and birth marks or I will surely mix them up so the easiest way is to dress them differently....but its soooooo cute when they are dressed the same! The problem is that they don't puke, poop and soil themselves at the same time so it's next to impossible to keep them in the same clothes for more than a photo or more than a few hours, ha ha. I do love dressing them the same, it's just not that practical, lol.

Lastly, we f-i-n-a-l-l-y finished the nursery! It took us a long time but it's done and I think it looks fantastic! We designed it to look like a hockey arena and chose bright yellow for the base boards to look authentic. Canucks fans will have to forgive me for the Boston Bruins theme but hubby is a hardcore Bruins fan and so we went with that! I am thrilled with how it turned out and I love spending time in their even though the boys are still sleeping in playpens downstairs. We will move them up to their cribs once they are sleeping through the night but for now it's easier to have them downstairs where all our supply's, swings, bottles, fridge etc are.

Wow...long time no blog!

Wow....long time no blog! Sorry guys. It's been crazy this first month since the boys have been home. Tons of changes for our 2 year old of course and she is just starting to act out a bit which is to be expected. She is really good with the boys and is already trying to help them with things. When one of the boys is crying, she finds a pacifier and shoves it in their mouth or puts a blanket over them to keep them warm. She always kisses them before she goes to bed at night without being prompted which is pretty cute and if you ask her where her brother's are, she points to one and then the other.

I can tell you that two newborn baby's put together are easier than caring for one 2 year old! Two is a hard age for sure and I honestly dont know how Im going to cope when I have two 2 year old's testing me and a 4 year old to boot. I have heard some people say "the terrible two's" AND the f***ing four's!", ha ha. It's difficult because Brooklyn can see me nursing one of the boys on the couch and knows I cant always get up to discipline her right away for something so she is trying to get away with murder. I try to de-latch the baby, put the baby down and follow through but if I did that every time Brooklyn needed me to take something away from her or discipline her, the baby's would NEVER eat so I can only follow through part of the time. Its frustrating for sure so I pick my battles wisely.

The baby's eat every 3 hour during the day and are awake more and more all the time now. They are very different already as Ryder seems to be the laid back baby, chills out on his own all the time and seems pretty low key but Cruz is a lot more sensitive and is upset frequently if he isnt being held and snuggled. They both love to be cuddled! I could really use more arms and more breasts so Im wondering what Santa can make happen for me this Christmas! ha ha. Actually, what I really want for Christmas is more sleep!!!! lol.

I dont know how I would get through this without my Mom here 3 days a week and my Aunt has really come through for me too:) The days Im on my own are very overwhelming but I have accepted the fact that the baby's are going to need to learn patience and learn how to wait their turn to eat but the only problem with that this early in the game is that they get so upset, they hold their breathe and turn blue! They have that dreaded silent cry and I cant let them get that worked up so I HAVE to pick them up when they are that distraught. Blue is not a good color on your baby when it's their face and their lips that are blue!! Brooklyn did that a few times as a newborn but I think it's more common in prems! (ie. premie's).

Everyone asks us if we can tell them apart and the answer to that is "most of the time". Chris on the other hand has more trouble telling them apart but when they are dressed and have hats on, neither of us can tell them apart! If it's dark in the middle of the night, I have to turn the light on to check the hair to make sure I know which baby I have because they have different needs when it comes to eating and comfort. The key to telling them apart is their hair. Cruz has lighter, thinner hair and Ryder's is darker and has a small bald spot where the nurses shaved it to start an IV. They also have different birth marks that are a dead give away but you can only see those when they are in their diapers so those aren't helpful on a regular basis.

On average, I change between 20-26 diapers A DAY!!!! Three kids, all in diapers and of course newborns go through diapers quite frequently because they digest breast milk incredibly fast! We are hoping to start potty training with Brooklyn but we aren't rushing her and she is starting to sit on the potty on her own so she should be out of diapers in a few months hopefully but only time will tell. We simply dont want to overwhelm her with changes because as you can imagine, her world has been turned upside down.

Chris and I did something really cool.....a friend of mine emailed me about her kid's talent agency looking for a 3 legged dog this past summer (Thanks Carissa:) so I emailed her agent some photo's of our 3 legged pooch (aka. "Tri-Pod dog" or "Roxy") and she was chosen for the movie but the gig only paid $35 and since that wouldn't even pay my gas to the set, I declined the opportunity (too bad, I thought Roxy was going to be a 3 legged STAR! ha ha). I had mentioned to the agent that I had just had twin boys and that I would rather spend the day visiting with them in the NICU than participating in the dog job at which time he asked me if I was interested in using our baby's in a movie at the end of September that needed newborn twin boys. I told him if the opportunity was suitable (ie. location, requirements of them, whether or not Chris had those days off work and adequate profit) that we may be open to it so he asked me to submit a few photo's of them, which I did (even though they still had nasogastric tubes in). Every couple of weeks the agent would ask for an updated photo of the boys and by Mid September he informed me that the boys were chosen for the movie at the end of the month!

What I didn't know was the calibre of this movie nor did I know the title until after they were chosen and all I can tell you is that it's the biggest movie to come through Vancouver in years and if there was ONE movie I had to choose for my boys to be in, this would be it! We spent two days on set filming and it was A LOT of work and a lot of sitting around in Cruz and Ryder's trailer waiting for their scene! I dont think we would do it again since we had to daycare Brooklyn for 2 days and had to arrange for someone to pick her up since the shooting went WAY over the expected call time and it was a bit of a nightmare that way. Eight hours is a very long time to be in a trailer with two newborn baby's and the trailer wasn't equipped for baby's so the second day we lugged a lot of baby gear down there with us. Overall, the experience blew us away because one of the best actor's of our generation was holding and kissing the baby's and shooting the breeze with Chris and I....including the world famous director and his wife. It was fun, they were very kind to us, fed us and everyone drooled over the boys. The cast and crew asked us on numerous occasions how we got "this gig" and they all laughed and high fived us when I told them it all started with our 3 legged dog! ha ha.

MY BOYS ARE FINALLY HOME!!!!!

We were finally able to bring our two lucky charms home on August 30th! Its been a long 53 days of driving back and forth to two different hospitals over the last 7 weeks every single day! The hospital only gave us 24 hours notice to come get the boys and I was pretty annoyed after originally being told the baby's most likely wouldnt go home until around my due date which was September 22nd....then I was told they would probably go home in a week and then all of a sudden, the hospital phones me and says "there is a discharge order written for today, can you come get them tonight!". Talk about getting the boot! I was angry with the hospital because the discharge planning was weak and sudden (I can say that because Im an RN and I know what typically goes into discharge planning) and I didnt feel they prepared us or asked any of the right questions before the baby's came home. My boys were taking up two beds and they were doing well and so we were asked to leave very suddenly. Dont get me wrong, Im thrilled they are FINALLY home but I just felt it was rushed and some things got missed along the way.

Moving on.......our boys have been home for three days and I have had two sleepless nights already. They "recommend" we do not swaddle the boys but after they have been up all night two nights in a row, Im going to swaddle them tonight to see if they will settle like they do during the day when they are swaddled. Everyone knows baby's sleep better when they are swaddled. The nurses swaddled them in the hospital every night but since our discharge was so sudden, they didnt have time to get the boys on the "back to sleep" program a week before discharge where they stop swaddling them so they get used to sleeping freely. I am all about the sawddle so hopefully tonight will go better.

Brooklyn has been great but it's only been 3 days thus far, ha ha. She seems to have some interest in her brother's but not a ton. She turns on their swings and brings them bottles and pacifiers and even put her care bear on top of baby Cruz today. She was trying to share, ha ha. The boys were eating every 3 hours in the hospital like clock work but they were getting bottles of my breast milk there and had somewhat of a schedule but now that we are all at home and I am strictly breast feeding, it's hard to determine how much they are getting from me and so they are eating a little more frequently than every 3 hours.

Its been challenging but I had my Mom here for the first 2 days which was a HUGE help but I didnt want her to leave so soon (she has to work a few days a week while she is on her part-time LOA). She is going to be here 3 days a week with me so I am incredibly greatful for that and looking forward to spending time with her and the boys. She is just as smitten with my boys as I am:)

Champs!

My boys are Champs! They are continually improving and steadily gaining weight. I see them every day and get to breastfeed them while Im there. They are both latching and taking more and more from me each day. I weigh them before I nurse them and then weigh them again afterwards to see how many mL's/grams they gain. They are also taking 4 bottle's a day and a week ago it took them 30-45 minutes to finish a bottle and now it only takes them 10-15 minutes! Ryder is a bit anemic right now so he is getting an iron supplement and both of them are finally off the caffeine therapy (they give premie's caffeine to keep their heart rates up and thus avoid dips/bradycardia's or apnea's). The pediatrician is going to take both my boys off their heart monitor's (another HUGE milestone) tomorrow or the day after....no more leads/lines and pulse oximeters! YAY!!! They still have their "gavage's" or NG tubes (nasogastric tube) because they are still getting a few feeds a day through that. They get too tired bottle feeding and breast feeding so they will feed them via NG tube so they can sleep through the odd feed. The last criteria that the boys need to meet in order to come home is 2 solid days where they took ALL oral feeds....meaning no more NG tube and the car seat test where they sit in the car seat for an hour while hooked up to a monitor for that hour to make sure they dont have any apnea's. They are about another week away from coming home and I cant wait. These last 6 weeks are starting to take a toll on me and I really want my baby's to come home! I am utterly exhausted from trying to be in two places at one time every single day as its both emotionally and physically draining. I spend so much time driving back and forth from the hospital, pumping/labeling/freezing my milk (I HATE pumping), 2-3 hours with my boys, then home to make Brooklyn dinner and chase after her the rest of the day, then the boy's laundry (all their sheets, receiving blankets and clothes that they are constantly peeing/spitting up on, then running around town to pick something up off Craigslist that we need for the twins, trying to figure out some easy recipe's for casserole's to fill my freezer and trying to figure out my EI claim (its a complicated one) and lastly, trying to figure out if we are going to put Brooklyn in day care 3 days a week OR if we are going to hire some help. Oh ya, and Chris and I have to rip out all the carpet upstairs for the new carpet install arriving on the 29th. I am so busy and the twins arent even home yet! Its only going to get busier.

I just miss my boys so much and am ready for them to come home! That being said, I am nervous about having a demanding two year old with two new born's at home. Im sure there will be some growing pains like any new addition to a family but I just worry that Brooklyn is going to try and get away with murder once she realizes I cant get up off the couch in a pinch to discipline her or take something away from her because Im nursing the twins. And as for potty training....we havn't stuck with it because Im gone every day and Chris works a lot so there hasnt been enough time to devote to it unfortunately.

The boys are neck in neck for weight and length...Ryder is 5 lbs 9oz and Cruz is 5lbs 8oz and they are both 18" in length (they were 15" when they were born).

Meeting her brother's for the first time...

Its been a while since I blogged last. I have been very busy with little Miss Thang who turned 2 on SUnday and visiting my boys at the hospital every day. Lots of changes.......

The boys finally broke the 5 lbs mark last night! Yahoo!!!! They are growing so fast, its incredible. They are so big now compared to the little 2 1/2 lbs they were after they were born and dropped weight to 2 lbs 9oz and 2 lbs 14 oz. The nurses said they had to cut off their hospital ID bracelets the other day and put on new ones because they were so skin tight.....proof that my little munchkins are growing quickly!

They are such amazing little boys. Ryder has been nursing off me for about 5 days now and Cruz latched for the first time yesterday. They are 35 weeks gestation tommorrow so we should see them master the suck, swallow, breath over the course of this next week as it tends to be harder for premie's to do all three at once until they are full term. Cruz would take a few sucks but then stop and get confused (poor guy)....Ryder has latched much faster and takes much more milk from the breast than his brother. I have been test weighing the boys before I breastfeed them and then I weigh them afterwards to see how many mL's they are getting from me which is pretty neat. One day Ryer got 28mL's off me and then yesterday he only took 5 mL's so there are some ups and downs but at least they are latching and both boys are working hard to figure it out. I am at the hospital every day and it still breaks my heart to have to say good-bye everyday....I want them to come home soooooo bad!!!!

I was thrilled to find a tiny, little strawberry birth mark on Ryder's tummy yesterday! I was over the moon when I found it because I worry we wont be able to tell them apart for some time. I mean I can still see that Cruz's skin has a much redder pigment to it right now while Ryder looks much more pale but that will change and of course Ryder has a bald spot on his head from where the nurses shaved it for his last IV bit once that all goes away, it will be very difficult to tell them apart...they really are identical and if Ryder get's upset, he turns red too and so then I really cant tell them apart unless I look for the little bald spot on his head so I was very happy to find a teeny, tiny birth mark on Ryder's tummy....although it's only the size of a poppy seed......its still enough to differentiate between them. Hopefully it doesnt disappear, lol. I remember my daughter having two little specks of a strawberry on her neck as a baby but it has since disappeared.

We still have no idea when the boys will come home. This next week is crucial because if we can get them to take ALL their feeds by breast or bottle, then they can remove the NG tubes and the boys will be closer to going home (the problem is that I can only go to the hospital once a day to put them on the breast as finding child care for Brooklyn 7 days a week is some times tricky). It all depends on how well this next week goes. They say most people go home around the time of their due date (which was Sept.22md) but Im hoping that since they have done so well this entire time, that they will be able to come home sooner than that. Only time will tell.

Brooklyn turned 2 on Sunday so I had a little party for her here with a few close friends/family. She loved the bouncy castle we put up in the back yard as did all the kiddies and it was a lot of fun for all. I planned the party pretty much the day before in one Costco trip as I have been very busy with commuting to the hospital to see the boys and taking care of Brooklyn while Chris is working. Unfortunately her Daddy had to work on Sunday so he missed the party but he was their in spirit. Thanks to everyone who came to make B's day so special:)

Brooklyn also met her twin brother's on Saturday for the very first time and she immediately leaned over their crib and tried to give the baby's a pacifier....I think she's going to be one great little helper. She was sweet and tried to give them a kiss but then Daddy had to take her to the family room on the NICU so Mama could feed the little munchkins. I cant wait until we are all home under one roof. I miss my boys so much!!

1 Month old!

Two peas in a pod
Cruz 1 month old

I can't believe the boys are 1 month old already! They were reunited into their crib again today (YAY!)....now lets hope that isolette life is permanently over! Ryder is doing much better although he is still hooked up to an IV and is almost finished his round of pre-cautionary antibiotics. The girth of his tummy has gone down quite a bit and he isnt grimacing in pain when anyone touches his belly. His blood work came back normal but he did test positive for occult blood in his stool so they plan to re-test his stool to see if it resolves but they have ruled out infection at this point and they are both doing really well again.

At one month Cruz is 4 lbs 5 oz and Ryder is 4 lbs 8 oz and they have both grown 2" in length and are now 17" long. They have been moved to a closer hospital which is much nicer but it's still 30 minutes each way (much better than an hour though) and Mama is pretty exhausted. I see them almost every single day depending on whether or not I have child care for our 2 year old and on top of everything we are trying to potty train Brooklyn but its extremely difficult when Im gone all the time and she has a different care giver almost every day as friends and family have volunteered when they can to watch her which I am very greatful for. Luckily she loves people and she is very social so she enjoys a new face every day but the potty training is next to impossible without consistency. I want to potty train her before the baby's come home because once they are home, I will be glued to the couch or the rocker feeding, burping and changing them around the clock and I wont be able to help her on the potty very much. I will have to rely on daddy when he's around and family when they are here.

We bought a used minivan a few days ago (its a 2009) and Im willing to bet the salesman has never seen two people so disappointed in having to buy a vehicle, ha ha. In fact, he even commented on our lack of enthusiasm, ha ha. Everyone says I will love it eventually and Im sure I will lugging three kids around and carrying two car seats but it was hard to trade in my vehicle and take a loss on it and it will be hard to go from leather interior to cloth seats and lose some of the features my 2006 CR-V had. We HATE the fact that the windows don't go down in the back seat and that you cant put 2 car seats on the back bench (only one according to the salesman) and of course we wanted the ceiling mounted DVD player for 3 kids but the upgrade to the next model up was an additional $8,000. We pick up the new van on Wednesday.

I guess every day cant be a good day....

Cruz minus his twin brother
Ryder back in the dreaded isolette
Ryder's head IV
Cruz on Aug.5th

Our twin boys have been plugging along just perfectly with virtually no hiccups at all so-to-speak but today was a disappointing day.....

The boys were really gassy on Friday and Saturday and were finally transferred to a closer hospital last night (yay!) but.....unfortunately Ryder is still suffering from a painful tummy that is getting continually more distended. It looks like a balloon and is quite taught. He cries out in pain when the nurses palpate it, poor guy is hurtin'. Cruz's gas has resolved and he is doing fine but today Ryder's vital signs alarm kept going off and he must have de-saturated 5-6 times in the first 15 minutes I was there! (ie.decrease in oxygen levels). He even changed color during one of them which was really anxiety provoking so I re-positioned him and stimulated him by rubbing his chest a bit as his nurse was on her break so his Mummy-Nurse was watching over him. Ryder hasn't had this many bradycardia's and de-sats ever (which means decreased heart rate and decrease in oxygen levels)! They had been running tests on Ryder all morning to rule things out like NEC which is "Necrotizing Enterocolitis", a condition where the intestines become infected and can begin to die. "This disease usually affects premature babies and is a serious condition that may require surgery and has a high morbidity and mortality rate" BUT THANKFULLY the Doctor believes he has ruled this out because Ryder doesn't have any other symptoms and the x-ray's he had done this morning showed lots of air in his tummy but no fluid, thank goodness. At this point the doctor also wants to rule out infection and sepsis so I spent all morning going back and forth between my two boys because they put Ryder back in an isolette (crappy!) for 48 hours to observe him (keep an eye on his distended tummy) start him on an IV again and separate him from his brother in case he does have in infection. Unfortunately they had to shave part of both their heads today to put the IV in his head (it's the easiest vein to access in premie's) so him and his brother have been separated yet again and both lost some hair to boot. They have since done a CBC (complete blood count) and are testing for occult blood in Ryder's stool in order to rule out infection. They also took blood from Cruz's head because the doctor is worried that Cruz may have an infection too if Ryder does. Not the kind of day I was expecting to have.

The doctor came to speak with me though and explained he wants to treat Ryder's problem aggressively because its better to error on the side of caution and he worries that if it is sepsis or infection, they dont want to wait too long to treat it with medicine so they have started Ryder on antibiotics and DW5 (sugar water) just in case and in order to keep his sugars up as he is now NPO (nothing by mouth). They tried to stimulate him to pass gas but he just cant and the one toot-toot he did have wasn't big enough to decrease the girth in his poor tummy. Im praying it's just really bad gas at this point and the doctor isn't too worried but once we get all his test results back in the next 48 hours, we should know what the problem is. Please pray for gas and flatulence:)

On a brighter note....I got to breastfeed baby Cruz this morning for the first time and that little 4 lbs monkey latched for a good 15 minutes! I couldnt believe it...it was so sweet:)

They generally dont latch quite this early but he is a champ in more ways than one! Melt my heart!!!!

I cant wait to see them again tommorrow....hopefully Ryder will pass some gas in the mean time and the girth of his poor distended tummy will go down. Poor lil' fella:(

So in love with my double blessings!

My boys change so quickly....in just a few days, Cruz had caught up a bit in regards to weight gain and I think they are starting to look more and more alike at this point. I thought they looked quite different for the first 3 1/2 weeks and now that Cruz's face is filling out, I see them starting to look identical.

They look amazing and were supposed to be transferred to a closer hospital tommorrow but while I was cuddling them today, the transfer got cancelled due to not enough beds in the NICU at the other hospital (the have to have 2 open beds to accept them). I got my hopes up as we have been waiting for this transfer for a week now! Bummer!!! Im pretty tired of the one hour commute through major highway construction and cant wait for them to be transferred out to the closer hospital.

Anyways, my boys had a grumpy day today (first time for them) and as soon as I got to the NICU the nurses told me my boys were "grizzly bears" today and believe there was something I ate that was excreted in my breast milk that made them really bloated and gassy!! Sorry boys, I have a weakness for asparagus and Im certain thats what it was because the only time my daughter was ever gassy or fussy was after I had eaten asparagus:(

I had a glimpse of the chaos to come once my boys are home....both of them crying and both of them wanting Mummy at the same time. Thankfully the nurse was there to hold one while I held the other and later Aunty Jess arrived to cuddle too but the nurse let me cuddle both of them at the same time again and they fell asleep instantly while I fell deeper in love staring down at my double blessings! They get cuter every day!! I am in love with the photo of the two of them up above.

I made some "oober" cute crib name tags for my boys yesterday and stuck them on their crib today....I think they are pretty FAB myself, ha ha. You can check them out in the third photo above. We (Jessica and I ) also did clay molds of Cruz's foot today and Ryder's hand.....Thanks Aunty Jess for helping me with that....it was quite a mess to do Ryder's hand...we had plaster everywhere for that one because he freaked out once we dipped his hand in the cold gel. I will post pictures once they dry tommorrow. I cant wait to see their little fingers and toes in clay....wonderful keepsakes!