Twins' Arrival, Part 2

Again, we could go through weeks of detailed stories, but really what you want to see is the photos. Suffice to say they got over the jaundice in a day, they got off their IV's by the end of the first week and this week they're starting to work on feeding themselves.  As soon as they get that part down, they can come home and be regular babies for a change.

The bilirubin lights illuminated half the nursery.  It was like they were basking in the sunlight of a foreign star.

Tavian, weighing a pound more than his sister, is a little more alert during feedings.

They're both 17" tall, but our best attempts to describe how small that really is never seem to convey reality.

When they got close to their birthweight a few days ago, they got upgraded to a larger crib. Tavian, as you can see, appreciated the elbow room.

Abbie doesn't open her eyes much, but she occasionally gets the cutest grins while dreaming.

And when awake, she just likes looking around.

Tavian now tries to stay up as long as he can at each feeding to see more of the world.

Lizzie can still only look in through the window, but we decided to try and get a family photo.

Twins' Arrival, Part 1

As all of you probably know via email, the twins arrived.  I'd bore you with details but you really just want to see the photos.

Lizzie loved the munchy food Brooke had around the house in those last weeks.  Most of it was healthy, the oreos were not.

Brooke's final size a week before giving birth to twins.

The twins arrived - on the first night when Brooke still wasn't allowed out of bed they wheeled her into the nursery so she could meet the two new additions.

The twins were then moved to the NICU.  It was/is a surreal experience to go visit your kids in hospital during their visiting hours (we can go anytime, the twins are on a 3-hour day so trying to show up when they're awake is the goal).  The staff have been awesome about trying to make us comfortable and it helps that half of them are extended family.

Because of their prematurity and the horrible flu season, Lizzie has only met her siblings through glass.  Only parents and grandparents are allowed in.

These are the sock monkey hats made by my sister-in-law Brittani which fit perfectly. Tavian Anthony is on the left, Abigail Elouise is on the right.

Two and a half weeks, still going

The family is surviving surprisingly well.  Brooke's going stir crazy and has watched just about all of her episodes of Castle, I read the whole book of Elantris to her, and she's looking for full seasons of the Mentalist now.
Thanks mostly to the help of friends and family the house has stayed clean (that's supposed to be one of my jobs, but it doesn't happen much because I'm reading to Brooke or wrangling Lizzie).
And I only managed to destroy a single load of laundry (red pen, ask Brooke to tell you the story sometime).
With any luck, we'll get another 2 weeks before the babies and the labor pains overwhelm the medication.

No News is Good News

We're at 32 weeks, Brooke's pre-term labor contractions are not progressing (thanks to modern medicine), no signs of pre-eclampcia like we had with Lizzie, and no other signs of trouble.
The ultrasounds and algorithms put Tavian at 4lbs 3oz and Abbie at 3lbs 12oz. If there were a larger gap between them, then there would be cause to worry.
At this point it looks likely that we'll get to 34 weeks when we can breath easy. The doctors were optimistically talking about even getting to 35. 
Tavian's also managed to get himself flipped around to breech position, and since he needs to come first and is quickly running out of room, we're now looking at probable c-section.