5 Weeks Old - The Girls' Hit Their Due Date

Yesterday, my precious girls turned 5 weeks old. You can tell how both of them are really starting to gain weight, particularly Carter. (Carter is in purple and Catie in pink.) Carter was so skinny in the face at first that, if you used that to tell them apart, you are likely to get them confused now. We had a follow-up visit with the pediatrician last Friday. Carter weighed 6 lbs 2 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long while Catie weighed 5 lbs 11 oz and was 17 3/4 inches long. I was super happy about their weight gain! And Carter's length registered on the growth curve in the 5th percentile of other one-month-olds. We've officially moved out of preemie diapers in this house, and the girls have grown out of a lot of their preemie clothes.

I am reminded these days of the fact that the girls really are preemies. At 5 weeks, Will had been cooing and mimicking us for a couple weeks and started to smile. Catie and Carter still act like newborn babies, but their adjusted age is just one day old - their original due date was May 4th. Its nice to have my "me time" in between their feedings because they still really do pretty much just eat and then go back to sleep until 3 hours later for their next meal. But, I am also very ready for them to begin to interact with us. I know it will come though (and then I will miss their sleepy days) and that I must be patient with them, remembering that they were born 5 weeks early.

Taking care of the girls continues to be much easier than it was with Will when he was this age because they actually sleep in a crib or in their Boppy lounger seats. (Will had to be held all the time and was extremely fussy.) The other night, they slept for almost 5 hours straight. I felt so restful yesterday because of it that I took the little girls on our first adventure to Walmart. It went great - Catie slept through it and Carter was awake the whole time staring at everything. And I felt a great sense of accomplishment in handling the twins at a store. (I don't have much room in the shopping cart for much else - I can tell you that!)

I am watching them very closely though because their stools both tested positive for blood last Friday indicating that they were having some digestive problems. They are on Neosure (a preemie formula with extra calories that breaks down the milk protein for easier digestion), and I am weening my breastmilk supply. For 2 days, I gave them only formula. Then, yesterday, I gave them only breastmilk and after only a couple feedings, they both started to scream and cry -- I got my first taste of what that was like. So, my remaining milk is going in the freezer to be used with rice cereal down the road. Despite my promise not to beat myself up about it this time around, I still agonized about putting them on formula. However, I had a ROUGH time with Will when he couldn't digest the breastmilk well and I am not putting myself or the girls through that. I'm proud that I pumped 8 times a day when they were in the NICU and the first 2 1/2 weeks that they were home to give them the milk when they really needed it. Will was raised on formula since 4 weeks and is just fine ... so there - I've said my peace about all that and will STOP agonizing about it all.

Here are the girls last Friday heading to the doctor's office. It is definitely a car-full!

Will has had some hard days at school and at home, but his world has turned upside down. Not only are there 2 little babies demanding Mommy's time -- but, as many of you know, Nanny (Ellis's mom) and Aunt Kathy (Ellis's sister) came down for a visit 2 weeks ago on a Saturday. The next day, Nanny had a massive stroke. We are extremely thankful that she survived but she has a long road of rehabilitation ahead of her, and how much she will regain is still unknown. This, obviously, has put a huge strain on our family and Ellis's sister's family. Nanny is an hour and a half away and Ellis tries to visit when he can. My parents have stepped in to help me out because I do not know how or when I will be able to handle Will and the girls on my own. But in the past few weeks, Will has been told that Mommy and Daddy are gone because Mommy is in the hospital, then his sisters aren't home because they are sick in the hospital, and now Daddy is sometimes gone because he has to be with Nanny because she is sick in the hospital. Between night meetings, work, and visiting Nanny, Daddy is not here a lot so, considering all that is going on, Will is doing amazingly well.

I hate to post anything negative or sad with the girls' 5 week old post, and I struggled with mentioning it at all. However, the history of the girls and Will on this blog is shaped by these events, so I could not avoid mentioning it any longer. All of this has added a new, unexpected dimension to being a mom of twins, but we are so blessed that they are healthy and doing so well.