The World is a Social Place

Somewhere between 3 and 4 months, R2D2 (baby A) and C-3PO (baby B) became super social. They began watching us as we would walk around the room, turning their heads to follow if we moved just out of sight. They started smiling as soon as they saw us, and even began giggling when we talked to them. The sparkles in their eyes let us know the smiles were social in nature and prompted by happiness, not muscle twitches. Turns out, there is a world beyond milk and sleep, and it is fascinating! 

Their delight in human interaction has only increased in the last few months. The smiles have morphed into wide-mouthed grins; the light giggles deepened into belly laughs. Their joy is full and unfeigned; they have not an ounce of self-consciousness. They laugh easily and without diffidence. I can hardly think of a better reward for all the time and effort spent caring for them; my heart melts every single time! 💗 The dopamine hit I get makes me want to do whatever it was that they found funny, over and over and over again so that the peals of laughter never stop. One of my favourite things is when they are standing in front of me, holding onto my fingers for support, and something strikes them as hilarious...their heads tip backward and their knees buckle because they can't concentrate well enough to stand, hold their neck straight, AND crack up at the same time. It is the ultimate in spontaneous, uncontrolled laughter.

Nobody can make them laugh like their older brother, Skywalker. He just lights up their life. He dances, they laugh. He talks, they listen intently. He walks past, they follow with their eyes, twisting their bodies around if needed. If he gets too excited and talks loudly at them (because they are "SO cute [he] can't even stand it"), sometimes they cry. And then Skywalker feels badly and does "Choo Choo Train" with their legs to make them happy again. 

There is a flip side to this development. With their exhilaration for social interaction comes total dismay at being denied such opportunities. And there are two of them. They BOTH want to be held and both want to played with. They have discovered that they can hold my attention and that it is FUN, and they both want 100% of it. They simply can't understand why I would ever want to put them down. They take the greatest offense right after their naps, when we haven't seen each other in SO LONG. Often they are both awake when I get them up, so I take one baby out of the crib and tell the other "I'll be right back to get you, I have to take your brother downstairs." The baby in the crib of course doesn't understand these words. He only knows that I clearly saw him and clearly left him lying there. He fusses a bit. But the baby I carry downstairs! Talk about indignation. When I leave him on the floor with a toy, he feels wildly mistreated - I picked him up, and then had the gall to PUT HIM DOWN.

I mean, seriously. What an insult. 

As you can imagine, I can't devote 100% of my attention to the babies at all times, let alone 100% of my attention to each one individually. So I attend to them as much as I can, and we play together a lot. Luckily, this still works for them. When I hold one and walk around with him, I make frequent eye contact with the other while I talk or sing. When I read a book to one on my lap, I turn the book around and show the baby playing on the floor. Often I put them on the floor together and sit at their feet, leaning over with my face above theirs. I talk to them and look back and forth between them. 

But here's my favourite part. Each time I make eye contact with one, his face lights up and he seems to imagine that he and I are the only two people in the world. But no matter who I'm actually looking at, they both grin and kick and flail wildly, because as far as they are concerned, I am playing just with them. So it would seem that I CAN give 100% of my attention to both babies at once.

I don't know how long they will accept this trio play and not demand my attention ALONE, but I'll savor every moment of it for now!

Forging Ahead

I decided a few months ago that I wanted to start this blog. I hesitated as my brain offered me all kinds of reasons that it was a bad idea, mostly in the form of questions. Who is my audience? WHO would want to read something I wrote? What would I write about that would be remotely interesting? WHEN would I find the time to write?

I knew the last one would be the biggest challenge, as the others are just doubts that are all in my mind. Even if not a single other soul read, or cared about, what I was writing, I could still write. Nobody else has to find value in my writing for me to do so. But time is a finite resource; I can't just conjure up more of it in a day than exists naturally. And with baby twins and an older child in online school, that resource gets used quickly. I knew it would be difficult to dedicate much (or any) of it to blog writing.

But I forged ahead.

I wanted to write an introduction, especially to document the twin-specific aspects of the pregnancy and delivery, and made a concerted effort to get through those first few posts so I could start documenting in real time. I didn't want to be perpetually behind in my writing. But even so, it has taken me the last few months to write those first few posts (Related: I am a slow writer, which helps my cause approximately zero), and my brain shows me this as evidence that indeed, finding time to blog is challenging and I should cut my losses and call it quits. 

But I forge ahead.

My brain tells me that I am already behind; that because the twins are now 6 months old, I have missed weeks and weeks worth of material that I could have been writing about. But those thoughts make me feel overwhelmed, which leads me to freeze up and want to write less. I do the same thing with the to-do list in my head; when I think, "Ahhhhhhh I have too much to do I don't know where to start and I can't possibly get it all done!" then my instinct is to do none of it. ...Brilliant strategy, no?

It may seem counterintuitive for me to delve into this topic in a blog post - spending time writing, of all things, about not having enough time to write. But this is my way of moving forward and keeping my momentum going. Momentum is powerful. This is me not giving in to the temptation to abandon this blog already because my twins are SIX WHOLE MONTHS OLD TODAY and I have just barely gotten to the part of the story when they began living outside of my body.

With momentum on my side, I forge ahead.

How We Got Here part 3: The Problem Child

I tease one of the twins about being our problem child, because he was the reason both babies had to be born early via c-section and I had to be hospitalized for 2 weeks prior to delivery. Twin B was perfectly cozy in there, but Twin A decided to be a troublemaker. But, being only a few months old, he doesn't understand what I'm saying. I will probably stop joking about it when he gets old enough to have any inkling what I mean.

Maybe.

The condition I was diagnosed with is called vasa previa. It is one of those rare conditions that, undiagnosed, is life-threatening and terrifying (more than half of babies die)...but managed properly, is easily kept in check. Normally, blood vessels (2 arteries and 1 vein) run between the baby and the placenta, and are protected by a gelatin-like tube (called Wharton's jelly). This forms the umbilical cord. Vasa previa means that one or more of the fetal vessels is running outside the Wharton's jelly covering, unprotected and passing close to the cervix. Any pressure on the cervix (like from labor contractions or water breaking) could rupture those blood vessels. 

And that would be bad.

Since we wanted to take home two alive babies, we agreed that I should be hospitalized. A c-section would be scheduled between 35 and 36 weeks, to maximize time in the womb but minimize the risk of spontaneous labor. I would get a steroid shot to help develop their lungs a little faster and reduce the risk of breathing problems and nicu time. Ideally, the twins would stay right where they were until the scheduled c-section, but if labor started earlier than that, I would be in the hospital already and could be rushed to the operating room.

At first I was told that I wouldn't be allowed any visitors because of covid, but the day we checked in, the hospital had loosened their policy and I was allowed one. I was so grateful. My husband came 4 days each week, and my brother (who was living with us at the time) kept an eye on the 8yo at home.

The days in the hospital were a mix of busy and tedious. I couldn't figure out if I was bored or not. I did know I felt stuck, and I stared out the window longingly. People were in and out of my room regularly. Here was the schedule from the first half of the first day: 6:10am the nurse checked my vitals; at 7 the OB on duty checked on me; at 7:30 there was a nurse shift change so they came in to review the switch and the new nurse wrapped my arm in plastic so I could shower; at 8 my breakfast came so I ate it and then showered; 9:30-10:45 the nurse did the fetal monitoring; at 11:15 the high-risk doctor came to check on me; at noon my lunch arrived…

Busy times.

Besides having regular interactions with the staff and eating/showering in peace (I knew once the twins came that would be a thing of the past!), I brought plenty of things to do. I read books, worked on my cross stitch stocking, watched Hamilton twice and 7 episodes of Sweet Magnolias, talked on the phone with lots of people, did yoga, walked the halls countless times, wrote in my journal, had a zoom baby shower with coworkers, attended zoom church and a friend's zoom baptism, and exchanged text and Facebook messages with many friends. I could have binged on Netflix endlessly. But despite having "things" to do, I did also feel bored and lonely. Since I *couldn't* go anywhere, I really really *wanted* to go somewhere. I stared out the window longingly, and fantasized about making a break for it through the double doors that led to freedom...(But not really).

Ultimately I knew that the longer my babies stayed in the better, up until the planned c-section day. And for selfish reasons, I wanted to make it past my birthday, and past our wedding anniversary. So I followed the nurses' instructions, cooperated with the daily fetal monitoring, ate decent meals, slept as much as the environment allowed, and never even ONCE tried to escape.

Yay me.

The twins did their part by being healthy and staying put, and and finally their birthday arrived! After the whirlwind of monitoring, visits by different team members, and signing of consent forms, they took me back to the OR and told my husband that he could come see me once I was all prepped for the surgery. The anesthesiologist gave me my epidural and told me he was so impressed with how calm and relaxed I was (he probably says that to everyone!). When they laid me back on the table, my blood pressure dropped suddenly, to an unacceptably low level (which was a really scary feeling; I felt like I was fading from consciousness. I could hear people asking me questions but was too dizzy to respond). When they couldn't elicit an answer to "Are you okay?" they swapped my face mask for an oxygen tube. The problem resolved quickly and all was well.

During the surgery, the lead anesthesiologist sat on one side of my head and coached me to keep breathing (being flat on my back with pressure on my vena cava, the feeling of not being able to breathe returned, though this time it wasn't actually dangerous - it just didn't feel good.). My husband sat on the other side of my head and held my hand. Overall, the c-section was smooth and at the end, I had two babies!!! I couldn't hold them, but the nurse held them close to my face for a few seconds so I could see them and give them a kiss. What followed was a blur: vitals and APGAR testing for the babies, stitching for me, my husband going back and forth between us trying to be available for whoever needed him. After being transferred to the hospital bed from the operating table (I seriously wondered how they were going to pull that off since I couldn't move and had a freshly-stitched hole in my abdomen, but they managed it expertly! It's like they had done this before!), the babies and I were monitored in the recovery room for a couple hours. Eventually we made it to our postpartum room, ordered our dinner, and settled in.

My husband and I looked at the almost-5lb newborns each swaddled in 2 layers of blankets for warmth, lying fast asleep in their hospital bassinets. Then we looked at each other.

What had we just gotten ourselves into???