Daddyman @ Home: Three Hours at a Time

After a week long hospital stay, the Twinkies were born on October 22, 2007. Ever since, Pink and I have been living our lives nearly three hours at a time.

We checked into the "hotel" due to Pink's contractions being 3 minutes apart, and by the time they subsided they determined she was having some high blood pressure, and after a day in the hospital, the docs determined she'd be staying till the twins were born.

On the Monday of their birth, I had intended to go into work for a couple hours, but as I was finishing my egg mcmuffin, Pink calls me on the cell phone

"Honey! We're having babies today!"

*Blue drops his gargantuan vanilla iced coffee over the library's parking lot*

I had a split second of happiness followed by a brief, "Dammit, there's two bucks of coffee on the ground."

I finished up work, dropped Little Blue over at daycare's house, then headed to the hospital to by with my wife. As surgery time approached, I passed my keys off to my Mom to go pick up the dude from daycare and hang out at the hospital.

A little after 5pm, identical girls were born, and we heard their meowing telling us they were breathing on their own and happy. Little Purple was born weighing 6 pounds and 2 ounces, Little Teal was born at 5 pounds 12 ounces. Very healthy weights for identical twins sharing a placenta. I stayed with Pink while she was getting sewn up and we joked with her OBGYN while the twins were whisked off to the nursery.

They both came out of the nursery for about a day, till we heard Little Purple had a dusky spell where she stopped breathing for about 20 seconds. From that point on, Little Purple stayed in the NICU for the next 5 days when they were sure they wouldn't have another spell.

Little Teal was in the room with us during recovery for a couple days, but they whisked her to the NICU after they found out she wasn't gaining enough weight.

Then both twins weren't gaining weight. The docs feared that they were struggling to keep their body temps up and were burning too many calories to gain weight.

Then, over two days, NICU nurses, doctors, and pediatricians were furious because they couldn't find a scale that would measure the twins accurately. They put both girls in an Isolate (I think that's what it's called, I couldn't remember), to keep the air temp up to make them comfortable so they could beef up while the doctors figured out the scale thing.

Pink was discharged the Friday after their birth, and she was rolling and rocking around like a woman who wanted her children at home. It turned out to be a good thing because we made some last minute needed items so we could get them home and got a second car seat for our twin stroller.

I had a chore figuring out how it all worked. When strollers are gifted to you, you're hard pressed for a manual.

The twin limo was used for the first time on Tuesday the 29th after we brought them home from the hospital. We made a detour to pick up big brother first, then headed to the pediatrician's office to get a starting base weight. That Friday, both had gained enough that the pediatrician said we could start going 4 hours between overnight feedings.

Much to the Pamphlet's happiness. Living three hours at a time, while necessary, does tend to grate on you after a couple days.

It's been a good ride so far, and Baby Teal tends to have a fondness for having her Dad feed her. Apparently I have the innate ability to ensure she gets the bare minimum of breast milk and formula down each feeding.

And the kickass thing? While at the doctor's office, the nurse gave us $60 dollar's worth of the high calories Neosure formula the twins have to guzzle down twice a day.

"Hide these in your backback...if the doctor offer's more, don't tell him I gave this to you! I've got a 9 month old at home, I can't imagine the costs for twins!"