Ten Days Old

I can't believe in a few days Jake and Abby will be two weeks old! These days have gone about ten million times faster than every day of my pregnancy. If it stays that way, they will be home before we know it.

Abby is getting better! She has been a little more like herself every day, and it seems like the antibiotics she is on are doing their thing, so hoping that continues and she is able to get back on her feeds later this week. What did we learn during this first sickness? That Jeff will need to be the calm, responsible parent that asks the doctor questions and remembers the answers, because I will  be the hysterical one that is incapable of absorbing information when one of my babies is sick. Hopefully this will improve over time so that I can at least take my kids to the doctor without going through a box of Kleenex watching them get shots.

Jake is doing great too, there is talk of moving him to an open crib soon because now he is over 4 pounds so should be capable of maintaining his own body temperature. We also may get to try to start feeding him as early as next week! Very exciting. We have heard that learning how to eat can be frustrating, because some babies take to it right away and some babies take a long time to get it, and there's nothing we can do but wait for them to figure it out. Hopefully the kids take after me and LOVE to eat, and not after Jeff who basically just eats to survive. I would imagine that Abby's infection means we might need to wait a little while before we get to try feeding her, but that's okay. I think it's important not to think of it as a setback or in terms of when they might come home - the important thing isn't how fast they are home, it's making sure they are really ready for it.

A few people have asked when Jake and Abby will come home. While there's no way to know for sure, we have been told that on average it's between 36 and 38 weeks gestational age, although we shouldn't see it as a bad thing if they take a little longer (see above on learning to eat). They are 33 weeks today, so hopefully sometime in September they will be home for good. We're going shopping this weekend for a car to bring them home in - the Sentra is on its last leg, and it would be really tough to put two car seats in the Sunfire!

I think all of the adrenaline from last week has finally worn off, and the three months I spent lying on my side have caught up to me. I am tired like I've never been tired in my life! Good practice, I guess, for the next 18 years. Jeff went to see the babies by himself last night, and sent me lots of pictures while he was there. Of course I woke up as soon as I saw how cute they were, and now I'm really excited to visit tonight and get to hold them again. It is really hard to feel so out of shape all the time because my muscles just aren't used to doing anything, but hopefully if I keep sleeping during the days and visiting at night for awhile, I'll start to get my energy back and be able to be there for longer periods of time.

Jeff went back to work this week, so this is our "temporary normal" life until the babies come home and he has some more time off. I might be a tad bit emotional these days - yesterday I cried when he came home because I missed him so much all day long. He proceeded to laugh at me, so I suspect I won't miss him *quite* so much today...