Worry

What did I worry about before I had children? I'm not sure I remember...my love life, my friends, the health of my family...yes, I did and still do worry about these things. But I don't think the worry was constant, and it definitely didn't eat away at me like worrying about my children seems to do. My mom always says that she was only has happy as her unhappiest child, and now I think I understand.

The girls had their 1 year check up today. Dylan is 16lb,9oz and Charlotte is 18lb,12oz. They are also short.. 271/4 and 28 inches. Of course, I'm totally worried about it. I know I'm not a giant, but I would like my daughters to be at least as tall as me. And I'm also worried that Dylan will be a lot shorter than Charlotte. I just don't want her to be known as the "short twin." I'm convinced that it was because they didn't get enough 'food' in utero because they had to share (I read that prenatal health is one of the main reasons each generation gets taller).

I'm sure there are a million other, probably much more important things that I will have to worry about my kids in the future, but for right now this one has center stage. My ped. says that I need to get over it, because if they are short, and they develop a complex about it, it will probably be because I gave it to them. She's right, I know.

American Idolizing

I love American Idol. I totally admit this... I didn't get into it until season 4 really...the Carrie Underwood season I think. I would have been really annoyed w/ the Clay Aiken Ruben Studdard year, I can't imagine wanting to watch Fantasia. But now I love it. Last year it was the single biggest thing (besides family of course) that made those NICU weeks bearable. At one point it was three nights a week that I could come home from the NICU and zone out to the stupidities of American Idol. It was a lifesaver. In the girls' baby book (yes, i'm bad and only did one because i thought two was more than i could handle--i'm feeling VERY guilty about this now) there is a section for 'what was happening when you were born' ... i'm sure most kids have the Iraq war, Avian flu, Katrina aftermath... Charlotte and Dylan will see an article on Taylor Hicks. I'm not joking.

Give it a try (and watch Friday Night Lights while you're at it... I freakin' love that show and I want a mexican martini from Trudy's and a night at Donn's Depot every time I see it)

As you can see from the pics (C/D in first, D in second), the girls are more than happy to help me make sure I record it. (And I know, they look like they are dressed identically in top pic...they aren't but it is probably too close. The more twins I meet the more I want to make sure I don't dress them identically).

Grandpa Michael

Today is my father's birthday. He would be 60 years old today. I took Charlotte and Dylan to see his grave. I plan on telling them a lot about their Grandpa Michael. I want them to know that they have a lot of angels looking down on them, making sure they are ok.

My sister Ro has done a wonderful job of telling her children about their grandfather in heaven. They still don't quite get it but they know about him and have from a very young age. Barrett (age 5) was at an event recently where they were putting notes on helium baloons and releasing them into the air. He put a note that said "I love you Grandpa Michael. Love, Barrett." Of course then he ran up to my sister and asked "So when am I going to meet him?" :-)

Getting flowers before visiting the cemetery was just too much for this crew, but the girls left him something even better...Cheerios...

Rag Tag Operation

--Apparently the milk gods were a little peeved at my cockiness. I started to feel really sick on Saturday. Achy, chills, figured a cold was on its way. I have been feeling achy a lot lately though and wondered why it was recurring. Started to get a little nervous about it. Sunday I started to feel TERRIBLE. Finally figured it out Sunday evening when I spiked a fever of 102.5.... ahh...mastitis...AGAIN. Just from trying to start the weaning process. Unfortunately this time it took much longer to get better and I'm still not sure I'm there yet. I think I must just be a little rundown and add the feeding two factor in and I'm a prime candidate for it. I'm sure you're thinking 'can it really be that bad?' Oddly enough, the answer is yes. It is like the kind of infection you see in old movies...chills, aches followed by really high fever, break a sweat, start the cycle over again. At least that is how I get it. I mean I spent a day lying in bed watching tv for the first time since bedrest, and it SUCKED.

---Monday afternoon Andrew has lasic (sp?) surgery. Apparently 99% of people don't feel more than mild discomfort. Andrew was in severe pain. It was awful to watch and I spent the afternoon/evening taking care of him. Luckily my mom was there to help take care of the girls.

---Kallie found her engagement ring...IN HER POCKET. IT NEVER LEFT IT. She found it inside the lining. I guess it makes sense because no one else was looking in there so it might have been easier to miss. I might not tell my ped this though (or charlotte). And it makes the fact that I left Andrew's shuffle in my pocket and subsequently washed it look not so bad in comparison.

---Monday C woke up w/ a bit of a cold.

---Today Dylan has been REALLY clingy. She wants to be held all day. This wouldn't be a problem, in fact I love it when she is snuggly, but I can't ignore Charlotte. It breaks my heart that I don't have 4 arms. When I wasn't holding Dylan she would lie her head on my knee. Gut wrenching. I think she might be teething, or just exhausted from waking up so early all the time (hint hint Tenacious D, sleep in!) Saint Pegster came over this afternoon which helped.

--And I swear they are starting to get the concept of "Da da"... they go nutso when Andrew walks in the door and I think Charlotte started to say "Da da" when he did.

So we are a bit of a ragtag operation. I go in tomorrow for their 1 year check up and I'm glad because Dylan seems to be struggling a bit of late and I just want to make sure she is ok. (On a more positive front, the girls LOVE their new wagon they got for their birthday from gram and sam ...they feel so grown up and wave to people as they go!)

ONE YEAR OLD

CHARLOTTE

DYLAN

Dylan and Charlotte: 1 year old

My mother used to always tell us the story of our birth on our birthdays. Sort of like the fifth grade basketball game my brother Mikie still watches on occasion, we all liked hearing our birth stories. (So those of you who are not charlotte or dylan probably don't want to read this VERY long story). But here goes:

January 18, 2006

8am Wake up and hobble to bathroom...although it has probably only been about an hour since the alst time I was in the bathroom.

11 am My mother come and picks me up to take me to the doctor because since i'm on bedrest I can't really drive, and Andrew has a meeting that day he can't miss. I go to have my 'stress test'--they check the heart rates og baby A and Baby B to make sure the babies aren't in stress. They often have trouble differentiating between the two heartrates because they are so close. This time they were having trouble getting a consistent reading on baby B (Charlotte) and so they stuck what sounded like a mini bull horn near my stomach. Both babies always liked to hand on the right side of me, but when she turned on that horn they practically jumped across me and out of my skin. The nurse looked at me and said "well at least you know they aren't deaf."

12:15 ish. I go downstairs to have my ultrasound. The sonographer is a nice woman I have had a few times before (the sonographer could make or break my day based on the way she read the screen)...in fact I think she was the one who wrote "Sugar and Spice and everything nice---Two Girls!!" when we asked her to put the gender in a sealed envelope. She takes the measurements, and as she is taking them I can tell that Baby A (Dylan) hasn't grown much if at all since the last time I had an ultrasound about 9 days before. Even writing this I can remember that sinking feeling in my stomach because I knew that if she fell below the 10th percentile they'd consider it 'failure to thrive' and we'd need to deliver immediately. The very nice sonographer looked at me and said "I'm sorry sweetie but she's below the tenth percentile." They measured baby A at 2lb, 15oz. and Baby B at about 4lb... and I knew I'd be meeting them soon.

1pm: The perinatologist tells me to go home, pack my stuff, and wait for my obgyn to call. He has a very sweet and kind voice… I have learned to recognize this voice. It is the “we think things are probably going to be ok, but we know you are really worried, and frankly, we’re a little worried too.” It is much better than the “this could be really awful” voice, but it still scares me.

I go home and actually get on my computer and keep working! I tell the assistant buyer that I won’t be online later because I’ll probably be “giving birth”… she emails me back to get the hell off the computer. Given that this was the last hour of work I gave to Macy’s, in retrospect I should have just said to hell with it several weeks prior since I was on disability anyway. Man, if only I could have stored up some of those hours of laying on my side watching TV and reading!

1:30ish My OB calls me and says that of all the reasons that we were going to have to deliver, she thinks this is the best one. I don't remember exactly what she said after that, but I know that the other reasons would have been that one of them was in distress, that I went into labor (which would have been bad because D was footling breech), that I became toxic from pre-eclampsia... anyway, the important thing is that she couldn't have said a more perfect thing to me. She then says "So how's 5pm for you?" Works for me.

I call Andrew and tell him to get ready, that the babies are coming today. I can hear the stress in his voice. He gets off the phone and I call him right back. I ask him to be positive, that I know he's worried but that I need him to sound happy, because it really is a happy day (at least we hope it is). He comes home 20 minutes later with a big smile on his face.

At 3pm we get to the hospital and begin the process. My mom joins us right before I go in for delivery. The very nice anestheseologist gives me the low-down on what is about to happen. Quite honestly, at this point I'm relieved that I'm having a c-section because it's almost like "ok, my work is done here."

A little before 5pm they take me up to the delivery room, and andrew is told to wait outside until they come to get him. My mom waits in the waiting room. The delivery room is FREEZING. The crowd gets bigger as people come in. One of the nurses says to me "you're too small to be having twins!" and I know she means well, but I'm so worried about their sizes already that her comment crushes me. At the end there were at least 14 people in the delivery room--3 obgyns, 2 neonatologists, 4 NICU nurses to take and test the girls, 2 nurses to take the girls on the 'hand off' to the NICU, the anestheseologist and his nurse, me, and eventually Andrew. They waited until they were really ready to go to bring Andrew in, so much so that they joked that he probably thought that they had forgotten him (he did). They bring him in, and laugh because the shoe covers they gave him don't fit over his huge shoes.

Somewhere about 5pm my OBGYN comes into the operating room. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this, but she's a total bad ass. She’s not only smart, successful, etc., she’s also beautiful. She’s tall, thin, with amazing eyes, and when she comes in in her scrubs it’s like she’s the new hot doctor on Grey’s Anatomy (btw, i'm getting a little down on Grey's w/o the Grey/McDreamy tension it just isn't as good. And I have to say, I love that they don’t hire teenagers to play these roles, but doesn’t Pompeo look a tad old to be an intern?) Anyway, she comes in and says "This is a good thing. It's time" with a smile. She also says "Can you see I'm wearing heels?" and she is wearing these very tall heels (covered w/ those wraps!) She says “I'm going out after this and having a drink. And tonight I’ll be getting sleep because I won’t be up worrying about you!” I LOVE my obgyn.

At one point I say to the anestheseologist "Will you tell me when they start cutting?" and he says "oh, they started awhile ago." I can feel myself being pulled as they make the incision larger (ask Andrew about this part...yuck!) and then as they get close to delivery I can feel them yanking around inside me. My OB says "Turns out we're not going to pull out Baby A first, so Baby B is now Baby A." Out comes Charlotte at 5:20pm, I breathe a sigh of relief as I hear her cry and the doctor shows me her little head. Then out comes Dylan at 5:21pm. It felt like she took longer to cry and I was panicked (though they both passed their apgars w/ flying colors). When she does start to scream, she is a FORCE. The nurses are all laughing, saying "is that big sound coming from that tiny baby?" I get to see the girls briefly. Then they are taken to the NICU and Andrew follows. I have to stick around and get sewn up.

One of the weirdest things was passing the torch of ‘patient’ to my daughters. Once they were out of me THEY became the patients, and honestly I felt helpless. At least before I was sort of the guardian of their health. My mom says that in the NICU there were ALL these people crowded around Charlotte because her oxygen saturation levels weren't high enough at first, while little, teeny, tiny Dylan was basically by herself in the little isolette.

I then went to the c-section recovery room for a few hours. Then they wheeled me into the NICU and I was able to hold a very bundled up Dylan for a few seconds. The whole thing is a bit of a blur. Then they take me out because the girls need more tests.

I sit in the hospital room in a morphine daze while Andrew and my mother eat Pasta Pomodoro. But I’m happy..I’m really out of it, but all is generally good. Looking back I can see why hospitals encourage babies to stay in the room with the parents—it is very weird to go from carrying babies with you EVERYWHERE to not knowing what they are doing (which in the case of the girls was either having tests taken or sleeping. I don’t even really know if they were fed anything honestly in those first few days before my milk came in … I should have asked but my guess is that they weren’t…but it feels weird not to know.

I do know that the on-call ped was ready and waiting. His name was Matt, he looked a bit like Noah Wyle, and he was there from the time they were delivered until 6:30/7am when I came in to see them the next day. I know he stayed longer than his shift to monitor Dylan and Charlotte, and I love him for that.

I have a few other random memories.
--I remember the next day, before the morphine wore off, thinking recovery would be no big deal, and asking if I could go outside to “take a short walk.” The nurses looked at me like “honey, you just wait a few hours and see how you feel then” with smirks on their faces (nice ones, but smirks nonetheless).
--I remember that the worst part of the WHOLE surgery was not being able to pee 24 hours after the surgery…no joke, it SUCKED. Next time I will ask them to get that damn catheter out ASAP no matter how painful it is to walk to the bathroom.
--About two days after delivery I remember hobbling to the NICU past the c-section recovery room. A jubilant father walked out, looked at me and said “Almost ready to deliver?” And I looked at him and said “Uh, delivered a few days ago.” A doctor walked out right past him out of the c-section recovery room and smiled and said “He’ll understand in a few days, don’t worry.” ---And sure enough a few days later on the way to the NICU I saw him helping his wife—who still looked pregnant too—hobble down the hall. Hah!
--I remember leaving the hospital in tears on Sun. I knew this was how it would probably happen, but it was still extremely tough. I just focused on how it would feel to someday leave with them. I swear that to this day when I see people leave hospitals with newborns for a split second I think they are stealing their own babies against hospital wishes.
--Andrew and I went to lunch when we left the hospital...we were both dazed. I ran into a section mate on the street and he asked me what I had been up to--I said "I just gave birth to two babies on Wed" and he looked at me like I was on crack (although he must have been thinking "man has she put on some LBs since graduation")

--I remember driving to the NICU by myself on Sunday…the doctor said I could drive as soon as I got off vicodin, so I stopped on Sat morning I think. That drive was not a pleasant one.

The thing is, as wonderful as having a baby (or babies) is, I'm not sure with the first one you even realize HOW wonderful it is going to be. At least I didn't, maybe because I was so scared. It's like I didn't even know how much I would love them. When I first had to sit at home and pump while they were in the NICU they told me to look at pictures of them to stimulate hormones while doing it. I'd just sit there and sob because I couldn't tell them apart. Now I look back at the SAME pictures, and 90% of the time I think "oh that is totally Charlotte...I can tell from her expression."

And there you go Dylan and Charlotte, that is the story of your birthday. I love you more than I ever thought possible. May I tell it to you again and again for the next 60 years.

ps. This year on their birthday the girls went to music class, played at the park, and ate cupcakes--for the first time!! I've been trying to post some videos but i'm having trouble so will do later (thus the hold up and the long delay in posts).

pps. AndI have to give credit where it is due for the ADORABLE "1" sweatshirts..birthday presents from my sister Roey. The dresses below (...and hats...and shoes...and jackets) are Grandma Peggy gifts she has bought the girls for one reason or another (mostly it is the "I couldn't help myself excuse--God help her when they learn to actually ask for things). In general, you can pretty much assume that the girls would be naked if it weren't for grandparents and my sister. And we love them for it!!

Pooping Diamonds

Today I was going to go and get the ingredients to bake the girls cupcakes for their first birthday, and pick up a little last gift for them because I don't really have anything for them tomorrow (at least nothing they can play with immediately).

No dice. In the morning I had to work a few hours, so I planned to take care of the errands in the afternoon. Instead, about 20 minutes after K (babysitter) left I got a frantic call from her. She had lost her engagement ring. To make a long, crazy story short, we spent the rest of the day and evening looking EVERYWHERE for her ring, and in this case EVERYWHERE included an x-ray of little charlotte's stomach because K thought she might have swallowed it. She didn't (and when I was at the CPMC Krista called me, I told her the situation, and her response was "Molly you'll do anything for a good blog entry. : ))

A little background on my K....she is not your typical babysitter/nanny. She is 25, very pretty, and smart--graduated from Berkeley and is getting her masters in speech pathology. I love her because she is great with the munchkins---she plays actively with them, she does sign language with them, and she's really interested in their development (she even asked to attend d's last developmental checkup). I have learned several things from her in terms of speech development.

A few weeks ago she got engaged to her long time boyfriend. They own an apartment down the street from us (they live a better life than we do!). They are getting married in September and they are really excited about it. Her ring was too big but she hadn't sized it down yet. And then today she took her ring off to do the dishes, and it disappeared. So the poor thing understandably spent the day TEARING through the house, and I think over time she convinced herself that charlotte had swallowed it (and the longer i thought about it, the more I knew I'd spend all night wondering if Charlotte was about to poop out a diamond).

Of course now we're both feeling awful for giving C an x-ray unnecessarily... but we had really convinced ourselves that Charlotte had swallowed it (I think she kinda wanted to). So now I keep walking around waiting for a diamond to fall out of something...at least not having to include charlotte's 'bum' in that something is a good thing. Still, rookie mom move...

I am a Golden God

Ok, not true, but great movie! And so while I might not be a Golden God, I am a Milk Machine. This week will mark a year that I have been nursing the girls... There are a lot of things that I have and will do wrong in my life. There are a lot of things that I will do to screw them up, but in this case I'm pretty sure I got it right. Other than a few teaspoons of formula put in their milk in the very beginning to help them get to fighting weights, the girls will never have had anything but breastmilk in their first year. While that makes them smaller right now (breastmilk babies are usually smaller until they start getting real milk) I hope it also helps prevent allergies, something they are at great risk of given their prematurity (and the fact that the Dodson family tends to swim in the shallow end of the gene pool in this arena).

I'm a pretty selfish person and I think breastfeeding was the first big step I took towards being a more selfless person. My rack sags terribly (two babies for a freakin' year...DR sign me up for the breast lift AND the tummy tuck) and I still carry extra weight that may or may not come off when I wean. It has been a great lesson for a vain person (maybe too good, I need to start stepping it up a notch... you know it is bad when we do Quicken and Andrew doesn't even mention the "molly clothing" category because it has gotten so, so much smaller---sadly it's the GROCERY and KIDS EQUIPMENT categories that have ratcheted it up about 50 notches). And I KNOW the day will come when one of my girls makes a critical comment about my body and it is going to take EVERY BONE IN MY BODY not to yell "BUT I DID IT FOR YOU, you little ....!!"

I know that there are people who really struggle w/ breastfeeding and I am not trying to say it makes me a better mother...it is just that you don't get a lot of clear "wins" in life as a mom, and you have to take it where you can get it. So yeah me : )

I love Sleep

So after about 6 weeks of pure hell in the sleep department (literally more exhausting than their first few months) we finally had healthy babies with no immediate travel plans and we decided that it was time to sleep train them AGAIN. I have been so exhausted over the past weeks that it had started to affect my ability to be a good mother. I'm not kidding...I was short with them and not enjoying my time with them because I was just thinking of how much work I had to do or when I might be able to catch up on sleep. I don't consider myself someone who is at risk for depression, but I honestly started to worry that I was headed for some kind of fatigue based breakdown, and since I couldn't think of anything that was making me unhappy I knew it had to be the sleep deprivation (and travelling while sick didn't help). So I had to make a change, and I needed to do anything to get them to start sleeping through the night again (or really, for the first time).

Ahh, the "sleep subject"... a touchy one with most parents because there are so many opinions and it has such an impact on your life. The other day my friend Krista told me that she was having a harder time letting her second child cry, and I swear it is because for most of us, the first time around we get all gung ho about it, but the second time around we've basically figured out that sleep training never really ends so it is really hard to get psyched up for it. Now I say for most of us because there are those out there who got REALLY lucky in the sleep department. I have a friend whose identical twins sleep 14 hours consistently every night and she says she didn't do ANYTHING to make this happen. No joke. Or another friend whose daughter is a sleep angel-12+ hours a night, 3+ hours of naps. EVERY NIGHT. Her parents will tell you that it is a case of "input and output" --you get out of your kid what you put into them. I tend to hear this kind of statement from parents of good sleepers.

I have to say that as the mother of identical twins I can't agree. Why, you ask? I do the EXACT same thing with genetically identical daughters and they don't respond in the same way. After one night of a little crying Charlotte is now consistently sleeping from about 6:45 to 6:20ish in the morning. She even sleeps through Dylan crying. She then takes two pretty solid naps. Dylan, on the other hand, has been up several nights crying...she'll then sleep through the night and then be up again the next night. And she doesn't take nearly as good naps...I'm telling you that Charlotte would sleep even MORE if it weren't for Dylan. So how can it be purely a question of "input and output?" Now don't get me wrong, sometimes I know that I've made my own bed when I started feeding them again instead of letting them cry. And I'm a big believer in consistency and schedule, but I think you have to account for the personality of the child. We don't sleep the same way, so how can we expect our kids to? So what i'm really saying is that for those of you with great sleepers the first time around, I am secretly hoping you get insomniacs on the next go around (wait, did I say that out loud?!)

Anyway, short story long, things are much much better now, not perfect, but better. Charlotte generally does great, Dylan still breaks my heart. She is sleeping better, but still wants to wake up between 4 and 5 am. And she doesn't nap as well. She generally has a more intense demeanor and I wonder if that is affecting her sleep. We're trying to get her to sleep through the night but we're also trying to recognize that maybe she just needs a little more time and help to 'get' things. So it is a work in progress.

That being said, I feel like a new person this month. I haven't gotten 8 hours of sleep in a row in well over a year (I was up several times a night running to the bathroom starting at about 5 months pregnant) and my body really, really needed to start experiencing that again. (And don't the munchkins look happier too!? And yes, while they now refuse to get in the exersaucers they still love to roll around underneath them).

New Year

So we did finally make it to Utah, just in time for me to get sick. For a few days, including my birthday, I felt pretty awful and didn't ski. I tried to look at the very bright side, which was that a year ago I was on my way to dinner on my birthday when my doctor called, told me i'd tested positive for the fetal fibronectin test, and that I needed to go to full bedrest immediately. I spent the next week in the hospital praying that I didn't go into labor. So, sickness and sleep deprivation look pretty good comparatively.

The only tough thing about this birthday is that at some point in this year I will hit a day (prob Oct/Nov) when I will have lived my life longer with my father dead than alive. That sounds so absolutely crazy to me, but I was 17 when he died and this year will be 17 years since his death. I don't like it, and I miss him.

But on to brighter topics...
So I only got to ski a half day, which was just enough time to remind me how much I love to ski and to get me super excited to ski with my girls in years to come. As far as travel goes, Utah is about as easy as it gets for us (well, unless you miss your flight). I also got to ski with MacKenzie, which is always a blast. Unfortunately, I hadn't seen her in awhile so I wanted to talk to her as much as I wanted to ski with her. At the end of the day Andrew looks at me and says "man, you two never stopped talking the entire time." He looked exhausted FOR us. We then had a 'playdate' with Peyton, who is still gorgeous and running around like a true toddler to boot. We also went to dinner with MacKenzie and Andy and heard all about the house they (by they I mean Andy) are building and lots of other things. Spending time with my Austin friends always makes me feel like an idiot for living in SF and paying absurd amounts to live in very small spaces.
So on NYE we flew home the same roundabout way we came (and sat near several people who had also missed flights out of OAK on the 26th) and got home in just enough time to head over to the Glotzbachs. Waiting for us were the Glotzbachs, the Greens, and the Roystons. Yes, we finally got to meet Benjamin! Ben is absolutely adorable..he is like a little scott with a tan. He has a VERY sweet little smile and he uses his tongue better than Michael Jordan. We had a great time listening to DR tell stories and it would have been even better if Andrew and I could have made it 'till midnight. I wish we could have spent more time together but it was great to see them nonetheless (and DR and I can rendezvous someday at a remote spa to get our tummy tucks).

So the wild ride of 2006 is over. It started out with me in the hospital and ended with two beautiful little girls who make us laugh and smile every day.
So, I'm never very good at keeping resolutions, but in the spirit of fresh starts:

--I'll remember that the girls will never be 350 days old again, 351 days old again, etc. I'll remember that even though it seems like time is going slowly and my life is full of a lot of the same, that someday the dinners, walks, and trips to the park will all mesh together and seem like they went way too fast. I'll remember that one day I'll dearly miss having little hands grab my pants legs and little bodies bounce up and down when I go to pick them up.

--I'll take a little more time for me, and by me I mean both me, and Andrew and me. These two resolutions seem contradictory but I don't think they are... when I really start to feel bad physically and mentally I am a worse mother and a worse wife. I'd love to lose the last 5lbs, but even if I don't, I'd rather just feel physically fit again. I want to run a half marathon this year, and I want to take a bit more time to remember that I'm not just a mother, but a person on my own too. And I swear that if I ever fit in all my pre-pregnancy jeans again I will NEVER NEVER complain about my weight again.

--I had many more, but I think they all probably boil down to the first two. Oh, and write more in the blog!!!