Announcing...

Our babies are finally here!  We really did have twins.  It has felt very surreal this entire pregnancy knowing that I was having two babies, but to actually see two babies is still mind boggling.

Lincoln Wirth Coffey was born via c-section October 16, 2014 at 9:50 am.  He weighed 5 lbs and was 18 inches long.  He shares a middle name with Annette's Grandpa because Grandpa Z is one of my heroes and I want Lincoln to always honor him.  Lincoln has light brown hair.

Lincoln looks a lot like baby Kimball in this picture.

The proud older brother.  Kimball loves to feel independent and pick
up the babies by himself.  It makes me nervous!

Rebecah with Lincoln

Sporting a preemie outfit that Kimball wore.

I'm really awake sometimes, honest.

Annika (pronounced AH- ni-cuh, short i sound, short u sound.) Grace Coffey was born at 9:51am and she weighed 5 lbs too.  If you want to be technical she weighed 2280 grams which was 10 grams more than Lincoln.  She was 19 inches long.  I have always like the name Annika ever since I heard the name in our family history.  And Grace holds special personal meaning for us.  Annika is already feisty and sporting some red hair.

In the hospital.

Eyes open.  You can see some of her ginger hair.

The Super excited I will only hold Annika and occasionally Lincoln, big sister.

Annika is slow on the nursing so we are having to give her little 1 oz bottles of milk.  Here is Joseph feeding her.  I think they are sweet together.  She is "his" baby since he gives her most of her bottles and I nurse Lincoln.  Having Joseph feed her at night has made it so we all get more sleep.

After spending two LONG nights days in the hospital we were able to convince the doctors that we were well enough to be sent home.  The babies were "low birth weight" so they had to have multiple heel sticks to check their glucose levels and have a 90 minute car seat test to make sure they could ride in their car seats safely.  At this hospital babies "room-in" with their mothers and all vitals and tests are administered in the mother's room.  As you can imagine a lot of those tests were done at night.  The first night I think I literally got an hour and a half of sleep.  The second night was a little better, the nurses left us alone more, but the babies wanted holding and holding babies and sleeping at the same time is frowned upon in the hospital.  

My c-section recovery was rough the first day.  I had severe nausea and some vomiting and I had to take 3 rounds of medication before it was under control.  The rest of my recovery is going well.  I'm sore, but after the first 24 hours I have been off all heavy medications and I'm using Motrin and Tylenol as needed.

We are doing well at home.  Each night gets a little easier.  We are tired and go to bed early and sleep as late as Kimball and Rebecah let us.  The babies are a blessing in our home and Kimball and Rebecah love to hold them.

Arriving home!

Sleeping together in the pack n play.  Annika is the one yawning.  They really are tiny.

The only picture I have so far of myself with the babies is this selfie that I took in the hospital
when I was alone with the babies and they both wanted to be held.  Sometimes it's hard
to find time to pose for pictures, but I DO believe pictures are important.

Annette's 35th Birthday

I turned 35 on the 10th of October.  It was a good birthday, although not a typical one.  Usually for birthdays I make special treats for breakfast to get the day started on the right foot.  Well, since I was 6 days from delivery I wanted to make sure I continued to eat healthy, so no fun breakfast for me.

I did get together for lunch with some friends.  We had it at a friend's house so we could visit without feeling rushed in a restaurant.  It was fun to visit with friends since it was probably my last big hurrah for a while.  One of my friends made a yummy cake with a chocolate mousse filling and a ganache topping.  I wanted a HUGE piece, but there wasn't any room.

I actually didn't eat dinner on my birthday.  I made pancakes and eggs for everyone else, but I wanted to have room to enjoy my chocolate truffle cake.  I make this cake once a year, on my birthday, and I look forward to eating it all year long.  I decided that since it was my birthday I deserved a piece of it so I skipped dinner so I would have room for dessert.  Very little stomach room is the way it goes when pregnant with twins.

Joseph gave me a Willow Tree Nativity that I have been eyeing for a while.  He didn't want to give it to me for Christmas so I begged for it for my birthday.  I love it and I already have it out on display, although not as prominently as it will be come December.  

At Beaver Lake Park the day after my birthday.

I was glad the babies didn't come on my birthday.  As eager as I was for their arrival, I am selfish and I didn't want to share my birthday with one baby let alone two.  If I did, my birthday would never be special for me again so not arriving on my birthday was my present from the babies.

Baby Projects

I recently finished a few projects that I was working on for the babies.  I made each of them a quilt.  I was so excited to get both finished before the babies arrived.  There is nothing like a deadline to keep the pressure on. 

Quilt for our boy.  I must admit that this isn't my favorite quilt that I have ever made,
but I do think the brown binding helped me like it better.

Quilt for our girl.  I really like how this one turned out.  Rebecah did too.  She was a
little envious of this quilt since the quilt I made her as a baby wasn't pink and purple.  

Since we will have two babies and two car seats I decided to make a car seat cover.  Someone had made me a small tied fleece blanket when Kimball was born and it was the perfect size to fit over the car seat during the winter.  I decided to make a similar one, only in girl colors instead of buying an actual cover.  For $7 I was able to make this and a little blanket for Rebecah.

Car seat cover.

I wanted to make Rebecah's blanket as big as I could from the left over fleece so instead of tying it I just did a blanket stitch on it.  She was thrilled with the blanket even though it is on the small side.  I think it is the perfect lap blanket.

Rebecah's fleece.  I finished it after Rebecah was asleep so I put it on her to surprise her in the morning.

My other projects have included getting the babies' room ready.  Rebecah enjoyed helping with this project so I always had to wait until she was home from school to work in the room.  I also stocked my freezer with dinners, bread, cookie dough (we have to have the essentials covered), jam and applesauce.  My freezer is now quite full and I'm just waiting for these babies to arrive.  We are down to 17 days and we are all excited!

Trip to Ontario Orchards

Last weekend Joseph took the kids to Ontario Orchards, a farm about an hour from our house.  I fully intended for it to be our last fun outing as a family before the babies arrive, but I didn't quite make it on the journey.  I started having contractions the night before so Joseph thought it best if I stay home and in my gut I knew he was right so I took one for the team and stayed home.  I REALLY wanted to go though.  I had looked forward to it all week.

Apparently there were a lot of different vendors selling things and then you could buy an inexpensive arm band and have unlimited jumps on the inflatable toys.  The kids enjoyed those.  There was also a tractor ride to and from the parking lot.

Jumping around.

A view of the vendors.

Kimball and Rebecah going up the slide.

It is hard to see, but I think Rebecah has such a happy expression in this picture.

Going down together.

After the kids played for a while they went apple picking for me.  Together with Joseph they picked a bushel of apples.  There were 3 varieties ready for picking...Gala, Cortland, and McIntosh, and I just had them pick an assortment of all three.

Picking apples.

I was glad everyone had a fun time.  I was productive at home and did put my feet up a bit.  It's hard to stay down when I think of all that I need to do.

On Wednesday we turned our bushel of apples into applesauce.  That was a big job, but I was glad I could have help from the family. 

Baby Update

I know I haven't blogged much about my pregnancy or the babies, but I just don't want to overwhelm everyone with baby posts.  Just because the babies are at the center of our family's focus doesn't mean it is at the center of the rest of your lives.  But, for those who are curious...

I'm 33 weeks and things are going surprisingly well.  When I was told at 9 weeks that I would have twins I was terrified of all of the pregnancy complications that I just assumed would accompany a twin pregnancy. So far, knock on wood, my pregnancy has been free of most twin complications.  No dehydration, major swelling, bed rest etc.  I feel well most of the time, although I have noticed that it is harder to bend over with two bodies in there rather than just one.

The biggest change for me is going to the doctor so much.  I started 2 week appointments at 24 weeks, before then they were every 3 weeks.  I have been going weekly since week 30.  I will now go in for visits twice a week.  I'm currently measuring small and at my ultrasound last week the babies were estimated to be a little on the small size...16th and 30th percentile.  Since they are on the small side I will now have the twice a week appointments which will include fetal monitoring, a brief ultrasound and then visit with the doctor.  I will also have ultrasounds every 2 weeks instead of 4 to check the growth of the babies.  Every two weeks is the absolute soonest that they can do ultrasound measurements while still accounting for measurement error. The fetal monitoring is to ensure that the babies aren't in distress since they are small.  Each appointment takes about 2 hours so that is at least 4 hours a week I am spending at the doctor's office!

The babies are both head up right now.  I'm really not surprised by this.  Kimball and Rebecah were both in the footling breach position so I figured it was just a matter of time before these babies got in the upright position.  I think they just have more room if they are upright.

I hope was hoping for some ultrasound pictures, but with the babies packed in so tightly I never get pictures anymore since it is hard to get a good angle for printing pictures.

Any prayers that the babies will grow to a healthy weight so they don't have to linger in the NICU are appreciated.

My c-section date was moved up from October 22 to October 16.  October 16th would put me at 38 weeks which is considered full-term for twins.  If I make this scheduled c-section date, all of my kids will have been born on a Thursday.

Rebecah, like the rest of us, is VERY excited for the babies to come.  She kept asking when they would arrive so we decided to make a paper chain so she can rip off a link every day and note the progress.  We have about 35 days to go, or 5 weeks.  Rebecah loves to help get the babies' room ready and she doesn't like me working on it without her.

First Day of School

Yesterday was the first day of school.  We probably have one of the latest start dates in the country!  All week Rebecah was saying that she didn't want to go to preschool because she didn't know anyone and Kimball kept telling me that he didn't like school.  I knew it was just end of summer blues and nerves about the first day.  Bright and early yesterday morning they were both up and ready for school very excited to start the day.The kids were so excited they wanted to go out for the bus 20 minutes early. 

All smiles as they climb on the bus.  Rebecah had NO hesitation
at all about riding the bus with the big kids.

 This year Rebecah is in a state funded pre-Kindergarten program.  She goes 5 days a week for 2 1/2 hours.  She is bused to and from preschool.  I was glad she was accepted into this program because I know she will need this to make her feel special after the babies are born.  It will give her something to do daily when I'm initially so busy with the babies.

Her first day was great.  She managed all of her bus transfers with adult help and she enjoyed her class.  She is making friends already.  I miss her while she is gone, but I got used to having her gone a little last year when she was gone 2 mornings a week.

First day of pre-K

 I think Kimball looks so old in the picture below.  Kimball started 2nd grade.  He did some reading and school practice most days during the summer so hopefully he is still up to speed on everything.  He LOVES to learn languages...currently German is his language of choice.  His first day of school was great.  He came home so excited and said how much he loved school and how 2nd grade is better than 1st grade.  That is what we want.  Today he came home a little disappointed that his class hasn't done any science yet.  He loves science related topics.

The mature 2nd grader.

Both kids excited and ready for new adventures.

I think we will have a great year.

Roommates

This week we moved Rebecah into Kimball's room.  They will share a room until the babies are old enough to sleep in big beds and then the boys will share a room and the girls will share.  

The switch has gone really well.  Kimball was very against Rebecah's things being in his room at first.  He is the type that really needs his own space, but the kids are getting along as well as they always do.  For now I think it is a novelty to be sharing a room and they have built legos side by side using their own Legos.  They also like to talk in bed at night.

We didn't want Rebecah to feel that she had to give up her room and all of her girly things so we made sure to give her a special space.  She and I went out and picked out some girl sheets.  She picked Frozen sheets.  Joseph also hung up her Princess poster, a Disney calendar and her Sunbeam frame from her teacher.  Kimball was dismayed to not get to sleep on the top bunk and he wants to rotate every month, but I'm not so sure about that yet.

Rebecah's sanctuary.

We also started getting the room ready for the babies.  Since Rebecah will be returning to that room in 2 years or so we aren't repainting it for the babies.  It seems a waste of time, money and energy to repaint it. We do have the cribs and changing table set up.  We need some extra man power to move out the futon that Rebecah was sleeping on, but once that is out of the way it will be all ready.  We also have the car seats ready in there as well as the baby clothes and bouncer seats.  I wanted everything ready by week 32 and I think we made it.