A Rough Year- 9-12mo

This was by far the hardest 90 days for me. I think it was mainly because my girls still were not sleeping through the night. 

It all kicked off with April, which was by far the WORST month to date. Marina and Julie got out of school for spring break the second week of April. It started with Julie waking with a fever. 2 days later she was still getting the fever and her tonsils looked something awful. She was not eating much either. That dreaded. Word strep came to mind. Took her to the Doctor and sure enough her test came back positive within seconds. 

Next on the list a few days later...Marina! Took her to the Pediatrician right away and yep she also had strep.

Next up to get sick...the twins one by one. They didn't end up with strep, but it was pretty bad. We ended up with them sleeping in their car seats so they could be even more up right then in the RNP. 

The whole month of April was horrendous and to top it all off it's also my moms birthday April 20th. She died 3yrs ago and I usually have time to grieve, but I was dealing with so much, I didn't get that time. I think that affected my April also.

Come May, my girls were still sleeping in the RNP, but Jesse and I decided that was it! Audriana completely turned her self around in it and almost fell out.

They must have finally been ready for it though because they transitioned well this time.

Although they transitioned well nights were still horrible. The girls would cry and cry and cry until finally letting us rock them to sleep at 12/1am. Then they still were not sleeping through the night. Grrr! I was going nuts. I kept thinking, shouldn't they be sleeping better by now???!!!

Come June I kept seeing one of my fellow twin Mom friends post about these oils she was using. I messaged her and decided to give it a try. Lavender and Peace & Calming by Youngliving worked like a charm! The girls started sleeping through the night!

The girls had the cutest 1st B-day party! Minions for my Twinions!!! It was almost a complete disaster.

I ordered these minion Tutu's off of Etsy and even made sure the girl could make them in time. Come beginning of July nothing. I messaged her again and she promised to get them out Priority mail the Sunday before their Saturday party. Nothing. Come Saturday morning (the day of the party) still nothing. I posted something on my FB profile about how disappointed I was and wouldn't you know one of my FB friends was able to make them for me and deliver then all before 1pm!!!! 

Shout out to: https://m.facebook.com/Kaotictutus

I think that's about all for their first yr. here are some more pics for ya!!!

      Here they are ( Audri, Maya) at birth,            6mo, and 1yr!!!!

                      Sisterly love ❤️

A Rough Year- 6-9mo

January was a TOUGH month! It all started one afternoon with Julie getting a temperature of 103. I gave her Mottin and she came downstairs 4hrs later shivering. Her temp was back at 102. I called Jesse to bring Tylenol. Then all of a sudden I started with chills. Took my temp and I had a 102 fever. Took some Tylenol. This was a Saturday and we were invited to go to a party that evening. Jesse went ahead and took Marina and the twins to the party while Julie and I rested at home. Come Wednesday, I was still having fevers so I went to the Doctor (after already going on Sunday to Urgent Care). Ended up getting some antibiotics for myself. Low and behold next Jesse gets sick, Audriana, then Maya! It was a HORRIBLE month! I have no idea how, but Marina never got sick.

The babies kept getting sick every month along with Julie (kinderfarden sickness is so not fun when you have younger kids). 

Nap times...remember how I told you the whole rocking the babies thing was going to catch up to me? Well now the girls were at the age that they would get tired at the same time and would let me know it. I would be trying to rock one baby and then the other would start crying because they were tired to and wake up the one I almost had to sleep. It was bad!!!! Many times I would end up crying through the process. In comes Gerber Puffs!!!! Judge all you want, but those delectable yummies SAVED my nap life for a while! I ended up taking the one that was least tired and putting her in the play chair or jumper with puffs while I rocked the other. Then I would grab her and rock her. Worked like a charm!!!

Maya and Audriana were still waking 2 times a night. We also needed to transition them from the RNP to cribs, but every time we would get them in the crib they would get sick again and need the incline of the RNP. It was bad!!!! So at the end of their 9mo, guess what...they were still in RNP's! The funny thing is we moved into the big room so that we could move their cribs in there with us and here we were still with the RNP!

The girls both started crawling at 8mo too! It was so funny because Audriana took a couple movements forward and that was it then within the next 5min Maya decides she needed to do it too. Next thing I knew we had 2 crawlers!

Here are some pics of our crazy babies:

  Maya and Audri! I love this picture. 6mo

               Maya Audriana at 7mo!

                Maya Audri at 8mo

              Maya hugging Audri

          My big girls! Maya and Audri

A Rough Year- 3-6mo

October came and the girls hit 3mo. We all know what comes with October...the season of sickness. To top it all off Juliana was in her first year of Kindergarden. Kindergarden I swear means sick kid. For the next few months Juliana would bring something home and the babies would get sick. It made for a very stressful time.

I swear I felt like every week was a new sick kid. It would start with Juliana, then either Maya or Audriana, then the next one would follow suit the next 3-4 days. I would have one sick free week eack month and feel like I was finally getting back to normal then BOOM, one of the 3 would get sick. Marina, Jesse, and I all seemed to be lucky and stay healthy.

On top of that, the girls were still not sleeping well. Every time they would get sick it was really hard for them to sleep at night. They already slept in Rock and Plays in our room, but we would have to use the car seats so they could be even more upright. There were many nights where Jesse and I would be up until 3/4 in the morning.

Oh and speaking of starting Kindergarden, Juliana ended up getting lice. EEK! I was a mess. Didn't really bug her since she didn't quite understand, but I was sooooo grossed out! My mother in law, being the awesome woman she is ended up picking them out for us over the course of a week. The first day I used over the counter shampoo and repeated 10 days later. Here is the thing though...because I was a bunkering mess I was so afraid the babies were going to get lice. Julie was constantly trying to love her sisters. I decided to just buzz the babies hair. You'll notice in their 4mo pics they no longer have their long beautiful locks!

Skills the girls accomplished during these months: rolling from tummy to back, sitting up, and holding their bottles.

They also experienced their first Halloween and Christmas. My mother in law was nice enough to watch the kids for us on Halloween so that we could take the older two out trick or treating. For Christmas we didn't get anything for the babies. They were too little to really understand. This year will be a fun one!

Here are some pics to end the post with:

             Here they are with their hair

                    And no more hair!

        (Audri in all blue, Maya in flowers)

                   First real smiles!

                    Maya and Audri

                      Audri is sitting!!!!

A Rough Year- the first 3mo

The girls arrived on July 9th 2013 @ 38wks exactly!

Maya weighed in at 6.9lbs and Audriana at 5.14lbs. Audriana came first at 8:30am and Maya followed at 8:31am. I went in for a planned c-section.

I had c-sections with my other two so I knew that I was getting the same with these two. I went in that morning and everything went great. I was wheeled into the surgical room. The anesthesia wasn't that bad. It stung, but wasn't horrible. Jesse came in once I was on the table and the Dr got to work. Audriana was baby A and she came out first at 8:30then Maya at 8:31.

I also had a tubal and that is where it got a little complicated. I had a good amount of scar tissue from my previous c-sections so it hurt pretty bad. I could feel it and was getting pretty nauseous. At this point the anesthesiologist was asking my doctor if she wanted to just stopthe procedure   and schedule it later. My doctor said she was already in there so if I was fine with it she would rather just finish. I agreed. There was no way I wanted to do this again. He have me something through my IV and I was out. I remember nothing after that until it was over and the nurse woke me up. Jesse had left to go to the nursery with the girls by the way right before I was given the IV med.

Both girls stayed with us the whole time and did not need any NICU time. We all even went home together after 3days. 

My c-section was the most painful one to date, but honestly I think it was more due to the tubal then anything else.

I haven't been on for a little over a year because to be honest this has beena major   transition for me. I had to adapt to not only being a SAHM, but a SAHM to 4 kids and two of which were twins.

Luckily my husband was able to take the first 6wks off of work to be home with me. I am not going to lie, about 2wks before he went back I broke down in tears! How was I going to do this on my own? How was I going to juggle 2 babies on my own? Marina (12) and Julie (5) went to school during the day. How was I going to take Julie to school? 

I had no choice in the matter. My husbands mom had always watched my older two, but there was no way I could leave her with twin infants. Day care was out because that would just take one of our pay checks anyways.

The day came and went. I ended up working out a deal with my sister. She would pick up Julie in the am and walk her to her classroom since she dropped my nephew off at the high school right by my house.

Honestly those first three months of taking care of the kids alone during the day wasn't horrible. They slept more than anything else. It was those sleepless nights that killed. Again luckily I have a great husband who still helped with night duties even though he had to work in the morning. 

The babies would wake about every 3hrs at night. I would take one and Jesse the other. We would feed, change, then rock them back to sleep. The whole process would take about 30min so it was pretty much 2.5hrs of sleep between waking and It was KILLER. I still had to wake early in the morning to get the older two ready and off to school.

During the day they would catnap a ton, so me getting a nap with them just was not in the cards. Also Jesse and I made the mistake of getting them used to being rocked to sleep so that cut into my time between their naps also (more on that in another post).

Although the first 3mo where a learning curb, they were not HORRIBLE, but I was still learning how to adjust and how to better use my time. We never really ventured out of the house much as the babies were just so small to me and I wasn't ready for that on my own. 

More then anything I was TIRED all the time. I will post about months 3-6 tomorrow, but for now here are some pictures of the girls!

              1mo! Audriana and Maya

                Maya and Audriana

                  Maya and Audriana