Here They Are

Philip & Kylie

Jodi with Philip

Philip

Kylie

Kylie

Brian and Andrew checking out their new siblings

Mom and Dad with the Twins
Our whole family
Put them together and they're like magnets
Jodi's Thumb and Kylie's foot

53 hours after checking into the hospital, one of us has finally broken away to post our baby news and photos. Our twins were delivered healthy after an intense 15-20 minute whirlwind of activity.

After checking in, Jodi received an ultrasound to check the position of Kylie's placenta. The doctors found it had moved away from the cervix by another 2 centimeters. We decided to attempt an induced delivery rather than the scheduled C-Section. Most of Monday was uneventful while we waited for the labor to kick in. Around 4:30pm ET, Jodi's progress was being checked when the doctor found Kylie had a case of umbilical cord prolapse. Basically, her cord had fallen past her into the birth canal first and was being compressed with every contraction, cutting off blood and oxygen. The doctor hit the nurses button and called for an immediate emergency c-section. From there things moved very fast. An emergency call was made over the intercom system, doctors and nurses flooded the room, and Jodi was literally run down the hall to the OR, while the doctor remained on the bed to push the cord up and reduce pressure. I was told to follow and put in a recovery room to wait until someone came to get me. I was given a white jumpsuit to put on and told the OR would be very busy and it was unlikely I would be taken back for the delivery. So, I put my clothes on and prayed. In about 5 to 10 minutes another nurse showed up to tell me the babies had been delivered and all was well. Eventually I was taken to the OR to see the babies before they went to the NICU, while Jodi was being sewn up. Fortunately, both babies are healthy with no expected long term implications from the prolapse.

Kylie was born first at 4:43. She weighed 4lbs 5.8oz and measured 17.4 inches.
Philip was born at 4:45. He weighed 6lbs 0.8oz and measured 19 inches.
Jodi currently remains in the hospital and both mother and babies are expected to be discharged tomorrow (Thursday).

36 Weeks and Counting!

Yea!! We made it to 36 weeks! That's considered full term for twins. There were times when I wondered if we would ever make it this far. I'm so happy we have. It makes it so much better for the twins. They have such a better chance of being totally healthy when they are born now. So now the count down really begins. Our scheduled deliver is on Monday. So, only 4 more days! We only hope that they can wait that long. We don't want any midnight runs to the hospital-- although with traffic, a midnight run would be better than a day one. :) We can hardly wait to see and hold these little ones and officially welcome them into our family.

I am doing well, all things considered. Everyday gets a little harder. I'm not on bed rest but might as well be, since I can't really do anything else. Poor Derek has had to take over all of the household jobs. He is a great husband and does it willingly but his time to work on school work has really been hindered. The end of the quarter in an accelerated masters program is not exactly the best time to be having twins. :) 

Here is a slide show to show you the transformation that me body has gone through. A women's body is an amazing thing! Starting at 16 weeks we tried to take a picture every 4 weeks. So the first two pictures are just ones I found to add a little more to the beginning. I have gone through 3 sizes of maternity clothes. I'm down to like one or two outfits that still barely fit. Good thing I'm home bound I guess and don't need to look good to go anywhere. :) And for those of you that remember the whole toilet paper measurement thing I mentioned once before, I am now 12 1/4 squares. (HA-HA! Becky I beat you by a 1/4 of a square!)  

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly!

First off, "The Good"-- A baby update:

We had our ultrasound on Friday and it brought us much good news. Our "little" Kylie gained more weight than she ever has before, weighing in at an estimated 4# 3 Oz. Philip slowed down a little to let her catch up, and weighed in at an estimated 4# 10 oz. Now there is only an 8.8% difference in their sizes. So now they are no longer worried about Kylie's size or the difference between the two. Yea!

More good news came when they discovered that the placenta, that they had finally decided wasn't going to move at all, actually moved completely off the cervix. It now lies about 1 cm to the side which is just enough to have a normal vaginal delivery.

Thanks to everyone for all your prayers in our behalf-- I know they made the difference!!

And the rest of the good news-- we now have a date to expect these babies. I am scheduled for an induction/c-section on January 26th. I say induction/c-section because they will re-evaluate the placenta and the babies positions at that time and decide which way will work the best. Hopefully all will go well. I just hope that in the end we don't end up like my sister with a vaginal delivery and a c-section. Sorry Becky, but I don't want to be like you in everything. :) Anyway, at that point I will be to 36. 5 weeks, which is considered full term for twins. Now I just hope we last that long! I had contractions most of the day on Sunday. Luckily the babies listened when Brian told them that they needed to stay in there longer and couldn't come yet. He is such a good brother. :)

I am doing well. I continue to be tired all the time and standing and walking are almost impossible at times. So it may be a long two weeks-- but we can make it! 

"The Bad:"

Timothy is not having a good start to the year. Last Monday while the kids were getting ready for bed they were running around being wild (imagine that!!). In the process he fell, probably he was pushed, and hit the corner of our bed frame with his face. He cut a large gash in his neck just to the side of and below his chin. It was bad enough that after one glance we knew he needed to go to the ER (I could see the fat poking out). So off to the ER he and Derek went. (To bad Derek was supposed to be home typing a 6 page paper that was due at 7 the next morning and he only had one page written-- oops!) He ended up with 6 lovely stitches.

Well that was on Monday, on Friday, he fell out of a wagon and landed on his face. He scraped his cheek and the end of his nose really good and also landed on a rock that cut the side of his face near his eye. The cut near his eye was rather deep and didn't want to stop bleeding so off to the ER he and Derek went again. This time he ended up with 2 stitches. Poor kid!! At least they were able to remove the first 6 stitches while he was there too.

Then on Sunday he fell off the bench at church and hit his head on the bench in front of us. At least that only made a scuff on his forehead and it was on the opposite side of the stitches near his eye.

Lastly, "The Ugly" (can you say that about your own child?):

Here are a few pictures of poor T. With all his cuts and scrapes he looks pretty rough. He seems to have skin like his mothers too-- sensitive to the adhesive on tape and bandaids. They had us keep bandaids on the stitches and they caused his skin to get all red and inflammed and even peeled it off in some places. So now he looks even more "rough" than he did in these pictures. Plus he ended up with a black eye. Hmm. . . now he just came to me and his nose is bleeding where he apparently just picked off a scab. Poor kid!! Good thing he's a boy and supposedly, "Chicks dig scars!" Maybe we should get him a football helmet? The problem with that is he knows what it's used for so it might make him be more wild just so he can try it out. :)

The first stitches on his chin:

The stitches near his eye:

His scraped up face:

The cut on his chin after the stitches have been removed:

Catch up--after the holidays!

Happy New Year!!!

Okay, now its time to play catch-up after the holidays.

New Year's Eve:

We celebrated New Year's Eve with a little family party. We made homemade pizza, played games, watched a movie and rang in the new year. It was lots of fun and hey, it gave us an excuse to stay up late. :)

I didn't get any pictures of the pizza making but here are some of one of our games and drinking in the new year.

We had lots of fun playing our new game of Mouse Trap:

It wouldn't be New Year's without the Sparkling Apple Cider (no I didn't let Derek drink the whole bottle himself):

Happy New Year!!:

New Year's Kisses:

Videos of Andrew's New Year's Dance-- he danced his pants right off! And all three boys dancing in the New Year:

Christmas Morning:

This is the first year we've stayed at our own house rather than going home to see family for Christmas. We missed seeing everyone but it was nice to be home too. It's always hard to figure out how to transport Christmas on the airplane. Anyway, we enjoyed a nice quiet Christmas together as a family-- it was so nice to have Derek with us this year. The boys all had a great time opening presents and Santa was good to them-- even Timothy, the trouble maker. Apparently, Santa didn't check his list twice. :)

Enjoy the slide show, but just to warn you-- it's very long! Just remember, it's all for the grandparents. :)

Christmas Eve:

Since we were doing Christmas by ourselves this year we wanted to do something to make it special. Thanks to an awesome coupon I got in the mail, we found just what to do-- we went to the Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament. It was so fun! We all had a blast! We were worried about how to work things due to Andrew's food allergies. So I called them to ask if I could get an ingredients list to see if possibly there was anything he could eat. Usually people act like I'm crazy when I ask for such things, but they were quite nice about it and had no problems reading me the ingredient labels to all of their food. Much to my surprise he could eat all their food but the garlic bread. Wow-- that never happens! So that was the sale point right there. We wanted to go and Andrew could eat their food so off we went.

The dinner is set to be like in medieval times, so we had no utensils to use. The boys were so excited to actually be allowed to eat with their fingers. Andrew thoroughly enjoyed his dinner eating as much of it as he could. Brian on the other hand, although he was initially excited about eating with his hands, quickly remembered that he didn't like to get his fingers dirty and found that the show was too interesting to take his eyes off long enough to eat. So to get him to eat I had to pick his chicken apart for him and hold it while he ate it out of my hands all the while never taking his eyes off the show.

We were somewhat worried as to how Timothy would do-- he is so active, we only hoped he would not be disruptive. He actually did quite well. The show was interesting enough to keep his attention too. Besides they were fighting with swords and other weapons, he was probably busy taking mental notes for the tournaments he is planning to hold in his own backyard. :)

Christmas Lights at the D.C. Temple:

At Christmas time, the Washington D.C. LDS Temple has The Festival of Lights. They decorate the grounds with Christmas lights and have a live Nativity as well as live musical performances every night. It was like going to Temple Square in Salt Lake City only a much smaller area. But the lights were just as nice. They said that there were over 450,000 of them. It really was beautiful.

The temple "popping" out of nowhere on the Beltway (I know it's not that great of a picture but we were driving and it was night):

The temple grounds:

The boys (Timothy wouldn't turn around, I guess he was too busy looking at the lights):

The whole family (Derek had to get one of his military coats out for me to wear as mine doesn't fit anymore. Even his barely fits and he has to zip it up for me. So now I just get in line with the kids when we all put our coats on):

The National Christmas Tree:

Being in the area we had to go see The National Christmas Tree at the White House. It was very pretty. They also had smaller trees set up for each of the states and territories. So we had fun going around and finding the trees for every state we have lived in. The boys especially enjoyed watching all the model trains (there were about a dozen of them) that were set up around the bottom of The National Tree. But most of all, they enjoyed just running around being wild on the grass of the National Mall while I rested so I could make the long trek back to our car. Walking and standing for long periods of time is not so easy these days.

The National Tree with the White House in the background:

Model Trains around the tree:

More model trains:

The National Tree with the Washington Monument behind it:

The Idaho Christmas Tree (Each tree had homemade decorations and each decoration was put into a large plastic see-through ball to keep it safe from the weather. These decorations were made by some children's group in Boise):

The boys in front of the Idaho Tree:

Santa Claus:

The boys were able to finally see Santa Claus at our church Christmas party which was only 4 days before Christmas. We were very surprised at what they asked for and had to come home and do some quick re-planning with Santa. Thank goodness for the internet. :)

32 Weeks:

I know, it's not 32 weeks anymore, but we did take a picture and intended to post it but Christmas kind of got us side tracked.

The babies are doing well and continue to grow. Philip is growing very well and is in the 70th percentile on his estimated weight of 3# 15 oz. as of 17 December. He gained a whole pound since our last ultrasound 3 weeks earlier. Kylie, on the other hand, is growing much slower and is only in the 11th percentile with her estimated weight of only 2# 14 oz. She only gained 10 oz. They begin to worry when a baby hits the 10th percentile. There is a 24% difference in their weights. They begin to worry when it hits 25%. So we are just above all the "worry zones." They are still monitoring them closely though. I go in twice a week to get a non-stress test to make sure the babies are doing okay. They also treated me with a steroid medication to help the babies lungs mature faster so if they need to be born sooner than later they will do better. We have another ultrasound on the 9th of January. If Kylie hasn't grown much, or slips below all the "worry zones" then they will schedule a C-section much sooner than later. So for now we will just wait and see what happens and we pray that Kylie continues to grow as she needs too.

Speaking of C-sections, whenever the babies are born we know it will be by C-section. It has been confirmed that I have Complete Placenta Previa. Kylie's placenta is completely covering my cervix. So in lay-man terms: the only opening for the babies to get out is locked close and there is no key to open it-- except a scalpel. :) At least Derek doesn't have to worry now about how we are going to make it to the hospital on time. It usually takes anywhere from 1 to 1 & 1/2 hours for us to get there depending on the traffic. Our last two children were born quicker than that. Derek was not excited about the thought of delivering twins on the side of a very busy interstate.

Here are some updated ultrasound pictures of the babies. Sorry they are so small. We just got a new computer and I am still trying to learn how to use all the new programs. Arrgghh!!!! So for now this is all I could get, but at least it's something.

Philip-- a side profile, he is facing to the left (too bad you can't see it better, he looks just like his brothers):

Kylie-- a side profile, she is facing to the right (she likes to hide her face and we usually don't get to see it. But this time she did show at least part of it):