Time To Make The Donuts

The Fourth Year Interviews

2010-04-18T15:20:00.007-05:00

We feel so blessed to have been granted four wonderful years with these two! Here are the 4 year interviews I did for their baby books and a few random pictures from our family party yesterday. I'll post more pictures when my sister, who photographed everything for me, uploads her infinitely better shots.

Ellie Interview- 4 Years

What is your name? Ellie

What is your full name? E****** C***** *****

What name does Daddy call you? Zippy

What name does Mama call you? Sweetie and (Ellie Beans and Ellie Muffin)

What is your favorite color? Green

What is your favorite book? Winnie The Pooh (by A.A. Milne, especially “In Which Piglet Meets A Heffalump”)

What is your favorite movie? Milo and Otis

What is your favorite snack? Cheese

What is your favorite drink? Daddy juice (cran-raspberry juice) and milk

What is your favorite food? Carrots

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Riding my bicycle and swinging

What is your favorite to do with Mommy? Read books

What is your favorite to do with Daddy? Play (anything- like Diggity Dog and Hide and Seek)

Tell me about about Jesus? He gave me carrots.

What do you like best about your church class? Playing with Miss Brittany (her teacher)

What is your favorite thing about preschool? Reading stories with Miss Joan
What is Daddy’s favorite thing? Playing with me

What is Mommy’s favorite thing? Reading stories

Are you excited for something? It’s my birthday (sings “My birthday” about 15 times)

What do you like to do with Lauren? Play games with her.

Who is are your favorite friends besides Lauren? Mom, Dad, Ben, Dorothy and Violet, Miss Jennifer (pre-school teacher)
What is your favorite toy? My donkey and our games.

What is your favorite game? Uno Moo

Which are your favorite shoes? My Hello Kitty Rain Boots

What are your favorite clothes to wear? My green flowered play dress

What are your favorite PJs? My fish pajamas

What is your favorite place to go visit? GaGa’s house (Grammy’s House)
When you grow up, what do you want to be? I want to be me. (Okay. What do you want to DO when you grow up? Make pizzas)

When you grow up, what kind of car do you want to drive? An apple cart full of boxes of apples, with lids on top.

How old do you have to be to drive a car? Mommy’s age

How old is an adult or grown up? I don’t know. How old?

Anything else I should know about you? I like to snuggle with you.

Lauren Interview- 4 Years

What is your name? Lauren

What is your full name? L***** E**** *****

What name does Daddy call you? Cutie.

What name does Mama call you? Honey.

What is your favorite color? Blue.

What is your favorite book? The Three Little Wolves and the Big, Bad Pig (by Eugene Trivizas and Helen Oxenbury)

What is your favorite movie? Milo and Otis

What is your favorite snack? Jelly beans (She’s had them one time).

What is your favorite drink? Lemonade and Daddy juice (cran-raspberry juice).

What is your favorite food? Strawberry ice cream.

What is your favorite thing to do outside? Swing.
What is your favorite to do with Mommy? Play Hullabaloo.

What is your favorite to do with Daddy? Play outside-swing.

Tell me about Jesus? He made us. I’m thinking about how Jesus made those (pointing to them) balloons. I’m also thinking about how a lion eats somebody’s chair.

What do you like best about your church class? Building with blocks.

What is your favorite thing about preschool? Playing outside in the wagon, while Ellie pulls me around.
What is Daddy’s favorite thing? Building the Giraffalaff Limbo.

What is Mommy’s favorite thing? Dressing me.

Are you excited for something? Cake!

What do you like to do with Ellie? Play a game and wrestle. But if she doesn’t want to wrestle I won’t wrestle- only if she wants to wrestle. We only wrestle with people who want to wrestle.

Who is are your favorite friends besides Ellie? Ben, Baby Jude, Riley and Noah,
What is your favorite toy? My tiny frogs (the red one and green one).

What is your favorite game? Hullabaloo.
What are your favorite shoes? My pink Crocs (these are WAY too small).

What are your favorite clothes to wear? My pink dress with green turtles.

What are your favorite PJs? My whale pajamas.

What is your favorite place to go visit? GaGa’s house.
When you grow up, what do you want to be? I don’t want to be anything (What do you want to DO when you grow up? Plant some seeds.)

When you grow up, what kind of car do you want to drive? Your car (A 2002 Buick Lesabre it is!)

How old do you have to be to drive a car? 5

How old is an adult or grown up? 18- 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18!

Anything else I should know about you? Not anything.

The GodUncle

2009-06-07T21:03:00.012-05:00

As many of you know, I have a god-brother. For those of you who didn't know- well- SURPRISE! As a reminder to those of you who do not keep a journal filled with the minutiae of "facts about Emily" at home, his name is William and, to protect his privacy, I will only say that his last name is that of a not terribly popular car model. Will has two actual, biological siblings, and I would love to take them on as god-siblings as well. They seem like wonderful, fascinating people, but I don't know them as well probably because I never had my mashed potatoes ruined by their throwing socks into them, nor did I have the opportunity to help them transport a suitcase full of stuffed animals cross country . Although I did sew the tail back on one sibling's stuffed raccoon (or possibly squirrel) once. But that is not relevant to the present discussion.

Anyway, Will and I have god-siblinged from distance for some time now, so I was really excited when he decided to attend college in Arkansas. You know, sad for him (coming to Arkansas), glad for me, like I will be for you when I finally wear you down enough that you move here, too. Unfortunately, he goes to school 3 hours from here, but you take what you can get. He contacted me via Facebo*ok to ask me to stop writing things about his poor, defenseless father's advancing years on his dad's wall and promptly began hassling me about my own elderliness. He stopped by to visit last week on his way to his summer job, as part of my endevor to encourage him to stop by whenever he doesn't mind going three hours out of his way. Given his god-family status, we didn't do any of the MANY FUN THINGS there are to do here, but instead allowed him sleep in, to hang out and to volunteer to help Rob move some damaged limbs that Rob and his dad spent the morning removing from the tree out back. You remember, the limbs damaged from the ice storm in January, because Rob and I are quick to get right on those important homeowner tasks. Please keep in mind that we do not mandate that our houseguests do manual labor- so please come visit us Atlanta friends. We'll let you sit and watch while Rob re-sods. Don't feel at all guilty about that.

E and L love Will intensely, although they are shy about telling him so. They call him "William Rehnquist" after the judge on their Supreme Court Justices flashcards we make them work with every day. Not really. Actually, they call him this because his last name sounds sort of similar to the first part of Rehnquist and because he (William Rehnquist, not Will) , along with the Supreme Court from 6 years ago, is pictured in the back of their Oliva Forms a Band book and they always make us tell them who each justice is. In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you now that we recognize the non-white, non-male members of the court and Antonin Scalia and, while we know the names of the other justices pictured, we can not agree on which wealthy, white male Protestant is which. It's really beginning to cause some marital disharmony. Rob points out that it probably wouldn't hurt our children socially if we began to dial the "nerd quotient" down a little at our house. And my point was... yes! Will! He's remarkably good with small children and we are so pleased that might grow up with a fighting chance of getting to know their god-uncle. Because we all love Will, think he's incredibly funny and hope he comes back soon. Because the house is not going to just re-wire itself.
Here he is with them:

When E woke up from her nap and dicovered Will was gone, she was upset. A few minutes later, we captured this picture of her reading one of our books. We laughed really hard becuase of the expression on her face combined with the name of the book she was holding, How to Really Love Your Child:

After church today Rob took these, which might be more of interest to the grandparents, but also demonstrate that when Will comes back through, he might have an opportunity to cut down our fountain grass with a machete:

One of the Pros to Having Girls

2009-05-28T22:44:00.012-05:00

One of the first people I told that we were having two girls laughed and said "Good luck!" In fairness, this individual is not so much of a "glass half full" sort of person and would probably have said the same thing if I had told her that we were having either of the other two possible combinations of sexes. At the time, my feelings were a little hurt. Again, in fairness, I was 17 weeks pregnant and people not yielding the right of way on the Atlanta interstates were hurting my feelings more deeply than one would expect just by knowing me. One of the beautiful things about infertility (and there aren't a ton, so you might want to write this down) is that, while you might have had a preference about the sex of your baby when you first started trying to get pregnant, by the time you actually do "live human baby" is your basic preference- anything beyond that is really the difference between 71 and 72 on the thermostat- at the end of the day, who really cares?

As I thought about it, I began to discover that the reason that I was sensitive to the statement (which for the record, is funny, not insensitive) is that I was sort of afraid of having two girls. Not because I didn't want girls or wanted boys necessarily. It was that, as a girl, I personally lived through 5th through 9th grade and completely relate to the quote in Anne Lamott's fantastic Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year where she writes "worse than just about anything else is the agonizing issue of how anyone can bring a child into this world knowing full well that he or she is eventually going to have to go through the seventh and eighth grades." Girls can be brutal to other girls and I spent a good chunk of time on the receiving end of that. (Let's go ahead and pretend that I am completely blameless and have NEVER wounded other girls with my words or actions, because that is not the point that I am meandering toward right now). That, and I wasn't entirely looking forward to people being 14, slamming their doors and yelling that they hate me. The guys I knew as teenagers had the good grace to be sullen all of time, rather than yellers and door slammers. So when I was younger and thought about having children, I always just assumed that I would be a better mother to boys. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I believed this- it's not my extraordinary prowess at sports that I thought would make me relateable, nor do I have any special interest in superheros or the outdoors. In truth, my only marketable skill is an interest in talking about feelings and helping people sort through complicated relationships, so it's sort of nuts that I felt like boys were who I was best suited to help grow into competent adults.

As I reflected on all of this, I started to feel less anxious about the idea of two girls. While admittedly middle school was a rough time that left me a little wary of members of my own sex, late high school and college more than made up for that- for Exbibits A through O, see my blogroll on the left. Without women, the world would be a barren wasteland of televised golf and hunting for sport. You can totally quote me on that.

I know that my mom friends who have only boys love them deeply and secretly feel sympathy for those of us who have only girls and would not trade their sons for any of number of daughters. I know, too, that just as I acknowledge the unique difficulties I am likely to face having only girls, those same moms will tell you that it is at least a little sad that there are not nearly as many cute clothes for boys and that while Star Wars sheets are cute in their own way, that sometimes they wish there were more attractive options for pillow cases for their preschool aged son than Darth Vader's helmet or some combination of blue and brown solids. That said, this week it has been fun to be a mom to girls, because this week we got to set up L and E's big girl room and when I took them in for the first time, L said "Mommy, it's just so beautiful." Perhaps a boy would have reacted the same way; it was a wonderful girly moment nonetheless. Please keep in mind that I have not yet put the art or the molding on the walls and I'll probably post more when I do:

View from the door.

View from the foot of E's bed.

L's first night in her "big girl bed."
E's first night in her "big girl bed."
Just before lights out. Because the lights have to be out before you can get up over and over and over again.

Welcome, Oliver!

2009-05-22T22:41:00.006-05:00

Here are a few pictures of Oliver Elliot (his dad would have my emphasize that it's Elliot with one T). He was born around 6:45ish tonight, weighs 8lbs even and is 20and1/2inches long. Erin is doing well and was able to have an unmedicated delivery, just as she was hoping. We all think he is perfect and Erin and Elliot will be updating when we take them their computer tomorrow. I'm sorry there aren't more pictures, but I'm posting from my parents computer, which, as near as I can discern, is powered by hamsters running on exercise wheels which makes adding more an agonizing ordeal as I can actually hear myself growing older while I wait.

It's Not That I'm a Bad Person, It's Just That I Make Terrible Choices About How to Spend My Time

2009-05-21T23:52:00.003-05:00

I think the problem started when I promised to write a post detailing my thoughts and opinions about the whole octuplet situation. What octuplet situation, you are probably asking yourself, as the octuplets themselves are already in graduate school and starting families of their own? As soon as I committed though, I began to write. And write. And write. And write. Those of you who know me (or even those of you who have inadvertently stumbled across my blog because you googled "m*en show*ering together-which creeps me out, by the way- and read even one post) know that I have a hard time shutting it down once I get going. So now I am the proud author of a 10 page manuscript that details what I think went wrong in the whole Nadya Suleman debacle and my feelings about each one, but it seems unkind to make anyone read that, even if blogs are just a way to make other people read about what you think and feel. So-if you desperately need to know what I think about this matter, please call me at home and we can discuss this at greater length. If there specific question you feel I need to answer publically about this, post it in the comments or shoot me an e-mail and I'll get it on here eventually. If you are a college student and wish to purchase a 10 pages paper about the fertility treatment industry in America and the ethical implications thereof written in the first person, let me know. But for now, I have lots of pictures to post and things to say. Look- and I got that out of the way in less than a page!

Overheard in SmallTown

2009-03-10T22:30:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, on our way to pick up Daddy from work, from the backseat of the car:

L: I'm so sorry, El-we.

E: That's okay, Lah-wen. You haven't done anything to me yet.

Modern Art

2009-03-02T22:50:00.007-05:00

I'm not necessarily all that great an interpreter of art. I like art, but unlike a lot of people I know I can't tell you what the artist is attempting to convey or sometimes even the mood of a piece. It's a failing, I know. For example, I can look at a work like this and I say to myself "Look! Flowers! Also green apples and pears! Gosh, I'm hungry, but not really for an apple. Maybe M & Ms..." But the more abstract the art, the more likely I am to have less to say than one so obviously about candy. When I look at this, I am more likely to say "Umm, this person isn't happy. I don't think." Probably a great deal of my ability to interpret that latter piece so well though is because I'm a therapist- it's why people are so eager to come and see me, my intuitive grasp of the feelings of others. So imagine the difficulty I had with this, L's latest work of art and the one that she has been talking about for days:
When she first showed it to me, I was admiring (as I'm sure you are, too). I told her it was lovely and asked," What is going on in this picture, L?" And she looked at me pityingly (really!) and said "Mama, it's a cat taking a bath in the bathtub." I know all of you saw it immediately, as most of you are not art oafs, but I went ahead and labeled it so that her father would know how to best be excited when she showed it to him.
I am working on the promised post about the octuplets, but for some reason, it's turned very long and I still haven't finished talking. Since I'm trying to post more frequently, I may have to post it a little later in the week. Portrait of the artist as a young preschooler:

A Conversation with My Elder-By-Two Minutes Daughter

2009-02-22T21:17:00.005-05:00

E after nap this afternoon:

Here is a recent transcript of a conversation with E:

E (walking into my parent's kitchen where I am cleaning up after dinner, a concerned look on her face: Mama, I need to talk to you.

Me (internally): Now I feel that I've over done the whole "you can always tell mommy whenever you want to talk about anything" bit. I was trying to prepare them to be good communicators with us when they're teenagers. Please let her not already want to talk about boys. I have it on good authority her best friend in Sunday School is a boy named Noah...

(out loud): Okay. Do you want to talk here?

E: (sits down) Sit down on the floor, Mama.

Me: (sitting down facing her) What is on your mind, sweetpea? Have you been thinking about something?

E: Yes. Lawnmowers.

Me: You've been thinking about lawnmowers? (Asked, because, well, you know with two and half year olds it can be hard to tell, plus it's a good therapist technique to indicate that you've heard what someone said by repeating it back to them).

E: Yes.

Me: What have you been thinking about lawnmowers?

E: I don't like them.

Me: You don't like lawnmowers?

E: No. (Gets up).

Me: Did you want to tell me about anything else?

E: No, that's all. (leaves room).

Good talk. I want my children to be in touch with their emotions, but I might be getting more than I was bargaining for that way.

Rob wanted me to mention he feels I'm getting the easy end of the bargain, since for every two pages he writes he has to translate 6 or so pages of documents from the 15th century handwritten in Arabic. He would encourage you to show me no grace for not posting. He and the girls kindly consented to come out of the cave they had spent the better part of the post-afternoon nap time constructing and allowed me to photograph them.

My Dissertation Resolve (Unless I Get Lazy and Change My Mind)

2009-02-16T22:08:00.013-05:00

As most of you know, Rob is entering the home stretch of writing his dissertation. Every evening, I encouragingly ask him, "how much did you write today?" and "make other remarks like "if you'd rather write on your dissertation than check 'the news' on ESPN.com or razorbackcentral.com, that would be fine with me." So in order to be less of a hypocrite (because if there is anything I value it's hassling others from a position of authenticity), I have decided that for every two pages Rob completes, I will post something on my blog. In seriousness, I want to be a better recorder of things that are going on here and I think that I would benefit from imitating Robert's incredible discipline at persisting in writing even when I feel like I'm too busy or that I have little to say. Because in real life having nothing to say doesn't really even slow me down from speaking. So in the next few days, I hope to post something in response to all of the e-mails some of you have sent asking me to discuss the octuplets in California, plus updates on the job situation here, E and L updates, and a discussion of why we love the Chris and Heathers and things we've learned from them. Feel free to suggest other things to you want to read about, because I can see this being a long spring if I really stick to this.
In the meantime, here's a fun L and E story. First, some background. As many of you know, I do all of the getting up in the middle of the night with the girls. This is not because Rob is a sexist. Although, if our friends in Atlanta would like to, they can begin, whenever Rob's name is mentioned, laughing and saying "Rob-he's such a sexist!" Here are some pictures I found this week of Rob being his sexist self- I like the one where he fell asleep reading to L from The Two Towers:

As I've mentioned before, I am a naturally gifted sleeper. I'm not trying to be boastful in saying that- I'm just stating a fact. Rob, however, is unable to fall back asleep once he is awakened. Given that he has graciously chosen to work so that I can stay at home with our children, it just seems fair that if anyone has to take one for the team in terms of sleep, it should be the person who does not have to be up at 6 to teach an 8:00 class. And, as I said, in most cases I can fall right back asleep. Now that the girls are two and a half, I'm only up proably twice a week. Last night, for example, I went in to help L at 4:00 am when she decided that she must have accidently gotten E's pillow by mistake and that she could best reslove the situation by sobbing heartbrokenly. (It was, as it turned out, a false alarm. She actually had her own pillow and, once she'd established that, we could all go back to sleep). Here's a picture of her from Christmas:

Other nights, when someone takes her hard, plastic octopus to bed, it is not uncommon for that person to roll on to that very octopus, possibly to avoid rolling onto the stuffed bear, seal, frog, rabbit and flamingo who, I am assuming, are contractually guaranteed a spot in the bed every evening. Naturally, my assistance is required to recover from the extremely unpleasant awakening that results. I don't feel that my words here have done the octopus justice. Here's a picture:
Just imagine how difficult it was for me to choke back my hysterical laughter the day that I witnessed E sweetly singing the lullaby we sing to them "Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep pwecious ock-o-pus," and them gently kissing each of his tentacles before wrapping him in a blanket and putting him down for a nap. Where was I going with this?
Ah, yes. So, I am the primary nighttime parent. On the weekends, though, Rob kindly allows me to sleep in as late as I would like on Saturday mornings. Which is why, in the story I am about to finally get around to telling, Robert was parenting alone. Saturday is pancake day, so he was in the kitchen making pancakes when E began to emit piercing shrieks. He rushed around the counter to see that L had E pinned against the floor and was shoving a nasal aspirator up E's nose, while E writhed around on the floor in protest. L, knowing she was probably in trouble, looked up and said, "Daddy, Eh-we's nose is stuffy. I am using the naso aspoator to clean it out." And then she smiled brightly and trotted off. Sweet sisters. Here's a picture of E, partly in her dress up clothes:

And here's a shot of the two together on the couch, attempting to avoid going to bed. Can you believe they once shared the bassinet of a single pack and play?

Orthodontically in Arkansas

2008-11-20T22:08:00.003-05:00

Just a quick note to say that I love Arkansas as much as the next person. Okay, that's a lie- I do love it here, but if the next person is, say, for example, my spouse, I lack the passion one associates with one who was born here. Because everything here is named after the primary state university's football team and although this is a wonderful place to live and raise a family and all of that, I just think that's a little odd. There is (I promise) a chain of pizza places called Jim's Ra*zorback Pizza. Since I have issues with food prepared in gas stations I have never personally eaten any of that pizza, but it's a local dining option nonetheless. There are Razorback bookstores (Razo*rBooks), schools of Razorback hair design, radio stations with the call letters HOGZ. You can (and, again, I promise) buy platinum, gold, silver and even diamond studded razorback jewelry at local jewelry stores. What I'm saying is there are times I'll be driving and around and I start to laugh out loud thinking of what Rob suggested one afternoon as we drove past a brightly colored mural of a razorback frolicking on a football field painted on the side of a gas station/laundromat. He looked at it and said "It brings me a lot of joy to know that if a natural disaster like Pompeii ever happens here and Fayetteville is frozen under volcanic ash that archaeologists thousands of years in the future will say things like the 'people of this city worshiped the wild mountain pig.'" In reality? That's totally what they would say.
As I was coming home to SmallTown yesterday after a trip to Fayetteville, I was troubled when I noticed yet another thing that tried to cleverly combine the name razorback with the services they were offering. There is (once again, I am not in any way making this up) a website for an orthodontic practice called Razorbra*ces.com. I have two primary thoughts on this: 1.) the unfortunate orthodontists in this practice must have hired the marketing people who do Oklahoma's advertising and 2.) these marketing people must have never had braces to think that people who did at one time have braces are driving by their billboards without cringing a little. Excessive, that's what all this "razor-worship" is.

*I have just had one more thought- I typed this up without first checking to see that this practice is in no way associated with my cousin Adam, who is smart and funny as well as an orthodontist in Arkansas. If it is, please have Kim e-mail me, and I'll take this post down...
Edited to add- as near as I can tell from the website, my cousin is not in any way associated with this practice, so let's feel free to think there's a problem here.

The Hypochondria

2008-10-31T21:00:00.011-05:00

I have this friend I met in college who is a little like me in his response to and worry about illness. To protect his privacy I will refer to him here as “Seth.” To further protect his privacy, for his birth date and social security number you will have to e-mail me in person. A few years ago, Seth was experiencing a few sort of weird symptoms and quickly sought medical care to rule out anything serious. His medical professionals did a little testing and called him a few days later to inform him that it appeared that he had multiple sclerosis. Naturally, Seth and his wife, who I will call ”Jenni” were naturally upset and immediately sat down to try and process the fact that Seth had just been diagnosed with a chronic, progressive and, most often, ultimately debilitating condition. They had been thinking about having their first child, but suddenly, all of their plans were on hold. A few minutes later the phone rang- it was the doctor’s office saying “Ooops! We inadvertently switched your test results with someone else’s. Good news! You don’t have MS!” Of course, Seth and Jenni were relieved, but it took a few weeks before Seth was back to his old self. It would not surprise me to hear that Seth has some sort of post-traumatic stress reaction to these events, even today. So whenever you see him breathing into a paper bag in public, you should just assume that he is re-experiencing those events and not become alarmed. I tell that story to illustrate the risks of hypochondria, as well as the benefits- you can’t be treated for an illness you don’t have UNLESS you first see someone to misdiagnose that illness in the first place.

As I have mentioned before, my family of origin is all about seeking immediate medical care. And, as I’ve mentioned before, we have a good reason for this and it’s not because my parents are crazy. In reality, I am not a hypochondriac. I’m in reasonably good health and my primary illness are colds and allergy related things. But my family has a fun tradition of calling our various viruses and injuries something more serious. For example, it sounds much less dramatic to say “I have a headache” than “I think that I have an aneurysm rupturing right above my left eye. Be sure to tell them that at the ER after I pass out.” Why say “I have a low grade fever” when “I have horrible chills. I think I have malaria” sounds even better? I forget that not everyone who knows me has known me since the dawn of time and, consequently, might not be familiar with this habit. My friend Gwen, the P.A. was a little startled, I think, when I called her to let her know that I thought my hacking cough was probably black lung. She was quiet for a minute and said in a really interested voice “I didn’t know you had ever worked in a coal mine. Tell me more about that.”

Just about everyone in my immediate family (okay, mostly Erin and I) will call all of the other members no matter where they are, work, church, a wedding, to let them know if we feel ill or have some sort of pain that we wish we did not. It took awhile for Rob and Elliot to begin to participate in this, but I am pleased to report that in the not so distant past Rob was sitting on the couch after dinner and said “The second toe on my left foot is numb. I’d like for us to call and tell Erin about it.” Another fun family tradition is my mom’s symptom book, which she’s had since I was in high school- you can look up your symptoms and it gives you a graphic description of what might (or might not) be your disease. It was through the help of this book that I learned last winter that an enlarged lymph node in my leg was either an infection in my leg or foot OR prostate cancer. You’ll be pleased to know that it was the former and I seem to have recovered fully. Rob especially roll his eyes when any one of us wants to look up something in the symptoms book, not that he tends to be a lot more supportive when I try to google the possible options. We’ll see who’s laughing when he assumes that a simple rash he’s got on his arm is actually a flesh-eating virus. Oh- well, probably at that point no one will be laughing, because I hear that’s really contagious. Anyway, we were visiting my parents recently and when Rob noted the symptom book had been moved out into the open as part of the décor, we had to take a picture. A lot of people use books this way as a way of being intellectually pretentious, but I appreciate that my parents are not trying to pretend that they sit around reading Thomas Aquinas in the original Latin or whatever- they're just being true to who they are, while having the Symptom book within easy reach:

It seems that our daughters have been observing all of this behavior and that became apparent a few weeks ago. They had just finished their bath and I was putting on their lotion in the living room when E dramatically threw the back of her hand onto her forehead and announced “Eh-wee has a feef-er.” I checked her forehead and stomach and she felt normal to me. So I asked, “You have a fever?”

“Yes. Eh-wee has a feef-er and needs med-sin,” she replied. I suddenly saw where this was going.

“What medicine?”

“The o-wange mo-twin.” E and L LOVE the orange motrin. It’s a small step from faking a fever to get Equate brand ibuprofen to claiming that one’s stomach pain is most likely their spleen rupturing. I wonder if this is really all learned behavior or if it’s dome sort of genetic disorder. It’s probably the latter. I’ll let you know what the geneticist says about it.

More and better pictures are coming, but in the meantime,here are some pictures of the girls at the pumpkin patch and trick or treating (as butterflies):

L. at the pumpkin patch:

E picking out a tiny pumpkin:

L thinking through her candy options:

The girls with Grammy:
E with the look she had on her face the whole time she was very seriously trick or treating:

Also: if I haven't personally harassed you into watching this clip yet and you are involved with a man who is sometimes sick, please do so now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz6DktXFvg4

Long Time, No Blog.

2008-10-08T21:32:00.008-05:00

Another way that Tiger Woods and I are not alike is that he probably updates his blog on a more regular basis, because he is not a bad person. But tonight I received what can only be described as a threatening e-mail from a reader, and as I wish to remain her friend, I am posting, even before my carefully crafted, novel-length excuse for why I have not updated is not yet complete. Although I wish to state for the record that I feel that friendships should not be conditional.

Everyone said that having twins would be hard at first (and they certainly weren’t wrong), but that eventually having two children exactly the same age would be easier than having two children close in age. The constant threat of two people having a dramatic public meltdown simultaneously is always there, which once you’ve experienced you totally understand why God designed it so most families have one toddler at a time, but in a lot of ways it seems like I’m dealing with easier things than my friends who have children spaced more than two minutes apart. It’s not like when I’m reading a book one of them gets annoyed because she feels Elmo is for babies or that one of them needs three naps a day while I’m struggling to get the other to take one. Plus, I get to have a lot of moments where I have to hold back my hysterical laughter because of some of the things they come up with that I am forced to come up with a serious parental looking response to. For example, Monday I was making dinner while L and E ran around playing what I call “RUN, RUN!” because of the dramatic shouts of “RUN! RUN!” they make while they run around with the excess energy that they get from the methamphetamines I am assuming that they have somehow managed to acquire. Suddenly, the happy shrieking turned into agonized wailing from the living room. L was crying her “I’m really hurt cry,” while E’s sounded more like her “I’m freaked out by something” cry (kind of an “Enhhh! Enhhh!). Because L was hurt, I made it to the living room amazingly quickly for a non-athlete. L was sitting on the floor by the couch holding her head and weeping; E was sitting on the floor shaking her hands and looking panicky. L’s need was greater at the moment so I pulled her into my lap and asked her what happened. “Eh-wee pull Lah-wen’s hair and Lah-wen feels sad,” she choked out between sobs. So I turned to E and asked, “Why are you crying? Did L do something to you, too?” And she said “No, Momma! Eh-wee has Lah-wen’s hair on her fingers. Want it off.” And looking more closely, she did indeed have a handful on L’s hair tangled around her fingers. She spent a few minutes in time out and then we had the talk about how if it skeeves you out to have hair on your hands, you really just shouldn’t pull hair. Because, frankly, if you have issues with, for example, blood, you won’t receive a lot of compassion when you complain about freaked out you get when you stab someone and they get his or her blood on you. It’s a hard lesson, but one I’m glad their learning now, rather than later.

Speaking of hair, here are some pictures of E and L’s first real haircut. (Please bear in mind that I like longish hair on girls- just the ends need some evening up. I am particularly sensitive about this because I rarely look at pictures of myself when I was small and think “Man, I wish my parents had cut my hair shorter).

E and Colby:

L and Colby:

How Tiger Woods and I Are Not Alike

2008-06-25T23:01:00.006-05:00

There are many ways that Tiger Woods and I are different. In addition to the obvious things like his being male and playing a lot of golf, I mean. After his US Open win last week, everyone kept talking about how he is an amazing sportsman, perhaps the greatest golfer ever, a spectacular athlete that plays through the pain and so on. It’s quite probable that he is all of those things. But I was struck more by how differently Tiger and I would have handled the same situation. Because, please believe me when I say that the minute I began to experience the pain of a torn ACL, I would not have gone on ahead and an played a total of 54 more holes of golf and walked that extra fifteen miles. Go ahead and call me a lazy, non-athletic, namby-pamby pouty pants in the comments if you wish. Please don’t get me started on the things I would not have done upon beginning to feel those first twinges of a tibial stress fracture. Too late: I would have withdrawn from the US Open before you could say “swing a metal stick at a ball.”

Instead, when I tore my ACL, I would have followed my usual “fairly significant physical injury” protocol. I would have thrown up. Next, I would have proceeded to my couch where I would have phoned my two-part orthopedic medical care team- my father-in-law, who fortunately for me, was thinking ahead to having a daughter-in-law with knee problems when he was 18 and decided that he wished to become a physician specializing in bones. And then my sister, Erin, a physical therapist, who will tell me that no matter how much better heat feels on my injury that I must instead ice it. Like Mr. Woods, there would be many decisions I would need to make over the next few days; however, none of mine would involve my continuing in a major. Could my parents or in-laws watch the girls while I received appropriate medical treatment? How could I convince E and L that just because they don’t like Mommy’s knee brace that they should not hit it as hard as possible with a book (this actually happened during the “knee incident of December 2007")? Should I take the narcotic pain medication left over from my c-section? (It was good medication. I probably would). I would need to assess with Rob how much he has left to write on the dissertation and try and make a convincing case for our getting cable television, since, obviously, I would need to lie around so much. But I really wouldn’t consider continuing my theoretically planned, twice weekly five mile walks with my friend Julia or any other of my normal workouts. All of which to say- I was duly impressed by Tiger Woods, let’s call it “endurance,” but, frankly, a little perplexed. I mean, if he had never won a major tournament and it was his big chance, if he needed the money to support his family, or if the other golfers had been making fun of him for his game or something- but really- just to drive home that he is the golfer who has dominated the sport since he first started golfing professionally at age 5? I just don’t get it.

I know I will probably get a little ugliness here from people like Phil, who are passionately committed to sports of any kind, whether they personally like those sports or not, you know, the sports-for-ESPNs sake sort of people. (Much as I have here at home, from Rob, who just looks at me incredulously and says something like “and that is why you are a therapist and do not play for the PGA)” One of my more memorable community group dinners in Atlanta was a discussion of how collegiate sports are money makers for universities (Rob and Phil’s position), as well as being fascinating in their own right, especially Razorback and Gamecock sporting events-have I mentioned Rob being a Hog’s fan here before? My position (and the fact that Rhianna and Christy are scratching there heads attempting to remember this at all is emblematic of how they totally didn’t come to my aid in this discussion) is that it doesn’t seem fair to give scholarships to athletes at an academic institution when there might be people who would benefit from a scholarship to study. And it seems suspect that as much money is spent on sports complexes, arenas, and all of that as appears to be spent on all of the actual academic workings of the Division I schools. Please understand that 1.) I was only arguing this not because I believed it, but because I had just had an agonizing night the night before with Rob sighing a lot while I was trying to sleep because someone who had committed to play for Arkansas had changed his (presumably) mind about playing football and was probably going someplace like Alabama, which is what would frustrate Rob the most, I think (in fairness to Rob, he only laid awake at night worrying about this BEFORE we had children. Now he is too tired.) and 2.) I have seem the ads before every major college football game that I have seen over the past 10 years that there are something like 600 million NCAA athletes and 590 million of them will be going pro in something else. Sometimes it’s just satisfying to see committed fans of college athletics look stunned at the lack of comprehension of the importance of football/basketball/golf.

And I could discuss golf as a professional sport here also. Again, I completely get that you must, for the most part, be able to walk a fair distance and move your arms in a swinging motion and that not everyone is able to do this, I just feel like it’s not the most “athletic” of all of the sporting events. I’m just saying that, say, for example, soccer players, probably wouldn’t play as well if they were overweight or couldn’t run consistently for 45 minutes. Whereas you don’t look at the guys on the PGA tour (I’m generalizing- in the interest of full disclosure I only know a few of the major players and did not pull up pictures and information about the physical fitness of any of these people). But John Daly and Phil Mickelson aren’t people that you look at and think “Man, I wish I was in as good a shape as that guy.” Although, in my post baby having days, I am in no way suggesting that I am in better shape than they are. So while I’m not saying my official position is that golf is not a sport, I am saying that we should probably sit down and discuss this issue while PGA players and college basketball players run sprints and just see. If all of this enrages you, please look at these calming pictures of my children:

L. having a swing in our backyard one Sunday:

E. having a pre-church camel ride last weekend:

A Quick (I Know! Atypical!) Update

2008-05-15T22:00:00.015-05:00

When we were in my hometown a few weeks ago, Rob and I took the girls out to the Rose Garden in a local park. We have a lot of happy memories there and the girls are enjoying making dramatic sniffing sounds every time they see a flower, whether in real life or in a book, so it seemed like the sort of place where they would have a good time. E was more amenable to the picture taking that day, so I've included a few more of her here; being busy climbing up and down stairs without parental support is difficult work and L could not be bothered to sit still for long periods of time required for photography.
I still have pictures I've been meaning to post from their second birthday party, so let's hope I'm able to get those up before they turn three.

This is a sweet picture of E hugging L. Sometimes they are kind to each other like this. Which makes up for the time they are rolling around the living room floor attempting to bite on another like crazed wolverines. They must have learned that from Rob. But in our family, love DOES mean having to say you're sorry and give hugs when you have injured someone else, whether on purpose or accidentally:

L or (Lah-When as she is sometimes called) is in the blue and E (or Elh-We)is in the melon.

Mother's Day Number Three

2008-05-11T23:30:00.006-05:00

My very first Mother's Day as a mom, the girls were three and half weeks old. At some point during the day, Rob looked at me and said "I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to get you a Mother's Day present from the girls and I." And I said, " I'm tired of your lame excuses lately for not getting me gifts and I demand you go out right now and purchase me something." No, actually, that's a total lie. Because, you know, neither of us had slept for more than three hours at a stretch and I wasn't what you might call the picture of emotional stability just then. I probably considered it a present that he had taken time to go hang around the mall when I needed him at home. What I really said was, "Not having to leave church an hour early to come home to cry is all the gift I needed." (My love language is not so much gifts-although pleased don't misunderstand, I do in fact like receiving gifts- I just don't tend to get my feelings hurt if you don't get me one. So feel free to do so). And you know, I meant it. During the three Mother's Days that we were waiting for the girls, the day was almost unbearable for me (and consequently, I'm sure it was no barrel of laughs for poor Robert). I have been so elated to get to be a part of the holiday and not have to try and avoid it for these past three years. I still find myself tearing up when I'm in the middle of something and not expecting it when one of the girls calls me "Mama" . I am incredibly blessed to be their Mommy and not a day has yet gone by that I have not been grateful.
We spent the weekend in my hometown and had EARLY lunch (in the sense of beating the 11:00 rush) at what E called "Wed Lop-sper," which is my grandmother's favorite restaurant. Afterwards, we headed over to the pond near my grandmother's apartment to feed the ducks. Despite having eaten what for a 27 to 30ish pound person has got to be an extremely large meal, sharing our bread with the ducks without having a bite of it ourselves proved harder than you would imagine. Part of what was enjoyable for me was the way they would yell "thwo toast" (throw toast) as they tossed the bread out onto the water.

Here they are eyeing the ducks and geese (I'm the one in the green skirt):

L getting excited about the ducks and having a quick snack:

E thinking about sharing her bread, but then thinking better of it:

Good News About Oklahoma versus Arkansas

2008-04-04T21:56:00.003-05:00

I was going through editing some of my more egregious typos earlier and noticed a couple of comments I hadn't seen before on my "five weird things" post. Special thanks to Kim, my cousin-in-law for pointing out that Sam Walton is actually an Oklahoman, thereby giving me another point in the OurLastName household's running competition. Try not to worry, Kim, even if you end up here long term, there is a large supportive underground community of fellow Oklahomans/non-Razorbacks to help you remain true to who you are, even under pressure. Special thanks, too, to Sarah, for pointing out the obnoxious "Bridge May Ice in Cold Weather" signs, which is what put me over the top here in points! Currently, we're at Oklahoma 6/Arkansas 5. For those of you in Georgia, who may still be bitter about our moving back here, now would be a great time for you to get on the internet and see how you could score us non-Arkansans some points.

Belated Easter

2008-03-30T22:01:00.008-05:00

Since we had all recovered from our bout with the plague, we celebrated Easter this weekend. Without further ado, here are some pictures for the grandparents of the girls in their Easter clothes.

Some of L (note the shoes I wore this morning and her surprisingly good attempts to walk in them):

Here are a couple fun ones of E:

The Great Nose Apple Incident of 2008

2008-03-25T23:18:00.006-05:00

First, if you’re family and checking in to see what the girls wore on Easter, I’m sorry. Not as sorry as I was when Robert, E. and I were throwing up violently all of Easter weekend, but sorry nonetheless. I feel like our greenish tinge and old pajamas make us look less than celebratory. Maybe next week, I’ll be able to post some cute pictures of the girls in their Easter attire, because we’ll be celebrating with them next weekend. (L just felt bad all weekend, but her body appeared willing to accept at least some food).

Anyway, we had a family incident last night. Rob was sitting with the girls at the table, talking with them while they ate (he and I are both feeling better, but not so much like eating). I was cleaning in the living room when I heard him say “Oh, E, don’t put that apple in your nose.” Naturally, I looked up in time to see E, who had been, apparently, rubbing a piece of apple against her nose, decide that “Yes! What a good idea, Daddy! I will, in fact, stick this fingertip sized chunk of apple up my nose!” I was also watching 30 seconds later when she realized that the sensation of apple in one’s nose is not necessarily as pleasant as she had initially imagined. When she began her hysterical crying, Rob and I both rushed over and attempted to extract the offending fruit, but this caused E to cry harder and snort the apple further up into her nose. L continued to calmly eat while keeping her eyes glued to the scene unfolding before her. You could tell she totally thought it was better than the Baby Einstein videos they get to watch in the car. I got E calmed down and we did what we always do when we have a medical question about one of our daughters- we called Rob’s dad. God bless my father-in-law, who always refrains from rolling his eyes and mentioning that if he had known about the sort of issues his grown children would be calling about when they had children, he might have done another fellowship in pediatric ear, nose and throat, because his orthopedic and hand fellowships were a little vague on the exact steps one takes when a toddler snorts something up her nose. He was, as always, gracious to us when he suggested watchful waiting and seeing how E. felt. Which just then, was, as near as we could tell as she was turning the volume on our stereo system way, way up, completely fine.

About half and hour after we put her down, she began calling “Uh-oh, Mama! Uh-oh!” which is my usual cue that a.) Donkey has fallen out of the crib as he mysteriously does from time to time or b.) the barrette we use to hold her hair out of her eyes while she sleeps has come out. But when I went in, she pointed at the nose and said “Nose apple, Mama,” in a sad little voice. So I brought her back out into the living room and Rob got out the otoscope his dad had left at our house in one of his previous home visits as our personal ENT. E was initially pretty excited, because she loves what the girls’ favorite pediatrician at their new practice calls the “ear looker.” And she was even game when her dad used it to look up her nose. However, when he spotted the apple and got out the tweezers and attempted to remove it, things turned ugly. She was crying, I was crying. Several calm downs and repeated failed attempts at apple extraction later, she eventually snorted the apple far enough back that we could no longer see it and immediately fell into an exhausted slumber, vowing never to tell Mommy if nose apple was troubling her again. Another call to Rob’s dad confirmed that probably the apple would dissolve on its own and unless E seemed in pain or to have an infection, he would not be overly concerned. Not overly concerned, but I would guess thinking about how he might change his phone number or require his sons to begin calling him only during normal business hours unless they actually needed him to examine a possible broken bone.

There was no evidence of the nose apple this morning and E didn’t say anything about it when she got up. I assumed, even, that she didn’t remember. But when she woke up early from her nap this afternoon (unusual, because L usually gets up first), and we were cuddling on the couch, she looked up at me and said sadly, “Mama, Daddy bite nose. Daddy bite nose.” Not thinking, I laughed and asked, “When did Daddy bite your nose, sweetie?” It hit me as I was telling Rob about it later, that your dad putting tweezers in your nostril probably feels a little like a bite (not to be critical of Robert’s surgical technique or anything). So we had a good laugh about how what E is probably telling church nursery workers about what goes on in our house and what they must think of us. Here's a picture of E a few months ago wearing my nursing cover, currently in use by my sister, as a toga and another of E and the much talked about "Donkey." Who may look much like Eeyore to many of you. You will notice one of E's violent preferences in this picture: when her dad is wearing athletic socks, which now that he's professor-ing, he pretty much only does on weekends, E likes to make him put a pair on her also, which I think gives her a cool 80's toddler in leg warmers look.

Tired Ramblings of a Newly Verbal Toddler

2008-02-19T23:25:00.003-05:00

This afternoon, I was driving back from "kneehab," the knee physical therapy I have been undergoing since The Kitchen Incident wherein I slipped on one of the girls water projects and badly dislocated my knee. I haven't described it here, but I should also be considering counseling for the post-traumatic stress disorder that whole incident has caused me. On kneehab days, MiMi and Granddaddy watch the girls at there house and we eat lunch there and make it back to SmallTown around 1:30 and hence go down for afternoon naps about half and hour late. I know L and E are exhausted when we get home, but I wasn't sure how in tune they were with the fact they were so very tired until today. As we were driving down the highway, I saw some cows and, like a good mom pointed them out "Look girls, cows!" And E looked out of the car window, waved and, in the most weary voice you can imagine said "Moo, cows. Night Night." I just wanted to record it for posterity. Here they are before church a couple of Sundays ago, although L is the one who looks tired here and is, as she likes to do, is avoiding the flash by squinting:

More, Part II

2008-02-10T22:28:00.001-05:00

Like I said, we decided to use a few signs, but not make a big deal of it. So about two months ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table folding laundry. We have an open floor plan, so it's really like sitting in the living room itself some of their books. It was right after breakfast, so both girls were still moving a little slowly and were sitting on the floor reading while I worked. After a few minutes, L. brought one of our nursery rhymes books over. This particular book strikes me as odd, in the sense that besides Humpty Dumpty, I don't really consider the contents to be nursery rhymes- they are actually all children's songs, like Row, Row Row Your Boat and I'm a Little Teapot. So for the most part, I sing a lot of the book, just to avoid the unnatural feeling that comes with saying in a nursery rhyme voice, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." I know those of you who have heard me sing are considering how much time you have later this afternoon to contact child protective services, but in my defense, you would totally do the same thing if you had to read this book eighty times a day, which I did, because it was L.'s favorite book that week. So, anyway. I assumed that L. wanted me to pick her up, set her in my lap and read the book to her. But when I tried to pick her up, she squirmed away and put the book in my lap, patting the page she had it open to. I started to sing Itsy Bitsy Spider, because it seemed like that was what she was wanting me to do. She immediately ran two feet away into the living room and started to dance. ( I may not have mentioned this before, but L. is a wonderful dancer). When I finished the song, she ran back over and said and signed "mohwwer." I sang the song again, and again, she ran back over and asked for more. After my third version of the song, she just looked up and signaled more so as not to interrupt her dancing by manually asking me to sing. She was obviously in a groove and needed the music to continue. After my sixteenth time (really!) through the song, she was done and came over and took the book out of my hands and continued on to her next activity. Hands down it was my favorite stay-at-home mommy moment to that date (more on my new favorite moment in another post). Here are some pictures of L. If I muster up the courage, I may attempt to post some video footage of her lovely dancing at some point, but as it stands, I'm always forgetting that I can even use hyperlinks, so don't be disappointed if you're her grandparent and that takes awhile.

L. having a pre-church snack.

L. helping with clean up after said snack.
L. playing with her new tea set from Grammy and Gramps at Christmas.
Rob and I wonder where she learned to down her drinks this way.
L. with her sister, riding on camel. I just think she looks beautiful here.

5 Weird Things About Me

2008-02-01T23:25:00.000-05:00

Because I know you come here for the weirdness. I've been getting some harshness in the comments about my lack of posting. There are a few more parts to my "More" series in the works, but I interrupt that to bring you this important post. I have never before responded to being tagged by a fellow blogger, but, well, there's a first time for everything. It might be helpful to jump over to my friend Heather (of the Chris and Heathers at left) and scroll back a couple of posts to see her responses, because some of my weird things are sort of the opposite of hers. Maybe it's why we're able to be friends. So five weird things about me:

1. Psychologically, I really have to shower every day. I feel sort of creepy and filthy if I go to bed without having showered and shaved. On one level, I love the idea of camping, but as I overheard Rob telling my mom over Christmas when she was talking about we could take the girls camping a lot in the new tent my parents got him " Emily will probably only be a good camper when I figure out how to lug a bathtub into the wild." It's probably true, and that makes me sad for Rob, who loves camping and not showering. I encourage myself by saying that I bring other things to our marriage besides cleanliness and a natural camping disability- but I don't know., maybe I don't. For the record, though, I am willing to camp and I have gone without showering- it's just that I have to walk around skeeved out by my unclean self the whole time. While I was on bedrest and permitted only 30 minutes a day upright, which included bathroom trips and eating, I would hoard my minutes so I could spend 15 minutes of them bathing. And I was on bedrest during the winter- so it's not like I was working up a sweat or anything like that. As I write this, I know I sound like I have OCD and that I would probably benefit from some therapy, but I'm just trying to be honest.
2. I really like my feet. Like all teenage girls, I had some things about myself I was really insecure about, but I was always unnaturally confident about my feet. About once a week or so (actually much less since I had children), I give myself a mini-pedicure, because I enjoy feeling that my feet looking pretty. I can't tell about E yet, but L definitely has my feet, so that's nice for her.
3. I enjoy bacon (almost as much as Christy)! In college, Jennifer (of the Michael and Jennifers) and I would go to Subway for lunch on Monday, Wednesday and Friday before our 12:30 campus ministry meeting and I would always get my favorite, a "B" sandwich (with no "L"or "T) on wheat, toasted. Two years later, at the same Jennifer's wedding rehearsal dinner, one of the Subway employees was waiting tables at the restaurant where the event was being held. It was really quiet at our table when she yelled "Hey! I know you! You're the Bacon Girl!" Even if you like bacon a lot, I don't know of anyone who is female who would care to be known as the bacon girl. Or a lot of men who'd want to be called "Bacon Girl" either, now that I think about it.
4. I'm irrationally competitive with Robert about Arkansas versus Oklahoma (the states, not the schools). But in life, I don't care, because I can acknowledge the failings of my home state. Most recently, for "the Holidays" as we refer to my birthday week in my family, Rob drove me to "the City" as people who live in Oklahoma City call Oklahoma City (see- when I'm being rational, I can make fun of Oklahomans- it's just when Rob does it that it irks me) to see a concert. We had a wonderful time and as we were driving home, the whole debate flared up again. For those of you not blessed to come from the Sooner State, to understand the following incident you need to know that Oklahoma does, in fact, have an inordinate number of toll roads and it makes Rob crazy that you have to pay to drive there. He likes to complain about this, even when he's driving in one of my parents' cars, as we were this particular evening, where he has a PikePass. Anyway, in addition to that Oklahoma, apparently, has hired some sort of marketing firm to promote the state and there are these billboards up everywhere boasting about people from the state, things that have been invented here, etc. And we passed one that said "Oklahoma- The Parking Meter was Invented Here." I saw it coming even before he said it " it just seems natural that you guys would be proud of the fact that you'd found a way to charge people just for having their cars sit still, given that you're still trying to find a way to charge them for driving up their own driveways." So now Arkansas is up by two points in the score keeping, which makes me sad. And a little mad.
Speaking of billboards, this reminds me that there is one that drove me absolutely insane in Atlanta (forgive me if I've blogged about this before). At the intersection near our church, a local hospital had an ad that showed a middle aged man with the quote "Blank Hospital literally gave may a new lease on life. (emphasis mine)" Because they have a heck of a legal department there.
5. I have good head theology that I am constantly having to use to correct my crazy heart theology. There was this guy in a high school English class I took who was a member of the debate team. One day, Mrs. H., our teacher, asked as part of a class discussion, if anyone had any superstitions or things they did to bring them good luck, like lucky socks or whatever. God bless him, he raised his hand and said that before he had a big debate, he would grab a stick of deodorant and make an X across his chest. I remember thinking, "even if I did something like that I would never say it out loud," but in my old age, I've come to respect the power of saying the bizarre things we believe we can do to control the universe to help us give some perspective and help us snap out of it. For a long time, I secretly believed that the reason Rob and I could not have children was my lack of spiritual discipline. From the time I was 13 years old, I had been fairly consistent about taking time to read Scripture daily and pray. When I was 22, I went on staff with a campus ministry where there was an expectation, on the part of my supervisor at least, that I would spend an hour a day in prayer and an hour in Bible study and devotional reading (which was probably fair, given that it was part of my job). He actually used to say, "No quiet time, no breakfast." I'm glad that wasn't my rule; since having the girls, I would spend a lot of time hungry (yet probably fantastically slender)- because, well- before breakfast? I'm lucky to be out of my pajamas before 9. Anyway, it was a big transition for me when I left staff to return to graduate school. I don't know about you, but even when I was just in grad school and married, I didn't have two hours to devote to that every day. And for the first time, when we moved to Atlanta, I would occasionally have a day or two where I didn't get to pray or I didn't get to read (or make time to) and I was plagued with guilt about it. When we weren't getting pregnant, part of me knew that it was because there was something actually physically wrong. But the part of me that's theologically a little off was fairly certain that it was because I was missing time with God and wouldn't be a spiritually fit mother (because as a quick look at Peopl*e magazine tells you, that's the criteria God is using to decide which people become parents) these days). Friends like Heather and Rhianna indicated that perhaps that was faulty reasoning in the sense they both conceived easily and had occasionally missed a quiet time (I may have misunderstood them- I have no concrete evidence that either has ever gone a day without deep prayer and meditation on Scripture). And the thing is, if you had come into my counseling office at this time and told me YOU believed all of this in your heart, I would have empathized with you and pointed you to Scripture to help you correct your thinking; but I just wasn't admitting it out loud yet. It was only when I was about 32 weeks pregnant that I began to give up the notion that my private devotional life had anything to do with God's long term plan. I remember clearly lying there on the couch thinking "if my babies don't survive this pregnancy, it's not because I didn't try." It was one of the most spiritually convicting moments I have ever had-I was trying to work hard enough in my relationship with God so that my children would live and that was a sad commentary on the kind of character I thought God had and my own egocentrism that I could do something that would guarantee life for my kids. Sad for me that I was working that hard rather than enjoying God's grace and probably a source of grief to the Lord that I was acting like if I made a wrong move He would take my children. Please don't send me an e-mail telling me that spiritual disciplines are just that disciplines and I will reap great benefit in my relationship with God if I'm disciplined- I know that. But I've been enjoying the new freedom that if I don't have a quiet time today God won't hear me and respond to me- that even the desire to spend time with Him is a gift and He can enable me to do what I need to do to grow spiritually without living in superstitious fear of what He will do if I don't work at it hard enough. It allows me to do super-spiritual things like I did this morning, where my quiet time consisted of pretending to be asleep on the couch while E and L climbed up on my stomach to read and praying for 7 minutes while they took turns pointing out my eyes, ears and nose to one another (don't judge me Rhianna). I had to stop, though, when they began working together to create a tower of books to use to climb high enough to open the refrigerator themselves, one of their new life goals.
As another example of my faulty thinking about who controls what, I always have to get a Coke from Son*ic on my way to teach this course I'm teaching on Thursday nights at the university where Robert works, because the night I taught my first class where I had a Son*ic Coke went really well and we all know what might happen if I don't have one. Ironically, this is a a class on methods and statistics where a big theme is "just because two things correlate, doesn't mean one causes the other." Oh, well. The bad theology thing is just a work in progress, I guess.
I hereby tag Rhianna, Christy, Brea and my sister Erin (although I'd love to tag Erin PhD, she's got a lot going on!!!).

More, Part I

2008-01-02T22:26:00.000-05:00

I feel like I’m not capable of starting a blog entry just telling the story I’m sitting down to write without given an excessive amount of background information. Anyway, Rob and I decided we weren’t going to spend much time working on baby sign language with the girls. Not that either of us were opposed to it- it just seemed like the research on it suggests that it’s really sort of neutral for your children. And I tend to be the type of person that is- what’s the word- obsessive compulsive about things I’m committed to and I didn’t want to feel like a flash card mom who was spending too much precious hanging out with the chickens time pressuring them to sign or talk. Now I have speech pathologist friends who feel extremely intense feelings on both sides of the issue. Some of them imply that by using sign language with children, you are cursing them by ensuring they won’t learn to talk before age five because they rely too much on it. Others feel that every child should be able to use American Sign Language fluently by age 2, thereby insuring they will be bright enough for automatic admission to an Ivy League university by the time they’re 15. We sort of landed on teaching them a few signs, starting around 6 to 9 months that would help reduce their frustration in trying to communicate with us until they learned to talk. So we started using “more,” “please,” and “eat” in a really half-hearted way around that time. Imagine our surprise when they actually started using them. By the time they were around a year old, they were able to say the words, but they’ve continued using their signs, which has led to some fun moments that I want to be sure that I write here.

This fall, it was raining pretty hard out off and on for most of the day, so L, E and I had spent most of the day indoors. When Rob got home, he thought it was warm enough to take the girls outside to play in the rain. So we did- and they loved it. They were both running around and giggling like crazy and playing “chase Daddy,” a family favorite. Suddenly, they rain stopped and both E and L simultaneously looked up and waved at the sky and said “bye-bye!” Then E. turned to Rob and said “mohwer, mohwer, Daddy!”all the while making the more sign. And Rob, while I’m sure he was flattered that E had such faith in his abilities, had to tell her, “I’m sorry, E, honey, but only God can make the rain.” God, however, heard E’s request and started the rain again a minute later. So now, of course, she still believes that Robert can make the rain. And he is a very talented teacher and writer, but not as much of a meteorological miracle worker, so we’ll have to see how that plays out as she get older.

Here are a couple of shots of E and her Dad playing in my parent's backyard:

Christmas Pictures

2008-01-01T17:44:00.000-05:00

Here's L. doing her new thing that she does (squinting) whenever she sees the red eye reduction light on the camera start to flash.

E. and L. playing in Grammy's living room.

Sweet picture of E. Her hair has gotten so curly!
Baby James, L, and E cuddling with their Grammy.

And here's a final shot of L. Isn't she just enormously tall?
(Pictures courtesy of Em's sister, uploaded by Erin to motivate Em to blog)

Because Sometimes I'm a Jerk

2007-11-30T15:46:00.000-05:00

I wanted to clarify something that I posted in my last entry, brought to my attention by a friend from the old ATL. When I said that having two children very close in age wasn't the same thing as having twins, I in no way meant to make light of the unique challenges of having your children close together in age. Having twins was most hard the first six months (but I LOVED it and wouldn't change a minute of it). All I'm saying about that is it's not so easy lifting two people with no control of their necks out of a crib from the AAP recommended "Back to Back" position at the same time. But I totally know from watching some of you that my life is even a little easier because E and L are in the same position developmentally. So all I'm concerned about is singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat to two people, rather than singing to one and trying to figure out an explanation that makes sense to why the sky is blue at the same time for someone else a year or so older. Everyone said it would be that way- hard in the beginning, but increasingly easier with time until it reached a point where I was taking two hour long uninterrupted naps lounging in the sun while my toddlers entertained themselves. All of that to say- it is a challenge having your children close together (whether two minutes or two years apart) and each has its difficulties and really fun parts. Let me state for the record that I'm sure this is also true for having your children spaced many years apart, but I know nothing about how that all works.
Anyway, if I made you feel like I was suggesting that your parenting load was WAY easier than mine- I'm sorry. For all my big talk about being sensitive to others, sometimes (this will REALLY surprise those of you who know me), I speak and write without thinking. I appreciate having it pointed out and hope that any of you feel free to keep me informed when I'm being a narcissist about my own experience.

Just Making You Aware

2007-11-11T22:33:00.000-05:00

Saturday evening, I returned from a quick overnight trip to Atlanta. A good friend and her husband from our old community group (who had also moved away from the ATL to professor) adopted a baby in April and we were able to get most of the old group together this weekend for a shower. Additionally, Phil, of the Phil and Christys linked at the left, was having a surprise birthday party for Christy, which was successful to the point that I was afraid that Christy would need to be transported to the hospital to have her heart restarted. On Saturday, after most people left the shower, the guest of honor, Christy, Erin, Ph.D, and I were sitting around the living room talking about how funny it was- and not in a terribly humorous way, mind you- that the four of us had all struggled with fertility issues. Which led to a discussion of the fact that even now, when all four of us have children and one of us, Erin, Ph.D, has another on the way (she's waiting for her referral now), we still hear people saying the same things over and over, really, truly believing them to be facts. Most of us have a lot of compassion for the ignorance, knowing that we say stupid, insensitive things inadvertently all the time.
This past week was National Infertility Awareness Week. I wanted to post something about it, but kept wondering what I could say that hadn't been said already and much better elsewhere. But as I've noted in other places, the three of you that are reading this might not actually actively read the infertility literature and might find it helpful. So in the spirit of helping others become aware, I'm going to give you some statistics on what Rachel, the new mom we honored this weekend, considers to be her least favorite of the infertility and adoption myths. Because I know you all totally come here for the educational content and not to see pictures of my daughters. Don't click to another website yet just because I used the word statistics- I think these are interesting. As a few of you commented on my previous infertility post, one of the least helpful and most offensive things that people say to those unable to conceive is "Relax" and it's cousin, "oh, now that you're adopting you'll get pregnant." Now, for the statistics portion of our program. In a normal, healthy population of 100 couples attempting to have a baby and timing things correctly, 75% (AT LEAST) will become pregnant in the first six months of trying. The reason women's magazines and general internet sites and your doctor tell you to wait a year between throwing away the birth control is because they assume you don't know much about when you ovulate and they want to make sure that you've statistically had a fair shot trying at random. But if you're charting or using ovulation predictor kits and all of that (and probably even if you're not), you can expect to be pregnant in six months. After that, about 2 to 3 % of the 100 couples will get pregnant each month until about a year. So 12 months after these 100 couple started trying to get pregnant, about 85% of them will be on their way to having their baby. Now keep in mind, if the woman in the couple is 23, her odds are probably a little better and if she's 39 maybe a little worse. Most of the studies of this don't tend to tease out exactly the effect of age. Over the next year, if the couple doesn't seek medical advice, about 2% of them total will become pregnant. So at this point, 87 of our 100 couple are having their children. If the couple decides, "well, I guess we can't have children. Too bad- I guess God doesn't have it in His plan." and does nothing else, over the course of five years about 2 to 3% of those couples will get pregnant. If a couple tries everything science has to offer up to IVF and it fails to work and they decide to quit treatment- after 5 years 2-3% of those couple will become pregnant. And if a couple decides to adopt a baby and pursues no other fertility treatment, guess how many of them will spontaneously become pregnant? No, really, guess. Yes! THAT'S RIGHT!!! 2 to 3% of those couples who either do not pursue fertility treatment or decide to move on from it will spontaneously get pregnant on their own within five years of their adoption. So given those numbers, we all know a few people who "relaxed and quit trying" or "just adopted" and wound up expecting a biological child. But you know the old saying "The plural of anecdote isn't data." So two things happen when I drag out the old "I have this friend who adopted twins and 10 months later had a baby- it was like she had triplets-"(a side note- I promise you, having two or three babies close in age is not really like having twins or triplets). First, I inadvertently imply that adoption is some sort of fertility treatment. I have a gentle and very kind friend from a group I was a part of in Atlanta in the process of adopting from China, who when confronted with these stories and "you're bound to get pregnant now" statements always says- "That's nice. But no amount of adopting is going to regrow the fallopian tubes my two ectopic pregnancies destroyed." Second, I unmeaningly suggest that I think adoption is an inferior way to grow your family, which, while it might not have been in the original plan, is definitely your first choice right then if you're doing it. So anyway, I hope I've helped dispel that myth. All for you, Rachel.
In other news, last night Rob and I were watching on our laptop a popular television show about a group of people working in an office. Our not having cable or TiVo here in small town Arkansas is a post for another time. I thought I heard a bang coming from the babies' room. I was sure that one of the girls had banged her head on the edge of her crib Rob assured me that I was just being overly paranoid. But a couple of minutes later we both heard the unmistakable sound of more banging. We went to check on the source of the noise and heard angry crying and L.'s voice yelling "Not, not!" as she pounded on the inside of her door, where she had stumbled in the dark after hurling herself from her crib. We're now working on the crib tent situation, but I am only now recovering from the shock. Speaking of shock imagine my surprise at discovering these pictures on our camera, apparently taken by Rob the same day he took the pictures from my last post. I can only assume it was in a fit of optimism after the Hogs last victory, which we will not specifically discuss out of respect for the Gamecock fans among us. Here is L. (I'm not sure what E. is up to there in the background).

Here is E.

Solicitation for Books

2007-11-06T21:52:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I sort of feel like the Tolstoy of bloggers. Except that I’m not a man. Or Russian. Or a brilliant writer. And I don’t really think of myself as depressing either. Okay, so I am unlike Tolstoy in any way- except for being a little too long winded in my writing. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine decided she hadn’t read enough of the classics, so she picked up Anna Karenina and began to plow her way through it. I kept telling her when we would discuss how it was going that, while I didn’t want to ruin the novel for her, it wasn’t going to end well. As you know, if you’ve read it, it really doesn’t. The thing about being an English major in college is that you end up reading a lot of what is considered “great literature.” I’m not trying to suggest that I’m the best and most unbiased judge of literary works written since the evolution of modern English or anything. In fact, most of the things I read were well-crafted, marvelously written works of art. Unfortunately, the majority of these novels were-allow me to draw deep on the vocabulary I gained during those years- real downers. And I’m not trying to say that all great novels should have a happy ending, because that’s not real life or necessarily even decent art, but there has to be at least some really well-written fiction that has some sort of hope of redemption.

I’m going to give you two of my book recommendations and I am hereby soliciting yours. It’s not like in my in my dark days a few years ago where I refuse to read anything remotely sad, but I’m looking for books where the star crossed lovers do not attempt suicide via sled. Because, frankly, when that happens, you’ve lost me as a reader, and I no longer care that you get what you deserve in the end. (If you haven’t read that one and want the recommendation, e-mail me). Okay, first on the list is Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. I feel like it hasn’t gotten the praise it deserves, but it is beautifully written, a story that’s easy to get caught up in even though when you read a synopsis you might not think so, and, at the end, you don’t want to stab your own eyes out.

Second is Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. As loathe as I am to suggest a book that’s been on Oprah’s book list, and everything I said about Peace Like a River is true of it as well. Now it’s your turn. Suggest your favorite work of fiction that everyone in the world hasn’t read (Narnia, Tolkien, Harry Potter) and tell me why I’ll like it. I’ll send the person who recommends the one I end up liking best a special present I haven’t decided on yet.

One of the fun things about having eighteen month old twins is that they are beginning to recognize what the other one likes and dislikes. For example, E. loves squash. L. thinks it’s okay, but feel nowhere near the level of passion for it that E. apparently has. I’ve noticed that when they think I’m not looking, L. will move some of her squash to E.’s high chair tray. In return, E. will usually move something of hers that she like less that L. (for example, pears) to L.’s tray. All of this food trading is messy- not that eating with toddlers is a tidy experience to begin with. So every evening after dinner, Rob sweeps up while I neaten the living room. The girls LOVE to help him with this, mostly, I think because they like to use an adult sized broom. Here are a couple of pictures we got last Sunday of L. and E. cleaning up after dinner (willingly and not in violation of any child labor laws):

Our Second Halloween

2007-11-04T20:46:00.001-05:00

When I first heard that November was NaBloPoMo, when bloggers attempted to post every day of the month, I had a hearty laugh at the idea of trying to participate. Obviously, there are some bloggers who are either not raising twin eighteen month olds or who are able to type using more than just their index and middle fingers. Plus, I tend to be an overly wordy blogger, so I felt exhausted just thinking about it. But I did decide that I would make the effort to blog every three to four days during November. There are a lot of things that I’ve been meaning to post about and it will give me the push I need to sit down and write.

But first, here are the E. and L.’s Halloween pictures. Although we were all sick, we went up to the university where Rob teaches where they host trick or treating each year for faculty kids. Typically, L. hates to have things around her neck or on her head, so I was a little concerned about how well the costume situation was going to go over with her. As you can see, it was a little touchy there at the beginning.

(E. was not one hundred percent comfortable in the beginning either).

Once she saw E. in her costume, though, she got more comfortable. Apparently, she thought E. looked pretty cute and reasoned that she must look good as well. These pictures were taken at the entrance to the building where Rob’s office is. He took the candy that the girls got and said he was saving it to “give to the girls when they are older,” but I have no seen any evidence of that candy, even in his normal secret candy hiding places in his closet.
The tiny giraffes climbing the stairs.
L., finally happy in her giraffe suit.
E., excited to be allowed to climb stairs without parental intervention.

Ahoy, Ya'll

2007-10-31T08:32:00.000-05:00

One of the things that I have always found peculiar that you hear reasonably often when people are discussing Asian cultures, especially, is that “it’s really considered rude in that culture to make another person loose face.” And I always think to myself “and it’s not in every culture?” Perhaps it’s true that losing face is a bigger deal in places other than the US, but still, it sounds to me a lot like getting a reminder that gagging on the food someone has prepared for you and then dramatically spitting it out into your napkin is considered bad form “in some places.” Anyway, one of the first things you learn in marriage therapist school is that families are a little like their own culture and when two people marry negotiating, adopting, tolerating and eliminating different aspects of the spouses’ family of origin culture is one of the major tasks of the first five to seven years of marriage. I’ve found this to be true in my marriage to Rob. I love some aspects of his family culture. For example, if two members of the family are having a disagreement, they see no need to hash it all out during meal times, like Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. My family, all of whom I love, is much more likely to go ahead and get it all out the very moment we feel it, rather than take the very real risk we might forget about whatever it is that we’re upset about. Robert loves some aspects of my family culture, perhaps his favorite of which is the concept of “the birthday week,” which I think I’ve written about before. You get to choose which of the seven days around your birthday count as your week and you get to choose all of the meals, all fun activities and so on. We’re still working out how we’re going to make this work with two people who have the same birthday. Other aspects of my family culture, though, have been more of a challenge for him to adjust to. My family is all about seeking medical attention at the slightest provocation. It’s not that we’re hypochondriacs (although maybe there is an element of that to it) and, if you look closely at our family history, do in fact have valid reasons that we’re a little more “proactive” in the treating illnesses early department. However, in the time I have known him, upwards of ten years now, Rob has only willingly see a doctor once for a bout of the flu he had our first year in Atlanta. And I know the only reason he went was that he secretly thought was going to kill him. That said, more than once we’ve had a conversation that begins with my saying “I think I need to see a doctor…” and that ends with him saying “Well, let’s just wait and see what happens.”

All of that is important background for the story of my ER visit the weekend before last and the not-so-very-good week that followed. I had gone to visit my hometown with the girls, as Erin and my newest nephew James were visiting for the weekend. It turned out not to be the best weekend we’d all had together; James had to get his four month shots and didn’t feel so great about that, L. and E. refused to be photographed by the professional photographer and even showed a lot of resistance to being caught on film by Aunt Erin, who they usually pose for. And, however it happened-and I am not making accusations here, but I think I know- one of two people I know who enjoy vigorously poking others in the eyes poked me in the eye with her razor sharp finger nails. So by Friday night, I felt like I had ten thousand eyelashes tuck in my left eye and was unable to hold it open without being blinded by the torrent of tears it was leaking. When I awoke Saturday, the situation was no better. Wisely, I decided to use my one good eye and drive us on back to SmallTown, AR that afternoon, because as long as I didn’t have to glance to the right I wasn’t completely blind. By the time I arrived home, I knew that the next step was to seek medical care. Naturally, Rob was concerned, but as he pointed out, there were no eye doctor’s offices open at 6:00pm on Saturday night. Further, there aren’t any even any urgent care centers in the town where we live. Thinking this through came as a bit of culture shock to me- although I never made use of them, I liked knowing that Atlanta had an 24 hour emergency dental center (we lived three miles away), and emergency eye center, also open 24 hours a day, and even an all night cat clinic. Okay, really, I always just sort of thought that last one was silly, but when I was complaining about the lack of health care available here, I will admit that it came up, even though we do not now, and will probably never, own a cat. Reluctantly, and I knew in my heart he was judging me even as he said it, Robert agreed that if I was unable to get my friend Karen, whose dad used to be an eye doctor in this area on the phone to tell me what to do with my broken eye, I would drive myself to the emergency room at our local hospital to begin waiting, while he put the girls to bed and found someone to come sit with them while he came to meet me.

So off I went to SmallTown’s Emergency Department. Let me state for the record that I am not a stranger to emergency rooms; arguably, given the bizarre series of events that occurred during my pregnancy, I received up to a fourth of my prenatal care from emergency rooms throughout Tulsa and Atlanta. Fun memories. But this was by far the craziest experience I had yet had. When I arrived there was just one other person waiting and I naively took that as a good sign. So I checked in and sat down in the fifteen person waiting room to wait. It was at this moment that they began a new DVD on the television in the corner- Last of the Mohicans. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, let me just say that what with all the rifle fire and flying hatchets included in the movie, it’s not a film that is going to make anyone in the ER feel more relaxed. In fact, one could make the case that teenage boys imitating this movie are probably a prime reason that many people are forced to visit the ER in the first place. Immediately after I sat down, another woman, probably in her mid-forties came in, moaning loudly. I gathered from the twelve people that she had brought with her- apparently, they had been attending a barbeque of some sort- that they all agreed that she probably had kidney stones. She kept shrieking about the pain and her friends kept demanding that the receptionist move her to the top of the line to see the triage nurse. A few minutes later, an eight year old girl came in who had been badly bitten by a dog, She ended up waiting next to me, as the “party of thirteen, kidney stones” was taking all of the other space. The kidney stone woman began to yell more loudly, and it was becoming more and more difficult to hear the carnage occurring on screen, because what with the eye, I was forced to use my ears because I couldn’t really see all that clearly. Which was the cosmic cue for the teenage boy who had cut his hand playing football to come on in. Go ahead and guess who got triaged first. Let me give you a hint- I have never been more annoyed that the stereotypes about Southerners and their admiration for those who play football is true. The kidney stone woman was even able to knock off the dramatic moaning for a bit to complain about it. Hey- I know that maybe he had cut a tendon and needed immediate surgery or whatever, but still. I felt like the child bleeding from her head wounds deserved a bump to the front of the line and the mommy in me would have accepted that without bitterness, but a non-life threatening football injury? Really?

Anyway, Rob eventually arrived and just in time for me to catch one last hatchet throw on-screen, they called me back. I could hear the annoyed wailings of the kidney stone woman behind me, but at that point, I was just so glad to be out of the waiting room with her giant crowd of social support that I had a difficult time feeling bad that I getting in first. The nurse immediately gave me eye numbing drops. I realize these aren’t available over the counter, but if you ever get a chance to get your hands on them, I can’t say enough positive things about them. They then gave me some “make the wound on your eye glow” drops. Here is an actual artist's rendering of what they found:

Needless to say, Rob felt a little bad about secretly judging me for seeking medical attention too quickly, because in his words, “it was really disgusting.” But bear in mind this is from a man who doesn’t like to wear contacts because he hates touching eyes; it could well be that he just has some sort of eye issue. So, anyway, they taped my eye shut and patched it. The next day, E and L took turns gently poking at my patch, which I tried to discourage, given that it’s how I got myself into the situation in the first place. But you couldn’t blame them for being fascinated with Mommy’s pirate eye. And you know, I’ve always had kind of a pirate-y look in terms of my personal style, so you can imagine how well I pulled off the whole thing. So let this be public service announcement about the dangers of letting small children near your eyes.

Here are some pictures for the grandparents:

E. with crazy hair. L. trying to climb onto the picnic table.

Our Almost Seventeenth Month Report

2007-09-11T20:44:00.001-05:00

For the past five months or so, Robert and I have sort of worked out a system about how we handle night time awakenings on the part of the girls. They've typically been fairly good sleepers, but on any given night, the chances are good that one of them will wake up at least once, usually for a diaper change or needing a parent to retrieve a stuffed donkey who has inexplicably escaped the confines of the crib. It's easy to recognize this particular nighttime emergency by the plaintive cries of "uh-oh" that you can hear in addition to the impassioned weeping. Anyway, the system, as it stands right now is fairly simple. I do the vast majority of getting up with the girls between our bedtime and morning, as I have been blessed with the gift of being able to fall right back asleep when I wake up at night. Robert, however, once he's been asleep for a couple of hours is usually up for several more following each night wakening, except of course for that first four months when every parent is able to fall asleep at anytime, including while running to escape attacking wolves or during peaceful, quiet times, like driving in Atlanta traffic at rush hour, when he was able for the first time the beauty of falling asleep on demand. Although there is the added factor that I'm not the one who has to be up for work the next morning and I have an outside chance of getting a nap if I need one. Apparently, they frown on napping at Robert's new job. Around 5:30, though, when the slightest sound wakes Rob up he goes on duty and gets up with the girls and feeds them their breakfast while I sleep in until he has to jump in the shower a little before 8:00. We live a mile and a half from the university, so when he leaves the house at 8:25, I reach him by phone in his office by 8:30, for which I'm profoundly grateful , as it allows me to sleep longer. I'm really glad, too, that Rob and the girls get to have special time together. One of the things that's been the most challenging about our move has been that, for the first time since L. and E. were born, Rob is away for full work days five days a week. I know it's different and special that he had the opportunity to be such a hands on parent for their early days; for the past two years, from the time he began his exams and entered candidacy, he was able to work from home a few hours a day almost everyday*. So for the babies, it's been an adjustment- his being gone so much. Every morning around 10:30 someone, usually L., will say "DaDa?" Suddenly, they both seem to realize, "Hey, it's been two hours since we saw DaDa. I wonder what he's up to?" So after a few minutes "DaDa-ing," they take matter into their own hands and go to find him. First, they go to our bedroom door and yell "Not, Not DaDa!," which means "knock, knock" and E. and L. strongly feel must be said as you're knocking on door or any other hard surface. When Robert doesn't answer, they run through the kitchen to the laundry room door (the office is on the other side of the laundry room) and knock and call for Robert there. When they get no response, they return to the living room sadly and someone, again, usually L., shrugs her shoulders sadly and says "DaDa bye-bye." When they hear the garage door opening as he arrives home, they like to go to the laundry room door and knock while shouting for DaDa until he opens it and greets them.
(Here is E. first thing in the morning, obviously under the care of the parent who is not as paranoid about babies who climb on boxes to try and pry open the fridge falling and getting a concussion.)

(Here's a picture of L., who saw me trying on my polka dot shoes to see if they went well with my outfit before my first mom's group meeting. They did not, but L. was excited about them and tried to wear them around the house for much of the day. I didn't have the heart to tell her that two bold prints on one outfit can be a little overwhelming.)

Everyone says that as you get between 16 and 18 months there is this incredible vocabulary spurt, so it may be silly that I've been amazed to see it happening in the girls. It seems like in the past month, they've gone from knowing a few words, to really beginning to communicate in small phrases. One afternoon at the beginning of August, E. came up to me making the more sign and saying "Mo!Mo!" So I asked, "More what, E?" "Mo Nana (banana)!!!" In my best sad mommy voice I told her, "Oh no, Sweetie. We're out of bananas." Which led, to "Mo nana (while making the please sign)," followed by her hurling herself dramatically on the ground, sobbing at my hard-heartedness in not being an adequate provider of bananas. I wonder where she gets it. I love, though, how communicative they are. For posterity, I want to list some of their favorite words : Mama and DaDa, La-La (which is what E. calls L.), cahh (cat), dog-dog, nana, mo, dank you (thank you), camel, donkey, behr (bear), baf-baf (bath), diggle (tickle), coe (cow), snack, wader (water), hi, bye-bye, moo, baaa, growwwwl (a lion sound), woof, mooow (meow), ew-ew-ew (chimp noise) and, because we read a lot of Sandra Boynton around here, they both believe that pigs say "la!la!la!"Lastly, L. began calling my mom, their Grammy, "GaGa" two months ago and they both call her that now. So we'll see what she ends up being called in the long term. Here's a picture of GaGa's last visit when she put their hair in what my family calls "buffys," although "dog ears" is also an acceptable term. L. is the one in back:

It changes from day to day, but on the balance right now, E. is doing more talking than L., but L. is the one to whom you can give an enormously complicated command like "If you want to play "stir in the bowls," you can go into the kitchen and get the bowls out of your cabinet and then the spoons out of your drawer." And she pads off to the kitchen and you hear the cabinet door open and close and then the drawer open and close and then she emerges with a bunch of bowls and spoons. It makes you secretly wonder if she's understood English all along and is trying to gather information on her family in their natural habitats for a book she's writing or something. E., on the other hand, will listen to your helpful suggestion and merrily go on her way. Sixteen months has been fun, but while it's so wonderful to see them grow and I would never want to change it, they are so much more little girls than babies most of the time that it makes me a little sad. (But only a little-they're too much fun to be too sad).
(E. playing tupperware. Rhianna- I have a tupperware cabinet now! It's such a mess- I hope you're proud of me!)

(L., looking like a little girl. Look at how long her hair is!!!)
Our last update item: September 6 is the anniversary of the day we found out I was pregnant, so it's sort of a special family holiday for us, where we celebrate the indescribable joy that E. and l. have brought us . Since we couldn't visit our nature preserve in Atlanta, we celebrated last weekend by picnicking at a lake near here:
(L. enjoying lunch.)
(E. enjoying some cheese as an appetizer to her main course of sand.)

*Since this is my blog, one of my pet peeves in counseling (and in real life) is when husbands refer to "babysitting" their own child. It always makes me want to shriek. When it's your own progeny, you are "caring for" your children or being a decent "co-parent." Maybe the desire to shriek and lecture people is part of the reason it's such a good idea that I'm taking a break right now.

A Quick Anniversary Post

2007-08-23T23:00:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to commemorate that two years ago today, in that lab at the Reproductive Biology Associates, L. and E. came into being. Here they are the week we moved into our new house. They're sitting in their part of the living room, looking out of their favorite window.

This week in babies: both girls have been saying "mama" and "dada" since well before they were one- "dog"or "cat" and "donkey"(oddly enough) quickly followed. One of their new words lately is "camel,"which we assume is in honor of the crazy camel footstool that belonged to Rob's grandparents and used to sit in our office, and now is in the living room for them to play with. You can just see the camel's head in the pictures posted above. They both love camel, and several times a day I look up to find them giving it drinks from their sippy cups, patting its head and giving it kisses. I've noticed, too, that they like to grab two stuffed animals and go to their chairs and cuddle them- apparently, they are both under the impression that people just sort of have two babies. We're feeling blessed and thankful beyond our wildest imaginings that these two hilarious people are our daughters.

Moving

2007-08-03T21:32:00.000-05:00

Well, most of you who are regular readers of this blog probably already are aware of this, but Rob, the girls and I moved sometime near the beginning of July. You may recall I had written last fall about why my children are being raised as Hogs fans and I had talked about the things I would be sad to leave here. At the time, though, leaving here seemed like something that was terribly far away, like retirement or the age 35 when I was 16. I remember when we moved to Atlanta- I was unemployed and didn’t know anyone and Rob had a social network quickly because of school and at the time I couldn’t have voiced a strong opinion about anything going in the Middle East (okay that’s a lie- I have many strong opinions about most things and I voice them frequently- it’s just that often my opinions are based on my own ignorance, rather than anything substantive, like facts) and I felt so out of place. It’s a big switch moving from a city of 50,000 to one with 5,000,000. I thought all the time about the day coming when we could move “home” to one of the towns we had come from, when I could be back with all of my friends, where the streets flowed with milk and honey and people say ya’ll a lot more than they do here. Our fifth Sunday here we visited Intown Community Church, where we we’re now members and, gradually, my heart began to change a little. Rob and I had agreed that we would visit each church we tried at least three times before we decided, just to give it a fair chance. Plus, every church we’ve ever been a part of immediately starts a building program the first Sunday we walk in the door and we wanted to give each church a chance to talk about something other than building plans. We had attended a huge church in Northwest Arkansas that was biblical and emphasized the important things and liked it, but it was so large that we never got fully connected (it was funny; we led a community group there for a while and I don’t think that we ever technically took the class that was required to join the church). And, while a great church, the teaching wasn’t terribly challenging if you’d been a Christian for any length of time; it was much more oriented to “seekers.” Anyway, our first Sunday at Intown, Scot Sherman preached about the passage in Jeremiah 29 that we evangelicals are all too quick to apply to ourselves- you know, the “I know the plans I have for you” passage. He started at the beginning of the chapter and put it in context: Israel was in the middle of their Babylonian captivity and God was sending a message to them not to trust the false prophets who were promising this exile would be coming to an end soon, but to instead seek the well-being and good of the city to which He had sent them. He actually instructed them to plant gardens and eat of their produce and to have children in exile and raise them, all the while working toward blessing Babylon, because God had promised to prosper them as He prospered the city, which leads into that misapplied verse I mentioned earlier. And I was absolutely dumbstruck; it could not have been more clear that God had brought- you could go as far as to say dragged, because I really didn’t want to visit this particular church- us there on that Sunday because He had a few things He wished to say to us. Me in particular. As we were driving away, Rob, trying to be casual, asked “so what did you think?” And I was so surprised to hear myself saying, “Let’s forget three weeks; I want to go to this church forever.” So did he. Like I was saying, my attitude was starting to change. I had decided I was going to make the most of our exile here. We joined a couples’ community group at church. Rob had a class that first semester on Wednesday night when it met, so I went alone from September to December- )you guys must have totally thought that I was making Rob up to be able to join a couples group, didn’t you?) In a very literal way, we did everything God commanded the Israelites in Babylon to do. We planted a garden in the backyard and fed the girls cherry tomatoes from it the other day before we left. We had children here. And I began to realize as moving day got closer that I was not in exile anymore. This had become home, where Robert and my daughters and my “new” friends are. And I’m so sad to be leaving.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this move has been orchestrated by the Lord. Rob got a job he applied for, not expecting to get an interview because he’s not done with his dissertation, in a specialty area that is one of the most difficult to find a job (history, not Islam), half an hour from his hometown and 75 minutes from mine and got it. I know that it will be wonderful for E and L to grow up having close relationships with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, “uncles-in-law-for all intents and purposes uncles*” and cousins and the “friend cousins,” who are my Cul-de-Sac friends’ children. I know there are Ted’s Escondido Cafes and Abuelos near where we’re going. I know the Golden Driller, the most beautiful example of sculpture in the Western world is only an hour away. And I know that I will be happy here, in our new house, like I have been everywhere that God has moved me. But it feels for all the world like I’m being sent back into exile and I’m dreading the whole process of starting over. When you move away from where you used to live, you loose you’re niche and it’s always a struggle to find where it is you belong again. It hardly seems possible that we could find a church as incredible as the one we’re leaving or friends as supportive and loving and, frankly, just really cool. I’m trying to remember that time when moving to Atlanta felt like moving to Outer Mongolia and attempting to figure out how it is I was able to start over, in hopes I can do it again. Those of you in Thailand, I’m so sorry to be complaining And am touched by your e-mails and prayers), and I’m praying for your homesickness whenever I’m feeling mine.
On a lighter note, one of the things I’m going to miss is our really cute Atlanta neighborhood. Robert and I like older homes, so the one we were in is a 1950ish ranch in a neighborhood full of 1950ish ranches, all of which with essentially the same floor plan, but most of which have been completely renovated. We were about a mile and a half from the University Robert attends, which has a major medical school; so are neighbors are a blend of medical residents and law students and their young families and those people who bought their homes in the fifties for $15,000. Here are some pictures from our neighborhood:

This is of our neighbor's house and the one below was our house (you can see L. waiting for me behind the glass door).

There is this one house though, that we will especially miss. It’s the first house off of the major street as you turn into the neighborhood and we know the people around this man are so grateful for what he must be doing to their property values:

It all started with the mannequin, which used to be propped against the mailbox. Apparently, he felt that complaining about this constituted an egregious attempt to inhibit to his freedom of expression, hence the impassioned cry with purple polka dots for his First Amendment rights. We won’t find this sort of thing in Arkansas and, well, that will be a real loss I’ll be grieving, too.

Posting

Friends of the Infertile

2007-06-19T22:40:00.001-05:00

Several of you have asked me before about how to be a good friend to an infertile person. Other of the infertility bloggers, most notably Tertia, have written about this much more eloquently than I ever could. But if you’re not infertile, you may not have found those sorts of blogs yet. So I will give it a shot. Let me start by saying that, as difficult as it sometimes is for me to believe, not everyone is like me. So your significant infertile person may be different about the particulars and you might have to ask for their opinions about some of these issues. But here are what I regard to be some basic things to keep in mind:

1.) Think about who you want to comfort, you or the other person. This is, in my opinion, the most important thing. It’s probably actually an important life lesson in general, because I find myself saying it a lot to clients who say things like “I just don’t know what to say to her,” regarding a friend who has lost a loved one, suffered a miscarriage, etc. In general, we’re all a little uncomfortable when we see someone in crippling pain, be it emotional or physical and we just want to reach out and make it better. And a lot of that is just to make ourselves more comfortable more than it is to comfort the hurting person. I’ve found that the thing Christians say to the suffering a lot is “well, it’s God’s will” or “God’s timing is best” or some other version of “Well, if it’s not happened, it’s because God doesn’t want it to.” And, hey, I have high view of God’s sovereignty and all of that, but there are times when you need to correct someone’s faulty theology and there are times when an excellent theological truth is not what is called for. It may make me, the speaker, more comfortable, and make me feel like I’ve imparted a great gem of spirituality or am very wise, but may actually reflect you’re no really listening to your friend as well as you think. As I walked through the darkest season of our primary infertility, I did not find that sort of statement to be particularly helpful. It wasn’t that God gets to make the plan that I was angry about. It was just the one He seemed to had made for me that was horking me off. I’ll bet you $20 that you can’t offer a compelling reason why Kevin Federline has four children and your infertile friend has none. (Call me if you can and I’ll send you your money). Giving a pat answer that strongly suggests to your infertile friend that God must not think they’d be a good parent, but He thinks Michael Jackson is might be more hurtful than helpful. Remember Job’s friends- sometimes being silent with your friend is much more comforting to her than all the good theology you know.

2.) Open up the discussion. During those days, the friends who were most helpful acknowledged what I was going through and asked me how I wanted them to approach it. Did I want them to ask how things were going? Did I want to bring it up? Did I want them to pretend that nothing was going on? Infertility really showed me a lot about the nature of my friendships. I was surprised at the some of the people who stepped up and met me where I was and some of the people I thought would be supportive just never, ever brought the topic up. Some of those friendships are still recovering. The friends I appreciated most allowed me to talk about my grief and sadness and didn’t try and talk me out of it because it made them uncomfortable (see #1). .

3.) Be sensitive. I so appreciated the women in my life who let me know they would be starting to try to conceive themselves and were thoughtful enough to ask how I wanted them to handle announcing their pregnancies if God blessed them with one. With close friends, I wanted to know before “word hit the street” and not in a big group setting if they were planning on making a group announcement. With medium friends, I appreciated a heads up the day before they stood up in Sunday School. I needed time so that when I was called upon to publicly shriek with joy, I could do so without betraying my own sadness for me. The one friend who had an unplanned pregnancy during this time handled it perfectly. She called and told me “We’re so excited, but wish more than anything that you were calling me to tell me the same thing first. It’s fine if you can’t talk to me until the pregnancy is over.” Because she was so sensitive, it was easier not to “forget to call” her a lot during her pregnancy and allow that to cause a rift between us. Those were my preferences. Announcements of pregnancy, though, are one of the things that infertile women feel violently different about- find out what your friend needs; often, people prefer an e-mail or voice mail message so they can process it alone, others don’t want to be treated any differently than they would if they weren’t struggling with infertility and want you to tell them like you ordinarily would have. When I know there is going to be an pregnant person at an event that I know an infertile person might not know about, I try to let them know beforehand so they aren’t blind sided at the annual Canadian Independence Day party or whatever.

4.) Don’t Complain. Not that you literally can’t complain- just choose your audience wisely. If your pregnancy is unplanned, I know it can be startling and can feel like bad news at first. But complaining to an infertile person about it is a little like saying, “We’re just so wealthy. It is such a challenge to decide what to do with this two billion dollars we just inherited from Great Uncle Larry” to your friend whose husband has just lost his job and who is afraid they are going to loose their house. It’s hard for them to work up a lot of compassion for you and it’s a lot more likely to make them bitter, because they think you don’t see it as the blessing it is. And it’s fine if you don’t just yet, but your infertile best friend, no matter how much she loves you, probably can’t hear it just then. Likewise, your swollen ankles and nausea, spontaneous nosebleeds at horrible, inopportune times and inexplicable knee pain are unfortunate side effects of pregnancy. However, your blog readers or your other pregnant friends might be better listeners than your co-worker who desperately wants to be pregnant. It’s strange that this is the thing that many of my close friends totally didn’t get. And that’s unfortunate because this can be one of the things that damages friendships the most. While your friend does, in theory, have an obligation to be there for you, to be a good friend to her during her season of infertility, you might need to let her off the hook about holding your hair back while you have violent morning sickness. Likewise, when you’re the sleep-deprived parent of a newborn or going crazy because your toddler’s favorite new word is “NO,” another parent friend might be the most appropriate choice for the empathy you need. Because your infertile friend may just hear, “It’s just so HARD, keeping track of all of our investments and figuring out whether to buy a house in the Hamptons to summer in or not,” and it might add to her pain, instead of making her feel like you’re including her in your life.

5.) Keep Helpful Suggestions to a Minimum. Sometimes, I really wanted my friends’ advice. Usually, when this was the case, I asked. In one instance that almost made my head explode a friend asked, in all seriousness, about a m onth after my second laparoscopy whether or not we had tried having sex around the time I ovulated. If your friend is telling you she is having fertility issues, odds are good that she’s been charting her cycles, talking to her doctors and wants support, not to hear what she might be doing wrong. Another big one that everyone I have ever known who has dealt with this issue has gotten is the classic “why don’t you guys just adopt?” or the more judgmental version “Well, Joe Bob and I decided that if we ever had any trouble getting pregnant we would just adopt. We’ve always had a heart for kids who need a family.” Now please keep in mind, I felt the need to spend the first six months after we discovered that my endometriosis was causing a problem in the getting pregnant department writing letters to people I’d said some insensitive things to related to fertility in the past. In fact, I still have one left to write. One note in particular I wrote to someone begging forgiveness for having asked that very question. So I’m not writing this from a position of moral superiority. I genuinely believe that the bulk of the time, people say insensitive things out of ignorance, not seething malice- but I was ignorant and if I can save even one infertile person one comment that makes them go home and cry, well, I consider that well worth it. Anyway, the primary problem with that statement is the assumptions that underlie it. There is no “just” adopting. Of the three major types of adoption currently practiced in the U.S. (domestic newborn, international and foster-to-adopt programs), the first two are very expensive. The average cycle of IVF costs around $12,000; the average domestic or international adoption is running people between $10,000(very low end of domestic)-$30,000 (high end of international). But you can quite reasonably expect to pay at least $20,000 to cover all of the medical, legal and travel expenses associated with these types of adoptions. Plus, some countries that permit international adoption have income requirements on the part of prospective parents. Foster-to-adopt is significantly cheaper, but more difficult in terms of odds of becoming deeply attached to a child and he or she being reunited with their parents (which is rightly the typical goal for a child in foster care). All three types require massive amounts of paper work, invasive personal questions, indefinite waiting periods and all three types of adoption are fraught with their own serious ethical considerations that have be thought through in a way that going to a hospital, giving birth and bringing home your new baby definitely don’t require. So a friend who opts to pursue fertility treatment rather than “just” adopting may not have the financial resources right now to adopt, may have some serious questions about adoption law and ethics, or may simply not be ready to give up her desire to have a biological child, to experience pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding. One thing a fan infertile friend always asked when people ask her that question is “Why did you and your husband try and have biological children instead of just adopting?” She’s always so gentle about it, but everyone she asks gets a new perspective on the whole question and, I’m willing to bet, never ask it again. Again, especially in the Christian community, I think we try and shame people into adopting whop aren’t necessarily called to do so. I’ve had countless women make some version of that second comment above, often just within my earshot (and again, I’ve done a version of that “just in earshot” thing myself-not about adoption-but I’ve definitely been a jerk about things in this fashion before. God willing, I won’t be again). The fact is, unless you have dealt with the sadness and grief that comes from experiencing infertility, you don’t actually know how you would feel or what you would choose to do. You can speculate and imagine, but until you are face to face with the possibility that you may never get to see you and your spouse’s genetic material combined and running around your house in only his or her diaper, you don’t really know what how you would react. You might try Clomid. Then maybe injectibles. Possibly even IVF. You would never suggest to a grieving person, “Well, if MY mom died, I certainly wouldn’t carry on for six months or more with the crying and sadness.” Because unless you’ve been there, that’s a bold statement to make. And this is another one of those cases where it’s probably the best policy to keep any feelings you have about what you think you might do in that situation to yourself.

6.) A Few More Things about “Just” Adopting. The correct response when someone tells you they’re adopting is exactly what it would be if someone tells you they are pregnant. This is a big one to the women in my church’s infertility group. If you normally solemnly shake hands and say congratulations, do that. If you normally, as in my case, shriek or do the happy dance, do that. If you normally say something encouraging like “Ha! Get your sleep now, because you’ll need it,” don’t let the fact that someone is adopting stop you from being your discouraging, negative self! Since “When are you due?” doesn’t apply as well, “Where are you in the process?” is usually considered by my adopting friends to be a nice follow-up. Then the usual questions about gender, nursery décor, and cloth versus disposable diapers follow naturally from there. Even if you know it’s been a fertility struggle that has led a couple to adopt, it’s news to celebrate without asking uncomfortable questions about fertility unless the information is volunteered. (Erin and Rachel, is there anything else I need to add? You guys can probably address this much better than I).

7.) A Few More Things Not to Say. It’s in poor taste to offer to let your infertile friend “take mine” in reference to your children. While it’s usually meant in a joking way, it communicates to your infertile friend that you are ungrateful for the blessing of your children and, if they’ve been discussing their infertility with you, it can feel like you are making light of something deep and heartfelt that’s just been shared. Again, see #1-it might be an attempt to make you feel more comfortable with your friend’s pain, but it’s not sensitive to her. The same is true for warning your infertile friend that motherhood is not all that great and she doesn’t know what she’s getting into. No one having their first child knows what they’re getting into, but almost universally, people want to have children. Back to the example of the inheritance, telling someone they have no idea about how burdensome being ludicrously wealthy is-well, maybe it’s true- but most people I know would be willing to give it a try.

Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list. It’s mostly things I and my closer infertile friends have experienced or things that I have said or done terribly wrong, both to the infertile and to those dealing with other kinds of pain that make me want to stab my own eyes whenever I think about them,. I’d love the input of others who have been down this road, too. What did I miss? What else can people do to show compassion and thoughtfulness in dealing with people who are hurting in this way? What else should people never, ever say or do? Any experiences to share?(Leanne? Lesli? Christy? Erin? Rachel? Nathan?)

To The Best Daddy in theWorld

2007-06-17T18:57:00.001-05:00

E and L love their DaDa a lot. They regard him as quite possibly the funniest human being who has ever lived. And I love Rob a lot, too. More people than I can count have said things like "oh, my goodness! How do you do it with twins?" The short answer is really, "Well, being married to Rob OurLastName is probably the only way I can imagine doing it." He has been the person who has made this past year one of the absolutely most fun of my life rather than the most stressful. Rob usually gets up with the babies first thing in the morning and gets them breakfast so I can sleep for a few minutes more and have time to get ready before he leaves for work. And more times than I can count, he has moved heaven and earth to be home at times when I need him to. One of the things I so appreciate about him is that he is so eager to be involved in L and E's lives; he knows their schedule as well as I do and I never worry about leaving them with him. Last year on both Mother's and Father's Day, our first, we didn't do much. Having four and then eight weeks old had something to do with that, I think. I was just so glad not to have to leave church early or cry all the way home that year because I wasn't sure I'd ever get the opportunity to be a mom- so, you know, that was really all I wanted. But this year we celebrated more. The girls "helped" me make breakfast in bed for Rob and we let him open his presents there. We had a gift from the three of us, and L gave him a copy of That's Not My Bear, while E had selected a copy of Horns to Tail and In Between, the Sandra Boynton classic. Here are pictures of the girls giving their Dad his gifts. Our usual no jumping on Mommy and Daddy's bed rule was suspended for the morning.

I think L looks like such a toddler in that second picture! The last shot is from earlier this week when Rob was playing "animal in the zoo" while working in the kitchen. I couldn't quite capture his elephant motions in the picture, but we've all been working on our elephant noises since that morning.

The Breastfeeding Follow-Up

2007-06-10T19:38:00.001-05:00

(Just some non-related pictures from a recent post-bath "naked time" for the grandparents to enjoy.)

When last I left my overly detailed description of our breastfeeding saga, it was about nine and half months postpartum and I was pumping about ¾ of the girls’ milk. In February, I dropped to pumping 5 times a day for 45 minutes each session; then, two weeks later, to 4 times a day. Amazingly, this didn’t affect my milk supply much. It felt so indescribably freeing to be pumping so comparatively little. At the beginning of March, I dropped to three times a day; and again, two weeks later I dropped to two a day. It was fairly uncomfortable, but by the end of March I was dropping two minutes a day from each of my 45 minute pumping sessions so that I was completely done on the girls first birthday. I had a little milk frozen because as they were eating more solids, I was finally having a little leftover to freeze, so they had their last breast milk bottle sometime at the end of April. It felt a little weird stopping; the girls haven’t been seriously ill this year and the colds they got were so minor, that I knew they were benefiting from some of the immune components of milk even if I wasn’t able to supply all that they drank. It didn’t make me feel any better that they became very sick the weekend of their birthday when they were getting far less breast milk. I know in my head the two things probably weren’t related, but it certainly didn’t making quitting any less guilt inducing. Plus, you know, I want them to be happy adults who don’t end up in prison and we all know that if you don’t breast feed your kids will spend at least some time in jail. That is, if they don’t succumb to scurvy first. It says so in all the breastfeeding books. A friend from college, let’s call her “Jenni,” was weaning her younger son around Christmas. At a party we were at together, she mentioned that she had been feeling guilty because, as she looked up information about weaning she ran across a website that said that it was important to be very sensitive to a child you are weaning because he or she is probably feeling that he or she is no longer loved. Rob was standing behind her as she said this and he was nodding his head as she spoke. When she finished talking, he said “Don’t feel bad Jenni- just imagine our babies, who have never known love.” So when I felt guilty, I would just imagine that moment, have a good laugh and remember that being a good mother is 99 percent of the time, not about what my children are eating.

Actually, breastfeeding/pumping is a fantastic way to suppress endometriosis and it had done such good job of doing that I was reluctant to give up that side effect as well. That and the oxcytocin and prolactin hormone cocktail that allow you to lactate are natural relaxants and feel good hormones that I was sad to part with, too. But, on the other hand, I gained back approximately FOUR HOURS a day that I had been devoted to expressing milk and that went a long way to making me feel good, hormones or no. One can do a lot in four hours-like clean the house, cook a meal, take two naps, work out, go to the mall without having to pump in the car. The possibilities really are endless. I hadn’t realized how physically exhausting making milk was. In the past month and half that I’ve been done, my energy level has increased 100% (as it turns out I can’t, but I FEEL like I could run ten miles) and I am finally loosing my baby weight. So while, I’m finally done with the breastfeeding, I feel like I’ve gained a lot more time in my day to focus on the more practical aspects of mom-ing, like keeping the girls from eating smooshed bananas off the floor or from poring olive oil all over the kitchen floor or programming our stereo to go off at 2 in the morning, as E recently did. It caused our Killers CD to come on at top volume and we are only now recovering from the cardiac events it caused to hear “Mr. Brightside” out of nowhere in the middle of the night. When you’re lactating, studies show you don’t reach deeper levels of sleep as often because your brain on some level is listening for your baby in case it wants to eat, so I’m finally sleeping deeply again, which is nice, too. People ask me a lot if God were to bless us with more children whether or not I would do the same thing again. The honest answer is “I’m not really sure,” followed quickly with “if that happens, you must fast and pray that the breastfeeding goes perfectly smoothly next time.” I’m so glad that I did it, but it was so enormously hard physically and because of the sadness I felt about the nursing thing not working out the way I’d hoped. Anyway, that’s the end of that story (I hope) and thanks so much to everyone who was so supportive during the whole thing.

Update on James

2007-06-04T20:21:00.000-05:00

I'm just writing a quick post to update all our family and family friends about Erin, Elliot and James. They were released from the hospital on Friday afternoon, but at their first pediatrician visit on Saturday, James informed the doctor about his parents' inadequate tanning bed facilities at home and their refusal to let him lay out by the apartment pool without sunscreen. Naturally, the pediatrician was upset by this as well and readmitted James to the hospital where he could bask in the tanning bed like atmosphere of the bili-lights until his jaundice had resolved a little. With the mediation of the hospital staff, Erin and Elliot agreed to let James have a tanning apparatus at home, so he in turn agreed to come back home with them on Sunday afternoon. Everyone is still exhausted from the whole ordeal, but promise that when the grown-ups in the family have gotten more than four solid hours of sleep and aren't having to take the baby to the pediatrician daily for bilirubin checks that there will be more information and pictures on their blog.

The Birth Story

2007-05-31T13:23:00.000-05:00

(Not the most flattering picture of me, but this is E and L about an hour and half before they were born).

Okay, you can stop holding your breath. Here it is. (While you wait for Erin and Elliot to post James's story, here's E and L's to tide you over). So after Dr. N told us we were on for the next day, we immediately began to freak out. The week before, she had told me I could get my hair cut and take ½ an hour a day to get ready for the babies, so a lot of the nesting work around the house was done (and my hair looked better). But I hadn’t really left the house for anything other than doctor visits for over eight weeks, so there were a few things I needed to get done. Like eating at our favorite Mexican food restaurant, for example. Each week at the beginning of the week, Rob would promise me that if I was really diligent about my bed rest and very cautious to do nothing, he would take me to Uncle Julio’s Casa Grande after my doctor visit the following week. And every week, after the visit, he would say, “I don’t feel good about your being up and around so much today. Maybe next week.” And I would say that he was being mean and we were going anyway, but he would drive us on home and back to the couch, because I wasn’t supposed to be driving and my balance was thrown a little by the 6 zillion pounds of baby I was carrying and the prolonged bed rest and was consequently unable to wrest control of the car from him. So you can imagine how excited I was for Robert to no longer have any excuse for his cruel oppression. But first, before the chips and salsa, I felt that if I was having major abdominal surgery the next day, I was definitely going to need a pedicure. Fortunately, there was a spot open at the day spa near the doctor’s office an hour after our 9:00 appointment had ended. So we had just enough time to run to the mall for a nursing bra (let’s all have a hearty laugh at this point about how necessary that ended up being). Then to the spa. Now keep in mind that I’d been lying with my feet even with my heart for about 8 weeks and that I had been very disciplined about getting off my feet for about 10 weeks before that, plus, the doctors had scared me into drinking a ridiculous amount of water each day, so I hadn’t swollen at all. In fact, instead of the cankles every one else who was pregnant along with me were getting, I had these comically skinny ankles that didn’t look like they could support my normal weight, let alone the whole “two baby figure” I’d developed. But when I emerged from the warm water soak and foot massage part of the pedicure, I had the most swollen feet and ankles I had ever seen. My toes were kind of numb where the skin had stretched so quickly. It was the first thing Robert noticed when I emerged from the treatment room- normally he says something kind about my feet, but all he could manage was “Wow-your feet…” However, there was no time for chit chat about my grotesque looking lower legs, because we were off to Casa Grande! Which was everything I’d dreamed that it would be, except that I could only eat three bites because E (then known as Baby A to her friends and family) took the precaution of keeping her head under my ribs crushing my stomach so as to avoid being kicked in the head by L (known to her significant other as Baby B).

We went home and had naps- I needed to rest, as this was the most activity I’d been involved in since before Christmas-did the pre-op stuff by phone with the hospital and headed to our last community group meeting with the Tim and Rhiannas (although it might have been held at the Phil and Christys, I’m fuzzy on that point. It was a great way to spend our last baby free evening-with our wonderful friends who had supported and prayed with us until God brought our babies into being. But I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable. I hadn’t taken the Brethine since that morning before our appointment and I was having contractions probably every seven to 10 minutes, plus my fingers were beginning to swell, too. So we borrowed the Mill’s video camera (and we’re so grateful now that we did) and headed home so I could lie around and feel swollen. We had called my Mom as we were leaving the doctor’s office (it was her birthday) and she and Dad immediately got tickets and headed out. Since I hadn’t been able to go on the hospital tour (just Rob and the other expectant couples), I wasn’t really sure about the hospital waiting room arrangements for surgical births, so I my parents them Rob would just call them at their hotel when the girls arrived –I’m not sure what I was thinking- but they said no, they’d come wait in the hospital lobby if necessary, thank you. And again, I’m so glad they were there.

I had contractions all through the night, but I slept pretty well, considering. We got up early, got the house ready to bring babies home, set up the pack and play bassinet at the foot of our bed and got ready to go. As Rob was loading the car, his Mom called and said that she had decided that she would probably need to come out and meet the babies the next day and we were so glad that she’d be able to- it hadn’t looked like as much of a possibility when we had initially called and we wanted both families to be there and be a part of the girls’ first few days. So that was a really happy moment for us. We headed for the hospital around 11:30. Rob dropped me off at the Women’s Pavilion lobby and I did the initial check in work and waited for him while I waited for them to call me back. I was watching all the other women coming in labor and remembering that night in January when Robert was still in Egypt when I was bleeding and sitting in those same seats, praying the girls wouldn’t come at 24 weeks- that they would at least wait until their dad could get home. And at that moment and ambulance pulled up at the door and they unloaded a woman- I heard the EMTs giving the background to the nurses that met the stretcher- she was 24 weeks and her water had broken. We made eye contact and she just looked so terrified and I remembered the much smaller taste of that terror that I’d had and I sat there in the check in area and cried until Rob came in. I prayed for her all through my hospital stay and still find myself praying that her baby made it and is a happy, healthy one year old somewhere today.

As soon as Robert had parked and gotten back in the building, they took us back to the obstetrical surgery prep area. We were third couple having twins that day, so the nurses were excited for us and made us feel really comfortable- both nurses had had c-sections in the past, and that was reassuring. We took a few last belly pictures and the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural. He said as he was working that he had his first baby eight weeks before- I think if I had realized at the time how sleep deprived he must have been, I might have been more nervous about his inserting a needle into my spine, but you know what they say about ignorance being bliss. I was so surprised at how heady the epidural made me feel, but also shocked at how good I felt. I hadn’t realized how much my back and legs had been hurting the last trimester or so and how uncomfortable the constant low-grade contractions had been. I kept saying over and over how great I felt, so while I hadn’t wanted the medicated birth, I definitely loved the medication.

They left us alone for half and hour to make sure I was thoroughly numb and I told the babies how much I’d loved carrying them around the last eight and half months and then we told them how excited we were to meet them in person and what we’d be wearing so they’d recognize us (“I’ll be the one in the hair net cap and blue, tie back hospital gown. With glasses”). It was then, in the prep room that we decided for sure whose name would be whose. Robert said, “I’ve been kind of wondering if we should go ahead and name them. We feel like we already know them pretty well.” And it turned out we both agreed Baby A (always what the doctors call the twin closest to the cervix who’s going to come first) was E and Baby B was L. We had chosen both of the girls full names based on their meaning. E. means “Christ has mercy” and her middle names means “clear and full of light” and L means “crowned with glory” and her middle name means “consecrated to God.” It was one of the most moving moments for me of the whole day. By 3:00, they were wheeling us into the operating suite. It was quite the party with the surgeon, the assistant surgeon, the neonatalogist, the nurse anesthetist, the two respiratory techs (one for each baby), and the team of nurses for me and the two nurses for each baby. Rob points out that, given the number of medical personnel that were involved in their conception, it only seemed right that there be at least an equal number present at their birth. I asked them to tell me when they began cutting and Dr. N. said she already had and that I would feel a little pressure and suddenly (at 3:12) she said “The first baby is here!” and she held her up and she (E) started to cry- and so did I. I don’t think I truly believed until that moment that I was going to have two, live, healthy, take-home babies and I was overwhelmed with the anxiety and fear that had clouded so much of the pregnancy and how quickly it all dissipated with her angry little cry. Robert went over to the incubator where they were rubbing her off and suctioning her out and doing her Apgar, but Dr. N said “Dad, you’d better get back here! We’re getting ready to deliver the next baby!” I remember calling across the room, because I needed him there to tell me about her when she was born. He ran back, and at 3:14, Dr. N. held up L. and said “She’s so much bigger!” And she was-she weighed a full pound more than E at birth. L. was crying, too-she’s had a very distinctive cry since birth- and I felt so relieved and grateful. When we had planned the surgery, I had initially thought that I might want Rob to stay with me while they finished the suturing. But once I saw them, there was just no way I wanted them to have to be away from at least one of us at, so there was no question that Rob would go across the hall to the surgical recovery suite and wait for me with the babies. Before he went, though, the nurses brought them over and let me hold them for a few minutes. They were indescribably beautiful and they were looking at me with their tiny eyes and they got so quiet and I knew they knew I was their Mom. It was probably the helpful physical description I had given them earlier. We called them by their names for the first time and Rob went with them over to the recovery room.

One of the neat things about the surgery- if it can be said that any aspect of a procedure that involves your organs being removed from your body is neat- was that the assistant surgeon recognized me from my pre-in vitro laparoscopy he had assisted on the year before with another surgeon (actually, my OB’s uncle, who is an endometriosis specialist). He said that he had taken such care to minimize my scarring last time that he wanted to take extra time to make sure my section scar was not noticeable- and he really did. He gave me great sutures and I didn’t have any of the numbness and all of that that a lot of people I know have had. (***unsolicited advice warning: if you ever for some reason require a c-section, request that your surgeon do a double closure on your uterus and do NOT let them just through in staples. That’s faster for him or her, but the outcome in terms of incisional pain is much worse in the controlled studies that have been done. So you’ll feel better more quickly with stitches. Just so you know***). While all of this was going on, I got to listen to the fascinating surgical talk as he and my OB debated the name of the movie with Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and that “guy from Lord of the Rings.” It went on for so long that I finally had to speak up and tell them “A Perfect Murder” because I definitely wanted to hear about something else while I was lying there, shaking as a result of the epidural. I remember getting sick from the medication and the nurse anesthetist telling me it was a common shock reaction to the trauma caused by the surgery and the handling of major organs that the process involved. She hit me with a little Z*fran and I felt a lot better. My last major memory of the surgical suite is a nurse using my abdomen as a desk for her clipboard as she made a few last notes before she moved me. Then it was onto the recovery room. I’ve written elsewhere about getting to hold and nurse E. They wouldn’t let me hold L. because I couldn’t do kangaroo care in the recovery room, as they were about ten minutes from moving me to my postpartum room and she was having a hard time maintaining her body temperature. But they let me see her in the incubator before they wheeled her off to the special care nursery for an hour or so. We were moved pretty quickly to our new room and my parents met us there. I introduced them to E and, a few minutes later L was wheeled back in and we got to introduce her.

As I look back on the day, I know that I was too in shock, in such a good way, to have processed it all at the time. I think that’s a big part of the reason that it’s taken me so long to commit the story to paper. It’s not beautifully written and the OCD part of me hates that. I want the girls to know their birth story and I don’t ever want to forget, but it’s really hard to wrap everything we experienced that day into words. One of the nurses offered to videotape the birth for us so Rob could concentrate on helping me and focusing on the babies and she held the camera up so high that, well, if you’re ever planning a c-section, so don’t rely on mere descriptions in books about what exactly they’ll do, but call me and I’ll send you a tape. I couldn’t watch it until November and I still cry every time I do. I see so much of God’s hand in our story-His bringing our babies into being, His protecting them during a complicated pregnancy, even His perfect timing in their delivery. While they scheduled my surgery to avoid complications from the choleostasis, by the time I arrived at the hospital, I was swelling and my blood pressure, which was perfect the whole pregnancy was very high. Even the epidural, which normally causes blood pressure to drop didn’t help and I know that, if we hadn’t been scheduled that day, I wouldn’t have recognized that I was developing some serious symptoms that could have been devastating for me. And I’m so grateful. I’m grateful for an end to that particular season of infertility, I’m grateful for the blessing of two beautiful, healthy children and I’m grateful because in the midst of a world in which everything can and so often does go wrong, Christ had mercy and granted us those days of complete joy and grace. I know that when I’m in another season of suffering I’ll probably forget-I always do- but I pray that Rob and I will be able to look at our children, remember why we named them what we did, remember that beautiful day they were born and know that God is powerful and that Christ is merciful and try to order our lives in the knowledge of those two things.

Welcome, Tiny James!

2007-05-31T12:55:00.000-05:00

I wanted to post a quick note to welcome James Oscar, my sister Erin (of the Erin and Elliots at left) and my brother-in-law's new baby. He weighed 7lbs and 110zs, was 21 inches long and has a head full of black hair. Plus, he is ridiculously cute. Elliot should be posting a few pictures on their blog, but I think you can visit his dad's blog through the link on their site and see some photos now. We're so glad he's here and the girls are excited about passing on their Razorback gear that they've outgrown so he'll have something to wear when football season rolls around.

On Call*

2007-05-26T18:59:00.000-05:00

The job I have now is the first one where I have had to take regular emergency call. I work for a decently sized practice, so I’m only on about once every four or five weeks for a week at a time. Some of the other therapists whose practices are extremely specialized, (i.e. they only see people with eating disorders or dog phobias or something like that) don’t have to take call. Which makes perfect sense- you’d hate to call our emergency on-call number because your wife just left you and you don’t know what to do and end up talking to someone whose instinct is to ask “Are you wanting to binge eat?” So it’s not an unfair system. And before this week, I typically got about one call every other day for my week and usually only a middle of the night call about every six months; all in all ,it hasn’t been so bad. In fact, when I was on bed rest last year, I still took call, my rationale being that, hey, I was doing something besides researching things that could go wrong with the pregnancy on the internet or watching TV. It was during this time that I learned something interesting about adrenaline during pregnancy. I got paged at 4:00am one morning and woke up feeling a little panicked. The girls were asleep, too (I was about 7 months along at this point), but it took only about 45 seconds before they were up and obviously feeling panicky themselves and writhing around in there like they were trying to escape, which I thought was kind of funny. Anyway- back to my point. Basically, I’m trying to say that I don’t get paged that often and , when I do, I find that I’m usually explaining the whole “emergency” concept to whoever is calling. In case there is any doubt, let me review some situations that are not, in fact, emergencies and that I would prefer not to be paged out of bed for: your teenage daughter telling you she hates you; your child waking up one night having a night terror; your wife coming home drunk; your therapist not returning you call within 20 minutes; feeling that our office has billed you in error; and so on. I’m not trying to be insensitive; I understand that each of these events can be distressing; they do not, however constitute what I call an emergency. What I generally consider an emergency is something that most people would recognize as resulting in immediate harm or permanent damage if not dealt with this minute, like a teenagers troubling, recurring thoughts of suicide; an almost irresistible temptation to swing the sledgehammer you’re holding over your ex-spouse’s windshield in violation of your restraining order; that panicky, awful empty feeling that often goes along with depression-please pick up the phone and call the emergency on call therapist if you‘re experiencing these symptoms. Actually, if you know me, feel free to call me at home if you’re experiencing these symptoms, night or day.
But this week was different. I received an emergency call every single day and not one was a real emergency. And while I’m so glad there weren’t seven people in our practice experiencing life or marriage crises, but I am as tired as I have been since the babies were 5 months old and consistently sleeping through the night today. And it’s due in part to the fact that I was paged at 3:00 this morning for a situation that WAS NOT AN EMERGENCY. I feel empathy (but only a little) for the father of the teenage girl who called because she caught him reading her e-mail and she told him she hated him. Truly I do. But I myself was not experiencing great love for him myself when my returning his call at that hour in my formerly silent, 1200 square foot ranch style home awakened my two sleeping daughters, who mistakenly then assumed if Mommy was on the phone, it must be morning and, by golly, they were going to be forced to yell until somebody served them breakfast. While I was explaining to the caller that while, yes, it is very upsetting that your 19 year old daughter claims to hate you for invading her privacy, this is probably a matter best taken up with your therapist who knows your family dynamics in the morning, he must have noticed the background weeping and gnashing of teeth, because he asked in a irritated tone of voice “Is that a baby crying? Are you able to pay attention to my problem over all of that?” I assured him that I was, but had to reign in my desire to ask him if he thought I sat up all night in a quiet room in an office somewhere waiting for non-emergency calls all night or to assure him that I would punish the offending baby appropriately as soon as I was off the phone. As we discussed contacting his therapist, he asked me “Can you promise me she’ll call me right back tomorrow morning?” Again, I wanted to say, “Actually, I can’t, but I’ll call her at home right now and try and extract a promise that she will.” But what I said was “No, but I’ve never known her not to return a call.” So I got off the phone and went to prepare E and L’s 3:30 breakfast and help them back to sleep. But not before whispering a prayer of thanks that this is my last day of call .

*All identifying information and exact dialogue have been changed to ensure client confidentiality and to comply with all HIPAA regulations.

The First Swim

2007-05-21T20:07:00.000-05:00

Long time, no blogging. Today, though, the pictures are too much fun to put off posting them until I can do writing of substance. I hear you all breathing a sigh of relief that this might be a reasonable length-ed post. I'll have to come up with something extra long next time to pay you back for your sarcastic attitudes toward me. Anyway, today my friend Brea and her son Skeezix* called (well, technically, Brea did the calling) and suggested that L, E and I come over and go swimming in Skeezix's new pool. Given that it was ridiculously hot here for May, we were delighted. We were even more excited to arrive and find that the girls' other good friend, Julio Eduardo* had just arrived to swim as well. It was a great time for the girls to try out their new suits. L wasn't a huge fan of the water, preferring as she does that the bodies of water in which she chooses to soak be warm. E, however really liked the whole pool idea and spent a good portion of our time there climbing in and out and attempting to drink the water face first like a puppy. You would have guessed by the way she acted that we never provided her with anything to drink. They both also got a kick out of playing with some of Skeezix's fun toys that we don't have. All and all, it was a good first swimming experience for the girls.

*As per Christy's custom, names changed to protect the innocent.

E playing with Skeezix:

L. attempting to climb out of the pool:

Here are the girls playing with Skeexiz's toys:

And a final shot of the most adorable Julio Eduardo and the handsome Skeezix practicing their splashing together:

Happy Birthday, Girls.

2007-04-18T13:21:00.000-05:00

One year ago today...

The Pre-Birth Story

2007-04-17T00:58:00.000-05:00

Given that I ended up having a planned casarean, in some ways my whole pregnancy story is a little bit more drama filled than the actual birth itself. Except, you know, for the part where the babies are actually born, which is the most dramatic part of any birth story, I guess. But if thought I'd jump right there first, well, you haven't been paying attention to the length of time it takes me to tell any story on this blog. Anyway, for awhile there in the middle of my pregnancy, I felt like I was doing a tour of emergency obstetrical services here in the ATL and in my hometown. Should you for some reason need a ranking for hospital emergency care facilities, feel free to shoot me an e-mail and I’ll give you my opinions (ie Southcrest-the ultrasound tech only gets 3 stars). It was never my intention to have a surgical birth. I’m discovering in my adulthood that I’m much more crunchy granola than I’d thought I’d be, so I had decided to have an unmedicated birth if possible, although I knew I needed to be prepared for a section with twins. So we took a 12 week childbirth class geared toward that goal. I realize you don’t get points for not having an epidural- but there are some solid studies that indicate that your best bet of not requiring a surgical birth for twins means not having an epidural, so there was no question for me which I preferred. (I ended up loving my epidural and this is in no way intended as an indictment of choosing to have one. I’ll write more about this in another post.) Anyway, I was first put on modified bed rest one day after Rob left to do his dissertation research in Egypt. I was almost 18 weeks pregnant (about 10 days after we found out E and L are girls) and noticed that I was having contractions-although it took me a couple of days to recognize that the tightening sensation followed by angry baby kicks were actually Braxton-Hicks, followed by angry baby kicks. So when I wasn’t at work, I was supposed to be lying down or sitting with my feet up. Fortunately, I could not have chosen a more sedentary line of work, unless there was one where I could actually sleep sitting up, so my active therapist-ing around wasn’t putting the babies at risk. At 28 weeks, one week before Rob returned home from Egypt, my cervix, which had been progressively shortening since 22 or so weeks had become dangerously short and my doctor instructed me to go on strict bed rest. We also learned at this visit that E, who had been hanging upside down in utero since you could first see her head at our 7 week ultrasound, had turned into a position I can only describe as "crazy breech". After 28 weeks, twins don’t have much room, so we were pretty sure then that, unless E got fed up with L kicking her in the head, they would need to be delivered surgically. From that point on, I pretty much just left the couch or bed for about 20 minutes a day, about 10 of which was me showering. Because I would have hated to be a person with unattractive hair on who never left the house. But Rob was home, so that was a lot less lonely than it would have been had he still been overseas. When he left to go up to school, he would take my work pager, because what with the bed rest and all, I certainly wasn’t using it. After a few days, we’d worked out the kinks in our system- I won’t mention names here, but apparently some members of our family do not consider a need for Pepperidge Farms Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies to be worthy of a “911” page. At 32 weeks, we had another big scare. Since I was carrying twins and obviously at risk for pre-term labor, they were seeing me every week starting at week 27. On our usual Monday visit, it appeared that I was dilating a little, so they sent me to the hospital to have the big perinatology practice there take a look with their ultrasound equipment. Unfortunately, I hadn’t eaten lunch and forgotten the giant bottle of water I was always trying to drink, so when they sent me to triage at the hospital, I was having fairly regular contractions, which happened whenever I didn’t eat or drink. That and a dilating cervix will earn you an inpatient admission and a course of injectible corticosteroids to mature your babies’ lungs. And until you're admitted, that won't let you eat or drink anything. If you learn anything from my stroy, it's that you should always eat before that trap you in triage or it will be a really long wait until dinner. So by 4 that afternoon, I was sitting up in my room on the high risk obstetrical unit, and every nurse who came in talked to me like I would be staying there for the rest of my pregnancy, which they obviously thought wasn’t going to be much longer. To say that we were a little stressed out would be the world’s biggest understatement. Let me interject here that there are far worse things than having your babies at 32 weeks-anyone carrying multiples is blessed to make it that far-it’s just that having been a regular reader of the infertility blogsphere, I knew a lot of women inside the computer who had dealt with pre-term birth, a child or children in the NICU for weeks and the emotional stress that worrying about your baby that isn’t stable enough for you to hold in your arms that they dealt with-and knew it wasn’t the best thing for E and L to come so early (plus, we only had what we called our emergency auxiliary names at that point and if they wanted good names, they were just going to have to wait). Perinatology couldn’t see me until the next day and my doctor wouldn’t release me until I’d been evaluated, so we settled in for a pleasant night of worrying and having my vitals checked every four hours. The nurses encouraged me to take an Ambie*n to sleep, which I had never done before. And I would here like to offer a formal apology to Robert, who, when dealing with some jet lag issues he was having from all the international travel, took an Ambie*n one evening. Perhaps I was a little harsh when I accused him of faking the extreme sleepiness and inability to concentrate on what I was saying when I was trying to share my feelings that night. Because if I didn’t communicate them right then, there was a very real risk I would have forgotten whatever I was obsessively worrying about and then where would I have been? Anyway, I was wrong- as advertised, Ambie*n does, in fact, make you very sleepy and people who are unable to stay awake after taking it are not necessarily being dismissive of your emotions and to accuse them of being so is unfair.
To shorten what is rapidly becoming a much longer pre-birth story than I intended, I was ultimately seen by perinatology the next day, the girls looked good, I was still contracting, but my doctor agreed to let me go on my own recognizance. But I had to stay on bed rest AND take oral Brethine every 3 to 4 hours. Which was fine, because my goal all long was to make it to 37 weeks, so I was willing to do whatever it took. As I mentioned in a previous post, Brethine made my heart palpitate and my hands twitch, so I at least felt like I was getting a little bit of a work out as I lay there, although I'm not sure I ever reached my optimal aerobic heart rate. After two weeks of this, I began to notice the uncontrollable itching I was having on the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet was getting worse. Initially, I thought this might be another side effect of the medication. When Rob wasn’t around to help me scratch, I would just lie there and think about how satisfying it would be to have a rake or a fork (or any sharply pronged instrument, for that matter); I knew that I would be perfectly happy forever if I could just scratch. When I was in for my next visit, I mentioned this to the midwife who saw me and she ordered a few tests. Naturally, it was aside effect-I had developed a new and exciting, "unusual, but not rare" complication of pregnancy- obstetric choleostasis, and that the itching was caused by bile salts building up in my skin. That sounded really gross to me, but they didn’t seem too stressed, so I went on home to add scratching to the things I was doing to keep myself entertained on bed rest. (Although I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did when Christy and Rhianna would come over and eat snacks with me while we watched the Peabody’s crazy Chinese produced Alia*s DVDs.) To be honest, I did also add asking Rob reapeatedly if he minded that I had bile salts building up in my skin to the list of things I was doing. He looks back on that period of time with much fondness, I am sure. Having access to the internet, I also did a little-who am I kidding-it was all I had to do-a lot of research on the issue (choleostasis, not Rob's real opinions of people with bile salt skin)and I was feeling alarmed. The condition is essentially harmless to the mother, but for whatever reason, the instance of fetal demise and stillbirth is astronomically higher for babies who are born after the 37^th week; those who are born before then seem to be fine. So- me being alarmed. This was how things stood on April 17 of last year (Happy Birthday, Mom!), when we went in for our 36 week visit-I was anxious about the health of the girls, but pretty confident that the doctor would tell us to plan our c-section for next week. Dr. N came in and looked at my chart awhile. Then she said, "we'd have to do an awful lot of bloodwork on you this week to keep an eye on your liver enzymes"(the root issue in choleostasis).“What are you guys doing tomorrow?” Because of the bed rest, I had no previous plans-and then “Well, let’s have those babies tomorrow.” And just like that, we were on.

(picture of L and E on our front lawn last week)

L. and E.'s First Easter

2007-04-08T19:23:00.000-05:00

I've got several posts that I've been working on, but I wanted to put some pictures of the girls' first Easter up for their grandparents and aunts and uncles. I included pictures of E. having her bow put in her hair-she's doing a new thing where she squinches her eyes closed when she smiles for the camera. The past couple of weeks, I've noticed that she's been pulling the bow or barrette we have to put in L.'s hair to keep it from getting in her eyes (and her oatmeal, for that matter). She then tries to put it in her own hair. It occurred to me that maybe she really wants to wear something in her hair. It's so crazy, but today, while she and L. engaged in their ritual of removing their own and one another's shoes and hair accessories, E. never tried to take her own bow out. If it makes her happy, we'll try it again. Notice the look of contentment on her face in the shot on the bottom, post-bow placement. I just picked the photos of L. (the top two)because I thought she looked so pretty.
We had a nice Easter, but I had a question for all of the mom's out there. Today, for the second Sunday in a row, we were paged out of church to come get E. from the nursery. Poor E. She had been crying since we left. Since she's always home with Rob and me, she's not used to being places alone without one of us and, starting about nine months, she has developed stranger anxiety. It took me five minutes to get her calmed down, but she started crying again whenever I made any move to even set her down to cuddle L. Eventually, I just had them page Robert and we went home early. I'd love any advice on making the transition easier for her or stories about how you made it through this phase with your kids. If you don't have children, I'd love to hear your opinions anyway. Happy Easter, everyone.

Yesterday at Work

2007-03-25T18:48:00.000-05:00

I haven’t posted about my job, mainly because I’d like to keep it and it’s not considered terribly ethical to publish information about the marital difficulties of one’s clients, even if they do things like have shouting matches in the parking lot and key each other’s cars before the drive off. So when I talk about anything on here related to my job, I’d like to state before the record that I obscure all identifying details and alter the stories so even if they were to stumble onto this blog, they wouldn’t recognize themselves. Except maybe the couple I referenced before. Anyway, I work on Saturdays and the occasional Tuesday and Rob stays home with the girls. He’s writing his dissertation right now, so he can work from home during naptimes. (Here’s a picture of how he gets sooo much work done when he’s home-that’s L., who enjoys chewing on the hair of family members).
I love what I do-I feel like marital counseling is what I’m best at, but I love the individual counseling, too. About one-third of my client population is under 18 and I consider the work I do with children to be among the most difficult, primarily because no one brings their child to see a therapist for insight-oriented therapy-something bad is always happening in their lives to bring them in to see me. And that makes me sad, because while you can make a case that the adults who are coming to see me have at least limited control over the circumstances in their lives and can act dramatically to change things, with children, they are rarely responsible or able to change what’s going on that necessitates the counseling. They’re usually in a fair amount of pain, because their parents are divorcing, because they’ve been abused by an adult, because they’ve just lost someone they loved and emotionally, it’s hard to be the person who hears it all and is responsible for helping them heal because I find it so profoundly painful as well. Yesterday, I saw one of those kids. She was talking about how she was uncomfortable coming to see me. And I told her that was okay, that some things are just uncomfortable to talk about, that I wouldn’t want to come see me, either, if I was always having to discuss bad things that had happened. She then said the saddest, funniest thing “It’s not you-I like you. I just that I wish I had broken both of my legs.” It’s been my experience that it’s always better to ask what your client means when they say something like that- so I asked the obvious question “why do wish you’d broken your legs?” Because I didn’t really see how broken legs would have improved her situation any. And she said “then you could be my, you know, that other kind of therapist-like the one my friend sees to help her move her arm after she broke it.”

“Oh, a physical therapist.”

“Yes, that’s right. I wish you were just my physical therapist.” I really wished I was, too.

Clean

2007-02-26T21:44:00.000-05:00

A week or so ago, it must have been on a Sunday, because Rob and I were both home for the girls 4:00 meal, I was feeding E. a botttle on the couch and I noticed that I was idly scraping some dried oatmeal off the side of her face. At that moment, Robert looked at me and said " You know, I was always really critical of parents who wouldn't even take the time to wash their kids faces before bringing them out in public." And then we had a hearty laugh, because we carefully wash the girls hands, necks, faces- really virtually any exposed skin- after every meal. Invariably though, as soon as either of them gets into strong light, you notice that they still appear to be covered in patches of whatever it was they just ate. We've learned a lot of valuable lessons the past ten months, one of which is "you can wash your baby as carefully as you can, but you can't make her clean."
Fortunately for us, we have a bathtub. About a month ago, we grew weary of always having to wash the dishes every time we wanted to bathe the girls, so we decided it was time to move them to the "big girl tub." We were a little sorry we didn't do it before, because it is one of their favorite things in the whole world. When L. hears us start to run the water, she starts to giggle like crazy. She laughs through her whole bath and is a big fan of sailing her ducks. E. likes bath time, too- she's not necessarily as enthusiastic as L, but she loves to flop onto her stomach and swim. She has to sit at the back of the tub because she is drawn by forces beyond her control to pull herself up on the faucet. Not that the putting her back there slows her down all that much, as her picture at the top probably reflects. I sometimes feel that she is only happy when she is putting herself in danger of ending up in the doctor's office. You'll note that E. has no problem climbing right on L's legs to get where she wants to be. Directly after their bath and massage, they are usually so tired and they like to cuddle. Right after these pictures were taken, they did one of the really sweet twin things they've started recently. E. will crawl over and lay down across L.'s lap. L. leans down pats E's head and chews on her hair and they both smile. The saliva matted hair sort of defeats the whole purpose of bath time, but it's so adorable to watch, you think that your cute sensors are going to explode.

The Breastfeeding Post

2007-02-14T17:59:00.000-05:00

Primarily, it’s taken me so long to write this because I don’t want to complain about anything related to the babies. One of my least favorite parts of infertility- and there were a few least favorite parts- was pregnant people’s incessant complaining about their morning sickness, back pain, swollen feet, etc. A woman I know, right during the saddest part of the whole thing for me, when I was struggling most with the idea that it was a real possibility that we might never have our own biological children, came right out and said “You should be glad you’re not pregnant-this whole thing is ruining my life,” because her morning sickness was getting to her. So I was firmly resolved that if I ever got pregnant, I would not complain about such an incredible blessing. And for the most part, I didn’t. I was pretty morning sick, which is pretty common in a multiple pregnancy because of the ludicrously high hormone levels, but I have never been more delighted to be nauseated in my whole life, which is what I would tell people who wanted to commiserate about how awful it was. (Except to Rob, who was glad when I reached the end of that stage when I would lie on our floor in fetal position, asking whether or not he thought nausea could kill you). This-the not complaining, not the nausea- actually became a bit of a problem. In my effort not to appear ungrateful, I didn’t discuss the low back pain I was experiencing, sure that it was just what you would expect during a twin pregnancy, I ended up in the hospital having contractions because of acute polynephritis at 20 weeks. I became better about at least talking to my doctor more about the symptoms I was having. All of that to say, I am well aware of how lucky we are to have E. and L. So if you’ve dealt with infertility, please don’t read the rest of this post as a lack of gratitude, because that is not the spirit in which it is meant.

I have really grieved our inability to work out the whole breastfeeding thing. I was well educated about the breastfeeding-I had done a lot of reading on the topic, watched friends nurse their babies and fully intended to breastfeed until at least a year, although I would have considered going to 18 months or so. One of the most annoying things to me is how just about every book on breastfeeding spends about half of its content telling you why you should breastfeed, how everyone who’s really committed can breastfeed and then only about 25 pages on the actual mechanics of the whole process, because it’s not like you waste your time reading a 200 page book on breastfeeding if you don’t think it’s worth your while to at least give it a shot.. I had even gotten my hands on Karen Gromeda’s Mothering Multiples, the out-of-print bible on how to nurse twins and read it cover to cover. I knew that it would be a challenge, what with the two babies and all, but I was committed to trying for at least six weeks. I don’t think I really even considered the possibility that it wouldn’t work out according to plan- I mean I registered for a few bottles, but secretly thought I wouldn’t need them and had absolutely no formula in the house when we got home from the hospital. The idea from all the books that if you just do it all right and truly want it enough that you can make it happen was ingrained in my head and I fully believed it.

Anyway, the girls were born (and again, I plan to type up my memories of that soon) via Cesarean. E, even though she was smaller had an easier time regulating her temperature at birth, so after the 30 minutes it took them to get me to recovery, I was able to hold E. by myself and we got to try and nurse. It was the most amazing thing- I remember her tiny face and her huge eyes looking up at me and her knowing just what to do, latching right on and nursing away. She just stayed on for a minute or two, but of my memories of that afternoon, that is among the most clear. Actually, of all the memories of my adult life that moment is one of the most vivid. They wouldn’t let me hold L. in the recovery room; the nurses insisted on keeping her in an incubator and then taking her to the nursery to check her out. So it was a couple hours later that L. and I got to practice our nursing. Neither baby was staying latched very long or able to suck for any lengthy of time, so my first postpartum nurse brought me a Medela Lactina and showed me how to pump; since I delivered late in the day, it wouldn’t be until the next afternoon that I saw a lactation consultant. So every two to three hours, I would try to latch and nurse each baby for about 15 minutes apiece, passing each one off to Rob to feed when I was done, get the girls tucked in and back to sleep and then pump for 20 minutes. On average, I had about 40 minutes to sleep between pumping and starting over (hence the name of this blog). That next afternoon, the lactation consultant came in and we worked with the babies, trying to get them to maintain a latch. She was so encouraging and gave me a plan to work with babies over the next few days. But my milk was slow to come in- as I’ve learned since then this can be caused by a number of factors- a c-section (check), prolonged bed rest (check-at this point I was on my eighth week of strict bed rest and my 14^th week of modified bed rest), prolonged use of terbutiline (check-at this point I was on my sixth week of Brethine); family history of diabetes (check)- and the girls just couldn’t seem to stay latched on. I kept trying at every feeding, but I was getting more and more concerned because we had to keep supplementing them with bottles of formula (initially, they were having a few problems maintaining their blood sugars) and I knew the risk of them developing a nipple preference that would be hard to reverse and my milk was not coming in. I remember taking a shower my second night there and just standing there . with the water washing over me and crying, not wanting to get out because I knew I would have to pump and I already hated it. Our third night there, I called the on call lactation nurse in the middle of the night and she came in and assessed what was going on and said “I think given your anatomy and the girls being a little premature, nursing is going to be very difficult for you.” I was so upset and wasn’t ready to hear what she was saying. So I kept working at it and went home trying to nurse at every feeding.

You know how in the hospital, they try and get you to write down every time the baby eats, how much or how long it eats, how often you change it, etc? And how then, when you get home, you reflexively keep doing it? Just like with your first baby, when they tell you “She needs to eat every three hours, minimum around the clock,” so you actually WAKE YOUR SLEEPING NEWBORN to feed her (second time moms assure me that you are never naïve enough to do the next time around). Well, being the compulsive, OCD type person I am, I wrote down how long E and L attempted to nurse, how much pumped milk they ate, how much formula we supplemented with and how much I pumped each time I pumped. Should you ever need to visit my archives, just give me a call and we’ll set it up. Looking back on it now, for six weeks, I fruitlessly attempted to breastfeed two babies at almost every feeding and I was pumping 8 times a day sometimes less than an ounce of milk total at each session. Again, since that time I’ve learned that to build a full milk supply for multiples most moms have to pump 10 to 16 times a day, rather than just 8 . By the end of my first week home, I had huge blisters because the girls had difficulty getting a good latch and was in a fair amount of pain. That second week home from the hospital, I remember sitting out on my front steps, crying in the dark and calling my friend Jenni to ask how long it was going to be this hard. The next day we had an outpatient lactation consult where they weighed E. and L. both before an after they nursed. In thirty minutes, neither baby got more than one third of an ounce. The LCs also diagnosed me with thrush, so I began treatment for that. We went back every two weeks until the girls were sixteen weeks old; by this time they were beginning to resist nursing- getting milk from their bottles was so much easier for them. At her best, neither baby got more than an ounce in a half an hour of nursing. It was around this time that I moved to trying to nurse them each once a day; they were pulling away and crying every time we tried and it was so sad for me and becoming so traumatic for them. At my last lactation consult, the LC finally said, after checking their latches “Your girls have really high arched palates. Normally, they would be less so by now; you might need to try occupational therapy for them if you want to get them to nurse.” Sometime in the week following that session, I really began to accept that this wasn’t something I could make happen by working at it- I could see from the blisters it left every time E or L tried to nurse. All of this time, I had been pumping to increase my milk supply so that when the girls learned to nurse, they would have something to eat and had finally reached an reasonable supply of milk, so I didn’t feel as much like I was pumping and getting nothing. So by 20 weeks, my milk reached its maximum, which provides about three fourths of the girls milk needs. So when the day came that they refused to latch on (at around five months) I had been pumping for so long and had worked so hard to get my milk supply up that I didn’t want to quit. Well, I did want to quit, but I felt stubbornly committed in a way I can’t explain even now.

Every mom has something that’s really important to her- co-sleeping or the baby sleeping in its own room, Avent versus Dr. Brown’s, staying at home or working, pacifier or thumb- and for me it was breastfeeding. And the funny thing is, whenever anyone tells me a story about the horrible things that happen to them and why they quit nursing or whatever, I feel a lot of compassion and DON’T think to myself, “well, you should have worked harder” or whatever. Frankly, I’m not sure why it is breastfeeding was that thing that was so important to me. I guess the most likely reason is that after everything- the endometriosis, the surgeries that didn’t help, the over 120 injections Rob and I had to give me for the IVF, the high risk pregnancy that no one I knew could really relate to, I just wanted my body to do its job. I wanted to have one thing that was kind of like what the other moms were getting to experience with their babies. I just wanted to be normal because I felt like it would be, on some psychological level or something, healing. Plus, I’ve read the repetitious first chapters of the breastfeeding book and know that it’s good for their immune systems, good for their tiny digestive systems, prevents premature graying in adulthood, bunions, male pattern baldness or whatever else they’re claiming right now. (And actually some of the better studies suggest that breastmilk in infancy any reduce the incidence of Type II diabetes in high risk populations, which, thanks to my family history the girls and I are). So anyway the girls are nine and a half months old and I pump five times a day to provide three quarters of the milk they eat each day. When Julie at alittlepregnant wrote about her experience with breastfeeding, she said something to the effect that she did everything she could. Not everything that could be done- but everything she could do. And that’s where I’m at about the whole thing. I did everything I knew to do to make nursing work. In retrospect, I might have pumped more often in the beginning to provide all of their milk, hired a lactation consultant to come to the house daily the first few weeks, taken the girls to infant occupational therapy to work on their latches, but really, I have to remind myself-I did everything I felt able do at the time. I’m sure other moms might have done more and that more could have been done, but it’s only in these last few weeks that I’ve been able to stop blaming myself for the fact that breastfeeding didn’t work out. I actually had to stop just now and change that last sentence from “the fact I failed to breastfeed.” I think that’s how I’ve viewed it, that it was some sort of personal failure on my part that I couldn’t breastfeed and that I’ve needed to be ashamed about it. Rob points out that when people ask if I’m nursing, I could probably just say yes and not treat them to a detailed description of what “kind of breastfeeding” means, but if this post proves anything, it’s that I don’t tend to be a person of few words. Anyway, that’s my breastfeeding story for posterity. I’ll keep you updated as this particular saga draws to a close.

(The picture is of L. trying on her crocodile Halloween costume the morning before. E. is sitting in her swing laughing, blissfully unaware that she, too, will soon be wearing a crocodile costume...)

E. and L.

2007-02-13T17:59:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged in so long, so these pictures are from October, when the girls were just six months old. It's crazy how small they look to me after just three months! E. is the one sleeping and L. is the one who is a little curly headed after her bath. The primary reason that I've been away so long is that I've been deluged by e-mails from friends from Oklahoma protesting my last post. No really, the reason I've been away is thank you notes. I had around 300 total to write over the course of the last year. I didn't do it while I was on bed rest, because I was on a dose of Brethine that made my hands shake and it looked illegible, like a 115 year old or three year writing. The first few months of having twins didn't turn out to be as conducive to writing notes as I had naively imagined. And I began to feel guilty (justifiably so, I think). My mom was of the opinion that I should just write two or three lines- "Dear _____, Thanks for the _____. I love it. Hope you're well. Love, Emily" I have a hard time doing that though. So many people took time out of their schedule and spent hard earned money to buy and send me and my daughters gifts and I am so overwhelmed and humbled by all the love that people have showered our family with. As a result, I want to send well thought out and heartfelt thank you notes to each person who made time and effort for me, especially as so many of you were so faithful to call and encourage me and pray for us while I was on bed rest . Anyway, I am finally done (much to my mom's relief). If you haven't already received it, it could be your thank you note is in the mail. Anyway, now that I have devoted the time I wanted to that task, I am committed to staying more up to date with my blogging.

Why My Children Are Being Raised As Hog Fans

2006-10-17T22:29:00.000-05:00

I had a friend back in college who was at his dentist in his home town- in a different state than where we attended school- and it came up while he was in the chair that the university went to was in my hometown. His mouth was still wedged open and the dentist was wielding that hook thing to scrape my friend’s teeth when the dentist said an astonishing thing. He commented that he had been to Tulsa once and had seen Oral Roberts University and that it was, as Oral Roberts had intended, a beautiful picture of the heavenly city. This was troubling to my friend on a number of levels, but primarily because he had slightly higher hopes for the heavenly city. And I have to admit, I, too, will be disappointed if it turns out that heaven is entirely filled with early sixties, space age architecture and coated with a lot of fake gold. My parents live less than a mile from ORU, so I am forcibly reminded of this every time I am home to visit. For the most part though, I love my home town and would move back there in a heart beat; I have friends who have moved to larger cities and are always saying things like “ Well, here in ‘large city X’ we have great culture, fabulous shopping, the Cheesecake Factory, random gun crime, etc.” All of those things are true of Atlanta as well and I know I’ll miss those things when it comes time for us to leave here-but I love both Tulsa and the small city in Northwest Arkansas where my husband grew up and where we spent the fantastic first three years of our marriage. When acquaintances here ask where we’re from, I usually say that we’re from Arkansas unless they’re specifically interested in my background. All of this to say, I think of myself as from both states. And I’d love to move back to either one day (or, frankly, anywhere that preschool admissions aren’t competitive). Rob and I though, in the privacy of our home, have a little “whose state is cooler” competition. I would like to state for the record that I appreciate them both and that none of this would ever had come about had one member of the marriage not felt the need to mock the other’s when that person’s home state’s tourism department launched their “OklaCool” tourism campaign. And the fact is there was nothing I could say- OklaCool is a fundamentally, inexcusably bad and embarrassing slogan. The best I could come up with was mocking Arkansas as “the mental health state” because of the ironic fact that while the majority of Arkansans report they feel they would be “stigmatized” if they sought mental health care, Arkansas has the third strictest mental health licensing laws in the country- so the brave Arkansan who sought the help of a counselor would end up seeing someone well certified. Which I recognize is a totally weak insult; but, really, what could I say that could compete with OklaCool? The next best I could do was making fun of the Hog Call done at all University of Arkansas sporting events and routinely by people who did not actually attend the school- it sounds vaguely like a cult chant to me. Unfortunate, because (and I am sad to admit this to my hometown friends) because Rob calling the hogs in a soothing voice is one of the few things that makes both E. and L. laugh and, if they’re fussing while we drive, quiets them right down. Anyway, you can only imagine my delight a few weeks ago when, after the babies’ early morning feeding, I saw on CNN that Little Rock has recently decided to make its new motto “The Rock,” which calls to mind nothing so much as the ex-wrestler turned actor Dwayne Johnson (I get a lot of my news from E! Entertainment Television). It was perfect. I had just commenced my routine of systematically working “The Rock” into conversation when Rob e-mailed me an article about Oklahoma’s new literacy campaign “Ya’ll Read.” Clearly, this was meant to be self-deprecating fun for Oklahomans who actually can read, but naturally, the way it’s being portrayed in the national media, it makes us look like hicks. As if coming from Arkansas and Oklahoma doesn’t make that a difficult label to shed when you move elsewhere- even here in Georgia, where the governor is named Sonny. So anyway, the score is now 3-2 in Arkansas’s favor (ORU, OklaCool, Ya’ll Read versus the Hog Call and the Rock). So until Oklahoma can come through for me, I have to allow Robert to raise the girls as Razorbacks. Here they are in their Auburn game day outfits with their dad. (The whole family is excited about passing these onesies on to their new cousin who’s coming around the middle of June!)

Our Five Month Schedule

2006-09-30T20:40:00.000-05:00

Since I’m using this blog to journal about the girls, I’m posting their schedule so that months from now I will be able to remember what this time was like. If you’re bored, feel free not to read it. Our day usually goes something like this: Sometime between 6:45 and 7:30am, we all wake up (usually L. first). It only really happens at 7:30 on a day that it’s very important that Rob or I am somewhere very early and are counting on the fact that the L. and E. always get up at 7 or earlier. Since I’m typically up at least once in the night to pump, Rob is most often the one who does their 7:00 feeding. Since they’re twins and, consequently, get a little less snuggling and individual time with us, I like to feed them one at a time so we get a little extra cuddling and one on one talking time. However, they have absolutely no patience with this early in the morning, so we put them in their Boppy pillows and sit between them and talk to them both while they’re being fed. L. has recently been experimenting with holding her own bottle, which has been fun to watch. I try and get an extra half hour of sleep. When they’re done eating, Rob gets me up and I shower and then pump and eat breakfast while I play with the girls. We change them out of their pajamas and into their daytime clothes. This is actually the time of day they are at their most fun- they smile and laugh a lot and their favorite morning activity is what we call “going to the gym” where they play in their Gymini (thanks, cousin Jamie!) They are least likely to regard tummy time as the cruel oppression that they believe it to be early in the morning, so while Rob gets ready, we do some of that. They’ve both been rolling (mostly front to back) really well during the past few weeks, so eventually they usually turn themselves over and put a stop to it all. About 8:45, I wrap them up in their blankets and lay one on each side of me on the couch to read a couple of pre-nap books. Right now, our favorite is The Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton. I sing their nap time song for them and they roll in to rest their faces against my leg until they fall asleep. This nap usually lasts anywhere from one to two hours. I take this as an opportunity to sleep myself, which sometimes means my sleeping with whichever baby is in the pack and play in our room (which ever daughter goes down first gets put in their room). About half an hour before they wake up, I pump and get their lunch bottles ready. Sometime between 10 and 11, everyone gets up (again, usually L. first) and I feed them their lunch. Then it’s play time. Since it’s always exotically hot here in Atlanta, usually we’re inside having some blanket and toy time or sitting in our Bumbo seats reading and talking. Often, there is singing and dancing. When I first read in Weisbluth’s Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child that small babies had a hard time tolerating more than two hours of being awake until about six months, I assumed that it was a lie- but I believe it now. An hour and forty five minutes or so after they get up they start to get sleepy and cranky again. They are soooo much happier and fun to be around when we keep them on a schedule that ensures they’re only awake for a couple of hours before we try and put them down. So between 12:30 and 1, we read and they’re back down for their afternoon naps; this one only lasts about and hour or so. Keep in mind that when I say they “go down for a nap,” I mean that within a half an hour of each other they fall asleep- they seem to take turns waking up a fair amount still. I pump while they sleep; when circumstances permit, I also try and each lunch. Between 2 and 3 they are up again. They eat their 3:00 meal, have a diaper change and get ready for our big activity. This is the time of day we put on our sunglasses and go for a walk and do things outside. Or we go places like Target or anywhere that gets me out of the house. We’re back by 4 or so for their mini-cat nap, which usually lasts around 45 minutes and which I usually let them take lying beside my legs on the couch. Then it’s time for Rob to get home. He plays with E. and L. while I pump again. Then it’s time for baths, a massage and their 7:00 bottle and, finally, bed. We co-bed them in one of the cribs- during naps, when they sleep more lightly, they wake one another up, but at night it seems like they initially sleep better when they’re together. E. likes to roll over and lean her head on L.-it’s really sweet to see. They’ve been going down pretty well, but E. tends to wake up every 45 minutes or so until about nine. Every night, one of them, (and it’s usually someone different each time), wakes up in the middle of the night. She’ll go right back to sleep if we bring her to bed with us.
All the infant books say that we need to put them down sleepy but awake, but we have the hardest time doing that without a lot of crying. Our house is so small, that even with white noise machines, any amount of yelling wakes everyone up. If any of the moms out there have any advice for getting E. and L. to go to sleep without assistance from Rob and I while minimizing crying, I would love to hear it. Any non-moms opinions would be appreciated, too. An occasionally a baby sleeping with us is fine, but the fact is for people who are less than three feet tall, they take up a phenomenal amount of space, so I think co-sleeping is out. Rob and I are both tempted to sleep on the floor some nights when they try and come to bed with us. Any suggestions?

The Outcome

2006-09-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

“It was good” is my short answer for “what was the outcome?” if the two babies I’m pushing in the stroller don’t make it abundantly obvious. It started out auspiciously- on August 8, the first day of the IVF cycle, my antral follicle count, the baseline number of eggs one has ready to mature in a given month was 16, which is perfect. So they started me out on a low dose of stimulation drugs. Things went a little less well from there. The birth control pills and lupron had shut down my body so well that I was over-suppressed, so the doctor keep ratcheting my dose of the Gonal-F until I was taking the maximum acceptable dose. Every morning when I went in for my ultrasound and blood work, there was the constant speculation about whether or not they would cancel the whole cycle. Thankfully, the night of my 14th day of stims, I got the go-ahead that they would do the egg retrieval on Monday. They retrieved 10 eggs, 8 were mature, the embryologist fertilized 3 and all 3 survived to transfer. And that began our anxious 12 days. I’ll skip over that part, because it was, well, anxiety-provoking and not a little depressing.
But on September 6, after the longest day of work EVER-- my poor clients- God help whoever was hoping that I could focus enough to help them save their marriage THAT day- we finally got the call that we waiting for. We were sitting on our couch, watching the movie Love Actually that my wonderful cul-de-sac friends from college had sent as part of my in vitro support kit, when the phone rang. It was Lynn, the nurse that had been our nurse and contact person daily the whole cycle. She asked if Rob was there, so my heart sank- I thought she might want him there because she was going to give me bad news. So he picked up the other phone and she told us “Congratulations!! You’re pregnant!” I asked her if she was kidding and she said that she typically didn’t joke with the IVF patients. That’s when I burst into the hysterical crying and said something about it having been so long. I asked about the hCG number and she told me it was 269.3, and they liked to see it about 50, which was our first inkling that there might be more than one baby. Then we sat, stunned for a few minutes and started making a few calls. My sister, Erin, was the first person we told. We had community group that night, so we left early for it, so we could walk the nature trail near our house and process everything. The men and women were meeting separately that night, so we both got to tell the groups of people who had praying for us and had organized the 48 hour of prayer after our embryo transfer. It was an incredible night.
Later that week, my hCG had more than doubled, which was our second inkling there might be more than one baby on the way. Two weeks later, we had our first ultrasound and saw both of their beautiful, blinky little heartbeats. It only took about another twenty weeks for us to believe that they were really coming.
Two weeks ago, on the 6th, we loaded up our two live, take home babies- E. rode in the Bjorn with Rob and I wore L. in my wrap sling and we hiked the nature trail again. This time last year we had no idea how wonderful this would be and I don’t think after everything, either of us had the ability to hope or imagine that we would finally, really, get to be parents.
And as it turned out, the whole world figured out what was going on with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who as near as I can calculate, got pregnant two weeks after we did. Somehow, I feel like it was a lot less of a hassle for them.

Like Baby Killer Whales

2006-09-16T21:57:00.000-05:00

One night last week, at about what I would conservatively estimate was three in the morning, L., who was asleep in the pack-and-play at the foot of our bed, woke up. Now L. is a talker when she wakes up- she is content to lie in bed and chat with her mobile or even just herself until someone comes to get her. E., on the other hand, when she wakes up and finds herself without one of her adults, begins to cry in such a way that lets you know that if she was mobile and knew how the phone worked she would be on it to report you to Family and Children’s Services for gross neglect. Anyway, on this particular night E. was asleep in our bed between Rob and me. (If your first thought on hearing this is “I would NEVER allow my child to sleep in my bed, well, then, you have never had two five month olds that you were desperate to keep from waking one another up when one of them began crying. For someone who has been prevented from working out by a twin pregnancy and the subsequent having two babies for the past year, I can move remarkably fast to prevent this from happening). So L was awake and talking, which woke Rob and I up at about the same moment. In the light that comes in from the street outside our house, we could see E. As we watched, she woke up, stretched out and heard L. and gave her huge, gummy smile, obviously delighted to hear L. and started to babble back. L. got quiet and listened and then she started talking again while E listened. They conversed in the dark for probably about five minutes before falling back asleep. Rob commented that it was a lot like listening to killer whales communicating across miles of ocean that you’re always seeing on documentaries. Except in this case, the miles of ocean were about eight feet of queen sized bed and the whales were just two babies who have recently begun discovering the other one. The whole incident reminded me of this picture of E. (taken by Erin) and her stuffed whale her Aunt Erin and Uncle Elliot got her. The other is a picture of L, also taken by Erin that makes me smile.

The IVF Letter

2006-09-10T08:09:00.000-05:00

Because of popular demand, I'm posting the e-mail I wrote to walk my friends and family through the in vitro process when we decided we were going to let people know we were doing it. We knew we would need the emotional and spiritual support, which everyone provided beyond anything we could ever have imagined. So fresh from July 2005 here it is:

Okay, here’s the deal:

Many of you have expressed a certain amount of curiosity about what exactly our in vitro procedure will entail. As most of you know, I am not offended by direct questions, nor am I afraid to tell you in breath-taking detail- more detail than you could ever have hoped to learn about my reproductive health. Given my inability to discern who really wants to know what about what I’m doing and who wants to just pray vaguely for us in the days to come, I decided to write this out so that you would have a handy reference, leaving you more free to devote precious brain cells to thinking and talking about how I’m feeling emotionally, what’s really going on with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, the earned run average of each Atlanta Braves player, etc., rather than what exactly each of the (on average) three shots a day I will be taking does.

The Suppression Phase
“why are you suppressing me?”

I started the birth control pill on July 4. I will take three weeks of the active pills. Basically, the purpose of this is to trick my ovaries into shutting down, so that my doctor can more precisely control my hormone levels and not have to deal with any cysts leftover from a previous cycle, which might throw my hormones out of whack. Rather than take the placebo pills in my pill pack, I will start a new pack on the 25th of July. On that same day, Robert will begin injecting me every twelve hours (within an inch of my navel) with low dose Lupron, which will, as some put it, shut my brain down. In reality, just the part of the brain that makes eggs grow and waits around until an egg is producing enough estrogen and makes you ovulate (the hypothalamic-pituitary axis, if you are keeping track at home). That way, when I’m maturing a number of eggs (God willing), my body won’t cause me to ovulate prematurely or screw up the hormonal environment in which the eggs are growing. After a week on Lupron, I will stop taking the pill and just continue having my twice daily shots.

Egg Stimulation
On August 8th, we’ll go into the doctors and have our first ultrasound and blood draw, to make sure my ovaries and brain are sleeping appropriately. If so, that next day we’ll start stimulation drugs or “stims,” as the hardened IVF veterans call them (these are also abdominal injections). We’ll also drop back to one shot of Lupron (the “brain control” drug”) each morning and I’ll get a dose of stims every twelve hours. After a couple of days to let my ovaries get going, each morning, I’ll go in and have my blood drawn to check my estrogen levels and an ultrasound to take a gander at my ovaries. The average woman requires 9 to 10 days on stims, but my previous experience with injectable fertility drugs suggests that I am a slow grow-er of eggs, so for me it might take longer. It’s just important that you don’t have to stim longer than 14 days, because, well, the eggs don’t like to and everyone wants happy eggs.

Egg Retrieval
When the estrogen level in my blood and my daily ultrasounds indicate that my eggs are mature (I’m assuming they’re whining less and not having door-slamming snits anymore when they get grounded for violating curfew?), Rob, my trusty shot giver, will give me a shot of hCG, the pregnancy hormone, which tricks the eggs into thinking they will ovulate in 36 hours. If all goes according to plan, at that point we go in 35 hours later and have a minor surgical procedure to retrieve the mature eggs (“egg retrieval”). With a needle. I cannot emphasize that point enough. A needle. In my ovaries. Should you want to discuss this procedure in more detail, please phone me and I’ll gladly give you additional information. Fortunately for blood and needle hating Rob, he will not have to participate in this little activity, except for the part where he drives me home, because DO NOT BE DECEIVED, I WILL BE SEDATED. Hopefully, my eggs will be of good quality. The embryologist will play some smooth jazz and fertilize the eggs we want fertilized with Rob’s sperm, which, fortunately for him, are about the only things not retrieved via needle in this whole process. They’ll call us the next day and let us know how everyone is growing. Any leftover eggs will be frozen, because I’m taking part in a little experiment. (I would LOVE it if every thing that we’ve been through might allow some of my single friends, who have been faithfully waiting for God to bring them the right person, not to have to grieve the loss of the dream of ever being able to have a biological child with Mr. Right, should he happen to come along when they’re 41 instead of 36). Meanwhile, once I’ve slept off my sedation, I plan to drink Coke, shoot up heroin, ride roller coasters, run marathons, eat shellfish, smoke cigarettes and all the other things you’re not supposed to do in the pre-ovulatory phase for fear of damaging egg quality and in the post-ovulatory phase for fear of hurting a baby. Because my eggs and embryos will be somewhere else and I will be blissfully free of responsibility for 72 hours. Because, as you all know, if there is a phrase to describe how I’ve been throughout this whole process, it’s “laid-back” or “blissfully calm” or “very Zen.” And probably, I will not be worrying at all. Then again, I may just lie on my couch whining to Rob about how my giant, bloated ovaries hurt, so he had probably better bring me the remote control because I don’t want to get up. Who’s to say which I’ll feel like? Lucky, lucky Robert.

Embryo Transfer
Whichever, 72 hours later, we will go back for “embryo transfer,” wherein all the embryos who feel no bitterness about being conceived in the lab will be returned to my uterus. We don’t care if they’re boys or girls; we just want them to have 8 cells and not a lot of fragmentation. Humor me and pray for this when the time comes. Our prayer is that there will be three of them. I am told that this part of the procedure involves no needles, just lying perfectly still for an hour with a full bladder. (Which reminds me- the day after egg retrieval Rob will start giving me injections of progesterone in my hip, which, from what I understand hurt like, well, a shot that takes 60 seconds or more to give, due to the fact that the drug is the same consistency of heavy olive oil and has to be given slowly. I’m really excited about that. Another fun progesterone side effect is anxiety and sadness). For the next 48 hours, I’ll be on bed rest. If you’re in the Atlanta area, please feel free to come on over and listen to me complain about how bloated and anxious I feel. Probably also sad. It’ll be a great time that really reminds you why you decided you wanted to be my friend in the first place.

Results
Anyway, about two weeks later, we’ll go in, have a blood draw, and get a call that afternoon letting us know how everything turned out. It’s seems strange that it took so long to write all of this down and that the finding out whether the time, the physical, emotional and financial investment that this is for us has really paid off or not takes just an instant. And I’ve been thinking a lot about what that instant will be like for us, either way.
I appreciate so much everyone’s love, support and prayers for us during this time. Thanks, too, to all for you who have touched my heart by reading up on in vitro and watching clinical documentaries and all of that. (And to all of you who feel like they could open a gynecology practice because they’ve gone walking with me on a day I was feeling chatty.) As I know you can imagine from what I’ve written, so many things can go wrong at each step of the way and I feel nervous about each and every one, but most of all the last one. I’ll try and keep everyone updated what we’re doing every little bit, so that you’ll know better how to pray. If you don’t want regular e-mails, please feel totally free to let me know. Several of you have asked if you can forward this to others who are praying for me- if we’ve had that talk, please feel free to do so. Thanks again for your faithfulness in lifting us before the Lord.

One Year Later

2006-08-28T20:45:00.000-05:00

Both of these photos were taken on August 25th- one in 2005 and one in 2006. One of those three in the first picture is E. and one is L. We thought they were beautiful and they made me cry, even then. I love being, and am so grateful to be their Mom. As their second photo demonstrates, they have both become much more articulate in the last year and two weeks.
I've been journaling about this past year in a more private way, but I've wanted to put it in a format that I could save for the girls and that their grandparents, aunts and uncles could enjoy. So over the next few weeks, I'll post their birth story, some of the story of my pregnancy with them and some things about their first four months.
I chose the name of this blog back when they were eating every three hours round the clock and I would try and nurse them, then supplement with a bottle of expressed milk, then with formula, then I would put them down for naps and pump. Then it was time to start again. Things are much less like that now, but there are days when I still vaguely have that sensation-especially as we're working on our daytime nap schedule (when I say "we" I mean me -working on a schedule for them while they have hearty laughs as they discuss my attempts to get them down at the same time (discussion pictured at left).