1 month

Our babies are now a month old - yes, a whole month. My sweet Meredith smiled at me yesterday when I kissed her nose, it was precious. I look forward to those moments happening more and more. Meredith is starting to fill out in her face, I look forward to going to the doctor on Thursday to find out what their weights are. I bet Berkley is at least 7 lbs by now, which would be about a pound increase in just a month! My brother (Uncle Joey) had the entire week off of work and he spent it with us, which was such a help (and a pleasure)! Last Saturday Steven and I had our first date since the babies were born, we had lunch at Rucker Johns and then took a nap - very romantic I know, but it was relaxing. I'm proud of us for taking time out for ourselves so soon after they were born. Who knows when we'll have another opportunity as he starts work again on Tuesday and will be working 7am-6pm everyday and be on-call every 4th night. Thank goodness for family and friends to help out in times such as these. Well, Mr. Berkley's waking up, it's time to eat. I'll keep you posted on any new happenings.

3 Weeks

The babies are 3 weeks old today and still changing rapidly. Berkley has outgrown his premie clothes and is now in newborn clothes. Meredith is almost too tall for the premie clothes but the newborn clothes would still engulf her. They're sleeping a little better at night; Meredith actually slept 4 hours straight last night! We're hoping they'll both start sleeping longer and soon drop one of the nighttime feedings. My mom has been able to come everyday in the morning and Steven's mom continues to stay with us at night. We've had several friends graciously stay with us in the evenings to give Steven's mom a reprieve (shout out to Diana, Kristi, Shane and Katie)! Steven has about 10 days left before he returns to work. Where has this month gone? I can't believe my babies are almost a month old. We're going to try to venture out this week possibly to our church's community group meeting on Wednesday night and hopefully to church on Sunday.

My 29th birthday is tomorrow. My how different things are from last year's birthday. Two babies...I still can't get over it.

Here are two precious pictures I wanted to share.

Here are the photos I promised of Meredith and Berkley meeting my dad! It was such a great day and we were so pleased to see how he made eye contact with the babies. We hope these photos will be good memories for the twins in the future.

2 WEEKS

Our twins are two weeks and two days old now. They've already changed so much over the course of these brief two weeks. I can't thank everyone enough for your prayers, support, meals, visits, etc. It has meant so much to have so many well wishes. I'm feeling well physically; I'm able to get about 5 hours of sleep at night broken up and then a nap in the afternoons, which is my saving grace (not really, Jesus is my true saving grace). Both of the babies' belly buttons have fallen off so we were able to give them both their first real tub baths on Tuesday night. Berkley absolutely hated it and Meredith was calm at first, but figured out she really didn't like it after a few minutes. I'm noticing that Berkley is already trying to focus his eyes on people as they hold him. Berkley is our grunter - he makes the funniest noises while he eats. Meredith doesn't make noise but she makes funny faces and stretches all the time. Meredith is our sleeper, but Berkley likes to be awake - let's hope they both change to sleepers over time. Meredith's sweet little mousy cry is long gone; I think she's learned to compete with her brother's loud cry because now she has a strong cry - she actually makes a kind of "Grrrrrrr" sound when she's really upset - if she had teeth I'm sure she'd be grinding them. We're thankful that they sleep well even with lots of company and noise - they aren't bothered by our dog Larry's bark either. Larry has adjusted well to his new "puppies," he cried every time they cried at first, but now he just looks at them and looks at us like, "aren't you going to do something about that?" We're adjusting to our "new normal" but I still think it's going to take awhile. Parenting, especially breastfeeding these babies, is the hardest thing I've every had to do in my life. I've been reminded by several twin mothers that the first 6 weeks are the hardest, so I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the 6 week mark - as if something magical will happen at that point. Steven goes back to work June 1st and he'll be required to be on-call every 4th night. Pray that we'll have a good schedule by that point and that I'll be able to manage the babies without his assistance. Pray that we'll be good about asking for help instead of taking on all of the responsibility by ourselves.

The first few days

The first few days of parenthood have been hectic; Thursday night especially. Meredith refused to eat anything after midnight and cried the entire night. We ended up taking her to the doctor Friday morning to discover that she'd lost 12 % of her birth weight, which is a red flag to the docs that something could be wrong. Thankfully, no infections or anything. I ended up being referred to a lactation specialist who gave me some pointers on helping Meredith eat more. Since Meredith is so small she's just having more difficulty with eating. We've made some changes to her eating habits and things are improving with everyday. We've had lots of company, which has been a blessing b/c there have been plenty of folks to hold them so that Steven and I can get some rest. Rest is going to be so rare over these next few weeks as we try to get Meredith and Berkley to sleep well at night - right now they're very confused as to day and night (which is understandable). All I can say is they're beautiful and I never knew you could love something so much so quickly. Continue to pray that we would have rest, that the babies and I would continue to get better at feeding and that they would sleep well at night. Thanks so much for everyone's sweet comments and love!

Sorry for the repeats but some new photos are at the end.