Happy 10th Birthday 3Po and Jammy!

Ten years ago, two little boys entered my life.  I was nervous, scared, unprepared, unsure.  The year that followed was one of the most difficult of my life.  But I wouldn't trade that year, or my boys, for all the riches on earth.  They were exactly what we needed to make our family complete!

Holiday birthdays often get lost in all the celebrations, and that has certainly been the case for 3Po and Jammy on my blog -- but not this time.  I haven't posted anything since Christmas (I think that's my longest dry spell ever) but I was determined to give their double-digit birthday the acknowledgement it deserves.  So I'm delaying the 2013 Highlights posts, the Ski Trip posts, the Family Game Night posts, the New Year's Resolutions posts and all the other posts I have planned in my head.  Those can wait.  What can't wait is my message for 3Po and Jammy:  

Happy Birthday, Boys.  These last ten years have been a wild, wonderful ride.  I'm not going to dwell on all the twin cliches -- double trouble, twice blessed -- even though they're true.  The chances of having identical twins are about 0.4%, or 1 in 250, but the chances of having both of you were one in a million.  Your daddy and I definitely won the lottery when we had you!

To celebrate 3Po and Jammy's 10th birthday, here are 10 fun facts about their birth:

Birth Story, Part Two (and Three)

Reading Mark Sloan's wonderful book, Birth Day (this month's pick for the SV Moms Book Club)reminded me that I still haven't gotten around to writing out 3Po and Jammy's birth story. That's the curse of the younger child, I suppose; I remember giving birth to The Pea in great detail because she was the first, and it was such a life-transforming experience. In my defense, I only posted The Pea's birth story when she turned 6, so I'm actually ahead in posting this second -- and third -- birth story.

I have to admit that my memories are much hazier with my second labor and delivery. Thank goodness I wrote down some brief notes in the boys' baby books, so I do have a timeline:

December 30, 2003
09:00 AM-- Admitted to the hospital for induction of labor. I was 2 cm dilated.
10:00 AM-- Rupture of waters. I was put on a pitocin drip.
01:20 PM-- 3 cm dilated.
02:15 PM-- 4 cm dilated, epidural administered.
03:15 PM-- 5 cm dilated.
04:30 PM-- 10 cm dilated. I was wheeled into an operating room for the delivery.
05:25 PM-- Baby A (Jammy) arrives.
05:45 PM-- Baby B (3Po) arrives.

Beyond that, I have a bag of memories interspersed through different points in that timeline. First and foremost was the impression of how different this labor and delivery was from my first one. I didn't particularly enjoy my first pregnancy, but the were so many other factors. I was exhausted, working full time with a toddler at home and a husband out of work. There were the inherent added risk of a multiple pregnancy and the prospect of premature delivery. And there was the scare of a series of abnormal ultrasounds (that's the subject for another post) and worried of how we would cope with twin boys. So we checked into the hospital for our scheduled induction already pretty exhausted from the last 38 weeks.

With all that, I'm so happy that everything went so much quicker this time around -- 8 hours instead of 27! The labor part was so much more pleasant. Uneventful, even. I basically sat or laid in bed and waited, and as soon as my labor pains started getting bad, they got the epidural in. The decision to have an epidural was an easy one; I decided not to use up my strength getting through labor and save it for all the future sleepless nights. With the pitocin drip and all those fetal monitors strapped to me, it sure wasn't going to be a natural birth anyway. I do remember feeling slightly sad at having to be hooked up to so many machines and having to lie flat on my back, like a sick patient instead of a laboring woman, but I felt it was what I had to do to make sure that my babies were born healthy.

Once I was fully dilated, I was wheeled to an operating room instead of having the delivery right in my room. Instead of just a doctor and nurse, there was a whole team of medical professionals assembled: three labor and delivery nurses, the anethesiologist, two neonatal nurses, and the obstetrician. By the way, that's Alfie in the photo, not the obstetrician. Again, the high-risk twin thing; once Baby A is born, there's no telling what Baby B will do with all that newfound space. Baby B could have suddenly turned breech, or gone into distress halfway thru Baby A's delivery, or whatever. All the extra precautions were there to make sure they could perform an emergency C-section to deliver one or both babies. It's not uncommon; in fact, I'm the only twin mom I know who delivered both babies vaginally.

Looking at that timeline, I'm amazed that there was a whole hour between entering the operating room and actually delivering Jammy. Time seemed to go by so quickly. I remember feeling silly being asked to bear down and push, because that epidural had really deadened me below the waist. I remember lifting my leg with my hands and watching it flop down uselessly. I kept pinching my thigh but couldn't feel a thing. They must not have used as much anesthetic with The Pea, because I could move and feel my legs (and let me tell you, I felt the Pea travelling each and every one of those last few inches of my birth canal, down to the crowning and the tearing). I just pretended I needed to poop, and lo and behold, Jammy came out after 3 pushes.

One down, one to go. 3Po took his sweet time and eventually had to be coaxed out with a vacuum extractor. He came out twenty minutes later, and just like that, we were a family of five.

Isn't it weird how different they looked at birth? 3Po (on the left) was rosy and plump at 7 lb. 5 oz., with very light, wispy brown hair. Jammy (on the right) was tiny (6 lbs. 10 oz.) and wrinkled and pale, with very dark, tufty hair (we nicknamed him Gollum in his first three weeks of life). We thought the ultrasound technicians must have made a mistake when they said these were identical twins.


*Warning*!! Scroll down at your own risk -- the photo you are about to see is Yuccky with a capital Y. If it totally grosses you out and convinces you never to return to this blog again, well, just be glad I didn't post the close-up.







Sorry, guys. It isn't a birth story unless you've got a disgusting birth photo. Alfie took this photo of the placenta while our obstetrician was checking it to confirm zygosity. The boys did share a single placenta, which made it almost certain they were monozygotic (identical), despite the difference in size and appearance. And we did a DNA test later on, which confirmed it.
(On a side note, upon checking the placenta, our obstetrician realized that Jammy's umbilical cord had been attached to the fetal membrane rather than to the placenta itself, which is supposedly a risky thing. I'm sure Mark Sloan, the author of Birth Day, could explain in his clear, humorous way what exactly a fetal membrane is, and why the umbilical cord shouldn't be attaching itself to it, but I like to think of Jammy hanging on by his fingernails for 38 weeks. Maybe that's why Jammy ended up so much smaller and shivelled-looking than 3Po).


Of course, three months later, we realized we could have saved ourselves the $150 for the DNA test. As countless relatives, friends and strangers will attest, they are identical. In fact, to this day I have no idea which boy is which in the photo below.


And I'm happy to say that their looks have improved somewhat in the five years since.


When I look at them today, so robust and healthy, I feel truly blessed that everything went so smoothly and we ended up with two happy, healthy boys. They have truly completed our family and I couldn't imagine life without them.



Click here to read more posts inspired by Birth Day.

Monday Mornings: Crappy morning, happy (birth) day

This was me, eight years ago on the morning of April 6th. I was NOT having a great morning, seeing as I had been up all night with labor pains. I've got the gory details on another blog post, so to cut a long story short, around 8AM, my contractions had slowed down; they were about to send me home again but after all the agony I had been through, I said NO F-ING WAY.... Break that bag of waters!


Fortunately, just before 9PM, I met The Pea for the very first time, and all the pain became worth it. Thus a crappy morning became a happy day, which is pretty much a good way to summarize these past 8 years with the Pea: sometimes crappy, but on the whole, very, very happy. Happy Birthday, Sweet Pea!!!

Heavy

What's the heaviest I've ever been? When I was pregnant with twins, of course. The photo on the left shows me pregnant with The Pea at almost full term. The photo on the right was taken at only 28 weeks with the twins, and yet I'm already as large as I was at 37 weeks, 2.5 years before. When I gave birth to them at 38 weeks, I was carrying almost 14 lbs. of babies. I can't divulge how much I weighed, but it was more than my husband's weight.

This week's Photo Hunter's theme is Heavy. For more heavy things, click here.

Sunday Scribblings: Hair

With this week's Sunday Scribblings' Hair prompt, I couldn't pass up a chance to reflect upon one of the mysteries in my life, namely my daughter's hair. As you can see from the above photo, Pea's blonde hair is as different from the twins' dark brown heads as night and day. See, I'm a Filipina with dark brown hair and Alfie is English with light brown hair (his hair was white-blonde as a child but it darkened). Even though my mother, who is part Spanish, is quite fair, we expected the laws of the dark-haired dominant gene to apply. We expected all our kids to have the coloring that 3Po and Jammy do. But we got Pea.

I'll never forget the day she was born, when I was huffing and puffing and struggling to push her out of the birth canal; Pea's head was just beginning to crown when my obstetrician and the nurses suddenly exclaimed, "She's blonde!". I was delirious with pain and ignored it at first, but they finally convinced me to take a mirror and see for myself.

In the six years since The Pea was born, I've gotten used to the sidelong glances and inquiries, "Is she with you?"; "Is she your daughter?"; "Oh, she's your daughter!". So many people comment and compliment her on her fairness that I'm worried she's starting to think that dark coloring is somehow undesirable! She recently told me she didn't want to go to the Philippines for vacation because she was afraid she would get dark. I gently told her we would do everything we could to keep her skin from burning in the hot sun, but having dark coloring is just as beautiful as being fair, and many fair people actually wish they were a little darker. I told her that in all likelihood, her hair would darken as she grew older.

Well, we've been waiting for it to darken for six years, and it hasn't happened yet.

For more takes on hair, click here.

Love Thursday: The Pea's birth story

The Pea's birthday is actually on Friday (April 6), but it goes without saying that she is the topic of this week's Love Thursday. After all, it was actually the day before, April 5, a Thursday, that I went into labor. Here is our story:

April 5, 2001, Thursday, approx. 3PM: I'm already 5 days late and fed up with being pregnant. On March 19, I was 1cm dilated and on my due date, March 31, I was almost 2cm, so I was sure it wouldn't be long. Indian food, long walks and sex have not helped to bring upon labor. I secretly resent every woman who ever gave birth early or on time. Walking home from Ace Hardware with my in-laws, I begin to feel "twinges" that come and go, like regular menstrual cramps. Hmmmm.... wonder if this is it?

April 5, approx. 5PM: Yes, it's labor. These are definitely contractions. Still pretty far apart and bearable, so I'm content to sit on the sofa and watch TV.

April 6, 2001, Friday, approx. 1AM: OK, it's going to be a sleepless night. Contractions are keeping me awake because they are starting to hurt. I envy my husband sleeping beside me (he claims I woke him up with my moaning at each contraction but I know better --I heard him snoring).

April 6, 4AM: Contractions are 4 minutes apart. We start to think about calling the doctor.

April 6, 5AM: We arrive at the hospital, and are disappointed to find out that I'm still only 2.5-3cm dilated. With this kind of pain, I thought I'd be 7 at least!

8AM: At 3cm dilated and 75% effaced I'm outraged to hear that contractions have stopped! There is no way I'm going through a night like that again, not when I'm already in so much pain. No way, baby, you're coming out today. We agree to have bag of waters broken to speed up contractions. Contractions become REALLY painful. Now there's no turning back.

2PM: After all this time, still only 3cm dilated and 80% effaced. I'm exhausted, discouraged, defeated. All the hot showers, Lamaze breathing, squatting, hanging down from Graham and walking have not helped manage the pain. Graham is begging me to get an epidural so we can both get some much-needed rest. We decide to get the epidural. It kicks in.... o blessed relief!! Graham takes a break from holding me up for the past 6 hours and immediately falls asleep, as do I.

5PM: 5cm dilated. I'm cold and puking right and left, but I can move my legs and contractions are still coming on nicely.

6PM: 10cm dilated. It's time to push -- but Graham is away at Walgreens!

6:30 - 7PM: Thank goodness Graham's back. We get down to the business of pushing, but it's a bit difficult to do when you can't really feel anything. Push what? Push where? Bear down? I decide to pretend I'm constipated. That seems to do the trick.

7:30PM: I'm discouraged again -- this is taking a looong time. We're already on our third nurse shift. Doctor and nurses cheer me on like I'm winning a marathon. I feel ridiculously proud of myself for doing such a good job (later, I wonder if they say that to all the women in labor).

8:3oPM: Hang on, I thought I had an epidural down there? How come I can feel contractions? How come I can feel my legs now? No time to wonder, because there is a commotion; the head has started to show and She's Blond!! What??? A mirror is held up and sure enough, I can see wisps of damp blond hair on a very pale head.

8:45PM: OOOOMIGOOOOD! It HUUUURTS! What happened to the f***ing epidural??? I'm dazed and confused, in pain, it's burning, just want it to stop, I'm screaming I can't do it, my skin is being ripped apart (yes, I tore), I want to pull back but I have to puuuuUUSH!! Ahhhhh.... momentary cessation of pain... head's out doctor (calmly) and Graham (not so calmly) tell me to stop pushing for a moment, so I stop (later on I'm told that the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck).

April 6, 2001, 8:49PM: One final push.... I feel a funny shhlurrping, deflating sensation as the body comes slithering out.... and there she is on my chest, all wet and soft and pink. Why hello, little baby, we've been waiting a looong time for you. Happy birthday my love.

Love is saying hello to your very first granddaughter just minutes after being born. Love is peering up at your very first grandpa and liking what you see.

Love is coming home, stretching out on the sofa after a sleepless night and finding some rest, with the love of your life snuggled up on top of you.

Happy Love Thursday everyone, and may your Thursdays be as precious as the one we had six years ago.