Ack!

Holy cannoli, I'm a walking heart attack waiting to happen!!! I just checked my labs online, which I had done yesterday. My Hemoglobin A1C, which measures blood sugars over the past 12 weeks, was in the normal range - good - means the gestational diabetes has resolved. My cholesterol, however, not so much - it was 344!!!!! OMG!!!! That's 100 points higher than it's ever been before! Yikes! Hmm...does ice cream have a lot of cholesterol? Because that COULD be the culprit! Guess I'll be getting a call from the doc this week!

Big and little

Okay, seriously, not even I realized how big the difference is until I laid them next to each other without their clothes on!! Yikes!! Really, I promise, we DO feed Mackenzie!!!! She gets the same food Makayla gets - just not directly from the tap!

Anthony opening his easter eggs

Ok, so I'm a complete moron and held the camera sideways while I was videotaping this!! So you have to turn your head to watch it - but I wanted to put it up b/c I think it's so funny when he says, "Oh my gosh" after opening the second egg!!

Easter pics

Anthony's Easter basket

Hunting for eggs

Opening eggs

Makayla in her Easter dress

Right before she started screaming

Best one we could get of them both - neither were very happy about the whole ordeal!!

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter!!!

What Easter is about

Pics and an update

My friend Arleen came over on Tuesday to help out, and while the girls slept, we colored Easter eggs with Anthony. He enjoyed it, and was very orderly in how the stickers were to be removed from the sheet - each row had to be completely used before we were allowed to move on to the next row!! It was pretty amusing!



Here is Anthony doing what I must ask him to do a couple dozen times a day - putting Makayla's binky back in her mouth!! (Although it kind of looks like he's feeding her popcorn - I promise he's not!!)



Makayla has started smiling more - especially when I lay her down on the changing table. At the doc's office on Friday, she weighed 10 lbs, 4 oz.



Mackenzie still doesn't smile very often - at least not so that I can catch it on camera! At the doc's office Friday, she only weighed 5 lbs, 10 oz. Yikes!!! It was only a nurse visit for their Synagis shot, but they see the neonatologist on March 31 - we'll see what they say.



We don't have any big plans for Easter. I'm certain the Easter Bunny will bring a basket for Anthony, as well as hide eggs. Will post pics of that fun!!

I'm feeling much better from my surgery and all that drama. Darrell told me to get out of the house for some me-time today, so I did some shopping and coffee-drinking! It was a really warm day - 90's - but it was good to get some sunshine. Now I'm exhausted. Am going to try to get to bed at a reasonable hour. We did great lat night - I fed Makayla at 9:30, she fell asleep around 10:00, then didn't wake up until 2:40 am, then again at 6:30 am...so a good night!! I think Darrell only had to get up with Mackenzie once too. A welcome relief after a few of the crazy, up-half-a-dozen-times nights we had this week!!!

Happy Easter everyone!!!

Typical me

Some things never change...the sun will always rise again, tax season will always come...and my body will continue to do things the atypical way.

So I got my tubes tied on Friday. I had to be there at 6:00 a.m., and was supposed to be done by 9:00 a.m. It was done laporascopically (sp???) - through a small incision in my belly button - and is supposed to have a quick recovery. Right. First of all, they were trying to kick me out before I was half awake. Then the nurse got mad at me because I didn't tell her I was nauseous BEFORE she took out my IV...umm...still not really awake?! They stripped the sheets off my bed before I was out the door - so I'm sitting there in the wheelchair holding a barf bag up to my face while I try to throw up the nothing that was in my stomach, all while I'm in pain b/c they only gave me 1/4 of the normal dose of pain medication. Then I start having chills and my teeth start chattering - so they have to run and find a recliner, get me situated, put a heating blanket on me, get some nausea medicine in me, and get some pain medicine for me. So my recovery was off to a good start.

I got home around 11:00 a.m., took some more pain meds and went to sleep. I did okay Friday during the day, other than being in quite a bit more pain than I expected based on what I had been told prior to the surgery. Friday evening I was okay - sat up and visited with a friend who brought us dinner, ate dinner with no problem...went to bed around 7:00 p.m. and slept for quite a while.

I woke up at 11:00 p.m. and had some chills, so checked my temp - 100.3. They said to call if it was over 100.4, so I just took some more pain medicine and went back to sleep. I woke up several more times, and each time my teeth were chattering and my temp continued to rise. Finally, I woke around 5:00 a.m., my temp was 103, I had a horrible headache, I puked my dinner from the night before, and my pain was bad. I called the doctor, who told me to go to the emergency room. Great. So my options are to 1.) Call an ambulance and be taken to the ghetto hospital closest to our home; 2.) Have Darrell load up all the kids to take me to the other hospital; or 3.) Call and wake up all of our friends at 5:30 a.m. to try to find a ride. I chose option 3, and after waking a couple people, our dear friend Gloria was able to take me. I must note that my friend Gina (who has 5 children) was willing to get all of her children up and in the car to take me, if I couldn't find anyone else - quite a trooper she is!!!

Anyways, they ran a bunch of tests - blood work, x-rays, CT scan, etc. - and decided I had a UTI and my white blood count was elevated - they didn't know for sure if that was from the UTI or if I was getting an infection from the surgery. So they ended up admitting me for IV fluids, antibiotics, nausea medicine and pain control. Our friend Marlyna, who had flown in from San Francisco and was planning to spend the day helping Darrell with the kids while I recuperated, ended up spending much of the day in the hospital with me.

Today I am much much better, and they let me come home. I'll still have to take antibiotics for a week, but my fever is gone and my white blood count was back down, so those are good signs. I still have pain, especially when I'm up and around, but it's definitely better than it was. Let's hope I continue to improve without any more obstacles!!!

P.S. Darrell did awesome on his own with all three kids!! He even somehow managed to clean up the house, clean out the refrigerator, and put together Anthony's train tracks for him!!

Surgery tomorrow

It's been a busy week! I think we stayed home Monday...can't really remember that far back b/c my brain is mush. Tuesday I had my pre-op appointment at the hospital; took all three kids with me, and my friend Arleen met us there to help with the kids while I did my registration and such. Then she followed us over to the lab and kept two of the kids in the waiting room while I took one baby with me in to get my blood work done. It all went pretty well - the worst part was that both babies screamed the entire way home - 1/2 hour - and it totally stressed both me and Anthony out!!

And since Tuesday went so well, I decided to try again and took all three with me yesterday to my breastfeeding support group. That, too, went remarkably well once we got there. Getting everyone out of the house and loaded is a bit stressful. But once there, Anthony was so good - played quietly and didn't whine at all, and the lactation consultant fed Mackenzie her bottle while I nursed Makayla. It was nice to visit with my new friends!!

Ready for the weigh-ins?? Makayla, the little porker, weighs 10 lbs, 1 oz!!! Mackenzie, slow but steady, weighs 5 lbs, 12 oz...do you think maybe next week will be the week we finally hit 6 lbs???!!! I am convinced Makayla wants to be double Mackenzie's size!!

So tomorrow I have to be at the hospital at 6:00 a.m. for my 7:00 a.m. surgery. They say I'll get to go home around 9, though I'm wondering if my body is so sleep-deprived that they may have a hard time waking me up once they've got me knocked out!!! Darrell's staying home with the kids; one friend is taking me to the hospital and another is picking me up to bring me home. Anyways, keep me in your prayers that everything goes smoothly!!

Milestones

Well, both girls are holding their heads up, although Mackenzie does it MUCH better than Makayla. Mackenzie can also roll herself from her tummy to her back!! My theory is that there just isn't much to roll, so it's easy!! Both girls are also finding their smiles - they've been smiling in their sleep for a long time, but now they are starting to actually smile intentionally. Yay!! My stepdaughter Samantha came Tuesday night and spent the night, and helped me out all day yesterday - she was a HUGE help!! We went to the pharmacy and got Makayla's new tummy medicine - the doc put her on Prilosec for her reflux...here's hoping it works! We also took the kids to my breastfeeding group. Makayla, the little chub, weighs 9 lbs, 10 oz !!! She's so rolly polly, it's so cute. Mackenzie, sweet Mackenzie, still only weighs 5 lbs, 7 oz - but at least she gained 5 oz this week!! We're gonna have to throw a party to celebrate when she hits 6 lbs - maybe by 3 months of age??

Here are some pics - haven't posted any for a while.


This is from several weeks ago...aren't they just adorable?!


Isn't this so cute, how Makayla puts her arm around Mackenzie - the protective big sister!!


This is from maybe a week or two ago.


Whatcha doin' mom??


This is today...I am so amazed at well Mackenzie holds her head up. They say you can use this little seat once they can hold their heads up...but I don't think they anticipated that would happen for a baby less than 5 1/2 lbs!! I had to put a blanket behind her to fill in some of the vast empty space!!


My little china doll.


Look, mom, I'm learning how to smile!! This is fun!


And this is what Makayla thought of the whole idea...you want me to do WHAT???? Waaaahhhhh!

Oh, and let me explain this pic...I've been talking with a couple friends about our breastmilk. Normal breastmilk separates after it sits for a while, and usually you end up with most of it looking like slightly cloudy water, with a thin layer of milky cream on top. My breastmilk? Well, apparently I make SUPER milk...this is what it looks like after it separates - a thin layer of cloudy water on bottom, topped by several ounces of very creamy milk, topped by an even thicker custard-like layer of pure fat!! They've been wanting to see it for themselves...so here it is!!

How Could I Ask For More?

I've always loved this song, but lately I can't stop singing it...here's a video of the song that I found on YouTube.