25.9.2010

Today the twins’ are 9 weeks old and it is our very first Saturday at home together. 

David is up in his office working and I am in the nursery typing this as the twins’ sleep in their cot.  I should be sleeping too really but I want to get this done as we have now been home for 5 nights and there is so much to say.

Things are going well I think.  The babies are feeding well and gaining weight.  They are pooing and weeing often and sleeping some of the time!!! 

I don’t know how I expected to feel when the babies came home, but how I do feel is like me but with a baby?!  Two babies!! I think I thought that I would feel different somehow, a new variation of me.  But I just feel like me, a very lucky me with the two most gorgeous babies in the world.

On Wednesday we ventured out for our first walk.  We dressed the babies up in their snow suits and tucked them up in their pram then set off round the village.  We stuck to quieter parts as we did not want to expose the twins to too many people on their first trip out but then I found myself feeling really dispapointed that we had passed no one who might admire the twins and see how beaming with pride we both are to be pushing our double pram! 

Sleep deprivation is not too bad at the moment.  I think because David is helping a lot at night by changing most of the nappies.  I focus on the feeding and they do feed a lot!  An average of once each every two hours over night.  I think that this is a comfort for them but also their tummies are still so tiny that they are forced to eat little and often, though I know that they can go 3 or even 4 hours when they want to!

They struggle to settle in their cot and so we have the radio on for them and leave a lamp on overnight.  The twins spent the last two months in a busy, noisy ward and so find the silence a little daunting I think.  Over the coming days and nights we will wean them off the light and the noise.

On Friday the Health Visitor came round.  I was fully expecting her to inspect our house but she didn’t.  She was a lovely lady and I am looking forward to more of her visits as she has lots of good advice and is easy to chat to.  I have been missing the advice and the chat from the hospital.  A lot actually.  We went through lots of paper work and discussed mine and David’s worries about temperature and poo!  She really put our minds at ease and reassured us that we are doing things right and that the babies are doing fine.  She thinks that it is a real achievement that we are still fully breastfeeding the twins and that they are feeding so well.  She will come back next Friday to weigh the babies again and measure their length.  She also checks the general well being of the babies and of us parents too.  It is nice to know that we have someone again.  The support network at the hospital was just amazing and has made such a difference to me as a parent I am sure.  I learned so much from so many different, equally wonderful people.  I miss them all so much.

Also on Friday we had to take the babies to the hospital for their eye examination.  David and I struggled with this visit because we have been advised to stay away from crowded places, other children and ill people only to then be told to attend an appointment at hospital, a crowded place filled with children and ill people!  We packed the twins tight into their carry cots and stood guard to stop people getting too close!  I think that we have made it through unscathed and the babies got the all clear again at the eye test and do not have to be seen again until the end of February.

Today we are going to go out for a longer walk along the Pilgrims Way and also give the babies their second home bath.  Today we are going to bath them together.  I am looking forward to that.