So my plan, for days now, was to

1) thank you all for your wonderful support and great advice after my last post and ask, yet once again, what would I do without you?!?

and

2) re-write/update my little take on ‘An Infertility Night Before Christmas’ that I posted last year:

GAWD.

There  is soooo much I want to blog about, but like a bad stereotype of a frazzled new Mom I walk around in my jammies all day with greasy hair and if I get to brush my teeth I feel accomplished…and we have help!

I don’t know what new Moms do without help. I really don’t.

I want to write about the night before the babies were born, when BeBop made a great dinner and gave me a book — a book he made. By hand!  A real book, bound and everything, with beautiful images starting with the two photos from Dr. Z of Embryo 3 and Embryo 8 who, in a few short months, would become Jackson and Parker.  BeBop designed beautiful images for each page, along with photos of me being pregnant and lyrics from different songs.  It was the most touching gift I have ever received.

I want to write about the birth story. But with a scheduled c-section, there’s not too much drama or mystery about the whole thing.  I was so, so sick at the very end and so thankful my dr agreed to do the surgery on that Wednesday instead of Friday which he initially suggested.

I want to write about how beautiful the babies are, how Parker is above her birth weight because she eats like a champ and demolishes every bottle.  She’s so small and pink, with feathery traces of light blond hair and the sweetest face you’ve ever seen.  She’s Mommy’s little angel.  And how Jackson is so sweet but also so stubborn, (how could a two-week old be so stubborn??)  and how he’s a tricky eater (more on this in a sec.) and still a few ounces below his birth weight.

There’s just so much to write about, to  much to be grateful for and excited about, but I have so little to say it with…

So for now, I’m going to ask for help.  Any words of wisdom for a new Mom?

–I still feel sooo overwhelmed.  I feel totally out-numbered with two babies, especially when I have to feed both myself (BeBop takes the late night feedings, I do early mornings). Any tips from other twin Moms?  I know it’s only been two weeks, but I feel totally anxious when it comes to feeding two babies.

–My milk supply is paltry, bad, whatever. Now they’re on formula 100%, and I’m trying to pump and take a bunch of herbs that supposedly can help with the volume, but it’s so frustrating and hard. After dealing with infertility for a million years, I just want my body to WORK.  To do what it’s supposed to. But it’s not.  I’ll keep pumping for another week or so, but at some point I have to face the truth and I might have to give it up.

–Thankfully, BeBop has had this whole time off.  He had to take a couple of weeks before the birth because I was sick, and he doesn’t go back until after the holidays. But I’m already FREAKING out about it.  During the day, I get help from a baby nurse we hired for a few weeks.  She’ll be here for much of January. She’s so helpful, BeBop isn’t even around much of the day, he’s getting things organized around the house and decorating for Christmas, whatever.  But I feel so much better with him around, and I literally feel panicky and anxious when I think of him going back to work.  He won’t be able to do the late night feedings and still function, so I’ll have to do more on my own.

–Jackson is very tricky on the bottle. He’ll take the first ounce great and then practically goes on a hunger strike.  We’ve tried millions of bottles, nipples, etc. but nothing seems to do the trick.  The nurse, of course, has much better luck than I do.  With me, he literally puts his tongue at the roof of his mouth to block the bottle, he gets very  sloppy and drips a ton out the sides of his mouth, he’ll stop sucking and swallowing if you actually manage to get the bottle in there.  It’s like he has a bag of tricks he uses to keep from eating the rest of the bottle.  His weight gain is okay, but not great.  The dr isn’t concerned, but of course I am.  I feel like I can’t breastfeed him and now I can’t seem to BOTTLE feed him either, what the frick is wrong with me?!

My sister is coming this weekend to help, and the baby nurse has offered to come back and help me through the transition when BeBop goes back to work. I think I have a ‘WARNING:  Good Candidate for Post Partum Depression’ sign on my forehead or something. But I’m grateful for the help, I really am.

I still can’t believe a year ago we went to LA to celebrate our 6th anniversary and talked so much about how we were ready to start the IVF cycle after the first of the year.  And how a year later, we are getting ready to celebrate the twins’ first Christmas.  What a  wild, crazy and wonderful year it’s been.

So much to say, so little brain power to say it with!

THANKS to the awesome Oneliner for sharing the good news, but beware:  friends don’t let friends text when hopped up on all sorts of pain meds!

Things are great — we’ve been home since Sunday night and the twins celebrate their one-week birthday today.

They are doing so well, after losing a little too much weight at first, Parker is back up to her birth weight and Jackson is still about 11 oz. off, but we’re getting there.

I will definitely try to write  a ‘real’ post in the days to come, when I don’t just burst into tears each and every time I look at them and cannot believe how blessed we are.

I mean, really, what else is there to say??