To the rookies in the parent pick-up line at school, Thank You Very Much. I KNOW there was a flyer given to every parent at meet the teacher night that explained exactly how to pick up your kids. Did you read that? I didn't think so! Let me just fill you in on the most important detail: DO NOT park your car in the middle of the parent pick-up lanes and then GET OUT and go in to the school. You should know that when I see this happen, I will inform the front desk staff immediately and giggle when they announce your license plate # and car description over the loud speaker. Then I will roll down my car windows and laugh as loud as I can as I, and all the other rule followers, watch your 'walk of shame' back to your car!

To spelling word sentences, Thank You Very Much. I did not miss you over the summer! Man, I did not enjoy you when I was in school. And because I decided to put the boys in the same class this year, I now have to help come up with 2 completely different sentences for each spelling word!

To Ashton and Bailey, Thank You Very Much, for thinking it is ok to stay up until 10pm, playing in the dark ON.A.SCHOOL.NIGHT!! It can't be easy for you to make it through a full day of school if you're tired and I do not want to deal with your cranky pants the next day. Starting the night in separate rooms is going to become the new norm if you don't get your butts to sleep!

To the soccer ball, Thank You Very Much for smashing in to Lily's face, sending her glasses flying and leaving her with a purple bruise on her eyelid THE DAY BEFORE SCHOOL PICTURES!

Go see Kmama and get your free therapy TODAY!

Holie Molie, Guys! I maybe should have made this a 3 Part series! Get comfy and maybe get a snack, cuz this could take a while!

At 31 weeks I started having consistent contractions. My Dr had me to go to LandD and after being monitored for a while, I got some medication to hopefully stop labor. The contractions did slow down but I had a bad reaction to the meds and my heart started racing at 150bpm. Even though my labor slowed down, we had to stay at the hospital until my heart rate came down to an acceptable level.

At 32 weeks,  I started again with the frequent contractions. After talking to a nurse at 2am and letting her know that I was having more than 6 contractions an hour for two hours and each contraction was at least 60 seconds long, we made our way back to the hospital, tagging poor Lily along with us.

The first attempt to stop my contractions did not work. My Dr. decided to start me on Magnesium, which required staying in the hospital. DaddyO and  Lily went home and I began enjoying the wonderful effects of Magnesium. Any one ever tried it? It is A.W.F.U.L!
During this stay in the hospital I was also given 2 shots of steroids 24 hours apart to help the boys' lungs mature more quickly. After 3 days, I was sent home on strict bed-rest.

The very next day, after being released from the hospital, we were back AGAIN with consistent contractions. One more night in an uncomfortable bed, lots of painless contractions with no dilating and I'm sent home with instructions to deal with the contractions unless they become painful.

Friday, one week later, I have a regular prenatal visit. I am still having frequent contraction but only dilated 2cm. My Dr is going out of town for the weekend and is hoping I don't go in to labor while he is gone. He is pretty sure that an on-call Dr would put me back on magnesium instead of delivering the babies.
I also have an ultrasound to check the babies weights. It shows that one baby is 4lbs 1oz and the other baby is 4lbs 6oz. That is WAY too small! My next appointment is Monday.

Monday, August 4, 2003 - 34 weeks pregnant
My contractions have pretty much stopped. I haven't really been keeping track of frequency, but they definitely aren't painful. DaddyO and Lily stay home while I head to my Drs appointment, with the car.  When I get to the office, which is located at the hospital, I am running a bit late so I'm trying to waddle as fast as I can in to the building. As I opened the door to the elevator room of the Women's Center, my foot went under a rug that had moved up over the ledge of the door, invisible to me beneath my ginormous stomach! I WENT FLYING! I landed on my knees, then my stomach and finally caught myself with my hands which ended up jamming my elbow. I was going so fast, that one of my very sensible flip-flops went flying over my head. A very kind man and lady helped me up off the floor and handed me my shoe.
I was terrified!
I made it upstairs and waited anxiously to talk to the Dr. He said that what they worry about with a fall is the placenta pulling away from the uterus and not being able to support the babies. If the placenta pulls away and is bleeding, the blood can irritate the uterus and make you go in to labor. He checked the boys on the ultrasound and they both had great heart rates. I, however, had dilated from 2cm to 3cm in 4 days. The Doc wanted me to go to Labor and Delivery to be monitored and make sure I wasn't going to go in to labor.

I left the office and immediately called DaddyO. All he heard for the first few minutes of the call was me sobbing. I told him the whole story and sobbed some more about how he was going to get to the hospital when I had the car with Lily's car seat!

At about 4:30pm I got all set up with monitors to keep track of contractions and the boys' hearts. My brother came to the hospital, got Lily's car seat and delivered it to DaddyO so he could get Lily's to my Mom's and come be with me at the hospital.

At 6pm, my Dr came to check me. I was having regular contractions and I was now dilated to 3.5cm. It looked like the fall had sent me in to labor. He was going to have me monitored until 8:30pm and if I dilated even a little bit more, he was going to do a c-section that night. He said that there were too many extenuating circumstances to stop labor (ie, the fall, my bag of waters was bulging and apparently Ashton's foot had started coming down the birth canal).

At 8pm the nurse checked me and I was dilated to 4cm. She said the c-section was going to happen at 9pm. She also told us since the boys were coming 6 weeks early, that we should probably plan on them being in the hospital for at least 2 weeks. I didn't like the sounds of that!

And so, off we went to meet our little boys. At 9:23pm Ashton was born with perfect cries! After they took Ashton out, Bailey turned sideways and moved way up by my ribs. The Dr was having a hard time reaching him. He asked for the big suction thingie, but was finally able to grab his butt and Bailey was born at 9:25pm, also with perfect cries! Music to my ears!

I got to give them a quick kiss and then they rushed them off to the nursery for some more detailed evaluations. Both of the boys had a little bit of oxygen blown in their faces, but they were doing so good that DaddyO brought them back to me while I was still in recovery! Ashton ended up being 4lbs 13oz and Bailey was 5lbs 1oz. Bailey had a few problems with his blood sugar being low but a little bit of sugar water and formula straightened that out. Because they had absolutely no fat on their skinny bones, we had to wrap them up tight and make sure they stayed warm. My little champs did so well that we all only stayed in the hospital for 3 days. NO TWO WEEKS!!!


That was fun reliving those exciting days! Thanks for making it through my mini-series!!

Well, Ashton and Bailey turn 7 this week! Unbelievable! So I thought it would be fun to share their pregnancy and birth story. We'll make it a two-part series cuz, man-oh-man, they came with some excitement!

When Lily was about 12 months old we decided to start trying for another baby. It took 1.5years of "trying", 8 months of fertility drugs and 1 miscarriage before we finally got pregnant. (I know that compared to some, this is nothin')

I went my first pre-natal visit at 7 weeks and had a routine ultrasound. When I looked up at the screen I thought I must be hallucinating! I said to the Dr. "Is that two?!" and he said "Yep, that's two!"  But there was only 1 visible heartbeat so we made an appointment to come back in two weeks to check the heartbeats again. Although twins sounded scary, I was sad to think that there might be only one heartbeat.

Luckily, two weeks later it was confirmed that there was indeed TWO healthy heartbeats and both babies measured perfect 9 week size!

Pregnancies with multiples are considered high-risk, plus I thought it would be funny to add-on Gestational Diabetes and low iron so we spent more time at the Drs office than with a "normal" pregnancy. Which was actually fine with me because we got to have an ultrasound every time we were at the office. It is harder to verify two heartbeats with just the Doppler.

I thought for sure that we would have boy and girl twins, like my Mom's. My brothers kept teasing me that I was going to have two boys and they were going to torture ME just like they had tortured my Mom. So they thought it was hysterical when we found out, at 17 weeks, that we were having two boys. The biggest problem with that? We did not have TWO boy names. We had to start from scratch and search the baby name books! DaddyO and I each made a list of names that we liked. Then we switched lists and took turns crossing off names that we didn't like from the other's list. Here is my list:

Eventually we decided to use names that were related to trees, and we agreed on Ashton and Oakley. Then I, very foolishly, let someone know the names and they proceeded to tell me a horrible story about someone they knew named Oakley. So, Oakley became Bailey. Baby A would be Ashton and Baby B would be Bailey.

We made it to 31 weeks before things started to get interesting. Come back tomorrow (Wednesday) for the premature-labor AND delivery story!

As you know, we took a little trip last week. We drove about 45 minutes away to a beautiful resort.

We ate at fun restaurants where Daisy entertained every one with her Linda Blair impression: No pictures!

We got a special pass to enjoy a lounge at the hotel that served breakfast, snacks and drinks where my rowdy bunch probably should not have been invited: No pictures!

We stayed in a beautiful room that was big enough for a queen sized air mattress to accommodate our many children. The room also had a huge walk-in closet where we were able to set up Daisy's bed so she could sleep in peace while the rest of us watched tv. I meant to get pictures of the room but all I ended up with was shots of the kids in this cool orange chair:

The one place I DID NOT forget my camera is where we spent most of our time and where we had the most fun! The Pools and Waterslide. I even took my camera to the top of the waterslide in an attempt to get some different shots of the kids.

I missed my session last week so I am in desperate need of therapy this week!

To my body, Thank You Very Much for operating better on 3 hours of sleep than you do on 6 hours of sleep. What's up with that? Are you trying to tell me that I should get less sleep than I already do?

To the bug that made Miss Daisy sick all last week, Thank You Very Much for sticking around for our Staycation. YOU owe an apology to 3 families (including ours) who were trying to enjoy dinner and were forced to wittness Daisy throw-up all over herself. OH, and it was very thoughtful of you to see to it that Daisy did not act sick before OR after she threw up. It makes it a little hard for us to tell what is going on when she is singing and dancing 5 minutes after losing her lunch, Thank You Very Much!

To our stupid air conditioner (1 of 2) that decided to break down last weekend, Thank You Very Much! ON.THE.DAY that I had scheduled tag-team babysitters so DaddyO and I could do some school and birthday shopping AND see a movie! I can't very well force the Grandparents to watch my kiddos in sweltering conditions, thank you very much! Get with the program, and just do your job!

To Daisy, Thank You Very Much for making it look like I just let you run wild through the house without keeping a single eye on you!