Our journey to be parents: 3 months old!!

Can you believe it! I can't! I also can't believe how long it has been since I have updated my blog! So sorry but there is no time!! My new life as a stay at home mom with 2 babies has changed my life in so many ways I can't believe it! All my priorities have shifted and it is all about them now!

Lets see so let me back track a bit since I last updated 2 months ago! The first couple months was well how do I say it nicely.....ummm the hardest most trying time in my life!! I was trying to do everything on my own everyday feeding and changing and pumping and it all seemed to be going good in my head until the newborn adrenaline wore off and I found myself in the emergency room on a sunday afternoon. The babies were about 4.5 weeks old and I had gone about 5 days with no sleep and about 3 days with no food, the adrenaline was wearing off and my anxiety about having these 2 tiny lives to take care of all caught up with me. I spent 4 hours in the ER and ended up being told I had postpartum depression, anxiety, insomnia and dehydration. They gave me a bunch of medicine to take and I went home and that's when everything changed. We called in reinforcements (grandparents, night nannies, aunts, great-aunts, cousins, neighbors, a part-time daytime nanny) and anyone else who would come over and help!! And boy did I need it and so did Justin! Everybody pitched in and I just tried to work on getting better and to sleep. I had to take each day slowly, just hour by hour, to try and mentally and physically repair and understand what was going on with my body and my new life. It was hard, very hard. And I have to say, my husband was SO amazing through it all!! He stuck by me and just took charge and took care of those babies and the house and our life, so I could just work on getting myself healthy for those girls. I definitely saw a new side of him, that I never expected to see and it was so awesome! It made me love him even more than I knew I could.

And then slowly with all the help and support each day started to get easier and my anxiety subsided and I became more confident. But I couldn't have done it without our amazing support team! I think I would have drowned.

The lack of sleep the first 2.5 months, no one can prepare you for! Especially with 2 babies! You get one to sleep and the other one wakes up and this cycle goes on and on all night long! Thank god for our wonderful night nannies that helped us out 3-4 nights a week so we could get some sleep! We ended up finding them last minute though a friend of Justin's and it just so happened that they had an 8-12 week opening between their other families to help us out. So they came from 11pm-7am on those nights and Justin and I would turn on the fan as high and loud as possible to block out the crying and it was the best paid for sleep I have ever gotten in my life! It was priceless!

So what about the babies??? They are amazing! I know I might be biased but they are the cutest babies I have ever seen!! Ha ha!! The first 2 months they are really just like blobs with no reaction except for staring, crying, sleeping, pooping. But once that first smile from Georgia appeared at a little after 2 months old, it made all that hard work the first 2 months worth it! Frankie started to smile about a week later! They have also started to laugh and coo at us and sometimes we even get a hint of a belly laugh from both of them! It is so cool! In the last couple weeks they have also gotten quite strong and can now almost hold their heads up straight on their own and they are reaching for things. Their personalities are so different, their cries are different, and their body movements are different. Frankie loves light up toys with music and well....the TV. Georgia also likes the light up toys but I think she prefers just a plain old rattle or just your face in front of her. Georgia is also a couple pounds bigger than Frankie at this point. At their 2 month checkup (which they had to get 3 shots, but did really well with) Georgia was around 11.5lbs and Frankie was around 9lbs. It has been almost a month since that visit, so I would think they each have probably gained another pound! Wow, how fast they grow! The doctor told us at their 2 month check up that they were gaining weight and growing really well and that we must be doing something right! Words to put my mind at ease! We will go back to the doctor the first part of February for their 4 month checkup and more shots. Sad face!

And how are the girls sleeping at this point? Amazingly better! We put them down usually between 9:30-10:30 after their last feeding and they are sleeping till about 5-6am and then they go right back down till 9-9:30am! I am hoping soon they will just drop that 5am feeding, but for now I am just happy to have those 2 nice chunks of sleep. And yes we still have a night here and there where they are restless, but overall I am so happy with how they are doing. We do have them on the exact same schedule, so they always eat at the same time, play at the same time and nap at the same time, which I think makes life for us a whole lot easier because now 90% of the time we know why they are crying. Last week was the last week for the night nannies, so from this point forward we are on our own at night, but I have no worries because of the amazing progress they are making.

We also have hired a part-time daytime nanny that I mentioned earlier. Rachel comes 3 days a week during the day to help me take care of the girls. She is so good with them and the girls love her. Having her around just helps me get a break to take a shower or run an errand or sleep in or take a nap.

Justin and I have also gotten great help with his family and mine so that we can get out of the house together to ensure our relationship stays healthy. It's nice to just go to lunch or run to Target together and just reconnect. Yes, we love being with the babies, but we need sometime away from them as well just for our sanity and to get out of the house (which sometimes can feel like it is closing in on you).

We love our new life! The girls have completely flipped our lives upside-down, but I wouldn't change a thing. Yes, I may not be able to run out anytime I want now, or meet up with my/our friends anytime we want, but that's ok because the times that we do get to do those things now it is extra special and means more. But for the most part I am happy just hanging at home in my Victorias secret sweatsuit making the girls smile. And I am feeling 100% better physically and mentally and I am already off all of the medications which is a huge relief for me! I also think my crazy hormones are almost back to normal which after 3.5 years of messing with them, it feels nice to not feel like someone else is possessing your body.

We look forward to each new day with the girls and each new thing they start to do is so exciting! We have taken them just a few places like relatives houses and the mall, but other than that we have tried to avoid taking them out too much because of the awful flu that has been going around and because it is so cold out now. I am looking forward to the spring when we can take them out more and to the park and the zoo and lots of fun places with friends!

Ok, time to share some pictures! I am going to try and start updating again more often, but hey no promises! I got 2 babies to take care of remember!!!

Our newborn photo shoot: