Writing

The little people are one month old today! The girls arrived so abruptly and changed our lives so radically, but there is still a sense of denial that we’re parents. Derek and I said it’s more like being made slaves; we suddenly have tons of chores but no ability to procrastinate. If our slave-masters weren’t so cute we might have run away already!

Even though the girls look a lot alike, we can already see distinct personality differences so for the one month post I thought I’d share this for you!

Aeralind Grace (her name means Hymn of Grace*)

In the womb, Aeralind was a space hog; she elbowed and kneed her larger (according to ultrasounds) sister into the upper corner while enjoying her breech lazy boy position in my left hip. But even though she was a demanding diva about her space, she was also generally the more delicate of the two. Her kicks were softer and her movements less abrupt. She was modest too and covered herself at the 20 week appointment when we were trying to ascertain her gender!

Most of those traits are still evident in this tiny girl. If you carry her upright, she most likely has her arms around your neck. She loves to talk to daddy non-stop during nighttime feedings; she coos the whole time she’s sucking down her bottle. The way she places her hands is so utterly feminine and delicate, but the diva traits are still there. Aeralind threw a fit for daddy on the second day of life because she was upset that he was taking so long to put a new diaper on her. She was so livid that she actually rolled over (back to tummy)! She has what I like to refer to as “diaper diva” status; she’ll wait till you change a diaper that was just wet and then fill the brand new one (or fill your face…). Aeralind likes things her way stat! (please). But you can’t hold a grudge against her demanding nature, not with that crazy cute hair sticking up all over the place.

Bronwyn Hope (her name means Enduring Hope*)

In the womb, Bronwyn certainly made her presence known. She was the first baby Derek felt around 18 weeks at the church picnic. She was totally jamming to the worship music and kicking like a madwoman. She earned the nickname of “Daddy’s little soccer player.” In fact as womb space became more of a commodity, Bronwyn could be seen kicking her sister’s head and bouncing it off my belly!

Bronwyn’s physicality has not changed. It’s almost impossible to keep her swaddled. Her little feet escape from even footed outfits. When we started Tummy Time at two weeks, Bronwyn soaked up ever minute of it like it was the best thing ever, while delicate little Aeralind screamed bloody murder! In fact within the first 10 minutes of her first Tummy Time she had learned to turn her head from side to side. Within the first half hour she had managed to scoot a full foot up the mat. On her due date (October 7) she rolled over from tummy to back FIVE times; I don’t think she’s supposed to be able to do that yet…

I can’t express to you how much we love these little girls. I look forward to seeing their personalities continue to develop over the next few months

*A note about their names: We used Tolkien’s elf language Sindarin when picking out the girls names. We wanted them to be pronounceable on sight, but also have strong meanings. Aeralind was modified from the word Aerlind and Bronwyn was modified from Bronwe.

The question I’m asked most often right now with the girls is: Are they identical? My answer is an honest “I don’t know.”

If twins are the same gender there a few ways to tell if they are identical outside of DNA testing. Most of these signs are linked with the day the zygote split in two after fertilization.

If the egg split between days…

1. 1-3 The identical twins will have two separate chorionic and amniotic sacs and two separate placentas. Short of DNA testing, the parents would have no indication that the twins were identical.
2. 4-8 The identical twins will have two separate amniotic sacs and two separate placentas, but share a chorionic sac (the outer membrane around the two). This is a rather hard situation to detect via ultrasound, so these parents may have no indication either.
3. 8-13 The identical twins will share chorionic and amniotic sacs and a placenta. These twins are referred to as Mono/Mono and are usually detected by ultrasound and monitored very carefully for twin to twin transfusion syndrome. Their parents know that the twins are identical in the womb.
4. 13-15 The identical twins will be born conjoined. In this case, you know they are identical.

What complicates matters further is that in cases 1 and 2 the placentas can fuse together and look like one placenta at delivery. Unfortunately, the fused placenta can occur in dizygotic/fraternal twins as well.

My girls were delivered with one gigantic placenta and look a lot alike. So your guess is as good as mine. If you’re dying to know the answer to the girl’s zygosity, I’ll gladly let you fund a DNA test that’ll put you out about $100 (or more). If the girls want to know… well, they had better start saving their allowances…

So in short, your guess is as good as mine and I’d love to hear it in the comment section 😉

Soon after I found out I was expecting twins I began to wonder how on earth I was going to get them from one place to another. Should I register for a tandem stroller or a side by side? Would it fit through a door? Could I actually turn a corner in it? And what about the evening stroll around our block that my husband and I like to enjoy: Could it make it up these monstrous hills?

The hill leading up to our house. This isn’t even the biggest hill in the neighborhood.

We ended up purchasing an old Double Snap and Go off of Craigslist that is quite a bear at almost 8lbs without the car seats and babies added to it! Don’t get me wrong, I love it for things like short shopping trips, but that walk around the block? Impossibly difficult! Well, maybe my husband could muscle his way through that walk, but it wouldn’t qualify as a stroll with all the huffing and puffing he’d be making. And of course, after my c-section I’m not really even allowed to lift one of the car seats let alone the push the stroller with two!

So in short, we are so glad we registered for Moby Wraps! The Moby Wrap isn’t a sling or a carrier, but rather a long stretchy piece of fabric that you wrap around yourself snugly and then insert your baby. And unlike the more traditional (and super expensive!) carriers out there, I can carry BOTH of my babies in one wrap while not disobeying the doctors orders not to lift more than a gallon of milk! The wrap grows with your baby and allows you to carry the child until they are 35lbs which is realistic because the child’s weight is distributed evenly across your back and torso.

On a walk with our cat Moonbeam. Yep, he thinks he’s a dog.

Outside of our evening stroll, Derek and I have loved the Moby Wrap in following the Lactation Consultant’s recommendation of Kangaroo Care with our 36 weekers. Kangaroo Care is skin to skin contact with the baby on your chest.

Derek and Bronwyn enjoying some Kangaroo Care.

It helps the girls maintain body temperature and feel like they are still in the womb listening to my heartbeat. In short, Kangaroo Care lets the girls use less energy and, therefore, helps them gain weight faster. Without the Moby Wrap, Kangaroo Care would require me to be still during my few waking hours, holding one or both of the girls to my chest. But using the Moby Wrap I can Kangaroo and blog or sew or do the dishes or fold laundry. The Moby helps me maximize my waking hours.

Needless to say, my husband and I love this product and are so thankful to the people who went out on a limb and purchased them from our baby registry. I loved it so much that I contacted Moby Wraps about doing a giveaway on this blog and guess what? They agreed!

One lucky person will receive a Moby Wrap in a random drawing from my comments sections. Here’s how to enter:

1. Go to Moby Wrap and pick your favorite color (mine is Moss and my husband chose Indigo).
2. Leave me a comment telling me your favorite color and how you would use your Moby if you won.
3. Make sure that your email address is either on your Blogger Profile or in your comment so I can contact you for your address if you’re the winner.
4. I’ll use a random number generator to select the winner on the girls’ one month birthday: October 11th

Rachel Acord took this (and many, many other) amazing pictures of our family when the girls were 11 days old. You can see more here at her blog!