Long time, no blog

Hi Everyone,

We apologize for taking so long to update. Needless to say we have our hands full. Basically, as soon as both girls got home from the hospital we had to plan for Emily's bilateral hernia surgery. She had it two weeks ago and is healing, seemingly with little pain left. Also, Bob's mom came into town to lend a hand -- we cannot thank her enough for her "baby whisperer" insight. THANK YOU!!! Another thank you to my fam as well - we literallly couldn't do it without you. So, here are the updates:

Avery - MUST weigh 11-12 lbs, 21 inches long. She is a monster and gaining by the second. I think she could knock someone out with her cheeks! Developmentally doing really well, she is doing great with eye contact/following things and started smiling this weekend. Miss Avery Claire is very curious about the world with her big blue eyes taking it all in like a sponge.

Emily - Weighs a whopping 7 1/2 lbs., 20 inches long. Emily is our lean, mean grunting machine. We hoped the surgery would solve all of her grunting, but it hasn't. The Pediatric Gastroenterologist thinks she might have a milk/soy protein intolerance. So, I have cut out anything with these ingredients...which is a lot of products! We have basically gone completely organic - probably not a bad thing. This may have helped slightly, but we are just going to give her time and hope she outgrows it. She has thrush she cannot get rid of b/c she is on an antibiotic to help her pass her food through her system more easily. The good news is - she is eating much better since the surgery. We took her off of all formulas (even the Alimentum for soy/milk allergy) and put her on plain old mama milk and she can't get enough - she's gaining like a champ. Sometimes you have to be your own doctor. Emily started smiling this weekend as well but needs a little more time to make it legitimate.

Overall, all is well in the nyen twins household. We have our wonderful Christina (Newborn Specialist) who has saved our sanity by helping us get through some of the nights. The nights she is not here are rough, not going to lie. Bob and I have resorted to making pallets on the floor in front of their cribs. They are still on Apnea monitors, which is a love/hate relationship. Their events have MUCH IMPROVED I am happy to say.

Avery slept through the night Monday night (besides a diaper change at 2:30am - thanks mom)!!!!! And Miss Emily Lane is a close second with only a 2:00am feed then went right back to sleep...yeah! I think we are getting the hang of things - or as my friend said, "You just get used to it". The key seems to be to surrender control, understand that your life will be utterly consumed by them for the first little while. From what I understand it "gets easier". It is getting rather fun to see them growing and developing on a daily basis. The part right now that's hard is what we call (borrowed from a friend with twin girls) is "code red". This is when both of them wake up and go crazy to eat at the same time. WOW, this will stress anyone out....but, we are coming up with ways to handle the code red - like swings (Graco Sweetpeace is pretty cool).

I am making a list of all the products that I have found useful to new families (since we know so many people either pregnant or have newborns). There's a lot out there and it can get super expensive. However, there are some items worth their weight in gold. Hopefully I will post those in the next few days. ALSO, we are working on getting annoucements together (which also contain special thank you notes). Please accept our apology for the totally and completely delinquent thank you notes!!!! They are coming, I promise!!!!

Love to all,
Heather