One Month

Jack & Rob

Laryngomalacia

All goes well with the kidlins, save one small complication. Apparently, Rob's discomfort while eating and periodic noisy breathing is a result of laryngomalcia, a delayed maturation of the supporting structures of the larynx (the epiglottis and/or arytenoid cartilages). Though there are rare cases that are cause for serious concern, laryngomalcia is apparently fairly common and takes care of itself as the child matures. Rob's facial contortions probably hurt me more than the laryngomalcia hurts him.

Male Postpartum Depression

This is a tough post to write, so I will be brief. Everyone knows about mothers and postpartum depression, but fewer people realize that men can also experience a form of PD. The sources that I have reviewed indicate that as many as 1 in 4 men experience some form of PD and 1 in 10 may suffer from a moderate to severe form of this condition. Having researched some of the symptoms, I think that I might qualify.

I don't want to get to much into something so personal in such a public forum, but for more information on male PD, I recommend that you check out the websites and articles here, here, and here. Most importantly, if you think that you have male PD, say something to someone.

We Can Haz Babies?!?!

On Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 6:51 and 6:52 a.m. respectively, Robert Edward and John Andrew entered the World. They are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the two most adorable baby boys ever unleashed. I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide which one is the most adorable and which comes in a close second in human history. Votes welcome in the comments.

The past week (I can't believe a quarter of my paternity leave is almost gone) has been insane. A planned induction failed to induce, resulting in delivery by C-Section. Since then, my wife and I have felt overwhelming joy, fear, excitement, and stress. Indeed, I can only take the few moments to write this all-too-brief post thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law, who kicked me out of the hospital the night before discharge to try to fix my back up after 4 days on a hospital couch. Well, that and I get to launder the baby clothes left for us by my own wonderful mother.

I do not now have time to describe everything that has happened in the last 5 days. Hopefully, I will have time to go into more detail later on. I will mention a few things, however, all of which center around the very theme of this blog: twins present an entirely different experience. All of these items probably apply to one baby, but now imagine them with two or more. Parents of twins, I believe, share a special bond. They have been through a unique experience that no one else can truly understand. With that central theme in mind, I offer a few quick observations in simple list form, largely in chronological order:

1. With twins they say you have a 50/50 shot at a C-section right off the top. By all means, try to have a vaginal delivery if you can. That said, it is important to know when to allow modern medicine to help you, and to know what comes with C-Section recovery.

2. Men, sitting at the head of the operating table with your wife during a C-Section is the most helpless and powerless you will ever feel. All you can do is try to talk to her and keep her calm -- even when you can't find any words. The two biggest things to know, in my opinion, are that your wife may feel like she is not breathing, even if she is, so you need to be ready to address that feeling, and that her blood pressure really will drop as low as 50 over 100, and that is okay.

3. Babies do not cry as much upon birth after a C-Section as you might think.

4. Babies sleep. A lot. At least on Day 1.

5. Days 2 and 3 can be sources of both joy and terror. Based on my experience, I can offer this piece of advice to limit the amount of terror -- when breastfeeding (especially) with twins, formula supplementation is your friend until your wife's milk comes in. The babies need food, and most women will not have enough colostrum to go around. It's just the way it is. Nature is cruel. Even our one child who took to the breast feeding well had blood sugar and weight loss issues until we were advised to supplement the colostrum he was getting from breast feeding with some formula. We hope to stop using the formula when my wife's milk comes in, but in the meantime a healthy, full baby makes everyone happier . . . especially the baby.

6. Babies can smell stress and fear. Try to relax.

7. What everyone tells you is true. Your baby will randomly pee right in your face while you change him if you do not protect yourself. The most amazing thing, you will be more concerned for the baby than for your face.

8. Seek help when you need it. Please. Particularly if you are trying to breast feed and a lactation consultant is available.

9. Seriously, try to get some sleep. The first night my wife and I kept the children all night after keeping them all day. We got almost no sleep. To be honest, I do not even remember it now. I know I changed diapers, but I have no recollection of doing so. Assuming that your hospital has a nursery available, send the babies there overnight and have them brought to you for feedings only. You will have enough sleepless nights. While the man will end up getting more sleep due to his lack of breasts, this is actually more for the mother. Even a new mother full of hormones needs as must rest as she can squeeze into her day.

9a. Even if you use the nursery, sleep as you have known it, in the quantities that you have known it, is over. At least for a few years.

10. One more for just the men. Guys, women are ridiculously unbelievable. Or maybe it is just my wife. For your sakes, I hope it is not.

So, some of that was serious. I guess I should leave you with a happy-smiley parting shot:

Complication of Multiples Dodged II

Well, we dodged another one -- Preeclampsia, a high blood pressure condition. While not limited to multiple pregnancies, it is certainly more common with twins -- and it's no joke. My wife went for a check up and they found high blood pressure. Two days later, fortunately, her blood pressure had returned to normal and further testing came back negative, staving off early inducement. Even so, given that the kiddos weigh over 13 pounds total now, they are going to be born by a week from today whether they want to be or not.

This experience has reminded me exactly how tough my wife is, as are women in general. I think that I wrote in a prior post that the last two months of pregnancy are longer than the first seven. That is true for me and I am not even doing anything. My wife has to carry two ever-growing bowling balls in her stomach, deal with horrible heartburn, lose sleep due to hip and back pain, and deal with every other stranger on the street looking at her tummy and using some variation of, "Damn!" She's good natured and doesn't complain . . . much. If it were me, I would be lying in bed 24-7 in the fetal position whimpering.

Well, they are coming out by next Monday one way or the other. Then it will be time . . . time to take over the World . . . !

Still Here

No, I have not stopped blogging about the babies, there is just not a whole lot going on in the last couple of months of pregnancy -- at least from the father's perspective. My wife had three showers, so there is a lot of baby stuff in the nursery. She is also having weekly non-stress tests, given that it is a high-risk pregnancy and all. But for me, it is just a matter of staying focused at work as the birth gets closer. The last two months have seemed as long as the first seven.

I did accomplish three things today on the daddy consumer front. First, I picked out an Activity Center for the kids. A very scientific process of looking at little seats with plastic toys and trying to figure out which one my as-yet-unborn children would like. Craps anyone?

Second, I purchased two mobiles for the kids. Fortunately, thanks to The New Father by Armin A. Brott, which I recommend, I do know something about this. Newborns can see from birth, but not very well. Therefore, the best way to entertain them is with sharp contrasting colors like black and white. It is also important to remember that babies can't lift their heads much, so they will only be looking at a mobile from below. While stuffed animals may be cute to adults, they mean little to babies. After some web snooping, I settled on this mobile from Geniusbabies.com. The music only plays for a few minutes, but that is what the Ipod is for anyway.

Finally, I managed to do something good for the environment. To save our sanity, we will be using disposable plates and bowls for a while so as to minimize dish washing. Fortunately, I noticed these in my office. Eco-Products makes a whole line of compostable plastic made from corn. Unfortunately we purchased plastic plates and bowls before I learned about Eco-Products, but at least we will be able to compost our cups and, in the future, I will know where to go to balance convenience and renewable resources.

Final Verdict?

Not a minivan.

Birthing Class

My wife and I have been attending a birthing class once a week for the last few weeks. You know, "Hee-hee-hee-hoooo . . . ." Well, this past week was the class when they talk about complications and show you the video of various actual deliveries -- c-sections, vaginal births with and without drugs, that kind of thing.

Freaked out now? Yes indeedy. After the discussion about the various pain medication options for the mother, I asked what drugs were available for the father. Everyone laughed, but the men were not laughing quite as hard as the women (including the instructor). I think they secretly knew what I knew: I was serious.

The Master Plan . . .

When the babies are born, I am going to publish a birth announcement for one in The Moscow Times in Russia and a birth announcement for the other in People's Daily in China. I will raise each to speak the language of their assigned country and immerse them in the culture of one of its oppressed cultural/racial minorities.

When they reach the proper age I will ship them off to prestigious law schools in their respective countries. They will graduate, become community organizers, gradually get into politics, and eventually rise to executive positions of ultimate power. That part is a little fuzzy, but we'll figure it out.

Using my contacts in federal intelligence agencies, we will bribe the proper officials to issue fake certifications of their birth once their ascent is complete. We can then use them as stealth instruments to shift the balance of world power. It is almost too easy.

This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

Complication of Multiples Dodged

Whew. After a positive test for gestational diabetes on a preliminary screening, my wife came up negative on the authoritative test. Gestational diabetes is a fairly common complication in multiple pregnancies, so I must admit that I was concerned. Bullet dodged.

This also means that my boys being in the 70th percentile in size is not a symptom, but a sign that they will be super-human hockey babies!

I have been kind of preoccupied lately with an odd thought. Being that there will be two babies, do we need to track how much time each of us spends holding/caring for/playing with each child? I mean, I don't want one baby to develop a stronger attachment to mommy and the other a stronger attachment to me. This is of special concern to me given that I will only have a month of paternity leave to build a strong foundation with each baby before I have to go back to work and barely see them. Will random chance keep the time we spend with each baby at about 50/50, or do we have to track this stuff . . . along with tracking the consistency of their poops?

Two months to go. It's a brave new world.

About two months out . . .

Well, we are a little over two months away from the due date. My wife got tested for gestational diabetes last week and we have not heard anything, which is good news. I hope we can avoid that bump in the road, though the fact that she was not placed on any restrictions while the results were pending indicate to me that the doctor was not too worried.

I have to admit, work is getting harder now. It is harder to get up for it, harder to focus, and, while I have never been someone who relishes spending long hours in the office, it is getting harder to keep up the level of quantitative output I have been putting out for the last six months. Anybody have any tips?

Memorable Moment #3: Insanity

Memorable Moment #3 leading up to week 29 1/2 (see previous posts) is more of a culmination of a lot of smaller moments. As you may have heard, pregnancy will mess with your wife. While my wife has been wonderful throughout pregnancy, even the best woman is only human.

Every once in a while, the effects of pregnancy will test even the most patient man's nerves. In the wake of one such encounter, I had the following text conversation with a friend of mine who recently became a father. I think it about sums it up . . .


Me: Okay, so speaking as someone who has been through this Dad thing, how long can I expect my wife to be insane?
My friend: I'll let you know when it stops...

Memorable Moment #2: There's Two of Them?!?

Memorable Moment #2 from the first 29 1/2 weeks (see my previous posts) has to be finding out that we were having twins. As is common, we did not find out from the first sonogram, which only showed Baby A. (No, we have not picked names yet.) Baby B was hiding early on.

I actually missed the first sonogram due to work. Surely, it will not be the first moment of my children's lives that I miss while providing for them. My wife had brought home pictures, though. Strangely enough, despite clearly seeing only one baby, I had asked my wife if it could be twins. She of course responded that this was highly unlikely.

A couple of weeks later, staring at a screen in the doctor's office, I saw this image pop up:





Now I'm no doctor, but even I know two babies when I see them. In case you are wondering what to look for at your first or second sonogram, that is it.

There are certain moments -- and the emotions that came with them -- that every man will remember his whole life: your first love, losing to Mercyhurst 4-2 in the league finals your senior year after out-shooting them 42-20 (not that I still have nightmares about that 10 years later or anything), seeing the planes hit on September 11. Finding out you're having twins is one of those moments.

What was it like for you? I don't think I have ever felt that many things at once. Joy. Fear. Pride. Inadequacy. All mixed together. Driving home, all I could think about was how I could possibly provide for two children when only one had been expected. It suddenly seemed ridiculously arrogant to think that I could even serve as a father to one kid, let alone two. I think my stomach finally settled down a few hours later.

Memorable Moment #1: I'm Pregnant

As I mentioned in my first post, my wife is currently at 29 1/2 weeks. I don't want to try to go back into the pregnancy too much, as at this stage everything is about looking forward to the babies, but there are three moments that merit a post. The first is finding out.

We had been trying passively for 2 or 3 months. I found trying to be somewhat weird and even a little difficult. I mean, not to get too personal or anything, but adding a goal to intimacy can make it a bit -- unnerving. Or is it just me?

Now, I know that getting pregnant can take months, or even years, and that many people would be jealous of success in 2-3 months. That said, it still seemed like a long time. Am I the only one that put it all on me in my head? What am I doing wrong? What is wrong with me?Anyway, a few weeks, my wife -- out of nowhere -- walked into our family room, sat on my lap, and told me that my boys could in fact swim.

How did you feel when you found out that your wife was actually pregnant? I'm curious to hear, as I had a flood of things run through my head. Things like, "Hey, I'm going to be a dad!" "Oh my, you mean I'm actually going to be a dad?" "Are we really having a baby in this economy?" "I hope these kids get their height from my in-laws." Thoughts like these ran through my head in no particular order.

Then there was a part of me that felt guilty. I mean, I was happy, but shouldn't I be happier? Shouldn't I feel more? Maybe it is true what they say, that the babies don't get real for the father until a little later in the pregnancy, or even until birth. Now of course, at this point, we did not know it was twins. I just knew that I was going to be completely responsible for another human being. It's a concept I am still getting used to.

I knew one thing I needed to do, though. And a few days later, I took care of that, old school style:

Go Caps!

What did you think about?

Welcome to The Blog!

Welcome, gentlemen. If you have found this small corner of the Interwebs through your Googles or Yahoos, then it is pretty likely that you are an expectant or recent father -- and quite possibly a father of twins. Congrats.

As I write this first entry, my wife is 29 1/2 weeks pregnant, so it is getting pretty close. We are expecting two boys and are not yet certain whether they are identical or fraternal. I have spent my copious free time over the last 7 months or so poking around books and the Internet looking for information. Although there is more out there about fatherhood than there used to be, there is still a lot less than there is about motherhood, and I have not found much about being a dad of twins. Maybe something on this blog may end helping someone -- or maybe it will be therapeutic for me. If we're really lucky, enough of us will find it that it will become a place to fraternize, share information, and blow off steam. Whether you are a father or an expectant father, and particularly if you have or are expecting twins, please feel free to comment early and often.

As I did not get the idea for this blog until recently, I have missed 29 1/2 weeks of potential posts about the pregnancy. I guess there are three moments that really stand out. I'll touch on them briefly in the next three posts. After that, we shall only look forward.

Welcome, boys. Comment away.