Mama goes to work

First, the singing naked telegram is winning the poll right now. Nice note is losing. Get those votes in!

Second, best news since surgery went well last Monday: Mama's going back to work part-time! Following some negotiations with the executive director, we have agreed to a plan that will have me working a half-time schedule. I'm excited to be putting my feet back in the work pool, as well as to reconnect with a part of my brain that has been on hiatus for nine months, and to have more time with adults! I'm sure it will be hard to be away from the babies at all but I feel very confident that they are in good hands with our neighbor Mindy, who will be watching them all day Monday and a half-day Wednesday. My parents are going to come up Fridays to watch the babies most weeks, and when they can't either Mindy will watch them or Jeff and I may split the day, or we'll find another sitter. Altogether it couldn't have gone a lot better and I'm grateful to be one of the first HLAS employees able to transition to part-time, on my own terms. Hooray! I go back the Monday after Thanksgiving, November 28.

Funny Series of Pictures

Bro, get your hand of my face.

Seriously bro, move your hand or I'll bite it off.

OK, you called my bluff. I can't bite your hand because I don't have any teeth yet, but i will suck on it!

New Poll

I want to do something nice for my awesome endocrinologist who has managed my care so carefully over the last month, who arranged my surgery and talked me down numerous times from a steroid- and hyperthyroid-induced hysteria. She found me pulmonologist #2 and is tapering me off the steroids. She has seen me every week throughout this nightmare, fitting me in to her very busy schedule, and has spent countless hours coordinating my care with both pulmonologists, my primary care physician, and my surgeon. And throughout, she has made me laugh and feel taken care of at the same time. She has also, ever so carefully, suggested on multiple occasions that the care I received at the hospital I first went to was sub-par.

So how do I thank her for everything she's done? Keep in mind that she's semi-offbeat, no kids, and has a foul mouth. She is rough around the edges but sweet. She talked for 10 minutes last visit about how much she loves Halloween, but won't dress up because last time she had the office dress up a nurse dressed up as Snow White and her first patient was a dwarf. Awkward!

Let me know in the poll or in the comments below how I should thank her--I really need your help!

Post-surgery

First things first: I had a total thyroidectomy yesterday and everything went really well. I arrived at the hospital at about 5:15am and was in surgery by 8:00. The afternoon was rough as I came out of the anesthesia and adjusted to the soreness and stiffness in my neck but because I was doing so well (and wanted to get home to the babies) I was discharged around 6:30pm. The surgeon got the whole thing out and everything went perfectly. I really finally feel like the worst is over, and I am on the way up.

My endocrinologist visited me in the hospital and was really happy with how the surgery had gone and how I was recovering. I was glad my mom got to meet her and see what I love about her. She talked a little bit about how scared she had been when I first came in four weeks ago after I had been in the hospital, and that she really did not know what was going to happen to me. But she said I am through the "dark dark forest" and that I am going to be perfectly fine. It's a huge relief.

We have been blessed with lots of delicious meals and food this week, which has been awesome with everyone here. Jeff's mom Kathy left this afternoon and his dad Greg was here yesterday and this morning. My dad was here yesterday and came back again this afternoon after work. Heidi and Meghan brought food Sunday and Monday, and Divya brought another meal for tonight. Everything has been amazing and it has been a huge gift not to have to worry about food. The Women's Bar Association Board has been amazing and I am so grateful to have gotten to know these amazing women. Deb and Renee sent over an Edible Arrangement and Mary and Danielle sent a Wegmans gift card. I can't believe everyone's generosity. The babies have been keeping everyone smiling and laughing. Apparently they were a little stressed out yesterday (possibly reflecting the stress felt by Kathy and Joan waiting at home to hear news about the surgery) but I think they were back to normal today.

I feel uniquely qualified to rate the hospitals where I have been admitted this year, of which there have been four (five hospitalizations, four different hospitals). St. Joe's, where I had the surgery, wins the award for best food. By far. Though they sure were stingy with bringing it at first. I liked that they brought two desserts with every meal. I'm a big fan of that policy. And not some crappy gelatanous ice cream like at Crouse. I got cream puffs and berry jello for dinner dessert at St. Joe's, and rice pudding with real whipped cream with a dusting of cocoa powder for lunch dessert. Not too shabby! And to be fair, when I really bitched about not getting food after I got out of surgery and had nursed once and pumped breastmilk three times since I had last eaten, they did bring me two containers of yogurt and a bunch of milk and juice. After offering me graham crackers and toast. I looked at her like, you idiot, I just had throat surgery and was intubated. My dad actually called her an imbecile. Which wasn't very nice but was true. The lactation nurse who came down from maternity to help me pump when I got out of recovery was awesome, and so I rate the lactation nurses at St. Joe's better than Crouse because no one at Crouse was as helpful or friendly (or attractive, but that shouldn't really figure into the ratings). The room was a tie for the crappiest room I have been in (tied with St. Luke's in NYC). It was bad enough to be in a tiny cubicle twice the size of the hospital bed, in a double room where the woman next to me watched/listened to Fox News all day (seriously I thought I was in hell). But she also had some kind of bladder or urinary problem so the bathroom was a total disaster and reeked of old stale pee all day that was never cleaned up. I thought Jeff was going to boot the first time he went in. So St. Joe's gets serious demerits for lack of cleanliness. The nurse I had when I first got to the post-surgery floor was not very nice and in general they weren't very responsive or friendly or helpful. They seemed very understaffed and busy. I always worry about patients without advocates with them, especially advocates as pushy as Jeff and my parents. I worry that they don't get food, or help to the bathroom, or pain medication. And I'm grateful for my advocates who never left me alone and who got me everything I needed.

So from here on out, things should get better every day. My voice still isn't great so I'm not great on the phone yet, and my neck is still pretty sore and stiff so it's hard to move around a lot and I look a little suspicious because I can't turn my head that much so I just look around shiftily. But I think I'm getting better all the time. I'm going to try to keep resting some each day the rest of the week and then we'll see if I can get some help for next week, when Jeff will be in New York City Tuesday through Thursday. I have a babysitter lined up for Monday afternoon for one doctor appointment and another for Wednesday's doctor appointment, and Lauren's going to help out with at least one other night for the witching hour and putting to bed. Thank you to everyone for the calls, emails, texts, food, and good thoughts sent our way--every little bit has helped and I am so grateful!

Heart Warming Laughter

Today was a beautiful Autumn day in Syracuse. The four of us ran some errands, went for a nice walk, and had some great playtime inside. As you will see, Bryn really gets them laughing.

- Jeff

Sleep update

First night of sleep training:
Asleep at 7pm, no crying, no fussing
Awake at midnight, crying/screaming/fussing for 45 minutes, then asleep
Awake at 4:45am to eat, then back to sleep with no fussing or crying
Awake for the day at 7:15am

Second night of sleep training:
Asleep at 7pm, no crying, no fussing--especially impressive because I did bedtime by myself because Jeff was at a conference in Buffalo
Awake at 3am to eat, then back to sleep with no fussing or crying
Awake for the day at 6:15am

Who knows if it has anything to do with us or what we're doing, or whether they were ready to start sleeping better, or if it will last any length of time. I know that I feel a ton better having slept a good long stretch two nights in a row, and I will take it!

I'm not sure I ever updated on the BF front. When all was said and done for my hospitalization and medical crisis a month ago, the boys had about three days of bottled breastmilk (both mine and that of dear friends), then four days of partial formula, partial donated breastmilk, and then for about three days, back to nursing full-time with a bottle of donated breastmilk in the night before I could feed them myself again. Since about October 3 we've been fully and exclusively breastfeeding again. When I'm in the hospital for the surgery Monday, the boys will get some of my milk I've stored over the last few weeks, and then when someone can make a trip back from the hospital they'll have some fresher stuff. As I understand it there's nothing about the anesthesia or the surgery that should prevent me from nursing throughout the time I'm in the hospital. We'll have to see how I'm feeling to know whether the boys can come visit me while I'm there, but either way I should be home by early Tuesday morning. They'll have lots of family here to care for them while I'm gone, and frozen breastmilk to tide them over. I hope I'll write again some time next week to give an update on the surgery and the recovery! Please wish us well!

It's 3am. Do you know where your children are?

My answer: no. There are some nights I am so tired and disoriented that I don't even know how many children I have, much less where they are. At our most desperate we sometimes bring one or both into our bed, usually at or after 6am, to try to convince them to sleep a little longer (which almost always works), but last night some number of children were in our bed much earlier on in an attempt for everyone to get some sleep. At some point I got up and tried to find Theo to take him back to his crib and couldn't find him anywhere in the bed. It turned out he was never in our bed, or at least not then--he was sleeping soundly in his crib. This is sleep deprivation. At the hospital after they were born I remember feeling like I didn't know how many children I had or where they were or who needed to be fed. After five months it should be better!

Our nights have been pretty bad lately and I don't know why but I also don't care at this point. The "graduated extinction" plan of waiting five minutes before responding to moaning/crying/fussing, then comforting, then leaving, then if it starts up again waiting 10 minutes, etc., adding 5 minutes each time, is OVER. We are going to full "cry it out" (AKA ignore your children once they are in their cribs at night, at least until you just can't stand it) because we have to get some sleep up in here! And so often they do just fall asleep after 15 seconds or a minute or five minutes, but in the meantime we're waiting, tense, for them to start up again and for us to have to keep track of the time and get back up, etc. The American Academy of Pediatrics child care book I have says that you spend all day showing them how much you care about and love them, so a few moments of crying before they go to sleep or to get back to sleep does not send any bad messages about being abandoned, etc. I would never have thought I'd be a cry it out parent but geez Louise, here we are. And for naps. We have GOT to get into a better schedule for naps, for me when I'm here but especially when other people are going to be taking care of the boys. I keep thinking it will be so much better if the boys and the babysitters can know what to expect in terms of how long and when they are going to sleep. So I'm implementing 9-10am and 1-3 pm naps. They almost always sleep from 9-10 but the afternoon nap is sometimes sketchy with when and how long. They are so much happier when they do nap that long, though, so we'll try to get into a better habit. How do people do it with getting out of the house, though? It seems like we will be tethered to home, only venturing out at non-nap times to try to get into the routine of naps in cribs. But the boys always sleep in their carseats, in a stroller, or in a carrier, when it's not nap time! Are we stuck at home forever?

Speaking of sleep, I am contemplating these for sleepover trips in the next few months. A pack and play is fine but we don't have room to bring one pack and play with us, much less two, and we don't have room anywhere we're going to set up two. These were recommended by another twin mom and they're a little pricey but I'm very tempted. Any thoughts on traveling beds?