The girls are here

To: All
From: JT and Writergrl


Please welcome the arrival of our baby girls, Pumpkin and Cricket. They were born Easter Sunday at Rush University Medical. P arrived at 2:46 pm and weighed 1 pound 11 oz. C was born at 2:47 pm andweighed 1 pound 7 oz. The girls are just 26 weeks so they will have to spend a few months in the hospital before they can come home, but they are doing just fine right now and they have the best neonatal medical team on the planet caring for them 24/7.

Right now the medical staff say that that they are experiencing everythingthat babies born at 26 weeks do. This includes a little help from a ventilator with a little oxygen here and there depending on how they are doing. They have both been under bili lights to help with jaundice. P pooped for the first time yesterday (C is still holding it in). Their brain ultrasounds came back just perfect - and cardiac ultrasounds are on deck. A heart valve called a PDA still needs to close in each of them. This is common and a type of ibuprophen is used to close it. If that doesn't work there may be more invasive options, so we are keeping our fingers crossed on that. C is on some medicine for low blood pressure, but she is working off it quickly. Writergrl got to hold P for the first time on Tuesday for one hour. She is hoping to hold C in the next few days when they take the IV out of her belly button.

Things change day to day. We will update everyone on the girls' progess as things develop. The nurses say to take things in stride. Like full term babies, they will have good days and bad. We will be spending a lot of time in the hospital with the girls the next few months and will not have access to cell phones while we are in the special care nursery. Please let us know if you are interested in receiving email updates on the girls each week. We thank all of you for your good wishes.

Love,
JT and Writergrl

Attached are pictures of the girls - in one Writergrl is holding P for"kangaroo care." In the second, C is getting a "tan" to help with jaundice - since the picture was taken, she's been able to ditch the bili light.

Push - reality and humor

There's lots about my pregnancy that isn't hilarious. Or rather, it isn't hilarious in the moment, but hindsight softens the haze of hormones that I swore would never descend over me, and I can laugh about things like crying over the realization that, at 19 weeks, my feet disappeared from my visual field.

Just found a funny not-blog from a writer at Chicago mag, who with weekly updates, describes his reaction to his wife's pregnancy and all its attendant wackiness and learning. Give it a read - funny writing and, for any who are experiencing the miracle of life themselves, pretty poignant as well.


About Push:
A few years ago, Chicago's deputy dining editor and humor columnist Jeff Ruby, aka The Closer, learned that his wife was pregnant. For 40 weeks, Ruby kept a journal to chronicle the experience. Now, much to his wife’s dismay, he has released the journal on Chicagomag.com. "Not a single dumb argument or disturbing bodily malfunction has been omitted," he says. Push is not a blog, since the events aren't happening in real time (Ruby calls it a slog, "much like the nine months themselves"), but it is an extended flashback to the "most bizarre, scary, and humiliating nine months" of The Closer's life. (Note: you may notice the entries start at week 5. He decided to spare you the conception and the four uneventful weeks that followed.)"

New versions of myself

Almost immediately after I started this blog, I discovered I was pregnant with twins - identical twins at that. There is nothing else I've experienced that has been so earth shattering - and so time consuming.

Writergrl 1.0:

• when tired, just push through it (i.e. attend grad school while working 55+ hours per week and planning then dismantling a wedding. no problem!)
• eat moderately, struggle a bit to get enough exercise and not gain weight
• never accept the helping hand, even when offered in sincerity because "it's more fun to do it myself."
• take my health completely for granted - never sick, can pretty much do any physical task I set my mind to and (finally) happy with the way I look physically

Writergrl 2.2:

• exhaustion that is literally like flipping a switch: when tired, I'm just out
• struggle to gain enough weight, deliberately limit the number of times I climb stairs, must rest for 30-45 minutes every night after work and before dinner / evening activities
• annoyed when someone on the bus doesn't give up their seat, grateful JT will carry the laundry basket for me
• shock and awe at how out of control my body/hormones are, forced to stop and take deep breaths after each flight of stairs, and I now waddle when I walk

Here's the strangest part: in my ever-more-vivid dreams, I'm not myself. Literally. People call my by my name, but the person who answers is, for example, a 55-year-old Chicago cop, who's puffing for breath at the top of the stairs.

JT even experienced this - he had a dream that I was Oprah.