Zoey resting in the NICU

Stella exhausted after a long day

Zoey Isabelle Dettbarn arrived at 3:23pm today, weighing 4lbs 13oz. Stella Elizabeth Dettbarn arrived 3:35pm, weighing 4lbs 11oz. Amazingly exciting, happy and terrifying all at once. I’ll fill in more detail later, since it is kind of late and I am beat… but it was a long day. If you are interested in the story in 140 character increments, check out my Twitter page for the updates!

More coming soon. The real adventure begins now!

Thanks for all the well wishes and notes. We really appreciate the thoughts and support from all of our friends and family. It really means a lot to both of us!

(And Melisa is resting and doing well. I’m sure she’ll sleep good tonight!)

• I’ve had some days of increased energy and feeling back to “normal”- called nesting.  Women have reported doing things like folding and unfolding and folding baby clothes, organizing the nursery, scrubbing the house from floor to ceiling and (my personal favorite from a good friend of ours) moving tons of heavy stuff, such as patio bricks just before delivering.  I have just had more energy and just tied up a few loose ends around here.  I have tried to make myself lay low since I know that I need to save energy for their arrival. Not gonna lie though- I have been so happy since experiencing this new “high”!  Feel a bit like my old self!
• I haven’t gained and lost a bit of weight (when I went to weigh in today) in the last week as compared to the week before where I gained 5 lbs. in one week!  Yikes!  The Dr. thinks that 5 lbs. was mostly due to swelling though (or at least that’s a nice way to put it!).  Many women lose a little weight just before delivery.
• The babies have started to drop, which means that their heads have started to move down into my pelvis.  When they are fully “engaged” it means the head is fixed in position for delivery.  Neither baby has dropped all the way, but about a week ago I noticed my belly looked different from my “top” view and a couple of days later my Dr. noticed too and my belly measured a little less or different than before.  I have also felt “lightening” which feels like the babies are applying pressure also- another sign.
• Braxton-Hicks or warm up contractions have become more frequent.  I really don’t feel these much actually and when I was monitored today at the hospital I had one every 6-7 min. and didn’t feel any!  In fact, last week when I was monitored, they told me I was having them too (but not as frequent) and I had always thought that feeling was the babies moving!  Whoops!  They feel like a subtle squeezing to me at the most but some women report they can be incredibly painful.  Anyway, these warm up contractions get your body ready for the main event so they are generally a not-scary thing.

In other news, while shopping on Sat. at Wegmans, Lucy was getting kind of antsy so I took out the savior of ants in the pants, none other than the snack container.  My girl can hunt down a goldfish like no ones business, even when buried in numerous other crackers.  Anyway, she shoved another of her favorites, a pretzel, into her mouth.  Kinda a big piece I thought, but I weighed that against getting my finger bitten off with her surprisingly sharp baby teeth (which after nearly happening once before seemed pretty scary) so I kept a watchful eye.  Wouldn’t you know 30 sec. later she started choking.  I mean the no sound coming out, eyes watering, struggling for breath choking.  Terrified I tried to remember what to do and tried to pry her out of the seatbelt thingy on the cart to no avail so I tried to do the infamous finger sweep.  This DID NOT work.  It pushed the pretzel back farther and I started to freak a little.  By the time I called JD over, I had finger swept her like 3 more times, more forcefully (which I wasn’t sure I should have done) and it was all over and I flung that pretzel piece 1/2 way to Japan.  Anyway, we finally freed her from the belt and picked her up and she was surprisingly calm, with tears down her cheeks, but not crying freaking out or anything.  I thought I would have a break down, but we made it through a couple of more aisles and I was much more calm and she was back to her normal pointing and asking what everything is self.  Anyway, how scary.  It reminds you that you do what you can in an instant, right or wrong and try to remember how to do all this lifesaving stuff (we even took a baby CPR and First Aid class before she was born) but sometimes its sheer luck.  I can’t imagine what it would have been like if it’d been a worse situation.  Needless to say all the big pretzel pieces around our house are hidden now.  For a while.

In other news, today was the 2nd non stress test and bio physical profile on the twins at the hospital.  Things look fine and the baby on my right side, who will most likely be born first- “Baby A”, is 3lbs. and 11 oz. and the baby on my left, “baby B”, is 3 lbs., 13 oz.  They are pushing 4 lbs.!  That’s over 7 lbs. of baby.  They are already bigger together than Lucy was at 5 lbs. and 8 oz.  31 weeks- 32 here I come!  Also, the Dr. said after 34 weeks, if I go into labor, they won’t stop me, but they won’t probably let me go past 38 weeks or around Aug. 9th.

First, I had an ultrasound to watch the babies and check for the level of amniotic fluid around each (in my pregnancy, each have a placenta and amniotic sac- called a Di-Di pregnancy, which tells the Dr. that they are most likely fraternal twins). They also watched the heart beating (so cool- you can see all 4 chambers!) and each of them moving and practice breathing (“inhaling” amniotic fluid to prepare and develop their lungs).

After the ultrasound, they hooked my belly up to the fetal monitors- 1 for each baby to record their heartbeat and 1 to record any contractions I may be having. I also had a “jeopardy buzzer” thing to record each time I felt them kick. They look for an increase in heart rate when there is activity. Both babies were pretty sleepy, so they put a buzzer on my belly and woke them up- man did they jump in there! I thought they were going to fly out between my ribs! After that, there was lots of moving around and it was recorded that I was having some small, but consistent contractions, which I wasn’t feeling at all. Then, I had a bigger one, which I slightly felt. I never had those practice contractions called Braxton Hicks with Lucy, so I am a little anxious about them this time around since I wasn’t feeling them during the test at all and only slightly felt a larger one. Weird huh? Anyway, they had me drink some water and that seemed to help calm the contractions so I was probably a little dehydrated. I must say that its amazing the amount of water I must drink each day to feel normal and energetic. I am constantly sipping on a water bottle and running to the bathroom!

Anyway, things seem great with both of them and I will be going to the hospital for these tests every week, which will be reassuring. I am 30 weeks and 8 weeks to go max.! I am seeing the Dr. today also for a check up and its every week after this point. The baby room (which is going to be Lucy’s room after all) is almost done and will probably be done this weekend and then its just basically waiting and stocking up food (thats for another post!). Anyway, smooth sailing!