Sleepers

Papa and his pair of sleeping commas. Ari is on the left and Evan on the right. A afternoon of shopping makes a baby tired!

4 days old

So we've taken up residence at the Hilton Garden Inn here in Cartersville. It's our 3rd hotel here, after 1 night in a dumpy motel and 2 at a Microtel, which was nice, but too small. We were going to get a suite here with 2 separate rooms, but it is booked until next week. They offered a regular room, which has 2 beds, fridge, microwave, etc for tonight, then a junior suite for the rest of our stay. But that has 1 bed and a sleeper sofa with only minimal benefits, so we're staying put. The boys have been out of the hospital for 24 hours now and are doing great! Trip to Wal-mart this afternoon gave Mike and BM a chance to try out their quippy comebacks when someone asked if they were twins. "No, triplets, but we left one in the car" was the most popular.

We don't have a good idea of when we're going home yet. The paperwork was supposed to go from IAC to Georgia state today, then hopefully be sent to Kansas Monday. Hopefully they get something back by Wednesday. if not, we'll be here until at least the Monday after Thanksgiving, thanks to the holiday shopping weekend. Ah well. The hotel has a pool and fitness center, as well as a restaurant for breakfast. And they offered free breakfasts since they weren't able to get us in the original suite. Sweet! :)

Thanks for all your thoughts, prayers, and love. They are greatly appreciated!!

11/14-11/15

A brief recap of the last 10 hours or so....

11:52 p.m. BM calls and reports she is having contractions. Can't decide if she should wake up her mom to go to the hospital. We encourage her to go in and get checked. Contractions are about 15 minutes apart and regular. Chris can't fall asleep so he gets up to sort through some papers that were shuffled around over the weekend, some of which we need to take with us.
12:50 a.m. BM calls back and they are just on the way to the hospital.
1:55 a.m. BM has been admitted for observation. Baby B was playing hide and seek with the nurse trying to place the monitor. Everything looks OK and they are going to monitor her for awhile.
2:02 a.m. BM calls back and reports she is dilated to 3. She wants us to start our trip.
2:40 a.m. We are packed and out of the house, on the way to pick up Mike's mom, who will be making the trip with us. We are also swapping our Escape for their larger TrailBlazer.
3:30 a.m. or so We are on the road from Independence, MO to Cartersville, GA. Only 12 hours to go!
6:30 a.m. BM is scheduled for a c-section. We are somewhere around St. Louis
A little after 6 a.m. BM gives birth to two healthy baby boys. We are crossing from MO to IL.

It's now 10 a.m. and we still have 6 hours of driving to do! Oh my!

Chris

Update 11/11/10

A quick update for our family and friends:

BM had a doctor's appointment yesterday. She is officially 34 weeks and everything looks good. She starts going to the doctor weekly now. In addition she goes to the hospital twice a week for a non-stress test. She has monitors placed, then has to sit still for 30 minutes while they monitor the babies. The sitting still is the worst part, she says! All of this is normal for twins.

She is officially due 12/18 and is scheduled for a c-section on 12/14.

She told her mom that they need to start saving their pennies because they will be coming to Kansas in a year for the boys' first birthday.

Update 10/20/10

Our family and friends hosted a GREAT baby shower last Saturday. We think we had 50 people there who were VERY generous with their gifts for the boys. A double stroller, car seats, bouncy seat and swing, bottles, clothes, diapers, toys, and an awesome hand-knitted blanket (with 1 more on the way) were some of the gifts for the boys. Mike's sister did all the decorations and games. She made two great diaper cakes and a flock of diaper monkies! Our neighbor Dee took care of all the food and it was very good!

We made a quick trip to Georgia yesterday (which also happened to be Chris' birthday). Fortunately there are direct flights from KC to Atlanta early in the morning and late in the evening! And our friend Noli was gracious enough to provide the tickets (Thanks, Noli)! Chris rented a convertible for the day, figuring it would be the last time we could rent one of those for awhile. It was a great day to drive around with the top down!

We met with the adoption counselor and birth mom at the IAC office to complete and sign the match paperwork. Most of the items we had already discussed with birth mom, so it was a formality to get it all on paper. After that meeting, we headed to another sonogram. The last sonogram we saw was on 9/7/10 and the boys were about 2 pounds each. Now they are estimated to be 4 pounds 6 ounces for one and 4 pounds 12 ounces for the other. The technician estimated they should be close to 6 pounds at birth if they are full term. We also had a 4-D sonogram done, which shows movement. Not quite what we were expecting, but still really cool to watch. Baby A was being shy and wouldn't turn his face so we could see it. Baby B was much more of a ham and kept moving around and posing. We left there with new pictures and a DVD with an hour and a half of movement captures on it.

We went out to eat at Olive Garden with birth mom and her family (our new extended family) and had a great time! We made sure everyone had our phone numbers so when labor starts, someone will call us! We are guessing it'll take a couple hours to drop whatever we are doing, pack up, and get on the road, then it's about 12 hours of drive time to Georgia. Hopefully we'll have 14 hours of notice to get their for the birth!

We are less than 8 weeks to the estimated delivery date! Our next trip to Georgia should be for the birth! Thanks everyone for all your prayers and support!

Phone calls

Everyone knows (I think) that we have a special phone for birth mothers to call. We nicknamed it the Baby Bat Phone. One of us carries it during the day so that we're able to answer it when it rings.

Yesterday Mike received two calls. Evan called. His message was "Love you, Daddy!". Then Ari called. His message was "Come "see" us next week, Daddy!"

Guess what phone they used? The Baby Robin Phone! :)

Gotta have a little fun while we're waiting, right? :) Have a great day and thanks for all your love and support! Baby shower this Saturday should be a great time with a house full of people!