I won't go into the days we were at the hospital once the girls were born since nothing really exciting happened. We were thrilled that both girls did not have to go to the NICU and we were discharged and allowed to go home Wednesday afternoon. Besides the hospital forgetting to bring Nora a wheelchair for 40 minutes, everything went relatively smooth. Actually, I need to rant about a few things. The morning/afternoon nurse was awesome that we had. She was dropping F bombs, zinging co-workers, handing Nora pain medication, I'm talking the whole package. At one point I was waiting for her to bring in a table so we could play each other one on one in beer pong while Nora and the girls slept. We'll call this fantastic nurse "Porsche". So "Porsche" was warning us the entire time how bad the next day was going to be for sleep if they discharged us, which they did, and it was. "Porsche" demanded we let them take the girls to the nursery for 3 hours after they were fed so we could sleep. Three whole, non-interrupted sleep hours. Fuck yea, sign me up for that. So it was set. Sometime during the night she'd have the night nurse take Wren and Londyn to the nursery so we both could sleep. Sounds too good to be true right? Well it was. "Porsche" shift was over and she introduced us to our night nurse. We shall call this woman "Bertha" or for short big B. "Porsche" tells big B the plan for the nursery and she is all for it. Let's step back here. Ever try to do 17 things at once and you get all of them done but 1? That's what's about to happen here. Big B gets everything done except that one thing; getting Nora and I that 3 hour sleep "Porsche" so adamantly wanted us to get. So you may be asking yourself how or why did big B forget. Technically she didn't. She just added another step into getting us the sleep, which once you dig further into detail, you'll see that she was just trying to be helpful but in the process crushed my soul. Don't get me wrong, big B was an awesome nurse and very nice. She just chose to torture me for whatever reason with this car seat challenge at the time she chose. Nora did get about 90 minutes of straight sleep, but not this guy. Rocky, were you on your phone looking at Instagram? We're you wondering around the hospital looking for a cocktail? I wish. I was being woken up every hour to start the car seat challenge for Wren and Londyn. This sounds fucking awesome right? Are the girls going to be put through obstacle courses while in their car seats like the 90's show Anerican Gladiators? The answer to these questions are no. No, they will not be doing any of this, nor will daddy be getting the 3 hours of sleep he was promised by "Porsche".
The car seat challenge basically is them bringing the girls in one by one to the nursery (how fucking ironic), putting them in the car seat for 90 minutes and monitoring their heart rates and breathing. Well this sounds simple. Why couldn't you sleep Rocky? Big B, that's why. She informed me that she'd be waking me up every 45-50 minutes to get the other baby started. Neat. There goes my promised REM sleep until probably 2021. Big B was trying to help out because she wanted to do it the night before so we could be done by 12-1 pm the next day and go home. Guess what big B? That song and dance didn't happen either as we didn't leave until after 3 pm and Nora may still be waiting for a wheelchair if I didn't say anything. Oh shit, the wheelchair. Let me indulge just a little into this. There is a wheelchair across the hall from our room. I'm talking less then 15-20 feet away. When I went to ask the nurses desk where ours was, they said they would check and when they did nobody had called for one of the volunteers to get one up to our room. I instantly was on monkey tilt and said can't we just use the one across the hall. I instantly was shot down. Not just a no, but an emphatic no. She answered me as if I asked to have baby races with the other dads with our kids on the rolling beds (which we will get into in a second) up and down the hall. I angerly walked back to our room to tell Nora about this fantastic news knowing she was going to take it well. By well I mean yell. After the 40 minute wait I spoke of before, a man came up to help us. You know where he got the wheelchair? Yup, you guessed it. Across the hall. You gotta be fucking kidding me. Get me the hell out of here.
Now for the baby beds on wheels. You couldn't have forgotten about the car seat challenge yet did you? Well big B rolls Wren out of the room for her go at it and everything is going great until I look for my bag of chipotle chips. It's gone. What kind of sick individual would do such a fucked up thing to a sleep deprived human. I look for it everywhere. I'm talking everywhere. The room is not big. I'm making noise, a lot of it. Nora isnt happy and I don't find them. Then it hits me. Big B has got me again. The chips are on the bottom of Wren's roller bed she just rolled out. This is a joke right? I was right because 45 minutes later big B rolls Wren back in and she is laughing because she found the chips. I was ecstatic and snapped the pic at the end of this post. This is one of the reasons for having kids right?
Once we loaded all 621 things into the car it was time to start back towards our home with the babes. I'm by no means a great driver, nor do I suck, but driving the car with Wren and Londyn in thier car seats in the back was a bit nerve racking. I mean I'm in charge of 2 humans. Forever. Let that soak in for awhile.
We made it home and it was time to introduce Stark to his two sisters. I was never nervous of how he was going to handle such a big change in his life because he's quite possibly the greatest dog on the planet. He is smarter then some of my friends and I guarantee you if I asked some of the genius' that I talk to on a regular basis, they'd agree. I walked in carrying both babes in thier car seats and he immediately was curious to what was going on. He licked their faces and after about 15 minutes of being excited, he was bored with what was happening and took a nap. What a life.
Now what? To be honest the first night was the hardest night of my life (until 2 nights later). Wren and Londyn woke up almost every hour to eat, poop, pee, cry just to wake us up. You know, normal baby stuff. Sometimes they wouldn't even sleep for that hour. Sleep is overrated right?
Nora is breast feeding and to be honest, I can see how woman who try to do this at first just decide to go to formula. I can tell she is super drained at points, but she's determined to do it for both the girls. Love ya babe. After a total of about 80 minutes of sleep spread out from 9 pm- 5 am, it was time to start all over again. We were tired. Actually, tired isn't the right word. I'll get into this In a few because in 2 days the night we just had would feel like Nora and my Honeymoon in Kauai, HI. Yea you read that right.
After the great 80 minutes of sleep, we got to go to our pediatrician for the first time. Nora and I got all the stuff we needed to bring with us and came up with the idea of starting to get ready to get out the door in 15 minutes from the time we wanted to leave. This time was 11:15. We got out of the house closer to 11:30 and this was after tears, screaming, and panicking none of which came from the girls. They were fast asleep in their car seats with grandma watching them. We needed to re-think this escape strategy from the house, because we couldn't do this every time we had to leave. Exam was fine, following day/night was fine, then Thursday came. Good. Lord.
Remember about 2 minutes ago when you read how the first night was the hardest of my life? Thursday crushed it. I'm not talking by a little, but a lot. Picture the Bulls of the 90's playing a 6th grade team in basketball. That's how bad Thursday kicked our ass. I can't even remember if we slept at all, but they cried all night, just wanted to feed, and refused to be put down. Fun right? We had a follow up visit with the pediatrician on Friday to check the girls weights and we also were scheduled to see their lactation consultant. This would change our short 3 day run at home with the girls drastically. The consultant found both girls have lip and tongue ties and it is hampering them from breast feeding and how much they can get while feeding. This is why the girls were sleeping for 7 seconds a night and losing weight. We had an answer and it felt like we could breathe again.
So basically with this new news, they told us what we had to do until a pediatric dentist could see the girls and fix their ties. Once the procedure is done, both will be able to suck down milk like there's no problem! I'll make sure to update everyone on how they do after they get the procedure done.
The car seat challenge basically is them bringing the girls in one by one to the nursery (how fucking ironic), putting them in the car seat for 90 minutes and monitoring their heart rates and breathing. Well this sounds simple. Why couldn't you sleep Rocky? Big B, that's why. She informed me that she'd be waking me up every 45-50 minutes to get the other baby started. Neat. There goes my promised REM sleep until probably 2021. Big B was trying to help out because she wanted to do it the night before so we could be done by 12-1 pm the next day and go home. Guess what big B? That song and dance didn't happen either as we didn't leave until after 3 pm and Nora may still be waiting for a wheelchair if I didn't say anything. Oh shit, the wheelchair. Let me indulge just a little into this. There is a wheelchair across the hall from our room. I'm talking less then 15-20 feet away. When I went to ask the nurses desk where ours was, they said they would check and when they did nobody had called for one of the volunteers to get one up to our room. I instantly was on monkey tilt and said can't we just use the one across the hall. I instantly was shot down. Not just a no, but an emphatic no. She answered me as if I asked to have baby races with the other dads with our kids on the rolling beds (which we will get into in a second) up and down the hall. I angerly walked back to our room to tell Nora about this fantastic news knowing she was going to take it well. By well I mean yell. After the 40 minute wait I spoke of before, a man came up to help us. You know where he got the wheelchair? Yup, you guessed it. Across the hall. You gotta be fucking kidding me. Get me the hell out of here.
Now for the baby beds on wheels. You couldn't have forgotten about the car seat challenge yet did you? Well big B rolls Wren out of the room for her go at it and everything is going great until I look for my bag of chipotle chips. It's gone. What kind of sick individual would do such a fucked up thing to a sleep deprived human. I look for it everywhere. I'm talking everywhere. The room is not big. I'm making noise, a lot of it. Nora isnt happy and I don't find them. Then it hits me. Big B has got me again. The chips are on the bottom of Wren's roller bed she just rolled out. This is a joke right? I was right because 45 minutes later big B rolls Wren back in and she is laughing because she found the chips. I was ecstatic and snapped the pic at the end of this post. This is one of the reasons for having kids right?
Once we loaded all 621 things into the car it was time to start back towards our home with the babes. I'm by no means a great driver, nor do I suck, but driving the car with Wren and Londyn in thier car seats in the back was a bit nerve racking. I mean I'm in charge of 2 humans. Forever. Let that soak in for awhile.
We made it home and it was time to introduce Stark to his two sisters. I was never nervous of how he was going to handle such a big change in his life because he's quite possibly the greatest dog on the planet. He is smarter then some of my friends and I guarantee you if I asked some of the genius' that I talk to on a regular basis, they'd agree. I walked in carrying both babes in thier car seats and he immediately was curious to what was going on. He licked their faces and after about 15 minutes of being excited, he was bored with what was happening and took a nap. What a life.
Now what? To be honest the first night was the hardest night of my life (until 2 nights later). Wren and Londyn woke up almost every hour to eat, poop, pee, cry just to wake us up. You know, normal baby stuff. Sometimes they wouldn't even sleep for that hour. Sleep is overrated right?
Nora is breast feeding and to be honest, I can see how woman who try to do this at first just decide to go to formula. I can tell she is super drained at points, but she's determined to do it for both the girls. Love ya babe. After a total of about 80 minutes of sleep spread out from 9 pm- 5 am, it was time to start all over again. We were tired. Actually, tired isn't the right word. I'll get into this In a few because in 2 days the night we just had would feel like Nora and my Honeymoon in Kauai, HI. Yea you read that right.
After the great 80 minutes of sleep, we got to go to our pediatrician for the first time. Nora and I got all the stuff we needed to bring with us and came up with the idea of starting to get ready to get out the door in 15 minutes from the time we wanted to leave. This time was 11:15. We got out of the house closer to 11:30 and this was after tears, screaming, and panicking none of which came from the girls. They were fast asleep in their car seats with grandma watching them. We needed to re-think this escape strategy from the house, because we couldn't do this every time we had to leave. Exam was fine, following day/night was fine, then Thursday came. Good. Lord.
Remember about 2 minutes ago when you read how the first night was the hardest of my life? Thursday crushed it. I'm not talking by a little, but a lot. Picture the Bulls of the 90's playing a 6th grade team in basketball. That's how bad Thursday kicked our ass. I can't even remember if we slept at all, but they cried all night, just wanted to feed, and refused to be put down. Fun right? We had a follow up visit with the pediatrician on Friday to check the girls weights and we also were scheduled to see their lactation consultant. This would change our short 3 day run at home with the girls drastically. The consultant found both girls have lip and tongue ties and it is hampering them from breast feeding and how much they can get while feeding. This is why the girls were sleeping for 7 seconds a night and losing weight. We had an answer and it felt like we could breathe again.
So basically with this new news, they told us what we had to do until a pediatric dentist could see the girls and fix their ties. Once the procedure is done, both will be able to suck down milk like there's no problem! I'll make sure to update everyone on how they do after they get the procedure done.