backtrack #1 - newborn photoshoot

just popping in to backtrack to when the baby bears had their newborn photo shoot with our dear friend Harris of Harris Nguyen Photography. it was taken when they were just 4 days shy of turning 1 month old (08.16.2014).

thanksgiving photos + 2 colds + an honored guest posting

hi all! hope everyone's been well and had a great thanksgiving holiday. mark and the twins and i had a very eventful and exhausting thanskgiving weekend. we started our day all in bed to watch the macy's thanksgiving parade after a full 8 hours of sleep! what!? full 8 hours you say!? let me side-step for a moment...

yes, the twins SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! haaaallelujah! praise the Lord! it was glorious and fantastic and holy crap did it feel gooooood! we had been experimenting with their sleeping and feeding schedules here and there to see how long they'd last between feedings. just as they turned 4 months, they miraculously surprised us by starting to sleep for longer periods of time at night which resulted in them finally sleeping through the night. they have been great sleepers since then. they wake up here and there but are learning to put themselves back to sleep. it's truly bittersweet as i love my times of rocking and singing them to sleep and sometimes back to sleep for bedtime and sometimes naptimes. they're just growing so fast!

back to thanksgiving...
we spent the day playing and taking photos of the twins (we now call them the baby bears; explanation to come soon). later the night, we went to mark's aunt and uncle's home to celebrate with mark's family. we ate a lot, played with and showed off the baby bears a lot and had a great time. the baby bears had so much fun that they were extremely exhausted and passed out cold as soon as we got home.. and again slept through the night! here are some photos we took of them that day.

 

the next day, we relaxed at home for most of the day and then went to a friend's house to celebrate thanksgiving with our friends. it was great to see our friends and spend time with them even with the babies in tow. again, they had so much fun that they passed out right when we got home and slept for most of the night. they got up once or twice though, cause i think they were just too over stimulated that night and seemed like they had a nightmare or two; at least for lincoln. poor thing woke up screaming! 

the next day, we spent the day resting and playing at home again. that night we went to our friends' new home for their housewarming and potluck thanksgiving dinner. i think the twins were just too tired from the 2 nights before at this point and they were pretty fussy and only wanted mommy and daddy to hold and play with them. so we cut the night short and went home earlier than we expected so they could get some rest. 

the next morning, both babies woke up fussy and congested. our poor baby bears had their first cold. they had runny noses and lincoln had a phlegmy cough. reagan just had boogers for days! the nosefrida was working overtime yesterday and STILL is! i made and emergency run to the pharmacy for vicks, vapor bath and lots and lot of boogie wipes! since then, we have been religiously sucking snot out of two noses, running the humidifier in their room for every nap, wiping vicks all over 2 chests, 2 backs, 2 necks and 2 feet and been trying our  best to comfort and cuddle with 2 babies. we are exhausted but the babies are already getting better. thank God!

an honored guest posting:

today, we made an appearance on another twin mommy's blog in honor of Prematurity Awareness Month last month. so pop on by the sweet Sharisse's blog at sharissespieces.com and read about our Preemie Life!

stay tuned for our next posting as we backtrack a bit to the twins' red egg and ginger party! 

an apology and a guest posting

1. my apologies for not being better about updating. the twins are keeping me so busy! but the gist of what's been happening in our household...

--the twins are now 4 months old! if you look to the right of the blog you can see their monthly photos to see how much they've grown and how they're looking. i may be bias, but they are growing cuter and cuter each month! they're so interactive now. they love "talking" to mommy and daddy and anyone that will listen and their giggles and laughs are so adorable and infectious.

--we've been busy getting our house ready to receive my family for the Christmas holiday so on top of taking care of the babies, we've been running rampant around the house cleaning and purging to make room!

2. i'll be guest posting over at another twin mommy's blog soon about my life as a preemie mom. stay tuned for the announcement when she posts it!

till then... hope everyone has a happy thanksgiving. we over here are so very thankful this year!

7 weeks too soon: the twins' birth story - part 2

so let's continue...

forgive me in advance, as this is where things are a bit hazy. so, i'll do my best to remember the bits and pieces.

so we hop into the car and are on our way to the hospital, when it hits me that i'm supposed to have called the doctor to let her know what was going on. another DUH moment! so i get on the phone as mark just gets on the highway towards the hospital. i leave a message with the on-call service and wait till the doctor calls back. about 5 or 10 minutes or so along the highway, the doctor calls back and i explain what's going on. she tells me to go to the nearest hospital as she doesn't think i'll make it in time to get to our hospital (45 min away). i tell mark, and he's not having it. he's determined to get me to our hospital and to our doctor, no ifs ands or buts.

his explanation was that we had gone through so much already to get to this point that he wasn't letting some doctor delivery our twins that we'd never met and that didn't know my medical history or our pregnancy history. he had a valid point... to me at least. but when i told my doctor this, she wasn't too pleased and was urging me to turn around and go to the nearest hospital. by this time, i hadn't noticed it, but mark was flying on the highway at almost 90 mph!!! which meant that from where we had started to where we were now, the trip would usually have taken at least 20 minutes and we had just done it in 5 minutes! so mark told me to tell the doctor that we'll be there sooner than she thinks and there's no turning back now. she was not pleased at all.

this is the part that gets hazy...

in a record time of 20-25 minutes or so, we got from baltimore back to rockville. we pull up to the ER at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital and head in. we go straight up to the 3rd floor where labor and delivery are and sign in. i guess my doctor told the front desk to possibly expect me and how crazy we were for making the trip 'cause the front desk girl was like "wow, i can't believe you made it. you're crazy!" or something like that... hard to remember!

so around 6 am, they finally take me back into a triage room to get me on monitors to see how things were going. because i was only 33 weeks 1 day, they wanted to slow down and/or stop my contractions and prevent preterm labor. as i'm lying in the bed writhing in pain from the contractions, i feel them prick me, take blood, give me an IV and all sorts of other things going on that i really cannot recollect right now. according to mark though, i was given several rounds of some drug that was supposed to slow down or stop the contractions. they did this 3 times. all 3 times failed to do their job. so, this was it. the babies were coming and there was nothing we could do to stop it anymore.

after however many hours of prepping and paper signing, i was whisked off to an operating room to get prepped and ready for a cesarean delivery. the decision had been made just the week before to have them via C-section because reagan hadn't turned and it didn't look like she was going to by the time i was supposed to deliver. so after mark came in to join me, it was go time.

so, at 11:15 am, our first twin was born... Lincoln Jude Yuen; 3 pounds, 15 ounces, 16.75 inches.

and then 3 minutes later, at 11:18 am, our second twin was born... Reagan Elizabeth Yuen; 3 pounds, 12 ounces, 16.75 inches.

and our lives changed forever... yuen, party of 4.