Saturday - Family Day #1

From Birth

Sleep is a wonderful thing. We both managed to get about 8 hrs Friday night, and today we took some time to enjoy the bambini. Luca and Nico made Barbara laugh a few times today with their expressions and noises. It fills my heart to see her dream realized and the joy the she gets from this.

So far they are very easy to manage. They lick their lips when they want food, cry when the daiper is full and sleep when they have had enough to eat. I don't find babies that cute, but as my friends told me, it is different when they are yours. They were right, it is different. I am enjoying them very much.

We can just about see where the horns are going to break through on their scalp (either side of the "666" marking on the crown) so I suspect we only have weeks before the campaign of terror begins.

Today they are eating 30 m/l of supplement each time they they are hungry. This is a good amount, and they gulp it down like an Irish peat digger downign a pint of ale in the pub. This is a very long way from the first night when I had a small tube attached to my finger and a syringe. That was Monday night while Barbara was recovering. It took 45 minutes to get 10 m/l into Luca and it was his first meal.

It's an odd feeling to give someone their first meal. I had no idea how important it was in the transition from the womb to the world. The pediatrician that was summoned to the O/R (when Nico's chest was heaving because his airway was semi blocked) made a quip about fattening them up from here on. I had no idea how significant that was at the time.

Tomorrow marks the end of their first week on earth and they are doing great. Nico celebrated early by peeing in Barbara's face. I guess it's a guy thing. I was very proud, She could not stop laughing.

In the first 10 minutes after they were born, I was struck by how odd it was to see a mini version of me, even though it seems obvious. I had become so detached from the whole event in order to manage the huge number of things happening in that hospital at once, all of which required a great deal of decisions that somewhere along the way i forgot that this was the birth of my children.

Today we remedied that with some quality family time. Barbara was much more relaxed after sleeping, and the pain did not seem to be so bad. Her mobility is getting much better, but the ankles are still quite swollen. I gave her a 30 min princess massage (where i worship at her feet - which she loves) and today I managed a few more minutes while she breast fed.

Her mission today was to engineer a hands free breast pumping system. I got concerned when the scissors disappeared and 10 minutes went by in the bathroom. She emerged with a severely modified pregnancy belt and two suction cups protruding from it over her breasts. We laughed for a while at that, but I was very impressed with the ingenuity.

next she disappeared into the bedroom closet to create version 2, because the velcro on the belt didn't quite line up correctly. After a little while she emerged with a bright blue bikini top modified to hold the suction cups in place. This not only met the utility requirements, but more importantly the fashion statement! Thats two expensive Bikins sacrificed to the cause.

After this statement of intent, i have been relegated to second feeder. She has taken over some of the bottle feeding as well as the breast feeding and pumping obviously. Apparently she intends to work and breast pump at the same time. I think I will have to turn off the camera on the laptop so she does not accidentally end freaking out clients on Skype.

We also opened the baby closet today to dig out all the wonderful gifts that we got from the baby shower. There are things in there that I can't even guess at their function. I washed all the feeding bottles and plugged in the wipe warmer my brother gave us. Then I bought a baby scale to weight them and track their weight gain.

We would like to thank everyone for their gift, and for the help we got from mommies in figuring out what we needed. We have the nursery set up the way Barbara wants it although I still have not put up the curtains.

As soon as the subject came up today I had a major attack of lethargy. It was so bad that even the thought of opening the chocolates that we had been given seemed like too much effort for the reward, and so that's how we spent the day. It was nice to take a day off.

Finally I would like some suggestions from Barbara's girlfriends for a "push present". She pushed for three hours with all her strength and even though the bambini came out courtesy of a surgeon, she did her bit. Having been there and witnesses this heroic effort. Nothing I think of seems to commemorate the event. Please email me any ideas you have.