So much in Love - 8 Months!

This might sound cliche, but I am so much in love with my babies! And no, it hasn't taken me 8 months to realize it! I have loved every moment with them and I can't remember and imagine my life without them! The way they hug me or get excited to see me, their faith and unconditional true love - aah, I feel blessed!! They are growing so fast and I miss each passing day... though I look forward to the new day with even more vigour and I think that makes the last 8 months more of a fond memory than missing something that will not repeat!

In this past month their personalities have blossomed. Every day there is something new and it is so hard to keep track of all the new developments...

-RT has been army crawling and now getting on to all fours. She might just start crawling shortly. RM is starting to army crawl!
-They absolutely adore each other. They will hug each other, caress each other, giggle and laugh, roll over each other. At the same time, they have started wanting to have the same item (not always a toy - it could be a water bottle! :P)... they will yank it away from one another and sometimes cry over it too!
-They can handle a lot more solid solids - as in not completely mushed up food!
-Some of their 6-9 months clothes already seem to start to get (just a little) snug. Basically they are no longer loose like they were when we started using them at 6-7 months!
-Still in size 3 diapers, but we have been using size 4 for the nights (past 3 weeks), since size 3 started leaking!
-They have kinda lost their separation and stranger anxiety. They are social butterflies for now (with our trip)! :)
-They are extremely vocal! On random occasions, RM has called out for Daddy and Grandma and RT has called out for Mama! I doubt they understand what they are saying! Though RM for sure does say Nee-Nee when he is sleepy and he does call out Mamamama when he wants to come to me!
-If they realize that some one is stepping out of the house, they are ever ready to join them! RT can very nice wave good-bye and RM raises his hands to do so!
-They are continuing with Prilosec 3.0 ml x 2 days. Both weigh around 17.25 lbs.

A lot of my fellow blog sistas have started to heading towards project sibling! I just want to wish you all the very best!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to every one!

And Happy 8 Months to my darlings! We had an awesome night too... the babes slept between 0900 pm and 0730 am!!! :)

The Anxiety!

Here I am... talking about anxiety for the babies and myself. Stranger anxiety, separation anxiety - for babies; and air travel anxiety, jet lag anxiety, food anxiety - for me!

Man, it has been interesting. A million miles away from home, hoping that things fall in to a routine. It has been exactly a week since we arrived and we are still working on getting in to a schedule.

The babes are in the stage where they had stranger anxiety and separation anxiety. I was pretty worried as to how they would cope with a million people around them, with relatives and neighbors frequently visiting and trying to hold and play with them. Would they cry, throw a tantrum? Nope, the kids are loving the attention. Their stranger and separation anxiety seems to have vanished in less than a week! It will be nice to continue with it once we get back home. They seem to be managing pretty well! We have quite a bit of local travel coming up and it will be interesting to see how that goes. Daddy dearest will be joining us in 2 weeks from now and will be with us for 3 weeks. Then he goes back and we will return in 3 weeks from then. We timed it such that they are not separated from Daddy for too long!

As far as my anxiety is concerned. The babes were wonderful during the flight ride. They slept for over half the flight journey, which is less than their usual sleep time, but definitely commendable for the noise and crowd that was around them. So, I would say the journey was successful! I pumped once while they were sleeping and I was good for the rest of the journey (I am just pumping twice now (instead of 4 times) and producing around 30 oz)

Jet lag - phew! It is expected of them to take a week to get over it! But, we seem to be no where close to it! There are times when we feel that they are almost settled in and then - bam! RM has been sleeping at around 11 pm and getting up at 4-5'ish am and sleeps for approx 8 hrs during day time. RT, who is the light sleeper has actually been sleeping better at night from around midnight to 0630-0700'ish am and then another 8-9 hrs during day time. I don't blame them for the whacked up sleep cycle, but this better get over soon. It is messing up with their day time activities. As for RT's frequent night wake ups - they have pretty much vanished (I hope I am not speaking too soon) and makes me feel better that we did not CIO her! Every time I am inching towards CIO, we end up in a situation where we feel better for not going that route because some thing pops up and shows us why she has been the way she has. May be the lack of separation anxiety is helping her this time? May be these are just phases and I need to cope up with it than expect her to change.

We are hardly getting to prep any food for them since there are no guarantees when they will be up and not be sleepy enough to munch down their meals. So they have been getting either ready or quick meal options on a very random non-existant schedule. There are no guarantees when they will drink milk and their night time routine is shot.

One may ask why we decided to whack up their oh so perfect (?!?) routine and make them go across the globe! At times I feel guilty for doing this to them. I feel guilty for having to decide on cutting short bf'ing (pumping)! So why did we do it? We have been away from most of our relatives for ever. More than anybody else, we really wanted to bring the babies to their great grandparents (GGP). I have been blessed to see most of my GGP alive while I could understand things. I doubt the babies will remember anything. But the GGP have been more than thrilled to see the babies. Their blessings will always remain with the babies and this will be another milestone in the GGP's life... since these are pretty much their first great grand kids! So, we did this for family! And I hope the babies will cherish the videos and the pictures we take for years to come!

Tomorrow we will be celebrating the 8 month birthday! :)

More to come...!

Herbs & Spices

We started with solids a little after 4 months. Their first food was rice cereal, which they very quickly got bored off. There was a time when they were "happy" with the food being repeated (butternut squash, sweet potato, carrot etc)... and all these things more or less tasted sweet! There came a point where they just refused to eat this same old baby food. Cereal was a big no no! That's when we started introducing stage 2 food and also started mixing and matching items. A couple of weeks ago when I was speaking with the Ped, he said it was okay to start introducing them with any ethnic/traditional foods that we might be eating. We use quite a bit of spices and herbs in our food... so we have recently started introducing various things and they are loving it. Their food has started tasting so much like ours (only milder). We have so far introduced black pepper, cumin, garlic, turmeric (in that order). They are also munching on some of our foods since they are so interested in what we are eating and they seem to be doing fine!

BM and Zzz...

Lots happening around here. We are leaving on Wednesday and we are still packing. Our house seems like a tornado ripped through... with all the stuff laying all around... I wonder when we will finish packing. I have already shipped 3 bags full stuff for babies and we will be taking 6 more bags with us!

Half - is where I am as far as pumping is concerned. I was pumping 4 times a day and producing 60+ oz of milk for all these months. In the last 3 weeks or so, I have come down to around 34 oz and approximately 2 pump sessions. It has not been easy... but it has not been as rough as I had imagined. I am definitely not going to be weaning myself off of the pump before we leave... it just isn't happening in the next 4 days! I will be pumping in the PLANE! Yes... exciting... my mom is flying with the babies and I... so I have to some how sneak in to the "toilets" and pump around half a litre of milk and hope that the babies sleep while I am gone! And I hope there are no delays and our bags arrive on time... I hope I am not speaking too soon! Because, if not... I really would not like to pump more than once in the whole journey! We shall see. As far as reducing the volume is concerned... increasing the time between pump sessions from 6 hrs to 8 hrs and then to 10 hrs is what has helped. Yes, I am engorged at times... but it has been manageable. I try not to empty myself out completely... but I am not keeping completely full either... because then I have to pump sooner and that has not helped in reducing the volume. Some how this whole thing seems to be working. On a hindsight this seems to be good, because I didn't really want to get the babes off of breastmilk so soon. This way they will continue to get at least 50% breastmilk for few more months.

Sleep Monster - Has been going around our house! Is it the 7 month sleep regression or separation anxiety or teething or reflux?!? I am lost! RT has always been a poor sleeper. She barely naps (30 min napper) and I have come to terms with it... but for the past 1 week she has been getting up very very frequently! Like every hour! Like every time you put her down in her crib! There have been time when she has ended up in our bed, because she just wouldn't settle down at all and would wake her brother up! I have not wanted to do CIO... but I feel like we are inching towards that. She needs the sleep - waking up every hour crying is not healthy for her! Though, I am scared to try anything new now. With the whole travel situation, jet lag and moving places... whatever "training" we try... it is going to get blown off every time a new parameter kicks in! So I am just hoping we reach some equilibrium again soon, and if not CIO will be our option when we settle back in after our 2 month long trip! Besides CIO, I have also considered co-sleeping, but then why should she co-sleep and not her brother. And, can you imagine how hard it will be to co-sleep with twins. I mean forget our personal space (DH and I)... but they will probably fall asleep only when we will... will get up when we will. If dealing with a single baby is tough, how hard will twins be? When, oh when will I take care of all the stuff that needs to be taken care of... not household chores, but all that has to be done for the babes too!

The Darn Insurance

We got a call from our RE's finance department saying that a part of our IVF was not being paid for by our insurance! According to our insurance plane "one" IVF was covered! We had a pre-approval and everything! It seems ER, fertilization and ET codes were not covered. WHAT Besides These 3 main things consist of an IVF!?! We have a freakin 7.4k bill to fight 16 months after the procedure!