Well, little did I know I was in early labor when I sent my last post. I knew my plug was gone and that I was having contractions but still thought they were just Braxton Hicks. Such is a first-time mama.
I woke up just hours after I wrote the last post, sat on the toilet and my water broke. Hollywood style. Gush! “Gina!” I hollered from that bathroom at 1:50am. “My water broke!” My super sleepy wife never woke so fast.
The whole thing was so fun. I love replaying the night over and over in my head. I got to experience some labor and my girls got to choose their own coming. Hurray! Blessed! By the time I was ready to head in to surgery, a few hours after my water broke, I was at 5cm which, my midwife tells me, indicates I would have had a pretty fast labor and likely not too terribly difficult given how easy getting there was for me (fast and easy). Though, we’ll never know, will we.
What we do know is that we are now 11 days out from having amazing, beautiful, sweet, perfect daughters. Gina and I are mothers. MOTHERS. It’s still surreal and we are still trying to integrate it all (which we are warned will likely never happen!) but we are doing our best to get our mama-legs anyway.
Birth Story
I plan to write the girls birth story when I get a little time here and there. I want it captured for me and for them. For now, suffice to say, the whole thing was amazing. Parts I could live with out (the morphine and hospital for example) but those downsides pale in comparison to the love and support we got from each other, our daughters and our midwife and care team.
Announcement
Below is the announcement we sent out a few days ago… it only took me about 5 days to draft it! I’ve never been pithy but these girls might just get the better of me– less time equals less words= right to the point.
The For-Now Update
The girls are super healthy… they lost more than 10% of body weight which was disconcerting for everyone given how small they are but we worked diligently to get them back up and sure enough they are now both past their birth weights (Calliope now over the 6lb mark and Genevieve is close behind). I’ve had a few complications post-op with a nasty rash on my belly from the morphine, serious engorgement (I make more than a liter of milk a day… which is super painful but a VERY good problem to have- most moms of twins struggle to make enough for both babies), and we all came down with yeast infection: on my nipples (super painful), babies mouths, etc. We saw the midwife yesterday and already I’m feeling better all around. We got a better night’s sleep last night than we have since they were born. They were drinking my milk from a bottle to get them up to birth weight and we are now transitioning them to nurse predominantly from my breast. We’ll get good at this, then we’ll take on tandem nursing… it’s all taking time but it’s all happening.
We are in a little bit of a cocoon… we have a few visitors but we notice that right now, the girls (and we) do best with very little stimulation and just lots of rest, quiet and calm. So, we are honoring that. We know we’ll never get these first couple of weeks back. Gina’s mom gets here next week and then Gina is back to work after that…and just like that, our first days bonding as a family will be over. Of course, new chapters will begin and more visits we’ll welcome.
For now, I can’t imagine being happier or more grateful. Tears flow from me everyday all day, hormones or no hormones, this is astonishing. Every single day of sick, of pain, of suffering is worth their being here 100, 1000x over. My words fail to describe.
Stay tuned for the birth story and pictures… may be a while from now, but it’ll be here.
Quadruple love,
regina
xo
p.s. Gina is really well. Tired but so happy to be a mama.
Less than 24 hours old... on Gina's chest- skin to skin.
This how they were in the womb and how they still spend much of their time outside.
Genevieve (4 days old)
Calliope (4days old)
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Birth Announcement
We are so happy to share that our twin girls have made their arrival!
We had a c-section scheduled for today, Wednesday, November 16th given the girls stayed breech/breech, however, last Monday morning about 1:50am (November 7th) my waters broke and the girls chose their own arrival on November 7th, at 6:15am and 6:17am.
Calliope Malea Perata (Callie): 5lb, 14oz and 18.5 inches (Baby A) (name and cadence sounds like “Penelope”)
Genevieve Joy Perata (Evie): 5lb, 11oz and 18.75 inches (Baby B)
Genevieve is named after Gina’s grandmother, Genevieve. Calliope just told us her name… we tried many others throughout the pregnancy but none other would do. Both girls’ middle names are after their grandmothers (Gina’s mom Mary– Malea is the Hawaiian version of Mary– and Regina’s mom Joyce).
Calliope looks a lot like Gina. Genevieve looks a lot like Regina.
Calliope coos and crys in sweet little melodic tones which we think is fun given her name means “beautiful voice”. Genevieve looks around the world slowly and wide eyed like, “Where the heck did we land?”
They love being near each other and on us. We, of course, love that.
Regina is recovering remarkably well from surgery and Gina is her usual amazing partner-self- doing all the heavy lifting.
We are in total awe, love and joy. Words don’t even describe how amazing they are or being new mamas is. It’s totally chaotic and we hardly sleep in between every 1-3 hour feedings but we could care less at this point. Our girls are strong, healthy and perfect in every way.
Below are a few pics for you to enjoy.
Hope everyone is really, really well. Thank you for ALL your love and support… its’ making a huge difference for us. Having two babies is as much work as “they” say but it’s also so worth it, too.
Big quadruple love,
regina + gina
P.S.
Food
Many of you have done so much- and more than we could ever dream of. That said, lots of you have asked, so we’ll share- if you are inclined support us with food, we’ll take you up on it. We hardly have time to eat much less make food. We put together a link on Meal Baby. There are options for out of town people to help us, too.
http://mealbaby.com/viewregistry/545100
Visiting
Theses first few weeks we are just finding our bearings and really savoring each day feeling into each other in our new family (and healing)– but in no time at all, we’ll want more and more people flooding our home to meet and love on our girls (and help us fold a little laundry or the like).
If/when you come for a visit, please keep a couple things in mind:
– Please plan for childcare if your kidlets are less then 10 or so. Docs suggestion to keep away other little ones for a few weeks or months.
– Please be conscious of your perfumes, lotions, hair products, smoke, etc. Regina is still really sensitive to smells and the little ones are even more so (and lungs less developed)
– Even if we are having the best visit ever and all looks calm, please support us in having a visit no longer than an hour. Time is so precious we dearly need to preserve our tanks, even when we want to run them dry on being with you, the people we love.