Strange Times

We went to the doctor today and found out all kinds of interesting information. First, as if f being 14 weeks premature wasn't enough, it turns out Clara is also going through puberty. Clara has an increased level of estrogen (something that can happen to any baby but is fairly common in preemies) and, as a result, is starting to have some swelling in her chest area. Her face is also spotted with baby acne. It doesn't show up well in the picure below, but even though it is referred to as "baby acne", these are the kind of zits that will make her not want to go out in public in 12-14 years. When you combine those things with the fact she doesn't do anything we tell her and likes to sleep all day, Clara is 5 lb, 10oz teenager. The doctor said the swelling in her chest and the baby acne will go away, so hopefully we won't have to confront these issues again until she is middle school.

Seriously Mom and Dad, get out of my room!

Second, the doctor told us that we need to have "skin-to-skin" contact with the kids, especially while they're feeding. We knew this was important from our time in the NICU, but didn't know it was something we still needed to be doing. With one child this would probably look sweet and wonderful. With two kids it looks a little like a Roman bath house. Thank goodness no one was around to take pictures.

Although, if you visited our house right now you might not notice the two of us. Some of our friends ordered dinner and had it delivered to us tonight. When the delivery man walked in his eyes immediately widened and his head drew back as he took in the scene of what used to be our living room. After doing a 180 degree scan he looked at Chris and expressed with shock and amazement, "oh wow, there are babies everywhere!" We think he half-expected to see a TLC camera crew pop out from behind the door. Imagine what he would've thought if he had arrived about 25 minutes earlier.

The one bit of negative new from the day is the doctor thought Clara might have a hernia. We'll get that checked out next week and watch it closely. The doctor also recommended going back to feeding Clara and Wilson every three hours. This might not seem like such a big deal, but they had recently worked up to getting food every four hours. Adding two more feedings (or four more feedings depending how you look at it) significantly cuts back our already dwindling sleep time. Oh well, if it will help Clara and Wilson grow, we'll feed every hour and not complain . . . at least for a few more weeks. The joy of having them both home still trumps any negative feelings or sleep deprivation. We'll ride those emotions as long as we can.