Pictures of the babies

Here's Kris at the hospital with both babies (5/19)

Rachel looking thoughtful. (3 wks old)

This one is Matthew drifting off to sleep. (3 wks old)

The twins are here!

Hello, everyone! I promised a few people I would do this, so here we go. Most of you know that Matthew & Rachel were born May 19. They were only two weeks early! I was just supposed to have a regular doctor's appointment that morning, but when Dr. Lindsey asked if I wanted to have babies that day instead of waiting, it didn't take me long to decide--being pregnant with twins is not nearly as wonderful as one would imagine, and I was dying to see my toes again, so I called Kris & we had a C section at 5 in the afternoon. Matthew Kristopher was 7 pounds, 3 ounces, 19 1/2 inches long and Rachel Barbara was 6 pounds, 12 ounces, 19 1/4 inches long. By now, they're almost a month old, and they've grown a LOT!

We had lots of visitors in the hospital, which we really appreciated. We were still getting lots of sleep at that point since the nurses took the babies at night, so we were able to stay awake to talk to all of the family and friends who came to see the babies (we won't kid ourselves that anyone really wants to see Mom & Dad anymore).

By the way, speaking of nurses, if anyone in St. Charles county needs to have a baby, we HIGHLY recommend Progress West in O'Fallon. We quit calling it a hospital & started calling it a hotel. The food was great, the room was huge, and my bed at least was comfortable (I'm sure Kris has a different opinion there--he had a fold-out chair.) We were the first twins to be born there, and the whole hospital staff made it a point to stop by and see the twins. The president of the hospital & the head of PR came by the room with balloons & cake for us, too. We were minor celebrities for a week or so, and it was great. Supposedly, they were going to print a story in the company (BJC) newsletter, by we haven't seen it yet.

We came home on Friday the 23rd, and since then we are learning to sleep in 2-3 hour bursts. We are lucky that most of the twins' grandparents live in town, so we have help most of the time. (They think they're just visiting the babies!) Then, Kris's mom was able to come visit for a whole week from Detroit, so we hit the jackpot with 24/7 help. That was fabulous. Kris was able to go in to work for a couple of days, & Nana made sure we ate balanced meals every night. I'm sorry to say that's not really happening any more.

Lately, Rachel has been sleeping for 5 hours at a time sometimes, and Matthew is stretching past 3 hours occasionally. We're learning how to keep enough bottles washed & how to keep up with the amount of laundry we now have. We can't wait for the rest of the relatives to meet them!