Today the girls and I went on a little adventure to George George Park in Mt. Clemens this evening. Mom and Dad went to Sonic Drive-in and ordered some carry-out and brought it to the park. Both Samantha and Alexis were supposed to have gone to sleep on the way over there but decided not to, they still ended up being in good spirits and we were able to get a couple pictures of them in front of some flowers. It will be nice when they can sit up on their own, that way these pictures don’t need to include the car seats but they are cute non the less.
On Friday Jackie and I took the girls to go see the pediatrician for their 4 month well-check. Doc says everything looks normal and that we are raising 2 very healthy little girls. He was shocked to hear that Samantha is already rolling over. He told us to not get discouraged if it took Alexis a little longer to start doing that, that Samantha was ahead of the game. He also did a test to see if they would grab onto things in front of them. They both grabbed the stick, then made mention that at the next visit (6 months) they should be swapping the stick between their hands. Well sure enough, after we got home, the girls were playing with their rattles and Samantha grabbed the rattle with one hand and swapped it to the other. She tried to go back but didn’t make it. There is one thing Alexis is doing faster than Samantha in though. Head growth. Alexis might be the littler one but her head is a half an inch bigger than Samantha’s head. Their official stats are as follows
Samantha
Length: 24 inches
Weight: 14 lbs. 0 oz.
Head Circumference: 16 inches
Alexis
Length: 22.5 inches
Weight: 11 lbs. 12 oz.
Head Circumference: 16.5 inches
As far as other development, they both love standing up, with help of course, they both love sitting up. Samantha, whenever angled back, always try’s to sit-up, but can’t quite do it yet. They are also mimicking us a little bit. We will make a noise and they will make one back. Alexis especially, if you make the spitting sound, she will spit salvia all over her face and will continue to do so as long as you are making the noise back.
That’s it for this post. We have been getting the house ready all week for their baptism this Sunday. I will obviously post pictures of that once they are taken of course.
Well I am just getting to it today but Samantha is rolling over now. She rolled over 3 times yesterday, twice so far today. Safe to say it wasn’t a one time thing. Here is the video from roll over number 3.
Posted by Daniel | Posted in Alexis, Daniel, Family, Friends, Jackie, Samantha | Posted on 12-04-2010
It’s funny, I started this post on the blog as the Week 1 update, however considering how little sleep we have gotten and all the other things we have needed to do, it is now the week 2 update. So far we are having fun with the girls. We have given them their first bath, done a little baby photo shoot(for the birth announcements we will soon find time to send out). I take them for little walks around the yard in anticipation for our first “real” walk with Jackie once the doctor officially takes her off of bed rest. There really isn’t a lot of excitement other than that. They eat, they sleep and they poop a lot. and when they aren’t doing that, we are talking with them and trying to bond with them. I think right now they are confused as to what is day time and what is night time because they sleep very well during the day, and not really at all at night. Hopefully we can figure that out soon as I got to head back to work in a couple more weeks here. No other real updates to talk about yet. Next doctors visit for the girls is tomorrow, we get to see how much weight we have gained. I wanted to thank everyone who has come over to help out, be it bringing us dinner(Bobbie), making us dinner(Mom), doing our grocery shopping(Ron) and coming over to give us a little break so we can sleep during the day(Mr. and Mrs. Tober), we appreciate it.
Well we had our girls today. Everything went well.
The stats are:
Alexis Marie Frei:
4lbs 8oz.
17 inches long
12.5 inch head
Born at 1:06 pm 3/30/2010
Samantha Lee Frei:
5lbs 8oz.
18.5 inches long
12.75 inch head
Born at 1:08 pm 3/30/2010
Tomorrow at 10am we are scheduled to go to the hospital and have our twin girls Samantha Lee and Alexis Marie. I can hardly believe that the time has finally come to meet those sweet little babies that I’ve been carrying for the past 37 weeks and 2 days. 7 weeks and 2 days ago, my doctor placed me on bed rest due to Edema (swelling of the body, mainly in the extremities and face). Thank goodness she did because I began to see the swelling go down as I spent my days in my la-z-boy recliner with my feet up watching what became my regular routine of daytime shows. Usually I’d catch the oldies but goodies real early in the morning like Saved By The Bell and Fresh Prince of Bel Air before Ellen came on at 10am. From there I’d normally surf around until Jeopardy! or Family Feud came on. It became really difficult to get around about 2-3 weeks ago but thankfully I had my Mom, my Dad, my sister Carolyn, my best friend Bobbi, and my father-in-law Ron to occasionally come visit me during the day whether it was to bring me lunch, help with the housework, or just keep me company so I wouldn’t be alone all day. Of course Dan came home on his lunch break from time to time as well to bring me food and check on me as well but mostly tried to leave work sparingly because of all the time he took away from work to go to almost every doctor’s appointment I had. He wanted to make sure that the babies and I were OK and always had questions for the doctor asking how he can help make me more comfortable, what signs of labor he should look for, and any other details I may not have thought of at the time. Dan has been a blessing through this whole pregnancy. I’d sit in my chair and ask him to get me water, chocolate milk, bake me a cake or cookies, whatever I wanted, then on top of that he would clean the house, do the dishes, take out the trash, feed the cats, clean the cats’ litter box, and still find the time to sit with me and cheer me up when I’m bored or feeling nervous about the birth of the girls. But tomorrow, Tuesday, March 30, 2010, right around this time 10:15am Dan and I could be looking at two perfect little angels from heaven that will be here to join our family and enrich our lives forever. We both can hardly wait…
Well, on Tuesday we received a phone call from the doctor. She wants to deliver the babies on Tuesday, March 30th at 10am. They will be delivered at 37 weeks and 2 day. Jackie’s blood pressure has been high and the doc thinks it will be best to have them before things start to get real dangerous for Jackie. We agree. On Thursday we had our appointment and Alexis appears to be attempting to come out first. She has placed her feet in front Samantha’s head, placing her in the number one position. What this means is our choice for a natural birth is simply out of the question pending a miracle. That aside, we are really looking forward to finally bringing the girls home. Their room is ready and so are we. We have both been looking forward to this day for a while now, it almost seemed like it would never come. So pending Jackie’s blood pressure making it into the danger zone the doc specified over the weekend, you can all expect an announcement sometime Tuesday afternoon. Stay tuned for the show. Rest assured we will have pictures.
Well today we heard their heart beat at the doctors and they read 160 and 170 BPM. Doc says they’re healthy babies. One of them even kicked the microphone. We are so excited. We still can’t believe how lucky we are that this is happening to us. God has given us not only one child but a second one as well.
Now that things have settled down a bit more we have started cleaning up and preparing for the little ones arrival. We started cleaning out the spare bedroom which will soon be the little kids room as well as started to organize and throw away crap which we don’t need. Trying to optimize our processes just a little. So far, being a dad is pretty fun. I get to take care of Jackie and get her everything she wants, which in turn helps out my little ones who don’t even know I exist yet. They will, once they get ears I will be talking with them.. Maybe while Jackie is sleeping.
Yes, that’s right. Today we went to the doctor to have us our first visit and see our new family members. We had a lot of questions and we were both very eager to learn everything their was to know. We made lists, bought things in for the doctor to read. We had spend the last couple weeks reading and researching and we thought we were all ready.. That nothing the doctor was going to tell us was going to surprise us. Boy were we wrong. The said we are going to be the parents of twins. Jackie immediately started crying. My jaw hit the floor. As we watched the monitor we were both in a daze looking at the 2 little things no larger than a small grain or rice, with a beating heart. We couldn’t believe it. Everything we thought and knew and read about having babies changed. We are now having two. Everything doubled. The emotions, the thoughts, the money, the strollers, the cribs and the diapers. Everything.
I was scheduled to go back to work today. I sent them an email stating I would not make it back in today. We stopped off at Taco Bell because Jackie had a craving and we both just needed to calm down.. I know.. not exactly the place you go to make your body calm down, but none the less, it worked. When we walked in we were just chatting and chatting and chatting, we were very emotional. We were all over the board. I had settled a little bit more than Jackie did and I knew she was very nervous. I said I wanted to tell everyone immediately. Everyone we already told we were having one, we then needed to tell everyone we were having two. That was the funniest part.
We used the same routine on everyone, except Rick, he beat me to the punch.. more on that in a minute. We went and called everyone and said we wanted to come over and show them the ultrasound. We showed them the picture of the the baby and explained here it is and here is the heart beat and here’s how big it is aaaand here’s the other one. We started off with Jackie’s mom, then here sister, then my parents, then Rick and Sarah, then Jackie’s other sister, then back to Jackie’s parent to tell her Dad. I had to call Mike again and Aletha the next day because they were both busy that day. But sharing the news was the best thing we could have done. You could really tell it helped settle everything in and made it more real. That night we started referring to them as Number 1 and Number 2. We are now a family of 6 (we have 2 cats.. yes they count!)
I am gonna be a daddy. It is a moment I have been waiting for for many years. A day I have dreamed of. Words cannot explain the feelings I had when Jackie yelled “DAN!!! Get in here NOW!!”. I was overjoyed because I already knew what she was going to say. No more than 5 min earlier we had mentally prepared ourselves for another month of “trying” and we had accepted it. They always say it will happen when you least expect it. It didn’t seem like it was ever going to happen; and then it did.
Unfortunately the celebration was short lived that morning.. we both had to go to work. It was probably my least productive day ever. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Everything I thought I knew and prepared myself for, for this exact moment suddenly made no sense. I started crunching numbers, wondering if we make enough, if we were going to have enough room, what kind of father would I be, what if they get sick, how big are they now, are they gonna play football, basketball, baseball or hockey. Will they live healthy lives. The list went on and on.
As the day went on, Jackie and I shared emails talking about just how wonderful it is. We couldn’t believe we were going to be parents. When I was on my way home, Jackie sent me a text message stating she wanted to tell her family now. So we made the rounds around her family and told them. This was really good for Jackie because she needed someone to talk to about the pregnancy, things I just wouldn’t be able to answer. I started to think how I was going to tell my family.
I always thought I had the perfect idea, but with Aletha moving to Peoria, and I found out my brother was dropping their kids off at my parents house to go out with Sarah, I thought I wouldn’t be able to tell them and I just simply couldn’t wait any longer. Luckily my mom didn’t catch on and said she would just bring the girls with. Well we ate dinner the next weekend and I cooked Baby Back ribs (yes 10 hours over the smoker.. this was a big deal), baby red skin potatoes, baby lettuce, baby cucumbers and baby carrots. We had babies breath on the table and we thought it would be obvious. It wasn’t. I asked them if they picked up on the theme. I listed off all the food and my mom was like “Oh.. yep.. a baby theme”, then Ron says “O.. My …. God!!” and my mom followed with “Oh oh oh!! Congratulations!!”
The next day we stopped by Rick and Sarah’s house and told them, then I called Mike, because he is too busy as a college student now, I called Aletha then Tonya to spread the news. We told everyone we told not to tell anyone because we weren’t ready to tell everyone else, we wanted to wait.. we had only known for 2 weeks. It was still early. With the still chance of a miscarriage, we didn’t want to have to spread the possible “bad” news to everyone as well.
Right now… we are very happy. Couldn’t be happier.