With the family around to help
Until this point in time in our story there are no babies home at all. Our house is a complete mess, it feels like we live in hospitals and only come home to sleep (and food is only thanks to amazing friends… otherwise we would forget eating most days).
Rafael passed on Friday, my parents arrived on Sunday, and by Monday it was time to get Felipe and Patrick out of the Special Care Nursery. Even that our little Rafa seems to have planned, we would not mind having to share their time at home with time to see Rafa at the Royal Children’s but sometimes I think he wanted things to be this way.
Our friends came on Saturday for a big cleanup operation ?. There were a few tears when we all met but we switched on the music and started to celebrate new life around us (I always mean including Rafael when I say celebrating life).
We always felt it would not be fair to our boys for us not to be over the moon, not to celebrate their birth and the fact they exist in our hearts, even on our saddest days we always had a smile for all of them, we always wanted to welcome them to our world… and now… we are bringing them home! This is the start of an amazing new chapter.
We wished it was different but there are things we can’t change and we will have to learn to live with it (it will never go away), in the meantime Felipe and Patrick deserve everything… we have not spent that much time with them yet (just a couple of hours a day everyday) but we already know they are special … adorable baby boys… we are ridiculously in love… I probably took over 1,000 pictures by now.
When the boys got home we were so lost and scared (they are so tiny and look so fragile!). First thing we did that day was to buy baby monitors with movement sensors. That helped us through the night. I don’t think we would have got any sleep without that.
Because they have been in special care for 6 weeks now they are amazingly well trained. Like a clock… they are not even hungry at the same time as they were fed half an hour apart (to make sure mums can deal with multiples by themselves).
We also have a spreadsheet we fill out with everything they do…. How much formula there are drinking, what time, vitamins, which days they were bathed, nappies wet or dirty, any details on the nappy department ? .. everything is noted down.. oh boy we were freaked out!
It’s almost the time for Jon to go back to work (he has just accepted a new role in a new company to be able to work less crazy hours). All very exciting but right now I just wanted him to stay home and enjoy the boys.. what a long journey to get them here…
But at the same time I get so much help from my parents - you would not believe it. They never been so close to grandchild newborn and are amazing with the kids… I was always a bit of a night person, so now I am using that to my advantage… I stay up to 6am watching the boys over night, making sure I soothe their cries and feed them properly so their daddy can have some good sleep.
When it is 6:00am I wake my parents up and then its time for their shift… Jon goes to work but not before he has a nice brekky made by my mum. I sleep until 2pm and then it’s my shift again… When I wake up the house is in perfect harmony, usually with the boys sleeping, milk bottles made, all in order.
I must confess that after a couple of weeks I started to feel I might be missing out on those hours from 6am to 2pm.. but we will get there slowly…
Quickly I am learning quite a few tricks… I am a very good multi-tasker and you would be surprised by the thousand ways I can feed both at the same time, burp them, drink coffees, write on facebook and send texts, all at the same time… I am a bit impressed with myself… Jon is also learning a bit of multitasking too… nothing like needing to develop a skill, apparently man can be trained too to drink coffees while feeding a baby…
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