|
|
By Dan, on May 21st, 2009 So Janet and I were just talking about how we didn’t have any good side by side pictures of the babies yet, because they’re on such a short tether with all the wires and tubes… Well, I left my old digital camera there in one of the cribs, because one of the nurses had told us that they’d grab it and take a few pictures for us if the girls started doing anything interesting. I didn’t really expect much to come of that, but the extra camera wasn’t doing anything just sitting at home. So then I came back home last night and went to all that work in my previous post trying to construct a makeshift side by side comparison…
Then tonight, just before we left the hospital after visiting the girls, we decided on a whim to check the camera we had left there… And sure enough, sometime during the middle of the night, a couple of thoughtful nurses had taken exactly the kind of side by side pictures we’d been hoping for. Maybe they heard us talking about it, or maybe they just thought it was a cool idea. At any rate, here they are:
 Side by side comparison 1  Side by side comparison 2 Notice the lack of identifying labels! Can you tell who is who? I cannot… But if my life depended on it, I would guess that Carolyn is on the left and Elizabeth on the right, simply because that’s what side their cribs are on. Obviously, that kind of external cue won’t help me much once they start crawling around and switching positions when I’m not looking. Maybe I’ll ask about installing RFID implant chips.
By Dan, on May 20th, 2009 People keep asking us if we know if Carolyn and Elizabeth are identical twins. Nope, we don’t know. There are several things one might look for that would rule OUT identical twins (different gender, different blood type, etc), and our girls match on all those things — but this only means that they MIGHT be identical twins, or they might not be. Also (if I understand correctly), if the girls had shared a single amniotic sac, that would have meant they definitely WERE identical twins — but our girls had separate sacs, which again means they might or might not be identical. DNA testing could tell us for sure, but that would cost a lot of money and I don’t think we need to know THAT bad. Short of that, there’s really no way for us to tell, except to just wait and see how they develop.
Janet and I were talking recently about how we’ve never really had the opportunity to see both of the girls together at the same time and really compare their features. So yesterday when we visited them at the hospital, I tried to get a good picture of each of them with similar poses, so we could try a comparison. I had to horizontally flip Elizabeth’s picture so the pose would match, and then I rotated both images 90° counterclockwise for easier facial feature recognition. Here’s what I got:
Yikes! They do look quite similar, don’t they?
If I had put the same name beneath each picture, would anyone suspect that these are different babies? For that matter, I think that I myself would be fooled if someone else had taken the photos and labeled them. Or if there simply were no labels, I don’t think I could tell them apart… At least, not from what I’ve seen so far.
Of course, this is by no means conclusive. Even fraternal twins can look very similar, and it’s possible that as they grow they will start to look less and less alike. But for now, I can’t help but wonder at how we’ll manage to tell them apart after they come home with us. Different color nail polish, I suppose.
By Dan, on May 19th, 2009 Today it has been one week since the twins were born, and in addition we are also celebrating Janet’s birthday! After spending a few hours visiting with the girls at the hospital in Walnut Creek, we got together with family here in Livermore on Sunday to celebrate Janet’s birthday. We had a nice dinner of grilled chicken and mashed potatoes, followed by cake and homemade ice cream for dessert — and of course, there were presents for Janet! It was a very nice evening, but as you might expect it was difficult not to think about how much nicer it would have been to have our kids there with us. We think about them all the time. How could we not? Here are a few pictures from Sunday.
 Happy Birthday!  Carolyn  Lunchtime for Elizabeth
By Dan, on May 16th, 2009 If a picture is worth a thousand words, and a film is thousands of pictures, then this little video of our tiny little girls must be worth millions of words. I’m loving the snazzy new HD video camcorder we bought! But I love these girls even more.
 Click on the image to load the movie in a new window. I’m sure I’ll get a couple more movies posted here in the coming weeks.
By Dan, on May 16th, 2009 After just 32 weeks, our beautiful daughters arrived on Tuesday, May 12th! Janet got up to use the restroom in the early early morning and noticed a pink tinge that obviously wasn’t right. We figured it was just a little spotting like what had happened in January — at which time, we learned that the standard procedure is that you call the hospital, then you wait for the doctor to call you back, then the doctor tells you to come into the ER for a checkup, then they inexplicably make you wait with your emergency for several hours, then they eventually run a couple tests, and finally they tell you to go home and avoid heavy lifting. NOT THIS TIME! We got to the ER, a nurse examined Janet and did a couple tests, and announced “Your water’s broken.”
WHOA! Suddenly, everything in the world was turned completely upside down. Sure, we knew this was going to happen early, but it wasn’t supposed to be for another month! Eight weeks premature? What does that mean? Will they be OK? That was rather disconcerting at first.
For those interested in the full story about the labor and delivery, Janet will probably write something soon. For everyone else, I’ll just fast forward to the essential stats and a few pictures.
Carolyn Joy
- Born: May 12th, 1:45 PM
- Weight: 3 pounds, 15 ounces
- Length: 16 inches
Elizabeth Grace
- Born: May 12th, 2:25 PM
- Weight: 4 pounds, 2 ounces
- Length: 17.25 inches
 Dan carried Carolyn over so Janet could hold her just minutes after being born  A wonderful moment while we waited for Elizabeth  Carolyn Joy, 3 hours old  Elizabeth Grace, 2.5 hours old As you can see in the last photo here, Elizabeth is wearing a CPAP mask (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure). Apparently, when infants are this premature, their lungs are not yet fully developed and may be sorta sticky on the inside. This creates a danger that the lung may collapse and stay closed if allowed to deflate completely. The air flow from the mask helps keep them inflated, but it’s not actually breathing for her. And fortunately, she only needed the mask for the first night, and she’s doing much better now.
Even so, these are still very small babies who need more time to develop. Thus, they’ll have to stay in the Intensive Care Nursery for another four to six weeks before they’ll be ready to come home! It was pretty tough leaving the hospital and driving home without them when Janet was discharged on Thursday, but we know that they’re in good hands. The hospital staff has been very caring and supportive, and they’re doing a good job answering all of our questions. The good news is that they all say the girls act older than their age, and that they’re actually somewhat feisty (which we take to be a good sign). We’ll just have to commute to Walnut Creek to see them every day for a while… We have much to be thankful for, and we feel indescribably blessed to have been given these two wonderful little girls!
|
|
Recent Comments