Twins-hospital pics

Photobucket Album

Tamara's Pictures

So here are a few more pictures. A friend of ours came over and took some very cute newborn pictures of the boys. She wasn't so sure about some of them but I think she was just too critical of herself. We love them. If costco ever lets us share photos again then we'll send out a link for all of them.

A Summary Of The Last Few Months

Wow we seem to be back among the living. The last few months have kind of been surreal. It was like being plucked out of our life and tossed into someone elses for a few months. Most of you have been keeping pretty close tabs on things but for those of you who are unaware of what has been going on here is a very brief review. On April 22nd at 28 weeks gestation I was rushed to Legacy Emanuel hospital in portland and I was in preterm labor. My contractions were 3 minutes apart and I was dialating fast. The funny thing was that I couldn't feel any of the contractions and had no idea that I was in labor. All of the doctors thought for sure that the babies would be born that night. Well as most of you know that didn't happen. They were able to stop my labor and I continued to scare and amaze everyone in the hospital for the next 7 weeks while I just hung out dialated at 6 cm and having contractions all day long. Every week the doctors swore that I wouldn't make it to the weekend and the following week I was still there. It finally got to the point that we picked a date and they were going to induce me at 35 1/2 weeks. I guess that is all we needed because a few days before the date my water broke and I went into labor on my own. It worked out for the best because James was already there that night and since it happened on its own everything went really quickly. I was really fortunate in that I had a picture perfect labor. Both babies were head down and delivered vaginally. It was probably the easiest labor that I could have asked for. Baby "A" Mason Robert Dodge was born first at 9:23am on June 8th and Baby "B" Brock James Dodge followed at 9:30 am. Mason was 5lbs 3 oz, 18 1/4 inches long and Brock was 4lbs 10oz, 17 3/4 inches long. Both babies were healthy though Brock had to spend two days in the NICU on a C-Pap machine to make sure that he was breathing adequately. Both boys spent one week in the hospital and were released to go home on father's day. This was a big surpirse for us since we were originally told that they would have to stay longer into the week. Their biggest issue is eating and making sure that they take in enough calories. So far so good and it just got better when we got home. They've turned into really go eaters and we no longer have to force the food down anymore. We were really lucky that our experience in that hospital was the best it could have been because of all of the amazing doctors and nurses. Though we were more than ready to come home after eight weeks in the hospital and Ronald Mcdonald house it was still like leaving a bunch of friends. They had their first doctors appointment down here in Albany yesterday and Mason weighted in a 5lbs 4 oz and Brock was 4lbs 13oz. We also went on our first walk all together last night with the boys in their baby slings. Just one last thank you to all of our friends and family for everything that they did for us over the last few months. We'll try to keep this updated more often....we'll see.

27 Week Ultrasound

Well we had another ultrasound done yesterday. This time it was at the albany hospital. Their 2D pictures don't turn out quite as well as the specalist but they had more time to play around with the 3D/4D pictures. Since we didn't actually see a doctor this time we won't find out the results until tuesday so it will be interesting to see if they still measure as big as they did at 20 weeks. Our next appointment with a perinatal specialist isn't until 32 weeks and this time we will be going up to Portland. Both babies were moving quite a bit during the ultrasound which also made it kind of hard to get good pictures. They are still lying transverse on top of one another. Baby B is the top baby and A is on the bottom. They started out with both heads on the left side and half way through baby A flipped so that his head ended up on the right side. The weird thing is that I couldn't even really feel that. If I didn't feel a movement that big it makes me wonder what their doing in their when my stomach stretches out and it feels like big movements. So far everything seems to be going great.

The Boys Bedroom

Well we got the boys bedroom painted this weekend so I thought I'd add a couple of photos. My mom came over to help and I think for the first time ever the paint actually turned out to be the color that I wanted. Now if their bedding would ever come off back order we'd be set. Some of you may have seen our bedding but its blue and brown turtles with dots. Don't ask about the one random brown dot on the wall. You'll also notice that we finally got the second crib set up too. (Not that they'll get used right away-but they look good.)

Shop Progress

Who would have thought we would have made so much progress so quickly. The guys spent friday night and all day saturday finishing the framework. Unfortunately they did it in some of the worst weather that we've had in over a month.

The Shop Is Going Up !!!

Wow!! Who whould have thought we finally started putting the shop up. The kit has only been done and paid for since July and we're just now getting around to putting it up. James, Arien, and Jim have spent a couple hours each day after work getting these poles up and its going amazingly quickly. When it is finished it will be a 50' X 72' shop with 18' eves. There will be three RV doors, two man doors and we eventually will have some office space with second story storage also. We really need the storage space since everything in the babies room needs to go in the garage and everything in the garage needs to go in the shop. Now the shop just has to be built and maybe we'll have room to bring our babies home....