Of course, in the universal song of bloggers coming back to their derelict blogs, much as happened. So much I could not even update you all (I am assuming all two of you) in one blog post. So I will stick to the cutest of my updates, while also distinctly NOT promising you to go over everything else that has happened in our life for years in detailed and many future blog posts. For one thing, I do not even know if there will be future blog posts. I have read too many false promises from other bloggers that were never fulfilled in this vein, and I do not trust myself enough to be any different than they have been. Enough excuses, onto the cute (after some emotional trauma).
After Torvald we did not plan on trying for any more kids. Our hearts were broken, our family felt broken, my mental health definitely was broken. However, in September of 2022 I got a positive pregnancy test, and was shocked - it did not seem possible for so many reasons. I cried and cried - I was so terrified for the future, for the possibility of another baby dying. I hate being pregnant at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. Torvald’s pregnancy was very physically difficult, and I worried this would be as well. Plus I had started taking a few classes at Avram’s university where he teaches so I could be prepared to apply for graduate for the next year. (I actually took the test on campus, and watched it turn positive in his office, where I did my studying every day).
I scheduled an early ultrasound and at seven or eight weeks I went in to the office for it. Everything there reminded me of being there for Torvald two years earlier. By the time I was called back I was crying so hard I couldn’t remember how many pregnancies I had had to tell the sonographer. And then she brought my baby up on the screen and it was blessedly alive, with a heart beat and everything! And then she zoomed out, and there was another heartbeat, attached to another baby! I stopped crying, and then moved straight into a state of surprised shock I am not sure I have moved beyond yet, a year and a half later.
Sadly for me, it was a hard pregnancy. I felt mostly dead, most of the time. I continued auditing the two classes I was taking, but dropped the Ancient Greek class I was taking for credit because my nausea became too intense. I spent the entire pregnancy nauseous, even on drugs, and sick and even fainted once (briefly, but in an elevator full of college students, so fun!). I spent the whole pregnancy terrified my babies would die, that I would lose not only them but my sanity as well. I audited two more classes the second half of my pregnancy, and going to campus and studying for my classes was the only thing that got my through, I couldn’t do physical labor, because I was so sick, but I could still read, and I could still sit in a classroom.
Early, but not entirely unexpectedly, my twin girls joined us earthside on April 25 of last year - 7 weeks early, but thankfully alive.
Somehow when I brought the pictures in it sized them differently. Do not take this as a sign of unbalanced love between my babies, but rather of my unbalanced knowledge of technology. Rowena Isis Ruth is the first picture, born 4 pounds 4 ounces and a full five minutes earlier than her sister at 7:40 am. Rowena has a softer spirit than her sister, but she also has a devious streak. She chortles when she laughs and has a superglue grip on anything she can get her hands on. My poor girl spent 63 days in the NICU because it turns out she doesn’t eat (long story short - had penetration, where liquids partially go down wrong tube, which led her to an extremely strong oral aversion and for seven months had an NG tube through her nose but now has a g-tube in her stomach), but she is a cute, if still petite, fighter.
Artemis Mary Nephthys is the second picture, born at 7:45 am and weighing 4 lbs 14 oz. She continues to weigh more than her sister which has led multiple people to exclaim that she is clearly the older sister, as if sizing of twins worked that way at all. (Someone else once told me it was clear that Artemis is the older twin because she was crawling and Rowena couldn’t yet. 🙄 Let us just say there are many myths about twins, most of them malarkey.) Artemis spent 3 1/2 weeks in the NICU, and then her and her sister were tragically separated for a time. Avram often says that Artemis is a hollow tube masquerading as a baby - she will nurse or take a bottle of pumped milk or take any formula she has been offered (in our search for a formula to help with Rowena’s extreme reflux we have tried many and Artemis just gets dragged along for her couple of bottles she has had a day for most of her life). Artemis loves crawling, although only army crawling, and has two bottom teeth that are stinking adorable. She wants to eat anything, move anywhere, and generally will be with anyone.
Both girls are quite easy going and never cry unless they have a real need to be met.
Oh, enough talk and you need more pictures, you say? I live to oblige. Rowena has a rounder face, blue eyes, a light complexion and light hair that almost (maybe? Hopefully??? Is strawberry blond, and for the first seven months has a nose tube. Artemis has a more olive complexion, a more noticeable chin (Rowena seems to have misplaced hers somewhere), and dark brunette hair and hazel blue/green eyes.
This is the most recent picture, so you get a bonus of my friend Carol from collage (best friends I have ever made were in college! Friends for life!) But for the purpose of this post the focus is on the two baby twins - my baby twins. Wait, what??? I have twins??? I know, I am still in shock too. My plans for going back to school for my master’s is pushed back a few years, but I still don’t know exactly what degree I want, so that hasn’t been a big deal. Twins have been hard, especially one with extreme reflux and a feeding tube, but I feel like we are slowly coming out of the hardest baby phase and maybe someday soon will feel like our lives are functioning again. But at least this hard, unlike so many of life’s trials and hardships, also comes with a mega dose of cuteness. These are are best bookends to our family, and the sweetest spirits I am grateful we have with us.
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