March for Babies!

I have spent most of my day today trying to recruit as many walkers as possible for the March for Babies (March of Dimes). Our team is Team Potter's Preemies. We will walking in the Los Angeles event on April 30th since we will be out of town when the one right in our area takes place. This is a very important event and I really hope to get tons of people to participate. If you'd like to join our team it costs absolutely nothing to walk, just takes some time promoting the fact that you're trying to raise money for the cause, and if you'd like to spend approx $6.50/shirt plus some shipping then you're all set. Plus the more shirts you order the cheaper they are. As of right now it looks like we will have some family and friends walking in the Denver event, some in the Oklahoma City event, and of course here in Los Angles. I'll include all the links you need to sign up under our team and instructions:

To sign up under our team please go to

http://www.marchforbabies.org/team/PottersPreemies

 

Once you have signed up and are on your personal page take a look at the right hand side. You will see the Los Angeles event listed for you as default, but just below all of that information it will say "change event." Click that! You can put in your zip code or selection your state and pick the event closest to you. It'll allow you to still walk under Team Potter's Preemies, but walk in a different event.

 If you'd like to order the shirts the link is:

http://eagraphics.com/2010_march_of_dimes_family_team_orchid_t_shirts

We have chosen to go with the lime color so it'd be great if everyone matched us!

To add the extra personalization on the back which will say "Team Potter's Preemies": 

http://eagraphics.com/inc/sdetail/15960 


Please let me know before ordering shirts so I can see who all is in your area so that you could potentially order as a group and save on shipping.

Okay everyone, let's do this! 

Cloth diapers

Let's get this blog started! We'll start off with one of things that I am definitely passionate about.... Cloth diapering....

I had thought about doing it and was almost planning on it the whole time I was pregnant, but between my mom, my husband and a bunch of others telling me how it would just be too much work, gross, etc etc. I didn't end up doing it in the beginning. Not to mention the NICU stay threw everything off track. When the boys were about 6 months old something sparked the thought back into my mind, I asked ONE friend, Megan, about cloth diapering because I knew she did with her son. She told me the brand she used (Bumgenius) and that's when I began trying to talk my husband into it. He was totally against it until we came across a video of someone demonstrating usually a diaper sprayer (for those poopy diapers). Then he finally agreed! Plus we ordered through Kellyscloset.com and they offer a 45 day guarantee if you don't like them, you can return them as long as you haven't voided any warranties, minus any shipping charges. Which in our case, we chose the free shipping anyways! We got them and started using them and haven't looked back. Of course there's been times that we've used disposables again due to traveling, rashes, etc but neither of us (yes I said neither) can really stand disposables. Our boys got rashes to most brand of disposables, with the exclusion of Pampers and Huggies so it was next to impossible to save money on diapers. When you have twins, you know it's all about savings! Then when Pampers made their changes to their new CRAP with dry max, it left like burns on my babies' bottoms! Cloth diapers are not only a money saver for you, especially if you buy one size that adjusts from newborn to typically potty training time, but it's also so much healthier for your baby and the environment. Disposable diapers take up to 500 years to decompose!! And all of those yucky chemicals in them, bleh! We spent about $450 for 24 cloth diapers, 2 drawstring wet bags to use in our diaper pails, 2 diaper bag size wet bags to throw your dirty diapers in when you're out and about (yes, we even use cloth when we are out of the house!), 24 cloth wipes, a diaper sprayer, and our first box of cloth diaper safe laundry detergent. We used to spend $150/month on disposable diapers and wipes. So in just 3 months of disposables diapers we could of bought cloth diapers. We started at 6 months old, so for 4 months we bought diapers for them since the first 2 months they were in the NICU. That's $600 on diapers and wipes in 4 months.. Add another $300 if you want to consider the NICU months. $900 spent on diapers for 6 months! What the heck!? Or how about $1800 for a YEAR. Imagine if we used disposable diapers till about 3 (the typical age to potty train) $5400 for 3 years! YIKES! Instead we spent $600 for those first 4 months.. And another $450 for all the cloth diapering supplies. And yes we've bought (ok ok maybe my sister Traci did cause she loves her "gremlins" as she calls the boys) disposables here and there like when we didn't have a home for 3 months due to moving, but still we've spent $1050 between cloth & disposable since the boys were born. That's still saving about $4350.. If you want to figure in the times we've bought disposables for one reason or another.. let's just round it off and say we will end up saving $4000! Even if we only had one kid, $2000 is still INSANE.  I have a friend Amy, who's definitely done a better job then me by buying used cloth diapers, making her own laundry detergent, etc. That's my next step... finally making my own detergent because I've had the stuff sitting around for a few months now.. How sad. I'll even include a link to a Youtube video that hubby & I made for friends and family to see when we started the journey of cloth diapering. It'll show you our diapers, how to stuff them, put them on, and spray them out if they're poopy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpXfXIPuGrU

A very late introduction

First and foremost, hi I'm Joelle! This was a blog I meant to start a LONG time ago, like when the boys were born, but never did. So here it goes! I'll start off with a brief history of my husband and I then get to the twins next =)


History of Brandon & Joelle:
  
    We officially met January of 2008, but didn't ever really talk until April 2008.  Even then, it was just Brandon listening to my rants about men hehe. May 2008 is when we finally decided to give it a shot at a relationship and it's worked out perfectly since. He proposed in October 2008 and we were planning for a 09/09/09 wedding back home in Colorado. And by planning, I mean we already had the venue reserved, the catering, the DJ, and probably a few other things. We weren't trying to get pregnant, but sure enough the morning of February 7, 2009 I KNEW something wasn't right and took a pregnancy test (Wow.. just realized I found out I was pregnant with these two monkeys 2 years ago TODAY!!). We joked and joked that it was twins, never thinking much of it. Because of work related issues / insurance issues we moved our wedding date up to February 15, 2009 and had a beach wedding in Hawaii. Brandon left for some foreign country 2 days after we got married.

    About a week later I went in for an ultrasound and sure enough.... The u/s tech told me it was twins! When Brandon got online later that day I told him about the u/s, but he didn't believe it. I had to take a picture of the u/s print out with my cell phone and e-mail it to him! The pregnancy was somewhat easy, not too difficult, just uncomfortable. I mean, look at me. I'm 4'11, was 109lbs and carrying twins. I kept telling the doctors I was completely uncomfortable standing at work and trying to get them to take me out of work, but they wouldn't. So I quit on my own and less than 2 weeks later I had the boys at 29 weeks... born 11 weeks premature. I still wonder to this day if the doctors ignored my concerns and if I had stopped working sooner, if I would of carried the boys longer. I only gained 16 pounds through out the whole pregnancy.

    On Thursday, July 30th, 2009, around 7pm, I drove myself (and of course because Brandon was on the other side of the world!) to the Labor & Delivery ward at Tripler Hospital because I started having  contractions. About an hour into being at Labor & Delivery I was told that I was 3cm dilated, 90% effaced with Wyatt's sac bulging out. I was then moved into a birthing room where I started receiving Magnesium in order to try and stop the labor. I was also given one steroid shot around 9pm that night. The steroid shot was an attempt to help develop the babies' lungs. The morning of Friday July 31st, 2009 I was checked again to see if I was dilated and sure enough I had dilated to 4cm with Wyatt's sac still bulging out. Brandon had gotten word through Red Cross that I had gone into labor so he had been checking back in all day to see what was going on. It was hard every time he called because it was never good news for him. As the day went on I continued to dilate so they upped the amount of Magnesium I was receiving to see if it would fight the contractions some more. We were trying to make it at least another 24 hours so that we could get the 2nd steroid shot because it takes two to get the full effect on developing the babies' lungs. However, we couldn't hold off the contractions long enough, so I did not get the 2nd steroid shot.

    Around 2:30pm on Friday it was obvious that the babies' were going to come whether we were ready or not (and whether Brandon was there to be with me through it all or). Wyatt was breech and Riley was transverse so we had no choice, but a c-section. By about 3pm, I was being wheeled into the operating room and being prepped for a c-section. I had gone 24 hours in labor with absolutely nopain medicine at all only to end up needing a spinal for the c-section. I did have my friend Mandy come in for the c-section and somewhat keep me calm through it all. At 3:31pm on Friday July 31st, 2009 Wyatt came out crying. Within 20 seconds at 3:32pm, Riley came out crying and peeing all over everyone. They were quickly taken to the NICU to begin any treatments they needed. Wyatt weighed in at 2lbs, 11oz and Riley weighed in at 2lbs, 15oz. Both were 15 inches long.

    After the c-section I was stapled and taped up. I was taken to a recovery room where I waited for about an hour until they moved me to a "mother-baby" room. Mandy stayed with me the first 2 nights until Brandon was home. I wasn't able to see the babies until Saturday due to the c-section. I had to be able to walk and have a catheter removed before being allowed to go to the NICU.

   The NICU journey for us lasted 55 days, but felt so much longer. They were on different types of breathing machines, under lights for jaundice, feeding tubes, tons of cords, you name it, they probably had it. We visited them at least once a day, sometimes twice for me once Brandon went back to work. Eventually once they were able to maintain their own temperatures, eat all on their own, and breath on their own without any episodes they were released to go home with us and that's when our journey raising twins began....