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Another day in the life of our two newborns. More feeding, more sleeping, more cuddles. Meeks having a cuddle with Sam. Lucas and Sam with their eyes open The boys had their first bath today. Sam went first. He didn't like it at first but didn't mind once he was being moved around on his back. Lucas wasn't happy on his back but loved it on his front. After the bath they were all cute and fluffy and decided to have a bit of a chat with each other. Sooooo cute! !


We picked up our loan car this afternoon. It's a Volvo XC70. Very, very nice. My experience of Volvos are Grahame and Pete's beasts from many years ago. They have come along way since then.

A very special thanks to Shaz who minded Mitch this afternoon at short notice. Not only did she mind him, she fed him and bathed him and put him to bed and cleaned our house and ironed our clothes. What a woman! Thank you sooooo much Shaz, we appreciate your help so so much.

Car debacle (warning not baby related - well not directly anyway)

As some of you know, as well as the twins, we were expecting a new car to arrive this week. Our old car, the faithful and fantastic, Mazda 6 finished it's lease on the 28th April so we handed it over to be sold by Pickles Auctions on Monday. It's a good system, you hand the car over, they pay the residual on the lease, sell the car and give you most of the difference. It means you're not out of pocket and don't have to worry about selling the car privately - something we really didn't need the stress of just at the moment. So anyway, we handed the car over on Monday and all was going well. The new car, a Ford Territory - nice and wide in the back for three car seats and a boot big enough for the double Mountain Buggy pram - was meant to arrive on the 30th (i.e. today). In the interim we had to hire a car for a few days because of this little problem (which is still being fixed because they needed to get a part flown in from Germany).

Anyway, I had been concerned about it arriving on time so I had rung up the leasing company last week to confirm the arrival date. They had come back saying, yes it was all going ahead and they didn't need anything more from me which was great. Yesterday I hadn't heard anything about pick up times or anything, so I rang again. Would you believe it, the paper work had gone missing somewhere between my employer, Australia Post and the leasing company. To add to that the car had been delayed by a couple of weeks. Arrrrggghh! So in a mad panic of printing documents, signing them, scanning them and resending them all the paper work got sorted out yesterday. Phew! However the delayed car was still a problem. The delivery date wasn't going to come forward, so I was going to have to extend the hire car for another two weeks. Now IBM has some good deals with Hertz and I got this car (a rather dull Toyota Aurion, but it does the job) for about half what it normally costs to hire, but extending that hire for another two weeks was going to cost a bit.

I had a bit of a think about it and realised God has just blessed us abundantly. We have two healthy newborn boys, a beautiful first son and I have a now healthy wife. In the context of that a two week wait for a new car (which is a blessing too) was nothing. It was just money.

Then later on in the evening I received a phone call from the dealership (free plug to Alto Ford at Artarmon) who offered to loan us a car until the new one arrives. God is good!

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Don't worry, the baby news will return in the next post.

A few more pictures

I had a chance to take some higher quality pictures of Sam and Lucas today. They're still a bit grubby, but we'll give them a bath tomorrow and clean them up and make their hair all soft and fluffy! As before Lucas on the left, Sam on the right.

Update

It's Tuesday afternoon and time for another brief update.

Meeks is feeling much better after the blood transfusion and is much pinker and has much more energy. She is able to get up and walk around now without dizziness or too much pain.

The boys are doing really well. They are both attaching reasonably well for breast feeds and sucking well. Meeks had a go at feeding them at the same time this morning and did very well although it is a bit of a balancing act! They're both having bottle feeds as well just to keep their food up because their blood sugar was very low when they were born. Overall though they're doing fabulously.

Mitch is enjoying playing with his grandmothers although he misses his mummy.

Day 1

Well here we are at the end of Day 1, and I thought I'd do a quick update and post some more pictures.

Lucas and Sam are doing great. They're out of special care and in the room with us. Meeks has had a go at breastfeeding both of them twice and we had a chance to give them a bit of a bottle feed too. Here is Lucas:

And Sam (he has some marks on his cheeks from the sticky stuff they used to hold the feeding tube in yesterday):

and the two of them together. I think from this angle they look quite similar. Lucas is on the left and Sam is on the right.


Both boys are very well behaved and pretty much sleep most of the time (even when they are supposed to be feeding!)

Meeks is doing a bit better but is still feeling crook. She had a blood test and her levels were very low which was why she was feeling so tired and pale. She is having a transfusion as I write so she should be feeling much better soon. She has been able to get up and walk a tiny bit and that will get better with time.

Mitch came in to visit his brothers today. He was very cute and gave them a cuddle and a kiss each




A few more pictures. Lucas on the left and Sam on the right:

Our baby boys

Today at about 1:27pm our beautiful boys were brought into the world.

Lucas David Clark was born at 1:27pm. He weighed in at a hefty 3.98kg and was 56cm long. His head circumference was 36cm.



Samuel Jonah Clark was born at 1:28pm. He weighed in a more petite (but certainly not small) 3.22kg and was 52cm long. His head circumference was 35cm. (I love that you can see Lucas in his crib in the background in the shot below)






Both boys will be in humidi-cribs overnight but are doing well.

Meeks lost quite a lot of blood during the operation and is feeling quite unwell at the moment. She's very tired and feeling nauseous but will hopefully feel better after some sleep tonight.

We thank God for the beautiful miracles he has brought safely into our lives. We appreciate your continuing prayers for us,
Dave, Meeks, Mitch, Lucas and Sam

Flying kites and pregnant mummies

When we got engaged Pete and Paula gave us a kite. It was a unique and fun present. We have been promising Mitch for a while that we would go kite flying next time there was a windy day. Well today was that day, so grabbed the kite and went up to an oval near our house. Mitch calls it "Oval Park".

I did managed to get the kite up in the air

But the wind was a bit flukey so Mitch and I resorted to flying around ourselves


Our cute little boy


We decided to take a photo of Meeks today as today was the final day of pregnancy before the babies are delivered tomorrow.

It is one of the loveliest photos I have taken of Meeks.

Mitch came in too


Just so Daddy didn't feel left out

It's all happening on Monday

After a visit to see the Doctor this morning we have decided (well the Doctor has decided) that it is time for the babies to come out. So we have a caesarian booked in for Monday afternoon. Meeks is relieved because she has been in a lot of pain with the swelling in her legs and feet, the heart burn, the lack of sleep and her general discomfort has been getting too much for her recently. Even before we had the appointment this morning I had decided to finish up with work yesterday, so as it turns out this was perfect timing.

So it all happens on Monday, 3 years and 8 days after Mitch was born two little brothers for him will be coming into the world. Everyone's world is about to change!

Please pray for us on Monday afternoon and also over the coming months. Please pray that Meeks copes with the operation better than she did with Mitch (she vomited most of the first 24 hours last time). I expect it is going to be a wonderful but difficult time for us. It is a blessing that I have been able to take 6 weeks off work, especially with Meeks having a caesar again.

We also have a number of annoying organisational things that need to happen next week as well. We are getting a new car (our current car wont fit us all in) which is meant to happen next Thursday, but we have to hand in our current car on Monday to be sold so we have to hire a car for a few days, but organising it all is a bit tricky.

Thanks to everyone who has supported and prayed for us during this pregnancy. Meeks' overall health has been amazingly good compared to last time. Her sugar levels have been perfect, she hasn't had the liver problems and her blood pressure has only started to cause a concern in the last week or so, but nothing nearly as bad as last time. On the other hand, early in the pregnancy she was very nauseous (she had almost no nausea with Mitch) and over the last few months she has had a lot of discomfort and a lot of swelling and a lot of difficulty sleeping. Hopefully those problems will improve over the weeks after the babies are born, although I'm sure we'll have a whole bunch of other things to deal with! Wish us luck!

Mitch's 3rd Birthday

It's hard to believe that three years ago we left home at 5am to go to the hospital for Meeks to have a caesarian and the result was Mitch coming to the world at 8:36am. Three years on our lives have been so enriched by him. Now we find ourselves on the edge (it can't come soon enough for Meeks) of bringing two more little people into our lives. We can only hope they are are as good-natured and happy and fun and beautiful as Mitch is.

Anyway today was all about Mitch. We woke up early and Mitch opened a bunch of presents. He was so excited that he was 3 and was so excited about opening presents. A bit later on, we had pancakes for breakfast and then in the afternoon Nana and Poppy and Grandad and Ganny and Uncle Robbie came over and we opened presents.

Puzzles are a current favourite and he is very good at them. He doesn't quite have the technique thing happening (start with the side and corners) but he is very good at matching pieces up and has an amazing memory once he has done a puzzle a few times.

Uncle Mike, Aunty Mandy, Cousin Lilly and Cousin Baby Will (who turned 1 yesterday so isn't really a baby any more) "dropped by" as well, direct from South Africa via Skype

There was a cake (obviously), but Mitchy obviously thought he was being kept waiting for it

After blowing out the candle

It was time to seriously chow down on some cake

Then it was time to share some cake with the toys and share some laughs





We didn't really have a proper party today, we'll have one in a few weeks when the babies have been born.

35 Week Ultrasound

We had another ultrasound today. The babies are both well, but are quite big at around 3kg each. That's about 7 kg of baby and placentae that Meeks is carting around. We're kind of going on a day to day thing at the moment. Meeks hits 35 weeks tomorrow (Friday) so we're approaching the same timeframe that Mitch was born in. We're hoping she (and the babies) can hang on for another week or three more. Meeks is very uncomfortable and has very swollen feet and legs and is having a lot of trouble sleeping. We're keeping a close eye on her blood pressure as well because it went up last time and we're hoping it wont happen this time.

Aside from that Mitch is approaching his 3rd birthday, which is this weekend. It's hard to believe it was three years ago we were last going through all this. He's being a good boy although Meeks finds it very hard because she's not very mobile at the moment and can't get down on the floor or anything to play with Mitch so she misses out on playing with him and he misses out on playing with her. The result is that when I'm at home all he wants to do is play chasings and hide and seek and a bunch of other active games non-stop!

CRASH!

Mike and Mandy (and Lilly and Will) have gone to South Africa and left us their car. It's a nice little VW Golf. I've been using it to drive to work, which is nice to be able to do for once. Anyway, it was parked out the front of our house and this evening it was run into by someone driving past. They smashed into the back corner. Both cars were undriveable, but not too badly damaged. Here is the damage:




Fortunately no one was hurt but now I have to get the car fixed. Grrr!