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Winter Windmills

jules.maas — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:32:01 +0000

A week before Christmas we packed the entire contents of our house and drove to Salt Lake City. Because WE ARE INSANE. Trav and I were about five seconds from chickening out the entire time because A) 1700+ miles, B) Extended Potential Screaming in Confined Space, C) Hotel+Babies+Potential Screaming=DEATH CAKES and D)Death by Mortification. We made it all the way to Meridian, ID before hearing any whisper of a freakout. Which finally happened at midnight. But since running home would have been just as harrowing as pressing on, we strapped in and went with it. Apparently, what we lack in sense the universe made up for in the random luck of travel-happy babies. And took away with teething.
between Pendleton & Baker City, OR

Deadman’s Pass, somewhere, WA

The Ghost of Christmas WHEN?!

jules.maas — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:07:16 +0000

This year Christmas snuck up on me even faster than usual, due largely to the revolving procession of day-to-day feedings, diaper changes, naps and chores that has wiped my ability to track the days and weeks and find myself lucky most of the time to realize whether it is a day when Trav will be home, or at work. Christmas cards were not sent, presents were not bought, and the tree barely got decorated. And this is the Christmas that will go down in our history as not only their First, but the one when none of that Stuff mattered.

To all of you, from all of us, wishes of love & happiness in 2012!

Ashley: wishing you Sweetness!

Sarah: wishing you Laughter!

Emma: wishing you Hugs, thanks

Three in the NICU are Worth Two in the Belly

jules.maas — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:30:51 +0000

Our birth story took place over 9 months ago. I still haven’t told it because, yes. It’s A DOOZIE, and along with cleaning, working and bathing on a regular basis, my writing has moved to a New & Not So Improved List of Things I Only Have 20 Minutes For.

I hate that list.

The short version is that at 32 weeks, I was admitted to the hospital. There I spent three long, boring, painful weeks on the Antepartum floor of Swedish Hospital in a room with a view of Downtown Seattle. Each day blurred into the next as the hours were marked with a monotonous routine of monitoring, meals, a bath and the nightly Dose of Blessed Ambien.

The last five days were by far the hardest, when the wait and the weight bore down on me with unbearable pressure as my own body laid there and crushed itself. And as upsetting as that was, none of it compared to the morning one of our twins’ heartbeat began to disappear.

One second she was there on the monitor, clear as day, and the next, she just…went away. And she stayed away. Minutes became half hours as the nurse and I took turns driving her sensor around my belly, searching for any angle at all that might find some trace of her. Finally, she’d reappear for a moment or two, only to vanish again.

It was easier to think the situation might simply be due to the fact that, hey, there ARE three human beings in there. Or that it might have something to do with my nurses, who were apparently still working in 1985 and liked it very much, thank you, refusing day after day to use the ‘new’ ‘I don’t understand it’ 2009 equipment specifically configured for monitoring three heartbeats, not two, and would fuck around for HOURS trying to figure out why the machine would alternatively screech feedback or nothing at all, as I laid there fighting the urge to pop their arms off like barbie dolls while screaming OH MY GOD HAND IT OVER BEFORE I KILL YOU BECAUSE I’VE WATCHED THE ONE NURSE WHO KNOWS WHAT SHE’S DOING SO MANY TIMES *I* KNOW HOW TO DO IT BY NOW AND *I* DIDN’T SPEND NINE YEARS IN NURSING SCHOOL, MARTHA.

Instead, I laid there and bit my tongue. Because something just didn’t feel right. And the feeling was so vague, I still couldn’t tell you if it was simply my obsessive nature picking at the back of my brain. Nothing specifically felt wrong. It just…didn’t feel right. So they took me for an ultrasound.

Which didn’t report much to me beyond three moving babies, and three heartbeats. Two days later, they took me for another ultrasound. Again, three moving babies, three heartbeats. With ne’er so much as a single ‘hmmm’, they wheeled me back upstairs. Where our surgeon met us right outside my room to say they’d found increasing pressure on a blood vessel in the brain of the disappearing twin. They’d been watching it ‘for a while’. So they were going to deliver us. Today. In an hour.

That twin turned out to be Sarah. Who I’m not entirely sure would be here if she, Ashley and Emma hadn’t been born 5 weeks early. They spent 4 of those in the NICU/ISCU, and it was alternatively the scariest, happiest, most frustrating and miraculous ordeal of our life.

Ashley, Sarah & Emma 2.17.11

Could they have stayed in me even a day longer? Possibly. Would all three have lived? Maybe not. But were they any worse for having spent those first weeks in the hospital? Doesn’t seems so.

We are eternally grateful for our three healthy, happy birds; for the amazing, talented, caring doctors & nurses who took such flawless care of them; and for the March of Dimes.

November 17 is World Prematurity Day. Every year, 13 million babies are born prematurely worldwide. A million of them never get to celebrate their first birthday, and many more face serious, lifelong health challenges. Raising awareness of this common and serious problem is the first step to defeating it. You can help premature babies by donating here or by visiting Facebook.com/WorldPrematurityDay to show your support. Learn about the progress we’re making in preventing premature birth at marchofdimes.com.

Miss Domestic

jules.maas — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:40:52 +0000

Yesterday, I made the statement that sometimes you don’t want people to make you feel better. Sometimes, you just need them to acknowledge the suckyness of it all, and let you vent. Over the last few years, I have been blessed and grateful to finally find many wonderful people who did that for me. For example, my friend, Jenn.

Jenn & Sarah, October 2011

She bakes, parties and is the only other person in the room who will know what I’m talking about when throwing down some random nerd comment about, say, the Death of Robin. She is the Wonder Girl to my Raven, and I am so, so thankful for her.

Even when she gives me cookbooks like this one, knowing full well that I am the dork who puts pizza boxes in gas ovens.

Hello, Welcome to the Wordy-Word Sleep & Time Deprived Blog

jules.maas — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 21:20:19 +0000

It’s well after noon here already and there are still diapers on the floor, my lunch is burning on the stove and I have a level-ton of laundry/phone-calls/appointments to organize. You know, all the usual cliche excuses not to blog. But the girls are napping (THANK YOU GOD) and I’m not that hungry yet (Lies!), so today I’m dropping it all to wave ‘Hi’ to everyone who’s taken a moment to visit me from Melanie Blodgett’s uber-fab babble blog.

Ashley says HELLLOOOOO:

Melanie’s blog is everything I wish I’d found during our infertility journey. Site after site after message board of ‘get therapy’, ‘pray’, ‘just quit stressing about it’ or ‘my cousin’s friend’s uncle’s acquaintance adopted and then got pregnant!’ stories – not a single bit of it satisfied my aching need for just a little freaking Truth, please.

Which is why it’s a HUGE DEAL to me to be published in her infertility/hope series. If our story helps just a little, in someone feeling less alone, or more heard, or best of all, emotionally justified that will be the second biggest achievement of this whole process. Because one of the worst parts of going through this is being guilted for your grief, or God forbid, your anger.

Everyone sees the Bitter Infertile Woman and tries to make her feel better. Because they need her to feel better, because they love her. But all I ever really wanted (besides a child) was any one of the thousand people along our path look me in the face and say, Hey. This effing sucks, and you’re allowed to feel like this. So this is my small way of saying it to someone else who might need it.

Infertility fucking sucks. If you’re sad, if you’re angry, you’re allowed.

Happy Halloween. Or Monday. Whatev.

jules.maas — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:50:24 +0000

The best thing about this shot is that it pretty much sums up the attitude around here EVERY day. Except for the tutus. And the lack of puke. The scariest thing about it is that I had my second true-life Horror Experience later in the shoot when Emma crawled straight off the 5-foot edge of our bed. So I guess she figured out my costume this year: World’s Worst Mommy #5,398,411.

Emma, Sarah & Ashley; Halloween 2011 by Rick Takagi Photography

Because I Is a Crazy Person

jules.maas — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:30:27 +0000

Playing with pictures last week got me all sorts of inspired and now that the girls are seven months old (?!?) I’m thinking two things: 1), it’s time to ask Rick over again and 2) WE NEED AWESOME PROPS. I don’t remember who it was on facebook that got me hunting for these, because as soon as I saw it my brain went O.M.G. BABY TUTUS. MUST. GET. BZZZZT! but I was ALL OVER THAT until I saw that prices range anywhere from $20 to $95 each. And then my brain went STILL LOVE, BUT…NO.

So I’ve decided to make them myself.

I’ve Come to Depend on the Kindness of Neighbors

jules.maas — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 23:22:35 +0000

Do you know that most days, I marvel at how the heck I deserve you guys. From baby shower gifts to blog comments to stealing me away for a night of wine and Harry Potter to dropping everything to come over when I spontaneously burst into Percoset-level pain on Monday and couldn’t finish the morning feeding, YOU GUYS SAVE ME on a regular basis.

Case in point: My ePeep Travis B, for whom at least five baby sheep* are named and who, several weeks ago, read my long, random facebook rant about Nikon’s FLIPPIN FLARPIN FUDGITY-FLARTY software updates erasing several weeks worth of photo work – and arranged for my very own copy of Adobe Lightroom to drop on my doorstop like a second stork.

I know. PROBLEMS, right?

Except, it is. Because when you barely have time to eat or sleep, and you choose to use some of that time to work on photos you know you’ll never really get to finish, it is EXTREMELY ANNOYING the next time you carve out an hour for yourself, only to find that Nikon changed their shit and ALL. YOUR. WORK. IS. GONE.

I’m no photo-Picaso. But I like to try to make nice pictures. And trying these days involves shooting when I think of it, when they’re awake, after they’ve all eaten and before they go down for naps. Which, on a side note, all has to happen in 90 minute blocks* or they DO NOT SLEEP. PERIOD.

It also involves lots and lots of flash. Because this is Seattle. And it’s been overcast and cold almost all summer. Which means the house has been D.A.R.K. and all my pictures look like this:

Ashley

Sarah

Emma

And this, THIS is what I wanted. Behold, the god-like magic that is Adobe Lightroom:

Ashley

Sarah

Emma

I just wanted some decent pictures of my kids. Thank you Travis B, Thank you Adobe, and Thank YOU, for all being awesomely you.

*Annual Spring “Name the Baby Sheep” List filled during lambing season at the sheep-herding field across the street from eBay CS. Featured gems included: Travis I, II, III, IV, V; John, Paul, George and Ringo; Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe; Curley, Moe & Larry…

**I know. I KNOW. Everyone who hears this thinks I am INSANE. But I tell you what: excepting hunger or a demon-stuck burp, IT FLIPPING WORKS. SO I’M USING IT. Lemme ‘lone. MWAH.

Mabel, Midge and Marge

jules.maas — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:05:41 +0000

Back in January, my good friend Rose sent us three outfits all the way from Ireland. She knitted these herself and are so darling they’ll be going into the girls’ keepsake box along with their NICU bracelets and delivery beanies. Since Seattle has had a whopping 78 minutes of summer temps this year, I’ve been waiting for a single sunny day to photograph the girls wearing them. I don’t know whether I waited too long or if I was just really sleep-deprived that day, but oh my god, they made me laugh:

“So I sez to Mabel, Mabel, I sez…” (L to R: Sarah, Emma)

“…don’t you roll over for no one. *sigh* I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, Midge.” (L to R: Emma, Ashley)

Ashley & Sarah Rockin’ the Irish Yarn

Finding Myself Mistaken About a Great Many Things

jules.maas — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:40:57 +0000

Parents who saw my post last week about The Sleeping! And The Me Time! (I HAVE A LITTLE!) probably took one look, shook their heads and thought “Isn’t she cute.”

Because, and I’m sure you’ll be shocked here - THE SLEEPING HAS STOPPED.

Last week, it was like a switch went off that triggered a sleeping frenzy lasting for DAYS. It was awesome. They napped in the morning. They napped in the afternoon. They SLEPT THROUGH THE ENTIRE NIGHT AND I MEAN *ENTIRE* NIGHT LIKE 7PM to 7AM OH MY GOD ENTIRE NIGHT.

It was WONDERFUL. And I want it back.

This week they have decided not to nap AT. ALL. Not in their swings. Not in their play crib. So, for the last few days, I have been putting them down for naps in their regular cribs. Which are upstairs. Where they usually only go for bedtime.

Apparently, this isn’t making anyone happy, because naps (of which there have been two per day) have been lasting all of twenty minutes. As in, two-zero. As in, just enough time for me to throw on clothes, and nothing else.

That’s three happy-yet-tired-yet-i-want-to-play babies to either keep fed & entertained upstairs all day, or fed & entertained downstairs and carried upstairs UMPTEEN TIMES A DAY.

You guys, I’M FREAKING TIRED.