n00b Job

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is with great sadness that I relenquish my chair here as the blog-writer for the Brummelhouse. However, do not fret. Gretchen will be stepping in to keep you updated on the nuttiness that is the brummelhouse. She is a blog newbie, so give her some slack…but only at first. If she’s not keeping regular updates, call and remind her!

With out further adu, the mother of my children! (richard gets up and gives Gretchen the chair by the computer)

Don’t get too excited. I do not have a way with words like my husband! My updates will be short and sweet. (also like my husband)

Last week Sunday was a special day for us. The twins were baptized. All you mothers out there can relate to how I felt on this special day. I was a nervous wreck! I just wanted it all to be perfect and I was quickly reminded the night before by a mosquito that left his mark on my daughters face, that life isn’t perfect. Bath time followed our walk and then a stratigic feeding plan to avoid crankiness the following morning. I didn’t have to worry about what they would wear or if it was clean and pressed because the Grandmas took care of that. Sam wore Richard’s baptism outfit and Claire wore mine. It was special to feel all the same emotions our parents felt 27 years ago. The kids did great during the service and we only had a few peeps out of Claire as the water trickled down her head. I have to admit that I was in a daydream during the service, looking down at our two miracles sleeping peacefully wondering what the future holds.

Claire Grace

Samuel Richard

Celebrating with Costco cake

 

Check back soon for a video of their baptism.

Barriers: Language and Leakage Protection

Here we are! Two weeks and 247 diapers later. I’m just going to start by throwing this out there: being a dad is the coolest thing ever. Before this, riding my bike down the dormant volcano in Maui was the coolest thing ever (we had cruising speeds of 30 mph!). I would have to say that if it came down to riding my bike down the volcano every day, or feeding, changing diapers, not sleeping and getting peed on every day, I would chose the later. So far, the only thing that I would change is it would be really cool if they came with an age adjustment. Don’t get me wrong, they’re fun at the young age of 2 weeks old. But, for example, yesterday was gorgeous outside! I would have loved to have been able to turn a knob and have my kids magically turn 7 or 8 years old so we could have gone for a bike ride to the park where we could play on the swings and I could show them where trout hide in the stream. And then when we got home, I could turn the knob back and have them be 2 weeks old again so they would sleep for a while. Now I’m sure I’m opening a can of worms here where all the moms will chime in with comments like this: “Don’t wish for them to grow up too fast”, or “they’ll grow up too fast, don’t wish it to go faster”, or something like that. But every new day that you spend with your kids presents a new adventure (I’ve been on 14 new adventures so far). I have to say that I’m 100% looking foward to every stage in their life, and I can wait to get started on this journey with them (you can probably tell that I’m a new parent, I’m sure I’ll change my mind in a year or so). How boring would it be if they stayed 2 weeks old their entire life? I mean, you can only play Baby Charades for so long before it gets boring.

Yes, Baby Charades. Since my attempts thus far to teach the wonder twins the english language have been pretty much wasted by their lack of interest in learning (and has nothing to do with their age), we’ve invented Baby Charades: they cry, and I guess why. If I get it right on the first attempt, then I get a point. If it takes me two or three tries to get it right, then they get a point. This game is the result of a lack of sleep, 2:30 feedings, and early morning fidgety babies. Because I’m a new dad, the score is not something that I’m ready to share (I’ll wait till the playing field is a little more even). And before I get jumped for being a bad father, let me just also give this piece of information: we change and feed our children on a regular schedule, we don’t just wait for them to scream before we pay attention to them. This game is played in between feeding and changings…usually between 1:00 and 2:30 in the morning. And ironically…right now. Please excuse me while I go try and figure out why Claire is peeping…

Babies!

All together now: “Awwwwwwwwwwww…”

Samuel Richard Brummel

Claire Grace Brummel

The Wonder Twins!

Claire

Samuel

Sam and Mommy

Nap time with mommy

Nap time with daddy

Nap time with each other

…we’ve been doing a lot of napping

 

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and words of encouragement. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, but it’s all worth it. They look forward to meeting all of you!

Signed, Sealed and Delivered.

Finally! Here they are: Samuel Richard and Claire Grace!

The Wonder Twins!

The first baby out was Samuel. He joined the party (read on, you’ll know what I mean) at 8:25 PM on Friday, May 22nd. He was followed 3 minutes later by Claire at 8:28 PM. Sam is 5 lbs 1 oz and is 18.75 inches long. Claire is  4 lbs 12 oz and is 19 inches long. But I’m getting ahead of myself; let’s look back at the very beginning of events <<insert wavy flash-back lines and “shimmery”  music>>.

It all starts where Deja Voodoo ends. Absolutely nothing else happened after the blog post. Contractions disappeared, the opening shrunk down to a 4 or a 5, and after a lengthy episode and discussions with multiple doctors (that I really don’t feel like getting into), we went home…again. Wednesday night, we decided to throw bed-rest to the wind and hit the town. We went to Q-doba dinner, and then over to Dale and Karla’s house to hang out for a while. Thursday, Gretchen cleaned out some cupboards to make room for bottles, and hit some garage sales with her mom. Friday morning, I woke up to the sound of a panicky wife and flowing water…yes, I could hear it. Wierd. By the time Gretchen got to the other side of the bed, I was dressed and ready. I guess that’s the benefit of leaving last night’s clothes on a heap next to the bed. Gretchen woke me up at 6:40, and we were on the road before 6:50. We got to the hospital at 7:02, which I was a little upset about. I was sureI could make it in 8 minutes, but I got stuck behind some old grandpa on Market. We got up to the 9th floor and they put us right in a delivery room (probably because the triage nurses were sick of seeing us). There we sat waiting for the contractions to get worse. She was dilated to 6 or 7, and early afternoon saw a dosage of Oxytocin to start contractions and an epidural. Finally at 6:30, our doctor came into our room to get us started while they finished prepping the operating room. With twins, they work in the OR just in case they need to do an emergency procedure…and to give everyone more room. At about 7:00, they brought us into the OR and got us settled in. Joining us in the OR was our doctor, the resident doctor, Gretchens nurses, 2 labor & delivery nurses, the delivery tech., two nursery nurses, an anesthesiologist and a half, and about 3 other doctors/nurses who popped their heads in to check and see how things were going with the twin delivery. Everyone kept coming in and then leaving again to get something else done, and then coming back in and then leaving again… It was like an open house; I felt like I should have had ham buns and Costco cake! At about 7:20, the contractions started to ramp up and “get real”. About an hour of pushing later, Samuel popped out followed shortly by Claire.

The past 24 hours have been pretty interesting. It’s now 11:30 PM, my second day of being a father. My babies are fed, cleaned, tucked in and changed. My wife is fed, cleaned, tucked in and changed. And I am fed, cleaned, about to tuck in…

                                                                          

…and have truly changed.

Deja Voodoo

So, here we are again. We had a doctors appointment yesterday and Gretchen was dilated to 5 cm. Doctor sent us home, but told us to head to the hospital if anything changed. Well, things changed. Gretchen started having contractions about 5 minutes apart, so we headed in. We  spent most of the evening in Triage room 2 where Gretchen was confirmed at 5cm and 80% thinned. But that’s just the beginning of the goofiness. We had an ultrasound done to confirm that Baby A (girl) was butt-down, and Baby B (boy) was transverse so they could prep for a c-section if possible. However, according to the ultrasound, Baby A AND Baby B are both HEAD DOWN!!! What the heck, babies? When did you move?

Contractions continued through the night, but started to settle down early this morning. Doctor did an exam this morning and found Gretchen to be at 6 to 7 cm and 100% thinned. Dr Avery was a bit skeptical of both babies being head down since they’ve been in the same breech/transverse position for the past month or two, so she ordered another ultrasound to confirm the findings from last night. The ultrasound confirmed that both babies are in fact head-down. The kicker is, Baby A is now baby boy and Baby B is now Baby girl! Not only did they flip around, they switched spots!!! I have a feeling these little goobers are going to be a hand full!

It sounds like right now is a waiting game. Things could happen any moment…

Mind The Gap

Two points for the first person to explain the title reference correctly!

There’s no real good, witty way to introduce this evening’s blog, so I’ll get right to it:

We had another non-stress test yesterday at the hospital followed by a check-up at Gretchen’s doctors office. The non-stress test and the check-up were great. Everyone is doing well. The doctor said that they think they’ll stop Gretchen’s medications next week, so stay tuned for that “They’re Here!!!” blog entry…cuz it could be any time. Anyway, we finished up with the appointment and were going to take the elevator down to the first floor (we were on the second floor). I have this habit of twisting my car key around my finger when I get bored; which I was waiting for the elevator. As fate/luck/providence would have it, as we stepped into the elevator, my key flew off my finger, into the air and fell in the gap between the elevator and the floor! No bounce, no noise, no hitting the sides. Nothing but net. The only thing we heard was the key landing on the bottom of the elevator shaft one floor  below us. And then the elevator door shut. There we were. I won’t repeat the  first thing that came out of Gretchen’s mouth, but my first reaction was, “this is going to make a great blog entry…”. The elevator took what seemed to be an eternity to travel the 12 feet down to the first  floor. Gretchen started talking about how now we’d probably get stuck in the elevator and she would end up going into labor just like how it happens in all the sit-coms. I just kept thinking about the fact that I don’t have an extra set of keys. To get a new key for a VW costs somewhere in the range of $60.00 to $80.00, which up until yesterday morning, I thought was pretty expensive. Now, $60.00 for piece of mind sounds pretty reasonable. Where was I…ah yes, keys in the elevator shaft. We got one of the office ladies from the doctors office and she came back to the elevator with a flashlight and we checked to see if we could see the keys, and then figure out a plan to get them out. Believe it or not, the keys fell straight down. They were directly below the opening. We tried the bent wire hanger trick, but  the hanger was too short. The office manager, who was very nice by the way, and I searched the office basement to try and find access to the bottom of the elevator, but no luck. As she was about to call the property manager/maintenance, I had an idea: We bent another hanger, hooked it around the first hanger and went fishing. The first try down the shaft with the two-hanger method seemed promising, but the hook on the end was too curved. So I pulled the hanger back up, straightened the end a bit, lowered it down, and hooked the key ring on the second try!  Needless to say, the office ladies were impressed! Gretchen…not so much. The whole time this was going on, she was sitting in the waiting room with the ” My husband is a doofus…I can’t believe this…” look on her face. Now, we can all look back on it and laugh.

 

…of course, I’ve been laughing ever since.

Insert Your Blog Entry Here.

Wow, what a crazy couple of weeks. Sadly, I don’t have the energy nor the time to be very creative; I apologize. So for this blog entry, I’m going to need your help. That’s right! Wacky Mad Lib Blog Entry!

So, after 8         adjective        days at St. Mary’s, we’re finally home; and it feels     feeling    . Our room at St. Mary’s was rather     adjective     , but we survived. It’s been a crazy couple of days, but thankfully Gretchen is feeling fine. The babies are      adverb    active! We had to head back into the hospital Friday for another non-stress test, and it ended up being an all day afair. Our appointment was at 11:00, and about 5 minutes after the test started Baby B’s heartrate dropped down to about 80 bpm for almost 2 minutes. Needless to say, Gretchen and I were a bit worried. They kept us on the monitors for almost 3 hours. All we could do was watch TV, take a nap, and wish we were in beautiful       place     on vacation. They also had us head down to imaging for another ultrasound to make sure that the babies were ok. After that, we headed back up to the 9th floor for another hour of monitoring and an exam. We got home again aroud 5:00. What a long day! It probably goes without saying that both  Gretchen and I were a bit wore out last night. Oh well, it’s all for the babies. We are pretty excited, however, we bought a new video camera so our next blog entry may be a video entry!!! how fun!

A special thanks to everyone who’s been e-mailing, texting, praying, calling, stopping in, etc. for Gretchen while she’s been on bed-rest. We’ really appreciate all of your love and support.        thanks!

Double The fun, double the entendre

Well, here we are again. Day 2 of stay 2 here at St. Marys room 935. The babies have been given a “rescue dose” of the steroids with a follow-up shot later today. Last time we were here, Gretchen was dilated to about a 2. As of this morning, she is at a 4. They started her on the Magnesium Sulfate in her IV to stop the contractions and have been some what successful. Yesterday afternoon the contractions were starting to get a little more like actual contractions. This morning they are still here but less frequent. I guess the magnesium sulfate is doing it’s job. The main concern right now is that we’re pretty sure that without the magnesium, that the contractions would get pretty severe and that labor would continue. I’m not a doctor, but from what I can gather, it only gives us a few options: 1. stay in the hospital with Gretchen on the magnesium sulfate for a few weeks (which would not be that good for her), or 2. schedule a c-section within the next day or so. My guess is my next blog entry will be entitled “Heeeeeeeeeeeeere’s babies!”, or “Sleepless in St. Marys”. Stay tuned!

On a lighter note: We had our breast-feeding class Tuesday night, and  I feel it’s my duty to keep you all abreast of what happened. Warning: you may want to review my theory about the difference (or lack thereof) between grown men and small boys from my previous post about our new double-stroller. In this case, I would like to point out there there is really no difference between a grown man and a 14 year old boy when it comes to sitting through a breast-feeding class. Ladies, I don’t care how “gentlemanly” or mature your husband is, I can guarantee that when he was sitting through the breast-feeding class he was wishing for at least one opportunity to make a joke to one  of his buddies. And don’t get me wrong; it’s not out of disrespect towards the subject matter. I find the whole birth/breastfeeding thing nothing short of a miracle. It’s just, when you’re in a room with people talking so freely about certain body parts, great jokes just come to mind! I mean, can I help it that they show a cheesy “how-to” video with all kinds of prime opportunities to lean over to your buddy and insert a “that’s what she said…” joke? Seriously, in that two hours, I saw more cans than Jimmy the stock boy at Family Fare. And when they were talking about the possible need to massage certain things to get the process started, I couldn’t help but think that’s probably what got us all in this situation in the first place! At least we got some good information, it wasn’t a total “let-down”.

I guess it all comes down to the fact that pregnancy strips you of all modesty. From sitting in a room full of couples discussing the process of enticing one human being to suck and feed off another human being, to sitting in a hospital room watching as nurses get all up your wife’s business like their running diagnostic checks on a car engine. Hmmmm…I’ve changed my mind on my next blog entry. “A comparative essay on pregnancy monitoring versus tune-ups on a Volkwagon 4 cylander engine”. Sounds riveting!

I Just Stained My Drawers!

You heard me! Finally, the armoire is to the point where I can start to stain and assemble. The clearcoat is on the drawers, and the stain is on the drawer fronts and the insides of the cabinet. This weekend will be assembly and staining the outsides, putting the hardware on, and somehow getting it upstairs into the nursery.

Drawer Front

Drawers

We (Gretchen and the babies) made it to week 30!!! Gretchen is still on bed-rest and medication, but she’s doing fine. No other episodes and, to the best of our knowledge, no contractions. We’ll be going back into the doctor’s office for weekly visits and ultrasounds from now on. Our doctor called us to check in and also informed us that they would like us to head to the hospital once a week as well for monitoring and heart tones on the babies.

Thanks to all of you who have called, e-mailed, facebooked, texted, prayed, cooked and visited these past few days. It helps Gretchen pass the time and lifts our spirits! We’ll keep all of you posted on the progress.

What Just Happened?

So, I finally have a couple of minutes to sit and reflect on what’s been going on in the past 36 hours. We’ll start at the beginning…

At the recommendation of Cathy (our unofficial on-call nurse), Gretchen called her doctor’s office Thursday morning to let them know about some symptoms and issues that she’s been having. They told her that they wanted to check her out right away and they could get her in at 9:30 that morning. We got to the doctors office and her doctor checked a couple of things and then hit us with a bunch of information. Gretchen was dilated to 2cm, she was “soft”, but no broken water and she wasn’t efaced (I don’t really know what much of any of that means, I’m just letting everyone know what the doctor said). she said she was sending us over to the hospital for some tests and that they were going to give the babies a couple doses of steroids to give their lungs a kick-start just in case. We got over to the hospital and they hooked Gretchen up to the IV for some nutrients, and strapped a few monitors on each of the babies and one more on Gretchen to monitor any contractions that would come about. Believe it or not Gretchen was having mild contractions at a pretty consistent pace of one every two or three minutes. They gave Gretchen some medication to stop the contractions and as long as she was on the meds the contractions stayed away. After our second steroid shot and another exam from Gretchen’s doctor, we headed home this morning. Gretchen is still at 2 cm, but the doctor seemed very relieved this morning after the exam. They sent us home with a prescription that needs to be taken every 4 hours and strict orders of bed-rest. Neither one of us got what I would call “quality” sleep last night.  In fact, I’m having a bit of trouble even keeping my thoughts straight about the past 24 hours…I think it’s time for bed.

Thanks to everyone for your  thoughts and prayers. Gretchen will be on bed-rest, so she’ll be home all the time. Feel free to give her a call, text, send her an e-mail, facebook, or stop in. She would love to hear from all of you!