Archive for the ‘General’ Category

describing what having twins is like to people is like trying to describe how hollow you feel after getting raped by a politician who gave you a semblance of hope in change after such a long period of reactionary cynicism that you’re actually more embarassed that you got duped vs. angry that this smoothie hasn’t done anything but make shit worse.

everything  seems complex, emotional from all sides, tear inducing, stressful and makes you feel distinctly isolated from anyone else who’s experienced something like this. and even though support would, and probably will ultimately get you through this, admitting that someone else has done this fucking shit is almost like allowing someone to steal your fucking thunder.

holy shit. i just connected twin parenting to disgruntled americans who voted for obama. what the fuck am i talking about?

so this could be considered symptom #47 of raising newborn twins. the weirdest thoughts pop into your brain at all hours since you’re never not half awake/half asleep due to the constant interruptions of sleep and cohesive thought. they may or may not make sense, but if you don’t document them, you’ve lost them. so i’ve documented it, let’s move on. (wait, wait, wait, i should tell you that im on the toilet right now too)

but can i make sense of what these past two months have been like in a descriptive, honest and if i say so myself, whimsical manner? YES WE CAN! (the fuck is wrong with me?!)

i liken newborn twin parenting to a smattering of jobs and careers all mixed into one potent ass cocktail. let’s explore the randomness i’m writing as i shit upon my shitter at 2:47am on a friday morning shall we? (for the record im handwriting this on a notebook normally reserved for grocery lists)

war medic: you fix on the fly, often elbow deep in shit, mucus or puke, putting fingers in wounds to stop the bleeding or using the blown off extremeties of the ones who didn’t make it to block full on streams of urine from hitting you in the face.

hollywood agent: you’re placating one personality with bullshit and one with hugs and kisses while constantly fighting for a goal, like more money or in this case, sleep, which is unattainable.

wilderness explorer: what’s in your backpack or diaper bag will determine your survival.

baptist minster: at times an exorcism is the only thing that will work.

bartender: since we premake mason’s formula with a few extra scoops and a thickening agent, i have perfected the two hand cocktail shake from Cocktail. one word of advice, kids don’t understand cocktail umbrellas so save those fuckers fer their 1st birthday party

day trader: never before have i felt the need to use cocaine to improve my daily job performance. so i liken myself to a day trader in that im constantly thinking about using uppers to stay at the top of my game

congressman: like the hollywood agent, but more underhanded. feeding a kid bullshit and smiles and doing things only for the photo-op. but then when the cameras are off being a complete asshole again. (but then you realize how fucking cool these two kids are and how remorseful you feel for being a cockface and by the time you’r ready to publicly apologize, someone’s written a book)

birthday party clown: not quite sure how many times i try and alter the tipping of the scales by making a funny face, jiggling my tits or utilizing my propensity for fart noises, but to the untrained eye, im a fucking freak in dad’s clothing.

astronaut: walking at night in the dark and your eyes crusted shut you kind of walk like a fucking space man with huge careful steps that are concentratedly soft. night vision cameras confirm that im a fucking dandy when i cant see and im gravitating towards a wailing baby.

pothead: the only way to not kill your significant other is to turn off your ego and forget any plans you had socially and just shut the fuck up. see that couch? make love to it with your ass cause it’s where you’re going to want to be after the 45th minute of bouncing and pacing to quiet a gassy baby or two. the pot is actually quite optional, and definitely not recommended because the amount of concentration needed to actually tend to the needs of these adorable monsters.

speaking of pothead. i completely forgot what the fuck im talking about.

coffee anyone?

Pretty much the first thing you notice as a new parent of multiples is that you are now the center of attention wherever you are in public. This might last a few seconds in passing down the grocery aisle, a few minutes in the doctor’s waiting room or complete fucking days if one or both of your twins are ever hospitalized. The first few aren’t so bad, and you might be able to sneak up a few spaces in line from a gracious fellow shopper or medical office waiting room participant. That last one though, fuck hospitals, andthatsallImasayabouthat.

But throughout all of these attention festivals that you find yourself the main attraction in, the most fun you can have as a parent of multiples is when speaking with new parents of singletons. New parents are the most sensitive, uptight, snobbish folks on the planet and nothing makes them feel more inadequate than when you pull up next to them at the grocery store with your pimp ass double stroller, you’re showered and shaved, your wife is lookin’ fucking hot, your two year old has a halo around his head eating some sweet sweet deliciously nutritious fruit snacks, and you’re so relaxed on lack of sleep that you look baked the fuck off on some seriously primo shit.

It’s almost like drag racing for pink slips. We’re the badasses in the leather jackets with our twins, and those pansies are the skinny, wussy, over reactive parents of singletons in their mismatched socks, tight jeans and high school sweater. “Apppffft. One kid? I could do that with my eyes closed, one hand duct taped to my scrotum, and my dick in a vise. Eat it you LOSER!” *And the hanky drops as we burn rubber towards the cliff*

Yet we really don’t act or think like that, but that’s exactly how we thought the twin parents saw us when we came across them just as we were settling into being new parents two years ago or so. It’s completely understandable to feel intimidated by people who are doing twice the work as you are and don’t seem to be sweating at all. It’s complete bullshit, but it SEEMS that way when you’re on the outside looking in at the twin parents.

Twin parents and the parents of multiples might be better at multitasking, but it isn’t because we were made that way, we fucking became that way out of necessity. And just because we look calm, cool and stoned as shit it doesn’t mean we really are because we’re fucking ACTORS. If we looked frazzled and out of sorts all the fucking time there would be a five foot circle around us as we plow through crowds; our friends and family wouldn’t touch us with a five foot whale’s penis. We would be outcasts merely because we acted like how we feel some of the time.

Would you want to hang out with someone who is so worried, concerned and paranoid about every little thing all the fucking time TIMES TWO? Hail no!

I remember when our first child was born in 2008 how intimidated I was with leaving the house or even thinking about preparing to think about preparing to leave the house. Well, if we would have had the twins first, I’m pretty sure we’d still be on the couch shivering in fear. But we didn’t, so we aren’t, and we haven’t had that sense of impending doom at all when considering leaving the den.

In fact, leaving the house means you get to see PEOPLE! PEOPLE THAT SPEAK ENGLISH AND DON’T PUKE AND SHIT ALL OVER YOU! REAL ADULT HUMAN PEOPLE! Eeeeeeeeeeee! After that first month of staying the fuck away from all walking and coughing humans, you come to appreciate human contact after all. So much so, that when either of us mentions being low in something essential, be it diapers, formula, apple juice or the all important anal lube, we actually FIGHT over who gets to leave the house! Whoever gets to leave the house gets to shower. And showers kick a shitton of ass!

WOOOOO! SHOWER!

GROCERY STORE! WOOOO!

Do you feel even the slightest hint of pity over this? We are two adults who are so fucking excited over going to the store or running an errand with just ONE child, that we can often be seen from the street wrestling in Japanese Sumo garb to avoid staying home with TWO!

Jesus fucking christ we’re fucking insane!

But at least I get to see two babies smile for the first time instead of just one baby smile for the first time.

One baby? appppppppt!

Which means, as much as I like to put it up the pooper, I give a little bit too.

Take a gander at my latest blog post, on someone else’s website.

You heard me correctly.
I’m crossing streams.
I looked both ways and shoved my pelvis towards another side of town.
I cheated on my own blog!

But look at the bright side, the lady that I cheated on the blog with has twins too, and she has a husband that I share a dirty sense of humor with, and as far as I know she’s a Cubs fan too so rest easy, this won’t hurt a bit!

Take a gander over at Mama 2.0 and read my latest gross out tale, involving a roll of duct tape, a used condom and a tight rectum!

http://mama2point0.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/how-to-shut-em-up/

every morning is a battle to get out of the house for me and my 181 kids.

So some of you might know by now about the last week in February and my son Mason having to be hospitalized for “failure to thrive.” What started out back in the early part of February (which I will now call FuckMebruary) as a repeatedly hush-hushed case of “babies will puke”, went all out frightening towards the end of the month.

On February 6th we took Mason into our primary care office to see the doctor on duty, since our doctor doesn’t have Saturday hours. We explained that every other bottle ends in projectile-like regurgitating of the stomach contents. No crying, no hurling sounds, just a quietly approaching FOUNTAIN OF FOOD.

Because our 2 year old son had pyloric stenosis, this doctor was under the impression that Mason was a prime candidate for that lovely piece of shit, so he ordered an ultrasound for that day. We wheeled over to the hospital a few blocks away and sat amidst the people hacking, holding limp limbs or actually decaying in front of us who were waiting for an ultrasound or x-ray.

This was the first ultrasound, and it was negative for pyloric stenosis.

The doctor we saw at our primary care facility had no suggestions for keeping food down other than to slow down the intake of food. Mason’s sister Leah has had no problems eating, and was at this point, taking 3oz every 3 hours like clockwork. So we decided to try 2.5oz every 3 hours and see how that went.

The puking intensified. Not only was this shit flying out during and immediately after a bottle feed, this milky stream was shooting out sometimes 1 to 2 hours after a feed. We aren’t even sure where the hell this shit was coming from because he seemed to be getting rid of everything immediately following a feeding.

Calling the doctor, again gave us nothing. So this was on us apparently, we needed to start trying things or pretty soon this kid was going to start losing weight.

Here is a short list of what we tried to help Mason keep food down.

• *Shortening the time in between burps to every half ounce vs. every ounce, then when that didn’t work, down to every quarter ounce, then when that didn’t work, down to every 15 sucks on the nipple.
• *Cutting the breast milk with formula.
• *Adding a half ounce more water to the formula.
• *Adding a half ounce less water to the formula.
• *Keeping him in an elevated position, about 45 degrees or so, at all times.
• *Feeding him one fucking ounce every fucking hour.
• *Feeding him a fucking half ounce every fucking half hour.
• *Feeding him on a speeding train, upside down.
• *Squirting the contents up his ass like an enema.
• *Mixing the formula bottle, then squirting out a spoonful, putting a lighter under that, cooking it like crack and mainlining it.

Nothing was working, and after another visit to our primary care doctor who actually had an open time slot, we were still getting nowhere, Mason was still pukey mcpukesalot and we weren’t getting anywhere with our doctor besides “babies spit up, let’s wait a week.”

Fuck that. If my kid was born 8lbs and he had currently grown to 15lbs I can see waiting to see if this was a bug or something of that nature, but we’re talking a premature baby, a wimpy white male, as they say. Waiting a week, or even two days, is unacceptable in our opinion and I don’t give a fuck who I offend, someone better fucking listen to me or I’m going to get fucking loud and cussy. And I’m a fucking asshole when I’m loud and cussy.

After Jules talked me down from threatening violence and using the gang signs I grew up on in Aurora, Illinois, I decided to let her do the talking with her eyes, her managerial skill of suggestion and some tears.

So at our third visit to the primary care doctor we were drawn a diagram of the stomach and the pyloris for the fifth time since becoming parents.

It was pretty.

I fucking framed it.

Along with that our doctor, with both palms facing towards us as he spoke, wrote us a prescription for Zantac and drew another pretty picture of what GERD is and how that might be a possibility. Another ultrasound so close to the first wouldn’t prove anything, so here is a drug, a hand drawn picture and the door, use them. Goodbye.

Julie, tears in her eyes said “The first doctor we saw at THIS office told us it sounded like pyloric stenosis, which we know a drug won’t help. If an ultrasound is the only way to see it, who cares what it costs or if it’s negative again, won’t we at least know?”

Then our doctor did something I see doctors do all the time, he did what the patient or the parents wanted to avoid a confrontation, but not a confrontation with us. He was avoiding a confrontation with other patients waiting for him. If he spent another 5 minutes in that room with us he would run the risk of putting his entire day’s worth of patient appointments at risk. In what I referred to as ‘pacifying the patient’ he relented to another ultrasound order and left the room.

Now we can get an ultrasound anytime we want by taking our son to the ER, but with a doctor’s orders you’re lowering the amount billed to your insurance by about five fold, and as weird as it sounds, walking in with a note from the doctor bears a shitload more influence than just a pair of crazy parents.

So we had our order for the second ultrasound and during the procedure Mason evacuated his stomach yet again, narrowly missing the pretty ultrasound wand. Results? Negative for pyloris stenosis.

But hey, we’ll wait a week huh?

No, from that Thursday appointment we went to Walgreens, got the drugs, gave him his first dose and treated him like a porcelain doll. For whatever reason, the first dose of Zantac seemed to allow Mason to keep down an entire ounce for an hour or so. We thought we were on the mend and that weight gain was right around the corner.

An hour to two hours later he was right back to his old tricks. I did some looking online and there is a good chance the peppermint flavor of the Zantac actually calmed his stomach more than the actual drug, but who am I to make assumptions? I should be waiting a week!

We knew our doctor thought we were crazy but who gives a fuck what some doctor thinks of you when your kid is visibly shrinking?

We tried to be patient through a pukey Friday and a spitty Saturday, but come Sunday we both knew we had to act fast. Mason’s eyes were sinking into his skull, his eyelids were a veiny red and he wasn’t waking up to eat.

We decided to head over to Urgent Care (Rush Copley in Yorkville, IL) and the doctor we saw within 15 minutes of walking in, who happened to be a mother of twins herself immediately said: “You should go to the emergency room. I’ll call ahead so they’ll be expecting you. Good luck.”

In a kind of relieved state, we both looked at each other, then to her and asked “Really?” None of the other doctors we saw gave us more than 5 seconds of explaining anything before telling us that either babies spit up or to wait a week. Now we’re being told, almost immediately, to go to a hospital emergency room?

“There is nothing I can do here besides tell you, from a mother of twins to parents of twins, if his sister is steadily gaining weight and he looks like this? Yes, as a mother and a doctor I am recommending you go get him a complete work up: blood, urine, whatever they need to do to find out why he’s not keeping food down. Go. Good luck.”

So we left.

Fast forwarding through the 6 longest days of our lives, we experienced the following in our search to find out what was kinking Mason’s yumyum gobbler.

• Two x-rays of Mason’s stomach
• Urine draw
• Blood draw
• 1 DO and 1 pediatric nurse practitioner visit each
• 1 conversation saying if this isn’t GERD or pyloric, to maybe consider seeing a geneticist (WTF?)
• 1 conversation saying we’re being transferred to Central Dupage hospital
• 1 ambulance trip in a lights on/siren on ambulance for Julie and Mason, with him in an isolet that looked like an oven on wheels
• And then the 6 days of hospital food, uncertainty and dread begin
• 1 new ultrasound for pyloric stenosis, again negative, bringing the total up to 3
• 1 upper GI
• 2 iv drugs: reglan & the zantac
• 3 doctors in the first 24 hours, each asking the same questions but with different accents
• 5 different nurses, all very cool but all giving us the head tilt to the right and the “awww” look every time we ask about seeing a doctor or when something is going to happen
• When the drugs didn’t work, they tried hypo-allergenic formula
• When the hypo-allergenic formula didn’t work, they tried thickening with rice
• When the rice thickened, hypo-allergenic formula didn’t work, they tried more drugs
• When more drugs didn’t work on top of the rice thickened, hypo-allergenic formula they ordered yet another fucking ultrasound to check for pyloric stenosis, yet this time they assured me it was using a ninja tech and a ninja pediatric radiologist.
• “Ninja Tech” turned out to be just one with a thicker accent. No radiologist showed up this time.
• The ninja-ultrasound was, indeed, fucking negative, that’s fucking FOUR ULTRASOUNDS
• Since nothing seems to be making sense to the 5 doctors entering and leaving our room, a Speech and Swallow therapist enters the situation asking all of the same questions each doctor asks as they introduce themselves to Mason’s chart
• Speech and Swallow lady has an in with the Pediatric GI specialist from Children’s Memorial in Chicago, she puts in a call to him. Meanwhile she teaches Julie how to feed Mason while being completely upright
• Peds GI specialist actually “wrote the book on Pediatric GERD” so our hope is lifted for the 8th time
• Peds GI specialist comes in and scratches out every instruction we’ve gotten from any doctor or nurse since this whole debacle began
• Peds GI specialist earns Ninja title by doing the following immediately:

1. Takes Mason off all medications
2. Gives new formula mixing instructions for our REGULAR formula, increasing his caloric intake to get him gaining weight
3. Recommends the use of Simply Thick, a thickening agent for us to use in his bottles
4. Encourages the use of a Tucker Sling
5. Says to keep the boy off of his back and preferably on his right side or stomach as much as possible
6. Apologizes for every other doctor we’ve seen not paying attention to addressing the weight gain first and the cause second

What was badass about this last doctor was the fact that he was extremely matter of fact. What he was telling us wasn’t conversation, it was what it was. There was no discussion. What he said was da troof.

Flat out “This is GERD. As severe a case as I’ve ever seen, but drugs won’t do anything for your son. Keep him off of his back, thicker, higher calorie formula, keep him upright for 45 minutes after he’s done eating. He’s what we call a ‘Happy Spitter’ in that he isn’t in pain or crying from this constant vomiting, so we just have to do a better job of helping his body hold the food down.”

Seriously?

You mean all of this scary shit, not knowing what’s going on, losing a half pound when only weighting 7 pounds…

Why couldn’t the first doctor we saw, our PRIMARY care physician, have taken the time to either a. discuss options for helping him keep food down or b. sent us to a fucking specialist to talk about this?

No, we had to deal with being ignored, being told to wait another week, and being run through the gamut of tests on a boy not even old enough to grab his own dick and common motherfucking sense was the answer?

I am completely thankful for this last doctor’s frankness, and we’ve slept a hell of a lot better since leaving the hospital, but I am completely miffed as to why it had to go this far.

But we learned something, or rather reinforced what we were pretty sure we already knew:

No one is going to look out for you unless you stand up and demand what you think is best for your kids.

A few weeks ago I had a difficult time not becoming emotional whenever anyone asked about our twins because of how worried I was about Mason, but we’ll get through the pukes. I just hope the American health care system gets the fucking enema it needs, cause it is completely full of shit.

We did have one more ultrasound before we were allowed to leave the hospital I must add. A nurse noticed dilated pupils and told a doctor, so Mason got a brain ultrasound through his soft spot to check for water or blood around the brain. Some think this could’ve been related to a potential side effect of the Reglan.