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.

puke, Mason: the cute puker’s pukeventures in the hospital, puke. is a post from: havingtwinsnow.com

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During the scan they measured brain, head, legs and arms, as well as measuring fluid and height and weight. Compared to each other and their last measurements, Mason and Leah are slated to continue kicking mucho ass and are in the 60% percentile for their ages.

Wahoo!

Mason is 2lbs.  11oz.
Leah is 2lbs. 13oz.
Both are around 14inches long at the moment.

They have also completely changed positions. Leah is now head down along Julie’s left side and Mason is now head up along Julie’s right side. They playing “yin & yang” yo.

The weird thing now is that Julie can’t really tell who is moving when. With the exception of the “coasts” of her globe-belly, movements near her “poles” could be either the feet of one or the head of another.

I’m not really going to worry about who is doing what because all I’m really good for is staring at her belly and then pointing and saying aloud “Man, that’s frickin’ freaky shit.” Which I’ve done in public a few times. Averting people’s attention away from her belly and onto my cheeseball face is one of my coping mechanisms. I’m not trying to steal the attention per se, I’m just trying to lessen the staring directly into Julie’s magic ball of bebe.

We’re under 90 days until the twincinerator launches. And by launches, I mean slithers from wifey’s vajayjay.

Yay!

Regarding getting the 3D shot of lil dude 2.0, he was facing Julie’s spine so I was out of luck once again. No amount of shaking, prodding or tickling was going to get that little fetus flipped. I offered to stick my hands in there, but that seemed a bit much just for a photo op.

27 1/2 Week Growth Scan is a post from: havingtwinsnow.com

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WAIT. YES THEY DID.

Rita at Safekeeping: High Risk OB at the lovely and spacious Delnor Community Hospital offered me a piece of taffy which was orange in color, yet tasted like black licorice. Had I known her longer or had she been looking at MY vagina all those times maybe I could’ve told her, but I HATE BLACK LICORICE. Rita is now on my “scowl upon seeing” list that now has 4 members. All three of those members are either on the Chicago Cubs or are part of the management of the Chicago Cubs. So Rita holds some pretty shady company.

BUT, yes, we had the 25 week growth scan and saw the twinsies rockin’ and rollin’ all ’round the ute. Everything is right where it should be and the kids are growing nicely.
Leah is an amazing 1lb 13oz.
Mason is a svelte 1lb 110z.

Mason can already be heard saying things like:

• “You sure you wanna’ eat that Leah? That might add on another ounce or three. Imjussayin.”
• “Don’t worry about it, it’s probably just water weight, or my liquid feces.”
• “You want me to eat half of that? No? Figures.”
• “Damn, I am getting RIPPED doin’ these spine pull ups! What are yo- Oh, eating?”
• “Leah I don’t think you’re fat. What? No, no one said anything, I just want you to know that I do not think that you are a fatty. Fatty.”
• “Hey, you go first out the chute over there so there’s plenty of room for me to drop out. K?”
• “Can a fetus get some frickin’ room? Huh? JEEZE MA NEEZE!”

As you can read, my son is already the picture of sarcasm, humor and what I refer to as “shit wit” – meaning, you give people shitty witty banter in exchange for rude looks, kidney jabs and the occasional back of the head slap.

While peekin’ around inside the womb hotel we got a few pictures. And when I say pictures I mean actual frickin’ “this is what my daughter looks like” pictures.

We learned that if there is a great profile shot and at least a few centimeters of fluid between the profile and the sac wall, you can hit this magic button on the machine and you get a frickin 3D image. I mean, we got one with our son when he was around this age, but holy CRAP this is unreal.

I never thought I’d say this, but: “Son? Your sister is cuter than you are. In the womb.”

CUTE!

And well, Mason wasn’t having all the bright lights and paparazzi, so he remained face down towards Julie’s spine, which is quite the spine I must say. We couldn’t get an accurate face shot, but I can assure you the following image will someday make the Yorkville chief of police furious as it will be driving by at 30 miles an hour out the window of a passing Ford Fusion.

MOOOON!

Yes, my unborn son just mooned the crap out of you. TAKE IT! TAKE IT! TAKE IT!

As you can see, the censorship board got ahold of the image.

My kids are adorable, even if I can only judge one of their looks by the shape of their chunky little old man ass cheeks.

3D Ultrasounds Are Bad Ass + Old Man Ass Cheeks is a post from: havingtwinsnow.com

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Back to our Cervix Length Update ladies & gentlemen!

Yesterday, November 3rd, 2009, Julie was measured at a whopping 5.0cm!

What does that mean? Well, it means that all of the communication that I have had with her nether regions are actually paying off! The time and energy I have devoted to speaking directly into the birth canal have made the impossible happen!

YES! The cervix seems to be GROWING! Yes, the doctors all say that is indeed impossible, but fuck them! They have no idea of the power of positive thinking and one on one discussions with a vagina!

These “Conversations With A Crotch” will soon be a part of a nationwide movement for all husbands of ‘preggo with multiples’ broads to get down at eye level with the baby-spewing-hole of their loved one and repeat the following poem in a Danish accent:

There once was a cervix named Flo, it’s loved ones urged her to grow.

When she was given the powers that be, she took over rank of the va-jay-jay and was soon in charge of the power to pee!

Shine on you crazy cervix, for you hold the everlasting power of birth, remain in your strength and length to keep my kids up in there, not yet on this earth.

Until the doctor says those magic words, dear cervix named Flo, I will give you the attention you deserve.

Yes, I know. I have serious problems, but what would you do when the only thing holding your kids in their mom-cubator is a tiny few centimeters?

Me?

I take my role as a supportive father very seriously and will do anything to ensure a safe arrival to their destination.

And yes, that includes reciting ridiculous poems to my wife’s crotch hole.

fin.

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CERVIX UPDATE 11/4/09 – Now with added LOLs! is a post from: havingtwinsnow.com

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So we had the 23 week OB appointment yesterday up in St. Charles and after last Monday’s scare with the pukefest and the tepid hot chocolate they were all about dissecting Julie’s ever-increasing contractions and how they feel and where they fall on the Richter scale. As the husband who is constantly listening, even when I pretend I’m not listening, I knew the answers to all of their questions but refrained from raising my hand and answering for the lady who actually has the two babes all up in them guts.

Julie’s 23 week, twin pregnancy contractions are described as follows:

• A quick tightness in the upper ute
• Lasting anywhere from 15 seconds to 2 minutes
• They happen occasionally in the morning, but build up frequency as the day progresses
• When they happen at night she can move her laying position and it sometimes quells the severity
• Lately they have been taking her breath away
• She feels like she can’t take a full breath or a deep breath
• At this moment they do not wake her up out of a sound sleep

The doctors assure Julie that the shortness of breath is that there is baby where there used to be just expansion room for the diaphragm. If the contractions start becoming painful or knocking her off of her feet we should call the doctor’s group and set up an appointment.

But, everything looks good for a woman in her 28th week of pregnancy with one baby. The doctor plainly said “You’re measuring at 28 weeks.” Not bad baby maker extraordinaire!

Because of last week’s scare and the increase in the number of contractions, both the OB group and the high risk OB want to see more frequent cervical length pictures, so after our appointment in St. Charles we were told to head over to Delnor in Geneva to get another cervix length check.

I will have you know, with Julie’s expansive knowledge of St. Charles’ backroads, we got from Kirk & 64 to Delnor in 23 minutes. Which is unheard of. This is so unheard of, George Costanza from Seinfeld would brag of such an effort every time he saw you, had he accomplished something as impressive as the 23 minute romp from St. Charles to Geneva. It sounds pathetic, seeing as they are right next to each other on the map, but as far as traffic goes, they should both ban all vehicular traffic and start over it’s so brutal up there.

Dr. Losure at high risk OB took a look at Julie’s cervical measurements and noted a decrease in size from last weeks 5.25cm to 4.3 cm, but we are still supposedly in the good zone. There was no evidence of funneling (image link) or anything to be concerned with, but due to the fact that its size has decreased, we will be checking the cervix again next Monday to get trending data and see if any further action is needed.

So in the span of three weeks we’ve gone from needing 6 week appointments for each doctor, usually falling within 2 weeks of each other, to 4 week appointments, to now, weekly.

And we still have 16-17 weeks to go.

Whatever, I’ll take constant car time and gas expenses for healthy babies anyday.

“You’re Measuring At 28 Weeks.” Says the doctor to the 23 week preggo. is a post from: havingtwinsnow.com

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