Happy One Week Birthday

Our beautiful little girls are one week old today.  It feels like I've had them forever, and it also feels like it can't possibly be a whole week already.  Time is slipping away!  They're growing up too fast!

Sarah is our baby A.  She started off extremely small early on, to the point that the doctor thought she would become a vanishing twin. But she caught right up and stayed just slightly smaller than Hayley through the rest of the pregnancy.  She was on the bottom of the dogpile in utero, and was more of a slinker than a kicker.  She did protest when I leaned too far forward and trapped her against my thighs, though, and I suspect that she was the one who bounced on my bladder like a trampoline.


Sarah was the first one out, so her little squawk was the first one we heard and cried over.  When I saw her for the first time, after the nurse laid her on my shoulder, I couldn't believe how beautiful she was.  Objectively, too, not just emotionally.  She has a round, well-shaped head with short, lightish hair and a perfect face, with long, spindly eyelashes and little pink lips.  Her eyes are blue-gray, but it took days for us to see them open for longer than a second.  Her right ear is folded over at the top, just like her daddy's, and her pinky toes are folded under like her Grandpa Doty's and mine.  Her skin is pale, and even after the slight jaundice goes away, I think she will still be more golden than pink.


Sarah has a flaming temper, although it's mellowing as she gets healthier.  She used to get so angry that she would screech like a baby pterodactyl and desat her oxygen down to 50% if she didn't like the way the world was treating her.  But luckily, in the past couple days she's gotten better at maintaining both her oxygen and her composure.  We're also getting better at learning her hot buttons.  For instance, I thought a skin-to-skin bottle feeding would be a nice bonding time for her and Matt, but she refused to eat and spat her milk out until we gave up and swaddled her tightly again.  Then she was more than happy to take the bottle peacefully.  She has very definite opinions about the way she wants things to be, but when she's happy, she's incredibly sweet.  She loves to be cuddled after her meals and I love to oblige her.  

Hayley is our baby B.  She was wildly active throughout the pregnancy and liked to make the ultrasound tech fight to get clear pictures.  She gave me the strongest kicks and made my belly skin ripple and roil.  As soon as we decided on her name, she quickly got the nickname Flaily Hayley.


Hayley looks completely different from her sister.  She's particularly beautiful too, but her features are less classic and more striking.  Her hair is long, thick and surprisingly dark for having (originally) blond parents.  Her eyes are huge and almost all iris, which are deep, dark blue, and her lips are wide.  She has an incredibly expressive face that goes from alarmed to bewildered to shocked to skeptical, and when she gets drowsy I can trigger the most adorable smile by tickling her chin.


Although we pegged her as the wild one during the pregnancy, Hayley is really easy-going.  She does have her moments though, and her whole body turns bright, tomato red when she gets angry.  Inexplicably, taking her temperature is one of the surest ways to set her off.  It's only an armpit probe, but to her it's the deepest violation.  She calms down easily though, especially when milk is offered, and she's equally happy to eat swaddled tight or naked bellied.  From the moment she was born, her eyes were wide open, and even when we're cuddling she loves to stare intently at the world around her.  So far, that's only been her NICU nook, and I can't wait to take her home and show her the world beyond.