Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Hindsight isn't always a good thing

It's seems like an eternity since I last wrote. Life has been incredibly busy to say the least. After giving birth to twin boys a little over four months ago- life has been a bit of a blur. In between getting to know these two little people, caring for and feeding them, and trying to get enough sleep to stay sane; we took on the colossal task of traveling back to the US with them! (Some of you may be thinking I must not have attained the sanity maintaining sleep I needed after all.)

Approximately 8 weeks after they were born, my mother (who had been with us in Shanghai for a month already) and I boarded a plane with the boys for the 14 hour journey back to the US. I was incredibly nervous about how they would do on this flight. Approximately 5 days before we left for the US, Isaac and Naaman were diagnosed with reflux. For weeks before this diagnosis the only thing we knew was that we went from having 2 moderately happy children who slept well in their cribs, to 2 insane little babies who wouldn't sleep more than an hour at a time and screamed often. We were going through 50-60 burp cloths every day because they were spitting up so much, and they would only sleep if they were on one of us. It was insanely stressful to say the least. Fortunately, by a bit of a fluke- our pediatrician diagnosed them with reflux and suggested we start them on medication. I was quite reluctant to medicate them until I went home and did a little research. When I realized they had 8 out of 10 symptoms (and you only need 1 to have it) - I knew it was serious, and decided to try the medication until we got back to the US and saw our pediatrician there.

The US was great in a lot of ways. We were able to see family and friends; and most importantly- the boys were able to meet all of their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and extended family.

I have to say though that if I knew ahead of time what challenges we would have faced going to the US and traveling all over with newborns, I might not have gone. So I guess I am glad that I didn't know ahead of time...